LITMIR.BIZ

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was as quiet as a kirkyaird, for suddenly the roar o’ the water stoppit, and the stream lay still as a loch. Then I heard a queer lappin’ as o’ something floatin’ doun, and it sounded miles aff in that dreidfu’ silence. I listened wi’ een stertin’, and aye it cam’ nearer and nearer, wi’ a sound like a dowg soomin’ a burn. It was sae black, I could see nocht, but somewhere frae the edge o’ a cloud, a thin ray o’ licht drappit on the water, and there, soomin’ doun by me, I saw something that lookit like a man.

      “My hert was burstin’ wi’ terror, but, thinks I, here’s a droonin’ body, and I maun try and save it. So I waded in as far as I daured, though my feet were sae cauld that they bowed aneath me.

      “Ahint me I heard a splashin’ and fechtin’, and then I saw the nowt, fair wild wi’ fricht, standin’ in the water on the ither side o’ the green bit, and lookin’ wi’ muckle feared een at something in the water afore me.

      “Doun the thing came, and aye I got caulder as I looked. Then it was by my side, and I claught at it and pu’d it after me on to the land.

      “I heard anither splash. The nowt gaed farther into the water, and stood shakin’ like young birks in a storm.

      “I got the thing upon the green bank and turned it ower. It was a drooned man wi’ his hair hingin’ back on his broo, and his mouth wide open. But first I saw his een, which glowered like scrapit lead out o’ his clay-cauld face, and had in them a’ the fear o’ death and hell which follows after.

      “The next moment I was up to my waist among the nowt, fechtin’ in the water aside them, and snowkin’ into their wet backs to hide mysel like a feared bairn.

      “Maybe half an ‘oor I stood, and then my mind returned to me. I misca’ed mysel for a fule and a coward. And my legs were sae numb, and my strength sae far gane, that I kenned fine that I couldna lang thole to stand this way like a heron in the water.

      “I lookit round, and then turned again wi’ a stert, for there were thae leaden een o’ that awfu’ deid thing staring at me still.

      “For anither quarter-hour I stood and shivered, and then my guid sense returned, and I tried again. I walkit backward, never lookin’ round, through the water to the shore, whaur I thocht the corp was lyin’. And a’ the time I could hear my hert chokin’ in my breist.

      “My God, I fell ower it, and for one moment lay aside it, wi’ my heid touchin’ its deathly skin. Then wi’ a skelloch like a daft man, I took the thing in my airms and flung it wi’ a’ my strength into the water. The swirl took it, and it dipped and swam like a fish till it gaed out o’ sicht.

      “I sat doun on the grass and grat like a bairn wi’ fair horror and weakness. Yin by yin the nowt came back, and shouthered anither around me, and the puir beasts brocht me yince mair to mysel. But I keepit my een on the grund, and thocht o’ hame and a’ thing decent and kindly, for I daurna for my life look out to the black water in dreid o’ what it micht bring.

      “At the first licht, the herd and twae ither men cam’ ower in a boat to tak me aff and bring fodder for the beasts. They fand me still sitting wi’ my heid atween my knees, and my face like a peeled wand. They lifted me intil the boat and rowed me ower, driftin’ far down wi’ the angry current. At the ither side the shepherd says to me in an awed voice,—

      “‘There’s a fearfu’ thing happened. The young laird o’ Manorwater’s drooned in the spate. He was ridin’ back late and tried the ford o’ the Cauldshaw foot. Ye ken his wild cantrips, but there’s an end o’ them noo. The horse cam’ hame in the nicht wi’ an empty saiddle, and the Gled Water rinnin’ frae him in streams. The corp ‘ll be far on to the sea by this time, and they ‘ll never see’t mair.’

      “‘I ken,’ I cried wi’ a dry throat, ‘I ken; I saw him floatin’ by.’ And then I broke yince mair into a silly greetin’, while the men watched me as if they thocht I was out o’ my mind.”

      So much the farmer of Clachlands told me, but to the countryside he repeated merely the bare facts of weariness and discomfort. I have heard that he was accosted a week later by the minister of the place, a well-intentioned, phrasing man, who had strayed from his native city with its familiar air of tea and temperance to those stony uplands.

      “And what thoughts had you, Mr. Linklater, in that awful position? Had you no serious reflection upon your life?”

      “Me,” said the farmer; “no me. I juist was thinkin’ that it was dooms cauld, and that I wad hae gien a guid deal for a pipe o’ tobaccy.” This in the racy, careless tone of one to whom such incidents were the merest child’s play.

      THE EARLIER AFFECTION

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      My host accompanied me to the foot of the fine avenue which looks from Portnacroish to the steely sea-loch. The smoke of the clachan was clear in the air, and the morn was sweet with young leaves and fresh salt breezes. For all about us were woods, till the moor dipped to the water, and then came the great shining spaces straight to the edge of Morven and the stony Ardgower Hills.

      “You will understand, Mr. Townshend,” said my entertainer, “that I do not fall in with your errand. It is meet that youth should be wild, but you had been better playing your pranks about Oxford than risking your neck on our Hieland hills, and this but two year come Whitsuntide since the late grievous troubles. It had been better to forget your mother and give your Cameron kin the go-by, than run your craig into the same tow as Ewan’s by seeking him on Brae Mamore. Stewart though I be, and proud of my name, I would think twice before I set out on such a ploy. It’s likely that Ewan will be blithe to see you and no less to get your guineas, but there are easier ways of helping a friend than just to go to his hidy-hole.”

      But I would have none of Mr. Stewart’s arguments, for my heart was hot on this fool’s journey. My cousin Ewan was in the heather, with his head well-priced by his enemies and his friends dead or broken. I was little more than a boy let loose from college, and it seemed paradise itself to thus adventure my person among the wilds.

      “Then if you will no take an old man’s telling, here’s a word for you to keep mind of on the road. There are more that have a grudge against the Cameron than King George’s soldiers. Be sure there will be pickings going up Lochaber-ways, and all the Glasgow packmen and low-country trading-bodies that have ever had their knife in Lochiel will be down on the broken house like a pack of kites. It’s not impossible that ye may meet a wheen on the road, for I heard news of some going north from the Campbell country, and it bodes ill for any honest gentleman who may foregather with the black clan. Forbye, there ‘ll be them that will come from Glenurchy-side and Breadalbin, so see you keep a quiet tongue and a watchful eye if ye happen on strangers.”

      And with this last word I had shaken his hand, turned my horse to the north, and ridden out among the trees.

      The sound of sea-water was ever in my ears, for the road twined in the links of coast and crooks of hill, now dipping to the tide’s edge, and now rising to a great altitude amid the heather. The morn was so fresh and shining that I fell in love with myself and my errand, and when I turned a corner and saw a wall of blue hill rise gleaming to the heavens with snow-filled corries, I cried out for the fair land I had come to, and my fine adventure.

      By the time I came to Duror it was midday, and I stopped for refreshment. There is an inn in Duror, where cheese and bread and usquebagh were to be had,— fare enough for a hungry traveller. But when I was on the road again, as I turned the crook of hill by the Heugh of Ardsheal, lo! I was in the thick of a party of men.

      They were five in all, dressed soberly in black and brown and grey, and riding the soberest of beasts. Mr. Stewart’s word rose in my memory, and I shut my mouth and composed my face to secrecy. They would not trouble me long, this covey of merchantfolk, for they would get the ferry at Ballachulish, which was not my road to Brae Mamore.

      So

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