Chapter III: Part 3

Getting in again the white went at a better pace, the rain slackened somewhat, and our spirits rose in proportion. Our hilarity, however, was premature. A hill rose before us, up which the yellow road twisted and wriggled itself. This hill the white would in nowise take. The whip was of no avail; he stood stock-still. Fellowes applied his stick to his ribs--the white put his fore legs steadily out before him and refused to move. I jumped out, seized the bridle, and attempted to drag him forward; the white tossed his head high in air, showing at the same time a set of vicious teeth, and actually backed. What was to be done? Just at this moment, too, a party of drovers, mounted on red uncombed ponies, with hair hanging over their eyes, came up, and had the ill-feeling to _tee-hee_ audibly at our discomfiture. This was another drop of acid squeezed into the bitter cup. Suddenly, at a well-directed whack, the white made a desperate plunge and took the hill. Midway he paused, and attempted his old game, but down came a hurricane of blows, and he started off--

"'Twere long to tell and sad to trace"

the annoyance that raw-boned quadruped wrought us. But it came to an end at last. And at parting I waved the animal, sullen and unbeloved, my last farewell; and wished that no green paddock should receive him in his old age, but that his ill-natured flesh should be devoured by the hounds; that leather should be made of his be-cudgelled hide, and hoped that, considering its toughness, of it should the boots and shoes of a poor man's children be manufactured.

Late in the afternoon we reached Jean-Town, on the shores of Loch Carron. 'Tis a tarry, scaly village, with a most ancient and fish-like smell. The inhabitants have suffered a sea-change. The men stride about in leather fishing-boots, the women sit at the open doors at work with bait-baskets. Two or three boats are moored at the stone-heaped pier. Brown, idle nets, stretched on high poles along the beach, flap in the winds. We had tea at the primeval inn, and on intimating to the landlord that we wished to proceed to Broadford, he went off to engage a boat and crew. In a short time an old sea-dog, red with the keen breeze, and redolent of the fishy brine, entered the apartment with the information that everything was ready. We embarked at once, a sail was hoisted, and on the vacillating puff of evening we dropped gently down the loch. There was something in the dead silence of the scene and the easy motion of the boat that affected one. Weary with travel, worn out with want of sleep, yet, at the same time, far from drowsy, with every faculty and sense rather in a condition of wide and intense wakefulness, everything around became invested with a singular and frightful feeling. _Why_, I know not, for I have had no second experience of the kind; but on this occasion, to my overstrained vision, every object became instinct with a hideous and multitudinous life. The clouds congealed into faces and human forms. Figures started out upon me from the mountain-sides. The rugged surfaces, seamed with torrent lines, grew into monstrous figures, and arms with clutching fingers. The sweet and gracious shows of nature became, under the magic of lassitude, a phantasmagoria hateful and abominable. Fatigue changed the world for me as the microscope changes a dewdrop--when the jewel, pure from the womb of the morning, becomes a world swarming with unutterable life--a battle-field of unknown existences. As the aspects of things grew indistinct in the fading light, the possession lost its pain; but the sublimity of one illusion will be memorable. For a barrier of mountains standing high above the glimmering lower world, distinct and purple against a "daffodil sky," seemed the profile of a gigantic man stretched on a bier, and the features, in their sad imperial beauty, seemed those of the first Napoleon. Wonderful that mountain-monument, as we floated seaward into distance--the figure sculptured by earthquake, and fiery deluges sleeping up there, high above the din and strife of earth, robed in solemn purple, its background the yellow of the evening sky!

About ten we passed the rocky portals of the loch on the last sigh of evening, and stood for the open sea. The wind came only in intermitting puffs, and the boatmen took to the oars. The transparent autumn night fell upon us; the mainland was gathering in gloom behind, and before us rocky islands glimmered on the level deep. To the chorus of a Gaelic song of remarkable length and monotony the crew plied their oars, and every plash awoke the lightning of the main. The sea was filled with elfin fire. I hung over the stern, and watched our brilliant wake seething up into a kind of pale emerald, and rushing away into the darkness. The coast on our left had lost form and outline, withdrawing itself into an undistinguishable mass of gloom, when suddenly the lights of a village broke clear upon it like a bank of glow-worms. I inquired its name, and was answered, "Plockton." In half an hour the scattered lights became massed into one; soon that died out in the distance. Eleven o'clock! Like one man the rowers pull. The air is chill on the ocean's face, and we wrap ourselves more closely in our cloaks. There is something uncomfortable in the utter silence and loneliness of the hour--in the phosphorescent sea, with its ghostly splendours. The boatmen, too, have ceased singing. Would that I were taking mine ease with M'Ian! Suddenly a strange sighing sound is heard behind. One of the crew springs up, hauls down the sail, and the next moment the squall is upon us. The boatmen hang on their oars, and you hear the rushing rain. Whew! how it hisses down on us, crushing everything in its passion. The long dim stretch of coast, the dark islands, are in a moment shut out; the world shrinks into a circumference of twenty yards; and within that space the sea is churned into a pale illumination--a light of misty gold. In a moment we are wet to the skin. The boatmen have shipped their oars, drawn their jacket-collars over their ears, and there we lie at midnight shelterless to the thick hiss of the rain. But it has spent itself at last, and a few stars are again twinkling in the blue. It is plain our fellows are somewhat tired of the voyage. They cannot depend upon a wind; it will either be a puff, dying as soon as born, or a squall roaring down on the sea, through the long funnels of the glens; and to pull all the way is a dreary affair. The matter is laid before us--the voices of the crew are loud for our return. They will put us ashore at Plockton--they will take us across in the morning. A cloud has again blotted the stars, and we consent. Our course is altered, the oars are pulled with redoubled vigour; soon the long dim line of coast rises before us, but the lights have burned out now, and the Plocktonites are asleep. On we go; the boat shoots into a "midnight cove," and we leap out upon masses of slippery sea-weed. The craft is safely moored. Two of the men seize our luggage, and we go stumbling over rocks, until the road is reached. A short walk brings us to the inn, or rather public-house, which is, however, closed for the night. After some knocking we were admitted, wet as Newfoundlands from the lake. Wearied almost to death, I reached my bedroom, and was about to divest myself of my soaking garments, when, after a low tap at the door, the owner of the boat entered. He stated his readiness to take us across in the morning; he would knock us up shortly after dawn; but as he and his companions had no friends in the place, they would, of course, have to pay for their beds and their breakfasts before they sailed; "an' she was shure the shentlemens waana expect her to pay the same." With a heavy heart I satisfied the cormorant. He insisted on being paid his full hire before he left Jean-Town, too! Before turning in, I looked what o'clock. One in the morning! In three hours M'Ian will be waiting in his galley at the head of Eishart's Loch. Unfortunates that we are!

At least, thought I when I awoke, there is satisfaction in accomplishing something quite peculiar. There are many men in the world who have performed extraordinary actions; but Fellowes and myself may boast, without fear of contradiction, that we are the only travellers who ever arrived at Plockton. Looking to the rottenness of most reputations nowadays, our feat is distinction sufficient for the ambition of a private man. We ought to be made lions of when we return to the abodes of civilisation. I have heard certain beasts roar, seen them wag their tails to the admiration of beholders, and all on account of a slighter matter than that we wot of. Who, pray, is the pale gentleman with the dishevelled locks, yonder, in the flower-bed of ladies, to whom every face turns? What! don't you know? The last new poet; author of the "Universe." Splendid performance. Pooh! a reed shaken by the wind. Look at us. We are the men who arrived at Plockton! But, heavens! the boatmen should have been here ere this. Alarmed, I sprang out of bed, clothed in haste, burst into Fellowes' room, turned him out, and then proceeded down stairs. No information could be procured, nobody had seen our crew. That morning they had not called at the house. After a while a fisherman sauntered in, and in consideration of certain stimulants to be supplied by us, admitted that our fellows were acquaintances of his own; that they had started at day-break, and would now be far on their way to Jean-Town. The scoundrels, so overpaid too! Well, well, there's another world. With some difficulty we gathered from our friend that a ferry from the mainland to Skye existed at some inconceivable distance across the hills, and that a boat perhaps might be had there. But how was the ferry to be reached? No conveyance could be had at the inn. We instantly despatched scouts to every point of the compass to hunt for a wheeled vehicle. At height of noon our messengers returned with the information that neither gig, cart, nor wheelbarrow could be had on any terms. What was to be done? I was smitten by a horrible sense of helplessness; it seemed as if I were doomed to abide for ever in that dreary place, girdled by these gray rocks scooped and honey-combed by the washing of the bitter seas--were cut off from friends, profession, and delights of social intercourse, as if spirited away to fairyland. I felt myself growing a fisherman, like the men about me; Gaelic seemed forming on my tongue. Fellowes, meanwhile, with that admirable practical philosophy of his, had lit a cigar, and was chatting away with the landlady about the population of the village, the occupations of the inhabitants, their ecclesiastical history. I awoke from my gloomy dream as she replied to a question of his--"The last minister was put awa for drinkin'; but we've got a new ane, a Mr Cammil, an' verra weel liket he is." The words were a ray of light, and suggested a possible deliverance. I slapped him on the shoulder, crying, "I have it! There was a fellow-student of mine in Glasgow, a Mr Donald Campbell, and it runs in my mind that he was preferred to a parish in the Highlands somewhere; what if this should prove the identical man? Let us call upon him." The chances were not very much in our favour; but our circumstances were desperate, and the thing was worth trying. The landlady sent her son with us to point the way. We knocked, were admitted, and shown to the tiny drawing-room. While waiting, I observed a couple of photograph cases on the table. These I opened. One contained the portrait of a gentleman in a white neckcloth, evidently a clergyman; the other that of a lady, in all likelihood his spouse. Alas! the gentleman bore no resemblance to my Mr Campbell: the lady I did not know. I laid the cases down in disappointment, and began to frame an apology for our singular intrusion, when the door opened--and my old friend entered. He greeted us cordially, and I wrung his hand with fervour. I told him our adventure with the Jean-Town boatmen, and our consequent helplessness; at which he laughed, and offered his cart to convey ourselves and luggage to Kyleakin ferry, which turned out to be only six miles off. Genial talk about college scenes and old associates brought on the hour of luncheon; that concluded, the cart was at the door. In it our things were placed; farewells were uttered, and we departed. It was a wild, picturesque road along which we moved; sometimes comparatively smooth, but more frequently rough and stony, as the dry torrent's bed. Black dreary wastes spread around. Here and there we passed a colony of turf-huts, out of which wild ragged children, tawny as Indians, came trooping, to stare upon us as we passed. But the journey was attractive enough; for before us rose a permanent vision of mighty hills, with their burdens of cloudy rack; and every now and then, from an eminence, we could mark, against the land, the blue of the sea flowing in, bright with sunlight. We were once more on our way; the minister's mare went merrily; the breeze came keen and fresh against us; and in less than a couple of hours we reached Kyleakin.

The ferry is a narrow passage between the mainland and Skye; the current is powerful there, difficult to pull against on gusty days; and the ferrymen are loath to make the attempt unless well remunerated. When we arrived, we found four passengers waiting to cross; and as their appearance gave prospect of an insufficient supply of coin, they were left sitting on the bleak windy rocks until some others should come up. It was as easy to pull across for ten shillings as for two! One was a girl, who had been in service in the south, had taken ill there, and was on her way home to some wretched turf-hut on the hill-side, in all likelihood to die; the second a little cheery Irishwoman, with a basketful of paper ornaments, with the gaudy colours and ingenious devices of which she hoped to tickle the æsthetic sensibilities, and open the purses, of the Gael. The third and fourth were men, apparently laborious ones; but the younger informed me he was a schoolmaster, and it came out incidentally in conversation that his schoolhouse was a turf-cabin, his writing-table a trunk, on which his pupils wrote by turns. Imagination sees his young kilted friends kneeling on the clay floor, laboriously forming pot-hooks there, and squinting horribly the while. The ferrymen began to bestir themselves when we came up; and in a short time the boat was ready, and the party embarked. The craft was crank, and leaked abominably, but there was no help; and our bags were deposited in the bottom. The schoolmaster worked an oar in lieu of payment. The little Irishwoman, with her precious basket, sat high in the bow, the labourer and the sick girl behind us at the stern. With a strong pull of the oars we shot out into the seething water. In a moment the Irishwoman is brought out in keen relief against a cloud of spray; but, nothing daunted, she laughs out merrily, and seems to consider a ducking the funniest thing in the world. In another, I receive a slap in the face from a gush of blue water, and emerge, half-blinded, and soaked from top to toe. Ugh, this sea-waltz is getting far from pleasant. The leak is increasing fast, and our carpet-bags are well-nigh afloat in the working bilge. We are all drenched now. The girl is sick, and Fellowes is assisting her from his brandy-flask. The little Irishwoman, erst so cheery and gay, with spirits that turned every circumstance into a quip and crank, has sunk in a heap at the bow; her basket is exposed, and the ornaments, shaped by patient fingers out of coloured papers, are shapeless now; the looped rosettes are ruined; her stock-in-trade, pulp--a misfortune great to her as defeat to an army, or a famine to a kingdom. But we are more than half-way across, and a little ahead the water is comparatively smooth. The boatmen pull with greater ease; the uncomfortable sensation at the pit of the stomach is redressed; the white lips of the girl begin to redden somewhat; and the bunch forward stirs itself, and exhibits signs of life. Fellowes bought up the contents of her basket; and a contribution of two-and-sixpence from myself made the widow's heart to sing aloud for joy. On landing, our luggage is conveyed in a cart to the inn, and waits our arrival there. Meanwhile we warm our chilled limbs with a caulker of Glenlivet. "Blessings be with it, and eternal praise." How the fine spirit melts into the wandering blood, like "a purer light in light!" How the soft benignant fire streams through the labyrinthine veins, from brain to toe! The sea is checkmated; the heart beats with a fuller throb; and the impending rheumatism flies afar. When we reached the inn, we seized our luggage, in the hope of procuring dry garments. Alas! when I went up-stairs, mine might have been the carpet-bag of a merman; it was wet to the inmost core.

Soaked to the skin, it was our interest to proceed without delay. We waited on the landlord, and desired a conveyance. The landlord informed us that the only vehicle which he possessed was a phæton, at present on hire till the evening, and advised us, now that it was Saturday, to remain in his establishment till Monday, when he could send us on comfortably. To wait till Monday, however, would never do. We told the man our story, how for two days we had been the sport of fortune, tossed hither and thither; but he--feeling he had us in his power--would render no assistance. We wandered out toward the rocks to hold a consultation, and had almost resolved to leave our things where they were, and start on foot, when a son of the innkeeper's joined us. He--whether cognisant of his parent's statement, I cannot say--admitted that there were a horse and gig in the stable; that he knew Mr M'Ian's place, and offered to drive us to a little fishing village within three miles of it, where our things could be left, and a cart sent to bring them up in the evening. The charge was--never mind what!--but we closed with it at once. We entered the inn while our friend went round to the stable to bring the machine to the door; met the landlord on the stairs, sent an indignant broadside into him, which he received with the utmost coolness. The imperturbable man! he swallowed our shot like a sandbank, and was nothing the worse. The horse was now at the door, in a few moments our luggage was stowed away, and we were off. Through seventeen miles of black moorland we drove almost without beholding a single dwelling. Sometimes, although rarely, we had a glimpse of the sea. The chief object that broke the desolation was a range of clumsy red hills, stretching away like a chain of gigantic dust-heaps. Their aspect was singularly dreary and depressing. They were mountain _plebs_. Lava hardens into grim precipice, bristles into jagged ridge, along which the rack drives, now hiding, now revealing it; but these had no beauty, no terror, ignoble from the beginning; dull offspring of primeval mud. About seven P.M. we reached the village, left our things, still soaked in sea-water, in one of the huts, till Mr M'Ian could send for them, and struck off on foot for the three miles which we were told yet remained. By this time the country had improved in appearance. The hills were swelling and green; up these the road wound, fringed with ferns, mixed with the purple bells of the foxglove. A stream, too, evidently escaped from some higher mountain tarn, came dashing along in a succession of tiny waterfalls. A quiet pastoral region, but so still, so deserted! Hardly a house, hardly a human being! After a while we reached the lake, half covered with water-lilies, and our footsteps startled a brood of wild-ducks on its breast. How lonely it looked in its dark hollow there, familiar to the cry of the wild bird, the sultry summer-cloud, the stars and meteors of the night--strange to human faces, and the sound of human voices. But what of our three miles? We have been walking for an hour and a half. Are we astray in the green wilderness? The idea is far from pleasant. Happily a youthful native came trotting along, and of him we inquired our way. The boy looked at us, and shook his head. We repeated the question, still the same shy puzzled look. A proffer of a shilling, however, quickened his apprehension, and returning with us a few paces, he pointed out a hill-road striking up through the moor. On asking the distance, he seemed put out for a moment, and then muttered, in his difficult English, "Four mile." Nothing more could be procured in the way of information; so off went little Bare-legs, richer than ever he had been in his life, at a long swinging trot, which seemed his natural pace, and which, I suppose, he could sustain from sunrise to sunset. To this hill-road we now addressed ourselves. It was sunset now. Up we went through the purple moor, and in a short time sighted a crimson tarn, bordered with long black rushes, and as we approached, a duck burst from its face on "squattering" wings, shaking the splendour into widening circles. Just then two girls came on the road with peats in their laps: anxious for information, we paused--they, shy as heath-hens, darted past, and, when fifty yards' distant, wheeled suddenly round, and burst into shrieks of laughter, repeated and re-repeated. In no laughing mood we pursued our way. The road now began to dip, and we entered a glen plentifully covered with birchwood, a stream keeping us company from the tarn above. The sun was now down, and objects at a distance began to grow uncertain in the evening mist. The horrible idea that we had lost our way, and were doomed to encamp on the heather, grew upon us. On! on! We had walked six miles since our encounter with the false Bare-legs. Suddenly we heard a dog bark; that was a sign of humanity, and our spirits rose. Then we saw a troop of horses galloping along the bottom of the glen. Better and better. "'Twas an honest ghost, Horatio!" All at once we heard the sound of voices, and Fellowes declared he saw something moving on the road. The next moment M'Ian and a couple of shepherds started out of the gloom. At sight of them our hearts burned within us, like a newly-poked fire. Sincere was the greeting, immense the shaking of hands; and the story of our adventures kept us merry till we reached the house.

Of our doughty deeds at supper I will not sing, nor state how the toddy-jugs were drained. Rather let me tell of those who sat with us at the board--the elder Mr M'Ian, and Father M'Crimmon, then living in the house. Mr M'Ian, senior, was a man past eighty, but fresh and hale for his years. His figure was slight and wiry, his face a fresh pink, his hair like snow. Age, though it had bowed him somewhat, had not been able to steal the fire from his eye, nor the vigour from his limbs. He entered the army at an early age; carried colours in Ireland before the century came in; was with Moore at Corunna; followed Wellington through the Peninsular battles; was with the 42d at Quatre Bras, and hurt there when the brazen cuirassiers came charging through the tall rye-grass; and, finally, stood at Waterloo in a square that crumbled before the artillery and cavalry charges of Napoleon--crumbled, but never flinched! It was strange to think that the old man across the table breathed the same air with Marie-Antoinette; saw the black cloud of the French Revolution torn to pieces with its own lightnings, the eagles of Napoleon flying from Madrid to Moscow, Wellington's victorious career--all that wondrous time which our fathers and grandfathers saw, which has become history now, wearing the air of antiquity almost. We look upon the ground out yonder from Brussels, that witnessed the struggle; but what the insensate soil, the woods, the monument, to the living eye in which was pictured the fierce strife? to the face that was grimed with the veritable battle-smoke? to the voice that mingled in the last cheer, when the whole English line moved forward at sunset? M'Ian was an isle-man of the old school; penetrated through every drop of blood with pride of birth, and with a sense of honour which was like a second conscience. He had all the faults incidental to such a character. He was stubborn as the gnarled trunk of the oak, full of prejudices which our enlightenment laughs at, but which we need not despise, for with our knowledge and our science, well will it be for us if we go to our graves with as stainless a name. He was quick and hasty of temper, and contradiction brought fire from him like steel from flint. Short and fierce were his gusts of passion. I have seen him of an evening, with quivering hands and kindling eye, send a volley of oaths into a careless servant, and the next moment almost the reverend white head was bowed on his chair as he knelt at evening prayer. Of these faults, however, this evening we saw nothing. The old gentleman was kind and hospitable; full of talk, but his talk seemed to us of old-world things. On Lords Palmerston and Derby he was silent; he was eloquent on Mr Pitt and Mr Fox. He talked of the French Revolution and the actors thereof as contemporaries. Of the good Queen Victoria (for history is sure to call her that) he said nothing. His heart was with his memory, in the older days when George III. was king, and not an old king neither.

Father M'Crimmon was a tall man, being in height considerably above six feet. He was thin, like his own island, where the soil is washed away by the rain, leaving bare the rock. His face was mountainously bony, with great pits and hollows in it. His eyes were gray, and had that depth of melancholy in them which is so often observed in men of his order. In heart he was simple as a child; in discourse slow, measured, and stately. There was something in his appearance that suggested the silence and solitude of the wilderness; of hours lonely to the heart, and bare spaces lonely to the eye. Although of another, and--as I think, else I should not profess it--a purer faith, I respected him at first, and loved him almost when I came to know him. Was it wonderful that his aspect was sorrowful, that it wore a wistful look, as if he had lost something which could never be regained, and that for evermore the sunshine was stolen from his smile? He was by his profession cut off from all the sweet ties of human nature, from all love of wife or child. His people were widely scattered: across the black moor, far up the hollow glens, blustering with winds or dimmed with the rain-cloud. Thither the grim man followed them, officiating on rare festival occasions of marriage and christening; his face bright, not like a window ruddy with a fire within, rather like a wintry pane tinged by the setting sun--a brief splendour that warms not, and but divides the long cold day that has already passed from the long cold night to come. More frequently he was engaged dispensing alms, giving advice in disaster, waiting by the low pallets of the fever-stricken, listening to the confession of long-hoarded guilt, comforting the dark spirit as it passed to its audit. It is not with viands like these you furnish forth life's banquet; not on materials like these you rear brilliant spirits and gay manners. He who looks constantly on death and suffering, and the unspiritual influences of hopeless poverty, becomes infected with congenial gloom. Yet cold and cheerless as may be his life, he has his reward; for in his wanderings through the glens there is not an eye but brightens at his approach, not a mourner but feels he has a sharer in his sorrow; and when the tall, bony, seldom-smiling man is borne at last to his grave, round many a fireside will tears fall and prayers be said for the good priest M'Crimmon. All night sitting there, we talked of strange

"Unhappy far-off things,
And battles long ago,"

blood-crusted clan quarrels, bitter wrongs and terrible revenges: of wraiths and bodings, and pale death-lights burning on the rocks. The conversation was straightforward and earnest, conducted with perfect faith in the subject-matter; and I listened, I am not ashamed to confess, with a curious and not altogether unpleasant thrill of the blood. For, I suppose, however sceptical as to ghosts the intellect may be, the blood is ever a believer as it runs chill through the veins. A new world and order of things seemed to gather round us as we sat there. One was carried away from all that makes up the present--the policy of Napoleon III., the death of President Lincoln, the character of his successor, the universal babblement of scandal and personal talk--and brought face to face with tradition; with the ongoings of men who lived in solitary places, whose ears were constantly filled with the sough of the wind, the clash of the wave on the rock; whose eyes were open on the flinty cliff, and the floating forms of mists, and the dead silence of pale sky dipping down far off on the dead silence of black moor. One was taken at once from the city streets to the houseless wilderness; from the smoky sky to the blue desert of air stretching from mountain range to mountain range, with the poised eagle hanging in the midst, stationary as a lamp. Perhaps it was the faith of the speakers that impressed me most. To them the stories were much a matter of course; the supernatural atmosphere had become so familiar to them that it had been emptied of all its wonder and the greater part of its terror. Of this I am quite sure, that a ghost story, told in the pit of a theatre, or at Vauxhall, or walking through a lighted London street, is quite a different thing from a ghost story told, as I heard it, in a lone Highland dwelling, cut off from every habitation by eight miles of gusty wind, the sea within a hundred feet of the walls, the tumble of the big wave, and the rattle of the pebbles, as it washes away back again, distinctly heard where you sit, and the talkers making the whole matter "stuff o' the conscience." Very different! You laugh in the theatre, and call the narrator an ass; in the other case you listen silently, with a scalp creeping as if there were a separate life in it, and the blood streaming coldly down the back.

Young M'Ian awoke me next morning. As I came down stairs he told me, had it not been Sunday he would have roused me with a performance on the bagpipes. Heaven forfend! I never felt so sincere a Sabbatarian. He led me some little distance to a favourable point of rock, and, lo! across a sea, sleek as satin, rose a range of hills, clear against the morning, jagged and notched like an old sword-blade. "Yonder," said he, pointing, "beyond the black mass in front, just where the shower is falling, lies Lake Coruisk. I'll take you to see it one of these days."

_AT MR M'IAN'S._

[Sidenote: Mr M'Ian's porch.]

The farm which Mr M'Ian rented was, in comparison with many others in the island, of but moderate extent; and yet it skirted the seashore for a considerable distance, and comprised within itself many a rough hill, and many a green valley. The house was old-fashioned, was _harled_ all over with lime, and contained a roomy porch, over which ivies clustered, a dining-room, a drawing-room, a lot of bedrooms, and behind, and built out from the house, an immense kitchen, with a flagged floor and a huge fire-place. A whole colony of turf-huts, with films of blue smoke issuing from each, were scattered along the shore, lending a sort of homely beauty to the wild picturesqueness. Beside the house, with a ruined summer-seat at one end, was a large carelessly-kept garden, surrounded by a high stone wall. M'Ian kept the key himself; and on the garden door were nailed ravens, and other feathered malefactors in different stages of decay. Within a stone's throw from the porch, were one or two barns, a stable, a wool-house, and other out-houses, in which several of the servants slept. M'Ian was careful of social degree, and did not admit every one to his dining-room. He held his interviews with the common people in the open air in front of the house. When a drover came for cattle he dined solitarily in the porch, and the dishes were sent to him from M'Ian's table. The drover was a servant, consequently he could not sit at meat with my friend; he was more than a servant for the nonce, inasmuch as he was his master's representative, and consequently he could not be sent to the kitchen--the porch was therefore a kind of convenient middle place; neither too high nor too humble, it was, in fact, a sort of social purgatory. But Mr M'Ian did not judge a man by the coat he wore, nor by the amount of money in his purse. When Mr Macara, therefore, the superannuated schoolmaster, who might have been a licentiate of the Church thirty years before, had he not brought his studies in divinity to a close by falling in love, marrying, and becoming the father of a large family; or when Peter, the meek-faced violinist, who was of good descent, being the second cousin of a knight-bachelor on his mother's side, and of an Indian general on his father's--when these men called at the house, they dined--with obvious trepidation, and sitting at an inconvenient distance, so that a morsel was occasionally lost on its passage from plate to mouth--at M'Ian's own table; and to them the old gentleman, who would have regarded the trader worth a million as nothing better than a scullion, talked of the old families and the old times. M'Ian valued a man for the sake of his grandfather rather than for the sake of himself. The shepherds, the shepherds' dogs, and the domestic servants, dined in the large kitchen. The kitchen was the most picturesque apartment in the house. There was a huge dresser near the small dusty window; in a dark corner stood a great cupboard in which crockery was stowed away. [Sidenote: The black kitchen.] The walls and rafters were black with peat smoke. Dogs were continually sleeping on the floor with their heads resting on their outstretched paws; and from a frequent start and whine, you knew that in dream they were chasing a flock of sheep along the steep hill-side, their masters shouting out orders to them from the valley beneath. The fleeces of sheep which had been found dead on the mountain were nailed on the walls to dry. Braxy hams were suspended from the roof; strings of fish were hanging above the fire-place. The door was almost continually open, for by the door light mainly entered. Amid a savoury steam of broth and potatoes, the shepherds and domestic servants drew in long backless forms to the table, and dined innocent of knife and fork, the dogs snapping and snarling among their legs; and when the meal was over the dogs licked the platters. Macara, who was something of a poet, would, on his occasional visits, translate Gaelic poems for me. On one occasion, after one of these translations had been read, I made the remark that a similar set of ideas occurred in one of the songs of Burns. His gray eyes immediately blazed up; he rushed into a Gaelic recitation of considerable length; and, at its close, snapping defiant fingers in my face, demanded, "Can you produce anything out of your Shakespeare or your Burns equal to _that_?" Of course, I could not; and I fear I aggravated my original offence by suggesting that in all likelihood my main inability to produce a passage of corresponding excellence from the southern authors arose from my entire ignorance of the language of the native bard. When Peter came with his violin the kitchen was cleared after nightfall; the forms were taken away, candles stuck into the battered tin sconces, the dogs unceremoniously kicked out, and a somewhat ample ballroom was the result. Then in came the girls, with black shoes and white stockings, newly-washed faces and nicely-smoothed hair; and with them came the shepherds and men-servants, more carefully attired than usual. [Sidenote: The reel of hoolichan.] Peter took his seat near the fire; M'Ian gave the signal by clapping his hands; up went the inspiriting notes of the fiddle and away went the dancers, man and maid facing each other, the girl's feet twinkling beneath her petticoat, not like two mice, but rather like a dozen; her kilted partner pounding the flag-floor unmercifully; then man and maid changed step, and followed each other through loops and chains; then they faced each other again, the man whooping, the girl's hair coming down with her exertions; then suddenly the fiddle changed time, and with a cry the dancers rushed at each other, each pair getting linked arm in arm, and away the whole floor dashed into the whirlwind of the reel of Hoolichan. It was dancing with a will,--lyrical, impassioned; the strength of a dozen fiddlers dwelt in Peter's elbow; M'Ian clapped his hands and shouted, and the stranger was forced to mount the dresser to get out of the way of whirling kilt and tempestuous petticoat.

Chief amongst the dancers on these occasions were John Kelly, Lachlan Roy, and Angus-with-the-dogs. John Kelly was M'Ian's principal shepherd--a swarthy fellow, of Irish descent, I fancy, and of infinite wind, endurance, and capacity of drinking whisky. He was a solitary creature, irascible in the extreme; he crossed and re-crossed the farm I should think some dozen times every day, and was never seen at church or market without his dog. With his dog only was John Kelly intimate, and on perfectly confidential terms. I often wondered what were his thoughts as he wandered through the glens at early morning, and saw the fiery mists upstreaming from the shoulders of Blaavin; or when he sat on a sunny knoll at noon smoking a black broken pipe, and watching his dog bringing a flock of sheep down the opposite hill-side. Whatever they were, John kept them strictly to himself. In the absorption of whisky he was without a peer in my experience, although I have in my time encountered some rather distinguished practitioners in that art. If you gave John a glass of spirits, there was a flash, and it was gone. For a wager I once beheld him drink a bottle of whisky in ten minutes. He drank it in cupfuls, saying never a word. When it was finished, he wrapt himself in his plaid, went out with his dog, and slept all night on the hillside. I suppose a natural instinct told him that the night air would decompose the alcohol for him. When he came in next morning his swarthy face was a shade paler than was its wont; but he seemed to suffer no uneasiness, and he tackled to his breakfast like a man.

[Sidenote: Lachlan Roy.]

Lachlan Roy was a little cheery, agile, red squirrel of a man, and like the squirrel, he had a lot of nuts stowed away in a secret hole against the winter time. A more industrious little creature I have never met. He lived near the old castle of Dunsciach, where he rented a couple of crofts or so; there he fed his score or two of sheep, and his half dozen of black cattle; and from thence he drove them to Broadford market twice or thrice in the year, where they were sure to fetch good prices. He knew the points of a sheep or a stirk as well as any man in the island. He was about forty-five, had had a wife and children, but they had all died years before; and although a widower, Lachlan was as jolly, as merry-eyed and merry-hearted as any young bachelor shepherd in the country. He was a kindly soul too, full of pity, and was constantly performing charitable offices for his neighbours in distress. A poor woman in his neighbourhood had lost her suckling child, and Lachlan came up to M'Ian's house with tears in his eyes, seeking some simple cordials and a bottle of wine. "Ay, it's a sad thing, Mr M'Ian," he went on, "when death takes a child from the breast. A full breast and an empty knee, Mr M'Ian, makes a desolate house. Poor Mirren has a terrible rush of milk, and cold is the lip to-day that could relieve her. And she's all alone too, Mr M'Ian, for her husband is at Stornoway after the herring." Of course he got the cordials and the wine, and of course, in as short a space of time as was possible, the poor mother, seated on an upturned creel, and rocking herself to and fro over her clasped hands, got them also, with what supplementary aid Lachlan's own stores could afford. Lachlan was universally respected; and when he appeared every door opened cheerfully. At all dance gatherings at M'Ian's he was certain to be present; and old as he was comparatively, the prettiest girl was glad to have him for a partner. He had a merry wit, and when he joked, blushes and titterings overspread in a moment all the young women's faces. On such occasions I have seen John Kelly sitting in a corner gloomily biting his nails, jealousy eating his heart. But Lachlan cared nothing for John's mutinous countenance--he meant no harm, and he feared no man. Lachlan Roy, being interpreted, means red Lachlan; and this cognomen not only drew its appropriateness from the colour of his hair and beard; it had, as I afterwards learned, a yet deeper significance. Lachlan, if the truth must be told, had nearly as fierce a thirst for strong waters as John Kelly himself, and that thirst on fair days, after he had sold his cattle at Broadford, he was wont plentifully to slake. His face, under the influence of liquor, became red as a harvest moon; and as of this physiological peculiarity in himself he had the most perfect knowledge, he was under the impression that if he drew rein on this side of high alcoholic inflammation of countenance he was safe, and on the whole rather creditably virtuous than otherwise. And so, perhaps, he would have been, had he been able to judge for himself, or had he been placed amongst boon companions who were ignorant of his weakness, or who did not wish to deceive him. Somewhat suspicious, when a fresh jorum was placed on the table, he would call out--"Donald, is my face red yet?" Donald, who was perfectly aware of the ruddy illumination, would hypocritically reply, "Hoot, Lachlan dear, what are ye speaking about? Your face is just its own natural colour. What should it be red for?"

"Duncan, you scoundrel," he would cry fiercely at a later period, bringing his clenched fist down on the table, and making the glasses dance--"Duncan, you scoundrel, look me in the face!" Thus adjured, Duncan would turn his uncertain optics on his flaming friend. "Is my face red yet, Duncan?" Duncan, too far gone for speech, would shake his head in the gravest manner, plainly implying that the face in question was not red, and that there was not the least likelihood that it would ever become red. And so, from trust in the veracity of his fellows, Lachlan was, at Broadford, brought to bitter grief twice or thrice in the year.

[Sidenote: Angus-with-the-dogs.]

Angus-with-the-dogs was continually passing over the country like the shadow of a cloud. If he had a home at all, it was situated at Ardvasar, near Armadale; but there Angus was found but seldom. He was always wandering about with his gun over his shoulder, his terriers, Spoineag and Fruich, at his heels, and the kitchen of every tacksman was open to him. The tacksmen paid Angus so much per annum, and Angus spent his time in killing their vermin. He was a dead shot; he knew the hole of the fox, and the cairn in which an otter would be found. If you wanted a brace of young falcons, Angus would procure them for you; if ravens were breeding on one of your cliffs, you had but to wait till the young ones were half-fledged, send for Angus, and before evening the entire brood, father and mother included, would be nailed on your barn door. He knew the seldom-visited loch up amongst the hills which was haunted by the swan, the cliff of the Cuchullins on which the eagles dwelt, the place where, by moonlight, you could get a shot at the shy heron. He knew all the races of dogs. In the warm blind pup he saw, at a glance, the future terrier or staghound. He could cure the distemper, could crop ears and dock tails. He could cunningly plait all kinds of fishing tackle; could carve _quaichs_, and work you curiously-patterned dagger-hilts out of the black bog-oak. If you wished a tobacco-pouch made of the skin of an otter or a seal, you had simply to apply to Angus. From his variety of accomplishment he was an immense favourite. The old farmers liked him because he was the sworn foe of pole-cats, foxes, and ravens; the sons of farmers valued him because he was an authority in rifles and fowling-pieces, and knew the warm shelving rocks on which bullet-headed seals slept, and the cairns on the sea-shore in which otters lived; and because if any special breed of dog was wanted he was sure to meet the demand. He was a little, thick-set fellow, of great physical strength, and of the most obliging nature; and he was called Angus-with-the-dogs, because without Spoineag and Fruich at his heels, he was never seen. The pipe was always in his mouth,--to him tobacco smoke was as much a matter of course as peat reek is to a turf-hut.

[Sidenote: Waiting for Angus.]

One day, after Fellowes had gone to the Landlord's, where I was to join him in a week or ten days, young M'Ian and myself waited for Angus-with-the-dogs on one of the rising grounds at a little distance from the house. Angus in his peregrinations had marked a cairn in which he thought an otter would be found, and it was resolved that this cairn should be visited on a specified day about noon, in the hope that some little sport might be provided for the Sassenach. About eleven A.M., therefore, on the specified day we lay on the heather smoking. It was warm and sunny; M'Ian had thrown beside him on the heather his gun and shot-belt, and lay back luxuriously on his fragrant couch, meerschaum in mouth, his Glengary bonnet tilted forward over his eyes, his left leg stretched out, his right drawn up, and his brown hands clasped round the knee. Of my own position, which was comfortable enough, I was not at the moment specially cognisant; my attention being absorbed by the scenery around, which was wild and strange. We lay on couches of purple heather, as I have said; and behind were the sloping birch-woods--birch-woods always remind one somehow of woods in their teens--which ran up to the bases of white cliffs traversed only by the shepherd and the shadows of hawks and clouds. The plateau on which we lay ran toward the sea, and suddenly broke down to it in little ravines and gorges, beautifully grassed and mossed, and plumed with bunches of ferns. Occasionally a rivulet came laughing and dancing down from rocky shelf to shelf. Of course, from the spot where we lay, this breaking down of the hill-face was invisible, but it was in my mind's eye all the same, for I had sailed along the coast and admired it a couple of days before. Right in front flowed in Loch Eishart, with its islands and white sea-birds. Down in the right-hand corner, reduced in size by distance, the house sat on its knoll, like a white shell; and beside it were barns and outhouses, the smoking turf-huts on the shore, the clumps of birch-wood, the thread of a road which ran down toward the stream from the house, crossed it by a bridge a little beyond the turf-huts and the boat-shed, and then came up towards us till it was lost in the woods. Right across the Loch were the round red hills that rise above Broadford; and the entire range of the Cuchullins--the outline wild, splintered, jagged, as if drawn by a hand shaken by terror or frenzy. A glittering mesh of sunlight stretched across the Loch, blinding, palpitating, ever-dying, ever-renewed. The bee came booming past, the white sea-gull swept above, silent as a thought or a dream. Gazing out on all this, somewhat lost in it, I was suddenly startled by a sharp whistle, and then I noticed that a figure was crossing the bridge below. M'Ian got up; "That's Angus," he said; "let us go down to meet him;" and so, after knocking the ashes out of his pipe and filling it anew, picking up his gun and slinging his shot-belt across his shoulder, he led the way.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Angus.]