Heather and Snow

'Eh, losh, lat me awa to the hill!' cried Steenie, stopping and half turning. 'I canna bide the verra word o' the craturs!'

'What word than?' asked Kirsty, a little surprised; for how did Steenie know anything about the catacombs?

'To think,' he went on, 'o' a haill kirk o' cats aneath the yird—a' sittin kaimin themsels wi' kaims!—Kirsty, ye winna think it a place for me? Ye see I'm no like ither fowk, and sic a thing micht ca (drive) me oot o' a' the sma' wits ever I hed!'

'Hoots!' rejoined Kirsty, with a smile, 'the catacombs has naething to du wi' cats or kaims!'

'Tell me what are they, than.'

'The catacombs,' answered Kirsty, 'was what in auld times, and no i' this cuintry ava, they ca'd the places whaur they laid their deid.'

'Eh, Kirsty, but that's waur!' returned Steenie. 'I wudna gang intil sic a place wi' feet siclike's my ain—na, no for what the warl cud gie me!—no for lang Lowrie's fiddle and a' the tunes intil't! I wud never get my feet oot o' 't! They'd haud me there!'

Then Kirsty began to tell him, as she would have taught a child, something of the history of the catacombs, knowing how it must interest him.

'I' the days langsyne,' she said, 'there was fowk, like you and me, unco fain o' the bonny man. The verra soun o' the name o' 'im was eneuch to gar their herts loup wi' doonricht glaidness. And they gaed here and there and a' gait, and tellt ilka body aboot him; and fowk 'at didna ken him, and didna want to ken him, cudna bide to hear tell o' him, and they said, "Lat's hae nae mair o' this! Hae dune wi' yer bonny man! Haud yer tongues," they cryit. But the ithers, they wadna hear o' haudin their tongues. A'body maun ken aboot him! "Sae lang's we hae tongues, and can wag them to the name o' him," they said, "we'll no haud them!" And at that they fell upo' them, and ill-used them sair; some o' them they tuik and burnt alive—that is, brunt them deid; and some o' them they flang to the wild beasts, and they bitit them and tore them to bits. And—,

'Was the bitin o' the beasts terrible sair?' interrupted Steenie.

'Ay, I reckon it was some sair; but the puir fowk aye said the bonny man was wi' them; and lat them bite!—they didna care!'

'Ay, of coorse, gien he was wi' them they wadna min' 't a hair, or at least, no twa hairs! Wha wud! Gien he be in yon hole, Kirsty, I'll gang back and intil't my lee lane. I wull noo!'

Steenie turned and had run some distance before Kirsty succeeded in stopping him. She did not run after him.

'Steenie! Steenie!' she cried, 'I dinna doobt he's there, for he's a'gait; but ye ken yersel ye canna aye see him, and maybe ye wudna see him there the noo, and micht think he wasna there, and turn fleyt. Bide till we hae a licht, and I gang doon first.'

Steenie was persuaded, and turned and came back to her. To father, mother, and sister he was always obedient, even on the rare occasions when it cost him much to be so.

'Ye see, Steenie,' she continued, 'yon's no the place! I dinna ken yet what place yon is. I was only gaein to tell ye aboot the places it min't me o'! Wud ye like to hear aboot them?'

'I wad that, richt weel! Say awa, Kirsty.'

'The fowk, than, ye see, 'at lo'ed the bonny man, gethert themsels aye thegither to hae cracks and newses wi' ane anither aboot him; and, as I was tellin ye, the fowk 'at didna care aboot him war that angert 'at they set upo' them, and jist wud hae nane o' them nor him. Sae to hand oot o' their grip, they coonselled thegither, and concludit to gether in a place whaur naebody wud think o' luikin for them—whaur but i' the booels o' the earth, whaur they laid their deid awa upo' skelfs, like in an aumry!'

'Eh, but that was fearsome!' interposed Steenie. 'They maun hae been sair set!—Gien I had been there, wud they hae garred me gang wi' them?'

'Na, no gien ye didna like. But ye wud hae likit weel to gang. It wasna an ill w'y to beery fowk, nor an ill place to gang til, for they aye biggit up the skelf, ye ken. It was howkit oot—whether oot o' hard yird or saft stane, I dinna ken; I reckon it wud be some no sae hard kin' o' a rock—and whan the deid was laid intil 't, they biggit up the mou o' the place, that is, frae that same skelf to the ane 'at was abune 't, and sae a' was weel closed in.'

'But what for didna they beery their deid mensefulike i' their kirkyairds?'

''Cause theirs was a great muckle toon, wi' sic a heap o' hooses that there wasna room for kirkyards; sae they tuik them ootside the toon, and gaed aneth wi' them a'thegither. For there they howkit a lot o' passages like trances, and here and there a wee roomy like, wi' ither trances gaein frae them this gait and that. Sae, whan they tuik themsels there, the freens o' the bonny man wud fill ane o' the roomies, and stan' awa in ilk ane o' the passages 'at gaed frae 't; and that w'y, though there cudna mony o' them see ane anither at ance, a gey lottie wud hear, some a', and some a hantle o' what was said. For there they cud speyk lood oot, and a body abune hear naething and suspec naething. And jist think, Steenie, there's a pictur o' the bonny man himsel paintit upo' the wa' o' ane o' thae places doon aneth the grun'!'

'I reckon it'll be unco like him!'

'Maybe: I canna tell aboot that.'

'Gien I cud see 't, I cud tell; but I'm thinkin it'll be some gait gey and far awa?'

'Ay, it 's far, far.—It wud tak a body—lat me see—maybe half a year to trevel there upo' 's ain fit,' answered Kirsty, after some meditation.

'And me a hantle langer, my feet's sae odious heavy!' remarked Steenie with a sigh.

As they drew near the house, their mother saw them coming, and went to the door to meet them.

'We're wantin a bit o' a can'le, and a spunk or twa, mother,' said Kirsty.

'Ye s' get that,' answered Marion. 'But what want ye a can'le for i' the braid mids o' the daylicht?'

'We want to gang doon a hole,' replied Steenie with flashing eyes, 'and see the pictur o' the bonny man.'

'Hoot, Steenie! I tellt ye it wasna there,' interposed Kirsty.

'Na,' returned Steenie; 'ye only said yon hole wasna that place. Ye said the bonny man was there, though I michtna see him. Ye didna say the pictur wasna there.'

'The pictur 's no there, Steenie.—We've come upon a hole, mother, 'at we want to gang doon intil and see what it's like,' said Kirsty.

'The weicht o' my feet brak throu intil 't,' added Steenie.

'Preserve 's, lassie! tak tent whaur ye cairry the bairn!' cried the mother. 'But, eh, tak him whaur ye like,' she substituted, correcting herself. 'Weel ken I ye'll tak him naegait but whaur it's weel he sud gang! The laddie needs twa mithers, and the Merciful has gien him the twa! Ye're full mair his mither nor me, Kirsty!'

She asked no more questions, but got them the candle and let them go. They hastened back, Steenie in his most jubilant mood, which seemed always to have in it a touch of deathly frost and a flash as of the primal fire. What could be the strange displacement or maladjustment which, in the brain harbouring the immortal thing, troubled it so, and made it yearn after an untasted liberty? The source of his jubilance now was easy to tell: the idea of the bonny man was henceforth, in that troubled brain of his, associated with the place into which they were about to descend.

The moment they reached the spot, Kirsty, to the renewed astonishment of Steenie, dived at once into the ground at her feet, and disappeared.

'Kirsty! Kirsty!' he cried out after her, and danced like a terrified child. Then he shook with a fresh dismay at the muffled sound that came back to him in answer from the unseen hollows of the earth.

Already Kirsty stood at the bottom of the sloping tunnel, and was lighting her candle. When it burned up, she found herself looking into a level gallery, the roof of which she could touch. It was not an excavation, but had been trenched from the surface, for it was roofed with great slabs of stone. Its sides, of rough stones, were six or seven feet apart at the floor, which was paved with small boulders, but sloped so much toward each other that at the top their distance was less by about two and a half feet. Kirsty was, as I have said, a keen observer, and her power of seeing had been greatly developed through her constant conscientious endeavour to realize every description she read.

She went on about ten or twelve yards, and came to a bend in the gallery, succeeded by a sort of chamber, whence branched a second gallery, which soon came to an end. The place was in truth not unlike a catacomb, only its two galleries were built, and much wider than the excavated thousands in the catacombs. She turned back to the entrance, there left her candle alight, and again startled Steenie, still staring into the mouth of the hole, with her sudden reappearance.

'Wud ye like to come doon, Steenie?' she said. 'It's a queer place.'

'Is 't awfu' fearsome?' asked Steenie, shrinking.

His feeling of dismay at the cavernous, the terrene dark, was not inconsistent with his pleasure in being out on the wild waste hillside, when heaven and earth were absolutely black, not seldom the whole of the night, in utter loneliness to eye or ear, and his never then feeling anything like dread. Then and there only did he seem to have room enough. His terror was of the smallest pressure on his soul, the least hint at imprisonment. That he could not rise and wander about among the stars at his will, shaped itself to him as the heaviness of his feet holding him down. His feet were the loaded gyves that made of the world but a roomy prison. The limitless was essential to his conscious wellbeing.

'No a bittock,' answered Kirsty, who felt awe anywhere—on hilltop, in churchyard, in sunlit silent room—but never fear. 'It's as like the place I was tellin ye aboot—'

'Ay, the cat-place!' interrupted Steenie.

'The place wi' the pictur,' returned Kirsty.

Steenie darted forward, shot head-first into the hole as he had seen Kirsty do, and crept undismayed to the bottom of the slope. Kirsty followed close behind, but he was already on his feet when she joined him. He grasped her arm eagerly, his face turned from her, and his eyes gazing fixedly into the depth of the gallery, lighted so vaguely by the candle on the floor of its entrance.

'I think I saw him!' he said in a whisper full of awe and delight. 'I think I did see him!—but, Kirsty, hoo am I to be sure 'at I saw him?'

'Maybe ye did and maybe ye didna see him,' replied Kirsty; 'but that disna metter sae muckle, for he's aye seem you; and ye'll see him, and be sure 'at ye see him, whan the richt time comes.'