Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

“But oh! Kooran,” continued the boy presently, “I’ve such news for you.”

The dog pricked his ears, and turning his head a little on one side, looked wondrous wise.

“No,” said Kenneth, “it isn’t rats, and it isn’t rabbits. There is never anything else in your noddle, Kooran, but rats and rabbits. It’s a cave, Kooran. Of course you don’t know what a cave is, but here, – there is some more dinner for you. Eat that, and then we’ll go and explore.”

The boy and his dog started off up the glen immediately after, and Kooran, knowing there was something on the tapis, commenced to frisk and bark around his young master.

“That won’t do, Kooran,” said the boy, shaking his finger at his companion. “Ye mustna do that. Look down there at the sheep; every single one o’ them has stopped eating to snuff the air. Come to heel and keep quiet.”

They soon reached the fairy knoll, and as soon as Kooran saw the hole, his mind still running on rats and rabbits, he disappeared inside.

Never a rat nor rabbit was there, but several unwholesome-looking bats came whirring out, and dazzled by the sunlight, dropped into the first bush they came to. Kenneth himself now entered the cave, spade in hand, and as soon as his eyes got used to the darkness, he began to examine it thoroughly. It was large and roomy, the walls and floor of solid stone, with marks of tools thereon, as if the place had either been wholly excavated or enlarged by human hands. The light glimmered down the chimney and fell on some large round brown article. It was a huge kettle. Then, young though he was, Kenneth knew that at some time or other this cave had been occupied not by fairies, but by a gang of smugglers.

“It was wise of them,” thought Kenneth, “to use a place like this.”

Well might he think so, for even to this day, in remote districts of the Highlands, so much of superstition clings around these fairy knolls that no peasant would dare to go near them after nightfall.

Now there is one thing in which Scotland and Germany have long resembled each other. The very poorest people belonging to the two countries have from time immemorial been taught to read and write. Kenneth had had the advantages of an education far superior to most lads of his class and age. He had spent many a long year at the parish school and evening school, his mother had taught him, the clergyman’s daughter had helped him, but, better than all this, he had helped himself.

When talking, as must have already been perceived, he sometimes made use of Scotch words and phrases. He did so, not because he could not speak pure English, but simply because they are often more expressive than the Saxon idiom.

“Well, Kooran,” said Kenneth, “this is the best find ever we made. Dinna ye think so, doggie?”

But Kooran’s nose was turned up to the roof, and his eyes wide with excitement, for he perceived, clinging by its claws up there, the strangest-looking rat ever he had seen in his life before. A rat, and still not a rat, for it had wings; yes, and it could fly, too, for even as he gazed it let go its hold and made straight for the doorway. Kooran was far too quick for it, though. He sprang up, and next moment it lay half-dead apparently between his two forepaws.

“Strangest thing ever I came across,” Kooran appeared to observe as he looked wonderingly up into his young master’s face. “Rats flying; this must be a fairy knoll, and I feel half afraid.”

“That’s a bat, Kooran, a bat, boy, and you mustn’t touch it. Look at its two rows of white and glittering wee teeth. Poor little thing! Kooran, it is well-nigh dead. And this cave really belongs by rights to that bat and his brothers. We’ll tie it up in the napkin, and you shall carry it home, and mother will cure it and let it fly off again.”

As he spoke the boy suited the action to his words.

“Yes, Kooran, this is a grand discovery. After reading ‘Robinson Crusoe’ so often, I’ve always wished to have an island all to myself; but a cave, Kooran, is nearly as good as an island. I wonder what Dugald McCrane will say about it. I’m sure he will help me to make things to furnish it, and we’ll have our dinner here, Kooran, and a fire when the weather grows cold, and everything so jolly. Come, we must go this very evening and see Dugald McCrane.”

True to his word, when Kenneth had driven his sheep into their fold for the night, and had eaten his supper at his mother’s fireside, then, instead of taking down his books and lying down on the great wooden dais to read by the light of the little black whale-oil lamp, with its wicks of peeled and dried rushes, he got up whistled to Kooran, and said to his mother, —

“I’m going down the glen, mother.”

“Dinna be lang, laddie, dinna be lang,” was all his mother said.

It was a clear moonlight night, all the brighter stars were shining, and there was hardly a cloud to be seen.

Kenneth had two long Scotch miles to walk, down into a thicket of fir trees first, across a rustic bridge, under which the brown stream was dashing and swirling and ever and anon breaking itself into foam against the boulders. It was very dark down here, but Kenneth was soon away out into the open country again, and the roar of the river was no more heard. By-and-bye the road led through a wood of oak, ash, and elm trees, with now and then the dark head of a pine tree shooting high up into the sky. The moonlight showed in patches here all along the road, there was the sound of falling water not far off, mingling with the whispering of the wind among the leaves, now crisp with the sunshine of the long bright summer, and there was occasionally the mournful cry of the brown owl, which made Kenneth feel lonesome and “eerie,” and he was not sorry when he was clear of that dark gloomy wood, and saw up on a hillside the light shining yellow through the blind of Keeper McCrane’s cottage.

A black retriever came rushing down, growling and showing his teeth, but when he saw it was Kenneth he wagged his bell-rope of a tail, and bade him and Kooran welcome.

Kenneth left his dog in the garden to dance and caper about with the retriever. No doubt Kooran told this black dog all about the flying rats. Kenneth just opened the door and walked straight in.

Both Dugald and his young wife jumped up from their seats beside the fire, and welcomed Kenneth, and their only boy, a wonderful little fellow of some nine or ten summers old, with hair not unlike in colour to a bundle of oaten straw, got out of bed and ran to pull Kenneth by the jacket, without waiting to dress.

Dugald and his wife and boy all listened with wondering eyes to the story of the fairy knoll.

“Bless me, dear laddie,” said Mrs McCrane, “were you no’ afraid to venture in?”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said the keeper. “We’ll go up the glen and see the old witch wife, Nancy Dobbell. She can tell us all about it. They tell me she knows everything that ever happened for a hundred years back and more.”

“Will she no’ be in bed?” said his wife.

“In bed?” said Dugald. “Not she. She never goes to bed till ‘the wee short hour ayont the twal,’ and there is no saying what she may be doing till then.”

“Well, let us go,” cried Kenneth, starting up.

One glance at the walls of the room in Dugald’s cottage, that did duty as both kitchen and dining-hall, would have given a stranger an insight into both the character and calling of the chief inmate. Never a picture adorned the room, but dried grasses and ferns did duty instead, and here were the skins of every kind of wild animal and bird to be found in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, the foumart or polecat, the whitterit or weasel, the wild cat and fox, ptarmigan, plovers of every kind, including the great whaup or curlew, hawks, owls, and even the golden-headed eagle itself stood stuffed in a corner, with glaring fiery eyes and wings half outspread.

“Come,” said Dugald.

And away went the keeper and Kenneth, the two dogs following closely at their masters’ heels, as if to protect them from all harm.

Chapter Two

Kenneth and his Friends

“Still o’er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.”

    Burns.
Scene: A long, low-thatched cottage, in the midst of a wild, bleak moorland. No other hut nor house in sight. Around the cottage is a garden or kail-yard, with a fence of flat, slab-like stones. In this is a gate half open, and hanging by one hinge. The cottage has its door in the gable, and is windowless, save for some holes ’twixt thatch and eaves, through which light is now glimmering. A bright round moon is riding in the sky, among a few white clouds, that look like wings. Coming towards the gateway, two figures may be seen, both in the Highland garb. Behind them two dogs.

“Losh! man,” said Dugald McCrane, “I’m almost ’feared to gang farther. Who knows what company she may have in this lonesome dreary spot? Hark! What was that?”

Dugald started and stared about him in some trepidation as the prolonged and mournful shriek of an owl rose on the night air.

“It is only an owl,” said Kenneth, laughing.

“Ach! man,” said Dugald, “it is not me that’s afraid of an owlet, but goodness be about us, Kenneth, there are owls and owls. Hush! there it goes again. Losh! look how the dogs are shaking and trembling?”

It was true what Dugald had said; both the retriever and collie had thrown themselves at their masters’ feet, and gave every indication of mortal dread. After all, it was merely owing to a kind of magnetic influence which fear always has. This had been communicated from Dugald to his dog, and from the retriever to the collie.

“It’s nothing,” said Kenneth, “nothing, Dugald. I’m not afraid, if you are.”

“Fear!” replied the stalwart Highland keeper. “Dugald never feared the face o’ clay. But look how they’re shakin’ yet. These dogs hear voices we cannot listen to and live; they see things that human eyes, dare not scan. Dinna deny it, Kenneth, lad; dinna seek to deny it.

“Do you remember, Kenneth, that dreary, dark December night two years ago, when Walie’s wife – goodness be about us – went and hanged herself in the woods o’ Alva, and how Shot there sat a’ the livelong night on the top of the old turf wall and howled so mournfully? It made me tremble in my bed to hear him. And did you no’ tell me that your Kooran did the same one night the year before last, and that next morning a hat and a stick were found on the brink o’ Beattie’s mill-dam, and poor Jock Grey’s body stark and stiff – ”

“Stop! stop!” cried Kenneth. “This is no time of night for such stories. Kooran, come on.”

And the boy began to lead the way up through the garden to Nancy’s door.