Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

He told her all the story, just as we already know it; and for once only during all that evening, the wires ceased to click, and the old woman’s hands fell on her lap as she listened.

“It was long, long ago,” said Nancy. “Your father, Kennie, was but a boy then, just like you are noo. And his father was but a young man – ”

“Ahem!” said the superstitious Highland keeper, giving a hasty half-frightened glance behind him into the darkness. “Ahem! you’ll not mak’ your story very fearsome, will ye, Grannie? Dinna forget the lateness o’ the nicht. Mind that we’ve o’er the lonesome muir to gang yet.”

“It was long ago,” said Nancy, addressing herself more particularly to Kenneth. “I lived then down by the kirk in the clachan, and there I was born, and the wee village was quieter far in those days than it is even now. Ye know, Kennie, where the burn joins the river, where the old ruin is among the willow trees?”

“Yes, Grannie.”

“Well, that house was no ruin then. It was deserted, though. It had gotten a bad name. Nobody would take it; and it seemed falling to pieces. The house stood, as you know, about a mile below your fairy knoll, and two miles beyond is the sea.”

“You are right, Grannie.”

“Everybody was surprised to find masons and carpenters working at Mill House one morning. It was let. It had been taken by a stranger. Even the laird knew nought about him. Only he paid a year’s rent in advance. That was enough for Laird McGee, who was a grippy auld man, and just as rich as grippy.

“It was an ugly house when they made the best of it, two-storied, with red tiles, blintering, blinking windows, and long uncanny-looking attics. It lay a good way back from the road. You went along through a thicket o’ willows by a little footpath, then across a stagnant ditch, on a rickety bridge, and this took you to the wild weedy lawn in front of the house itself. Even the road that led past the grounds was little frequented, only a bridle path at best, and it ended at last in a turf dyke (low wall), a march between twa lairds’ lands; if you followed this, it took you over the mountains to the seaside village of T – , and the footpath went pretty close to the knoll. A man and woman came to live at Mill House then; they kept a man-servant, and had one child, a pale-faced, old-fashioned-looking hunchback. The man drove a ramshackle trap, so that, taking them altogether, they were no favourites, all the more in that they never put nose beyond the doorstep on the Sabbath day.

“It was always thought, though, that Innkeeper McCaskill, of our clachan, knew more about this family than he cared to tell. Anyhow, he took them all their meat and groceries. And it was noted, too, and remarked upon that he ay took the parcel himsel’, a big one it used to be, and the auld grey mare on which he rode was as sorely laden coming as going to Mill House.

“Sometimes, but no’ very often, the hunchback laddie used to come on an errand down to the clachan; the bairns o’ the village were frightened at him first, frightened even to call him names or throw a sod at him, as bairns will at things that look weird and unco’.

“Corbett was the laddie’s name, but the bairns ay ca’d him Corbie.

“Corbie, though, improved on acquaintance. There seemed no harm in him, though, woe is me, he lookit auld, auld-fashioned.

“I suppose Corbie found it lonesome at the Mill House, for whenever he came down to the clachan he tried to mak’ acquaintance with the children. It wasna easy to do this. He brought them sweets and wild berries, and bit by bit he won their hearts till Corbie was the greatest favourite in a’ the clachan. There was only one house, though, he ever entered, and that was McCaskill’s. But the bairns would meet him on his return, and he ay turned his steps to the auld kirk-yard, and there, on a flat tombstone, he would sit doon and tell them story after story. And a more attentive audience no minister ever had even in the kirk on Sunday. What did Corbie tell them? Oh! just queer auld-world stories he’d heard tell of, or read in books. Stories about witches and warlocks, brownies, sprites, and spunkies. Ay, and about the good folks, the fairies themselves – ”

“Dinna, dinna,” muttered Dugald. “Think o’ the untimous hour, Grannie.”

“But one day, as poor Corbie was speakin’ and the bairns were listening wi’ round eyes and gaping mouths, who should appear on the scene but Corbie’s father?

“The laddie gave one low scream, like somebody in a nightmare. Then his father seized him, and oh! they say it was dismal to hear the howls of the poor laddie and the sound o’ the fearfu’ blows.

“Corbie didn’t appear again for many a day, but the human heart must have society, and by degrees Corbie commenced story-telling again, but no’ in the kirk-yard, only down in a thicket by the riverside, and always when there, some one was put to watch.

“I often passed that house, even at night, though the name it had now was worse and worse.

“I had used to have business at T – , across the hills.

“But so bad a name did that road get, that even by day the boldest would hardly venture to take the short cut to T – up along the laird’s march dyke. Belated travellers saw lights – dead candles they called them – flitting and flickering around the fairy knoll. Brownies and spunkies, they said, were met on the moor, and down by the riverside Kelpie himsel’ was often visible.”

(Kelpie, in Scotch folklore a kind of bogle, half man, half bat, often seen by midnight near the banks of ugly rivers. He lives in deep, dark pools.)

“A sturdy shepherd that had stayed too long at T – had met Kelpie, so they said; he was found next day cut and bleeding at the water-side, and was a raving maniac for weeks.

“One day I was setting out for the seaside village – I was young then, and strong – when near the clachan I met McCaskill.

“‘Can I trust ye,’ he said, ‘to deliver a letter at the Mill House?’

“I was feared to offend by refusing, so I took it. But lo! I forgot it a’thegither till I was coming hame. It was night, too, but deliver it I must.

“I took the road alang the auld march dyke across the hills. The moon was shining, but no’ very brightly, givin’ a feeble yellow kind o’ a licht through a haze o’ drivin’ clouds.

“Well, I was just near the dreariest part o’ the upper glen, and no’ far from the fairy knoll. I was wishing I were well past it, and away down to the clachan, where I could see the lights blinking cheerily from the houses among the trees.

“I was hurrying on, when suddenly, with an eldritch scream, something in white sprang from behind an etnach,” (juniper) “bush.

“I was a bold lass. Some would have fainted. My heart was in my mouth, but I felt impelled to throw myself at the thing, whatever it was. I rushed forward with a frightened shriek and grasped it. I wheeled its face towards the moon, and what think you saw I?”

“A brownie!” said Dugald. “Oh, Grannie, I’m all of a quiver.”

“He was no brownie. Only the auld, auld-fashioned face o’ little Corbie.”

“‘Let me go, Nancy. Let me go,’ he pleaded. ‘My father would kill me if he knew I was found out.’

“He wriggled out o’ my hands and fled, and I hardly felt the ground beneath my feet till I reached the low end o’ the glen and found myself opposite the gate o’ Mill House.

“Then I remembered the letter.

“Dare I deliver it?

“Dare I refuse? That would be worse. I took the road down through the willow thicket, and crossed the rickety auld plank bridge, and in two minutes I was in front of the house. There were sounds of singing and revelry from the inside; I knocked, but wasn’t heard. Knocked louder, and in a moment everything was dark and silent. The door opened. I was seized and dragged in. What I saw and heard at Mill House that night I was put on oath not to tell till all were dead or gone. I may tell you now – they were smugglers.”

“Thank goodness!” said Dugald, greatly relieved it was no worse. “Oh! Grannie, but you have a fearsome way o’ tellin’ a story.”

“For twa lang years they occupied that house, but during that time something happened that caused grief amang the village bairns. Corbie was missed. Weeks flew by, and he never came back. Then one day a thinly-attended funeral came winding towards the kirk-yard, carrying a wee bit coffin.

“The coffin was Corbie’s, and there were many tears and mickle sorrow amang the poor hunchback’s acquaintances, I can tell ye. His friends went awa’, and left poor Corbie in the mools, but the bairnies ne’er forgot the grave, and mony a bonnie wreath o’ buttercups and gowans did they string and put on it in the sweet summer-time.

“Well, laddies, the Mill House was found deserted one day. The smugglers had gone as quietly as they had come. But the house kept its bad name, and so did the hills above it; and so my story ends.”

“Not quite,” said Dugald. “Did the brownie never come again, or the kelpie? Were the dead candles seen nae mair?”

“No,” said Kenneth; “don’t you understand? The brownie was the poor boy, Corbie; the kelpie was a smuggler; and the dead candles the lights seen at night near the cave in the fairy knoll. That was the place where they carried on their sinfu’ trade.”

“I see things clearly enough noo,” said Dugald; “and I’ll no’ be feared to cross the muir. Ah, well, Grannie, you have relieved my mind.”

“I’m glad o’ it, laddie. Now will Grannie take down the good Book and read a bit?”

Grannie did.

The talk now took a cheerier turn. Old Nancy, knowing how painfully superstitious Dugald was, refrained from introducing anything more in the shape of either brownie or spunkie. And so a pleasant hour was spent, till the old “wag-at-the-wa’” pointed to the hour of twelve, and warned Kenneth and his friend it was high time to commence retracing their steps across the moor.

Chapter Four

Gloaming in the Glen – Kennie’s Cave

“Gloaming o’er the glen is falling;
Little birds have ceased to sing,