THE DEATH OF McDEARG, THE RED LAIRD.

While we were still in the yard the door opened, throwing a scad of light over the snow, and a high screiching voice came to us—

"Come in, lads, come in; the lassies are weary waiting for their lads, the poor bit things, sair negleckit on this weary isle, wi' nane to see their ankles but scarts[1] and solangeese."

And as we entered she held out a dry wrinkled hand.

"Prosperous New Year, Young Dan. Six bonny sons Auld Kate wishes ye, tall braw lads that'll no feel the weight o' your coffin; but if a' tales be true, you'll no' be in want. Ech, they're clever, clever, your lassies. Same to you, McKelvie. Your lass has ta'en the rue the day. Happy New Year, young sir; you'll be a McBride too," and the old withered crone peered at me through eyes bleared, as it seemed to me, with the peat reek of a hundred winters.

I was sore amazed at our welcome, for it was not near New Year, and I wondered if the scad of light on the snow, shining on us, had taken the old woman back to her younger days, but Dan took me out of my amazement.

"Humour her, Hamish; humour the weemen. A new face is New Year to Auld
Kate that keeps house tae McDearg."

"Och, it's the lassies will be the pleased ones, coiling the blankets round them; it's Auld Kate that kens," and then she gave a screitchy hooch and began to sing in her cracked thin voice—

'The man's no' born and he never will be,
The man's no born that will daunton me.'

It's that I used to be singing to your grandfather, Dan, when I was at my service in Nourn. He had a terrible grip, your grandfather, and the devil was in him; but he's deid, they're a' deid but Auld Kate. But we'll have a dram, and you'll be seeing the Red Laird." And in a little I saw that there was more than old age the matter.

There came the noise of piping in that strange house, and we tramped along a stone-flagged passage, and entered a room looking to the sea, and there, before a great fire, was McDearg, an old man, with evil looking from his eyes. He sat in his great chair, his head on his breast, and his shepherd, with the pipes on his knee, sat listening.

"A brave night, a brave night, and the devil on the roof-tree, McBride. What seek ye o' the Red Laird? The Gull, say ye; the Preventives—to hell wi' the Preventives; there's a bonny cove at the Rhu Ban, lads; but ye're in good time to see the devil coming for Red Roland."

A terrible squall struck the house and moaned round the gables, and the lowes blew into the room.

"D'ye hear him, the laughing o' him, and his blackbirds spying all day—ay, the Ravens from the Red Rocks; but they have nae terrors for Roland McDearg."

A long time he was silent, and then slowly the words came—

"McRae, McRae (for the McRaes were all pipers), play me back, back till I hear my mother laughing, in the evening, till I see the grass, green, green and beautiful in the sun, and the golden ben-weeds swaying to the breeze, and I am a boy again—I, Red Roland, searching among the heather, with the scent o' wild honey around me, searching for the shy white heather to bring coyly to my lass, and bravely the sun shines among the hills, and the hawk's brown wings flutter in the blue vault. Play me back, McRae, till I hear the water wimpling on the hill burns, when I lie flat to drink, the brown peaty water, McRae, and the sheep looking at me before they run. The sun and the sea and the wild winds o' my youth, McRae; bring them back to me before I go."

As he spoke, the Red Laird lolled his head on the back of his chair. His eyes were closed, and his mind looked backwards; and as he cried for the sun and the growing grass and the wave of the wind in the hay, his hand rose and fell. And McRae, McRae the piper, looked long into the glowing fire, looked till his harsh face softened and the smiling came round his eyes, and softly, softly he played. And in his playing I saw the goodman bend over his wife and whisper. I saw her face glow in the evening sun, and I heard her laughter, clear and sweet like diamonds ajingle, as she struck him playfully, and walked stately and slow to the green where her children played on the lush grass, and ever and ever she looked over her shoulder for her man, because he was her lover still. And I saw a boy moving among the crags, the honey dust round his knees, and ever and ever his eyes searched the heather, and I heard his cry of gladness as he fell down beside the lucky heather, white and chaste as a virgin.

And I looked at Dan and saw him far away in his youth, and even McKelvie looked not comfortable. But the Laird was all happy, a boy again with all his days before him, and when McRae made an end of his piping, said Dan with a queer sigh—

"A great gift, Hamish, to be drowned in drink," and as I watched the piper gulp his usquebach I kent what he meant.

But at his stopping, the Laird rose. "Let be the days o' innocence, McRae. The March, The March, now, and the onset o' battle. Dirl it out, dirl it out, for Red Roland was first in the charge, and the cries o' fear made the blood tingle in his back, the women screaming, and the men crying, and the red blood flowing, and my father's sword dauntless in the van—bring it back, McRae. Make my cauld blood hot as in my manhood."

When he cried for the battle-music, his clenched fist beat the air, his long locks tossed like an old lion's mane, and the war love shone in his eyes. A great change came on the piper. He stood his full height, as straight as a young larch tree, and a cold deadly pride came on his face, and then with a great swing he threw the drones to his shoulder, his arm caressed the bag, and his foot beat, beat, beat like a restive horse, till he got the very swing of his pibroch.

Then with that fine prideful swing of his shoulders he started to march, and I saw the clansmen gather, wet from the mountain torrents, with knees red-scarred by the briars of many a wood. I heard the clamour of their talk, and the high note of their anger, and then swiftly, silently, below a pale moon I saw their ranks lock and the grim march begin, onward, onward to the southlands.

And then I heard the wail of the southern mothers, and the laughing cry of the clansmen as the foemen stood to arms, the wild devilish lilt of it for glory or a laughing death, and all around a black, black land, lighted alone with blazing farms, and the broad red swathe where the hillmen trailed. Came the very struggle, the gasping for breath, the cry of the fallen, the hand-to-hand grip, and then the great blare of triumph, and the Red Laird yelled aloud—

"Through, by God, through!"

"I've lived my life, McBride, my ain wild life, and the sadness is coming on me, to leave my bonny hills and the cold splash o' a summer's sea. The sadness o' the silent peaks and the gloom o' the hidden valleys, McBride—ay, but it's fine, the sadness, better than the heated joys o' the south." And again McRae played, looking into the heart of the fire, and the far-away look in his eyes, and as he played I felt a lump rise in my throat, for a sorrow I kent not, except that the wind moaned eerily through the thatch, and grey and gurly grew the sea, with the black jackdaws flying low inshore. The uneasy cattle were lowing in the byre, and the rain fell in great drops from the leafless trees—fell on the cold wet earth, and the fire on the hearth was out, and cold white ash marked where nevermore would peat be lighted; and oh! I heard the wail of the mourners, and saw the sobbing daughter cling to her mother, and the youngest son leave for the wars, the last of his house and name, and his name forgotten in the glens already.

"Stop him, stop him," I cried; "there's cold death at my very side, and his breath on my cheek like an east wind," and I would have run from the room.

"Death," cried the Red Laird—"death. I flouted him in my youth; I wrestled with him and flung him from me. I laughed at his cold eyes across a naked sword, and spurned him on the heather; but now in my age, when my bones are brittle and my arms shrunk, he creeps behind me again, sure, sure o' his prey," and as he spoke he crouched like a stealthy enemy, one groping hand outstretched. Then he flung himself upright, his eyes flashing, dauntless as a lion.

"Come then, Death, to the last grips wi' Red Roland; ay, your cold hand is at my throat, old warrior—ay, but mine is firmer yet. The Onset, the Onset, the blare o' it, the madness o' it for Red Roland's last fight," and at his words the swinging lamp went out with the last great gust of the gale, and in the darkness came the crash of a fallen man, and Red Roland lay dead in the red glow of his own fire. And as we stood there, Robin McKelvie came in with the word that the Gull was battling in the channel.

* * * * * *

And they carried the dead man and laid him decently on his bed.

Behind Robin, the house servants, stout dairymaids from the mainland, stood awhisper, their sonsy red cheeks pale and mottled with fear, and among them came the bullock-feeders; for the Red Laird fattened stock for the mainland markets, and had his own quay, where the carrying vessels moored in these days, and from the kitchen came the moaning of old Kate.

"Ochone, ochone, he's gone, the strong one, and I mind me when his back was like a barn door and the love-locks curling on his brow," and she came into the chamber wringing pitiful, toil-worn hands, and the servants after her, ashiver to be left alone in the dim passage. Round the fire they huddled, none speaking except in whispers, as though they feared the great unseen Presence; and as they sat in that eerie silence there came the hollow clop-clop of sea-boots in the passage, and I saw the serving maids stiffen and straighten as they sat, and a look of terrible fear came on their faces.

And McKelvie's lass skirled, "He's coming," and cooried back in a corner.

"Can ye not hear the tramping?" and she thrust an arm before her head as a bairn will to escape a cuff.

With that the door opened, and McKelvie entered in high sea-boots, but the fear did not leave them, for the Laird was wont to wear sea-boots when the weather was bad on his rocky isle; and with their minds all a-taut for warnings and signs, the tramping in the flagged passage was fearsome enough. Indeed, I breathed the more freely myself when McKelvie entered with Dan at his heels.

Dan had a stone jar in his hand, and he poured a stiff jorum, and held it to auld Kate, greetin' at the fireside.

"The Red Laird's gone tae his ain folk, cailleach," says Dan, standing straight and manly beside the huddled old woman. "Good points he had and bad, but he's finished his last rig and taken the long fee.

"Drink tae the memory o' him, Kate: ye kent him weel, and he had aye a dram for a ceilidher."

"Ou ay, Dan, mo leanabh, ou ay; but I cannot thole the thought o' his spirit fleeing among the cauld clear stars, for there's nae heaven for him if his ain piper is no there to cheer him, or mak' him wae. Och, ay, I'll tak' the dram, but I'll be sore afraid there's plenty o' pipers in hell wi' the devils dancing on hot coals tae their springs, and he'll maybe be well enough."

As Dan put round the drink the doleful mood lifted a wee, and the lads started to tell stories.

"I mind me," said Donald, the shepherd—"I mind o' a night I had on the hills at the time o' the lambing, and in the grey o' the morning, when the rocks are whispering one to another, and will be just back in their places when a man comes near them, and when ye hear voices speaking not plainly, because o' the scish o' the burn on the gravelly mounds, but if ye listen till the burn is quiet a wee, ye'll be hearing the laughing o' the Wee Folk at their games.

"Mora, in the grey o' the morning, I would be just among the sprits[2] above the loch-side, when there came an eerie 'swish, swish' at my side, slow and soft. I thought it would be a hare, and I stopped to let her get away, for I would not be crossing her path, but see her I could not, and I turned round to speak to 'Glen,' and there was no dog there at all.

"Ay, well, I whistled and I whistled in that dreary place till the noise of it put a fear on me, and I started on again, and there at my side was the swish, swish in the sprits, and I would be poking my crook among them, but when I would be stopping it would be stopping, and I felt my hair bristle on my neck for the fear on me; but I pushed on, looking at my feet and all round me, till something inside of myself made me be looking up, and there was something before me, wi' eyes glowering at me—oh, big, big it was, as a stack o' hay, and it was in my path, and I shut my eyes and stood, for it would kill me. And when nothing would be happening I opened my two eyes, and it was not there, and then I looked round with just my head, and aw!"—and a shudder went through the shepherd, and he gulped at his drink,—"it was just at my own very shoulder grinning at me. And I ran and ran, skirling like a hare, and it behind me—ran till I felt my heart beating in my throat, and ran through burn and briars and hedges till I ran into the barn and fell on the straw, and remembered no more."

"And why," says I, "did you not run into your ain house?"

"Are you not knowing that?" says Donald. "If I had run to my house and the door shut, I would just be fallin' dead on the doorstep."

"There's McGilp," says Dan. "He aye carries a sail needle in his kep lining, and he'll say it's just to be handy, but it's aye been in the same place. An' what will it be for, Neil Crubach?"

Neil looked up, his blue eyes hazy with dreaming things out of the past. His face was very beautiful, and his body massive and strong, but he halted on his leg, and could walk but lamely.

"Oh," says Neil, with a kindly smile, "you will be knowing that surely, and you a McBride, and reared among the rocks and the bonnie heather.

"It will just be that when our forefathers would be among the hill sat night, many and many's the time the evil one would be coming to them and speaking, and sometimes he would be coming in the form of a black dog, like the Black Hound o' Nourn, wi' a red tongue lolling from his mouth, and sometimes he would be a wild cat louping among the rocks, hissing and spitting wi' his eyes lowin', and the old wise ones in the far glen found the power in the unknown places in the hills, and they said to the young hunters and warriors, 'Aye be carrying steel, for steel will sever all bargains,' but a skein-dubh is the best to be carrying in the hills, for a devil will not come near the black-hefted knife wi' a strong bright blade—no," and Neil Crubach smiled, and looked among the red embers for his dreams.

And then, still looking into the embers, he began to speak in his soft-voiced way—

"They're bonnie wee things, the Wee Folk, and merry as the lambs in
June.

"When my leg would be troubling me sorely in my mind, and me a lad fit to break a man's back, and to fling the great stone from me like a chuckle—ay, in these long-ago days, there was a lass, and, och, she was just to me in my mind like the sun rising from the sea on a summer morning, and I could have taken her away in my own arms, for I would be fierce like my folk, in their hate and their love, and whiles I would be feeling in me the wish to be killing her nearly just to watch her eyes opening like the sky when the white woolly clouds are drifting apart, and among the hills when I wandered I would be dreaming of holding her in my arms, for they would be great arms in these old days; and one day she came, and I told her all that was in my heart, and she said never a word, but just put her white round arms on my shoulder and her head on my breast."

For a long time he was silent, and I saw the servant lassies look at one another, their terrors all forgot in the beauty of his picture, for there was colour in his very tone.

"I would be carrying her in my arms, for was she not but a mountain flower, but when I would have taken her up I saw her eyes with a great pity in them for my lameness, and I felt hell rising in my heart, for were not my folk straight in their limbs, and nimble as goats among the rocks? and then she saw my face, and I think there would be black murder in it, but for myself, not for my white flower, for Neil Crubach I hated when my love looked on this poor limb (it was only a little shorter, but I knew the pride that was in his race).

"Then my love looked into my soul.

"'Neil,' she said, and drew my head down to her—'Neil, my hero, take me up,' and I took her up, and she lay curled in my arms, with her lips at my neck, and then she whispered, 'Neil, you will not be angry if I say it now.'

"'Never angry, mo ghaoil,' and my heart stopped to be listening.

"'I wish—I just wish, Neil, mo ghaoil, that you would be more lame, for my mother will be seeing us too soon, and I want aye to stay here.'" Neil was just thinking aloud.

"A year, just a wee year, with her smiling at her spinning, and running to meet me in the far fields to be carried home—ay, she would be calling my arms 'home,'—and when we would be ceilidhing she would be saying, 'Neil, it will be time your lass was "home," and her eyes would be laughing at me, and no one else would be knowing at all.'

"A year, a wee year, and she lay like a white flower, still and cold, and all my love could not make her hear.

"And I sat by her silent spinning-wheel and waited till she should come back night by night; I forgot the old kirkyard, for how would the earth be keeping my love from coming to me, and as I sat came my old mother, and she was wise and gentle to her lame son.

"'My son, if you would be lying behind the wee hill when the moon is young, maybe you would be forgiving your old mother'—for when she was sad she blamed herself for the fall that left me lame, even when I laughed and made nothing of it in her hearing.

"Behind the wee hill I lay when the moon was young and the grass was cool on my brow, and I would be hearing the breathings of the hills in the silence as they slept, and the moon sailed behind a black cloud and all the world was dark, and I heard a great laughing in the dark near me like diamonds and pearls sparkling, so wee was the sound and so bright the laughing, and then the moon sailed out clear silver in a blue sky, and there were all the Wee Folk at their games on the short turf. Bravely, bravely were they dressed in their green coats, and near me, sitting and looking with longing eyes I saw my own love, and she was looking down a wee, wee track in the grass, but it seemed to me hundreds of miles. And my love cried and waved as she looked down the path, and I heard her laughing, my own love, and then, 'Hurry fast, Neil, and take me home'; and again I heard her laughing joyously, and then in the track of grass, away and away, I saw a-coming one that halted on his foot, and he was away and away, but my love clapped her hands, and ran down the path with her arms stretched out to be carried home, and I saw all the Wee Folk run to welcome the one that halted on his foot, and I knew that the path that they were travelling so fast was just Time, and slowly, slowly only can Neil Crubach march, but she is running to meet me—my love."

By this time old Kate had forgotten her troubles, and was away back in her youth, when, if all accounts be true, there were few, few fit to hold a candle to her wild beauty or devilry.

"Och, the nights like this would not be hindering the ploys when my leg was the talk o' a parish, and my cheeks like the wild red rose. We had a' the lads to pick and choose among, Bell and me; and mora, it was not gear they cam' courting for.

"There was a time we slept in the bochan to be nearer the beasts, we would be telling the old ones, but maybe it was not for that at all, for your grandfather was raiking then, Dan McBride, it kinna runs in the breed o' ye. Ay, well, we were in bed, Bell and me, when the Laird o' Nourn whistled low outside. 'The devil take ye, Kate,' Bell would be crying, 'he'll be in,' for there was only divots in the window in the bochan. 'He will that,' says I, and I saw the divots tumbling, and in he came assourying wi' two o' us, and us feart when he gied his great nicker o' a laugh, for fear he would be awakening the old folks, or rouse the dogs, although they kent him well enough, a rake like themselves."

"Was he no' the auld devil?" says Dan with a laugh; "two o' ye, and the best-looking lassies in the countryside."

"He wasna aul'," cried Kate—"aul'; he was as like you as two trout. He got us two suits o' sailors' claes and he cam' tae see us dressed in them, and bonny sailors we made, Bell and me, and we went to the Glen and called on our uncles. It was dark inside, and they were sitting ower the fire talking slow and loud, and we went in.

"'What will you be wantin' here in God's name?' said Angus.

"'We've nae money and nae meat,' said I, 'and our ship has sailed without us, and we're starving.'

"'Starving, John, starving, will ye be hearin' the poor sailor lads. We have not got any money, John, to be giving, but gie the lads an egg apiece, John, an egg apiece; and John brought us an egg, and then Bell winked at me, and 'Ye hard old scart,' says I in the Gaelic, and he got up on his feet, for he would be knowing my voice, and he could not be understanding it at all, and when we had finished our devilry I gave him the egg what I was fit and ran, and Angus would be crying—

"'Give me the graip, John; give me the graip. Angus will kill boas (both).'

"So an' on the night wore through; whiles we would be telling old stories, and there would be times when we sat silent except for auld Kate whimpering at the fireside.

"These were the days and these were the nights, ochone and ochone, for the like o' them we'll be seeing nevermore."

And in the morning the women made a meal, moving stealthily about the house and keeping together when the men went out to their beasts—for birth or death, wedding or christening, the beasts must be looked to, and that's good farming. The seas were breaking white in the bay and the ships lay at the stretch of their cables, but although we searched long and ardently, we could not find the Seagull. We were downcast and silent, and no man looked at his neighbour, for the fear was on all of our hearts that McGilp and his crew were lost, and at last I voiced my dread to the innkeeper.

"Ye do not ken McGilp to be speaking that way," said he, and his voice was hoarse as a raven's croak. "We could not have run a cargo last night wi' the sea like a boiling pot; and if the Gull had anchored off the Rhu Ban Cove there would be plenty to be wondering why she was there. No, no, my lad; there's sailor men on the Gull, and a wee thing will not frighten them. She just ran before it, man, and she's standing off and on till the night."

And so it proved, for that night McGilp himself was rowed ashore, and his eyes were red as a rabbit's wi' the lashing o' the sea, and the white salt was dried on his beard.

With him was McNeilage, his mate, his face red and shining like a well-fed minister, and the drink to his thrapple.

"A great night last night," said he. "Och, a night like the old roaring times when every ship on God's seven seas was a fortune for the lifting."

We were on the shore at the Rhu Ban, working and toiling at the cargo with the oars muffled, and no man speaking above his breath, and when we had the cargo in the coves, and the seaweed and trash from the shore concealing it, we made our way to the outhouse where McKelvie's lass had waited, for there were friends of the dead Laird's in the house, and new men are hard to trust in the smuggling. And at the outhouse I spoke to fierce Ronny McKinnon as he stood among the crew.

"Ronny," said I, "there was a bonny lass putting herself about for ye, or ye might have been listening to mice cheeping instead o' the waves out there."

"I've been in many's the ploy," says Ronny, "and the lassies liked me well enough, except just one."

"Would her name be Mirren now?" said I.

"I'll no' say but it might just be that," says Ronny, with a thinking look in his eyes.

"There was a lass o' that name, on a Hielan' pony, met Dan and me at Bothanairidh the day before the snow," says I. "She talked about ye for a while."

"She would be having nothing good to be saying," says he with a laugh. "For everything I did was a fault except just I would be sitting at home with my old mother, and so I just fell in wi' McGilp, and left the lassies to claver among themsel's for a year or two, for they will have too many cantrips for a simple man."

"It would just be that lass that told us about the Preventives lying in the cove near the Snib, and she was sore feart a lad Ronny McKinnon would be transported."

"And would she be saying just that," says Ronny.

"She would just," says I.

"It's no like her temper at a', but I'll be thanking her for that kind thought," says he, and commenced to his whistling o' pipers' tunes.

[1] Cormorants.

[2] Boghay.