“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.”
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.
“Just a moment,” said Dugald, laying a hand on Kenneth’s shoulder. “Have you got your flute?”
“Yes.”
“Well, just give us a toot. If Nancy has company that’s no’ canny, it will give them time to bolt up the chimney. Sirs! Sirs!”
Kenneth laughed, put his flute together, and started a merry air.
“The Campbells are coming; hurrah, hurrah?” was the tune he played.
Dugald forgot his fear, and began to sing. The “twa dogs” forgot theirs, and began to dance and caper and bark, and in the very middle of this “rant” the cottage door opened, and Nancy herself appeared.
“Come in, come in, you twa daft laddies,” she cried, “or ’deed you’ll start Nancy hersel’ to dance, for as auld as she is. Come in; you’ll leave the dogs outside, winna ye, for fear o’ my poor cat?”
“Ay, Grannie,” said Dugald, “we’ll leave the dogs outside, and I’m thinkin’ neither o’ them would show face inside your door if you asked them e’er so kindly. My Shot there hasn’t forgotten the salute your cat gave him last time he came here. If you mind, Grannie, she jumped on his back and rode him a’ round the kail-yard, and never missed him a whack, till he flew out o’ the gate and ran helter-skelter o’er the moor. I dinna think your cat’s canny, Grannie.”
“What a beautifu’ nicht!” said Grannie; “but come in, laddies.”
“You’re sure you have no company?”