The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scotch Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins
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Title: The Scotch Twins
Author: Lucy Fitch Perkins
Posting Date: July 4, 2009 [EBook #4086]
Release Date: May, 2003
First Posted: November 16, 2001
Last Updated: July 16, 2007
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCOTCH TWINS ***
Produced by Lynn Hill and Luana Rodriquez. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE SCOTCH TWINS
By
Lucy Fitch Perkins
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Geographical Series
THE DUTCH TWINS PRIMER. Grade I.
THE DUTCH TWINS Grade III.
THE ESKIMO TWINS. Grade II.
THE JAPANESE TWINS. Grade IV.
THE IRISH TWINS. Grade V.
THE SCOTCH TWINS. Grades V and VI.
THE MEXICAN TWINS. Grade VI.
THE BELGIAN TWINS. Grade VI.
THE FRENCH TWINS. Grade VII.
Historical Series
THE CAVE TWINS. Grade IV.
THE SPARTAN TWINS. Grades V-VI.
Each volume is illustrated by the author
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY LUCY PITCH PERKINS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
I. THE LITTLE GRAY HOUSE ON THE BRAE
II. THE RABBIT AND THE GAMEKEEPER
III. THE SABBATH
IV. THE NEW BOY
V. EVENING IN THE WEE BIT HOOSIE
VI. TWO DISCOVERIES
VII. THE CLAN
VIII. THE POACHERS
IX. A RAINY DAY
X. ON THE TRAIL
XI. ANGUS NIEL AND THE CANNY CLAN
XII. NEWS
XIII. THE NEW LAIRD
GLOSSARY
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
THE SCOTCH TWINS
I. THE LITTLE GRAY HOUSE ON THE BRAE
If you had peeped in at the window of a little gray house on a
heathery hillside in the Highlands of Scotland one Saturday
morning in May some years ago, you might have seen Jean Campbell
"redding up" her kitchen. It was a sight best seen from a safe
distance, for, though Jean was only twelve years old, she was a
fierce little housekeeper every day in the week, and on Saturday,
when she was getting ready for the Sabbath, it was a bold person
indeed who would venture to put himself in the path of her broom.
To be sure, there was no one in the family to take such a risk
except her twin brother Jock, her father, Robin Campbell, the
Shepherd of Glen Easig, and True Tammas, the dog, for the Twins'
mother had "slippit awa'" when they were only ten years old,
leaving Jean to take a woman's care of her father and brother and
the little gray house on the brae.
On this May morning Jean woke up at five o'clock and peeped out
of the closet bed in which she slept to take a look at the day.
The sun had already risen over the rocky crest of gray old Ben
Vane, the mountain back of the house, and was pouring a stream of
golden sunlight through the eastern windows of the kitchen. The
kettle was singing over the fire in the open fireplace, a pan of
skimmed milk for the calf was warming by the hearth, and her
father was just going out, with the pail on his arm, to milk the
cow. She looked across the room at the bed in the corner by the
fireplace to see if Jock were still asleep. All she could see of
him was a shock of sandy hair, two eyes tight shut, and a
freckled nose half buried in the bed-clothes.
"Wake up, you lazy laddie," she called out to him, "or when I get
my clothes on I'll waken you with a wet cloth! Here's the sun
looking in at the windows to shame you, and Father already gone
to the milking."
Jock opened one sleepy blue eye.
"Leave us alone, now, Jeanie," he wheedled. "I was just having a
sonsie wee bit of a dream. Let me finish, and syne I'll tell you
all about it."
"Indeed, and you'll do nothing of the kind" retorted Jean, with
spirit. "Up with you, mannie, or I'll be dressed before you, and
I ken very well you'd not like to be beaten by a lassie, and her
your own sister, too."
Jock cuddled down farther into the blankets without answering, and
Jean began putting on her clothes. It seemed but a moment before she
slid to the floor, rolled her sleeves high above a pair of sturdy
elbows, and went to finish her toilet at the basin. There she washed
her face and combed her hair, while Jock, cautiously opening one eye
again, observed her from his safe retreat. He watched her part her
hair, wet it, plaster it severely back from her brow, and tie it
firmly in place with a piece of black ribbon. Jock could read Jean's
face like print, and in this stern toilet he foresaw a day of
unrelenting house-cleaning.
"Aye," he said to himself bitterly, "she's putting on her
Saturday face. There's trouble brewing, I doubt! It'll be Jock
this and Jock that both but and ben all day long, and whatever is
the use of all this tirley-wirly I can't see, when on Monday the
house will look as if it had never seen the sight of a besom!
I'll just bide where I am." He closed his eyes and pretended to
be asleep.
It is true that Jean's Saturday face had such a housekeepery
pucker between the eyes and such a severe arrangement of the
front hair that any one who did not peep behind the black ribbon
might have thought her a very stern young person indeed, but
behind the black ribbon Jean's true character stood revealed!
However prim and smooth she might make it look in front, where
the cracked glass enabled her to keep an eye on it, behind her
back, where she couldn't possibly see it, her hair broke into the
jolliest little waves and curls, which bobbed merrily about even
on the worst Saturday that ever was; and spoiled the effect
whenever she tried to be severe.
When she had given a final wipe with the brush, she took another
look at Jock. There was still nothing to be seen of him but the
shock of sandy hair and a series of bumps under the blanket. Jock
could feel Jean looking at him right through the bed-clothes.
"Jock," said Jean,--and her voice had a Saturday sound to
it,--"You can't sleep in this day! Get up!"
There was no answer. Jock might well have known that Jean was in
no mood for trifling, but, having decided on his course of
action, he stuck to it like a true Scotchman and neither moved
nor opened his eyes. Jean was driven to desperate measures. She
took a few drops of water in the dipper, marched firmly to the
bedside, and stood with it poised directly above Jock's nose.
"Jock," she said solemnly, "I'm telling you! Don't ever say I
didn't. If you don't stir yourself before I count five, you'll be
sorry. One, two, three!" Still no move from Jock. "Four, five,"
and, without further parley, she emptied the dipper on his
freckled nose.
There was a wrathful snort and a violent convulsion of the
blankets, and an instant later Jock was tearing about the kitchen
like a cat in a fit, but by this time Jean was out of doors and
well beyond reach.
"Come here, you limmer!" he howled. But Jean knew better than to
accept his invitation. Instead she skipped laughing down the path
from the door to the brook which ran bubbling and gurgling by the
house. Even in her hasty exit from the cottage, Jean had had the
presence of mind to take the pail with her, and now she stopped
to fill it from the clear, sparkling water of the burn. It was
such a wonderful bright spring morning that, having filled it,
she stopped for a moment to look about her at the dear familiar
surroundings of her home.
There was the little gray house itself, with the peat smoke
curling from the chimney straight up into the blue sky. Back of
it was the garden-patch with its low stone wall, and back of that
were the fowl-yard and the straw-covered byre for the cow.
Beyond, and to the north lay the moors, covered with heather and
dotted with grazing sheep. Jean could hear the tinkle of their
bells, the bleating of the lambs, and the comforting maternal
answers of the ewes. Above the dark forest which spread itself
over the slopes of the foot-hills toward the south and east a
lave rock was singing, and she could hear the cry of whaups
wheeling and circling over the moors. They were pleasant morning
sounds, dear and familiar to Jean's ear, and oh, the sparkle of
the dew on the bracken, and the smell of the hawthorn by the
garden wall! Jean lifted her pail of water and went singing with
it up the hill-slope to the house for sheer joy that she was
alive.
"The Campbells are coming, O ho, O ho!" she sang, and the hills,
taking up the refrain, echoed "O ho, O ho!"
True Tammas, who had slept all night under the straw-stack by the
byre, came bounding down the little path to meet her, wagging his
tail and barking his morning greeting. They reached the door
together, but Jock, mindful of his injuries, had shut and barred
it, and was grinning at them through the window. Jean sat placidly
down upon the step with True Tammas beside her and continued her
song. Her calmness irritated Jock.
"Aye," he shouted through the crack, "the Campbells may be
coming, but they'll not get in this house! You can just sit there
blethering all day, and I'll never unbar the door."
Jean stopped singing long enough to answer: "You'll get no
breakfast, then, you mind, unless you'll be getting it yourself,
for the porridge is not cooked and the kettle's nearly boiled
away. I've the water-pail with me, and there's not a drop else in
the house."
She left him to consider this and resumed her song. For several
minutes she and True Tammas sat there gazing westward across the
valley with the little river flowing through it, to the hills
swimming in the blue distance beyond.
At last she called over her shoulder, "Jock, Father's coming,"
and Jock, seeing that his cause was hopelessly lost, unfastened
the door. Jean, her father, and True Tammas all came into the
kitchen together, and the moment she was in the room again you
should have seen how she ordered things about!
"Set the milk right down here, Father," she said, tapping the
table with her finger as she flew past to get the strainer and a
pan, "and you, Jock, fill the kettle. It's almost dry this
minute. And stir up the fire under it. Tam,"--that was what they
called the dog for short,--"go under the table or you'll get
stepped on!"
You should have seen how they all minded!--even the father, who
was six feet tall, with a jaw like a nut-cracker and a face that
would have looked very stern indeed if it hadn't been for his
twinkling blue eyes. When the milk was strained and put away in
the little shed room back of the kitchen chimney, Jean got out
the oatmeal-kettle and hung the porridge over the fire, and while
that was cooking she set three places at the tiny table and
scalded the churn. Meanwhile Jock went out to feed the fowls. By
half past six the oatmeal was on the table and the little family
gathered about it, reverently bowing their heads while the
Shepherd of Glen Easig asked a blessing upon the food.
There was only porridge and milk for breakfast, so it took but a
short time to eat it, and then the real work of the day began.
The Shepherd put on his Kilmarnock bonnet and called Tam, who had
had his breakfast on the hearth, and the two went away to the
hills after the sheep. Jock led the cow to a patch of green turf
near the bottom of the hill, where she could find fresh pasture,
and Jean was left alone in the kitchen of the little gray house.
Ah, you should have seen her then! She washed the dishes and put
them away in the cupboard, she skimmed the milk and put the cream
into the churn, she swept the hearth and shook the blankets out
of doors in the fresh morning air. Then she made the beds, and
when the kitchen was all in order, she "went ben"--that was the
way they spoke of the best room--and dusted that too. There
wasn't really a bit of need of dusting the room, for it was
never, never used except on very important occasions, such as
when the minister called. The little house was five miles from
the village, so the minister did not come often, but Jean kept it
clean all the time just to be on the safe side.
There wasn't so very much work to do in the room after all, for there
was nothing in it but the fireplace, a little table with the Bible,
the Catechism, and a copy of Burns's poems on it, and three chairs.
The kitchen was a different matter: There were the beds, and they were
hard for a small girl to manage, and the cupboard with its shelves of
dishes. There were three stools, and a big chair for the Shepherd, and
the great chest where the clothes were kept, and besides all these
things there was the wag-at-the-wall clock on the mantel-shelf which
had to be wound every Saturday night. If you want to know just where
these things stood, you have only to look at the plan, where their
places are so plainly marked that, if you were suddenly to wake up in
the middle of the night and find yourself in the little gray house,
you could go about and put your hand on everything in it in the dark.
Jock stayed with the cow as long as he dared, and went back to
the house only when he knew he couldn't postpone his tasks any
longer. Jean was sweeping the doorstep as he came slowly up the
hill.
"Come along, Grandfather," she called out, her brow sternly
puckered in front and her curls bobbing gaily up and down behind.
"A body'd think you were seventy-five years old and had the
rheumatism to see you move! Come and work the churn a bit. 'Twill
limber you up."
Jock knew that arguments were useless. His father had told him,
girl's work or not, he was to help Jean, so he slowly dragged
into the house and slowly began to move the dasher up and down.
"Havers!" said Jean, when she could stand it no longer. "It's
lucky there's a cover to the churn else you'd drop to sleep and
fall in and drown yourself in the buttermilk! The butter won't be
here at this rate till to-morrow, when it would break the Sabbath
by coming!"
She seized the dasher, as she spoke, and began to churn so
vigorously that the milk splashed up all around the handle. Soon
little yellow specks began to appear; and when they had formed
themselves into a ball in the churn, she lifted it out with a
paddle and put it in a pan of clear cold water. Then she gave
Jock a drink of buttermilk.
"Poor laddie!" she said. "You are all tired out! Take a sup of
this to put new strength in you, for you've got to go out and
weed the garden. I looked at the potatoes yesterday, and the
weeds have got the start of them already."
"If I must weed the garden, give me something to eat too," begged
Jock. "This milk'll do no more than slop around in my insides to
make me feel my emptiness."
Jean opened the cupboard door and peeped within.
"There's nothing for you, laddie," she said, "but this piece of a
scone. I'll have to bake more for the Sabbath, and you can have
this to give yourself a more filled-up feeling. And now off with
you!"
She took him by the collar and led him to the door; and there on
the step was Tam.
"What are you doing here?" cried Jean, astonished to see him.
"You should be with Father, watching the sheep! It's shame to a
dog to be lolling around the house instead of away on the hills
where he belongs."
Tam flattened himself out on his stomach and dragged himself to
her feet, rolling his eyes beseechingly upward, and if ever a dog
looked ashamed of himself, that dog was Tam. Jean shook her head
at him very sternly, and oh, how the jolly little curls bobbed
about.
"Tam," she said, "you're as lazy as Jock himself. Whatever shall
I do with the two of you?"
Jock had already finished his scone and he thought this a good
time to disappear. He slipped round the corner of the house and
whistled. All Tam's shame was gone in an instant. He gave a
joyous bark and bounded away after Jock, his tail waving gayly in
the breeze.
II. THE RABBIT AND THE GAMEKEEPER
Out in the garden a rabbit had for some time been enjoying
himself nightly in the potato-patch, biting off the young sprouts
which were just sticking their heads through the ground. When the
rabbit heard Tam bark she dashed out of sight behind a burdock
leaf and sat perfectly still. Now if Tam and Jock had come into
the garden by the wicket gate, as they should have done, this
story might never have been written at all, because in that case
the rabbit would perhaps have got safely back to her burrow in
the woods without being seen, and there wouldn't have been any
story to tell.
But Tam and Jock didn't come in by the gate. They jumped over the
wall. Jock jumped first and landed almost on top of the rabbit,
but when Tam, a second later, landed in the same place, she was
running for dear life toward the hole in the stone wall where she
had got in. Shouting and barking, Jock and Tam tore after her.
Round and round the garden they flew, but just as they thought
they had her cornered, the rabbit slipped through the hole in the
wall and ran like the wind for the woods. Jock and Tam both
cleared the wall at a bound and chased after her, making enough
noise to be heard a mile away.
It happened that there was some one much less than a mile away to
hear it. And it happened, too, that he was the one person in all
the world that Jock would most wish not to hear it, for he was
gamekeeper to the Laird of Glen Cairn, and the Laird of Glen
Cairn owned all the land for miles and miles about in every
direction. He owned the little gray house and the moor, the
mountain, and the forest, and even the little brook that sang by
the door. To be sure, the Laird seemed to care very little for
his Highland home. He visited it but once in a great while, and
then only for a few days' hunting. The rest of the year his great
stone castle was occupied only by Eppie McLean, the housekeeper,
and two or three other servants. The Laird did not know his
tenants, and they did not know him. The rents were collected for
him by Mr. Craigie, his factor, who lived in the village, and
Angus Niel was appointed to see that no one hunted game on the
estate.
Angus was a man of great zeal in the performance of his duty, to
judge by his own account of it. He was always telling of heroic
encounters with poachers in the forests, and though he never
seemed to succeed in catching them and bringing them before the
magistrate, his tales were a warning to evil-doers and few people
dared venture into the region which he guarded. He was often seen
creeping along the outskirts of the woods, his gun on his
shoulder, his round eyes rolling suspiciously in every direction,
or even loitering around the cow byres as if he thought game
might be secreted there.
At the very moment when Jock and Tam came flying over the fence
and down the hill like a cyclone after the rabbit, Angus was
kneeling beside the brook to get a drink. His lips were pursed up
and he was bending over almost to the surface of the water, when
something dashed past him, and an instant later something else
struck him like a thunderbolt from behind, and drove him
headforemost into the brook! It wasn't Tam that did it. It was
Jock! Of course, it was an accident, but Angus thought he had
done it on purpose, and he was probably the most surprised as
well as the angriest man in Scotland at that moment. He lifted
his head out of the brook and glared at Jock as fiercely as he
could with little rills of water pouring from his hair and nose,
and trickling in streams down his neck.
"I'll make you smart for this, you young blatherskite," he roared
at Jock, who stood before him frozen with horror. "I'll teach you
where you belong! You were running after that rabbit, and your
dog is yelping down a hole after her this minute!" He was such a
funny sight as he knelt there, dripping and scolding, that,
scared as he was, Jock could not help laughing. More than ever
enraged, Angus made a sudden lunge forward and seized Jock by the
ear.
"You come along o' me," he said. His invitation was so urgent
that Jock felt obliged to accept it, and together the two started
up the slope to the little gray house. Tam, meanwhile, had given
up the chase and joined them, his tail at half-mast.
When they reached the house Angus bumped the door open without
knocking, and stamped into the kitchen. Jean was bending over the
fire turning a scone on the girdle, when the noise at the door
made her jump and look around. She was so amazed at the sight
which met her eye that for an instant she stood stock-still, and
Angus, seeing that he had only two children to deal with, gave
Jock's ear a vicious tweak and began to bluster at Jean.
But, you see, he didn't know Jean. When she saw that great fat
man abusing her brother and tracking mud all over her kitchen
floor at the same time, instead of being frightened, as she
should have been, Jean shook her cooking-fork at Angus Niel and
stamped her foot smartly on the floor.
"You let go of my brother's ear this instant," she shouted, "and
take your muddy boots out of my kitchen!"
Angus let go of Jock's ear for sheer surprise, and Jock at once
sprang to his sister's side, while Tam, seeing that trouble was
brewing, gave a low growl and bared his teeth. Angus gave a look
at Tam and decided to explain.
"This young blatherskite here," he began, in a voice that caused
the rafters to shake, "has been trespassing. He was after a
rabbit. I caught him in the very act. I'll have the law on him!
He rammed me into the burn!"
"I didn't mean to," shouted Jock, "I thought you were a stone,
and I just meant to step on you and jump across the burn."
"You meant to step on me, did you?" roared Angus. "Me! Do you
know who I am?" Jock knew very well, but he didn't have time to
say so before Angus, choking with rage, made a furious lunge for
his ear and left two more great spots of mud on the kitchen
floor. It was not to be borne. Jean pointed to his feet.
"You're trespassing yourself," she screamed. "You've no right in
this house, And you take yourself out of it this minute! Just
look at the mud you've tracked on my floor!"
Angus did look. He looked not only at the floor but at Tam, for
Tam was now slowly approaching him, growling as he came.
Angus thought best to do exactly as Jean said and as quickly as
possible. He reached the door in two jumps with Tam leaping after
him and nipping his heels at each jump, and in another instant
found himself on the doorstep with the door shut behind him.
Angus considered himself a very important man. He wasn't used to
being treated in this way, and it's no wonder he was angry. He
swelled up like a pouter pigeon; and shook his fist at the door.
"You just mind who I am," he shouted. "If ever I catch you
poaching again, I'll have you up before the bailie as sure as
eggs is eggs!"
But the door didn't say a word, and it seemed beneath his dignity
to scold a door that wouldn't even answer back, so he stamped
away growling. The children watched him until he disappeared in
the woods, and when at last they turned from the window, the
scone on the girdle was burned to a cinder and had to be given to
the chickens!
You might have thought that by this time Jean had done enough
work even for Saturday, but there was still the broth to make for
supper and for the Sabbath, and the kitchen floor to be scrubbed,
and, last of all, the family baths! When the little kitchen was
as clean as clean could be, Jean got the wash-tub and set it on
the hearth. Jock knew the signs and decided he'd go out behind
the byre and look for eggs, but Jean had her eye on him.
"Jock Campbell," said she, "you go at once and get the water."
In vain Jock assured her he was cleaner than anything and didn't
need a bath. Jean was firm. She made him fill the kettles, and
when the water was hot, she shut him up in the kitchen with soap
and a towel while she took all the shoes to the front steps to
polish for Kirk on the morrow. When at last Jock appeared before
her he was so shiny clean that Jean said it dazzled her eyes to
look at him, so she sent him for the cow while she took her turn
at the tub.
By four o'clock, Tam, who had spent an anxious afternoon by the
hole in the garden wall watching for the rabbit, suddenly
remembered his duties and started away over the moors to meet the
Shepherd and round up any sheep that might have strayed from the
flock, and at five Jock, returning from the byre, met his father
coming home with Tam at his heels.
The regular evening tasks were finished just as the sun sank out
of sight behind the western hills, and the birds were singing
their evening songs, and when they went into the kitchen a bright
fire was blazing on the hearth, the broth was simmering in the
kettle, and Jean had three bowls of it ready for them on the
table.
While they ate their supper Jock told their father all about the
rabbit and Angus Niel and his ducking in the burn, and when Jock
told about Jean's ordering him out of the kitchen, and of his
jumping to the door with Tam nipping at his heels, the Shepherd
slapped his knee and laughed till he cried. Tam, sitting on the
hearth with his tongue lolling out, looked as if he were
laughing, too.
"Havers!" cried the Shepherd, "I wish I'd been here to see that
sight! Angus is that swollen up with pride of position, he's like
to burst himself. He needed a bit of a fall to ease him of it,
but I'd never have picked out Jean Campbell to trip him up!
You're a spirited tid, my dawtie, and I'm proud of you."
"But, Father," said Jock, "whatever shall we do about the
rabbits? The woods are full of them, and there'll not be a sprig
of green left in the garden. They can hop right over the wall,
even if we do stop up the hole."
"Aye," answered his father solemnly, "and that's a serious
question, my lad. They get worse every year, and syne we'll have
no tatties for the winter, let alone other vegetables. A deer
came into Andrew Crumpet's garden one night last week and left
not a green sprout in it by the morning. The creatures must live
that idle gentlemen may shoot them for pleasure, even though they
eat our food and leave us to go hungry." His brow darkened and a
long-smouldering wrath burst forth into words. "There's no
justice in it," he declared, thumping the table with his fist
till the spoons danced, "Lairds or no Lairds, Anguses or no
Anguses."
The Twins had never before heard their father speak like that,
and they were a little frightened. They were too young to know
the long years of injustice in such matters that stretched far
back into the history of Scotland.
For a few minutes after this outburst the Shepherd remained
silent, gazing into the fire; then he roused himself from his
brown study and said: "I've been keeping something from you, my
bairns. Mr. Craigie told me last week that the Auld Laird has
taken a whim to turn all this region into a game preserve, and
that he will not renew our lease when the time is up. It has till
autumn to run, and then, God help us, we'll have to be turned out
of this house where I've lived all my life and my forebears
before me, and seek some other place to live and some other work
to do."
"But what can you do else?" gasped Jock. He felt that his world
was tumbling about his ears.
"The Lord knows," answered the Shepherd. "Emigrate to America
likely. I've always been with the sheep and nothing else. It may
be I can hire out to some other body, but chances are few
hereabouts, and if the Auld Laird carries out this notion,
there'll be many another beside ourselves who'll need to be
walking the world. It seems unlikely he would be for taking away
the town too, even if it is but a wee bit of a village, and the
law gives him the right, for times have changed since that lease
was made, long years ago, and there are few in this day who would
venture to enforce it. But the Auld Laird's a hard man, I'm told,
and he chooses hard men to carry out his will. Mr. Craigie has
little heart, and as for Angus Niel, he'd make things worse
rather than better if he had his way." Then, seeing tears
gathering in Jean's eyes, he said to comfort her, "There now,
dinna greet, my lassie! There's no sense in crossing a bridge
till you come to it, and this bridge is still four months and a
bittock away. We've the summer before us, and the Lord's arm is
not shortened that it cannot save. We'll make the best of it and
have one more happy summer, let the worst come at the end of it."
"But, Father," urged Jock, "will he turn every one out, do you
think?"
"Who can foretell the whimsies of a selfish man?" answered the
Shepherd. "He has only his own will to consider, but my opinion
is he'll turn out those whose holdings lie nearest the forests
and would be best for game, whatever he may do with the rest."
This was overwhelming news, and the children sat silent beside
their silent father, trying to think of something to comfort
their sad hearts. At last Jean lifted her head with a spirited
toss and said, "Gin we were to go to-morrow, the dishes would
still have to be washed," and she began to clear the table.
Her father laughed, and oh, how his laugh brightened the little
kitchen and seemed to bid defiance to the fates!
"That's right, little woman," he said. "You've the true spirit of
a Campbell in you. We must aye do the duty at hand and trust the
Lord for the rest."
Jock was so impressed with the solemn talk of the evening that he
wiped the dishes without being asked and went to bed of his own
accord when the wag-at-the-wall clock struck eight. The Shepherd
sat alone beside the fire until the children were in bed and
asleep; then he sent Tam to the straw stack, wound the clock, and
took his own turn at the tub. Last of all he covered the coals
with ashes for the night and crept into bed beside Jock.
III. THE SABBATH
The Sabbath morning dawned bright and clear, and the Campbells
were all up early and had the chores done before seven o'clock.
Then came breakfast, and after breakfast Jean ran "ben the room,"
and brought the Bible to her father. Then she and Jock sat with
folded hands while he read a long chapter about the "begats."
Jock thought there seemed to be a very large family of them. This
was followed by a prayer as long as the chapter. The prayer was
so long that True Tammas went sound asleep on the hearth and had
a dream that must have been about the rabbit, for his ears
twitched and he made little whiny noises and jerked his legs. It
was so long that the kettle boiled clear away and made such
alarming, crackling sounds that Jean couldn't help peeking
through her fingers just once, because it was their only kettle,
and if it should go and burst itself during family prayers,
whatever should they do! The moment the Shepherd said "Amen,"
Jean sprang so quickly to lift it from the fire that she stumbled
over Tam and woke him up and almost burned her fingers besides.
The kettle wasn't really spoiled, and while the water was heating
in it for the dishes, Jean took up the little yellow book and
said to Jock,
"Come here now, laddie, and see if you can say your catechism. Do
you ken what is the chief end of man?"
"Dod, and I do," answered Jock. "You let me spier the questions."
"No," answered Jean firmly. "I'll spier them first myself."
"You're thinking I can't answer," said Jock. "I'll fool you."
He stood up as straight as a whole row of soldiers and fired off
the answer all in one breath.
"The-chief-end-of-man-is-to-glorify-God-and-enjoy-Him-forever,"
he shouted.
Jean nodded approvingly. "You ken that one all right, but that is
the first one in the book and everybody knows that one. Now I'm
going to skip around."
"Don't skip," urged Jock. "Take them just the way they come. I
can remember 'em better."
But Jean gave no quarter. "What is predestination?" she demanded.
This was a poser, but Jock tackled it bravely.
"Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to-to-" he got so
far and stuck.
"To what?" asked Jean.
"To be reformed," Jock hazarded, wallowing in difficulties.
"Conformed," corrected Jean. "You don't know that one at all!
What is Saving Grace?"
Jock fell down entirely on saving grace. "It's a--It's a--" he
began. Then he bit his lip and scowled, and looked up at the ham
hanging from the rafters, and out of the windows, but as nothing
more about saving grace occurred to him he said, "Aw, Jean, I
know, but I can't think."
"If you knew, you wouldn't have to think," Jean retorted, and
then she made him take the book and sit down on the stool by the
window and learn both answers while she finished the dishes.
It was ten miles to the village and back, and there was no way to
get there except by walking, but the Campbells would sooner have
thought of going without their food than of staying away from the
Kirk, and so by eight o'clock they were all dressed in their best
clothes and ready to start. They left True Tammas sitting on the
doorstep with his ears drooped and his eyes looking very
sorrowful. He wanted to go with them, but he knew well that he
must stay at home to guard the sheep from stray dogs.
It was springtime, and the world was so lovely that the troubles
the little family had faced the evening before seemed far away
and impossible in the morning light. It was as if they had
awakened from a bad dream. Who could help being happy on such a
morning? The birds were flying about with straw and bits of wool
in their bills to weave into their nests, and singing as if they
would split their little throats. The river splashed and gurgled
and sang as it dashed over its rocky bed on its way to the sea.
From the village came the distant music of the church bells. The
hawthorn was in bloom, and the river-banks and roadsides were gay
with dandelions and violets, daisies and buttercups. Far away the
mountains lifted their blue summits to the sky, and on a nearer
hill they could see the gray towers of the castle of the Laird of
Glen Cairn.
The bell was ringing its final summons and all the people were
pouring into the little vestibule as the Campbells reached the
steps of the Kirk. Angus Niel pushed past them, looking as puffy
as a turkey-cock with its feathers spread, and glaring at the
Twins so fiercely that Jock whispered to Jean, "If I poked my
finger at him I believe he'd gobble," and made her almost laugh
aloud. When they passed Mr. Craigie, who held the plate for
people to drop their money in, Jean whispered to Jock, "He looks
for all the world like a pair of tongs in his blacks, he's that
tall and thin," and then Jock certainly would have laughed
outright if he hadn't seen Mrs. Crumpet's eye on him.
The sermon was very long and the seats were hard and high, but
the service did come to an end at last, although Jock was sure it
was never going to, and afterward the children with their father
stood about in the churchyard for a little while talking to their
neighbors and friends.
The farm of Andrew Crumpet lay in the same direction as the home
of the Campbells, so it was natural that they should walk along
together and that the two men should talk about the thing that
was uppermost in their minds. Mrs. Crumpet had gone on ahead with
another neighbor, and Sandy Crumpet, who was twelve too, and had
yellow hair, a snub nose, and freckles like Jock's own, walked
with the Twins behind the two fathers. As they turned into the
road, the children heard Andrew say, with a heavy sigh: "Aye,
Robin, we must just make up our minds to it. The Auld Laird's
bent on getting us out."
"Has Mr. Craigie given you notice, too?" asked the Shepherd.
"Aye, has he," Andrew answered with bitterness, "and short work
he made of it. It means little to him telling a man to leave his
home and go out in the world to seek new work at our time of
life."
"He passes for a religious man," said the Shepherd.
"So did the Pharisee in the temple," said Andrew, "but 'by their
fruits ye shall know them,' and we're not gathering any figs off
of Mr. Craigie, nor grapes from that thorn of an Auld Laird that
I can see!"
"Nor from Angus Niel, either," agreed Robin Campbell. "The Auld
Laird's servants are of a piece with himself."
"Fine I ken that," answered Andrew.
"Well," sighed the Shepherd, "the toad under the harrow cannot be
expected to praise the plowman, and we're just like the toad."
"Very true," said Andrew, "but the toad has the best of it. We
are being destroyed; not that some one may till the land, but
that it may go to waste, and be kept out of use. We suffer that
the rich may be richer and the poor poorer, that less food may be
produced instead of more. I tell you, Robin, it is not justice."
"It may be so. It may be so," sighed the Shepherd, "but it is the
law, and we must just submit."
The two men walked on in silence to the bridge, where the
Crumpets turned, while the Campbells kept on beside the river.
The children were silent, too, only calling out "Good-bye" to
Sandy as they parted, Jock adding, "Come on by to-morrow if you
can," and Sandy, waving his hand, calling back, "Aye, will I."
As the Twins and their father neared the "wee bit hoosie," Tam
came bounding down the brae to meet them, and in less time than
it takes to tell it Jean had run into the house, taken off her
Sabbath dress, and put on her old one, with her kitchen apron
over it, had mended the fire and heated the broth, and the little
family was seated about the table eating their frugal meal with
appetites sharpened by their long walk.
The afternoon seemed endless to the children, for they spent it
trying hard not to do any of the things they wanted to do. They
studied the catechism while their father sat with his bonnet on
his head nodding over the Bible, and the wag-at-the-wall clock
ticked the hours solemnly away. Jock whispered to Jean that he
didn't see why Sunday was so much longer than any other day, and
didn't believe her when she said it wasn't really that it only
seemed so.
IV. THE NEW BOY
Usually Jean and Jock went to school in summer, for in winter the
snow made the roads impassable, but at this time the Dominie was
ill and until he should get well they had the long days to
themselves. When breakfast was over the next morning and the
Shepherd had gone with Tam to the hills, Jean decided to wash the
clothes. Sandy Crumpet came early, and the two boys went off to
play, leaving Jean standing on a stone in the middle of the burn,
soaping the clothes and scrubbing them on the flat surface of a
rock. The water was so cold it made her arms ache, and she soon
decided to let the fast-running stream do the washing for her.
She soaped the garments well, weighted them down with stones, and
then went to join the boys. She found them flat on their stomachs
by the stream, gazing down into a pool of clear water.
"What do you see?" she called out to them.
"Trout," answered Jock, his eyes shining with excitement.
"Let me take a keek," said Jean, flopping down beside them and
craning her neck over the edge.
They were all three peering with breathless interest into the
water when a strange voice behind them made them jump. For an
instant they thought it might be Angus Niel.
"Hello!" said the voice.
The children whirled around, and there before them stood a boy
not much older than themselves, but taller and thinner. He had a
pale face with large black eyes and dark hair partly covered with
a Glengarry bonnet set rakishly over one ear. He wore a suit of
gray tweed with plaid-topped stockings, and carried a fishing-rod
over his shoulder.
"Hello!" said the stranger again.
"Hello, yourself!" responded Jock.
Jean and Sandy were so relieved to find it wasn't Angus Niel that
for an instant they merely gazed at him without speaking.
"What's there?" asked the new boy.
"Fish," said Jock.
"Fish!" cried the new boy, shifting his rod into position.
"Where? Let me have a crack at 'em!"
"Na, na, don't be so hasty," cried Jock, heading him off. "You'll
get yourself into trouble! Angus Niel would be after you in no
time, and if he caught you, he'd cuff your lug for you, and drag
you before the bailie for poaching!"
"Who's Angus Niel?" demanded the boy. "I'm not afraid of him."
"Not yet," answered Jock, "but just go on and you will be! He's
gamekeeper to the Laird, and he'd rather do for you than not.
Aye, he'd just like the feel of you in his fingers, he would."
Jock rubbed his ear. "It's but two days gone since he nearly
pulled the lug off me because I was running after a rabbit that
was eating up our garden. He's terrible suspicious, is Angus, and
he's mad at us besides."
"What for?" asked the boy.
"I stepped on him by accident," explained Jock, "and butted him
into the burn."
"No wonder he was mad," laughed the boy. "Come on, now. Surely a
body can fish. There's no law against that!"
"Well," said Sandy, "law or no law, Angus is against it, and the
Auld Laird is terrible particular. He's going to turn out all the
farmers in this region and make it into a great game preserve.
Nothing else. You're strange hereabouts, I doubt, or you'd ken
all this yourself. Where are you from?"
"I'm from London," replied the boy. "I'm staying with Eppie
McLean at the castle."
"Are you, now?" gasped Sandy. "Is Eppie your aunt, maybe? She'll
be telling you about Angus herself."
"Eppie's not my aunt," said the boy. "She's a friend of my
mother, and my mother got her to take me in because I've been
sick, and she thought I'd get strong up here, and I'm not going
to have my summer spoiled by Angus Niel or any other old bogie
man. Stand back now while I cast."
He swung his rod over his head, and the fly fell with a flop in
the middle of the pool. He waited a breathless instant while
Jock, Sandy, and Jean watched the fly with him, and then, as
nothing happened, he cast again. When several such attempts
brought no result, he said, "You're sure they 're there?"
"They're lying at the bottom as soft as a baby in a cradle," said
Jean. "I could catch them with a skimmer! Gin they don't bite,
maybe I'll try it!"
Jock looked at Jean in amazement.
"You're a braw lassie, Jean Campbell," he said severely, "and you
just telling about Angus Niel!"
"T'was yourself and Sandy here telling about Angus Niel," Jean
answered. "I said nothing at all about him. I'm not afraid of
him, either."
"Good for you!" said the new boy with admiration. "You can have a
turn with my rod. Try it once before you get the skimmer!"
Jean sprang to her feet and took the rod, though she had never
had one like it in her hand before. She made a mighty sweep with
it as she had seen the new boy do, but somehow the fly flew off
in an unexpected direction and caught in a tree, while the line
wound itself in a hopeless snarl around the tip. Jock and Sandy,
who had stood by, green with envy, clapped their hands over their
mouths and danced with mirth.
"It looks easy," said poor Jean mournfully, "but maybe I'd best
stick to the skimmer when I fish."
"Oh, it always does that the first time," said the new boy
comfortingly, as he rescued the fly and straightened out the
line.
"When a girl tries to do it," added Jock witheringly.
The new boy held out the rod.
"You try it," he said to Jock, and Jock, full of confidence, did
not wait for a second invitation.
"Look here, Jean," he said. "This is the way you do it."
He swung the rod with a mighty flourish over his head, bud alas,
the fly surprised him too. It caught in Sandy's trousers and
surprised Sandy as well. Not only that, it scratched him.
"Ow!" howled Sandy, leaping about like a monkey on the end of the
string. "Leave go of me!"
There was a snarl even worse than Jean's, too, and between that
and Sandy's jumping about it was some time before the line was
disentangled and the hook freed so that Sandy was able to take
his turn. Jean, meanwhile, said nothing at all, for Jock looked
so crestfallen that she hadn't the heart. When Sandy tried it
things were still worse, for the fly flew about so wildly that
Jock and Jean fled before it and hid behind some bushes.
"Whoever could catch fish with such gewgaws as them anyway?" said
Sandy scornfully, when a second attempt brought no better result.
"The fish aren't used to it."
Jock rolled up his sleeves, crept to the side of the burn, and
looked over into the pool.
"Hold to me, Sandy," he said, and Sandy immediately sat down on
his legs. Then Jock suddenly plunged his arms into the water and
before the fish could whisk their tails he had caught one in his
hand and thrown it on the grass.
Springing to his feet and upsetting Sandy, he jumped to a rock in
the middle of the brook and caught two more. It was now the new
boy's turn to be astonished. Apparently Jock had stirred up a
whole school of trout, for Sandy, following Jock's lead, also
leaped into the stream, and in a few moments six fine trout were
flopping about the grass.
"Let's build a fire and cook them," urged the new boy, whose name
they soon learned was Alan McRae. "And if old Angus Niel comes
nosing around we'll offer him a bite! He can do nothing with four
of us, anyway, unless he shoots us, and he'd hang for that. Come
on!"
By this time they were all so thrilled with the sport and were
having such fun that nobody thought any more about Angus anyway,
so Jean ran for a pan, while Jock and Sandy cleaned the fish with
Alan's knife, and Alan gathered dry twigs and bracken for the
fire. Jean brought down some scones, which she split and spread
with butter while the fish were frying. When they were done to a
golden brown she put a hot fish on each piece of scone and handed
them out to the boys, and when they had eaten every scrap they
buried the fish-bones in case Angus should come that way.
After lunch Jean went to wring out the clothes and hang them on
the bushes to dry, while Jock and Sandy examined Alan's wonderful
book of flies and his reel, and even the creel in which he was to
have put the fish, if he had caught any.
"Losh, man!" exclaimed Sandy, swaggering about with his hands in
his pockets, "that's all very well. Aye, it's a good game, and
you might go dandering along a stream all day playing with it,
but if you really want fish, just go after 'em yourself! That's
my way. Guddling for trout like you saw me and Jock do, that's
the real sport!"
"I believe you," said Alan. "I'm going to try it myself. Come on.
Let's go farther up stream and see if we can find another good
fishing-hole. I told Eppie I'd bring her a fish to her tea, and
I'd hate to go back with nothing at all," and the three boys
disappeared in the woods.
Jean finished her work by the brook and went to the house to make
more scones, for the picnic had exhausted the supply and they
used no other bread. She bustled about the kitchen, mixing,
spreading them on the girdle over the fire, keeping the coals
bright, and turning them out nicely browned on the mixing-board.
She was just finishing the sixth one, when there was a great
thumping at the door, and she ran to see what was the matter.
There on the doorstep stood the three boys, Alan dripping wet
from head to heel, shivering with cold, and with mud and water
running from him in streams. Jean threw up her hands.
"It's most michty," she cried, "if I can't ever bake scones in
this kitchen without some man body coming in half drowned to mess
up my clean floor! However did you go and drop yourself in the
burn, Alan McRae? 'Deed and I wonder that your mother lets you go
out alone, you're that careless with yourself. And you not long
out of a sick bed, too."
"He was guddling for trout," shouted Jock and Sandy in one
breath; "and the hole was deep. There was no one sitting on him,
and syne over he went!"
Jean seized Alan by the shoulder and drew him into the kitchen,
and set him to drip on the hearth while she gave her orders.
"Jock, do you fill the basin with warm water, and you, Sandy, put
more peat on the fire. He must have a rinse with hot water and
something hot to drink."
"What'll he do for clothes?" cried Jock.
"Dinna fash yourself about clothes," said Jean, rummaging
furiously in the "kist." "I'm laying out Father's old kilts he
had when he was a boy. He can put them on till his own things are
dry. Here's a towel for you," she added, tossing one to Alan.
"Rub yourself down well, and when you've dressed, just give a
chap at the door, and I'll come in and get you a sup of tea."
Then she disappeared. You can imagine what the kitchen looked
like when she came back again. Alan's wet clothes were spread out
on her father's chair by the fire, and Alan, gorgeous in his
plaid kiltie, was strutting back and forth giving an imitation of
the bagpipes on his nose, with Jock and Sandy marching behind him
singing "Do ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay" at the top of
their lungs.
"Have you gone clean daft?" Jean shouted. "Sit down by the fire and
get out of my way while I mop up after you!"
The boys each seized one of the kitchen stools without stopping
the song and marched with it to the hearth, and when they came to
"Peel's view halloo would awaken the dead," they gave a howl that
nearly brought down the ham from the rafters as they banged them
down on the hearth-stones. Jean clapped her hands over her ears
and ran for the mop, and in no time at all the puddles had
disappeared and the boys were drinking tea by the fire.
Of course, Alan had no shoes to put on because his were soaking
wet, and as it was now late in the afternoon it began to be a
question how he should get back to the castle. It was still cold
for going barefoot, and he was not used to it besides, and his
clothes certainly would not be fit to put on for a long time.
They held a consultation. Alan thought he could go without shoes.
"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Jean firmly. "What sickness
was it you had, anyway?"
"Measles," said Alan, looking ashamed of it.
"Measles!" shouted Sandy. "That's naught but a baby disease. My
little sister had that. Sal, but I've had worse things the matter
with me! I've had the fever, and once I cut my toe with the axe!"
"Hold your tongue, Sandy," said Jean, "and dinna boast! If Alan's
had measles he can't go back to the castle barefoot; so you must
just be stepping yourself, and stop by at the castle to tell
Eppie McLean that Alan will bide here till his things are dry."
Sandy rose reluctantly and set down his empty mug.
"Well, then, if I must, I must," he said, and started off down the
hill whistling.
V. EVENING IN THE WEE BIT HOOSIE
When he was out of sight, Jean brought in the washing and then it
was time to get supper. Alan helped set the table and kept the
fire bright under the pot, while Jock fed the hens and brought in
the eggs; and when the Shepherd and Tam returned from the hills,
you can imagine how surprised they were to find three children
waiting for them instead of two. At supper the Shepherd had to be
told all the adventures of the day and how it happened that Alan
was wearing the kilts, and by the time it was over you would have
thought they had known each other all their lives. While Jean
cleared away the dishes, the Shepherd drew his chair to the fire
and beckoned Alan to him.
"Come here, laddie," he said, "and give us a look at your
plaidie. It's been lying there in the kist, and I've not seen a
sight of it since I was a lad. It's the Campbell plaid, ye ken,
and I mind once when I was a lad I was on my way home from the
kirk and a hare crossed my path. It's ill luck for a hare to
cross your path, and fine I proved it. I clean forgot it was the
Sabbath and louped the dyke after him. My kiltie caught on a
stone, and there I was hanging upside down. My father loosed me,
but my kiltie was torn and I had to go to bed without my supper
for breaking the Sabbath."
"Is the hole there yet?" asked Jean.
"Na, na;" said the Shepherd. "You didn't think your grandmother
was such a thriftless wifie as that! She mended the hole so that
you could never find where it had been."
He examined fold after fold carefully.
"There, now," he exclaimed at last, "if you want to see mending
that would make you proud to wear it, look at that."
Jean and Jock stuck their heads over his shoulder, and Alan
twisted himself nearly in two trying to see his own back.
"We have a plaid a good deal like this," said Alan, looking
closely at the pattern. "My mother's name was McGregor, but she
has relations named Campbell."
"Are you really a Scotch body, then?" cried Robin with new
interest in Alan. "I thought you were an English boy."
"I live in London," Alan answered, "but my mother's people are
all Scotch, and she loves Scotland. That's one reason why she
sent me up here to be with Eppie McLean."
"Losh, mannie," cried the Shepherd, "if you have Campbell
relatives and your mother's name was McGregor, it's likely you
are a descendant from old Rob Roy himself, and if so, we're all
kinsmen. Inversnaid, where Rob Roy's cave is, is but a few miles
from here, and it was in this very country that he hid himself
among rocks and caves, giving to the poor with his left hand what
he took from the rich with his right. Well, well, laddie, the
old clans are scattered now, but blood is thicker than water
still, and you're welcome to the fireside of your kinsman!"
"Is he really a relation?" cried Jean and Jock eagerly.
"Well," said the Scotchman cautiously, "I'm not saying he is
precisely, but I'm not saying he is not, either. The Campbells
and the McGregors have lived in these parts for better than two
hundred years, and it's not likely that Alan could lay claim to
both names and be no relation at all. If there were still clans,
as there used to be in the old days, we'd all belong to the same
one, and that I do not doubt."
"I'm sure I'd like that," said Alan, and Jock was so delighted
with his new relative that he stood on his head in the middle of
the floor to express his feelings. When the excitement had died
down a bit, Alan drew his stool up beside the Shepherd's knee and
said: "Won't you please tell us about Rob Roy, Cousin Campbell?
If he's an ancestor of mine, I ought to know more about him."
"Oh, do, Father," echoed the Twins, planting their stools beside
the other knee. Even Tam was interested. He sat on the hearth in
front of the Shepherd, looking up into his face as if he
understood every word.
The Shepherd gazed thoughtfully into the fire for a moment; then he
said: "I can tell you what my grandsire told me, and he got it from
his grandsire, so it must be true. In the beginning Rob Roy was as
staunch a man as any, and held his own property like other gentlemen.
Craig Royston was the name of his place, and fine and proud he was of
it, too. He was a gey shrewd man in the cattle-dealing, and his
neighbor, the Duke of Montrose, thinking to benefit his own estate,
lent Rob money to set him up in the trade. There was a pawky rascal
named McDonald who was partner to Rob, and didn't he run away with the
money, leaving Rob in debt to the Duke and nothing to pay him with?
The Duke foreclosed on Rob at once, and took away Craig Royston and
added it to his own estate. You can well believe that Rob was not the
man to take such dealings with patience. If the Duke had not been so
hasty, Rob would more than likely have got hold of McDonald and made
him pay either out of his purse or out of his skin, but he did neither
the one nor the other. Instead he left his home and took his clan with
him into the mountains and became the terror of the whole
country-side."
"Wasn't he a good man?" asked Jean, gazing at her father with
round eyes.
"Well," said the Shepherd, "not just what you'd call pious,
maybe, and it cannot be said that he was aye regular at the kirk.
It's true he never forgot an enemy, but he never forgot a
kindness either and was loyal and true to them that were true to
him."
"What did he do when they weren't true to him?" asked Jock.
"He made them wish they had been," replied the Shepherd mildly.
"But what made the Duke of Montrose take away Craig Royston?"
asked Jock. "Didn't he have a great big place of his own?"
"Aye," answered Robin, "but what difference does that make? The
more land he had, the more land he wanted, the same as other
lairds. Be that as it may, Craig Royston was certainly taken away
from Rob, and a bitter man it made of him."
"Why, it's just like ourselves and the Auld Laird," cried Jean.
"He's going to take away our home from us!"
"It's not just the same, little woman," said the Shepherd, laying
his big brown hand on Jean's small one on his knee. "But the loss
of it hurts just the same. Rob Roy loved Craig Royston no better
than we love this wee bit hoosie."
"But why must you go, then?" asked Alan, his eyes shining with
interest and sympathy.
"You see; lad," answered the Shepherd, "it's like the tale of the
dog in the manger. The Auld Laird will neither use the land nor
let us." He explained about the lease, and when he had finished,
Alan said, "But what will you do when you leave this place?"
"I'm spiering the same question myself," answered the Shepherd.
"As yet I dinna ken."
"I tell you what," shouted Jock, springing to his feet and
knocking over his stool. "Why don't we live in the caves the way
Rob Roy did? If the Crumpets and all the people who have to give
up their homes should band together in a clan and hide themselves
in the glen, the Auld Laird could send all the Mr. Craigies and
Angus Niels in the world after us and they'd never get us!"
The Shepherd smiled and shook his head. "The time for that has
gone by," he said sadly. "Na, na, we must just submit. But one
thing I do know, and that is, we'll not seek a place with the
Laird of Kinross. They say he will let his land to none but
members of the Established Church, and I'll not give up my
religion for any man not if I'm forever walking the world!"
"But come, now," he went on, seeing them downcast, "you all have
faces on you as long as a summer Sabbath. Cheer up, and I'll tell
you a tale my grandfather told me of the water cow of Loch Leven.
You mind the song says, 'The Campbells are coming from bonnie
Loch Leven.' Well, it was around that loch that the Campbells
pastured their cattle. One day when my grandsire was a young lad
he was playing with some other children on the pastures near the
shore, when all of a sudden what should they see among their own
cows but a fine young dun-colored heifer without any horns. She
was lying by herself on the green grass, chewing her cud and
looking so gentle and pretty that the children played around her
without fear. They wound a wreath of daisies and put it on her
neck, and then they got on her back. The cow stretched out longer
and longer to make room for them until they were all on her back
except my grandsire. Then all of a sudden the dun cow rose up,
first on her hind legs, tipping the children all forward, and
then on her forelegs tipping them all back ward, yet no one fell
off at all, and when she was up on her feet, didn't she start
straight away for the deep waters of the loch? The children
screamed and tried to get off her back, but no matter how hard
they tried, there they stuck. My grandsire ran screaming toward
them, and put up his hand to pull them down, and his finger
touched the dun cow's back! Now never believe me, if his finger
didn't stick so he could not pull it away, and by that he knew
the dun heifer for a water cow and that she had bewitched the
children. He was being dragged along with them toward the water,
when all of a sudden he slipped out his knife and with one blow
chopped off his own finger and he was wanting that finger till
the day of his death."
"What became of the others?" gasped Alan, his black eyes glowing
like coals.
"They went on the dun cow's back into the lake, and the water
closed over them and they were never seen again," said the
Shepherd, "and that's the end of the tale."
While the Shepherd talked, the twilight had deepened into
darkness, the fire had died down, and the corners of the room
were filled with mysterious tricky shadows that danced with the
flickering flames on the hearth. Jean looked fearfully over her
shoulder. There was a creepy feeling in the back of her neck, and
Jock's eyes were as round as door-knobs. The Shepherd laughed at
them.
"Good children have little to fear from the fairy folk," he said.
"Come, now, your eyes are fair sticking out of your heads. I'll
give you a skirl on the bagpipes if Jeanie'll bring them from the
closet. Jock, stir up the fire, and Alan, give your clothes a
turn and see if they are drying."
The children ran to do these errands, and in a moment the fire
was flaming gayly up the chimney, chasing the murky shadows out
of the corners and making the room bright and cheerful again,
while the Shepherd, tucking the bag under his arm, stirred the
echoes on old Ben Vane with the wild strains of "Bonnie Doon" and
"Over the Water to Charlie." At last he struck up the music of
the Highland Fling, and the three children sprang to the middle
of the floor and danced the wild Scotch dance together.
Just as the fun was at its height, and Alan, looking very
handsome in his kilts, was doing the heel and toe with great
energy, there came a loud rap at the door. Instantly everything
stopped, just as short as Cinderella's ball did when the clock
struck twelve, and the Shepherd, laying aside his bagpipes,
opened the door. There stood a man with a bundle on his arm.
"Eppie McLean sent these clothes to the lad," he said, handing
the bundle to the Shepherd, "and he's to come back along with
me." Alan took the bundle, thanked the man, and disappeared with
Jock into "the room," where he changed his clothes, returning the
kilts, with regret, to Jock. "I've had just a grand day," he said
to Jean and the Shepherd as he shook hands and took leave of them
in the kitchen afterward. "I'll be back to-morrow for my
clothes."
"Come back and play then," said Jock.
When he was gone, Jean folded the kilts away in the closet again.
"He's a fine braw laddie," said the Shepherd.
"Aye," said Jock. "He had two suits of clothes, one as good as
the other, but he was not proud."
"I wonder what his father's work is," said Jean.
"He never spoke of his father at all, just his mother," said
Jock, and at that moment the wag-at-the-wall clock struck nine.
"Havers!" said Jean. "Look at the hour, Jock Campbell! Get you to
your bed."
VI. TWO DISCOVERIES
That night Jock dreamed of water cows, and clans dressed in
kilts, and when Sandy appeared the next morning, his head was
still buzzing with wild schemes of adventure.
"Come awa', Sandy," he said, "let's explore. We'll go up the burn
and see if we can't find out where it begins."
"What'll we do for lunch?" asked Sandy, who was practical. "I
brought a scone with me--but it'll never be enough for two."
"Ho!" said Jock. "If Rob Roy and all his men could live in caves
all the time and take care of themselves, I guess we can do it
for one day. We can fish, and maybe we might find some birds'
eggs. I'm not afraid."
"What about Alan?" asked Jean.
"If he comes to play, tell him to follow us right up the burn and
keep whistling the pewit's call three times over, and if we don't
see him, we'll hear him," said Jock. "There's no danger of not
finding us if he follows the water," and he and Sandy set forth
at once.
Jean had finished her work and was wondering what to do with the
long day which stretched before her, when Alan came running up
the hill and burst into the kitchen.
"Look here what I've got, Jean," he said, thumping a parcel down
on the kitchen table and tearing it open. "Eppie put this up for
me."
Jean looked and there was a whole pound of bacon, three big
scones, and a dozen eggs. "Save us!" cried Jean, clasping her
hands in admiration. "What will you do with it all?"
"I'll show you!" said Alan. "Where's Jock?"
"He and Sandy have gone up the burn, exploring," said Jean. "They
said you were to follow, and if you didn't find them, keep
whistling the pewit's call three times till they answered you."
"What is the pewit's call?" asked Alan.
"Michty me!" said Jean. "Think of not knowing that!" She pursed
up her lips and whistled "Pee-wit, pee-wit, pee-wit."
"You see, we don't have them in London;" Alan apologetically
explained, "unless it's in the Zoo; but I say, Jean, aren't you
coming, too? You're as good as a boy any day. Come along!"
"All right," said Jean. "I wanted to dreadfully. I'll get a
basket for the lunch." She went to the closet and brought out a
basket which her father had made out of split willow twigs,
packed the lunch in it, and off they started.
They passed the place where the fish-bones were buried, and the
spot where Alan had fallen into the water the day before, and
then plunged into the deep pine forest which filled the glen and
covered the mountain-sides. The pine-needles lay thick on the
ground, and above them the pine boughs waved in the breeze,
making a soft sighing sound, "like a giant breathing," Jean said.
The silence deepened as they went farther and farther into the
woods. There was only the purring of the water, the occasional
snapping of a twig, or the lonely cry of a bird to break the
stillness. It was dark, too, except where the sunshine, breaking
through the thick branches overhead, made spots of golden light
upon the pine-needles.
"It's almost solemn; isn't it?" said Jean to Alan in a hushed
voice. "I was never so far in the woods before."
"I wonder which side of the burn the boys went. If we should
take the wrong side, we might not find them," said Alan.
"Let's whistle," said Jean. She puckered her lips and gave the
pewit call, but there was no answer.
"Perhaps they didn't hear it because the burn makes such a noise.
It keeps growing louder and louder," said Alan.
Whistling and listening for an answer at every few steps, they
climbed over rocks and fallen trees, keeping as close as possible
to the stream, until suddenly they found themselves gazing up at
a beautiful waterfall which came gushing from a pile of giant
rocks reaching up among the topmost boughs of the pines.
"Oh, it's bonny! but how shall we get up?" cried Jean.
"We must just find a way," said Alan.
"It's a grand place for robbers and
poachers," said Jean, looking fearsomely at the cliffs stretching
far above them. "Angus Niel says the forests are full of them."
"I'd as soon meet a poacher as Angus Niel himself," said Alan,
laughing, "but I'm not afraid as long as you're with me. It's
Angus that's afraid of you, Jock says."
Jean laughed too. "I'm not afraid when I'm in my own kitchen, but
it's different in the woods," she said.
Alan had been nosing around among the rocks as they talked,
getting nearer and nearer to the fall, and now he suddenly
disappeared, and for a few moments Jean was quite alone in the
woods. Soon Alan reappeared from behind the fall itself and
beckoned her to follow him.
Jean was looking at the wall of rock which loomed above them.
"Sal!" she remarked, "we'll be needing wings to get up there, or
we'll smash all the eggs for sure."
For answer Alan popped out of sight again behind the fall, and
Jean, following closely in his wake, was just in time to catch
sight of his legs as he dived into a hole opening into the rocky
wall. The cliff from which the water plunged overhung the rocks
below in such a way that she could pass behind the veil of water
without getting wet at all.
Into this mysterious opening behind the fall Jean followed her
leader, and found herself climbing a narrow dry channel through
which the stream had once forced its way. It was a hard, rough
scramble up a narrow passage worn by the water and through holes
almost too small to squeeze through, but at last she saw Alan's
heels just disappearing over the edge of a jutting rock and knew
they were coming out into daylight again. An instant later Alan's
head appeared in the opening, his hand reached down to help her
up, and with one last effort she came out upon an open ledge and
looked about her.
She could not help an exclamation of delight at what she saw. The
rock was so high that they could look out over the treetops clear
to the slope where the little gray house stood. The waterfall,
plunging from a still higher level, made a barrier on one side of
them, and on the other side the cliff rose, a sheer wall of rock.
Between the wall of water and the wall of rock there was a cave
extending into the solid rock for a distance of about twenty
feet. There was absolutely no way of reaching this fastness
except through the hidden stair, and one might wander for years
through the forest and never see it at all.
"Oh," exclaimed Jean, "it's wonderful! How Jock will love this
place! Don't you believe this very cave was used by Rob Roy and
his men?" and Alan, swelling with pride to think he had found it
all himself, said yes, he was sure of it.
"I tell you what we'll do," cried Alan, a minute later. "We'll
just leave the basket here in the cave, and when we've found the
boys we'll come back and have our lunch here."
They tucked the basket away out of sight on a rocky shelf in the
cave, and found their way down the steep rough stairway to the
bed of the stream again and, making a wide detour, came out above
the fall. They struggled on for nearly a mile farther still
without finding any trace of the boys, and were beginning to be
discouraged, when they saw a break in the trees with glimpses of
blue sky beyond, and a few moments later came out upon the shores
of a tiny mountain lake, shining like a beautiful blue jewel in
the dark setting of the pine trees on its banks.
Beyond the lake the purple peaks of higher mountains made a
ragged outline against the sky. The sun was now almost directly
overhead; the waters of the lake were still, and its lovely
shores were mirrored on the placid surface. A great eagle soared
in stately circles in the deep blue sky. It was so beautiful and
so still that the children stood a moment among the rocks where
the tarn emptied itself into the mountain stream to look at it.
"It's just the place for a water cow, or a horse maybe," Jean
whispered to Alan.
"Sh!" was Alan's only reply. He seized Jean's hand and dragged hear
down behind a rock and pointed toward the south. There, coming out of
the woods, was a beautiful stag. It poised its noble head, and sniffed
the air, as if it suspected there might be human beings about, and
then stepped daintily to the lake-shore and bent to drink. Its lips
had scarcely touched the water when the children were startled by the
loud report of a gun.
"Poachers," gasped Jean, hiding her face and wishing they had
never come. "Oh, where are Jock and Sandy?" Her only thought was
to make herself as small as possible and keep out of sight behind
the rocks, but Alan peered through the screen of bushes which hid
the rock and made violent gestures to Jean to make her look, too.
Jean crawled on her hands and knees to Alan's side, and when she
looked, what she saw made her so angry that she would have sprung
to her feet if Alan had not held her down with a fierce grip. The
stag was lying by the lake-shore, and a man with the muzzle of
his gun still smoking was running toward it from the woods. The
man was Angus Niel!
Jean was so astonished that for an instant she could not believe
her own eyes. The two children flattened themselves out on their
stomachs and watched him pull a boat from its hiding-place among
some bushes on the shore, paddle quietly to the spot where the
dead stag lay, and load it swiftly into the boat. Then he raced
back to the woods again and reappeared, carrying a string of dead
rabbits. These also he crowded into the boat, and then, taking up
the oars, rowed across the lake to a landing-place on the other
side. The children watched him, scarcely breathing in their
excitement, until he had unloaded his game from the boat and
disappeared into the woods, dragging the body of the stag after
him. In a few moments he came back for the rabbits and, having
disposed of them in the same mysterious way, returned to the
boat.
Then Jean exploded in a fierce whisper. "The old thief!" she
said, shaking her fist after him. "He's the poacher himself!
That's why he never brings any one before the bailie, though he's
always telling about catching them at it! And he making such a
fuss because Jock chased the rabbit that was eating up our
garden! Oh, oh, oh!"
She clutched Alan and shook him in her boiling indignation. Alan
laughed and shook her back. "I didn't do it, you little
spitfire!" he whispered, and Jean moaned, "Oh, I know it, Alan,
but I can't catch him and I'm so angry I've just got to do
something to somebody."
"Do you know what that old thief does?" said Alan. "He sends
that game down to the city--to Glasgow, or Edinburgh, or even
London, maybe--and gets a lot of money for it! No wonder he tells
big stories to make people afraid to go into the woods."
"I hope he won't meet the boys," moaned Jean. "Jock would be sure
to let his tongue loose, and then maybe he'd shoot him too!"
"Listen," said Alan. He gave the pewit's call and waited. It was
answered from a point so near that they were startled. They
looked in every direction but saw nothing of the boys.
"Maybe it was a real pewit after all," whispered Jean, but just
then a tiny pebble struck Alan's cap, and, looking around in the
direction from which it came, he saw two freckled faces rise up
from behind the rock on the opposite side of the spring.
"There they are," he said, punching Jean and pointing; "they came
up the other side of the burn." Then, making a cup of his hands,
he called across the stream, "Did you see him?" The boys nodded.
"Slip back as fast as you can down that side of the burn," Alan
said, "and we'll meet at the fall. Wait at the foot if you get
there first. We've got something to show you. Whist, and be
quick, for he'll be coming back before long, and this way like as
not."
Jock and Sandy nodded and disappeared, and Alan and Jean,
springing from their hiding-place, hurried as fast as they could
down their side of the stream to the trysting-place.
VII. THE CLAN
When Jean and Alan reached the waterfall, they found Jock and Sandy
there before them. "Come over to our side," Alan called. The two boys
ran further down stream and crossed the brook on stones which stood
out of the water, and in a moment more were back again at the foot of
the fall.
"What have you got to show us?" demanded Jock. "I hope it's
something to eat." Jock had bitterly regretted his morning
decision to find his food in the forest. The scone which Sandy
had brought from home had been divided and eaten long ago; and
all four of the children were now so hungry that they could think
of nothing else, not even of Angus Niel and their adventures by
the lake.
Alan looked cautiously around in every direction. "Follow me, and
keep quiet tongues in your heads," he said. Then he disappeared
under the fall, and Jean instantly followed him. For a moment
Jock and Sandy were as mystified as Jean had been when Alan first
found the secret stairway, but it was not long before they, too,
saw the hole in the rock, plunged in and, following the winding
passage-way, came out upon the top of the rock.
"There," said Alan, beaming with pride, as he displayed his
wonderful lair, "doesn't this beat Robinson Crusoe all to pieces?
If he had found a place like this on his desert island, he
wouldn't have had to build a stockade or anything."
"It's one of the very caves where Rob Roy hid! I'm sure of it,"
Jock declared with conviction, and Sandy was so overcome with
admiration that he turned a back somersault and almost upset
Jean, who was coming out of the cave with the basket on her arm.
"You see," said Alan, "we could stay here a week if we had food
enough, and never come down at all. All we'd have to do for water
would be to hold a pan under the edge of the fall. There's no way
of getting up here except by the secret stair, and that's not
easy to find. There never was such a place for fun."
Sandy had righted himself by this time and was gazing
ecstatically at the basket, which Jean had begun to unpack.
"Losh!" he cried. "Look, Jock! Bacon and eggs and scones! Oh, my
word!" Jock gave one look and whooped for joy.
"Keep still," said Alan. "Angus may be coming back this way, and
he has a gun with him. We're safe enough up here, if we keep
quiet, but if you go howling around like that, he'll surely hunt
for the noise."
For a moment they kept quiet and listened, but there was no sound
except the noise of the falling waters. "Huh!" Sandy snorted, "he
couldn't hear anything, anyway. The roar of the fall hides all
the other noises."
"Oh, let's eat!" begged Jock, caressing his empty stomach and
gazing longingly at the food.
"You can't eat now," said Jean; "the food must be cooked first,
and what shall we do for a fire?"
"We could make one right here on the rock," said Alan, "if we had
something to burn. I've got matches."
"We'll have to get twigs and dry pine-needles and broken
branches," said Jock, "and bring them up the secret stair, though
it'll be hard work getting them through the narrow places. We
ought to have a rope. We could pull a basketful up over the edge
of the rock as easy as nothing."
"We'll bring a rope next time," said Alan. "Hurry! I'm starving!"
The three boys disappeared down the secret stair, and while they
were gone, Jean found loose stones, with which she made a support
for the frying-pan around a space for the fire. The boys were
soon back with plenty of small fuel, and in a short time a bright
fire was blazing on the rock and there was a wonderful smell of
frying bacon in the air. The boys sat cross-legged around the
fire, while Jean turned the bacon and broke the eggs into the
sputtering fat.
"You look just exactly like Tam watching the rabbit-hole,"
laughed Jean. "I wonder you don't paw the ground and bark!"
At last the scones were handed out, each one laden with a slice
of bacon and a fried egg, and there was blissful silence for some
moments.
"Oh, aren't you glad you didn't die of the measles and miss
this?" Sandy said to Alan, rolling over on his back and waving
his legs in the air as he finished his third egg. Alan's mouth
was too full for a reply other than a cordial grunt.
"Why, Sandy Crumpet!" exclaimed Jean, reprovingly, "don't you
believe heaven is nicer than Scotland?"
"Maybe it is," Sandy admitted, doubtfully, "but I like this
better than sitting around playing on harps and trumpets the way
the angels do."
"Sandy Crumpet played the trumpet," howled Jock in derision.
"Indeed and indeed, Sandy, I like this better than having to hear
you." Then, before Sandy could think of an answer a memory of the
catechism crossed his mind, and he added as afterthought, "How do
you ken you're one of the elect, anyway, Sandy Crumpet? If you're
not, you'd not be playing on any trumpets, or harps either, but
like as not frying in the hot place like that bacon there."
Sandy rushed to the defense of his character. "I'm just as elect
as you are, Jock Campbell," he said.
This time Jock had no answer ready, and Jean reproved them both.
"Shame on you!" she said. "You'll neither one of you get so much
as a taste of heaven, I doubt, and you talking like that."
"Where will Angus Niel be going, then, when he dies?" asked Jock.
"I don't just mind whether there's a chance for thieves, but the
Bible says drunkards and such-like stand no chance at all."
"It's not for us to judge," said Jean primly, "but I have my
opinion."
Alan had been busily eating during this conversation, and now he
joined in. "I say," he began, "I'm not worrying about what will
become of Angus Niel after he's dead. I want to know what's going
to be done with him right now. We're the only ones that know
about this. Are we just going to keep whist, or shall we tell on
him?"
"Let's tell on him!" shouted Sandy.
"Who'll you be telling?" said Jean with some scorn.
"Why, the bailie, maybe, or the Auld Laird himself," said Sandy.
"Havers!" said Jean. "You're a braw lad to go hobnobbing with
the bailie. He'll not believe you, anyway; he's a friend of Angus
himself, and, as for the Auld Laird, how would you get hold of
him at all, and he far away in London?"
Sandy subsided, crushed, and then Jock had a bright idea. "I tell
you what we'll do," he cried, springing to his feet. "Let's have
a clan, like Rob Roy, and we'll just badger the life out of Angus
Niel. We'll never let him know who we are, but keep kim forever
stepping and give him no rest. If he thinks somebody's following
him up all the time, he'll not sleep easy o' nights!"
This suggestion was greeted with riotous applause. "He'd not
sleep easy if he knew Jean was after him, I'll go bail," laughed
Alan.
"Hooray!" shouted Sandy, waving his legs frantically. "What shall
we call it?"
"Let's call it the Rob Roy Clan," said Alan.
"Hooray!" roared Sandy again.
"If we're a Clan, we'll have to have a chief," said Jean, "and if
the Chief bids us do anything, we'll just have to do it. That's
the way it was in the real Rob Roy Clan. Father said so."
"Jock thought of it first. Let him be Chief," said Alan.
"No!" cried Jean promptly. "Are you thinking I'll put my head in
a bag like that, and he my own brother? 'Deed, I'd never get a
lick of work out of him on Saturday if I did! Na, na, lads!
Whoever's Chief, it won't be Jock."
"Maybe you'd like to be the Chief yourself," retorted Jock, "but
it's enough to be bossed by you at home! Besides, whoever heard
of a girl being Chief, anyway?"
"Alan can be Chief," said Jean, and so the matter was settled.
"If I'm Chief," said Alan, "you'll all have to swear an oath of
fealty to me."
"What's an oath of fealty?" Jock demanded suspiciously, and Jean
added in a shocked voice, "Alan, you'd never be asking us to take
the name of the Lord in vain!"
"It's not that kind of an oath," laughed Alan. "You just have to
vow to obey the Chief in everything." Then an idea popped into
his head. "In a real Clan they are all kinsmen, but here's Sandy,
and he's neither Campbell nor McGregor. We'll have to make a
blood brother of him before he can join."
"What's a blood brother? How do you make 'em?" asked Sandy.
"I'll show you," said Alan. He drew his knife from his pocket and
while the other three watched him in breathless admiration, he
made a little cut in his wrist and immediately passed the knife
to Jock. "You do the same," he commanded.
Jock obeyed his Chief and passed the knife to Jean, who promptly
followed his example.
"Now, Sandy," said Alan.
Sandy hated the sight of blood, and he was a little pale under
his freckles as he shut his eyes and jabbed himself gingerly with
the point. Then Alan took a drop of blood from each wrist and
mingled them with a drop from Sandy's.
"Now, Sandy," he said, as he stirred the compound into a gory
paste, "you repeat after me, 'My foot is on my native heath, my
name it is McGregor.'" Sandy obeyed with solemnity, and, this
important ceremony over, Alan pronounced him a member of the Clan
in good and regular standing.
Then, by the Chief's orders, Jean, Jock, and Sandy, each in turn
placed their hands under Alan's hand, while they promised to obey
him without question in all matters pertaining to the Clan.
"Only," said Jean, "you mustn't tell us to do anything wrong."
"I won't," promised Alan. And so the Rob Roy Clan came into
being.
Alan took command at once. "We must have a sign," he said. "Just
like Clan Alpine in 'The Lady of the Lake.' Go, my henchmen," he
cried, striking a noble attitude, and waving his hand toward the
forest, "bring hither sprays of the Evergreen Pine, and we'll
stick 'em in our bonnets just like Roderick Dhu and his men.
Roderick Vich Alpine Dhu, ho! iero!"
The two boys instantly disappeared down the hole in the rock on
this errand, leaving Jean and Alan to guard the cave.
VIII. THE POACHERS
While all these things were happening, Angus Niel had returned
from his errand across the little lake, and was making his way
slowly toward home, following the course of the stream. As he
came near the fall he stopped and sniffed. There was certainly a
most appetizing smell of bacon in the air!
"It can't be!" he said aloud to himself. He sniffed again, and
his face turned purple with rage. "Meat," he snorted, "as I live!
The bold rascals! Poaching in broad daylight and cooking their
game right under my nose!" It wasn't under his nose at all, of
course, for the rock was far above him, and it wasn't game
either.
"I'll soon cure them of that trick," he muttered, as he climbed
silently over the rocks and gazed searchingly about. It was not
long before he caught sight of a thin curl of blue smoke rising
from the top of the rock.
"Aha!" he growled under his breath, "I've got you now, my bold
gentlemen! I'll teach you to flaunt your thefts in the face of
the Laird's own gamekeeper, once I get my hands on you!" At once
he began nosing about the rocks in search of the path by which
the poachers had climbed the cliff.
Meanwhile Sandy and Jock had found the sprays of the Evergreen
Pine and were on their way back to the cave with them, when Jock
suddenly seized Sandy by the arm and ducked down behind a
boulder. There, not a hundred feet away, stood Angus Niel gazing
up at the top of the rock! His back was toward them, and the
noise of the waterfall had drowned out the sound of voices, or
they surely would not have escaped his notice. As it was, they
slipped behind the fall, whisked into the hole, and began
climbing the secret stair like two frightened squirrels. An
instant later they startled Alan and Jean, who were in the cave,
by dashing in after them on all fours.
"What on earth is the matter?" cried Jean.
"Matter, indeed!" gasped Jock, out of breath. "Angus Niel is down
there, and he's seen the smoke! He almost saw us, but we just
gave him the slip and got by."
"Keep out of sight, all of you," commanded the Chief, "and leave
him to me."
The obedient Clan flattened themselves against the back of the
cave, while Alan crept to the edge of the rock on his stomach
like a lizard, and, lying there, was able to peep through the
thick screen of leaves and see what was going on below. The
gamekeeper was still scrambling over the rocks and looking, as
Alan said afterward, "for all the world like a dog who had lost
the trail and was trying to find it again."
As the lookout was well screened, Alan soon allowed the rest of
the Clan to join him, and Angus Niel little guessed, as he
prowled about over the rocks, that every move was watched from
above. Despairing of finding the path, he decided at last to get
up a tree and make an observation. He selected a large pine which
grew near the cave and began to climb.
So long as he stood on the ground, the children knew it was
impossible for Angus to see them, but when he began to climb,
they scuttled back into the cave as fast as they could go.
Climbing is hard work for a fat man, and the gamekeeper found
himself covered with pitch before he had gone more than halfway
up, but he puffed on in spite of difficulties and at last reached
a point from which he could look directly across the surface of
the rock, but from which the cave was entirely hidden behind a
projection in the wall of the cliff.
Angus saw what he supposed to be the whole shelf of the rock, and
he saw that there was no one there. He could see the fire and the
frying-pan, the egg shells lying about, and even the portion of
bacon that Jean had not cooked. They were all in full view, but
apparently the poachers had gone away into the woods, leaving
their airy camp deserted. There was no one there; of that he
felt, certain.
"I'll just give'em a surprise," thought the gamekeeper to
himself. "If they found a way up, I can, too. I'll help myself to
a snack of that bacon, and if they come back and find me--well, I
have my gun with me and I don't like being interrupted at my
meals."
He backed down the tree like a fat cat, and made a desperate
search for the path, and this time he actually succeeded in
finding it. He chuckled to himself as he plunged into the passage
and began to climb. He had gone about a third of the way up, when
he reached the narrowest point of the channel and tried to force
himself through, but the space was so small that no matter how
much he tried, he could not get by. His gun was in his way too,
but he could not leave it below, as that would be putting it into
the hands of the poachers if they should return too soon.
In vain he twisted and squirmed, he could get no farther, and
moreover he was afraid the gun might go off by accident in his
struggles. When he found that he could not possibly go up, he
decided to go down; but he found, to his horror, that he couldn't
do that either. There he stuck, and an angrier man than Angus
Niel it would have been hard to find. A projecting rock punched
him in the stomach, and when he pressed back against the rock
behind him, to free himself, he scraped the skin off his back.
Casting prudence to the winds, he howled with pain and rage, and
the sound, carried up through the narrow passage, echoed in the
cave like the roar of a lion.
The children, meanwhile, had kept in hiding, and when they heard
these blood-curdling sounds, they at first did not know what
caused them, because, of course, they could not see what was
happening below, but they knew very soon that they were not made
by a wild animal because wild animals do not swear.
"It's Angus, stuck in the secret stairway," Alan said, smothering
his laughter. "He's too fat to get through!" He crept to the edge
and peeped down the hole. There, far below, he could see the top
of Angus's head and the muzzle of his gun.
The Chief was a boy of great presence of mind. He backed hastily
away from the hole and ran to the fall, snatching up the pan as
he passed. This he filled with water and, rushing back, he
instantly sent a small deluge down upon the head of the hapless
Angus.
The gamekeeper was dumbfounded by this new attack. Had he not
with his own eyes seen that the rocky shelf was empty? How, then,
could this thing be? He rolled his eyes upward, but there was no
one in sight. He had heard all his life tales of witches and
water cows, of spells cast upon people by fairies, of their being
borne away by them into mountain caverns and held as prisoners
for years and years; and he made up his mind that such a fate had
now befallen him.
Firmly convinced that he was the victim of enchantment, he became
palsied with terror, arid began to plead with the unseen
tormentors who he believed held him in thrall. "Only leave me
loose, dear good little people," he howled, "and I'll never,
never trouble you more!"
At this point Alan, shaking with mirth, sent down another panful
of water, and Angus, redoubling his efforts, wrenched himself
free, scraping off quantities of skin as he did so. They could
hear him scuttling down the secret stair as fast as his legs
would carry him, and when he emerged below, they watched him
hurry away through the forest, casting fearful glances over his
shoulder as he ran. Alan made a hollow of his two hands and sent
after him a wild note, like the wailing of a banshee.
"Angus Niel, Angus Niel," rose the piercing note, "bring back my
beautiful stag, my stag that lived by the tarn!"
As the sound reached his ears, Angus redoubled his speed, and
they could hear him crashing through the underbrush as if the
devil himself were really at his heels.
When the sounds died away in the distance, the Rob Roy Clan
rolled on the floor of the cave with laughter.
"There!" said Alan, as he sat up and wiped his eyes. "That'll fix
Angus Niel! We've scared him out of a year's growth, and he'll
never dare meddle with this place again. Come on, now. It's time
to go home, but to-morrow we'll come back and fix this place up
in a way that would make Robinson Crusoe green with envy."
They carefully put water on the ashes of their fire, stuck the
sprigs of Evergreen Pine in their bonnets, and sped down the
secret stairway and home.
IX. A RAINY DAY
The next morning, as she was finishing the beds, Jean heard the
pewit call and at once knew that the Clan was abroad. She ran to
the door, and the three boys came in together,--Jock from the
garden, where he had been pulling weeds in the potato-patch, and
Sandy and Alan from the road. They were carrying a large basket,
and Sandy was laden down with a coil of rope in addition.
"What have you got there?" demanded Jean.
"Stores for the Cave," said Alan, "and a rope to let down from
the rock. Come on; let's go as soon as we can, for it looks like
rain and we've got a lot to do to get the cave ready for wet
weather."
"Where did you get 'em?" asked Jock, eyeing the basket with
interest and wondering what was inside.
"Oh," said Alan, "I just asked Eppie. She lets me have anything I
want. My mother told her to stuff me while I'm here, and if I
take the food off to the woods with me she doesn't have to cook
it at home, so she's suited, and I am, too."
Jean hastily gathered together a few cooking utensils, and a few
minutes later the four set forth, carrying the provisions and wearing
proudly in their bonnets the sprig of pine, the insignia of the Clan.
The sky was downcast and the woods seemed dark and gloomy as they
made their way toward the waterfall.
"What'll we do if it rains?" cried Sandy. "It's no such fine
thing just sitting still in a cave."
"I've a plan in my head," said the Chief. "Wait and see."
As they reached the fall, Alan sent Sandy and Jock to gather
wood, while Jean guarded the basket at the foot of the rock and
he himself darted up the secret stairway with the rope. From the
top he let down the rope and Jean fastened it through the handles
of the basket. Alan then drew it up, emptied the contents, and
sent back the basket for the wood which Sandy and Jock had by
that time collected.
They all worked as swiftly as possible, for the woods were
growing darker and darker every minute and they could now hear
the roll of thunder above the noise of the waterfall. They had
gathered and sent up six basketfuls, when the rain came splashing
down in earnest, and the Clan scrambled up the secret stair and
into the cave for shelter. Alan had piled the wood in the cave as
fast as he had pulled it up, and there was now a fine pile of dry
fuel.
"Sandy, you build the fire," commanded the Chief, seating himself
on the wood-pile.
"The rain will put it out," said Sandy.
"Make it in the cave," said Alan.
"Then the smoke will put us out," cried Jean.
"Try it and see," said Alan. "We can't have lunch without a fire,
for I've brought mealy puddings."
"Mealy puddings!" cried Sandy, licking his lips, and he went to
work with a will. Fortunately the wind blew from the east, so
they were not absolutely choked by the smoke, and soon the fire
was burning briskly; making a spot of flaming color against the
dark background of the cave. Jock ran to the fall and filled the
pan with water, and soon the mealy puddings were bobbing merrily
about in the boiling water, while the boys, snug and safe in the
shelter of the cave, watched the boughs of the pine trees swaying
in the wind and waited for Jean to tell them that dinner was
ready. She could cook but one thing at a time over the fire, but
it was not long before the feast was spread, and they fell to
with appetites that caused the food to disappear like dew before
the morning sun.
"Losh!" said Sandy, rolling over with his feet to the fire, when
he could eat no more, "I thought you said you had a rainy day
plan, Chief."
"So I have," said Alan, drawing a little book from his pocket.
"I'm going to read to you."
Sandy glanced at the book. "Not poetry, Chief!" he said with
alarm. "Surely you don't mean that!"
"It isn't just poetry," said Alan. "It's a story about Roderick
Dhu and Clan Alpine, and hunting deer in these very mountains.
You'll like it, I know."
Sandy groaned and laid his head on his arm. "Go ahead," he said
with resignation. "You're the Chief and I can't help myself."
"I'll be washing up the dishes while you read," said Jean.
"Blaze away," said Jock, who loved books as much as he disliked
work.
"It's 'The Lady of the Lake,'" Alan began.
"Oh!" snorted Sandy, to whom Walter Scott was scarcely more than
a name, "I thought it was about fighting and robbers, and things
like that, and here it's about a lady! and it's about love too, I
doubt! I wonder at you, Alan McRae!"
Alan made no reply but began to read. When he reached a line
about "Beauty's matchless eye," Sandy snored insultingly and was
promptly kicked by Jock. But when Alan reached the lines
"The stag at eve had drunk his fill
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,"
Sandy sat up and began to think the despised poem might amount to
something after all. Jean had finished the dishes by this time
and sat cross-legged with her chin in her hand, staring into the
fire, as Alan read how the splendid stag pursued by hunters,
"Like crested leader proud and high
Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,"
Then she cried out, "Michty me! It's just exactly like the stag
we saw Angus Niel shoot by the tarn; isn't it, now, Alan?"
"And Benvoirlich is the very mountain we can see far away to the
south from our house," interrupted Jock, when Alan reached that
part of the poem.
"Did the hunters get the stag?" demanded Sandy, and "Go on with
the tale," shouted all three. Alan read on and on by the
flickering light of the fire, and so absorbed were they all in
the story of the region they knew and loved so dearly that a
shaft of sunlight from the west shot across the cave, lighting up
the gloomy corners, before they realized that the day was far
gone and the rain had stopped.
"It's time to go home," said Jean. "The sun is low in the west,
and Father and Tam will be coming back wet and hungry from the
hills, and no broth hot."
They packed the remainder of their supper carefully away in the
basket and left it in the corner of the cave behind the wood-pile,
put out every spark of the fire, and picked their way carefully
down the wet chasm to the ground.
"Hark," said Jock, as they started home. Faraway in the distance
there was the frantic barking of a dog. They stopped and
listened.
"It's Tam," said Jean, with conviction, "and he's after
something. It's either the rabbit or else he's found a weasel
hole," and instantly all the children were off at a bound,
tearing through the woods in the direction of the sound. They had
been having such a good time they had not once thought of Angus
Niel, but as they reached the edge of the forest, there he was,
standing behind a tree with his gun pointing toward the little
gray house! They stopped short in their wild race and instantly
hid themselves among the trees. They could see Tam barking and
pawing the ground with the greatest excitement in the open field
which lay between the forest and the garden-patch.
"Tam's after the rabbit as sure as sure," Jock whispered to Alan,
who had crept with him underneath a spreading pine. "That's the
very place where he went after him before. If that old thief
kills Tam, I'll--I'll--" Jock could think of no fit punishment
for such a crime, and in his rage and excitement would have run
right out into the open, after the dog if Alan had not held him
by his jacket. "Let go--let go!" said Jock, struggling to get
away. "I tell you, if he shoots that dog."
Just then a brown flash appeared from the garden wall, and Tam
was after it at a bound, barking like mad. "It's the rabbit, and
he's got him--he's got him!" murmured Jock, bouncing up and down
with excitement with Alan still clinging to his coat. "Good old
dog! good old Tam!" He was watching the dog so intently that he
did not see Angus take careful aim, but the moment Tam reached
the rabbit, seized it in his teeth, and shook it, a shot rang
out; and the dog, with a howl of pain, dropped the rabbit and ran
yelping toward the house on three legs, holding the fourth one in
the air.
Angus immediately ran out from his hiding-place, leaped the
brook, and, dashing up the slope toward the house, picked up the
dead rabbit and ran with it back into the woods. The children
watched him as he fled, and, the moment he was out of sight, they
burst from the shelter of the woods and tore up the hillside to
the little gray house.
They found Tam sitting on the doorstep licking his paw and
howling. He was instantly surrounded by four amateur doctors all
anxious to relieve his pain. Jock ran for water to wash his leg,
the flesh of which had been cruelly torn open by the bullet. Jean
ransacked the kist for bandages, and Alan held up the injured paw
and tried to see if any bones were broken, while Sandy helplessly
stroked Tam's tail, murmuring, "Good dog! good old Tam!" as he
did so. By dint of their combined efforts the wound was cleansed
and carefully bound with a rag, and by the time the Shepherd got
home, Tam was lying on the hearth beside the fire, with Alan on
his knees before him feeding him broth from a pan.
The Shepherd listened with a darkening brow to the story of Tam's
injury. He had heard an account of the stag the day before, so
the new revelation of Angus's character did not surprise him, but
when Alan rose from his knees and said, "To-morrow the Rob Roy
Clan will begin to make Angus Niel wish he'd never been born,"
Robin Campbell's comment was, "Give him rope enough and he'll
hang himself, laddie," and Alan, his black eyes flashing with
understanding, answered, "We'll see to it that he gets the rope."
X. ON THE TRAIL
Alan and Sandy left the little gray house in the late afternoon
and walked together down the river road toward the village. At
the bridge which spanned the stream they parted company, and Alan
gave Sandy final instructions as to his duties on the next day.
He was to watch Angus Niel's house, which lay some distance north
of the village, and see what direction he took as he started upon
his daily tour in the forests.
The estate of Glencairn covered a territory so large that Angus
could not by any possibility make his rounds in one day or even
in one week. The Clan knew well where he had spent his time for
the two preceding days, and they thought he would be likely to
start in a different direction on the morrow. They did not dare
count upon his doing so, however, and so Sandy was detailed to
give a positive report as to his movements. The next morning,
therefore, found Sandy sitting on a stone dyke not a great way
from Angus's house, apparently absorbed in whittling and
whistling, but in reality keeping a sharp lookout for any sign of
life in the Niel household. He had not long to wait before he saw
Angus leave the house and wander away into the forest with his
gun on his shoulder. As they had surmised, he took a direction
entirely different from his route of the two days before.
Sandy waited until he was out of sight, and then hurried back to
the bridge, where he met Alan by appointment, and the two walked
briskly on to the little gray house together. When they reached
it, the wag-at-the-wall clock was just striking nine, and Jean,
her morning work done, was "caning" the hearth with blue chalk as
a final touch of elegance to her clean kitchen.
"Come on," said Alan. "I've a plan in my head, and we'll have to
start directly if we're going to carry it out. Let me have some
of that blue chalk, Jean; we may need it. I've got plenty of food
with me, so don't wait to put up anything."
"I'm with you," said Jean, giving a final flourish with the blue
chalk before she clapped on her bonnet, and in another minute the
Rob Roy Clan was afoot, leaving Tam nursing his wounded paw on
the doorstep and gazing after them with pathetic eyes.
They left their luncheon in the cave and hurried on at Alan's
command to the little mountain tarn where Angus had killed the
stag, and there the Clan gathered about him to hear his plan.
"I've been thinking about this," Alan began, "and I'm sure of two
things. Angus must have a place where he puts the game he kills,
and he must have somebody to help him. The other man comes along
and carries it down the mountain to some point where he can ship
it to the city. I say, let's find out where that hiding-place
is."
"What will we do with it when we find it?" asked Jean.
"That's where the blue chalk comes in," said Alan. "We'll let him
know we've been there!"
"You'll never be writing your name there?" asked Sandy anxiously.
"He'd be shooting us next!"
"Oh! Sandy, you're a daft body," said Jean, and Jock added: "Mind
the Chief, you dunderhead, and keep your tongue behind your
teeth. He's none so addled as you think!"
Sandy subsided a little sulkily, and Alan went on.
"When Angus crossed the lake with the stag he landed right over
there by that dead pine tree, for I watched him to see, and the
place where he hid the stag can't be far from there, because he
came back so soon. We'll just take his boat and see if we can't
find it."
"Oh!" gasped Jean, who had never been in a boat in her life, "do
you know how to make it go?"
"I can row and I can swim," said Alan, "but I tell you if any one
goes bouncing around in the boat, it will be just as bad as being
bewitched by the water cow, you'll go to the bottom!"
"I can row, too," said Sandy.
Jean wished she hadn't come, but she was bound she would not show
it before the boys, so she said, "Sal! who's afraid?" and when
they found the boat, she was the first one in it.
Angus was so sure that no one would find his boat, which was
carefully screened by the bushes, that he had not even hidden the
oars. So it was soon afloat with Jock at the tiller, Sandy on the
bottom, Jean in the prow holding to the sides of the boat,
scarcely daring to speak for fear of upsetting it, and Alan at
the oars. The lake was smooth, and they reached the opposite
shore without mishap, except that twice Alan "caught a crab" and
splashed water all over Jock, and Sandy filled both shoes as he
jumped out of the boat. They pulled it up under the shelter of
the dead pine, anchored it by a stone, and cautiously made their
way into the woods.
They were now in a very wild section of the mountains, where it
seemed as if no one had ever been since the beginning of the
world.
"Just hear the stillness," whispered Jean, keeping close to Jock.
There was a sort of trail leading back into the woods, which
looked as if it might have been made by wild animals going to the
lake for a drink. This they followed for some distance until it
became indistinct, and then Alan called the Clan together for
counsel.
"We'll go just a little farther," he said, "and then, if we don't
see any sign of the place, it may be best to go back, for it is
easy to get lost in these woods. We are going east now and
luckily the sun is shining. When we do turn back, we must keep
the sun behind us and we can't help coming out somewhere on the
lake. Remember the pewit call if we lose sight of each other."
They resumed their stealthy walk through the woods, and a few
rods farther on came to a wide open space which sloped eastward
for some distance down the mountain-side. Here they paused.
"We're getting a good way from the boat," said Jean.
"Yes," said Alan, "and I am just wondering whether we'd better go any
farther. We don't want to cross this open space, and I see no sign of
Angus's storehouse. I hate to give up, though, for we must be very
near it." He searched in every direction with his eyes, and suddenly
exclaimed under his breath, "Look there!"
"Where?" breathed the Clan, rigid with excitement.
"Do you see that pile of rocks?" said Alan, pointing into the
woods beyond the clearing.
"Yes," said Jock, "but there are rocks all around. I don't see
that they're any different from others."
"Maybe not," said Alan, "but I see something that looks like the
corner of a hunter's shelter sticking out behind that big
boulder, and I say, let's skirt around this open place and see."
"Do you want us all to go?" asked Sandy, hoping the Chief would
say no.
"You stay here," Alan answered, to his great relief, "and Jean,
you come a little farther with us. Then you and Sandy can keep
out of sight and watch. If you see a man, keep still in your
places and give the pewit call. Jock and I will go on around the
clearing and get a better look at those rocks."
Sandy crouched down in the bracken, and two or three hundred feet
farther on Jean stopped also, while Alan and Jock cautiously
crept on toward their goal, and, by making a wide detour,
approached the rocks from the north instead of the west. As they
neared them, it was plain that Alan was right. There really was a
shelter built against an overhanging rock and almost concealed
from view by pine boughs which formed a screen before it. Little
by little the boys crept nearer and nearer, stopping every few
steps to be sure there was no sign of life about the place. At
last they were within a few feet of the rude camp. The shelter
was scarcely more than a hole under the rocks, but there was a
blackened spot where there had been a fire, a few pans were
standing about, and in one corner a pile of evergreen boughs was
covered with well-cured deer-skins. A fresh hide ready to cure
was spread out on the rocks near by.
"This is the place," whispered Jock. "There is the skin of the
stag. Now what are you going to do?" For answer Alan slipped from
behind the rocks, crept stealthily into the camp, and on the
underside of the rock wrote in big letters with blue chalk
ANGUS NIEL
POACHER
Your sin has found you out!
R. R. C.
Then he crawled swiftly back out of sight and, followed by Jock,
made his way as fast as he could toward Jean's hiding-place. To
Jean the time that they were gone seemed hours long. The place
was lonely, and she was afraid, not only of their finding the man
at home in his wild lodge, but even of brownies and elves.
A rabbit stuck his ears up over a nearby log and scuttled away
when he saw her. The leaves made a lonely sound as they rustled
over her head, and when at last she saw a black object moving
about among the trees at some distance beyond the rock-pile, it
is not surprising that she immediately gave the pewit call, loud
and clear.
The boys heard it and instantly vanished behind some bushes. The
dark object moving among the trees seemed to hear it too and,
springing forward, came bounding toward the rocks, barking as it
came. Jean was not much less anxious when she knew for certain
that it was a dog, for a watch dog in that lonely place might be
quite as dangerous as a wolf. Moreover, she soon saw, a little
distance behind the dog, a man with a gun on his shoulder. She
saw the dog reach the camp and go sniffing about on the rocks,
and her heart almost stood still as it gave a deep howl and
started away as if it scented game.
"He's on the trail of Alan and Jock," thought Jean, wringing her
hands. "Oh, what shall I do? The man will surely follow, for
he'll think the dog is after game." She sprang to her feet and
ran back to Sandy.
"Come quick," she said in a low voice. "The dog smells them; we
must get into the boat and have it ready for the boys to jump
into. There is not a moment to lose." She sped past him as she
spoke, and Sandy came galloping after.
Alan and Jock, who had seen and heard all that Jean had, were now
tearing at top speed through the woods and knew from answering
whistles that Jean and Sandy were on the way to the boat.
The man had by this time reached the camp and was staring at the
blue chalk-marks on the rock, as if unable to believe his own
eyes. He did not stop there long. He saw at once that an enemy
had found his hiding-place, and that the dog was on his trail.
Leaping down the rocks, he started across the clearing on a run
toward the lake, his gun in his hand. Jock and Alan realized that
they could hardly reach the landing-place before the dog did, so
they changed their course and veered a little to the north,
thinking that in this way they stood more chance of concealment
and that they could signal the boat and get aboard in a less
conspicuous place.
By this dodge the dog lost the scent of the boys and, nosing the
ground, found the trail of Sandy and Jean. Baying frightfully he
came bounding through the underbrush and arrived at the landing
just in time to see Sandy push the boat from the shore with Jean
in the bow. Furious at being cheated of his prey, the dog ran
back and forth on the shore, making mad leaps in the direction of
the boat and barking as if possessed.
"Oh, where are the boys?" cried the distracted Jean. They
lingered in an agony of suspense, not daring to leave until they
saw that Jock and Alan were safe, and then from a little distance
up the shore came the pewit call. Sandy rose to the emergency
and, pulling frantically at the oars, succeeded in reaching the
point from which the call seemed to come. The scared faces of
Jock and Alan rose from the bracken, and in another moment they
had leaped into the boat, nearly upsetting it as they did so.
Alan seized an oar, and he and Sandy together got the boat out of
sight behind a bend in the shore. Here they hid among the bushes
on the bank until they saw the man appear at the landing-place,
scan the lake carefully, and then go back into the woods, calling
the dog to go with him. Even then they were afraid to stir for
they did not know whether he had gone back to camp or was
stalking about among the trees searching for them.
They waited for what seemed a week but saw nothing further of the
man, and when at last they heard the report of a gun and the
barking of a dog far away down the mountain, they felt safe. He
was evidently looking in another direction for the intruders, and
at once Alan gave the word to go back to their own side of the
lake. They skirted the shores, keeping a sharp lookout all the
while, and at length reached the landing-place. The weary members
of the Clan breathed a sigh of relief as they found themselves
safe on their own ground again, arid their spirits rose.
Jock told what Alan had written on the rock, and Alan was so much
impressed by that achievement that he took out the blue chalk and
on a rock by the tarn wrote "Here Angus Niel, gamekeeper
and poacher, shot a stag"; and on the stone where the boat had
been, he put the mystic initials "R. R. C."
"There," said Alan, pausing to admire his handiwork, "that'll
keep him guessing, and scared too."
"What can we do next?"
"Take away his boat," said Jean promptly.
"Good idea!" cried Alan.
"Where can we hide it?" asked Jock.
"I'm mortal hungry," said Sandy. "Couldn't we eat first?"
"No food until this job is done," said the Chief firmly. "We'll
never have another chance when we know where the other man and
Angus both are. It's now or never!"
"But where shall we hide it?" demanded Jock again.
"I'll tell you," cried Jean, her eyes dancing with mischief. "We
can carry it to the burn and float it down to the cave!"
This was a stroke of genius, no less, and every member of the
Clan looked upon Jean with respect bordering upon awe. At the
point where the lake emptied into the burn there were loose
rocks, about which the water rushed in a swift cataract, but,
below, the current flowed more gently toward the fall. It was
deep only in spots where the trout loved to hide, but it was not
a stream anywhere in its course upon which one would launch a
boat for pleasure. The rocks were so near the surface that the
weight of even one person might ground it, but afloat and empty
it might be carried clear to the rocks above the cave. The Clan
considered the plan carefully, standing upon the rocky banks.
"How would we guide it?" asked Sandy doubtfully.
"There's a rope on the end of the boat," said Jean promptly, "and
we could push it off with sticks if it got stuck."
"Come on," cried Alan, and the four plotters rushed bask to the
lake and pulled the boat out of the water. Alan took the prow and
Jock took the stern, while Sandy and Jean supported it on each
side, and in this way, after many struggles, they succeeded in
carrying it to a place below the rapids where they dared launch
it.
"I'll hold the rope," said Alan, "and you, Sandy, take an oar and
go down the other side of the stream, so you can push it off if
it gets stuck on that side."
"How'll I get across?" asked Sandy.
This was a poser at first, but Alan found a way.
"Get into the boat," he said, "and we'll push it across where
there aren't any stones sticking up. You can pole it across with
your oar, and I'll keep hold of the rope."
Sandy jumped in at once, and the boat, in spite of some swirling,
was finally near enough to the opposite bank so he could jump
out. This he did, taking the oar with him. It was an exciting
journey down stream, for the boat bumped against rocks and caught
on fallen trees, and it was a good hour before the children,
tired out but triumphant, finally dragged it out of the water
just above the falls.
"If we had our rope, we could drag it to the edge of the cliff
and let it down in front of the cave," cried Jean in another
flash of inspiration, and Sandy instantly rushed down the rock,
made the necessary detour, and climbed the secret stair to the
cave. He then whistled, and three heads appeared over the top of
the cliff.
"I'll throw up the rope and when you let the boat down, I'll
steady it," said Sandy.
"Heave away," cried Alan, and after a few trials the rope came
flying up on the cliff and was soon looped around the boat. Then
the three braced their feet against the rocks and slowly lowered
the boat by the rope fastened to the prow, and by their own rope,
while Sandy steadied it below. They threw down the rope-end after
it, and a few moments later the rapturous Clan hauled the boat
into the cave! They sat in it to eat their luncheon and were so
lost in admiration of their enterprise and their booty that they
did not start home until the level rays of the sun warned them
that it was late.
XI. ANGUS NIEL AND THE CANNY CLAN
The days that followed were days of stirring adventure to the Rob
Roy Clan, and days of continuous and surprising misery to Angus
Niel. Never in his history as gamekeeper of Glen Cairn had he
had such experiences. The very trees in the woods seemed to be
bewitched. Wherever he went he was followed by some mysterious
power that seemed to know his every movement. If he killed any
game, the fact was advertised and the place marked by signs in
blue chalk. Not only that, but the very path of his approach to
the spot was marked by pointing arrows and some such legend as
"This way to the glen where Angus Niel killed a deer" would
decorate a neighboring rock. On other rocks appeared pertinent
questions addressed to him. "How much did you get for the stag?"
was one of them, and there were also queries as to where he found
the best market for game. He was kept so busy searching the
forest for these incriminating signs and rubbing them out, that
he could not follow his regular rounds. Even this did not avail,
for if he erased them on one day, it was but a matter of time
before the letters appeared again as fresh and blue as ever. Nor
was this all. He was haunted by a wailing voice which reached him
even in the remote fastnesses of the forest. He was sure to hear
it if he ventured into the neighborhood of the waterfall, and he
usually avoided that region as if it harbored a pestilence.
Once late in the afternoon he shot two hares and hid them under
some rocks, intending to carry them across the lake in the
morning, but when he went for them, they had disappeared
altogether, and above the place where they had been was written
in blue chalk, "Sacred to the memory of two hares, killed and
hidden here by Angus Niel on June 12th."
When he saw this epitaph, Angus's hair really stood on end with
fright, and on the day he found that the boat was gone, leaving
no trace, he became absolutely terror-stricken. He sought for it
behind every rock and in every likely nook about the lake,
consuming days in the quest, and was appalled on his next trip
thither to find all the incidents of his search faithfully
recorded on the rocks, each one signed with the mystic initials
R. R. C.
It took ingenuity, persistence, and some degree of danger on the part
of the clan to accomplish these things, but one could depend upon
finding these qualities in any Campbell or McGregor, and Sandy, having
been made a blood brother, faithfully lived up to the duties it
entailed. He became an expert detective and sleuth-hound, discovering
and reporting Angus's movements each day to the enterprising Clan and
its resourceful Chief.
At Alan's suggestion, the Clan took for its motto "We must be
canny," and canny they certainly were. They even changed their
programme from day to day, and in this way just when Angus felt
he was about to discover his tormentors and know if they were
human and not witches, they found some new method of annoyance
and he was all at sea again.
Once they gave him a respite of nearly a week and Angus, having
erased many signs and finding no new ones, was beginning to think
his troubles were over, when suddenly arrows bearing bits of
paper inviting him to visit the fall would suddenly drop at his
feet. It had taken the Clan nearly all their spare time for the
week to make the bows and arrows, by which this wonder was
accomplished. Meanwhile they had lived like lords, feasting upon
trout and the generous store of provisions with which Alan
continued to supply the cave. They even began to see how it was
possible for Rob Roy and his men to live upon forest fare, for
the pool below the fall was a wonderful fishing-hole, and small
game was plentiful if they had cared to become poachers
themselves.
On one red-letter day, they roasted the two hares which Angus had
killed, and cooked potatoes in the ashes. Each day was filled
with fresh adventures, and the wild outdoor life agreed with
Alan so well that his thin cheeks began to fill out and glow with
healthy color and it was not long before he looked as sturdy and
strong as Jock himself.
It was curious that what Alan gained in flesh and spirits, Angus
Niel at the same time seemed to lose. He was so worried by these
strange visitations that his round eyes took on a haunted
expression, and Sandy observed that he kept looking over his
shoulder as if he thought some one were following him, even when
he walked the village streets.
He dared not stay away from the forest lest others should
discover the dreadful blue signs before he did, and at the same
time he was afraid to go in. He swung like a pendulum between
these two difficulties and grew daily more nervous and unhappy.
By the end of June he had lost ten pounds of flesh as well as the
money he might have made out of poaching and selling the game. By
the middle of July he was so haggard that people began to remark
on his appearance. There seemed no way out of his troubles but to
lie about them, and soon wild stories were circulated through the
village about the haunted forest and its dangers.
Women were warned not to let the children stray into the woods lest
they be carried away by witches or water cows, and it was also
reported that a gang of poachers of a particularly blood-thirsty
character infested the region, carrying off game and property and
leaving no trace. Angus had been watching this band of desperadoes for
some time, he said, and knew there were at least twenty of them who
would stop at nothing.
With Angus's tale of the mysterious loss of his boat, the
excitement reached a climax, and there was talk of organizing an
armed band of men from the village to protect the woods and rid
the neighborhood of the bandits. The people were surprised that
Angus himself should oppose this plan, but as he was gamekeeper
and in authority, the matter was dropped. To Angus's horror,
however, these rumors and events were all faithfully recorded on
rocks not far from his own home soon after, and he realized that
to the very doors of his own house he was pursued by the same
mysterious and vigilant power. It was then that he lost his
appetite, and if the Clan could have followed him into his home
and seen him look under his bed before he got into it at night,
their joy would have been full.
The wild stories he told had the effect of keeping every one else
out of the forest and made the Clan more than ever free to stalk
their prey without fear of discovery. In this occupation several
exciting weeks passed by, and then there came an unhappy surprise
to the Clan, and it was not Angus Niel who sprang it upon them
either.
One morning in late July, Alan came up the road toward the little
gray house, where he was now so much at home, looking very glum
indeed. Sandy was with him, wearing a face as solemn as a funeral
procession. Jock and Jean saw them coming and hailed them with a
shout, and Tam, who had not quite recovered from his injury, came
dashing down the brae on three legs to greet them. Even Tam's
joyful bark did not lift the shadow from their faces.
Jean cried out from the top of the brae, "Whatever can be the
matter with you? You're looking as miserable as two hens in a
rainstorm!"
"Trouble enough," answered Sandy, and Jean and Jock at once came
hurrying down the slope to hear the bad news. They met at the
river-side, and Sandy, who was bursting to tell it, cried out,
"What do you think? Alan's got to go home! His mother's sent for
him!" One look at Alan's melancholy face confirmed this dreadful
statement and the gloom instantly became general.
The Clan sat down on the ground in a depressed circle to discuss
the matter and its bearing on their plans.
"Don't you think your mother would let you stay if you should ask
her?" suggested Jock.
"No," said Alan, with sad conviction. "She said I was to come at
once, and I'll have to start this very afternoon. I'm to drive
down to the boat and get to Glasgow by water; I'll spend the
night there and go on to London in the morning."
"Sal, but you'll be seeing a lot of the world," said Jock. "I
wish I were going with you."
"I wish you all were," said Alan.
"We'll likely be having more traveling than we want," said Jean,
"when we have to give up the wee bit hoosie and go out and walk
the world." She looked up at the little gray house as she spoke,
and her eyes filled with tears.
"It's the end of the Clan; that's what it is," said Sandy with
deepening despondency.
"Oh, come now!" said Alan. "It's not so bad as all that, and I'm
surely coming back next summer. I know my mother'll let me, for
she'll see how much good it's done me to be here. Just look at
that," he added, baring his arm and knotting his biceps.
"Climbing around the cave and chasing after Angus Niel have made
me as tough as a knot. She won't know me when she sees me."
"I wonder if we shall know you the next time we see you, if we
ever do," said Jean.
"Ho!" said Alan, trying to smile gayly, "of course you will! I'll
have a sprig of the evergreen pine and give the pewit call, and
then you'll be sure."
"What good will your coming back next summer do us?" said Jock.
"We shan't be here to see you! Our leases run out in October, and
nobody knows where we'll go after that! We've got to move out, so
the Auld Laird can have more space to raise game for Angus Niel
to kill," he finished bitterly.
There seemed no way of brightening this sad prospect, and the
Clan sat for a few moments in mournful silence. Alan tried hard
to think of something comforting to say.
"I'll tell you what," he exclaimed at length. "We can still be a
Clan, whether we see each other or not. We'll remember we're all
blood brothers just the same."
"And that you are our Chief," added Jean, trying to look
cheerful.
"Can't we go back to the cave just once more?" said Sandy.
"I've got to be at the bridge at one o'clock," said Alan. "I've
said good-bye to Eppie, and she is packing my things, and putting
up a lunch, so I don't have to do anything but step into the
carriage when I get there. What time is it now?"
Jean flew up the slope to the house and called back from the
door, "It's ten o'clock."
"Come on, then, my merry men!" cried Alan, and the four started
off at a brisk trot, looking anything but merry as they went.
"We shan't want to come here any more," said Jock, when they
reached the cave. "So we may as well take everything away."
"Oh," said Alan, "something might happen to keep you in the
Glen Easig. You never can tell. You'd better take back the pots
and pans, but leave the wood, and then if we are here next
summer, it will be all ready for cooking a jolly old mess of
trout."
"Whatever shall we do with the boat?" asked Jean. This was a
conundrum, but the Chief, as usual, was equal to the occasion.
"There's only one thing we can do," he said. "It will just dry up
and fall to pieces up here; we'll let it down over the rock by
the ropes and leave it in the pool. Then when Angus finds it,
he'll be perfectly sure he was bewitched and be more afraid of
the falls than ever!"
They worked hurriedly, for the time was short, and in another
hour the boat was floating in the fishing-pool, securely tied to
a pine tree on the bank. They packed pots and pans in the basket
and lowered it over the rock by the rope, and when everything was
done, Alan took the blue chalk and drew a sprig of pine on the
wall of the cave with the initials R. R. C. beside it. The four
children then scrambled down the secret stairway, feeling as if
they had said good-bye forever to a dear friend. When they
reached the little gray house, they left the basket in the
kitchen, and the entire Clan walked with Alan back to the bridge,
where they found the carriage waiting.
Alan made short work of his good-byes. He shook hands all round
and sprang quickly into the carriage, and as it rattled away with
him down the road, he stood up, waving his bonnet with the spray
of evergreen pine in it and whistling the pewit call.
"Dagon't," said Sandy, when the carriage passed out of sight
around a bend in the road. "Dagon't, we'll never find another
like the Chief." If Jean and Jock had felt able to say anything,
they would have echoed the statement. As it was, Sandy drew his
kilmarnock bonnet over his eyes, thrust his hands into his
pockets, and started dejectedly toward his own house, leaving
Jean and Jock, equally miserable, to return alone to the wee bit
hoosie on the brae.
XII. NEWS
The rest of the week seemed at least a month long to the lonely
twins. Sandy came to see them, to be sure, but with the passing
of the Chief, the flavor seemed gone from the play, and the Clan
made no further expeditions after Angus Niel.
"He can just kill all the game he wants to," said Jean. "It's
the worse for the Auld Laird, I doubt, but who cares for that, so
long as he leaves Tam alone and keeps away from here? It's
nothing to me."
Their father had been so taken up with his work and with turning
over in his mind plans for the future, when they should be
"walking the world," that he paid little attention to their
punishment of Angus Niel, about which he knew little and cared
less. He was absorbed in planning the best market for his sheep
and in getting as much from his garden as he could, hoping to
sell what he was unable to use himself, when the time came to
leave. His usually cheerful face had grown more and more troubled
as the summer wore on, and it was seldom now that his bagpipes
woke the mountain echoes, and whenever he did while away a rainy
evening with music, the melodies were as wild and mournful as his
own sad thoughts.
Angus Niel's barometer now rose again. Finding himself no longer
pursued by his unseen foes, his waning self-confidence returned, and
it was only a week or two after Alan's departure that wonderful
stories began to go about the village concerning his prowess in
ridding the woods of thieves and marauders single-handed.
"I've even found my boat," he announced one evening to a group of
men lounging about the village store, "and it was no human hands
that put it where I found it either! It was below the falls, if
you'll believe me, safe and sound and tight as ever. Any man that
is easily scared would better not be walking the woods in that
direction, I'm telling you, or likely he'd be whisked away by the
little people and shut up in some cave in the hills. I felt the
drawing myself once, but I knew how to manage. I was just gey
firm with them, and they knew I wasna fearful and let me go. It's
none so easy being a gamekeeper. It takes a bold man, and a canny
one, and well the poacher gang knew that. They're gone and good
riddance. It's taken me all summer to bring it about."
"Oh," murmured Jock to Jean, when this was repeated to them by
Sandy the following Sabbath, "wouldn't Alan like to hear that?"
It was on that very Sabbath, too, that they learned the Dominie
had recovered and that school was to reopen on the following day.
This was good news to the Twins, for like all Scotch children
they longed for an education, and the next morning, bright and
early, they were on the road to the village, carrying some scones
and hard-boiled eggs for their luncheon, in a little tin pail.
The days passed swiftly after that, for, with the house to care
for, lessons to get, and the walk of five miles to school and
back, there was little time for moping or even dreading the day
when they must leave their highland home.
It was late August when they came rushing home one afternoon,
bursting with a great piece of news, which they had learned in
the village. Never had they covered the five miles of the
homeward journey more quickly, but when they reached the little
gray house, their father had not yet returned from the pastures,
though it was after his time. The two children ran back of the
house to the cow byre, and there in the distance they saw him
coming across the barren moor. He was walking slowly, with his
head bent as though he were tired and discouraged, and Tam,
limping along beside him, looked discouraged too. The Twins gave
a wild whoop and raced across the moor to meet them. Jock got
there first, but was too out of breath to speak for an instant.
"Dear, dear! What can the matter be?" said their father, looking
from one excited face to the other.
"Oh, Father," gasped Jean, finding her tongue first, "you never
can guess, so I'll tell you. The Auld Laird's dead."
The Shepherd stood still in his tracks, too stunned for words.
"Aye!" cried Jock, wishing to share in the glory of such an
exciting revelation. "He's as dead as a salt herring."
"Oh, Father!" cried Jean, "aren't you glad? Now we won't have to
leave the wee bit hoosie and the Glen."
"I'm none so sure of that," said the Shepherd slowly, when he had
recovered from the first shock of surprise. "The new Laird may be
worse than the old. Be that as it may, I'm not one to rejoice at
the death of any man. Death is a solemn thing, my dawtie, but the
Lord's will be done, and I'm not pretending to mourn."
"We went to the village," cried Jean, "to get a bit of meat for the
pot, and there was a whole crowd of people around the post-office
door. 'T was the post-master gave us the news, and Mr. Craigie and
Angus Niel have put weeds on their hats and look as mournful as Tam
when he's scolded. We saw them out of the school-house window not two
hours gone."
"They have reason to mourn," said the Shepherd grimly, "not for
the Auld Laird's death only, but for their own lives as well.
Aye, that's a subject for grief." He shook his head dubiously,
and, seeming to feel it was an occasion for a moral lesson, he
added, "'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end
of that man is peace.'"
"What has that to do with the Auld Laird?" asked Jock, much
mystified.
"Nothing at all, maybe," answered the Shepherd, "but it's a wise
word to remember against our own time."
"I wish Angus Niel would remember it," exclaimed Jean.
"And Mr. Craigie no less," added Jock.
"Well, well," said the Shepherd, "heard ye anything more in the
village?"
"Aye, that we did," said Jean, who loved to prolong the
excitement of news.
"Let me tell that," said Jock. "You told about the Auld Laird.
Well, then, Father, there's all kinds of tales about the new
Laird. It's said he's a wee bit of a laddie, not more than four
years old, and not the son of the Auld Laird at all, but a cousin
or something. It's said he's weak and sickly-like and not long
for this world."
"Sandy's mother was in the village and walked with us to the
bridge," interrupted Jean, "and she heard that the heir is a
young man living in Edinburgh, and not even known to the Auld
Laird, who had no near kin. She had it from the minister's wife,
so it must be true."
"Didn't Mr. Craigie say anything? He ought to know more about it
than any one. He's the Auld Laird's factor to carry out his will
while he was living. It's likely he'd know more than any other
about his will, now he's dead," said the Shepherd.
"Mrs. Crumpet says he goes about with his mouth shut up as tight
as an egg, as though he knew a great deal more than other folk,
being so intimate-like with the Laird," said Jean.
"Aye!" added Jock, "but she said she believed there was a muckle
he did not know at all, and he was keeping his mouth shut to make
folks think he knew but wasna telling."
Jean now took up the tale. "Mrs. Crumpet had all the news in
town," she said, "and she told us that Angus Niel said he hoped
the new Laird was fond of the hunting and would appreciate his
work in preserving the game and driving poachers from the forests
of Glen Cairn. He said he had done the work of ten men, and it
was well that people should know it and be able to tell the new
Laird, when he comes into his own!"
Even the Shepherd couldn't help smiling at that, and as for Jean
and Jock, they shouted with laughter. In spite of themselves, the
children and their father felt such relief from anxiety that they
walked back to the little gray house with lighter hearts than
they had felt for some time. Whoever the new Laird might be, it
would take time to settle the estate and find out the will of its
new owner, and meanwhile they could live on in their old home.
Beyond that, they could even hope that they might not have to go
at all.
That night Jean cooked the first of their early potatoes from the
garden for supper and a bit of ham to eat with them, by way of
celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out
his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the
rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune
to the music, humming the words to herself.
"Oh where, tell me where is your Highland laddie gone?
He's gone with streaming banners where noble deeds are done,
And it's oh! in my heart, I wish him safe at home."
And she thought of Alan as she sang. Afterward, when Jock and
Jean were safely stowed away for the night, the Shepherd went
over and brought from the table in the room his well-worn copy of
Robert Burns's "Poems," and the last view Jean had of him before
she went to sleep, he was reading "The Cotter's Saturday Night"
aloud to himself by the light of a flickering candle.
XIII. THE NEW LAIRD
It was Friday when news of the Auld Laird's death reached the village,
and on the following Sabbath there was not an empty seat in the kirk,
for every one was anxious to hear the latest gossip about the event
which meant so much to every one in the region. There was no newspaper
in the village, and the news of the week was passed about by word of
mouth in the kirkyard after service, or on week days was retailed over
the counter at the village post-office, which was post-office and
general store in one.
The Campbells were early in their pew, and the Twins watched the
other worshipers as they came slowly up the aisle and took their
places before time for the service to begin. Sandy winked at them
most indecorously across the church, but his mother poked him to
remind him of his duty, and he sent no more silent messages to
the other members of the Clan.
There was an air of expectation, which seemed to affect every one
in the kirk. Even the minister looked as if he had something
special on his mind, and as for Mr. Craigie, he was as solemnly
important, Sandy said afterwards, "as though he were the corpse
himself," while Angus Niel acted like nothing less than the chief
mourner.
In the kirkyard he let it be known that he was entirely familiar
with the details of the Auld Laird's funeral, which had occurred
in London the day before, though how the particulars reached him
in so short a time must forever remain a mystery.
It was Mr. Craigie, however, who gave out the important news
which every one had felt must be coming. On the steps after
service he said to Mr. Crumpet, "It's likely, Andrew, that you
may have more time about your lease. I've had news that the new
Laird is coming soon to the castle with his lawyers and some
other people to look over the estate and take possession. Eppie
McLean is to get ready for quite a party of the gentry."
Mrs. Crumpet was standing near her husband, and she was a bold
woman who would have asked a question of the Auld Laird himself,
if she had had occasion. "Then it's the sickly bit laddie who's
the heir?" she said, "and not the Edinburgh man?"
Mr. Craigie looked majestic and waved her aside, merely saying,
as he went down the steps, "It isna an Edinburgh body," but
giving no hint as to whether it was man, woman, or child. The
people who had gathered about him thinking to hear something
definite looked resentfully at his back as he walked away, and
Mrs. Crumpet openly expressed her opinion that he knew nothing
more about it himself. "If he did, he couldn't help letting it
dribble out by degrees, like a leaky kirn, being too stingy to
tell it out free, like any other body," she said.
Mrs. Crumpet was a woman of rare penetration. Even Sandy didn't
often get ahead of his mother.
For another week the village waited in suspense for further news,
and then on Saturday the report spread like wildfire through the
town that the new Laird with his party had arrived at the castle
the night before.
It was Sandy who brought the news to the little gray house. "And
they say there were three carriage-loads of them and they never
got to Glen Cairn until dark," he cried; "and the tale is that
the castle ovens have never been cool since the word came a week
ago! Mother says Eppie McLean has been laying in provisions as if
she looked for seven lean years like Joseph in Egypt."
"Losh!" interrupted Jock, "I wish Alan was here. Wouldn't we get
some of those good things for the cave, though."
"But that isn't all the news," cried Sandy, who had come three
miles to tell it and was not going to let it burst from him too
suddenly. "There's more."
"What is it, Sandy?" cried Jean, dancing with impatience. "Hurry,
lad; let out what's bottled up in you or you'll blow the cork!"
"Well," exploded Sandy, "you'll get some of the good things
without Alan, I'm telling you, for there's to be a grand feast at
the castle, and everybody is asked to come! There's a sign up in
the village, and it's to be Monday at five o'clock. They say
Eppie McLean has fowls waiting by the dozen and a barrel of
tatties ready for the pot. Losh! I don't see how the new Laird
can stay weakly with so much to fill him up."
"Sal!" cried Jean, "if he's such a wee laddie as they say, it's
likely his mother will be the one to say what's to be done in
Glen Cairn, and it's not likely she'll be wanting to go rampaging
over the country shooting game like the Auld Laird."
"Ye can never tell," said Sandy, with a worldly air. "Some say
ladies is worse than men."
"Never believe that," said Jean, promptly, and then she added a
little wistfully, "especially if they are mothers."
At church the next day the congregation was in such a state of
excitement it was with the greatest difficulty that the proper
Sabbath decorum was observed. Sandy Crumpet brazenly looked over
his shoulder every time any one passed up the aisle, thinking
that perhaps the new Laird and his mother might come in at any
moment, and even the grown people looked sidewise, but no new
faces appeared and fear was expressed afterwards that the mother
of the heir was of the Established Church. Mrs. Crumpet said she
had always heard that among the gentry the women were fiercer in
their religion than the men. The Shepherd remembered the Laird of
Kinross, but said nothing.
On the way home from church Jean and Jock noticed that smoke was
issuing from all the castle chimneys. It was now early autumn,
and, as Jean said, the castle must be damp from, standing so long
empty, and they had the right to warm it up for the wee Laird,
him being so sickly.
The suspense of the long weeks of summer had now become acute. If
the Auld Laird's wish to turn the tenants out of their holdings
to make Glen Cairn into a large game preserve was to be carried
out, the time for doing it was near, and the people looked
forward to the supper at the castle with both hope and dread.
Every one was to be there, and on Monday a wonderful amount of
preparation was going forward in every cottage and farmhouse on
the estate. Jean had her father's blacks on the line and
thoroughly brushed early in the morning, and the Sabbath clothes
for all three of them laid out on the chairs in "the room" by
noon. At four o'clock they were on their way to the castle. Jock
had wanted to start at three, but Jean was firm.
"It isna genteel to be going so early," she said. "T'will look
greedy, and you'll not get fed the sooner."
Any one would have said Jean looked pretty that day, for she was
not wearing her "Saturday face," and the little curls had crept
around her head unbeknownst and were blowing in bright tendrils
about her forehead under the edge of her bonnet with its sprig of
pine. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright with health and
excitement, and Robert Campbell, looking with pride at his sturdy
son and daughter, said to himself, "It's a sonsie lassie and braw
lad. I wish their mother could see them."
They walked down the river road, where the autumn colors were
beginning to appear, and at the bridge met the Crumpet family all
dressed in their best, also on their way to the castle. Sandy had
scrubbed himself till his face was shining like a glass bottle, and
the sprig of pine waved proudly from his bonnet, too. At every branch
road they were joined by others, and when they neared the castle gates
there was already quite a large group of people from the village as
well. Every one was in a state of tense excitement, for the fate of
all hung in the balance. Since the tenure of their homes was at the
mercy of the new Laird, his ideas and disposition were of vital
importance in their lives, and they were keen to see him and find out
for themselves what manner of person he might be. Mr. Crumpet was
looking very glum. He took a morose view of life at best, and the
present circumstances certainly warranted apprehension.
"If it's a wee bit of a laddie, as we are led to expect," he said
to the Shepherd, "he'll have no judgment of his own, and be
dependent on them as has him in charge. Mr. Craigie will not be
loosening his hold, and with only a weak woman and a sickly boy
to deal with, he'll wind 'em around his finger like a wisp o'
wool. It's my opinion we'll have Mr. Craigie to deal with more
than ever."
"Well," said Mrs. Crumpet philosophically, "and if we jump at all
't will be but from the fire back to the frying-pan again, I'm
thinking."
Various other opinions were expressed by one and another as the
tenants of Glen Cairn followed the wide drive which led to the
castle doors. Most of them had never before been inside the walls
of the park, and they looked about them with interest at the
unkempt and overgrown drive and at the bracken and heather
spreading even over the lawns. It was evident that the place had
been left to take care of itself for many years.
It was a warm day in late September, and though there was a touch
of red in the ivy which draped the gray castle walls, the air was
mellow with the haze of autumn and musical with the buzzing of
bees.
Mr. Craigie, looking more like a pair of tongs than ever, stood
on the terrace with the minister and his wife, while Angus Niel,
swelling with importance, ranged round the outskirts of the crowd
as they approached the castle, gradually herding them toward the
entrance. When they were all gathered in front of the terrace,
the minister came forward to the steps and lifted his hand. A
hush instantly fell upon the waiting people, and the minister
spoke.
"Her ladyship has asked me to say to you that she and the new
Laird will meet you here," he said, "and afterward conduct you to
the banqueting-hall, where supper will be served. It is their
desire to know you all personally, and I will be here to present
you as you come up the steps."
There was a surprised look on every face as the minister finished
speaking. What manner of landlord could this be, who made a point of
knowing his tenants as men and women the moment he came to the estate?
It was a breathless moment when at last the great castle doors swung
open, revealing a group of people standing in the entrance. There was
an instant's pause, and then a tall strong-looking woman stepped
forward upon the terrace, with her hand resting lightly on the
shoulder of a sturdy black-haired boy nearly as tall as herself. The
boy was dressed in kilts, with the Campbell plaid flung over his
shoulder and a spray of evergreen pine nodding gayly from his
Glengarry bonnet.
"Michty me! It's Alan!" exclaimed Jock, so stunned by surprise
that his knees nearly gave way under him, while Jean, her eyes
shining like stars, clutched her father's hand, too stunned to
realize at first that Alan and the new Laird of Glen Cairn were
one and the same person. In fact, nobody realized it at once, for
many of the tenants had come to know and like Alan during the
summer, simply as "the boy who was staying with Eppie McLean."
They were still gazing at the castle door and wondering why the
"puny wee laddie, who was not long for this world" did not
appear, when the gracious lady, who still stood with her hand
resting proudly on Alan's shoulder, began to speak.
"Many of you already know the new Laird of Glen Cairn as Alan
McCrae," she said, smiling kindly down into their blank upturned
faces. "He has been among you all summer and has learned to love
our Highland country without dreaming that he himself would one
day inherit this beautiful estate. He is next of kin to the Auld
Laird, though not a near relative, and had no idea that I had any
purpose beyond the improvement of his health in sending him here
for the summer. I knew that which he did not, that he was likely
soon to be called to take the Auld Laird's place here, and I
wanted him to know you first, not as tenants, but as friends
merely. He has come to love this region for its own sake, and
comes among you like a true Scotchman, meaning to make this his
home and the interests of this community his own interests. He is
not yet of age, as you see, but his purposes and plans are
clearly formed, and I will leave him to explain them to you
himself."
She stopped speaking, and the people, overwhelmed with surprise
and joy, burst into a hearty and prolonged cheer, as Alan stepped
forward to make his speech. He was only a boy, and a very much
embarrassed one at that, but he knew what he wanted to say and he
got to the point at once.
"I just want you to know," he said, "that nobody's going to be
turned out if he doesn't want to be. I know all about the lease,
and that it's going to run out this fall, but any one who wants
to stay on the land and improve it is going to have the chance to
do it. My mother knows a lot about such things, and we're going
to collect the rents ourselves, and we think, maybe, when I'm of
age, there'll be some way by which people who really want to use
the land may own it instead of being obliged to rent. Mother says
they are beginning to do it in Ireland, and in England too in
some places.
"I've found out that people are more important than rabbits and
deer, and they are going to have first chance at the land of Glen
Cairn as long as I'm Laird." This was greeted with such a roar of
cheers that for a moment it was quite impossible for Alan to
proceed. He smiled bashfully at his mother and then held up his
hand for silence.
"I just want to say, too," he went on, biting his lips to keep
from laughing, "that after this there won't be any gamekeeper on
Glen Cairn. If the rabbits spoil your crops you're welcome to
catch them if you can! I've ranged these woods myself all summer,
and I have found out that gamekeepers are no safeguard against
poachers." A gasp of astonishment greeted this statement, and
Angus Niel was observed to turn ashy pale.
"In fact, I know that sometimes gamekeepers turn poachers
themselves and make money selling what they have killed," he went
on. Here Angus Niel, looking suddenly deflated, like a burst
balloon, began quietly to slink out of sight, and Alan, brimful
of mischief, raised his voice so it would be sure to reach him
and said, "I've seen it done myself, and if Angus Niel wants to
know any more about that gang of twenty blood-thirsty villains
which has scared the life out of him all summer, he can come to
me and I'll tell him. I'm the Chief of that gang, and there are
three others just like me, and that's all!" He winked rapturously
at the three other members of the Clan, who were gazing up at him
in a stupor of astonishment, and fired his last shot at the
fleeing Angus, while the audience, catching his meaning, burst
into howls of derisive laughter.
"Don't hurry, Angus," he called. "I want to tell you about your
boat and about the water witch that haunted you. I'm the water
witch too!" But Angus was already out of hearing and scuttling as
fast as his trembling legs could carry him to get out of sight,
as well. When the roars of laughter had subsided, Alan said, with
a boyish grin, "It's too bad he couldn't stay to supper. And now
come up, everybody, and meet my mother."
It was then that the Shepherd of Glen Easig astonished himself and
every one else by shouting at the top of his lungs, "Three cheers for
the young Laird!" and when they had been given with such energy that
the hills rang with the echoes, he called for three more for her
ladyship, and Alan waved his cap in acknowledgment for them both.
Then the people, surprised out of their usual Scotch reserve by
laughter and by the joy of good news, came swarming up the steps
and were introduced to Alan's mother by Alan himself when he knew
them, and by the minister when he did not.
The Shepherd, with the bashful Clan in his wake, came last of
all, and the Twins heard him say to her ladyship, "God bless the
laddie! It was a rare day for the Glen when he fell into the burn
and came to dry himself by our fireside."
"It was a rare day for me, too, Cousin Campbell," said Alan, and
then; catching sight of Sandy and the Twins hanging back behind
their father, what did he do but pucker up his lips and whistle
the pewit call? The Clan was too overcome then even to attempt a
pucker, and Alan, springing forward, tried to grasp three hands
at once and introduced them to his mother as his Rob Roy Clan.
The Twins and Sandy were not a bit like the bold buccaneers of
the cave when the great lady of Glen Cairn smiled on them kindly.
"I told you I'd wear the sprig of evergreen pine and whistle the call
of the Clan the next time you saw me," cried Alan, as they fell in
behind the others, who were now entering the banquet-hall. "Why didn't
you answer?"
"Oh, but," said Jean, a little sadly and blushing like a poppy,
"we never thought you'd be coming back so grand like. You'll
never be playing with the Clan any more in Glen Easig, surely,
now that you 're a great Laird!"
"And why not, I'd like to know?" cried the great Laird, looking
hurt. "I'm still Alan McRae, Chief of the Clan, the same as
before, and as true to my friends as Rob Roy himself was before
me. We'll have many a good day in the woods yet before snow
flies; and listen, I've a plan in my head!"
"There speaks the Chief," cried Jock, forgetting to be afraid of
him. "He was ever having plans in his head. Out with it, man."
"It's this," said Alan, "I'm going to have a tutor here at the
castle, and you're all to have your lessons here with me, and no
end of larks!" Here Sandy, who had so far merely gazed at his
Chief with speechless devotion, suddenly burst into words.
"Aye, Chief," he cried, "that was a true word you spoke about no
gamekeeper being needed in Glen Cairn. I'm none so keen for the
learning, but if there should be poachers hanging about, they'll
have Sandy Crumpet to deal with; let them take warning of that!"
Alan laughed and clapped Sandy on the back. "I'd rather have you
than forty Angus Niels," he said, and then they were swept along,
without a chance for further words, into the great hall, where
they found long tables spread and Eppie McLean with a dozen
helpers bringing in such stores of food that all Sandy had said
about the preparations at the castle was justified at a glance.
Most of the people had already found places at the tables when
the young Laird and his mother, followed by the minister and his
wife and the castle guests, cams into the hall. The Twins and
Sandy hung back behind all the other guests, but Alan found
places for them opposite his own, and then he handed his mother
to the seat of honor at the head of the table. The minister and
the guests from the city ranged themselves on either side, and
every one stood with bowed head while the minister asked a
blessing upon the food, upon the new Laird and his mother, and
upon all the people of Glen Cairn.
There was a great scraping of chairs, and then every one sat down
and fell upon the good things like an army of locusts upon a
harvest field. The great hall, so long silent, echoed with happy
voices and the clatter, of knives and forks, and Jean, looking
across the table at the new Laird, in all his glory, wondered if
it could be possible that it was the very Alan whom she had
shaken when Angus shot the stag, or who had helped her set the
table in the kitchen of the little gray house, while his wet
clothes were drying by the cottage fire. She ate her supper like
one in a dream, and though she kept a watchful eye on Jock's
table manners and warned Sandy's elbows off the table several
times in her own efficient way, she could scarcely believe such
wonderful things were really happening to her.
At last the wonderful day drew to a close, and the people of Glen
Cairn, happier than they had been in a long time, said good-bye to
the gracious lady of the castle and to the already beloved young
Laird, and started home in the deepening twilight of the autumn
evening.
The Clan, lingering behind their parents, looked back at the
group on the castle terrace before the trees hid them from sight,
and Jock sent the pewit call shrilling through the dusk. It was
answered instantly from the terrace.
"He is just like Prince Charlie, I'm thinking," said Sandy, and
Jock, to ease his feelings, whistled "Charlie is my darling" all
the way to the gate of the park.
The evening star was shining brightly over the dark outline of
old Ben Vane as the Campbells reached the little gray house on
the brae, now safely their home forever, and Tam came bounding
down the path to meet them. Jean kissed her hand to the star and
murmured to herself,
"Star light, star bright,
I have the wish I wished to-night."
GLOSSARY
Auld, old.
Aye (pronounced i), yes.
Aye (pronounced a), ever, always.
Bailie, an officer of the law.
Bairn, a child.
Ben. See But and ben.
Besom, a broom.
Bide, stay.
Bittock, a little bit.
Blatherskite, a babbling person, a good-for-nothing.
Blethering, talking nonsense.
Bonny, pretty, beautiful, charming.
Bracken, brake, a species of tall fern.
Brae (pronounced bray), a hillside.
Braw, fine, handsome.
Burn, a brook.
But and ben, outside and in.
But the house means out of the house. But is also applied to the
kitchen; going but is going from the best room to the kitchen,
and going ben is going into the best room.
Byre, a cow-shed.
Canny, shrewd.
Chap, a knock.
Daft, silly, foolish.
Dandering, wandering.
Dawtie, darling, pet.
Dinna, do not.
Dod, an exclamation.
Doubt, suspect.
Dyke, a low fence or wall of turf or stone.
Fash, disturb.
Fine, finely, well.
Gey, very.
Gin (g as in give), if.
Girdle, a griddle.
Glengarry bonnet, a small cap without visor.
Greet, weep.
Guddling, catching fish with the hands.
Havers (a as in hay), nonsense (an exclamation).
Isna, is not.
Keek, a peep.
Ken, know.
Kilmarnock bonnet, a tam-o'-shanter.
Kirk, church.
Biro, a churn.
Kist, a chest.
Laird, a lord, a landed proprietor.
Laverock, the lark.
Limmer, a mischievous person.
Losh, an exclamation.
Loup, to leap.
Lug, ear.
Mealy pudding, a Scotch dish made of oatmeal and suet, in form
something like a sausage.
Michty (pronounced michty, with the gutteral ch as in the German
word ich), mighty, large, powerful.
Michty me, an exclamation.
Na, no, not.
Pawky, sly.
Pewit, the lapwing, a species of plover.
Plaidie (pronounced pladie), diminutive of plaid. Each clan had
its own especial pattern which was worn by all members.
Redding up, putting in order.
Sal, an exclamation.
Scone, a flat cake, unsweetened, baked on a griddle.
Skirl, a shrill sound, especially that characteristic of the
bagpipes.
Slippit awa', slipped away, died.
Sousie (both s's as in so), agreeable, attractive, comely,
pleasant.
Spier (pronounced spear), ask.
Sync, afterward, since.
Tarn, a small mountain lake.
Tatties, potatoes.
Tid, a pet name for a child.
Tirley-wirley, a disturbance.
Wasna, was not.
Wee bit hoosie, little house.
Whaup, the curlew, a large bird of the Sandpiper Family.
Wifie, an endearing term for a woman.
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
This story can be read without much preparation by any fifth or
sixth grade pupils. In the fifth grade it may be well to have the
children read the story first in a study period in order to work
out the pronunciation of the more difficult words and to get
sufficient command of the Scotch dialect, which, however, is not
used to so great an extent that it will be difficult for American
children to understand. The teacher should explain the use of the
glossary in this connection. In the sixth grade the children will
usually be able to read the story at sight except so far as
reference to the glossary is necessary to the understanding of
Scottish words and phrases.
As in all the Twins readers, the possibilities in this story for
dramatization will be immediately apparent. The numerous outdoor
adventures, the discovery of the cave, and the fishing will
probably be the scenes that will make the most immediate appeal
to boys who are beginning to show the Boy Scout spirit; and other
phases of outdoor life, no less than the touches of housework,
will appeal to members of the Girl Scout and the Girls' Camp Fire
organization. The illustrations in the book show hints for simple
costuming which may be followed when desired.
Mrs. Perkins's illustrations can be used in other ways also.
Children will enjoy sketching many of them, since their simple
style makes them especially available in this way. An excellent
oral exercise would be for the children after they have read the
story to take turns in telling it from the illustrations; and a
good composition exercise would be for each pupil to select the
illustration that he would like to write upon, to make a copy of
it, and then to tell its story in his own way.
During the reading, the teacher should tell the children
something about Scotland, geographically and historically. A file
of the National Geographic Magazine, which is accessible in most
public libraries, will be found to contain many illustrated
articles which will be invaluable in this connection. Teachers
should refer also to Tomlinson's "Young Americans in the British
Isles," Kate Douglas Wiggin's "Penelope's Progress," the volumes
devoted to Scotland in Longfellow's series, "Poems of Places,"
and to Bradley's "The Gateway of Scotland." Other references are
Hunnewell's "Lands of Scott" and Olcott's "The Country of Sir
Walter Scott." (Consult the indexes for references to Rob Roy,
The Lady of the Lake, etc. Also of course Scott's novels and
poems and Burns's poems contain much material that can be drawn
upon.) Particularly to be recommended are the selections
published in the Riverside Literature Series and in Webster and
Coe's "Tales and Verse from Sir Walter Scott."
Just at the present time when the tercentenary of the landing at
Plymouth occupies all our attention, it is particularly timely to
recall the potent influences of the Scottish people upon the
Puritans in old England and the Pilgrims who founded New England.
Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather" and Dickens's "Child's History
of England," also Tappan's "England's Story" will give an account
of how the Scotch rose in revolt against kings and prelates, and
how they were the first nation in Europe to establish in their
country the underlying principles of democracy. The Scottish
systems of land tenure--which may be said to be the theme of The
Scotch Twins--are discussed in Beaton's "Highlands of Scotland."
Of particular bearing is his comment upon conditions resulting
from the withdrawal of soil for purposes of sport, the poaching
that followed, etc.
The spirit of Scottish history is epitomized in Burns's poem, "A
Man's a Man for a' That," and the ingenious teacher will need no
further prompting as to the ways in which this poem and the
movement for which it stands are related to the history of our
own country. A further debt to Scotland lies in the character of
the Scotch immigrants to the United States and their descendants;
Griffis's "Bonnie Scotland and What We Owe Her" will show how to
apply this suggestion and others which will come to mind from
these paragraphs.
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