Part 6

"Poor little fellow! The first body I recognised was his Both his arms had been fearfully shattered by a cannon-shot, and the surgeon's tourniquets, which had been fastened below the shoulders, were still there; but he had expired ere the amputating knife had been applied. As I stood beside the body--little in love with war, masters--a comrade came up to me to say that my friend and countryman, Donald Gair, lay mortally wounded in the cockpit. I went instantly down to him. But never shall I forget, though never may I attempt to describe, what I witnessed that day, in that frightful scene of death and suffering. Donald lay in a low hammock, raised not a foot over the deck; and there was no one beside him, for the surgeons had seen at a glance the hopelessness of his case, and were busied about others of whom they had hope. He lay on his back, breathing very hard, but perfectly insensible; and in the middle of his forehead there was a round, little hole, without so much as a speck of blood about it, where a musket bullet had passed through the brain. He continued to breathe for about two hours; and, when he expired, I wrapped the body decently up in a hammock, and saw it committed to the deep. The years passed; and, after looking death in the face in many a storm and many a battle, peace was proclaimed, and I returned to my friends and my country.

"A few weeks after my arrival, an elderly Highland woman, who had travelled all the way from the further side of Loch Shin to see me, came to our door. She was the mother of Donald Gair, and had taken her melancholy journey to hear from me all she might regarding the last moments and death of her son. She had no English, and I had not Gaelic enough to converse with her; but my mother, who had received her with a sympathy all the deeper from the thought that her own son might have been now in Donald's place, served as our interpreter. She was strangely inquisitive, though the little she heard served only to increase her grief; and you may believe it was not much I could find heart to tell her; for what was there in the circumstances of my comrade's death to afford pleasure to his mother? And so I waived her questions regarding his wound and his burial as I best could.

"'Ah,' said the poor woman to my mother, 'he need not be afraid to tell me all. I know too, too well that my Donald's body was thrown into the sea; I knew of it long ere it happened; and I have long tried to reconcile my mind to it--tried when he was a boy even; and so you need not be afraid to tell me now.'

"'And how,' asked my mother, whose curiosity was excited, 'could you have thought of it so early?'

"'I lived,' rejoined the woman, 'at the time of Donald's birth, in a lonely shieling among the Sutherland hills--a full day's journey from the nearest church. It was a long, weary road, over muirs and mosses. It was in the winter season, too, when the days are short; and so, in bringing Donald to be baptised, we had to remain a night by the way, in the house of a friend. We there found an old woman of so peculiar an appearance, that, when she asked me for the child, I at first declined giving it, fearing she was mad, and might do it harm. The people of the house, however, assured me she was incapable of hurting it; and so I placed it on her lap. She took it up in her arms, and began to sing to it; but it was such a song as none of us had ever heard before.'

"'Poor little stranger!' she said, 'thou hast come into the world in an evil time. The mists are on the hills, gloomy and dark, and the rain lies chill on the heather; and thou, poor little thing! hast a long journey through the sharp, biting winds, and thou art helpless and cold. Oh! but thy long after-journey is as dreary and dark. A wanderer shalt thou be over the land and the ocean; and in the ocean shalt thou lie at last. Poor little thing! I have waited for thee long. I saw thee in thy wanderings, and in thy shroud, ere thy mother brought thee to the door; and the sounds of the sea, and of the deadly guns, are still ringing in my ears. Go, poor little thing! to thy mother--bitterly shall she yet weep for thee--and no wonder; but no one shall ever weep over thy grave, or mark where thou liest amid the deep green, with the shark and the seal.'

"'From that evening,' continued the mother of my friend, 'I have tried to reconcile my mind to what was to happen Donald. But, oh! the fond, foolish heart! I loved him more than any of his brothers, because I was to lose him soon; and though, when he left me, I took farewell of him for ever, for I knew I was never--never to see him more, I felt, till the news reached me of his fall in battle, as if he were living in his coffin. But, oh, do tell me all you know of his death. I am old and weak, but I have travelled far, far to see you, that I might hear all; and surely, for the regard you bore to Donald, you will not suffer me to return as I came.'

"But I need not dwell longer on the story. I imparted to the poor woman all the circumstances of her son's death, as I have done to you; and, shocking as they may seem, I found that she felt rather relieved than otherwise."

"This is not quite the country of the second sight," said my friend; "it is too much on the borders of the Lowlands. The gift seems restricted to the Highlands alone, and it is now fast wearing out even there."

"And weel it is," said one of the men, "that it should be sae. It is surely a miserable thing to ken o' coming evil, if we just merely ken that it is coming, an' that come it must, do what we may. Hae ye ever heard the story o' the kelpie that wons in the Conan?"

My friend replied in the negative.

THE STORY OF THE DOOMED RIDER.

"The Conan," continued the man, "is as bonny a river as we hae in a' the north country. There's mony a sweet sunny spot on its banks; an' mony a time an' aft hae I waded through its shallows, whan a boy, to set my little scantling-line for the trouts an' the eels, or to gather the big pearl-mussels that lie sae thick in the fords. But its bonny wooded banks are places for enjoying the day in--no for passing the nicht. I kenna how it is; it's nane o' your wild streams that wander desolate through a desert country, like the Aven, or that come rushing down in foam and thunder, owre broken rocks, like the Foyers, or that wallow in darkness, deep, deep in the bowels o' the earth, like the fearfu' Auldgraunt; an' yet no ane o' these rivers has mair or frightfuller stories connected wi' it than the Conan. Ane can hardly saunter owre half-a-mile in its course, frae where it leaves Contin till where it enters the sea, without passing owre the scene o' some frightful auld legend o' the kelpie or the water-wraith. An' ane o' the maist frightfu'-looking o' these places is to be found among the woods o' Conan House. Ye enter a swampy meadow, that waves wi' flags an' rushes like a corn-field in harvest, an' see a hillock covered wi' willows rising like an island in the midst. There are thick mirk woods on ilka side; the river, dark an' awesome, an' whirling round an' round in mossy eddies, sweeps awa behind it; an' there is an auld burying-ground, wi' the broken ruins o' an auld Papist kirk, on the tap. Ane can still see amang the rougher stanes the rose-wrought mullions o' an arched window, an' the trough that ance held the haly water. About twa hunder years ago--a wee mair maybe or a wee less, for ane canna be very sure o' the date o' thae auld stories--the building was entire; an' a spot near it, whar the wood now grows thickest, was laid out in a corn-field. The marks o' the furrows may still be seen amang the trees. A party o' Highlanders were busily engaged, ae day in harvest, in cutting down the corn o' that field; an', just aboot noon, when the sun shone brightest an' they were busiest in the work, they heard a voice frae the river exclaim, '_The hour but not the man has come_.' Sure enough, on looking round, there was the kelpie stan'in in what they ca' a fause ford, just fornent the auld kirk. There is a deep black pool baith aboon an' below, but i' the ford there's a bonny ripple, that shows, as ane might think, but little depth o' water; an' just i' the middle o' that, in a place where a horse might swim, stood the kelpie. An' it again repeated its words--'_The hour but not the man has come_;' an' then, flashing through the water like a drake, it disappeared in the lower pool. When the folk stood wondering what the creature micht mean, they saw a man on horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste, making straight for the fause ford. They could then understand her words at ance; an' four o' the stoutest o' them sprang oot frae amang the corn to warn him o' his danger, an' keep him back. An' sae they tauld him what they had seen an' heard, an' urged him either to turn back an' tak anither road, or stay for an hour or sae where he was. But he just wadna hear them, for he was baith unbelieving an' in haste, an' wauld hae taen the ford for a' they could say, hadna the Highlanders, determined on saving him whether he would or no, gathered round him, an' pulled him frae his horse, an' then, to mak sure o' him, locked him up in the auld kirk. Weel, when the hour had gone by--the fatal hour o' the kelpie--they flung open the door, an' cried to him that he might noo gang on his journey. Ah! but there was nae answer, though; an' sae they cried a second time, an' there was nae answer still; an' then they went in, an' found him lying stiff an' cauld on the floor, wi' his face buried in the water o' the very stone trough that we may still see amang the ruins. His hour had come, an' he had fallen in a fit, as 'twould seem, head foremost among the water o' the trough, where he had been smothered--an' sae, ye see, the prophecy o' the kelpie availed naething."

"The very story," exclaimed my friend, "to which Sir Walter alludes, in one of the notes to 'The Heart of Midlothian.' The kelpie, you may remember, furnishes him with a motto to the chapter in which he describes the gathering of all Edinburgh to witness the execution of Porteous; and their irrepressible wrath, on ascertaining that there was to be no execution--'_The hour but not the man has come_.'"

"I remember making quite the same discovery," I replied, "about twelve years ago, when I resided for several months on the banks of the Conan, not half-a-mile from the scene of the story. One might fill a little book with legends of the Conan. The fords of the river are dangerous, especially in the winter season; and, about thirty years ago, before the erection of the fine stone bridge below Conan House, scarcely a winter passed in which fatal accidents did not occur; and these were almost invariably traced to the murderous malice of the water-wraith."

"But who or what is the water-wraith?" said my friend. "We heard just now of the kelpie, and it is the kelpie that Sir Walter quotes."

"Ah," I replied, "but we must not confound the kelpie and the water-wraith, as has become the custom in these days of incredulity. No two spirits, though they were both spirits of the lake and the river, could be more different. The kelpie invariably appeared in the form of a young horse; the water-wraith in that of a very tall woman, dressed in green, with a withered meagre countenance, ever distorted by a malignant scowl. It is the water-wraith, not the kelpie, whom Sir Walter should have quoted; and yet I could tell you curious stories of the kelpie, too."

"We must have them all," said my friend, "ere we part; meanwhile, I should like to hear some of your stories of the Conan."

"As related by me," I replied, "you will find them rather meagre in their details. In my evening walks along the river, I have passed the ford a hundred times out of which, only a twelvemonth before, as a traveller was entering it on a moonlight night, the water-wraith started up, not four yards in front of him, and pointed at him with her long skinny fingers, as if in mockery. I have leaned against the identical tree to which a poor Highlander clung, when, on fording the river by night, he was seized by the goblin. A lad who accompanied him, and who had succeeded in gaining the bank, strove to assist him, but in vain: the poor man was dragged from his hold into the current, where he perished. The spot has been pointed out to me, too, in the opening of the river, where one of our Cromarty fishermen, who had anchored his yawl for the night, was laid hold of by the spectre when lying asleep on the beams, and almost dragged over the gunwale into the water. Our seafaring men still avoid dropping anchor, if they possibly can, after the sun has set, in what they term _the fresh_--that is, in those upper parts of the Frith where the waters of the river predominate over those of the sea.

"The scene of what is deemed one of the best-authenticated stories of the water-wraith, lies a few miles higher up the river. It is a deep, broad ford, through which horsemen, coming from the south, pass to Brahan Castle. A thick wood hangs over it on the one side; on the other, it is skirted by a straggling line of alders and a bleak muir. On a winter night, about twenty-five years ago, a servant of the late Lord Seaforth had been drinking with some companions till a late hour, at a small house at the upper part of the muir; and when the party broke up, he was accompanied by two of them to the ford. The moon was at full, and the river, though pretty deep in flood, seemed no way formidable to the servant; he was a young, vigorous man, and mounted on a powerful horse; and he had forded it, when half-a-yard higher on the bank, twenty times before. As he entered the ford, a thick cloud obscured the moon; but his companions could see him guiding the animal; he rode in a slanting direction across the stream, until he had reached nearly the middle, when a dark, tall figure seemed to start out of the water, and lay hold of him. There was a loud cry of distress and terror, and a frightful snorting and plunging of the horse; a moment passed, and the terrified animal was seen straining towards the opposite bank, and the ill-fated rider struggling in the stream. In a moment more he had disappeared."

THE STORY OF FAIRBURN'S GHOST.

"I suld weel ken the Conan," said one of the women, who had not yet joined in the conversation; "I was born no a stane's cast frae the side o't. My mother lived in her last days beside the auld Tower o' Fairburn, that stan's sae like a ghaist aboon the river, an' looks down on a' its turns an' windings frae Contin to the sea; my father, too, for a twelvemonth or sae afore his death, had a boat on ane o' its ferries, for the crossing, on week days, o' passengers, an' o' the kirk-going folks on Sunday. He had a little bit farm beside the Conan; an' just got the boat by way o' eiking out his means--for we had aye aneugh to do at rent-time, an' had, maybe, less than plenty through a' the rest o' the year, besides. Weel, for the first ten months or sae, the boat did brawly. The Castle o' Brahan is no half-a-mile frae the ferry, an' there were aye a hantle o' gran' folk comin and gangin frae the Mackenzie, an' my faither had the crossin o' them a'. An', besides, at Marti'mas, the kirk-going people used to send him firlots o' bere an' pecks o' oatmeal; an' he soon began to find that the bit boat was to do mair towards paying the rent o' the farm than the farm itsel.

"The Tower o' Fairburn is aboot a mile and a-half aboon the ferry. It stan's by itsel on the tap o' a heathery hill, an' there are twa higher hills behind it. Beyond, there spreads a black, dreary desert, where ane micht wander a lang simmer's day withoot seeing the face o' a human creature, or the kindly smoke o' a lum. I daresay nane o' you hae heard hoo the Mackenzies o' Fairburn an' the Chisholms o' Strathglass pairted that bit o' kintra atween them. Nane o' them could tell where the lands o' the ane ended or the ither began, an' they were that way for generations, till they at last thocht them o' a plan o' division. Each o' them gat an auld wife o' seventy-five, an' they set them aff ae Monday, at the same time, the ane frae Erchless Castle, an' the ither frae the Tower--warning them, aforehan', that the braidness o' their maisters' lands depended on their speed; for where the twa would meet amang the hills, there would be the boundary. An' you may be sure that neither o' them lingered by the way that morning. They kent there was mony an ee on them, an' that their names would be spoken o' in the kintra-side lang after themsels were dead an' gane; but it sae happened that Fairburn's carline, wha had been his nurse, was ane o' the slampest women in a' the north o' Scotland, young or auld; an', though the ither did weel, she did sae meikle better, that she had got owre twenty lang Highland miles or the ither had got owre fifteen. They say it was a droll sicht to see them at the meeting: they were baith tired almost to fainting; but no sooner did they come in sicht o' ane anither, at the distance o' a mile or sae, than they began to rin. An' they ran, an' better ran, till they met at a little burnie; an' there wad they hae focht, though they had neer seen ane anither atween the een afore, had they had strength aneugh left them; but they had neither pith for fechtin, nor breath for scolding, an' sae they just sat down an' girned at ane anither across the stripe. The Tower o' Fairburn is naething noo but a dismal ruin o' five broken storeys--the ane aboon the other--an' the lands hae gane oot o' the auld family; but the story o' the twa auld wives is a weel-kent story still.

"The laird o' Fairburn, in my faither's time, was as fine an open-hearted gentleman as was in the hail country. He was just particular guid to the puir; but the family had ever been that--ay, in their roughest days, even whan the tower had neither door nor window in the lower storey, an' only a wheen shot-holes in the storey aboon. There wasna a puir thing in the kintra but had reason to bless the laird; an' at ae time he had nae fewer than twelve puir orphans living aboot his hoose at ance. Nor was he in the least a proud, haughty man; he wad chat for hours thegither wi' ane o' his puirest tenants; an' ilka time he crossed the ferry, he wad tak my faither wi' him, for company just, maybe half-a-mile on his way out or hame. Weel, it was ae nicht aboot the end o' May--a bonny nicht, an hour or sae after sundown--an' my faither was mooring his boat, afore going to bed, to an auld oak-tree, when wha does he see but the laird o' Fairburn coming down the bank? Od, thocht he, what can be taking the laird frae hame sae late as this? I thocht he had been no weel. The laird cam steppin into the boat, but, instead o' speakin frankly, as he used to do, he jist waved his hand, as the proudest gentleman in the kintra micht, an' pointed to the ither side. My faither rowed him across; but, oh! the boat felt unco dead an' heavy, an' the water stuck around the oars as gin it had been tar; an' he had just aneugh ado, though there was but little tide in the river, to mak oot the ither side. The laird stepped oot, an' then stood, as he used to do, on the bank, to gie my faither time to fasten his boat an' come alang wi' him; an', were it no for that, the puir man wadna hae thocht o' going wi' him that nicht; but, as it was, he just moored his boat an' went. At first he thocht the laird must hae got some bad news that made him sae dull, an' sae he spoke on, to amuse him, aboot the weather an' the markets; but he found he could get very little to say, an' he felt as arc an' eerie in passing through the woods, as gin he had been passing alane through a kirkyard. He noticed, too, that there was a fearsome flichtering an' shrieking amang the birds that lodged in the tree-taps aboon them; an' that, as they passed the _Talisoe_, there was a colly on the tap o' a hillock that set up the awfullest yowling he had ever heard. He stood for awhile in sheer consternation, but the laird beckoned him on, just as he had done at the river side, an' sae he gaed a bittie farther alang the wild rocky glen that opens into the deer-park. But, oh! the fright that was amang the deer! They had been lying asleep on the knolls, by sixes an' sevens, an' up they a' started at ance, and gaed driving aff to the far end o' the park as if they couldna be far aneugh frae my faither or the laird. Weel, my faither stood again, an' the laird beckoned an' beckoned as afore; but, Gude tak us a' in keeping! whan my faither looked up in his face, he saw it was the face o' a corp--it was white an' stiff, an' the nose was thin an' sharp, an' there was nae winking wi' the wide open een. Gude preserve us! my faither didna ken where he was stan'in--didna ken what he was doing; an', though he kept his feet, he was just in a kind o' swarf, like. The laird spoke twa-three words to him--something aboot the orphans, he thocht; but he was in such a state that he couldna tell what; an' whan he cam to himsel, the apparition was awa. It was a bonny clear nicht when they had crossed the Conan; but there had been a gatherin o' black cluds i' the lift as they gaed, an' there noo cam on, in the clap o' a han', ane o' the fearsomest storms o' thunder an' lightning that was ever seen in the country. There was a thick gurly aik smashed to shivers owre my faither's head, though nane o' the splinters steered him; an' whan he reached the river, it was roaring frae bank to brae like a little ocean; for a water-spout had broken amang the hills, an' the trees it had torn doun wi' it were darting alang the current like arrows. He crossed in nae little danger, an' took to his bed; an' though he rase an' went aboot his wark for twa-three months after, he was never, never his ain man again. It was found that the laird had departed no five minutes afore his apparition had come to the ferry; an' the very last words he had spoke--but his mind was carried at the time--was something aboot my faither."

THE STORY OF THE LAND FACTOR.