A Heroine in Homespun. A crofter chronicle

Front matter

A HEROINE IN HOMESPUN A HEROINE IN HOMESPUN Jt Crofter Œhnmide BY FREDERIC BRETON AUTHOR OF ' THE CRIME OF MAUNSELL GRANGE,' ETC. ' An island salt and bare, the hattnt of seals and auks And seatneius' clang ' IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON gnblishcrs in ©rbinarg to Srr JJ_tje6t]j the (Qnetn i893 [Alt rights reserved) CONTENTS OF VOL. II. II. THE BOOK OF SEONAID (CONTINUED) CHAPTER PAGE VII. THE IRONY OF FATE - " " " 3 VIII. SEONAID TO THE RESCUE - - "3° IX. THE WISE MAN INTERVENES - - 54 X. SEONAID'S CHAMPION RETURNS - 79 III. THE BOOK OF THE STRANGER I. THE VOICE AT LOCH KEARSINISH - - IO9 II. AT THE RED TORRENT - - - 1 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. vi CHAPTER PAGE III. THE BEGINNING OF THE END - - I47 IV. THE MAN ON THE HILL AND THE PARTING ON THE SHORE - - - 1 63 V. FOR THE LAST TIME- - - - 187 VI. A MAN-HUNT - - - 206 VII. THE STRANGER'S STORY - - - 225 VIII. ACROSS THE FORD - A HEROINE IN HOMESPUN II. THE BOOK OF SEONAID (CONTINUED) VOL. II.

CHAPTER VII THE IRONY OF FATE.

When, a few days after her visit to Eriskay, John Bowie came to appeal to her compas sion, Seonaid felt as if she had had the 'second sight,' and was almost frightened. She had been conscious of pity, and now pity was called into play. John Bowie's mother was sick. The active woman had been suddenly struck down by the same ill-defined fever from which Denis McAuliffe had suffered. ' It's a bad case with her, you see,' John said quietly to Seonaid, ' because she is so used to getting about. Never a moment could she sit still, but must be jumping up and running to the door to see who was passing, or around to the byre to see if any thing ailed the cow. Even in the long nights of winter she must ever be working at something, knitting stockings or spinning, and it was not her you would ever see peering over the peat-fire and taking drams from the teapot she had set down by the hearthstone to stew, till the china became as black as the kettle hanging from the slabhruidh.

Chapter I The Voice At Loch Kearsinish

' With my pipe and my parrot, I envy no man,' Mr. Peter used to say. ' The one soothes, while the other chatters and teases. It is a patent social combination, as good as any wife ; for is it not in the nature of woman to scold and scream in one breath, and try to atone by purring caresses in the next ? So, when Shiloh wags his tongue too much, 1 take a puff at the pipe, and all is well.' Armed with these aids to domestic felicity. Mr. Peter sat at his door late one evening, some days after Seonaid's visit to Ushinish. [ '°9 He had his note-book on his knee, and was making pretence to classify and index the mass of material he had collected for his great work on natural lore. It is to be seared, however, that his ' patent social combination ' proved as great a hindrance to literary labour as an actual wife might have been.

Playing with the parrot pro duced an unstudious hilarity, while even a few puffs at the pipe of peace induced the kind of study known of men as brozvn. Between these extremes the happy medium was lost, and when Mr. Peter did manage to write a line or two, either the pipe was going out and required a few vigorous puffs to keep it alight, or Shiloh, who was a jealous bird, startled the domestic camp with such fearful and wonderful sounds that his master was compelled to lay down his pen and reassure the querulous creature. Father McCrimmon often promised to write an instructive homily, entitled ' Impious Peter and the Petulant Parrot,' and said he only awaited the publication os Mr. Peter's book before completing the treatise, as the moral would carry more weight once its subject was famous.

The one work, however, appeared as unlikely to see completion as the other, at the present juncture, and merely served to furnish a kindly jest which grew more endeared to the two men as it became more familiar. Not all jokes lose their savour by repetition ; some, on the contrary, become the very salt of friendly intercourse. On this particular night, the parrot was more distracting than the pipe, and Mr. Peter at length laid the latter down and took Shiloh indoors. He returned with his fiddle, and spent nearly an hour trying over various tunes, commencing with reels and strathspeys and such-like merry sprigs, then passing by degrees to the plaintive airs of the people among whom he dwelt. Sad as the melodies were, they suited the scene far better than the sprightly tunes, for the glamour of the Northern twilight lay over the land — a land os soft gray shadows and silver lights — like a picture in that it was silent, but most unlike any picture in that no art could render faithfully the thousand tender hues of sea and hill, or hope to paint the veiled radiance of the northern sky.

It was fully midnight when Mr. Peter laid down his bow and prepared to go indoors. In this Northern latitude, however, midnight in June meant merely a brief interval of mellow twilight connecting sunset and dawn, and, not feeling sleepy, Mr. Peter was rather glad than otherwise to hear himself hailed bv Father McCrimmon. ' Quite our Uist Orpheus !' said the priest cheerily as he opened the wicket-gate and came up the little path leading to the door. ' I've been standing in the road listening to you this last half-hour. You've a fine ear for music, Mr. Peter, mores the pity for your own sake, considering how wasted it is up here.' ' Wasted !' exclaimed the other briskly. ' I join issue with you, Father McCrimmon ! Nature knows no waste. We've thrashed that subject out hundreds of times. But come away in and have a smoke and a chat.

Did you get any news of Seonaid Nicholson or Alick Campbell down at South Boisdale ? Whose house were you in ?' As he spoke, Mr. Peter edged into the house, and almost before he knew where he was, Father McCrimmon found himself seated by the peat-fire, armed with a long pipe, and with an open canister of tobacco upon his knee. ' I was at Mary Kelly's house !' said the priest, filling the bowl of the pipe as he spoke. ' The old woman sent for me this evening, and as I had an hour or two to spare, I went down to see what she wanted. Words cannot express the terrible way she was in ! She's heard a ntanadh /' 'A what 7 said Mr. Peter, starting from his seat to get his notebook. ' A manadh ! That's right, get your paper and pencil, for it's a curious old superstition, VOL. ii. well worth a paragraph in " Rills from the Fountain-Head."

Now, chapter 50, para graph 8, sub-section B, manadh. When human voices or strange noises are heard in any desolate places where there is nothing to account for such sounds, it is taken as a sign that people will afterwards come there, and the warning is called in Gaelic amattadh. Some years ago people were constantly hearing loud speaking and rapping, as if with a hammer, at a lonely spot on the road to Howmore. Everyone said it was a manadh, and sure enough, eighteen months afterwards, a house was built on that very spot, and the mysterious voices and rappings found their counterpart in the conversation of the workmen, and their hammering at the joists and flooring. To hear raps on the door when there is no one outside is also called a manadh! ' And what did Mary Kelly hear ?' asked Mr. Peter. ' I'm just coming to that,' said the priest, ' only I thought I had better first explain the meaning of the word.

Do you know Loch Kearsinish ?' ' That waste-looking place in the hills between South Boisdale and Glendale, where the reputed witch-wife lives ?' ' The same ! The spot has always had an evil reputation, both because it is on the way to the witch's house, and because of its neighbourhood to the Alt-Dearg, where the Stranger was seen.' 'Ay! It does look gruesome enough, and, as it ought to be uncanny, I suppose the people think it their duty to make it so,' remarked Mr. Peter. ' Now, none of your gibes, or I won't be telling you,' said the priest. ' Listen in silence, if at all, and, whatever I tell you, don't be asking the reason for it, as you generally do. You can't dissect a melody or a perfume, and you can't dissect the people's stories. Mary Kelly has some peats on the hillside just above Loch Kearsinish, and it appears that, going up to get a creelful this afternoon, she was overcome by the heat and fell asleep.' ' Asleep !

Good beginning that for a manadh /' remarked the irrepressible Mr. Peter. Father McCrimmon held up a warning finger. 'She fell asleep,' he repeated, 'and was wakened out of her sleep by hearing her name called three times in a loud voice. She started up, as she said, and looked round, thinking it might be one of the children, or her husband, or perhaps a neighbour crossing the hill from Eriskay Sound that was calling her, but she saw nothing except the bare brown hill and the blue sky. And a terrible fear fell upon her, thinking of the nearness of the Alt-Dearg and of Phemie McEwan, the witch-wife, and her familiar, that black cat Oorie. She remembered how the two men died after being helped over the stream by the Stranger, and how Kirsty Me Bean's cows sickened away under the evil-eye which was put on them by Phemie.

All these things — so she told me — came crowding into her mind, and she just knelt down — indeed, she could hardly help kneeling, for her legs trembled so she could not keep upright on her feet — she just knelt down and said a prayer, reciting the genealogy of St. Bridget, in which the people have great faith as a means of keeping off evil spirits. She had scarcely finished her prayer, however, when suddenly she felt as if she were "in the midst of a great crowd, and heard a trampling of feet, and a terrible noise of people talking loudly and screaming together. She said it seemed as if a herd of wild cattle were rushing down the hillside into the lake. But before she had really time to consider the matter, the confusion and uproar ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and the place became still as death.

Needless to say, she left her peats and creel on the ground, and fled home in terror, and sent her boy Uilleam up to me to ask me to go down at once and see her. When I got to the house, I found the poor creature had taken to her bed, and was busy at her prayers. It was hard work consoling her, and all the women gossips of the country side are assembled in her house, groaning and shaking their heads, and rummaging their brains for every old story they can find about witches and the Stranger and the Alt-Dearg. Some say that evil spirits have been loose all over that bit of the island between the Ru na h' ordaig and Eriskay Sound ever since the Finlander, Captain Lilly, lived in the house at Aridh nan Gallan. But we shall see what we shall see, and mark my words if we do not hear more of strange occurrences at Loch Kears inish or thereabouts !' ' That's very possible,' answered the other, ' considering it's on the direct road from South Boisdale to Eriskay Island — the destiny road, as one may say, of the Nicholsons, John Bowie, and Alick Camp bell.

Strange occurrences may well be looked for from that quarter. They say John Bowie is getting quite mad, walking over the hills and muttering to himself day after day. Angus, the postman, told me yesterday he met John Bowie on the machair near the old wreck in Askernish Bay. He had a knife in his hand, and was stabbing at something in the sand. Angus wanted to go over to see what it was, but was afraid of going near Bowie ; he looked so desperate wild, as he said. Bowie no sooner caught sight of Angus than he made off, however, and on going to the place where he had been standing, Angus found the figure of a man drawn with the end of a stick in the sand ; and, indeed, said he to me, the figure was not so unlike Alick Campbell of Eriskay. I don't suppose it was really like anybody in particular, but all the neighbourhood knows of the feud between Alick and the Dreamer, and every little straw is seized upon as an indication which way the wind is blowing.' Father McCrimmon looked grave, and sighed. 'Yes,' said he; 'I don't like the way things are going at all — 1 don't like it at all !

There's a storm brewing somewhere, but it's difficult to say from which quarter it will break, and next door to impossible to take precautions. I've warned Alick Camp bell, however, to be very careful not to give John Bowie any pretext for assaulting him. I can't do more, for both John Bowie him self and Allan Nicholson are beyond reach of my influence.' ' How Allan Nicholson ever came to enter into relations with Bowie beats me altogether,' said Mr. Peter; 'and as for his consenting that John should marry Seonaid, that, if you like, is a mystery impossible to dissect.' 'John Bowie won't marry Seonaid in this island,' said Father McCrimmon ; ' not before me, whatever — at least, unless Bowie amends his way, and comes to his religious duties.' ' Why don't you take Alick Campbell and Seonaid up to the church at Dalibrog, and marry them out of hand ?

That would settle matters.' ' I would if Seonaid were of full age, but she's still subject to her father's control, and Nicholson certainly wouldn't sit down tamely if his daughter defied him in that manner. Even if he did, moreover, there's the other madman to reckon with. 1 don't know what's coming to the parish that we have such creatures, and that I should be called on to interfere in marriages and love making.' 'Two-thirds of the drama of human life has love as its motive,' said Mr. Peter. ' Ay, love, drink or money ! The first and last are responsible for this business.' ' And the middle one also, to a certain extent. I hear that young Morrison is try ing to get a finger in the pie ; on the one hand, making up to John Bowie and running down Alick Campbell whenever he gets a chance ; and, on the other, speaking evil things of Seonaid Nicholson when John Bowie is not by to hear.' ' Well, we shall see what the voice at Loch Kearsinish portends,' remarked the priest, knocking the ashes out of his pipe and rising to go. ' There are some folk down there at Mary Kelly's house who seem disposed to connect it with the death of the Norwegian skipper, when the Thorshavn was lost off the Ru na h' ordaig.

There's a mystery which has never been cleared up.' ' I shouldn't be surprised if the one were the clue to the other,' said Mr. Peter. ' Nor would many people,' answered the priest. 'Good-night!'

Chapter II. At The Red Torrent

Shunned as her father's house was by the people, Seonaid had no opportunity of hearing about the voice at Loch Kearsinish. Had she heard of the matter, it is very doubtful whether she would have consented to meet Alick Campbell by the Red Torrent, which coursed down the hill beyond Loch Kearsinish. The torrent itself had a sufficiently evil name, and Seonaid would never have gone there except that in Alick's com pany she knew no fear. Lying between Eriskay Sound and South [ 123 Boisdale, however, it afforded a convenient meeting-point, and was, moreover, the only trysting-place within easy reach where the lovers could feel practically secure against interruption. Alick Campbell had not heard the story of the voice at Loch Kearsinish, and the apparition of the Stranger to the three men crossing the stream some years before was too ancient a history either to affect his own well seasoned nerves, or to cause him any anxiety on Seonaid's account.

In fact, his only fear was the fear of being observed, and his first words to Seonaid were : ' Did you meet anyone as you came along?' ' No one,' answered the girl. ' I was dreadfully afraid of coming across someone, seeing what a fine evening it is, but not a shadow of anything living crossed my path except some sheep, and they were more scared than I was. I just crept up the hill like a rabbit, keeping away behind every clump of bracken for fear I should meet at least the children bringing down the cows, but not a sight of one did I have. They seem to have sent them all over to the west side. It was just the same at the peats above Loch Kearsinish. I was certain I should be meeting old Mary Kelly or some other body getting peats, and my heart fairly jumped into my mouth when 1 saw a creel lying on the ground.

There was no owner to it, or, if there was, he was hiding himself away. But that's enough about me and my doings. How are you yourself, Alick ?' ' Never was better,' said the man, smiling to see in what good spirits Seonaid was, and how completely she seemed to have thrown off the depression of the last few months. She sat on a large boulder overhanging the torrent, a swirl of wild water, tinged by the peat mosses, from which it took its rise, to the tints of amber and ruddy brown which gave the stream its name. Campbell leaned against another rock opposite her. He was not demonstrative like Bowie, but his very quietude of manner gave the girl a sense of lasting depths of peace, far more soothing than the fiercest sweep of passion. Alick talked of the future and how they could compass to outwit John Bowie without crossing Allan Nicholson.

The girl rested her eyes on his face as he spoke. ' I am sure of this,' said he, ' that your father has your happiness at heart, and would be glad enough if you could escape marrying John Bowie, so long as he himself came to no harm by it. It is not many things your father has soft feelings for, but he has soft feelings for you. When I saw him that evening after I met you above Glen Coradil and told him of Bowie's insult to you, I could see he was much moved. He rose from his seat and cursed — ay ! cursed the name of the man. He did not speak the words out loud, but his lips moved, and I could see he was cursing by the working of the muscles of his face. Oh yes ! I can read his mind very clearly. He would leave you free to follow your own wishes and give the Dreamer the go-by to-morrow, if it were not for the secret which you say John Bowie claims to hold over his head.

Of course, he said nothing to me about that, and 1 had much ado to make my peace with him over that business of the widow Mackenzie's croft. He wouldn't have spoken to me at all, but for your calming him down before hand, Seonaid. When I told him that it was myself you had wished to marry all along, and that you had only consented to have John Bowie because of his wishes, he swore at me for a numbskull, and at you, too, and asked why we didn't go to him before he had pledged his word to Bowie. I told him that we had no idea that he had been going to do such a thing. He then asked me when we had made matters up between us, and when I told him it was while he was looking to the sheep at the sank on the very night that the Norwegian vessel was lost on the Point of the Thumb, quite a terrible fear came into his eyes, till I asked him what ailed him, whereupon he rose angrily and bade me begone, since it was too late to mend matters, and there was no use in putting him about over it.

John Bowie had his word, and he could not withdraw it. That is so, of course, but if we could arrange matters so that John Bowie would not be able to complain of your father breaking his promise — if all the blame appeared to rest on you and on me — I'm sure your father would not be sorry. Suppose, for instance, you should go to spend a few days at Mrs. McAuliffe's she's a friend to us — and suppose I should happen to come there, and we were to go up quietly to the church and see Father McCrimmon, and he were to marry us then and there, and leave the civil business till afterwards. That would be a good answer to John Bowie.' ' Yes, Alick,' said Seonaid, ' it would be a good answer ; but some way or other I don't like it. It does not seem just to the love we bear one another to stoop to such underhand ways as that, and — don't be angry with me for saying so — I don't feel as if it were right to have one kind of marriage in church first, and the other, dear knows how long afterwards.

Ill-natured people might say bad things about it.' A look of cordial approval came into Campbell's eyes. 'I didn't say so,' he observed, 'for mine seemed to me the only means of escape out of the difficulty, and if the horse kicks the vol. 11. man bringing him his oats, where will he get his food ? I didn't say so, but that's exactly my own way of thinking. It does seem a tricky piece of business, smart though it be, and, as you say, it would lower our love in our own eyes to go to work in such an underhand manner. I honour you for speaking your mind so freely about it. If I suggested the plan, it was only because I'm at my wits' end, thinking for you and what is best for your happiness.' ' But even if we were to act as you suggested,' said Seonaid, ' I'm afraid it would make no difference as far as John Bowie is concerned.

He has sworn to have me. If not, no matter how it happens, he will bring shame on us all and on himself by telling what he knows.' ' But what does he know ?' asked Alick impatiently. The question escaped him unwittingly, and he looked quickly at Seonaid to see how she took it. Their eyes met, and a painful flush slowly mounted her cheeks. ' I don't know what he does know,' she said in a low voice. ' He refused to tell me until — until a time came, which I hope may never come. But it must be something terrible — something terrible and shameful, or the fear of its disclosure would not move my father as it does. I dare not think over it, lest my own fears point to the truth, and — which God forbid ! — I despise my own father. Do not speak of it any more, Alick, it is too painful, and brings back all the weary months I have spent trying to do what is right, trying to forget it, trying to love my father as I used, trying to save him from dishonour.

And this fearful thought takes shape within me. Suppose — suppose there is no other way to save him from dishonour except to marry John Bowie, even though that would mean my own misery and dishonour, since I would be marrying and vowing to love and obey a man I loathe and despise.' ' You would never have to take those vows, Seonaid. There is not a priest in the Outer Hebrides would marry John Bowie to you, godless and wild as he is now, and in a civil marriage there are no vows spoken, and, like enough, few in the hearts of those who do not seek God's blessing on their marriage. But have no fear, Seonaid. We will find some way out of all this.' The girl leaned over and caught Alick's hand in hers. ' If there is a way,' said she, ' I know it is yourself who will find it out. You are so strong and masterful.

If only I could keep a hold of your firm hand as I am doing now, I would fear no more. As long as 1 am with you, I feel sure all will come right, but when I am away from you, alone at home, or trying to look as kindly as I can on John Bowie, thoughts will come and fears ■33 will rise. These last few weeks I have had little room in my mind for anything but you, but it is just because you, and you alone, fill my own mind that I fear losing you. And then, you know, so many things have happened to make me fear. There was the plate of earth on Hallow E'en at Mrs. McAuliffe's soon after I first saw you, and then — I never told you this, I was so frightened at the evil meaning of it — I came over to see the witch-wife and ask her to destroy the spell if she could ; but I met John Bowie there, and he walked back with me through this very glen, and kept telling me fearful stories about the Stranger at the Red Torrent, and we saw the sharp-fire, as we thought, but it was the gleaming eyes of Phemie McEwan's cat Oorie, come out to speir what we were doing.

Ah, dearie me ! The very thought of that walk makes me shudder.' ' You should not have gone to Phemie's,' said Alick gravely. ' She may not be the witch folk say she is, but if she is not, she is quite as bad, being an impostor claiming powers she has not got' 'Whist! or she'll be hearing you and do you a mischief as you go home to Eriskay !' Campbell laughed aloud. ' If you'd been out of Uist and in storms on foreign seas as I've been, Seonaid, it's not an old crone like that would frighten you. As for the Hallow E'en business, it was a bit of childishness, not worth a thought. I like keeping up old customs, but not when they frighten foolish lassies.' Seonaid smiled. ' Well, I will try to be brave like you and not think of it more.' ' To try to be brave is more than half the secret of being brave,' said Campbell ; ' so just see to it and be cheery, and trust to me that all will be well.' ' I will trust to you,' repeated the girl ; ' and even if I do have fear, it will be a happy, proud fear, because it will simply come out of my very love for you.' Campbell's strong face softened as he stooped and kissed her. ' And I thought you did not care for me,' he murmured to himself, adding aloud, ' When will I see you again ?' ' I may happen to be at Mrs. McAuliffe's next Sabbath,' answered Seonaid, with quite a mischievous glance. ' But there's no say ing.

You must take your chance with the rest, Alick.' Campbell smiled and turned away down to Glendale. Seonaid watched him depart, but one of the principles on which he acted was never to look back, once his face was set in a given direction, and there were none of the lingering backward glances in which John Bowie would have indulged. Instead of at once returning home when Alick Campbell left her, Seonaid remained sitting by the Red Torrent to recall the details of her interview with her lover, for the best part of any meeting with those we love lies rather in retrospect than in the meeting itself. It is only afterwards that we are able to appreciate the value of a thousand shades of intonation or manner which we cannot dwell upon as they pass, lest in our eagerness to hold fast by one we should miss a hundred others.

It is in memory that we prize the lingering hand-clasp, the subtle tenderness of love's manner, the fond inflection of the voice. Thus a meeting of but ten, nay, even of five or two minutes' duration may afford matter to spread over hours and days of thought ; and one kindly glance from loving eyes may help to brighten a cycle of gray after-years. Engrossed in thought, Seonaid may have been sitting by the Red Torrent for over an hour before she paid heed to the fact that she ■37 was alone, and that the place where she was resting was not the spot to be chosen of all others for meditation. Only listen long enough to a mountain torrent rattling and rushing over the stones, or swishing through the channels it has hewn out for itself through the rocks, and you will hear such weird sounds, blending with the rush and scurry of the waters, that you will cease to wonder at the thousand traditions which have peopled such streams with strange beings, half human in form, and wholly demoniac in malevolence.