Lochandhu ... Second edition

Front matter

LOCHANDHU WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. HIGHLAND LEGENDS. Crown Svo. Price 6s. TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS. Crown 8vo. Price 6s. THE WOLFE OF BADENOCH. Crown 8vo. Price 6s. SCOTTISH RIVERS. Crown 8vo. Price 6a. THE GREAT MORAY FLOODS. Demy 8vo. Price 8s. 6d. LOCHANDHU a tale of the SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS BY Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. OF fountainhall SECOND EDITION ELGIN: JAMES WATSON GLASGOW: THOMAS D. MORISON INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. Courteous Reader ! I AM an elderly man of easy fortune ; that is to say, I have enough for all the wants of an individual of my retired and moderate habits. Retired I may well enough call them, for, though I move in the sunbeam of human existence, I so rarely impinge upon any of my fellow atoms, that I am almost as little known as if I had no corporeal entity. " Whatten a dumpy-looking body's that wi' the brown wig ?" said a barber's apprentice to the servant girl, as I one day passed up stairs to my lodgings.

" Troth, I dinna ken," answered the girl ; " he's an odd being they ca' Mongomery, that leeves in our house." I stopped at the turn of the stair to hear the rest, " He's had our best rooms for mair nor five or six years. He keeps them winter an' simmer, though he aye bangs aff with the first comin' o' the gouk, and ne'er comes back till driven in wi' the bad wather, like a wudeock, in the hinder end o' autumn. He seldom taks mair nor twa sarks an' a change o' stockins wi' him. When he's at hame he never sees a mortal, or speaks to a soul — an' he's aye vrite vriting. But he's a harmless creatur' — pays weel — and gi'es unco little trouble." I was amused with this sketch of my own portrait. The fact is, that being fitted rather for a spectator of life's comedy than to be an actor in it, I haunt the public places of resort during the bad weather half of the year, greedily devouring man and his affairs ; and then, during the more INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. genial months, I roam about the country, mixing up the same substantial food with the refreshing salad of romantic scenery.

Thus I find materials to occupy my pen in news papers and magazines ; and to make amends for the silence my tongue usually maintains to those around me, I enlighten the public in general with the fruits of my lucubrations. When the first good weather appears I fit myself with a new jacket, breeches, and gaiters, and a stout pair of shoes ; and with a tough oak sapling in my hand, away I go to follow my nose, whithersoever it may lead. As I never can determine whither my steps are to turn, till I find myself fairly on the way, the curiosity of my worthy landlady, about the direction of these my summer jaunts, remains unsatisfied. So utterly ignorant is she, indeed, of my motions, that if death should chance to arrest me in the midst of my wanderings, I shall probably be buried by strangers, unknown and unwept, in the spot where I am stricken down ; and then Mrs. Gladstanes will be left to wonder and guess at the fate that prevents my periodical return.

Chapter I

Prythe, see there ! behold ! look ! lo ! how say you 1 — Macbeth. Dentro la porta ando, ch' adito dava Ne la seconda assai piii larga cava. La stanza quadra, e spaziosa pare. E quello di splendente, e chiaro foco R«ndea gran lume a l'uno, e a l'altro loco. Ariosto. About fifty years ago, on a delightful evening in June, when the soft summer sky was reflected from the bosom of a calm sea, a gay pleasure yacht, of about sixty tons burden, was sail ing along the bold coast defending the entrance of one of those numerous friths, indenting the north-east of Scotland. Whilst several ships, in the distance, lay almost motionless, like specks amidst the clear grey shadow, that, deepening into an intense blue, was gradually settling over the face of the ocean, a gentle breeze filled her white canvass, and kept her gaudy streamers on the stretch.

She seemed, indeed, to have wooed and won the favouring zephyr exclusively to herself; for, as is often the case with such light winds, it blew partially over a narrow stripe of the water in her course, producing a shght rippling fine along the surface, and lifting, as it passed onwards, a thousand wavelets to be gilded by the declining beams of a glorious sunset. Having kept a little off shore to clear a bold headland, she tacked, stood in for the lovely little bay it protected, and then dropped her anchor within its sheltered amphitheatre, where the lofty and precipitous wall of surrounding rock promised perfect safety from every blast. A small boat, fancifully painted, was now lowered from her side, and pushed off for the beach, that formed a broad shelv ing pebbly margin between the sea and the base of the cliffs.

B It was rowed by six seamen, uniformly dressed in blue jackets and white trowsers, and having leathern caps on their heads, with the word " Dasher" emblazoned in large letters of gold on their fronts. It was steered by a bulky, and rather elderly man, wearing something resembling the undress costume of a naval captain of the daj', and whose hardy countenance, rusted by the action of various climates, displayed a certain air of habitual command. In the bow sat a young man wrapped up in a large boat-cloak, who, as soon as the prow touched the land, jumped actively ashore, and throwing his cumbrous covering to a servant, exhibited a tall handsome person, clad in a green hunting dress, peculiarly calculated to display his finely proportioned figure. On his head he wore an upright cap of dark brown fur, decorated by a broad and rich gold band, and his luxuriantly curled black hair and whiskers gave shade to his fair, untarnished, yet manly face ; as the perfect arch of his ample eyebrows added to the beauty and nobleness of his forehead, and gave fire to his large, full, and intelligent eyes.

In his hand he held a Spanish gun, of rare and curious workmanship, and his shoulders were belted with the apparatus of a sportsman. A light couteau de-chasse hung by his side from a belt of green velvet, ornamented with gold, and his companion, who landed with some what less agility, was armed with a large cutlass, depending from a broad belt of black leather. " Well, Amherst Oakenwold, my boy ! " said the elder stranger to his friend, slapping him familiarly on the shoulder as he spoke, " here we are in canny Scotland ! Have I not been as good as my word ? Have I not whistled you from the Downs hither in first-rate style, and has'nt the little Dasher done her duty ? — What a thing for lying near the wind ! — never was there a better put together parcel of planks ! — I'll be bound to steer her all round the world and back again, without starting a single timber."

" I must admit, Cleaver," replied the other, stretching him self, and moving his limbs, as if delighted to escape from the confinement to which he had for some days been subjected, "that your little yacht is the perfection of pleasure vessels, and yourself the most expert, the steadiest, and the boldest of captains ; nor will I now deny that -you have a perfect right to exercise all that despotic control you are wont to insist upon as your prerogative when on board." " Despotic control ! Aye, what the devil would you expect from me ? — Would you have a crew without a head, or with no harder a head than a boiled turnip >. — or, what is worse, would jrou have as many heads as a boatswain's cat has tails ? — No, no, that would never do ; lubber or landsman, order and obey is the word with me when I walk my quarter deck, be it ever so small.

But when I put my foot on shore, I become as quiet and gentle as a lamb, unless, indeed when I happen to be combed against the hair." " My dear fellow," said Amherst, shaking him heartily by the hand, " nobody knows your good nature better than I do. The kind act you have just done me, by aiding my escape from the vexation I was exposed to at home, is sufficient proof of your readiness to serve a friend." "Don't mention it, my dear boy," cried the captain, "pray don't mention it ; I would cross the Atlantic to serve the son of my old ship-mate, not to speak of the sneaking kindness I have felt for you ever since you jumped into my arms, and kissed me, when your father insisted that you would'nt remember old Cleaver in his tarred jacket — I mean that time when the Admiral brought you aboard of us at the Nore.

Splice my mainsail ! what a little urchin you were then ! Why, zounds, I can hardly believe you to be the same creature ! But, belay ! — why do we stand jawing here ? Night is about to close, and we have yet to look for some place of refreshment and repose, thof I can't say these here parts afford much pro spect of our being well accommodated. I wish we had run in for one of those somewhat Christian-like towns we saw glittering along shore ; for, you know, that when I am not afloat, I like to have my comfort in mine inn as well as e'er an alderman in the city." " I am glad we did not," said Amherst, " for I am so de lighted with the romantic scenery of this lovely bay, that I should have been loath to have left it unexamined. May not yonder path lead to some human habitation ? — Come, let us explore it."

" With all my heart," said Cleaver ; " I say, my lads, keep watch in the boat till we return ; and, O'Gollochar, do you follow your master and me." The footway-track Amherst had alluded to led them up a steep and very rugged ravine, the bed of which was encum bered by large fragments, torn by time and weather from its rocky sides. A clear little rill, gushing from a copious spring towards its upper extremity, ran tinkling over the stony masses, and poured itself into a narrow chasm under one of the largest of them, where it was entirely lost. The fountain-head was enclosed within a circle of ancient ruined masonry, exhibiting marks of having been once polished, laid, and jointed with great nicety ; but many of the stones hav ing been shaken from their beds, were now tufted with moss, and partially covered by the broad-leaved wild plants grow ing in profusion around them, and the pure water, once con fined to a single jet, now rushed out through various fissures.

At the distance of a yard or two above the well stood the remains of the shaft of an ancient cross, and near it on the ground lay the upper part of it, half buried by the herbage, to which the humidity of the place gave peculiar luxuriance. "What a lovely, wild, and interesting spot!" exclaimed Amherst. "What a noble watering-place," cried Cleaver, "here is water enough to supply a whole navy ; but what the deuce are these copper coins laid here for ?" " Judging from these fragments of a cross," said his com panion, " this must be some holy well. I have heard that such offerings are still made by the superstitious vulgar to springs once blessed by saints of former days, and ever since supposed to be peculiarly gifted, even although popery has ceased to protect them." Having reached the brow of the crags, a very cheerless prospect presented itself to their eyes.

The downs, extending for several miles along the summit of the rocks, and rising in elevation as they retreated inland, displayed a barren surface of irregularly-blown sand heaps, covered with patches of wiry bent grass. Beyond all this a bold promontory arose to the westward, its green head exhibiting traces of ancient fortifications ; and, farther still, the eye was carried over an extensive low and sterile plain, yet more unprofitable than the ground around them. Not a house, nor even hovel, was to be descried. What appearance the country, lying bej-ond the ridge about a mile to the south, might wear, they had no opportunity of knowing ; but, as Cleaver expressed it, what they did see looked sufficiently " glum," and damped all hopes of a snug supper. They hesitated for some time what to do.

At length, as the sun had already sunk behind the huge bulk of the distant western mountains, and the sea and its coasts were beginning to melt into obscurity, — after wan dering from knoll to knoll, without gaining any additional information, they finally resolved to postpone all further attempts to explore till to-morrow, and to return to spend the night on board, As they were slowly preparing to descend into the ravine, O'Gollochar, who was immediately behind them, suddenly exclaimed, in accents of astonishment, " Sweet Vargin Mary, Master dear ! what sort of a cratur is that down yonder below?" They threw their eyes hastily in the direction he pointed, and perceived, in the indistinctness of twilight, a little human figure, apparently a female, seated upon the shaft of the fallen cross, then about fifty yards below them.

The stories they had heard of the popular superstitions of Scotland instantly crossed their minds ; but whatever influence these might have had upon their attendant, whose native soil is sufficiently prolific in such belief to have given him an early tincture of it, the gentlemen laughed at such weaknesses. " Holloa you there !" shouted Cleaver, " can you guide us to any hostel, where we may be victualled and moored for the night ? You shall be well paid for your pilotage." The creature was sitting as if occupied in raising water from the spring. It started up at the sound, stretched its tiny arms abroad, as if in alarm, and running with the rapidity of thought three times round the circle of the well, suddenly disappeared. Amherst, roused by curiosity from the momentary sur prise this singular apparition had thrown him into, rushed impetuously down the hollow to discover where it had con cealed itself.

He carefully examined every nook — he looked into every crevice where a human being might have been secreted, all the way from the spring down to the very bottom of the ravine, where it opened upon the strand, but he could not perceive the least vestige of the object of his search. Surprised and disappointed, he stood for some minutes wrapt in silent astonishment, until he was joined by Cleaver, whose obesity of person, ill calculated for such rapid movements, had permitted him to follow but slowly. " Why, Amherst, my boy," cried the captain, puffing and blowing as he spoke, " why Amherst, you must surely have the legs of a goat, or a roebuck, to enable you to bound over slippery stones and rugged rocks in this sort of way. I, for my part, who did not run quite so fast, shook my carcase to pieces, and had two or three times nearly broken my legs in my attempt to overtake you.

But who the devil was that person we saw ? " " The devil, indeed !" cried O'Gollochar, with a face as pale as death. "Strange!" said Amherst, after recovering himself, "very strange indeed ! where can she have hid herself ?" " She certainly did not pass out this way," said Cleaver ; " for before I started to follow you in this same break-neck, mad-cap chase, I kept my eye so fixed upon the bottom of the ravine here, that I must have seen a rat or a weasel, if it had escaped in this direction." " She could not have scaled these walls of rock," said Am herst. " Not unless she can walk like a fly with her head down," replied Cleaver. " By the hill of Howth, she's a fairy or a witch," cried O'Gollochar ; " I'll take my oath I saw her vanish in a flash of fire." " Nay, Cornelius," said his master, " your eyes have added to the mysterious circumstances of this extraordinary person age, who is certainly mysterious enough in herself, without any such flaming addition.

But if we may judge of her by the seat she had chosen, she could not very well be a slave of the Devil, whose servants are supposed to flee at the very sign of the cross." " Och, don't talk about that ould jontleman, dear master," cried O'Gollochar, crossing himself in good earnest ; " sure it was my crossing myself afore, when I first seen the cratur, that got us rid of her so aisily ; and now, if I might make so bould, I would advise you and the captain to get all three of us on board again as fast as our trotters can carry us, for fear she might maybe come back again." After puzzling themselves with unavailing conjectures, the gentlemen returned slowly to their boat. On questioning the sailors left in charge of it, who had observed nothing, they were satisfied of the impossibility of the figure having escaped along the beach from the bottom of the ravine, the boat having been moored opposite to the very entrance of it.

Their curiosity was sufficiently awakened, and they would have willingly renewed their search, but it was now so dark, that even the adjacent precipices began to be invisible, and all attempts to unravel the mystery were vain. They were about to get into the boat, when their eyes were attracted by the sudden twinkle of a light on the shore, as if in the bend of the bay, about five or six hundred yards off. At first it seemed to glimmer like a candle or torch, appearing and disappearing alternately. But suddenly it flamed up with a broad blaze to a great height, illuminating the ample mouth of a large cavern in the cliff, aud throwing a red glare on its interior, whilst all around was rendered doubly obscure by its very splendour. The gleam shot across the water, and the tide, as it broke gently on the shore, flashed and sparkled under the influence of its reflection.

Several figures were seen, like black shadows, occasionally crossing the light, and apparently employed in feeding the fire. A fervid imagination might have fancied them the dæmons who guard the dammed spirits flitting across the threshold of the infernal regions. " Yonder at least are some human beings," said Amherst ; " let us approach, and learn from them whether there is any house in the vicinity. I confess I have no fancy to be rocked for another night by the waves, if I can possibly procure a bed for love or money on terra firma." " Why, Master Amherst," said Cleaver, " I fear you are still a land-lubber for all I have done to tar you. So you ha'n't got your sea-legs yet, man ? If you had been as long tossed upon brine as me, you would think less of its agitation. But to tell you the truth, the fresh smell of land has given me my landsman's appetite for something cooked under a roof, and I should have no objections at this moment to exchange our cold meat basket for a hot beef-steak, or pork sausage, or grilled fowl, or something else warm and savoury.

Besides, I own I feel curious to know what those same cocks yonder are about. They look by that light as black as negers, and remind me of the cannibals in Robin Crusoe, dancing round the fire that roasted their prisoners. But come, let's go and have a nearer peep at them." The two gentlemen now proceeded along the beach in the direction of the fire, followed by O'Gollochar, who, though far from being proof against fear when anything wearing the semblance of the supernatural came across him, was a perfect lion when he knew that he had to deal with mere men. Be fore they had proceeded many steps, the bending of the shore, and the occasional projections of the cliffs, excluded the view of the fire for some time, until the shifting of the intervening objects again permitted them to see the mouth of the cavern.

They then perceived that the figures had disappeared, and that the blaze had fallen considerably lower, rising only by fits as portions of the inflamed mass, falling in from time to time towards the centre, roused its dormant energy. As they ad vanced, the hugh vault rose before them from the smooth pebbly shore, at the distance of a few feet from the water's edge, in all the magnificence of Nature's own architecture. The fire, composed of large pieces of broken drift wood, now burned with a subdued but glowing glare. A heap of dry furze, lying in a corner, showed to what it had owed its former short-dived splendour. The natural walls of red sandstone were rendered still redder by the light that faded away as it rose upwards, and lost itself amidst the clouds of smoke, rolling along under the dome of the roof towards the open air.

The spacious cavern, extending about forty or fifty yards in wards, appeared to be of irregular shape, and terminated in a solid face of rock, where the gleam discovered some fallen masses of stone, of many tons in weight, heaped up one above the other, nearly to the roof. The floor was composed of a natural Mosaic of beautiful sea-polished pebbles, laid, by some high spring tide of former days, in a firm dry sand of a dazzling whiteness, There was not a vestige of that loath some humidity and dankness, so generally disfiguring natural chambers of this description. All was dry as the artificial ha bitation of civilised man, save where a fountain, as pure as rock crystal, poured from an aperture at the further extre mity, and after falling several feet with lulling music into a smooth oval basin it had worn for itself in the stone, ran with a rapid current that freshened the air of the place, in a channel of its own formation, towards the mouth of the cave and the sea.

This fairy fountain, sparkling with the rays of light, gave to the whole the air of enchantment. The enthusiastic Amherst was in raptures. " How romantic !" he exclaimed to his companion ; " let us despatch O'Gollochar to the boat for our provision basket, and let us eat our evening meal, and spend the night in this wonderful cavern. Those oblong blocks lying along the wall of that inner recess, branching off to the right, will serve us for tables, seats, and beds, where we may sleep wrapt up in our cloaks, more comfortably than if we were on down. My heart bounds with delight at the scene, and the novelty of our situation. " Oh ! they are fishermen, doubtless," said Amherst. " Have a care, my young Don Quixote," replied Cleaver ; " such adventures as these are more likely to end in bloody noses than in beefsteaks.

By the bye, talking of beef-steaks, I wish we had some nice juicy rumps to dress on that same fire, for now that the smoke begins to dissipate, it is in such right good case for cooking 'em, that one cannot look at it without thinking of a gridiron. But who* knows whether we may not have a visit from the cocks who made this fire, and who knows what sort of gentry they may turn out to be ?" " I would not have you be too sure of that," said Cleaver ; " but be they who they may, I am not the man to baulk you of your frolic, and as we have your fowling-piece there, and good trusty cutlasses — weapons, which I do the more esteem, as they more rarely miss fire than your pop-guns — we may bid defiance to an enemy." O'Gollochar was accordingly forthwith despatched for the cold provisions, with orders to the boat's crew to return on board for the night.

On his return, the contents of the basket were spread on one of the stone-tables, and Amherst soon finished a hasty supper upon a cold sirloin of beef, washing it down with a glass or two of wine. Cleaver's appetite was not so easily satisfied. He ate, and cut, and came again, ever and anon surveying the fire, and grumbling in unavailing regret, that it should be suffered to burn in smokeless glow, and that its beautiful cherry-red should be expended, without his having a beef steak to dress upon it. " If I had only had even a frying-pan, and an onion, and a little butter, what a glorious hash I might have made ! But," added he, with a sigh, as he put his last morsel, a thin slice coiled upon the fork, into his mouth, " there is no help for it, we must e'en go to roost as we are." They accordingly now retired into the innermost part of the recess, forming a sort of dark chamber to the right, about a third of the way from the entrance of the grand cavern, where each occupying one of the stone-blocks, which, from their shape and position, seemed to have been placed there by human hands, they wrapped themselves up in the ample folds of their cloaks, and consigned themselves to repose. O'Gol lochar, after satisfying the cravings of hunger with the fragments of the feast, disposed of himself on the ground near his master. B

Chapter II

Pallido, crespo, e macilente avea il viso, il crin — canuto. Sua statura a sei palmi non giungea. Ariosto. What kind should this cock come of ? As you Like it. Ajiherst had not slept long, when he was awakened by the gripe of a hand seizing upon his wrist, with a strength that effectually shackled him. He was about to make a desperate effort to deliver himself from what, in his half-waking state, he believed to be the grasp of some unknown enemy, when he perceived his terrified servant hanging over him in breathless apprehension, his knees knocking together, his eyes fixed in his head, and his teeth chattering in his jaws. He was in the act of opening his mouth, to demand the cause of alarm, when, happening to throw a glance towards the greater chamber of the cavern, he perceived the very figure that had so strangely appeared and vanished near the fountain.

The creature, for human being it could hardly be denomi nated, though its dress was that of a woman, was, as far as he could judge, about three feet and a half high. Its form, indeed, appearing perhaps still more diminutive, from the vastness of the subterranean void, in the midst of which it was now seen, might have been mistaken for that of a child, had not the disproportionate size of the head, the prominence and coarseness of the features, the hollow eyes, the high cheek-bones, the thin and hooked nose, the skinny lips of its wide mouth, and the deep furrows marking its lean and leathery chops, given it a ghastly look of deformed age. The effect of this was much increased, by the grizzled hair hanging in long and numerous matted locks from under a fillet of red cloth encircling its head, and by the corpse-like pale ness of its hue, rendered more fearful by the glare of the blazing wood.

A garment of coarse green stuff, having a tight boddice rising no higher than the shoulders, and leaving bare the scraggy neck, and the thin but sinewy arms, and descend ing loosely from the waist to about the middle of the leg, formed the whole of Its drapery. As the head and counte nance indicated age, so, on the other hand, the shape ofthe body and the bare limbs betokened extreme agility and strength of action. Amherst at first gazed on the figure with surprise. It was busily employed in heaping up fuel on the fire, which, in consequence of its exertions, had already begun to give forth fresh volumes of flame and smoke, and whilst engaged in this occupation, he saw it lift up logs of wood, bigger than itself, with an ease that perfectly confounded him. As he looked, it went on, placing them endwise, one leaning against the other, so as to form a high pile, filling the intervals every now and then with dry brushwood, and fanning the flame energetically with a large branch of furze.

All these actions were performed with inconceivable expedition, the figure wheeling round and round the pile with a rapidity almost supernatural, yet emitting no sound, save that of a low mut tered chaunting, the words of which were lost. Amherst gazed on this singular being for a few moments. The deep sleep he had just been roused from left him for some time in doubt whether it was not a dream. At length he recovered his recollection, and being seized wuth an irre sistible desire to satisfy his curiosity, by arresting the flight of a creature so uncouth and mysterious, he extricated him self, by one sudden exertion of all his strength, from the iron grasp of his servant's fear, and rushed forward into the main cavern. But the apparition was gone ! The noise he had made in his momentary struggle with O'Gollochar had alarmed it, and although only a few yards intervened between the spot where he had slept, and the fire where it had been busied, so swift were its motions, that it ran three times round the blazing pile, darted off like the bolt of death, and he only reached the centre of the cavern in time to see it vanish in the thick smoke rolling along the roof, immediately over the heaped up fragments resting against the further ex tremity of the vault.