A Romance of Skye ... Illustrated by Lockhart Bogle

Front matter

UNIFORM AVITH A KOMANCE OF SKYE. Clot/t extra, "Price 5s, THE GATES OF EDEN. A Story of Endeavour. By Annie S. Swan. Large crown 8vo clotli, with Portrait of the Authoress. BBIAB AND PALM. A Study of Circumstance and Influence. Tiy Annie S. Swan Large crown 8vo, cloth extra, Illustrated. ONE FALSE STEP. By Andrew Stewart. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra, Illus trated. NOEL CHETWYND'S FALL By Mrs. J. H. Needell. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra, IDustrated. SIB JOHN'S WABD. By Jane H. Jamieson. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra, Frontispiece. ST. VEDA'S; or, The Pearl of Orr's Haven. By Annie S. Swan. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Frontispiece by Robert M'Gregor. KILGABVIE. By Robina F. Hardy. With Frontispiece by Robert M'Gregor, R. S.A. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra. MADELINE POWEB. By Arthur W. Makchmont.

Large crown 8vo, cloth extra. AFTEB TOUCH OF WEDDED HANDS. By Hannah B. Mackenzie. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra. THE GUINEA STAMP. A Tale of Modern Glasgow. By Annie S. Swan. Large crown 8vo, cloth extra. EDINBURGH & LONDON : OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER. A ROMANCE OF SKYE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS Romance of Skye BY MAGGIE MACLEAN ILLUSTRATIONS HY LOCKHART BOGLE Published by Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier Edinburgh and London

Chapter I

It was autumn of the year 1717, a date which still witnessed in the Isle of Skye the celebration of many ancient customs that have since glided sorroAvfully down from the clear daylight of lofty mountains into the shrouded A'ales of oblivion. The noble strains of the fine old harp-melodies — the " linnigs " and " iorrams" which are now lost to us for ever— no longer rose and fell over the undulating fields of gold in Glen Aradell, for the reapers had laid by their scythe-hooks or " corrans," and gone home to their rest, as the sun veered round to its slumber beyond the snowy clouds of the western sea. The twilight of approaching night was throwing a grey mantle OA'er the winding glen. The wind was rising, and with eerie moans cooled the bare feet, and rustled tbe robe, of Aileen, a young maiden of the Clan Alacdonald, who stood motionless on a knoll of the shore, the only figure in the solitary landscape of sea and moor.

She wore a plain wincey skirt which barely reached her ankles, and a blue bodice, loosely made, with Avide sleeves fastened at the wrists by rude picturesque buttons, carved from the wood of ash and rowan trees, by the dirk of Evan, a youth of Aradell to whom she was betrothed. Her scarlet snood had fallen off her raven head and napped angrily, unheeded, behind. Aileen's was a modest and gentle face ; it had the beauty of goodness, the noblest beauty of all ; for Time is not its master. She had paused there to listen to the voices borne by the imagination on the breath of the wind, from the vaguest recesses of the romantic scenes surround ing her in shadoAved beauty. Afar, towards tbe north, heaved Atlantic billows, bearing messages in their wailing from tbe loved ones who had fallen and would return no more to Skye : the isle whose praises they had sung, Avhose remembrances they had cherished.

Above towered the wide hill of Helaval, bearing many an ominous marsh in its breast, over which the piercing cries of heath-birds resounded ; down the furrows of its ancient broAV dashed a dreaded Avaterfail, whose un dying, woe-inspiring voices reached her where she stood. A great aAve came with its fierce and melan choly beAA'ailing, and, as Aileen listened to the eA'il whispers of its seething spray, the superstitions of northern blood awakened, and shadowed the bright hopes she cherished for the future of her love. She was relieved, if startled, Avhen a calm, human voice unexpectedly dispelled the oppressive silence. " To AA'hat a distance has thy spirit Avandered Aileen, that I approach thee thus, unheeded, un heard ! " Before her, thoughtfully surveying her, stood a tall man with snowy locks, which gave an appearance of great reverence to the stately countenance they encircled.

He wore a flowing robe of black, a fold of which lay across his left arm, and in his right hand, close to his breast, he held a little book which his forefinger kept partly open. Rightly Aileen guessed, he had been pacing the solitary sands studying some learned tale of the past till twilight had dimmed the words as it had dimmed the eyes of those whose deeds had been the theme. This fit picture of a stately pine crowning a mountain of the wilds in solitary beauty was, because of his learn ing, called the " Wise Alan of Aradell ". He lived alone, and as he liA'ed, so he died, alone, by the sobbing waves of Skye. He had been harper and tutor to more than one chief, and had taught them languages un known to the misty isle. He spoke not again for some time, but silence was not strange from one of so reserved a nature.

AVithout any warning, from several peaks around suddenly flashed hungry tongues of lurid flame, and loud shouts of joy mingling with the stirring strains of a Highland "welcome" re-echoed through the glen. Aileen and the sage stood motionless. Then he raised his hand, and pointing to one of the flaming peaks, he spoke in a voice pleasing as the murmur of a smooth flowing stream. " They herald the birth of a son to our chief, of an heir born to Aradell — and to a ' fate of woe' ! " The peace of tbe sage's voice wavered and his tones grew low and distant as do the winds when they have unburdened themselves of their deepest sighs. "Father! father!" Aileen beseeched in imploring sorrow ; for thus the youth of Aradell addressed him. " So," ansAA'ered the sage, " my dreams have foretold. The storms as they raged among the glens whispered this to me The stars also have proclaimed it.

I be held blood in the fire of the sun last night, as it sank to rest. But the blood grew pale like the grey waA'es of ocean. Even then the spirits Avhich quiver alike the grasses on fairy knolls and on tbe graves of the sleep ing, and ripple the waves of day and of night, fanned my face and murmured against the fate that is before the son of Vich Donnil." " Say, father, is it one of the ' Daoine-Shith ' (fairies or ' men of peace ') that is to bear him away to replace him with one of their oavii kind '?" " My daughter, that has not been reA'ealed to me, nor must thou breathe regarding the fate of this precious child for whom the flames leap high to-night above the sable vales of Aradell and Cona. We are powerless to stem Fate's tide ; to reveal this to others would be to burden them with knowledge of coming woe without the smallest hope of a remedy whereby it could be averted.

Therefore, reveal it not." "Evan, father?" said the maiden,; "I must tell Evan this, for no secrets will I keep from him which pertain to the family of Vich Donnil." " Thou hast spoken well. Even without the proof of it that thou lovest him he is known to be honourable. To thee and Evan alone let my prophecy be revealed." " Father, it shall be so." " God bless him and thee, my child." The sage turned from Aileen as he spoke and pur sued another path alone. I 2

Chapter II

The abode of Evan's widowed mother, to which Aileen then wended her way, was better than most of her equals' houses in the glen. She had two daughters, but Evan was the youngest, and an only son. Ivy grew about the humble door, and the whole surroundings of the dwelling spoke of industry and cleanliness. The roof was thatched with rushes and heather, and crossed AA'ith ropes of the latter, which were kept down with stones, or fastened to projecting pieces of wood fixed below the eaves. In the back, or barnyard, preparations had been commenced for the stacking of tbe corn, as was seen by three circles of stones on wliich the stacks were to be founded. Hens were cackling there with their young ones, and scraping the earth briskly in search of food ; seemingly quite in different to the close proximity of Evan, who was squatting on the ground.

He was mending his creel, which had suffered severely from the joyful exuberance of spirits displayed by the boys ere he had so much as cast a single peat into it to help pile the bonfires. Evan bad set it on the verge of a lofty hill ; thence Donald Alacdonald, a lad of thirteen, who was the A Ro77iance of Skye. 13 plague as well as the life of the whole glen, had, with a sound kick and a wild halloo, dispatched it to the very base, and then scampered off with a score of lads and excited collies, in hot pursuit. But, like an eel, Donald had slipped away, leaving no tracks behind him, and his pursuers had nothing for their mad chase, but hot faces and overwhelming fatigue. Being thus disabled for active work, Evan had left the merry, if destructive, A Romance of Skye. 14 band, and come home to repair his damaged creel.

He was soon deserted by his cackling companions, Avho went to roost, after a young member of the tribe had made him start by emitting a very unearthly cry, as shrill as it was unexpected. " PoAvers of evil ! " said Evan heartily, in Gaelic. " May our ears seldom be afflicted with such uncanny sounds, but spare not the ears of Donald Alacdonald." It AA'as the creature's first desperate attempt to crow, and the fearfully earnest performance was accompanied by a painfully feeble flapping of the wings, and a grotesque straining of the neck and eye-balls. AVhen Evan's anxiety regarding the chicken's seemingly in evitable choking had subsided, he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. Newly-cut willow branches lay near him, and one by one went to fill up the gap whose existence prevented his going to meet Aileen, whom he knew to be on her way to his mother's. Duty was before pleasure with him, the creel was useless while that gap remained, and he was assured Aileen knew him too well to accuse him, as much as in thought, of discourtesy.

It was dusk, and the last Avillow had been used, when he heard his mother call him indoors. At the end of the house he collided with his sisters, and set the pails they carried on their arms jingling together, besides making each lose several stitches of the stocking she knitted swiftly with a coarse wool dyed in the juice of lichens. The maidens' cheeks were rosy with the glow of the warm fire from which the loAving of cattle had taken them, by reminding them it was the milking hour. If Evan had not been a petted, only son there would have been a scolding for the uproar and mischief he caused with pails and stockings. As it was he got off with a few punches on the back. A primitive fishing-rod, knotty and very crooked, stood against the outer wall, and its dangling hook baited his nodding curls.

The misadventure, though slight, was irritating, and he would have annihilated the hook there and then had he not considered how useful it was in adding to the stores of the household. He was his wonted, easy, and merry self by the tiiue he had crossed the threshold and entered with firm, but iioav softly-sounding steps, a small chamber, earthen-floored, black-roofed, and with bare stone walls, yet without a speck of dust available. There was a suggestion of purity in the little room, despite its disadvantages and more especially in the pleasant presence of his mother, who was tending oat meal bannocks which, supported by peats, were being browned round a fire in the centre of the floor. The roof was of a glossy black with soot and smoke. Fes toons of the former were drooping from the rafters, and sometimes in wet Aveather black drops fell from them with a pat on the floor, or on the heads and white caps and aprons of the inmates, even perhaps into the very milk and porridge which they were about to eat.

Many a hearty mental oath, I fear, did these black drops occasion. The smoke escaped imperfectly by a hole in the thatch finished on the outside by a diminutive barrel in way of a chimney-can. The table, the three-legged, spidery-looking stools, and the tree stumps, which were also used as seats, and had been dug up from peat-bogs, a comfortable, roomy chair of plaited straw, and a wooden bench with back and arms, in Gaelic " sheayshe," formed the furniture of the chamber, which the leaping flames invested with the lurid weirdness of a ca\'ern. There the trickling stream of crystal Avaters is not a more fitting symbol of purity than was Evan's mother in the dusk of her humble dwelling. She wore a white cap with a frilled border, Avhich formed a suitable frame for the sensible face ennobled by an expression of calm, matured by unwavering trust in the PoAver Avhose infused peace made her beloved in youth and reverenced in age.

Evan laid the knife wherewith he had cut the willoAvs on a shelf in the wall, which held his sword and a fowling-piece given him by the chief, and aAvaited his mother's commands with the good-natured smile that never wholly forsook him. "Evan, I want to say a feAV words to you," she said, "when I put on the pot for our 'leite' (porridge). I see you are in a hurry to be away, and have not, though you seem to have, overmuch of the gift of patience. But be not annoyed, lad ; my theme is to be Aileen ! Ah ! how your smile gathers ; I see it dimly but I clearly feel. She will come hither herself without your escort to-night, so worry not." She hung a pot half-filled with water on the hook of an iron chain suspended from the roof over the fire and known as the " slabraidh ". Tliere is a superstition in the North that the swaying of the " slabraidh " will bring the Evil One to the house.

Even this sensible mother steadied the chain with an anxious hand while the pot was being hung to stay the slight swaying consequent on the added weight. " Lad," she said, " I have been saying to myself this night that I would tell you I am wanting you to marry Aileen soon, for it will not be long now when your sisters go to homes of their own, if so God wills. They have been good daughters to me, and when they go, though I have as kind a son as Skye can boast of, I will feel lonely without a daughter, being used to them for so long. You have got this house and this mother ready to welcome your bride, and a piece of good land, and three of the best cows in Aradell, besides stirks and sheep, and well-laying hens with not one among the brood that would not make a goodly meal, so well padded are their bones with flesh."

The widow here laughed joyously at the suggestive picture of the hens who had it in their power to keep Aileen from starving if the household were reduced to an extremity, and with a satisfied consciousness that Evan's abilities were such as to make such an extremity very improbable indeed. " I will not," answered the laughing Evan, " stay till the spring-time to marry lest they say it was to make Aileen help on my spring-work. I am not of the same blood as that rascal of the mainland of whom it is said tbat when his horse died he married to make the wife supply its place. I will marry when the com is stacked, when all the harvest-work is done, if the time pleases yon, and Aileen is ready. I have strong arms, and the heart is willing they should labour for my loved ones." "Ay! often have I thanked the Lord for the good son He has giA'en me."

" Nay ! mother, why those tears ? " " The heart can Aveep in the thankfulness of its joy as in the anguish of its woe, and my tears are tears of joy." " Long may the day be of dawning on which your tears fall for any reason other than of joy. Aileen will fix the date of our Avedding this very night, and the chief and his lady will grace it of a surety for Aileen is well liked by them." Footsteps now sounded without, and a hum of A'oices interspersed witb laughter, and Aileen, picturesque, rosy, entered, folloAved by Evan's sisters, and their lovers, bearing their milk-pails. They were white teetbed, ruddy-faced men of strength and vigour, who eagerly and courteously greeted their future mother as they doffed their bonnets, wliich they Avore only on very special occasions, on the threshold.

" Hasten," the smiling intruders cried, " the piper is playing up among the hills and the chief is coming to set the largest pile afire and we Avill not be there in time if we tarry." Evan perceived, Avith much concern, that amid this joyful excitement Aileen sadly smiled. Lowly he asked what ailed her. But a smile was her only response. His mother, suddenly remembering the "leite" sim mering by this time, unhooked the pot and filled seven bowls over whose contents one of the daughters poured milk from her pail through a sieve which owed its existence to Evan. The widow bade all be seated. Her son drew the straw chair close to the table for her with a chivalrous tenderness. Four filled the wooden bench, while Aileen and Evan took a seat each by general request. It required little intellect to see that the porridge was still too hot for human mouths, for from each bowl wreaths of steam curled gracefully up wards and sadly interfered with the glances the young men directed towards the maidens.

From the steam and peat-reek, the hands raised to wave the aggravating veil asunder, and the bright faces loomed like spirits. One of the daughters' lovers, being very hungry, hastily raised the spoon of horn, with some of the porridge, to his lips, and consequently burnt his tongue. His woe-begone countenance was a sorry spectacle, the more because it had lately presented so great a con trast, and evoked loud and continued laughter from all save the widow. Alister himself joined in the end with a sickly smile, bearing the pain of his burnt tongue less bravely than he would a sword-thrust in battle. The widow, in a voice whose gentleness covered a felt reproof, said that he should have waited till a blessing had been asked and not have begun as do the creatures which have not the gift of reason, and that it was not seemly for rational beings to begin their meals as cattle begin their fodder.

This roused Alister to forget his pain. He raised his meekly downcast eyes and gave over his assumed penitent air and boldly began a noisy wrangling with not only his own sweetheart but with his companion's also, and persisted in putting an arm round the waist of each so tightly that they gasped for breath. His jealous companion bade him sternly to desist. Alister would not, whereupon the other engaged in energetic warfare with the immovable arm round his sweetheart's waist. Aileen and Evan sat speaking gravely, addressing the mother ever and anon, to show her love had not made them forgetful of her presence, nor excluded her from their thoughts. As an escape from the impending war of words between her lover and the monopoliser, Alister, Flora, the younger daughter, besought Aileen to sing.

AVith an amiable smile seen clearly now by the aid of a clumsy candle spluttering with vicious little hisses in a bottle on the table, and without any embarrassment, Aileen unaf fectedly laid her hand in the strong one Evan mutely outstretched to her, and, at the desire of all, sang a sad refrain of the North. It is strange that even when so merry the tinge of melancholy in their Celtic nature should be so strong as to call for a song of pathetic history. All listened with downcast eyes to the maiden's low, sweet voice, which could move to inward weeping or endow the listener with that courage which all things will brave. Aileen finished, and, to recall their lost mirth, folloAved with a lively ditty relating the mis deeds of a vivacious calf who constantly broke his tether and roamed at large with tail and hind feet high in the air, over fields of potatoes and of corn, chewing and swallowing in his depredations the clothes and brogues of many, and driving matrons to despair by imprinting the outlines of his hoofs upon their bleaching line.

At first, ere the wandering propensities of this quadruped had become proverbial, these hoof-marks had been taken for those of the Evil One and for a time there had been a miniature panic in tbe glen. Tbe maiden tapped on the hardened earthen floor with her foot, keeping sprightly time with the stirring rhythm of the air. Her eyes sparkled with a vivacity so contagious that her hearers could not resist their feelings. AVith one accord they joined their voices with Aileen's, a heartiness peculiar to the North adding increasing vigour to each verse till the noise became so deafening that the widow was forced to stand up and protest against it with upraised hands. She reminded them the porridge was cool enough now. Sober all became, outwardly at least, as the widow sat down and in a solemn, humdrum but admirably sincere voice, asked a blessing so long that if you had been there with your modern ideas you would think the porridge needed no longer time to cool and that this was the most effectual rouser of your impatience you had ever experienced.

But these bumble hearers had not an inkling of your modern feelings. Nay ! would have been infinitely shocked with the promptness of present blessings, for custom had made them too familiar with lengthy orations to be other than foes of brevity where religious matters were concerned. Yet methinks when that low, rising and falling petition was over, tliere was a stifled sigh of relief from the corner where sat Alister. I presume he was an ancestor of those youths of the present day who, at the risk of breaking their pious mothers' hearts, eye with disfavour that aged guest whose Calvinistic visage forebodes tedious, drawling formulas, before and after meals. The simple supper Avas, however, all the more heartily enjoyed for the tarriance preceding it, and with the jingling of the spoons of horn on the plates, merrily mingled cheery laughter.

All this subsided in a trice into a grave-like stillness while thanks were being returned. This over, the volume of sound speedily broke bounds again. Aileen and Evan took his mother along with them when they left the dwelling, but they had not gone far when they came across an elderly woman with whom the widoAV went, knowing the wishes of the lovers ran a natural course. The great bonfire bad been lighted, for they saw its vivid, far-reaching glow piercing the darkness of the hills. Before them expanded a long undulating path lost in the far ridge of the moorland, over which was wafted the scent of burning heath, and the rolling clouds of fire-tinged smoke. It was a beautiful and impressive scene ; the thick volumes of heated mist wreathing upwards through scarlet gleams to the dim heavens of shaded night.

The autumn moon was riding veiled on the loftiest peak of a cloud of many points like a mountain range, and though the wind gave au occasional sob, the dreaminess of harvest-time lay on the silent fields of corn which the " corrans " had left untouched. In the distance the pipes were playing with the wild northern spirit. Near to Aileen and her lover bubbled " The AVell of Virtues," guarded by grey slabs of stone on whose green moss glistened silver drops of spray. A poor maimed bird, disturbed by their approach, crouched past them and with a low cry of pain glided in among the corn. But Aileen pointed to a crimson stain on one of the slabs where the bird had rested. She shuddered at the omen. " We have driven the poor thing from its resting place, unwittingly, and it is wounded," she mused in silence, recalling the prophecy of the sage ; " but be yond the reach of my aid, and if I go seeking for it in the corn what would it avail me or the object of my search since the moon is clouded now and in the uncertain light I might but tread upon and utterly crush the sufferer?

I would, moreover, but trample the grain which must be preserved to feed our cattle in winter and to sow in spring. AVhat is left me now ? Nought but to pray God to lessen the suffering of the bleeding bird ; to beseech Him that the son of our love fall not when He is far away." Here Evan made known his mother's request, and asked her to name the wedding-day. AVith heaA' ing breast she drew back, and in glowing words told the prophecy revealed to her by the lone shore of Aradell. " The lady," she continued, " spoke some time ago to me that she thought none more suitable than I to nurse her child. I demurred and gave no definite reply, knowing you would ask this of me. But now I must go to the ' Big House,' Evan, and lay all thought of marriage aside for the present. And neither you nor I have merely loved to wed, but for love's own sweet sake.

It is my duty to guard our future chief from evil, and I know, dear lad, Iioav precious as honour is duty to you, and that you will not blame me that I go to shield the son of our hopes." The youth, in answer, took her to his heart. " Is the sacrifice hard, Aileen, dear? " he asked. He saw a tremor pass over her face and that she could not speak. She only smiled. ' AVill I blame you," he asked, " tbat you place duty where God smiles to see it placed? Does this not prove further yours is the loyal heart that can harbour no selfish desires but that will forego pleasures without recking whether it means joy or woe to you, if so it means joy to others ? Go ! put forth your oppor tunities to save the house of our chief and the tears of a faithful people, by shielding the first-born of Aradell from the dark fate the sage foretells.

Remem ber ! my love is for ever yours though Avedded we may never be ! " And they were never wedded, for Aileen could never tear herself away from the household of the chief. Evan never soughtthe love of another maiden nor did he live to see the prophecy of the sage fulfilled, for he was drowned years before off the dangerous headland of Rhua Hunish in Skye. The sage died honoured and beloved, and was fol loAved in the dusk of evening to the grave by a vast and noble train of sorrowing Alacdonalds, Avith all the cere monies attendant on the burial of a chief. Onwards rolled the years till Ian the young babe merged from childhood into youth and became, ere he was twenty, an orphan and head of a people avIio looked for an exhibition of that prowess which was a neces sary custom of those days to gain the respect and inspire the awe which endowed a chief with his greatest power.

The Macdonalds had been hostile to a clan of the Outer Hebrides for so long a time that the cause of the feud was lost in the obscurity of antiquity. The young chief exhibited his prowess in an unexpected raid on this clan of Connel. It was done in secret, and there were two at least from whom the raid on Connel was ahvays rigorously withheld. These two were his only sister Alanna, a maiden born several years after him, and her merry playmate, an orphan called Rolande de Lerois, who was a little older than she, and withal a blithe lad and bonny. He had been adopted by the former chief since childhood, not only because his mother had been a Alacdonald of Skye, but as a companion for Ian, who never had any brothers. Rolande, despite his French name, was as true a son of the mist, and as staunch a Alacdonald, as his mother's inherited enthusiasm for all things northern could make him. Not only was he heir to noble possessions in the sunny land of France, but the future chief of the beautiful mainland ATale of Eshivel.

Chapter III

In the Strath of Connel, in Harris, on a level high above the sea, stood a plain, grey house of two storeys. The present day knows it not, for it is in ruins now, and the winds moan fitfully among the crumbling walls, with their robes of damp moss and lichens, as if bewail ing the brave young chiefs and the gentle maidens, who no longer trip gaily in the old Hall of Connel. There the dewdrops glisten a longer while than elsewhere, as if they were the tears the moaning winds let fall in their weeping. Desolate and silent is Strath-Connel now. Its memories are gliding into the slumber of a forgotten past like our forefathers' songs and bravery. Soon we shall have none of the honourable pride of the dwellers in the land of our birth in the ages that are gone. AVith leal sons of the Norland the memories of the past should for ever linger.