Ian of the Orcades

Front matter

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^C^S'C'Ciri r* ing

CHAPTER I “ A noble house of noble age

Of high and mighty line.” — A non.

TTOLL fifty years have come and gone with their mirk and shine, their seed-time and harvest, since the first of the matters indited in these writings came into my life. Yet it seemeth but yesterday that I was a boy, with the wind of the sea and moor in my face, and the dim, unformed hopes of youth in my heart and mind.

That mine is a sad tale is not of mine own making, but is even the work of a greater One who showeth His might in the vast seas and the hushed tempest ; and if there be anything of ill on my part in the events and scenes herein described, may my children and my children’s children forgive, as Heaven forgiveth, the one who hath stumbled in darkness not only of the flesh, but even of spirit and heatt.

Ours is a great house, and to it have come great storms, yea tempests, that have shaken and swept as

God sweeps the hills that tower, while the glens and straths are protected in shelter. This hath ever been the history of our whole land of Scotland, from the days of my great ancestor the Bruce, and long before, wherein the mighty have fallen or have seen much ill, while the poor and humble have waxed strong in condition and spirit.

As far back as man can remember, our ancestors have held these wide possessions of mountain and moorland, strath and bay, and wild islands of the Orcades ; and ever slowly but surely one by one have they dwindled from kingdom to principality, principality to earldom, until some time, not in my day, nor perchance my children’s children’s day, it may please God that this ancient stronghold, Girnigoe of the Cattynes, stand waste and desolate, and the stranger sit in the place of command, while the heir of an ancient line is unknown, forgotten, and in a far country. Such doth it some time seem to me shall come to pass, that is, when the great sadness cometh over me of darkness and dream which some call the cloak of second sight, a gift or malady of blood inheritance in our family, but which, methinks, cometh rather in my case from the long hours of lone broodings which held me in the dark days of my blindness, before once again I began to see dimly the face of beloved and friend, of sky and great water, of mountain and sun.

But I must to my tale, for there is much to relate, a heavy account to make, and a dark road to follow, with ii burden of ill and sorrow to innocent and guilty, as is ever in this strange and mysterious world.

My earliest memory dates back to a time when I was an eerie lad with an old heart in a young body, like an old sword in a new sheath, who dwelt with an unhappy lady, my mother, in a rude stone sheiling on the rugged end of a strath, which lieth somewhat to the south beyond the castle. Here we were attended by an old woman and her husband, an aged retired forester, and here I dwelt, a lone child, cut off from my kind, with but half a mind for play and a great love of dreaming, companion for the most part to the glen wind and the voice of the sea, which ran, a shining blade, in the land’s lap before my home.

There were few who came to see us in the lone glen where we dwelt, save a stray traveller, or a mountain deer-man to consult with Murdo Morrison or Murdo of the Glen, as the old man was called, who in his day and time had been a king’s huntsman — though now long waxed past his prime — for his fame for knowledge of woodcraft and venery was great in the land.

Saving these, we were shunned and alone, as though we had been under ban of Mother Church. Scarce a woman or child entered our glen, and the slow knowledge I gained of the world was gleaned from the far glimpse of a lonely, solitary sheiling, in some glen apart from ours, or the passing of mighty and humble, with flash of pennon or dusty garb, to and from the great castle beyond. Old Murdo was but slow of speech and sparing with his words, but I liked him in my way, though I could never feel that he was of my kin. Less did I like his wife, Annas, an old woman of much piety and human activities, who, by but or ben, gave me nor other any peace with the clatter of her tongue day or night till a merciful fate took her to her fathers for their ill and the world’s good. I will not say but that she loved one person — my mother — the single soul in this world whom my childhood clung to, loved, and wondered at, as a being out of place and out of the world’s mind, shut off in that weird, outlandish place ; for she was what the world calls a great lady, and, from what my childish heart read in the old woman’s words at stray times, a wronged and ill-fated one. I read this even more truly in my mother’s face, and, child as I was, I read with it death and a broken heart as plainly as sea and wind have graven ruin and age into the face of our ancient mountains. She was ever ill and wasted, like one eaten by some slow disease which disfigures not while it slowly grasps its victim, but which ever made her more beautiful and noble looking. For she was a beautiful woman, if a sad one, and I never wearied of gazing into her face and of holding her hand when she would have me about her, for she preferred that I should be out of doors and grow strong and some time be a man and avenge her woe. So I would go forth and clench my teeth and my boyish fist, and tell the mountains and the sea what ill would come to those who had made her spirit ache and her heart break when I were once a man.

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Thus time went on until I grew to be a sturdy boy — one not ill-favoured in limb and feature, but silent and moody and full of whims, from being much alone, with somewhat of that ruggedness from simple fare and much outdoor life such as comes to those who dwell in these northern straths. So I dwelt with my childish fancies and my mother’s sorrows in the vague imaginations of childhood, nor ever dreamed that I had a father in the world beyond, or out of it.

Chapter II

T HE telling of this tale will be but a slow and laborious task, as I am but a poor clerk, though my noble mother, God assoil her, in her moments of strength, when the disease was light upon her, strove to put some of the knowledge of letters into my head. Father Angus, however, hath since told me that a woman hath no gift for such work, yet it seemeth me that what I got of knowledge from my mother sank deeper into my heart than all the cunning lore of the wily priest, and his crooked subtleties of thought and action.

That time, as I afterward came to know to my poor sorrow, and as all Scotland now knoweth, was the day of the weak rule of my godly, but scarce kingly, royal cousin John Stewart, commonly called Robert the Third, and the ill he got, he, and his sad-fated son, David of Rothsay, whose fortune seemeth much like mine own, with a dreader ending, at the hands of the cruel and bloody Duke of Albany. It is not, however, for me to deal with that matter here, as this history is but a crude tale of mine own part in those evil days of a weak king and an ill counsellor, though what I suffered at the hands of mine evil cousin, the cruel Albany, and i5 the knowledge it hath been my fate to glean of this strange man’s nature and attitude toward God and • man, even towards his own king, shall be related in its proper place. Meanwhile, remote from the world of courts and castles, their great splendour and greater ill, I passed the short years of my early boyhood shut out in the loneliness of this northern strath, with the voices of sea and land to speak within mine ears, and the ghostly fingers of sea-mist and mountain rains to touch me with their close affinity of sadness and spiritual dream, until I became as it were a part of them ; all of which hath had influence on my spirit ever since, when an event happened which changed my whole fife and opened up the door of a darker and more woeful existence.

That winter, the first that lieth heavy on my mind, because of the dread spring which followed it, being as I understand the fifteenth year of my boyish existence, was a hard one v/here all are hard and cruel in these northern wastes that face on the anger and wrath of the North Sea. There was much suffering in glen and strath even to the southward, and the poor towns to the eastward of the extreme of our shire called the Cattynes, but among the poorer in the upper straths it was a bare existence at best, and had it not been for a secret knowledge of venery, the nearness of mountain woodlands, and a high and enduring spirit, few would have been in the flesh by the season of the Shrovetide. In our mean household, however, there seemed naught in our i6 plain way ever wanting, and it hath since come to my knowledge that we were as fortunate in this matter as we had been unfortunate in our other relations to the world about us, in that we were secretly provided where others went in want. Up in our strath the snows came so deep, and the storms blew so hard, that, rugged as I was by my continued life in this climate, yet I found it for many a day difficult to get beyond our drifted doorstone, and many a poor wild creature was found stiff and stark when the rude gale went out to sea and left death in its snowy shroud mantling our northern coasts.

But this dread season had a more evil influence on the disease which held my poor mother, and though she lingered beyond the time of storm and snow, and lived to see the first leaves put forth their greenness, yet it was but the time before the end. One day in the late spring the end came, and that event, at once sad and strange, happened, which killed my childhood and opened up to my untutored nature a new knowledge of my rights and their relationship to the base intrigues and ambitions of a wicked world.

Well on in the afternoon of a fine day, I had gone with a fairly light heart up the greenness of the strath, whistling to my dog as a boy will where sorrow, heavy though it may be, can lie but a light weight on the innocent heart of childhood, when of a sudden I heard a call, and looking back saw the old man Murdo hobbling slowly toward me with the word that I was wanted.

There was a look upon his face and a sob in his voice which made my heart to turn cold and my brain to spin round, for I knew that the dread hour had come which I had long expected ; and dumbly, like a wounded animal, I followed at his heels and re-entered the cottage. The room or part of the sheiling which my mother and I occupied was long and low, and but little better, save for some few matters, than that commonly allotted to the peasantry ; and there, on the rude couch where she had so long reclined, lay my mother, with the look of death on her beautiful face. By her side there stood a strange man in the garb of a priest, whose strong yet sinister face darkened at sight of mine like the quick shade made by wind on water. I waited not because of him, though my mind seemed to take him in with but an ill liking, but rushed to my mother’s side, where her poor wasted face sought mine and her worn fingers clutched at the coverlet.

“ Mother ! mother ! ” I cried ; “ leave me not, oh ! mother ! ”

4 4 My poor bairn ! my poor friendless bairn ! ” she cried ; and her hand shook so that the jewelled cross she held, the only thing of value she had ever possessed to my knowledge, fell from her grasp.

“ Daughter, or rather cousin, I should say,” spoke the sinister priest, 4 4 it is written that for their sins the great have been brought low and the mighty humbled, but make thy peace with God, and I will see to it — indeed, the Mother Church will see to it— that justice i8 shall be done, and that he who hath wrought this shall eat of the price of his sins in the day thereof.”

“ Speak not of him ! ” cried my mother, starting up, and a faint tinge coming to her cheek. “But did I know, Father Angus, that thy love for my son’s rights were as great as the hate you bear him who hath done all this, I would die easy.”

“ Yea, madam, an ’twere a great love to be so great,” said the priest. “ Yea, I swear it.” And he clutched the cross where I knelt at his side.

“Nay, nay, not that,” cried the dying woman, “ for fear worse ill may come. There hath been too much sin already, but swear fealty to him who is the head of thy house, and I will die content.”

At that he stood up and went white, then red, and a dark look followed like that he had worn when I first entered. Then he said, slowly and sternly, “It is a hard task you set me, madam. Evil as I have been, it is too much. Ask me all but that.”

At this my mother half rose in her couch and a red spot came in either cheek as she said, “ Then take the curse of a dying and a wronged woman, one ye have helped to wrong ! ” And I marvelled much and shrank back in my sorrow, for my mother had ever been a gentle woman.

“ I will do it ! ” he said, with a strange side-look at me. “ I will do it, partly for the fealty, partly for the vengeance.”

“ Then God assoil ye, Angus, for the wrong done me.

The vengeance may burn out, as hates and loves do in this world, though I wish him no wrong who is, who

is ” Here her voice broke. “ But I know you will

be true to this oath.”

“The vengeance will never die,” said the priest. “ But fear ye not, my lady ; I will keep the oath.”

Then a strange thing happened, which I marvelled at greatly, and for a long time after it gave me deep thought.

“Ian,” said my mother ; “ Ian ” — and there was a strange tone as of pride in her voice for the first time in my memory of her — “ Ian, my son, stand up.” And much wondering, and in great sorrow, I gat me to my feet. Whereat this great priest — because, for all his ill look, he was a handsome man, and stately, and looked to be one fit for command — got him on his knees to me, as I had never seen any do, save to God. And as I marvelled, not without fear, my mother said, “ Ian, give him thy hand.” Like one who hesitates, I paused, and then stretched forth my small hand, which he took and carried to his lips, which act made me wonder the more that he should so demean himself to a poor mountain boy raised in a sheiling. And I marvelled the more because, his face being partly turned from my mother where she lay, there still hung on his looks that evil, cruel smile, as of one who would play, as I learned afterward, at mock courtiership. At the time, however, I but saw and understood in my boyish way, and feared, knowing not why. And it seemed to me that the man knew how much I read him, and what I felt, and enjoyed it in his own evil way. Not that the scene was not all solemn enough, for, though I was ignorant of the matter, I could not but feel that it had to do with something strange in our lives, and this made it all the more dreadful.

“ Angus,” said my mother, after gazing at the priest in silence for some time, “ Angus, wilt thou be true to the fiar of thine house, wilt thou serve him in peace and in war, in ill-time and weal-time, and defend him from the fire and the steel, and wilt thou be as his blade in the sheath to deal to the death with his foes ; wilt thou do this for him who is prince and earl of strath and glen, — wilt thou do all this, Angus Dhu, imder the blight and ban of the ancient earls of the Or cades ? ” I knew not then, but afterward learned that this was a dread oath which the most abandoned of our house would not dare break, even though he murdered priest at the altar and violated God’s sanctuary. Yet I saw that he felt it deeply, and his face went white for a moment ; but in the end he said, far down in his throat, as with an effort, “ I will do it, mistress of my house ; I will keep this oath till I die.” Whereat my mother cried, “ Now I die easy.” And he arose, catlike, and with the silken polish of one used to courts, and stood with that sardonic smile on eye and lip.

“ Ian, my son,” cried my mother, “ come to me.” And I fell on the bed at her breast and wept. Then she said, “ Kiss me, my son,” and I kissed her ’mid a sad silence, for my heart was too choked for words, as is the way of youth.

“ Ian,” she said, “ be a good man, be true to thy God and thy house.” Then she gazed on me with a long, hungering look, and I saw, as one who looketh on a far-fading sunset, a grey peace steal over her face, like on a beautiful land where the day goes out. Then the dread priest, for the first and last time with some compunction of tenderness, led me sobbing from the room, while the wild wail of the death coronach from the woman and man of the house told me that I was alone in the world.

Chapter III

/~\NLY he who hath suffered as I have, and so early ^ in youth, may feel somewhat of the woe and heartbreak which that, the following, week held for me. With a child’s fear of death I fled from the house where that beautiful mask, which had once been my mother, now lay, in that white stillness where all earthly care hath an end.

• Up the strath I went, my dog whimpering at my heels as though he felt for my grief, no more whistling, but with a cold stupor upon me, that ever anon was changed to terrible weeping as if my heart would burst with its dread sorrow and loneliness.

There was a place where my mother would sit in the old times before she became so weak, where there was a clear spring like to limpid crystal, which sprang from a rock under a high cliff ; and beside it were the remains of an old cairn and underground house — some said made by the fairies, those little folk who inhabited this place long ere our ancestors came. It was a quiet and secluded place, and here I used to play, while my mother sat and watched me ; or, when tired, I would hold her hand in mine, and we would sit and think, for she was a woman of little speech, and I have thought since that her great trouble concerning me made her dumb with sorrow and grief that she could not share with me. Here I came now and wept out my childish woe, so that by the day of the funeral my mind was, if not more settled, at least worn and benumbed.

It was a grey day on sea and shore when they bore her out and laid her to rest in a lonely place by the hillside. There were none present save our own household and a few others called in for the purpose, so that it was a quiet and sober funeral, as became a lonely and sad life. The priest, with his sinister face, was the only stranger there. When he had hurried through the rites of the Church, for which he seemed to have but little love, and they had closed in the rude stones of the place of sepulchre, the few attendants departed and left me alone. Then a great sense of desolation overcame me, and I threw myself in bitter anguish on the stones beneath which she lay. As I moaned there I felt a touch on my shoulder, and the priest was beside me. I stood up with some embarrassment, for I feared and disliked him, and cared not that he should see my sorrow, which he seemed in an unnatural manner to enjoy, like to one who feeds on this world’s bitterness.

“ Boy,” he said sternly, “ thy fathers were men ; tears are for women only. Dry this your woe, and shame not your race.”

“My race!” I said slowly, and with effort, for I was timid of speech with strangers, and with this man especially ; “I know no race, but my heart bleeds because that I am so lonely.” And my pride smote me that I had opened my soul even a little to this cold man.

“ Lonely,” he answered, in his cutting way ; “ the whole world is lonely. See yon bleak moorland, it is no more lonely than are most lives. Look on yon vast desolate ocean, it is a blossoming oasis to the desolation that holds some souls. This world, boy, is but a wild desert, and men the cruel beasts that infest it, to clutch at each other’s throats. Dry thy woe, and take this which I have brought you. It is thine by right, for thou art nobly born.” And he drew from under his mantle a small belt of shining, wrought steel links, on which was worked a crest, and attached to which was a short dirk of wondrously wrought metal richly inlaid with rare stones ; and ere I could think, he was kneeling again in that strange fashion, as he had done at my mother’s bedside, and had belted it about my waist. My wonder now overcame my fear of the man, and a queer feeling as of power of command possessed me, a sense such as had come to me before when out in the strath alone, and I looked down at him and said, “ Who am I ? ”

“ You,” he said, “ are Ian of the Orcades, earl and lord in the eyes of Heaven, and I am thy vassal.” Then taking my hand in the same mocking way, he, with one knee on the ground, kissed it as though I had been a king and he a courtier, and ere I had time to answer, had turned and left me.

When he had gone, and I had recovered from my boyish wonder, I drew the dirk, for I knew it was one, from the sheath, and it flashed in the air, and I wondered the more that I, a mountain boy, should be given such a weapon and for what purpose, because I feared the man, lest he owed me some hate and wished me no good save for his own ends. Of his strange words to me and those of my mother to him on her deathbed I could make little sense. I resolved, however, to ask old Murdo, as my desire was to solve the mystery. As I approached the sheiling again a strange thing happened, for old Murdo no sooner saw me with the gleaming belt and dagger at my waist, than a great fear and trembling took him, like one who hath a palsy.

“ What aileth thee, Murdo ? ” I cried. “ Art thou ill ? ” For I loved the old man and feared the loss of another friend.

“ Ian, dread Heaven, boy, where got’st thou that ? ” pointing at the belt and dagger.

“It is mine own,” I cried in wonder, and with a certain pride.

“ Thine own ! This is a madness. Thou hast done what will be thy ruin, boy. Tell me quick, where got’st thou that ? ”

“ First,” cried I in anger, “ you must tell me who am I, and what this means.”

“ I may not, rash boy,” he cried. “ But this means death to thee and me.”

“ Death or not,” I cried, for I was desperate, “ I little care. There is something in me, old man, which tells me that I was born to command and you to obey. Now tell me who I am and what this means,” and I looked at him as I had looked at the priest, and he started back in alarm and astonishment. Then he bent on one knee.

“ Ian, lord,” he said, “ forgive me, an old man, if I may not tell thee, it is not for thee to know, but if thou wouldst not bring ruin and death on one who hath loved and served thy mother and thee, in the name of Heaven tell me who gave you yon dagger and belt ? ”

“ The priest,” I answered.

“ The priest ! ” he said. “Not Father Angus ? ”

“ The same,” I said.

“ The devil,” cried the old man. “ The dark, scheming devil, his hate is still upon him, he will never stay till all be doomed.” He spake this to himself, then turning to me, “ Boy,” he said, “ dost thou know that it meaneth death for him who weareth yon bauble ? ”

“ Death ? ” I cried.

“ Yes, death,” he answered. “ To me or any, but more so to you, did he who hath the power or any of his following but see thee as thou art. Be advised by me, give me yon that I may hide it so that none see it any more, and it bring not ruin upon us all.”

“ But is it not mine own ? ” I cried ; “ and will you not tell me who I am ? I am but a lad and it can do none hurt for me to know my name and station, because from what thou sayest and what yon evil priest hath said, coupled with what my sainted mother spake ere her death, it seemeth to me that I am no common person. If this be so, why am I here, and why this strange cloud about my life ? ”

“ My son,” he answered, “ there be the words that we can speak and there be the silence which we must keep for the good of all. But thy question is fair, and if thou wilt but be advised and give thy Murdo the skene dhu, she will herself put it where it will be safe, and hurt none, then will I tell thee something of what thou want’st to know.”

“ Nay,” said I, “ I will not, for it is mine own by right of gift, and no man shall take it from me save by force. But if thou wilt tell me what I would know I will put it off and hide it myself where none may see.” And I unbuckled the belt and hid it and the dagger in my clothes until I should come to the hiding-place I had in mind, for I made inward resolve that nohap what should come to me, I would never yield this, the only clue to my real place in the world which I hoped some day to find out for myself.

“ Aye, that be well,” said the old man, “ if thou wilt not part with it. But as thou lovest life and liberty, show it to no man, for to do so would be thy death. But I fear me it is in the blood ; thou wilt not be advised, and ever would have thine own wilful way. But, Ian, my son,” he continued, “ it may be better with thee if thou wilt forget all which thou dreamest and bide here with thy Murdo till thou art a man of valour to carve thine own way in the world.”