Kenneth McAlpine Part 3

Another day, when Duncan and he were hauling in a hand line with an immensely great cod at the end of it, suddenly, for some unexplained reason or other, the line slipped, and almost at the same moment Kenneth fell overboard.

A codfish of say twenty pounds pulls with fearful force.

Kenneth was dragged under the water.

It was a trying time then for old Duncan's nerves. Would the poor boy be dead before he got the great fish checked and in charge again?

Duncan dragged in the line as speedily as he dared.

Oh! how his heart had throbbed to think that there was a possibility of the line breaking, and his little friend being kept under the water till dead.

And oh! how joyful he was when Kenneth reappeared.

Kenneth really came up smiling, though he was spluttering a great deal as well. "I'm sure," he said when he got into the boat again, and the fish was there as well, "I'm sure I've swallowed fully a pint of salt water, Duncan."

Yes, Kenneth laughed heartily about it, but poor old Duncan was weeping, and before he could be himself again he must take off his broad blue bonnet and kneel down upon it in the stern sheets of the cobble, and return thanks to Him who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand.

There were days in summer when the sea was so blue and bright and still, that I think Kenneth used almost to go to sleep while floating on its surface.

Gathering the eggs of the sea-birds from off the cliffs and rocks was dangerous sport, but Kenneth loved it all the more on that account.

But he loved the sea in storm as well, and used to play among the billows and spray along the sh.o.r.e, or venture out a little distance for the pleasure of being rolled up again like a log of wood upon the beach.

Kenneth really could have said with the immortal Byron--

"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be, Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here."

Old Duncan Reed owned and worked a little lobster fishery of his own.

And before the great grief came that deprived poor Kenneth of a father, he used to take great delight in helping the fisherman with this part of his work. It was very simple. They had wooden cages which they sank at the bottom of a deep pool among the rocks. There was a stone or two at the bottom of each cage to make it sink, and it was lowered down at night by a rope which was attached at the top of the water to a wooden float.

The cages were baited, and Duncan used to find it a capital plan to put a live crab or lobster into the cage. There was a hole at the top of each cage for the creatures to crawl in, but it was so arranged that once in they did not get out again.

As soon as one was sunk, rejoiced to find himself once more in his native element, the imprisoned sh.e.l.l-fish would begin to eat. And presently round would come another crab or lobster and look in for a little at him with his eyes, which, you know, are upon stalks.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself in there," the newcomer would say.

The imprisoned animal would wave a claw at him, as much as to say,--

"Oh! very nicely indeed, but go away; don't stand there and stare at a fellow when he is having his dinner. It is rude."

"Is it good, though?" the other would ask.

"Delicious!" the reply would be.

"How ever did you get inside?"

"Look and see."

Then the new-come lobster would find the hole in the top of the cage, and in he would pop. And presently more and more lobsters would come round and pop in one by one.

Well, but when they wanted to pop out again they would not find it so easy. In fact, there would be no way out for them, until Duncan hauled up the creel and pulled them forth to be boiled.

"It is so easy to get into a trap, but so difficult to get out again,"

old Duncan would say to Kenneth, "so, my dear laddie, always all your life be sure to look before you leap."

Old Duncan was a very merry old man; he used to tell Kenneth such funny stories, and tales of the deep blue sea, and all about sea-fairies, and water babies, and mermaids that live deep down beneath the ocean in coral caves. I do not think that old Duncan believed in these things himself, nor that he expected Kenneth to believe in them either, but they helped to pa.s.s the time, and often of a winter's evening the boy would stay in the fisherman's hut so late that night came on before he started for Glen Alva, and the stars would be all shining as he took his road across the hills and over the dreary moorland where Nancy lived.

Old Duncan Reed did not know the time except by the sun, and Kenneth had no watch, so he could never be sure on occasions like these what o'clock it really was.

But one thing Kenneth never did forget, and that was to bring a few fish or a lobster or a lovely crab for Nancy.

If her light was burning when he reached the little cottage, then he would go in; if not, he knew she had gone to bed, so he would hang the string of fish to the door latch--a very old-fashioned one with a thumb-piece--and go quietly away with Kooran. Or if it was a lobster with its claws tied, he used to tether it to the foot of a rose tree that grew near the door, and poor old Nancy found it in the morning, and was thankful accordingly. I'm sure of this, that Nancy never said her prayers without asking guidance, and a blessing for her bonnie boy.

And it was in this very cottage that Kenneth and Duncan the keeper now found themselves, in front of a nice peat fire, for though it was yet early in autumn, in this bleak Highland moorland the evenings struck chill and cold.

Nancy herself sat in the corner, with her grey grimalkin on her shoulder. The cat seemed asleep, only she had one eye open, and that eye was watching the door.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE STORY OF THE FAIRY KNOLL.

"I've heard my reverend Grannie say In lanely glens ye like to stray, Or where auld ruined castles grey Nod to the moon.

Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way, Wi' eldritch croon."

Burns.

[Croon--low mournful moan.]

Scene: The interior of Nancy Dobbell's cottage. Nancy and her visitors round the peat fire, the light from which ever and anon brings the features of each out in bold relief, from the Rembrandtine darkness in the background. Nancy is talking, but knitting as well. Click, click, clickety, click, go the wires, sometimes very fast indeed, at other times more slowly, as if keeping time with Nancy's thoughts and her spoken words.

"And what brings my bairns so late across the muir the nicht?" she asked.

"We knew ye wadna be in bed, Grannie," said Dugald. "The moon is shinin' so brichtly, I had expected to meet ye on the muir, gatherin'

herbs by its ghastly licht. We heard the owlet cryin'; had we met you, Grannie, it would have scared our senses awa'."

"I wouldn't have been afraid, Grannie," said Kenneth.

For a moment there was silence, the old woman's head had drooped on her breast, and the knitting wires clicked more slowly, like a clock before it stops.

But only for a moment; she raised her head again, and click, click, click, went the wires as fast as before, but both Kenneth and his companion noticed that Nancy's cheeks were wet.

"Nancy's auld and silly," she said, "but Nancy was not always so.

Heigho!"

"Oh, Grannie!" cried honest Dugald, hastening to atone for the cruelty of his first speech, but, in his very hurry, making a poor job of it.

"Oh, Grannie, dinna say you're silly; really folk say you're wise and-- and--"

"A witch?" said Nancy, smiling.