Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) (17 page)

At the foot of the cliff they came upon a little hut leaning against it, and having for its inner apartment a natural hollow within it. Smoke was spreading over the face of the rock, and the grateful odour of food gave hope to the hungry student. His guide opened the door of the cottage; he followed her in, and saw a woman bending over a fire in the middle of the floor. On the fire lay a large fish broiling. The daughter spoke a few words, and the mother turned and welcomed the stranger. She had an old and very wrinkled, but honest face, and looked troubled. She dusted the only chair in the cottage, and placed it for him by the side of the fire, opposite the one window, whence he saw a little patch of yellow sand over which the spent waves spread themselves out listlessly. Under this window there was a bench, upon which the daughter threw herself in an unusual posture,
resting her chin upon her hand. A moment after the youth caught the first glimpse of her blue eyes. They were fixed upon him with a strange look of greed, amounting to craving, but as if aware that they belied or betrayed her, she dropped them instantly. The moment she veiled them, her face, notwithstanding its colourless complexion, was almost beautiful.

When the fish was ready, the old woman wiped the deal table, steadied it upon the uneven floor, and covered it with a piece of fine table-linen. She then laid the fish on a wooden platter, and invited the guest to help himself. Seeing no other provision, he pulled from his pocket a hunting knife, and divided a portion from the fish, offering it to the mother first.

‘Come, my lamb,’ said the old woman; and the daughter approached the table. But her nostrils and mouth quivered with disgust.

The next moment she turned and hurried from the hut.

‘She doesn’t like fish,’ said the old woman, ‘and I haven’t anything else to give her.’

‘She does not seem in good health,’ he rejoined.

The woman answered only with a sigh, and they ate their fish with the help of a little rye-bread. As they finished their supper, the youth heard a sound like the pattering of a dog’s feet upon the sand close to the door; but ere he had time to look out of the window, the door opened and the young woman entered. She looked better, perhaps from having just washed her face. She drew a stool to the corner of the fire opposite him. But as she sat down, to his bewilderment, and even horror, the student spied a single drop of blood on her white skin within her torn dress. The woman brought out a jar of whisky, put a rusty old kettle on the fire, and took her place in front of it. As soon as the water boiled, she proceeded to make some toddy in a wooden bowl.

Meantime the youth could not take his eyes off the young woman, so that at length he found himself fascinated, or rather bewitched. She kept her eyes for the most part veiled with the loveliest eyelids fringed with darkest lashes, and he gazed entranced; for the red glow of the little oil-lamp covered all the strangeness of her complexion. But as soon as he met a stolen glance out of those eyes unveiled, his soul shuddered within him.
Lovely face and craving eyes alternated fascination and repulsion.

The mother placed the bowl in his hands. He drank sparingly, and passed it to the girl. She lifted it to her lips, and as she tasted – only tasted it – looked at him. He thought the drink must have been drugged and have affected his brain. Her hair smoothed itself back, and drew her forehead backwards with it; while the lower part of her face projected towards the bowl, revealing, ere she sipped, her dazzling teeth in strange prominence. But the same moment the vision vanished; she returned the vessel to her mother and, rising, hurried out of the cottage.

Then the old woman pointed to a bed of heather in one corner with a murmured apology; and the student, wearied both with the fatigues of the day and the strangeness of the night, threw himself upon it, wrapped in his cloak. The moment he lay down, the storm began afresh, and the wind blew so keenly through the crannies of the hut, that it was only by drawing his cloak over his head that he could protect himself from its currents. Unable to sleep, he lay listening to the uproar which grew in violence, till the spray was dashing against the window. At length the door opened, and the young woman came in, made up the fire, drew the bench before it, and lay down in the same strange posture, with her chin propped on her hand and elbow, and her face turned towards the youth. He moved a little; she dropped her head, and lay on her face, with her arms crossed beneath her forehead. The mother had disappeared.

Drowsiness crept over him. A movement of the bench roused him, and he fancied he saw some four-footed creature as tall as a large dog trot quietly out of the door. He was sure he felt a rush of cold wind. Gazing fixedly through the darkness, he thought he saw the eyes of the damsel encountering his, but a glow from the falling together of the remnants of the fire revealed clearly enough that the bench was vacant. Wondering what could have made her go out in such a storm, he fell fast asleep.

In the middle of the night he felt a pain in his shoulder, came broad awake, and saw the gleaming eyes and grinning teeth of some animal close to his face. Its claws were in his shoulder, and its mouth in the act of seeking his throat. Before it had fixed its fangs, however, he had its throat in one hand, and sought his
knife with the other. A terrible struggle followed; but regardless of the tearing claws, he found and opened his knife. He had made one futile stab, and was drawing it for a surer, when, with a spring of the whole body, and one wildly contorted effort, the creature twisted its neck from his hold, and with something betwixt a scream and a howl, darted from him. Again he heard the door open; again the wind blew in upon him, and it continued blowing; a sheet of spray dashed across the floor, and over his face. He sprung from his couch and bounded to the door.

It was a wild night – dark, but for the flash of whiteness from the waves as they broke within a few yards of the cottage; the wind was raving, and the rain pouring down the air. A gruesome sound as of mingled weeping and howling came from somewhere in the dark. He turned again into the hut and closed the door, but could find no way of securing it.

The lamp was nearly out, and he could not be certain whether the form of the young woman was upon the bench or not. Overcoming a strong repugnance, he approached it, and put out his hands – there was nothing there. He sat down and waited for the daylight: he dared not sleep any more.

When the day dawned at length, he went out yet again, and looked around. The morning was dim and gusty and grey. The wind had fallen, but the waves were tossing wildly. He wandered up and down the little strand, longing for more light.

At length he heard a movement in the cottage. By and by the voice of the old woman called to him from the door. ‘You’re up early, sir. I suppose you didn’t sleep well.’

‘Not very well,’ he answered. ‘But where is your daughter?’

‘She’s not awake yet,’ said the mother. ‘I’m afraid I have but a poor breakfast for you. But you’ll take a dram and a bit of fish. It’s all I’ve got.’

Unwilling to hurt her, though hardly in good appetite, he sat down at the table. While they were eating, the daughter came in, but turned her face away and went to the further end of the hut. When she came forward after a minute or two, the youth saw that her hair was drenched, and her face whiter than before. She looked ill and faint, and when she raised her eyes, all their fierceness had vanished, and sadness had taken its place. Her
neck was now covered with a cotton handkerchief. She was modestly attentive to him, and no longer shunned his gaze. He was gradually yielding to the temptation of braving another night in the hut, and seeing what would follow, when the old woman spoke.

‘The weather will be broken all day, sir,’ she said. ‘You had better be going, or your friends will leave without you.’

Ere he could answer, he saw such a beseeching glance on the face of the girl, that he hesitated, confused. Glancing at the mother, he saw the flash of wrath in her face. She rose and approached her daughter, with her hand lifted to strike her. The young woman stooped her head with a cry. He darted around the table to interpose between them. But the mother had caught hold of her; the handkerchief had fallen from her neck; and the youth saw five blue bruises on her lovely throat – the marks of the four fingers and the thumb of a left hand. With a cry of horror he darted from the house, but as he reached the door he turned. His hostess was lying motionless on the floor, and a huge grey wolf came bounding after him.

There was no weapon at hand; and if there had been, his inborn chivalry would never have allowed him to harm a woman even under the guise of a wolf. Instinctively, he set himself firm, leaning a little forward, with half outstretched arms, and hands curved ready to clutch again at the throat upon which he had left those pitiful marks. But the creature as she sprung eluded his grasp, and just as he expected to feel her fangs, he found a woman weeping on his bosom, with her arms around his neck. The next instant, the grey wolf broke from him, and bounded howling up the cliff. Recovering himself as he best might, the youth followed, for it was the only way to the moor above, across which he must now make his way to find his companions.

All at once he heard the sound of a crunching of bones – not as if a creature was eating them, but as if they were ground by the teeth of rage and disappointment: looking up, he saw close above him the mouth of the little cavern in which he had taken refuge the day before. Summoning all his resolution, he passed it slowly and softly. From within came the sounds of a mingled moaning and growling.

Having reached the top, he ran at full speed for some distance across the moor before venturing to look behind him. When at length he did so, he saw, against the sky, the girl standing on the edge of the cliff, wringing her hands. One solitary wail crossed the space between. She made no attempt to follow him, and he reached the opposite shore in safety.

It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass Rock cam in the hands o the Da’rymples, and there was twa men
soucht
the
chairge
of it. Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been sodgers in the garrison, and
kent the gate
to handle
solans
, and the seasons and values of them.
Forby
that they were baith – or they baith seemed – earnest professors and men of comely conversation. The first of them was just Tam Dale, my faither. The second was ane Lapraik, whom folk ca’d
Tod
Lapraik maistly, but whether for his name or his nature I could never hear tell. Weel, Tam gaed to see Lapraik upon this business, and took me, that was a toddlin’ laddie, by the hand. Tod has his
dwallin
’ in the
lang loan
benorth
the kirkyaird. It’s a dark
uncanny
loan, forby that the kirk has aye had an ill name since the days o James the Saxt and the
deevil’s cantrips
played therein when the Queen was on the seas; and as for Tod’s house, it was in the
mirkest
end, and was little liked by some that
kenned
the best. The door was
on the sneck
that day, and me and my faither gaed straught in. Tod was a
wabster
to his trade; his loom stood in the
but
. There he sat, a muckle fat, white hash of a man like
creish
, wi a kind of a holy smile that
gart me scunner
. The hand of him aye
cawed
the shuttle, but his een was
steeket
. We cried to him by his name, we
skirled
in the
deid lug
of him, we shook him by the shou’ther.
Nae mainner o service!
There he sat on his
dowp
, an cawed the shuttle and smiled like creish.

‘God be gude to us,’ says Tam Dale, ‘this is no canny!’

He had
jimp
said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel.

‘Is this you, Tam?’ says he. ‘Haith, man! I’m
blythe
to see ye. I whiles
fa’ into a bit dwam
like this,’ he says; ‘it’s frae the
stamach
.’

Weel, they began to
crack
about the Bass and which of them twa was to get the warding o’t, and by little and little cam to very ill words, and
twined
in anger. I mind weel, that as my faither and me gaed hame again, he cam ower and ower the same expression, how little he likit Tod Lapraik and his dwams.

‘Dwams!’ says he. ‘I think folk hae
brunt far
dwams like yon.’

Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin’. It was remembered
sinsyne
what way he had ta’en the thing. ‘Tam,’ says he, ‘ye hae gotten the better o me aince mair, and I hope,’ says he, ‘ye’ll find aw that ye expeckit at the Bass.’ Which have since been thought remarkable expressions.

At last the time came for Tam Dale to take young solans. This was a business he was weel used wi, he had been a
craigsman
frae a laddie, and trustit nane but himsel. So there was he hingin’ by a line an’
speldering
on the
craig face
, whaur it’s
hieest and steighest
. Fower
tenty
lads were on the tap, hauldin’ the line and
mindin’ for
his signals. But whaur Tam hung there was naething
but the craig, and the sea belaw, and the solans skirling and flying. It was a braw spring morn, and Tam whustled as he
claught
in the young geese. Mony’s the time I heard him tell of this experience, and aye the
swat
ran upon the man.

It chanced, ye see, that Tam
keeked
up, and he was awaur of a
muckle
solan, and the solan
pyking
at the line. He thought this
by-ordinar
and outside the creature’s habits. He minded that ropes was unco saft things, and the solan’s
neb
and the Bass Rock
unco
hard, and that twa hunner feet were rather mair than he would care to fa’.

‘Shoo!’ says Tam. ‘Awa, bird! Shoo, awa wi ye!’ says he.

The solan keekit doun into Tam’s face, and there was something unco in the creature’s ee. Just the
ae keek
it gied, and back to the rope. But now it
wroucht
and
warstl’t
like a thing
dementit
. There never was the solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht; and it seemed to understand its employ
brawly
,
birzing
the saft rope between the neb of it and a
crunkled
jag o stane.