Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) (5 page)

It was a fine summer morning, and the Laird o’ Co was having a
dander
on the green turf outside his castle walls. His real name was the Laird o’ Colzean, and his descendants today bear the proud title of Marquises of Ailsa, but all up and down Ayrshire nobody called him anything else than the Laird o’ Co: because of the Co’s, or sea caves, which were to be found in the rock on which his castle was built.

He was a kind man, and courteous, always ready to be interested in the affairs of his poorer neighbours, and willing to listen to any tale of woe.

So when a little boy came across the green, carrying a small can in his hand, and, pulling his forelock, asked him if he might go to the castle and get a little ale for his sick mother, the Laird gave his consent at once, and, patting the lad on the head, told him to go to the kitchen and ask for the butler, and tell him that he, the Laird, had given orders that his can was to be filled with the best ale that was in the cellar.

Away the boy went, and found the old butler, who, after listening to his message, took him down into the cellar, and proceeded to carry out his master’s orders.

There was one cask of particularly fine ale, which was kept entirely for the Laird’s own use, which had been opened some time before, and which was now about half full.

‘I will fill the bairn’s can out o’ this,’ thought the old man to himself. ‘’Tis both nourishing and light – the very thing for sick
folk.’ So, taking the can from the child’s hand, he proceeded to draw the ale.

But what was his astonishment to find that, although the ale flowed freely enough from the barrel, the little can, which could not have held more than a quarter of a gallon, remained always just half full.

The ale poured into it in a clear amber stream, until the big cask was quite empty, and still the quantity that was in the little can did not seem to increase.

The butler could not understand it. He looked at the cask, and then he looked at the can; then he looked down at the floor at his feet to see if he had not spilt any.

No, the ale had not disappeared in that way, for the cellar floor was as white, and dry, and clean, as possible.

Plague on the can; it must be bewitched
, thought the old man, and his short, stubby hair stood up like porcupine quills around his bald head, for if there was anything on earth of which he had a mortal dread, it was warlocks, and witches, and suchlike bogles.

‘I’m not going to open up another barrel,’ he said, gruffly, handing back the half-filled can to the lad. ‘So ye may just go home with what is there; the Laird’s ale is too good to waste on a whipper-snapper like you.’

But the boy stood his ground. A promise was a promise, and the Laird had both promised, and sent orders to the butler that the can was to be filled, so the boy would not go home till it was filled.

It was in vain that the old man first argued, and then grew angry – the boy would not stir a step.

The Laird had said that he was to get the ale, and the ale he must have.

At last the perturbed butler left him standing there, and hurried off to his master to tell him he was convinced that the can was bewitched, for it had swallowed up a whole half cask of ale, and after doing so it was only half full; and to ask if he would come down himself, and order the lad off the premises.

‘Not I,’ said the genial Laird, ‘for the lad is quite right. I promised that he should have his can full of ale to take home to
his sick mother, and he shall have it if it takes all the barrels in my cellar to fill it. So go back to the cellar again, and open up another cask.’

The butler dared not disobey; so he reluctantly retraced his steps, but, as he went, he shook his head sadly, for it seemed to him that not only the boy with the can, but his master also, was bewitched.

When he reached the cellar he found the bairn waiting patiently where he had left him, and, without wasting further words, he took the can from his hand and broached another barrel.

If he had been astonished before, he was more astonished now. Scarce had a couple of drops fallen from the tap, than the boy’s can was full to the brim.

‘Take it, laddie, and begone, with all speed,’ he said, glad to get the can out of his fingers; and the boy did not wait for a second bidding. Thanking the butler most earnestly for his trouble, and paying no attention to the fact that the old man had not been so civil to him as he might have been, he departed. Nor, though the butler took pains to ask all around the countryside, was anything heard of him again, nor of anyone who knew anything about him, or anything about his sick mother.

Years passed by, and sore trouble fell upon the House o’ Co. For the Laird went to fight in the wars in Flanders, and, chancing to be taken prisoner, he was shut up in prison, and condemned to death. Alone, in a foreign country, he had no friends to speak for him, and escape seemed hopeless.

It was the night before his execution, and he was sitting in his lonely cell, thinking sadly of his wife and children, whom he never expected to see again. At the thought of them the picture of his home rose clearly in his mind – the grand old castle standing on its rock above the Firth of Clyde, and the bonnie daisy-spangled stretch of links which lay before its gates, where he had been wont to take a dander in the sweet summer mornings. Then, all unbidden, a vision of the little lad carrying the can, who had come to beg ale for his sick mother, and whom he had long ago forgotten, rose up before him.

The vision was so clear and distinct that he felt almost as if he were acting the scene over again, and he rubbed his eyes to get
rid of it, feeling that, if he had to die tomorrow, it was time that he turned his thoughts to higher things.

But as he did so the door of his cell flew noiselessly open, and there, on the threshold, stood the self-same little lad, looking not a day older, with his finger on his lip, and a mysterious smile upon his face.

he whispered, beckoning to him to follow him. Needless to say, the Laird did so, too much amazed to think of asking questions.

Through the long passages of the prison the little lad went, the Laird close at his heels; and whenever he came to a locked door, he had but to touch it, and it opened before them, so that in no long time they were safe outside the walls.

The overjoyed Laird would have overwhelmed his little deliverer with words of thanks had not the boy held up his hand to stop him. ‘Get on my back,’ he said shortly, ‘for you are not safe till you are right out of this country.’

The Laird did as he was bid, and, marvellous as it seems, the boy was quite able to bear his weight. As soon as the Laird was comfortably seated the pair set off, over sea and land, and never stopped till, in almost less time than it takes to tell it, the boy set him down, in the early dawn, on the daisy-spangled green in front of his castle, just where he had spoken first to him so many years before.

Then he turned, and laid his little hand on the Laird’s big one:

he said, and vanished.

And from that day to this he has never been seen again.

There have been many
brownies
known in Scotland; and stories have been written about the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck and the Brownie o’ Blednock, but about neither of them has a prettier story been told than that which I am going to tell you about the Brownie o’ Ferne-Den.

Now, Ferne-Den was a farmhouse, which got its name from the glen, or ‘den’, on the edge of which it stood, and through which anyone who wished to reach the dwelling had to pass.

And this glen was believed to be the abode of a brownie, who never appeared to anyone in the daytime, but who, it was said, was sometimes seen at night, stealing about, like an ungainly shadow, from tree to tree, trying to keep out of sight, and never, by any chance, harming anybody.

Indeed, like all brownies that are properly treated and let alone, so far was he from harming anyone, that he was always on the look-out to do a good turn to those who needed his assistance. The farmer often said that he did not know what he would do without him; for if there was any work to be finished in a hurry at the farm – corn to thresh, or winnow, or tie up into bags, turnips to cut, clothes to wash, corn-sheaves to be kirned, a garden to be weeded – all that the farmer and his wife had to do

was to leave the door of the barn, or the turnip shed, or the milk house open when they went to bed, and put down a bowl of new milk on the doorstep for the Brownie’s supper, and when they woke the next morning the bowl would be empty, and the job finished better than if it had been done by mortal hands.

In spite of all this, however, which might have proved to them how gentle and kindly the creature really was, everyone about the place was afraid of him, and would rather go a couple of miles round about in the dark, when they were coming home from kirk or market, than pass through the glen, and run the risk of catching a glimpse of him.

I said that they were all afraid of him, but that was not true, for the farmer’s wife was so good and gentle that she was not afraid of anything on God’s earth, and when the Brownie’s supper had to be left outside, she always filled his bowl with the richest milk, and added a good spoonful of cream to it, for, said she, ‘He works so hard for us, and asks no wages, he well deserves the very best meal that we can give him.’

One night this gentle lady was taken very ill, and everyone was afraid that she was going to die. Of course, her husband was greatly distressed, and so were her servants, for she had been such a good mistress to them that they loved her as if she had been their mother. But they were all young, and none of them knew very much about illness, and everyone agreed that it would be better to send off for an old woman who lived about seven miles away on the other side of the river, who was known to be a very skilful nurse.

But who was to go? That was the question. For it was black midnight, and the way to the old woman’s house lay straight through the glen. And whoever travelled that road ran the risk of meeting the dreaded Brownie.

The farmer would have gone only too willingly, but he dare not leave his wife alone; and the servants stood in groups about the kitchen, each one telling the other that he ought to go, yet no one offering to go themselves.

Little did they think that the cause of all their terror, a queer, wee, misshapen little man, all covered with hair, with a long beard, red-rimmed eyes, broad, flat feet like a frog’s, and
enormous long arms that touched the ground, even when he stood upright, was within a yard or two of them, listening to their talk, with an anxious face, behind the kitchen door.

For he had come up as usual, from his hiding-place in the glen, to see if there was any work for him to do, and to look for his bowl of milk. And he had seen, from the open door and lit-up windows, that there was something wrong inside the farmhouse, which at that hour was usually dark, and still, and silent; and he had crept into the entry to try and find out what the matter was.

When he gathered from the servants’ talk that the mistress, whom he too loved so dearly, and who had been so kind to him, was ill, his heart sank within him; and when he heard that the silly servants were so taken up with their own fears that they dared not set out to fetch a nurse for her, his contempt and anger knew no bounds.

‘Fools, idiots, dolts!’ he muttered to himself, stamping his queer, misshapen feet on the floor. ‘They speak as if a body were ready to take a bite off them as soon as ever he met them. If they only knew the bother it gives me to keep out of their road they wouldna be so silly. But, by my troth, if they go on like this, the bonnie lady will die amongst their fingers. So it strikes me that Brownie must just gang himself.’

So saying, he reached up his hand, and took down a dark cloak which belonged to the farmer, and was hanging on a peg on the wall. Throwing it over his head and shoulders in an effort to hide his ungainly form, he hurried away to the stable, and saddled and bridled the fleetest-footed horse that stood there.

When the last buckle was fastened, he led the horse to the door, and scrambled on its back. ‘Now, if you ever travelled fast, travel fast now,’ he said; and it was as if the creature understood him, for it gave a little whinny and pricked up its ears; then it darted out into the darkness like an arrow from the bow.

In less time than the distance had ever been ridden in before, the Brownie drew rein at the old woman’s cottage.

She was in bed, fast asleep; but he rapped sharply on the window, and when she rose and put her old face, framed in its
white mutch, close to the pane to ask who was there, he bent forward and told her his errand.

‘You must come with me, Goodwife, and that quickly,’ he commanded, in his deep, harsh voice, ‘if the lady of Ferne-Den’s life is to be saved; for there is no one to nurse her up-bye at the farm there, save a lot of empty-headed servant wenches.’

‘But how am I to get there? Have they sent a cart for me?’ asked the old woman anxiously; for, as far as she could see, there was nothing at the door save a horse and its rider.

‘No, they have sent no cart,’ replied the Brownie, shortly. ‘So you must just climb up behind me on the saddle, and hang on tight to my waist, and I’ll promise to land ye at Ferne-Den safe and sound.’

His voice was so masterful that the old woman dare not refuse to do as she was bid; besides, she had often ridden pillion-wise when she was a lassie, so she made haste to dress herself, and when she was ready she unlocked her door, and, mounting the louping-on stane that stood beside it, she was soon seated behind the dark-cloaked stranger, with her arms clasped tightly around him.