by John Buchan
From this point I shall tell his tale in his own words, as he has told it me, but stripped of its garnishing and detail. For it were vain to translate Lallan into orthodox speech, when the very salt of the night air clings to the Scots as it did to that queer tale.
‘The mune had been lang out,’ he said, ‘and I had grown weary o’ her blinkin’. I was as cauld as death, and as wat as the sea, no to speak o’ haein’ the rheumatics in my back. The nowt were glowrin’ and glunchin’, rubbin’ heid to heid, and whiles stampin’ on my taes wi’ their cloven hooves. But I was mortal glad o’ the beasts’ company, for I think I wad hae gane daft mysel in that muckle dowie water. Whiles I thocht it was risin’, and then my hert stood still; an’ whiles fa’in’, and then it loupit wi’ joy. But it keepit geyan near the bit, and aye as I heard it lip-lappin’ I prayed the Lord to keep it whaur it was.
‘About half-past yin in the mornin’, as I saw by my watch, I got sleepy, and but for the nowt steerin’, I micht hae drappit aff. Syne I begood to watch the water, and it was rale interestin’, for a’ sort o’ queer things were comin’ doun. I could see bits o’ brigs and palin’s wi’oot end dippin’ in the tide, and whiles swirlin’ in sae near that I could hae grippit them. Then beasts began to come by, whiles upside doun, whiles soomin’ brawly, sheep and stirks frae the farms up the water. I got graund amusement for a wee while watchin’ them, and notin’ the marks on their necks.
‘“That’s Clachlands Mains,” says I, “and that’s Nether Fallo, and the Back o’ the Muneraw. Gudesake, sic a spate it maun hae been up the muirs to work siccan a destruction!” I keepit coont o’ the stock, and feegured to mysel what the farmer-bodies wad lose. The thocht that I wad keep a’ my ain was some kind o’ comfort.
‘But about the hour o’ twae the mune cloudit ower, and I saw nae mair than twenty feet afore me. I got awesome cauld, and a sort o’ stound o’ fricht took me, as I lookit into that black, unholy water. The nowt shivered sair and drappit their heids, and the fire on the ither side seemed to gang out a’ of a sudden, and leave the hale glen thick wi’ nicht. I shivered mysel wi’ something mair than the snell air, and there and then I wad hae gien the price o’ fower stirks for my ain bed at hame.
‘It was as quiet as a kirkyaird, for suddenly the roar o’ the water stoppit, and the stream lay still as a loch. Then I heard a queer lappin’ as o’ something floatin’ doun, and it sounded miles aff in that dreidfu’ silence. I listened wi’ een stertin’, and aye it cam’ nearer and nearer, wi’ a sound like a dowg soomin’ a burn. It was sae black, I could see nocht, but somewhere frae the edge o’ a cloud, a thin ray o’ licht drappit on the water, and there, soomin’ doun by me, I saw something that lookit like a man.
‘My hert was burstin’ wi’ terror, but, thinks I, here’s a droonin’ body, and I maun try and save it. So I waded in as far as I daured, though my feet were sae cauld that they bowed aneath me.
‘Ahint me I heard a splashin’ and fechtin’, and then I saw the nowt, fair wild wi’ fricht, standin’ in the water on the ither side o’ the green bit, and lookin’ wi’ muckle feared een at something in the water afore me.
‘Doun the thing came, and aye I got caulder as I looked. Then it was by my side, and I claught at it and pu’d it after me on to the land.
‘I heard anither splash. The nowt gaed farther into the water, and stood shakin’ like young birks in a storm.
‘I got the thing upon the green bank and turned it ower. It was a drooned man wi’ his hair hingin’ back on his broo, and his mouth wide open. But first I saw his een, which glowered like scrapit lead out o’ his clay-cauld face, and had in them a’ the fear o’ death and hell which follows after.
‘The next moment I was up to my waist among the nowt, fechtin’ in the water aside them, and snowkin’ into their wet backs to hide mysel like a feared bairn.
‘Maybe half an ‘oor I stood, and then my mind returned to me. I misca’ed mysel for a fule and a coward. And my legs were sae numb, and my strength sae far gane, that I kenned fine that I couldna lang thole to stand this way like a heron in the water.
‘I lookit round, and then turned again wi’ a stert, for there were thae leaden een o’ that awfu’ deid thing staring at me still.
‘For anither quarter-hour I stood and shivered, and then my guid sense returned, and I tried again. I walkit backward, never lookin’ round, through the water to the shore, whaur I thocht the corp was lyin’. And a’ the time I could hear my hert chokin’ in my breist.
‘My God, I fell ower it, and for one moment lay aside it, wi’ my heid touchin’ its deathly skin. Then wi’ a skelloch like a daft man, I took the thing in my airms and flung it wi’ a’ my strength into the water. The swirl took it, and it dipped and swam like a fish till it gaed out o’sicht.
‘I sat doun on the grass and grat like a bairn wi’ fair horror and weakness. Yin by yin the nowt came back, and shouthered anither around me, and the puir beasts brocht me yince mair to myself. But I keepit my een on the grund, and thocht o’ hame and a’ thing decent and kindly, for I daurna for my life look out to the black water in dreid o’ what it micht bring.
‘At the first licht, the herd and twae ither men cam’ ower in a boat to tak me aff and bring fodder for the beasts. They fand me still sittin’ wi’ my heid atween my knees, and my face like a peeled wand. They lifted me intil the boat and rowed me ower, driftin’ far down wi’ the angry current. At the ither side the shepherd says to me in an awed voice, —
‘“There’s a fearfu’ thing happened. The young laird o’ Manorwater’s drooned in the spate. He was ridin’ back late and tried the ford o’ the Cauldshaw foot. Ye ken his wild cantrips, but there’s an end o’ them noo. The horse cam’ hame in the nicht wi’ an empty saddle, and the Gled Water rinnin’ frae him in streams. The corp’ll be far on to the sea by this time, and they’ll never see ‘t mair.”’
‘“I ken,” I cried wi’ a dry throat, “I ken; I saw him floatin’ by.”
And then I broke yince mair into a silly greetin’, while the men watched me as if they thocht I was out o’ my mind.’
So much the farmer of Clachlands told me, but to the countryside he repeated merely the bare facts of weariness and discomfort. I have heard that he was accosted a week later by the minister of the place, a well-intentioned, phrasing man, who had strayed from his native city with its familiar air of tea and temperance to those stony uplands.
And what thoughts had you, Mr. Linklater, in that awful position? Had you no serious reflection upon your life?’
‘Me,’ said the farmer; ‘no me. I juist was thinkin’ that it was dooms cauld, and that I wad hae gien a guid deal for a pipe o’ tobaccy.’ This in the racy, careless tone of one to whom such incidents were the merest child’s play.
Prester John
Chamber’s Journal, 1897
Or he, who in the wilderness, where no man travels and few may live, dwelled in all good reason and kindness.
Chronicle of S. Jean de Remy
THE EXACT TALE of my misadventure on that September day I can scarcely now remember. One thing I have clear in my mind — the weather. For it was in that curious time of year when autumn’s caprices reach their height either in the loveliest of skies or a resolute storm. Now it was the latter, and for two days the clear tints of the season had been drowned in monotonous grey. The mighty hill-streams came down like fields in breadth, and when the wind ceased for a time, the roar of many waters was heard in the land. Ragged leaves blocked the path, heather and bracken were sodden as the meadow turf, and the mountain backs were now shrouded to their bases in mist, and now looming ominous and near in a pause of the shifting wrack.
In the third day of the weather I was tempted by the Evil One and went a-fishing. The attempt was futile, and I knew it, for the streams were boiling like a caldron, and no man may take fish in such a water. Nevertheless, the blustering air and the infinite distance of shadowy hill-top took hold on me so that I could not choose but face the storm.
And, once outside, the north wind slashed and buffeted me till my breath was almost gone; and when I came to the river’s edge, I looked down on an acre of churning foam and mountainous wave.
Now, the way of the place is this. The Gled comes down from flat desolate moorlands to the narrower glen, which in turn opens upon the great river of the countryside. On the left it is bounded by gentle slopes of brown heather, which sink after some score of miles into the fields of a plain; but to the right there lies a tract of fierce country, rugged and scarred with torrents; while at the back of all rise the pathless hills which cradle the Callowa and the Aller. It is a land wild on the fairest summer noon, but in the autumn storms it is black as a pit and impregnable as a fortress.
As ill-fortune would have it, I raised a good fish in my first pool, ran it, and lost it in a tangle of driftwood. What with the excitement and the stinging air my blood grew high, I laughed in the face of the heavens, and wrestled in the gale’s teeth for four miles up-stream. It was the purest madness, for my casting-line was blown out of the water at almost every gust, and never another fish looked near me. But the keenness abode with me, and so it happened that about midday I stood at the foot of the glen whence the Cauldshaw Burn pours its troubled waters to the Gled.
Something in the quiet strength of the great brown flood attracted me against my better judgment. I persuaded myself that in this narrower vale there must be some measure of shelter, and that in its silent pools there were chances of fish. So, with a fine sense of the adventurous, I turned to the right and struck up by the green meadow-lands and the lipping water. Before me was a bank of mist; but even as I looked it opened, and a line of monstrous blue shoulders, ribbed and serrated with a thousand gullies, frowned on my path. The sight put new energy into my limbs. These were the hills which loomed far to the distant lowlands, which few ever climbed, and at whose back lay a land almost unknown to man. I named them to myself with the names which had always been like music to my ear — Craigcreich, the Yirnie, the two Muneraws, and the awful precipice of the Dreichil. With zest I fell to my fishing, and came in a little to the place where the vale ceased and the gorge began.
Here for the first time my efforts prospered, and I had one, two, and three out of the inky pots, which the spate had ringed and dappled with foam. Then, from some unknown cause, the wind fell, and there succeeded the silence which comes from a soaked and dripping world. I fished on and on, but the stillness oppressed me, and the straight craigs, tipped with heather and black with ooze, struck me with something like awe.
Then, ere I knew, I had come to the edge of the gorge, and was out on the peat-moss which gives the Cauldshaw its birth. Once more there came a clearing in the mist, and hill-faces looked out a little nearer, a little more awful. Just beyond that moss lay their foot, and over that barrier of heath and crag lay a new land which I had not yet seen, and scarcely heard of. Suddenly my whole purpose changed. Storm or no storm, I would climb the ridge and look down on the other side. At the top of the Little Muneraw there rose two streams — one, the Callowa, which flowed to the haughlands and meadows of the low country; the other, the Aller, which fought its way to the very centre of the black deserts, and issued some fifty miles distant on another seaboard. I would reach the top, haply see the sight I had often longed for, and then take my weary way down the Callowa home.
So, putting up my rod and strapping tight my creel, I set my face to the knuckle of these mountains which loomed beyond the bog. How I crossed that treacherous land I can scarcely tell, for the rain had left great lagoons which covered shifting sand and clinging mud. Twice I was bogged to my knees, but by dint of many flying leaps from heather to heather, and many lowly scrambles over loose peat, I came to the hard ground whence the slope began. Here I rested, panting, marvelling greatly at my foolhardiness and folly. When honest men were dwelling in comfort at home, I in my fool’s heart chose to be playing cantrips among mosses and scaurs and pathless rocks. I was already soaked and half tired, so in no great bodily ease I set myself to the ascent.
In two hours I had toiled to the front shoulder of the Muneraw, and sat looking down on a pit of mist whence three black lochs gleamed faint and shadowy. The place was hushed save for the croak of ravens and the rare scream of a hawk. Curlews and plovers were left far below; the place was too wild for rushes or bracken; and nothing met the eye but stunted heather, grey lichen-clad boulders, and dark craigs streaked with the fall of streams. I loosened a stone and sent it hurling to the loch below, and in a trice the air was thick with echoes of splash and rush and splinter.
Then once more I set my face to the steep and scrambled upward. And now there came to trouble me that very accident which I most feared; for the wind brought the accursed mist down on me like a plaid, and I struggled through utter blindness. The thickness of mirk is bad enough, but the thickness of white, illimitable ether is worse a thousandfold, for it closes the eye and mazes the wits. I kept as straight as might be for what I knew was the head of the hill, and now upon great banks of rotten granite, now upon almost sheer craigs, I made my track. In maybe an hour the steeps ceased, and I lay and panted on a flat bed of shingle, while the clammy mist drenched me to the bone.
Now for the first time I began to repent of my journey, and took grace to regret my madcap ploy. For the full perils of the place began to dawn upon me. I was here, in this dismal weather, a score of miles from any village, and nigh half as many from the nearest human habitation. A sprain or a broken limb would mean death, and at any moment I might step over a cliff-face into eternity. My one course of safety lay in finding the Callowa springs, and following the trickle to the glens. The way was long, but it was safe, and sooner or later I must come to a dwelling-house.
I knew well that the Callowa rose on the south side of the Muneraw, and the Aller somewhere on the north. But I had lost all sense of direction, I had no compass, and had it not been for the wind, I should have been without guidance. But I remembered that it had blown clear from the north on all my way up the Gled, and now, as I felt its sting on my cheek, I turned with it to what I guessed to be the south. With some satisfaction I began to descend, now sliding for yards, now falling suddenly in a rocky pool, whence a trickle issued among a chaos of stones. Once I came to a high fall, which must have been wonderful indeed had the water been of any size, but was now no more than a silver thread on a great grey face. Sometimes I found myself in ravines where the huge sides seemed to mock the tiny brawling water. A lurking fear began to grow upon me. Hitherto I had found no loch, though I had gone for miles. Now, though I had never been at Callowa head, I had seen it afar off, and knew that the Back Loch o’ the Muneraw lay near the source. But now the glen was opening, peat and heather were taking the place of stone, and yet I had seen no gleam of water.
I sat down to consider, and even as I looked the mist drew back again. And this was what I saw. Brown bog lay flat down a valley, with a stream in its midst making leaden pools. Now there are bogs and bogs, and some are harmless enough; but there was that in the look of this which I could not like. Some two miles down the stream turned, and a ridge of dark and craggy hills fronted the eye. Their edges were jagged, and their inky face was seamed and crossed with a thousand little cataracts. And beneath their shadow lay the cruel moss, with flows and lochs scattered over it like a map on a child’s slate.
To my wonder, in the very lee of the hill I saw what seemed to be a cottage. There was a stunted tree, a piece of stone wall, and a plain glimpse of a grey gable-end. Then I knew whither I had come. The wind had changed. I had followed north for south, and struck the Aller instead of the Callowa. I could not return over that fierce hill and those interminable moorland miles. There was naught to be done save to make for the stones, which might be a dwelling. If the place was ruined, I would even sleep the night in its shelter, and strive to return in the morning. If it was still dwelled in, there was hope of supper and bed. I had always heard of the Aller as the wildest of all waters, flowing, for most of i
ts course, in a mossland untenanted of man. Something of curiosity took me, in spite of my weariness, to meet with a dweller in this desert. And always as I looked at the black hills I shuddered, for I had heard men tell of the Caldron, where no sheep ever strayed, and in whose sheer-falling waters no fish could live.
I have rarely felt a more awful eeriness than in crossing that monstrous bog. I struck far from the stream, for the Aller, which had begun as a torrent, had sunk into links of unfathomable moss-holes. The darkening was coming on, the grim hills stood out more stark and cruel, and the smell of water clung to my nostrils like the odour of salt to a half-drowned man. Forthwith I fell into the most violent ill-temper with myself and my surroundings. At last there was like to be an end of my aimless wanderings, and unless I got through the moss by nightfall, I should never see the morning. The thought nerved me to frantic endeavour. I was dog-tired and soaked to the marrow, but I plunged and struggled from tussock to tussock and through long black reaches of peat. Anything green or white I shunned, for I had lived too long in wildernesses to be ignorant that in the ugly black and brown lay my safety.
By-and-by the dusk came, and a light was kindled in the cottage, at which sign of habitation I greatly rejoiced. It gave me new heart, and when I came to a more level place I ran as well as my wearied legs would suffer me. Then for my discomfiture I fell into a great bed of peat, and came out exceeding dirty. Still the flare grew nearer, and at last, about seven o’clock, just at the thickening of darkness, I reached a stone wall and a house-end.
