‘Your good leddy’s tired,’ said he. ‘Maybe you’d best rest a wee before we gang further.’
Brown looked at his wife. She was certainly very pale, and her dark eyes were bright and wild.
‘What is it, Maggie? I’ve wearied you. I’m thinkin’ it’s time we went back.’
‘No, no, John, let us go on. It’s wonderful! It’s like a dreamland place. It all seems so close and so near to me. How long were the Romans here, Mr Cunningham?’
‘A fair time, mam. If you saw the kitchen midden-pits you would guess it took a long time to fill them.’
‘And why did they leave?’
‘Well, mam, by all accounts they left because they had to. The folk around could thole them no longer, so they just up and burned the fort aboot their lugs. You can see the fire marks on the stanes.’
The woman gave a quick little shudder. ‘A wild night – a fearsome night,’ said she. ‘The sky must have been red that night – and these grey stones, they may have been red also.’
‘Aye, I think they were red,’ said her husband. ‘It’s a queer thing, Maggie, and it may be your words that have done it; but I seem to see that business aboot as clear as ever I saw anything in my life. The light shone on the water.’
‘Aye, the light shone on the water. And the smoke gripped you by the throat. And all the savages were yelling.’
The old farmer began to laugh. ‘The leddy will be writin’ a story aboot the old fort,’ said he. ‘I’ve shown many a one ower it, but I never heard it put so clear afore. Some folk have the gift.’
They had strolled along the edge of the foss, and a pit yawned upon the right of them.
‘That pit was fourteen foot deep,’ said the farmer. ‘What d’ye think we dug oot from the bottom o’t? Weel, it was just the skeleton of a man wi’ a spear by his side. I’m thinkin’ he was grippin’ it when he died. Now, how cam’ a man wi’ a spear doon a hole fourteen foot deep? He wasna’ buried there, for they aye burned their dead. What make ye o’ that, mam?’
‘He sprang doon to get clear of the savages,’ said the woman.
‘Weel, it’s likely enough, and a’ the professors from Edinburgh couldna gie a better reason. I wish you were aye here, mam, to answer a’ oor deeficulties sae readily. Now, here’s the altar that we foond last week. There’s an inscreeption. They tell me it’s Latin, and it means that the men o this fort give thanks to God for their safety.’
They examined the old worn stone. There was a large deeply cut ‘VV upon the top of it.
‘What does “VV” stand for?’ asked Brown.
‘Naebody kens,’ the guide answered.
‘Valeria Victrix,’ said the lady softly. Her face was paler than ever, her eyes far away, as one who peers down the dim aisles of over-arching centuries.
‘What’s that?’ asked her husband sharply.
She started as one who wakes from sleep. ‘What were we talking about?’ she asked.
‘About this “VV” upon the stone.’
‘No doubt it was just the name of the Legion which put the altar up.’
‘Aye, but you gave some special name.’
‘Did I? How absurd! How should I ken what the name was?’
‘You said something – “Victrix”, I think.’
‘I suppose I was guessing. It gives me the queerest feeling, this place, as if I were not myself, but someone else.’
‘Aye, it’s an uncanny place,’ said her husband, looking around with an expression almost of fear in his bold grey eyes. ‘I feel it mysel’. I think we’ll just be wishin’ you good evenin’, Mr Cunningham, and get back to Melrose before the dark sets in.’
Neither of them could shake off the strange impression which had been left upon them by their visit to the excavations. It was as if some miasma had risen from those damp trenches and passed into their blood. All the evening they were silent and thoughtful, but such remarks as they did make showed that the same subject was in the minds of each. Brown had a restless night, in which he dreamed a strange connected dream, so vivid that he woke sweating and shivering like a frightened horse. He tried to convey it all to his wife as they sat together at breakfast in the morning.
‘It was the clearest thing, Maggie,’ said he. ‘Nothing that has ever come to me in my waking life has been more clear than that. I feel as if these hands were sticky with blood.’
‘Tell me of it – tell me slow,’ said she.
‘When it began, I was oot on a braeside. I was laying flat on the ground. It was rough, and there were clumps of heather. All around me was just darkness, but I could hear the rustle and the breathin’ of men. There seemed a great multitude on every side of me, but I could see no one. There was a low chink of steel sometimes, and then a number of voices would whisper, “Hush!” I had a ragged club in my hand, and it had spikes o’ iron near the end of it. My heart was beatin’ quickly, and I felt that a moment of great danger and excitement was at hand. Once I dropped my club, and again from all around me the voices in the darkness cried, “Hush!” I put oot my hand, and it touched the foot of another man lying in front of me. There was someone at my very elbow on either side. But they said nothin’.
‘Then we all began to move. The whole braeside seemed to be crawlin’ downwards. There was a river at the bottom and a high-arched wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge were many lights – torches on a wall. The creepin’ men all flowed towards the bridge. There had been no sound of any kind, just a velvet stillness. And then there was a cry in the darkness, the cry of a man who has been stabbed suddenly to the hairt. That one cry swelled out for a moment, and then the roar of a thoosand furious voices. I was runnin’. Everyone was runnin’. A bright red light shone out, and the river was a scarlet streak. I could see my companions now. They were more like devils than men, wild figures clad in skins, with their hair and beards streamin’. They were all mad with rage, jumpin’ as they ran, their mouths open, their arms wavin’, the red light beatin’ on their faces. I ran, too, and yelled out curses like the rest. Then I heard a great cracklin’ of wood, and I knew that the palisades were doon. There was a loud whistlin’ in my ears, and I was aware that arrows were flyin’ past me. I got to the bottom of a dyke, and I saw a hand stretched doon from above. I took it, and was dragged to the top. We looked doon, and there were silver men beneath us holdin’ up their spears. Some of our folk sprang on to the spears. Then we others followed, and we killed the soldiers before they could draw the spears oot again. They shouted loud in some foreign tongue, but no mercy was shown them. We went ower them like a wave, and trampled them doon into the mud, for they were few, and there was no end to our numbers.
‘I found myself among buildings, and one of them was on fire. I saw the flames spoutin’ through the roof. I ran on, and then I was alone among the buildings. Someone ran across in front o’ me. It was a woman. I caught her by the arm, and I took her chin and turned her face so as the light of the fire would strike it. Whom think you that it was, Maggie?’
His wife moistened her dry lips. ‘It was I,’ she said.
He looked at her in surprise. ‘That’s a good guess,’ said he. ‘Yes, it was just you. Not merely like you, you understand. It was you – you yourself. I saw the same soul in your frightened eyes. You looked white and bonny and wonderful in the firelight. I had just one thought in my head – to get you awa’ with me; to keep you all to mysel’ in my own home somewhere beyond the hills. You clawed at my face with your nails. I heaved you over my shoulder, and I tried to find a way oot of the light of the burning hoose and back into the darkness.
‘Then came the thing that I mind best of all. You’re ill, Maggie. Shall I stop? My God! you have the very look on your face that you had last night in my dream. You screamed. He came runnin’ in the firelight. His head was bare; his hair was black and curled; he had a naked sword in his hand, short and broad, little more than a dagger. He stabbed at me, but he tripped and fell. I held you with one hand, and with the other –’
&n
bsp; His wife had sprung to her feet with writhing features.
‘Marcus!’ she cried. ‘My beautiful Marcus! Oh, you brute! you brute! you brute!’ There was a clatter of teacups as she fell forward senseless upon the table.
∗
They never talk about that strange isolated incident in their married life. For an instant the curtain of the past had swung aside, and some strange glimpse of a forgotten life had come to them. But it closed down, never to open again. They live their narrow round – he in his shop, she in her household – and yet new and wider horizons have vaguely formed themselves around them since that summer evening by the crumbling Roman fort.
PART FOUR:
A CLASSIC VICTORIAN FAIRY TALE
THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE
Andrew Lang
CHAPTER I
The Old House
You may still see the old Scots house where Randal was born, so long ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the days of Randal’s father – nearly five hundred years have passed since then – and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth and ale. But now the doors are not only open, they are quite gone, and there is nobody within to give you a welcome.
So there is nothing but emptiness in the old house where Randal lived with Jean, four hundred and sixty years or so before you were born. It is a high old house, and wide, with the broken slates still on the roof. At the corner there are little round towers, like pepperboxes, with sharp peaks. The stems of the ivy that covers the walls are as thick as trees. There are many trees crowding all around, and there are hills around it too; and far below you hear the Tweed whispering all day. The house is called Fairnilee, which means ‘the Fairies’ Field’; for people believed in fairies, as you shall hear, when Randal was a boy, and even when my father was a boy.
Randal was all alone in the house when he was a little fellow – alone with his mother, and Nancy the old nurse, and Simon Grieve the butler, who wore a black velvet coat and a big silver chain. Then there were the maids, and the grooms, and the farm folk, who were all friends of Randal’s. He was not lonely, and he did not feel unhappy, even before Jean came, as you shall be told. But the grown-up people were sad and silent at Fairnilee. Randal had no father; his mother, Lady Ker, was a widow. She was still quite young, and Randal thought her the most beautiful person in the world. Children think these things about their mothers, and Randal had seen no ladies but his mother only. She had brown hair and brown eyes and red lips, and a grave kind face, which looked serious under her great white widow’s cap with the black hood over it. Randal never saw his mother cry; but when he was a very little child indeed, he had heard her crying in the night: this was after his father went away.
CHAPTER II
How Randal’s Father Came Home
Randal remembered his father going to fight the English, and how he came back again. It was a windy August evening when he went away: the rain had fallen since morning. Randal had watched the white mists driven by the gale down through the black pine wood that covers the hill opposite Fairnilee. The mist looked like armies of ghosts, he thought, marching, marching through the pines, with their white flags flying and streaming. Then the sun came out red at evening, and Randal’s father rode away with all his men. He had a helmet on his head, and a great axe hanging from his neck by a chain, and a spear in his hand. He was riding his big horse, Sir Hugh, and he caught Randal up to the saddle and kissed him many times before he clattered out of the courtyard. All the tenants and men about the farm rode with him, all with spears and a flag embroidered with a crest in gold. His mother watched them from the tower till they were out of sight. And Randal saw them ride away, not on hard, smooth roads like ours, but along a green grassy track, the water splashing up to their stirrups where they crossed the marshes.
Then the sky turned as red as blood, in the sunset, and next it grew brown, like the rust on a sword; and the Tweed below, when they rode the ford, was all red and gold and brown.
Then time went on; that seemed a long time to Randal. Only the women were left in the house, and Randal played with the shepherd’s children. They sailed boats in the mill-pond, and they went down to the boat-pool and watched to see the big copper-coloured salmon splashing in the still water. One evening Randal looked up suddenly from his play. It was growing dark. He had been building a house with the round stones and wet sand by the river. He looked up, and there was his own father! He was riding all alone, and his horse, Sir Hugh, was very lean and lame, and scarred with the spurs. The spear in his father’s hand was broken, and he had no sword; and he looked neither to right nor to left. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to see nothing.
Randal cried out to him, ‘Father! Father!’ but he never glanced at Randal. He did not look as if he heard him; or knew he was there, and suddenly he seemed to go away, Randal did not know how or where.
Randal was frightened.
He ran into the house, and went to his mother.
‘Oh, mother,’ he said, ‘I have seen father! He was riding all alone, and he would not look at me. Sir Hugh was lame!’
‘Where has he gone?’ said Lady Ker, in a strange voice.
‘He went away out of sight,’ said Randal. ‘I could not see where he went.’
Then his mother told him it could not be, that his father would not have come back alone. He would not leave his men behind him in the war.
But Randal was so sure, that she did not scold him. She knew he believed what he said.
He saw that she was not happy.
All that night, which was the fourth of September, in the year 1513, the day of Flodden fight, Randal’s mother did not go to bed. She kept moving about the house. Now she would look from the tower window up Tweed; and now she would go along the gallery and look down Tweed from the other tower. She had lights burning in all the windows. All next day she was never still. She climbed, with two of her maids, to the top of the hill above Yair, on the other side of the river, and she watched the roads down Ettrick and Yarrow. Next night she slept little, and rose early. About noon, Randal saw three or four men riding wearily, with tired horses. They could scarcely cross the ford of Tweed, the horses were so tired. The men were Simon Grieve the butler, and some of the tenants. They looked very pale; some of them had their heads tied up, and there was blood on their faces. Lady Ker and Randal ran to meet them.
Simon Grieve lighted from his horse, and whispered to Randal’s mother.
Randal did not hear what he said, but his mother cried, ‘I knew it! I knew it!’ and turned quite white.
‘Where is he?’ she said.
Simon pointed across the hill. ‘They are bringing the corp,’ he said. Randal knew ‘the corp’ meant the dead body.
He began to cry. ‘Where is my father?’ he said. ‘Where is my father?’
His mother led him into the house. She gave him to the old nurse, who cried over him, and kissed him, and offered him cakes, and made him a whistle with a branch of plane tree. So in a short while Randal only felt puzzled. Then he forgot, and began to play. He was a very little boy.
Lady Ker shut herself up in her own room – her ‘bower’, the servants called it.
Soon Randal heard heavy steps on the stairs, and whispering. He wanted to run out, and his nurse caught hold of him, and would not have let him go, but he slipped out of her hand, and looked over the staircase.
They were bringing up the body of a man stretched on a shield.
It was Randal’s father.
He had been slain at Flodden, fighting for the king. An arrow had gone through his brain, and he had fallen beside James IV, with many another brave knight, all the best of Scotland, the Flowers of the Forest.
What was it Randal had seen, when he thought he met his father in the twilight, three days before?
He never knew. His mother said he must have dreamed it all.
The old nurse used to gos
sip about it to the maids. ‘He’s an unco’ bairn, oor Randal; I wush he may na be fey.’
She meant that Randal was a strange child, and that strange things would happen to him.
CHAPTER III
How Jean was brought to Fairnilee
The winter went by very sadly. At first the people about Fairnilee expected the English to cross the Border and march against them. They drove their cattle out on the wild hills, and into marshes where only they knew the firm paths, and raised walls of earth and stones – barmkyns, they called them – around the old house; and made many arrows to shoot out of the narrow windows at the English. Randal used to like to see the arrow-making beside the fire at night. He was not afraid; and said he would show the English what he could do with his little bow. But weeks went on and no enemy came. Spring drew near, the snow melted from the hills. One night Randal was awakened by a great noise of shouting; he looked out of the window, and saw bright torches moving about. He heard the cows ‘routing’, or bellowing, and the women screaming. He thought the English had come. So they had; not the English army, but some robbers from the other side of the Border. At that time the people on the south side of Scotland and the north side of England used to steal each other’s cows time about. When a Scots squire, or ‘laird’, like Randal’s father, had been robbed by the neighbouring English, he would wait his chance and drive away cattle from the English side. This time most of Randal’s mother’s herds were seized, by a sudden attack in the night, and were driven away through the forest to England. Two or three of Lady Ker’s men were hurt by the English, but old Simon Grieve took a prisoner. He did this in a curious way. He shot an arrow after the robbers as they rode off, and the arrow pinned an Englishman’s leg to the saddle, and even into his horse. The horse was hurt and frightened, and ran away right back to Fairnilee, where it was caught, with the rider and all, for of course he could not dismount.
Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) Page 15
