The Kelpie's Pearls

by Mollie Hunter

  As soon as he had attended to his animals he would go into the house where Morag was waiting for him with tea and scones spread with butter and royal crowdie, and there, with the warmth of a good peat-fire on their faces and the crowdie sharp and tasty on their tongues, the two of them would sit and talk. And this both he and Morag enjoyed best of all.

  Torquil talked mostly about animals and Morag was astonished to learn how much he knew about them. He could tell where to find the nest or lair of every kind of bird and animal on the hill-side and had even tracked a wild-cat to its lair high up among some rocks. He knew a lot about the creatures of legend as well, such as the Phoenix and Pegasus and the Minotaur. Morag had never heard of these before and she was very interested in them, but one day when Torquil was telling her about the Centaur—the creature that was supposed to be half-man, half-horse—she exclaimed,

  'But that is just like the Urisk!'

  This was something that Torquil had never heard about and so Morag told him about the Urisk which is a creature of Highland legend, only it is half-man, half goat.

  'The Urisk is a surly creature,' she explained, 'but he is very faithful and loyal in spite of that, and mostly he is servant to the fairy people.'

  Torquil looked down his nose a bit at this, boys not being much given to talk about fairies, but Morag said seriously, 'Oh, the fairies were not the little wee folk you read about in story-books nowadays, Torquil. They were a small people all right, but not all that much smaller than other people, and there was a time when the folk of the Highlands went in fear of them and their strange powers. And not only the Highlanders, I may tell you. "Banshee", you know is only the English spelling of the Gaelic word "bean-sidh"—the fairy woman that can be heard lamenting for souls that are about to leave the earth.'

  Torquil was not believing all this entirely, of course, but after having been proved wrong about the kelpie he thought there might be a great deal of truth in it somewhere. And so he went on questioning Morag until she had told him many a strange tale of urisks and fairies and peerie-men, brownies, gruagachs and kelpies and all the other creatures of Highland lore.

  'And were the fairies real people then?' he asked her once, but Morag only laughed and said, 'Who can tell? They all lived so long ago that no one can tell what is fact and what is fancy now in all the stories about them.'

  Now this was all very well sitting by a bright fire of peats drinking tea and eating scones, but going back down the hill road in the winter months when it was almost dark Torquil would glance fearfully at the great grey shapes of rocks that jutted out of the hillside and fancy he saw a urisk glowering at him from behind the bare stone, and in the sound of the night-wind he sometimes thought he could hear the wild, lost voice of the banshee calling. He told Morag about this, and it was then that she fashioned for him a little cross from the wood of the rowan tree that grew beside the burn.

  As she made the cross she told him of how the white berries of the little rowan tree that grew at the foot of Our Lord's cross became red with His blood so that ever after the berries of the rowan tree have been red and its wood has had a sacred power to preserve people from harm.

  'So you see, no ill can befall you if you carry this,' she said as she gave the cross to him. And every night after that Torquil ran down the hill with his fingers touching the cross in his pocket and his heart light with the knowledge that he was safe from all harm.

  When he had gone, Morag would go down to the pool to meet the kelpie and very often when they got tired of talking they had a game of skiffers, for the kelpie always seemed to have a supply of pearls on him. Morag sometimes thought to herself that there must be a small fortune in pearls in the pool as a result of their games but since she was not interested in money the idea never bothered her. To please the kelpie, however, she did at last accept the pearl necklace he had made for her.

  'It suits you fine,' he told her with a glint of triumph in his strange old eyes when she put it on for the first time. 'You look real bonny with them on, mistress.'

  The kelpie was speaking no more than the truth when he said this, for flax-white hair is fine with pearls and so are rowan-red cheeks and blue eyes with a pleasant sparkle of good nature in them. Morag had all these and a good black dress to wear with the pearls as well, and though she laughed at the kelpie for a flatterer she could still see in her mirror the bonny picture she made when she wore them.

  She grew to like the necklace so much that soon, instead of wearing it just to please the kelpie when she went down to draw water from the pool, she took to wearing it in the afternoons as well. And that was how Alasdair the Trapper came to learn about the kelpie's pearls when he returned to the hill in the following spring.

  CHAPTER 3

  Alasdair the Trapper

  IT was early in the afternoon before Torquil came up to feed his animals that the Trapper called in on Morag one day, and, bad character as he was, she was quite pleased to see him for he always brought news of any doings on the hill.

  'It's yourself then, Alasdair,' she said. 'Come away into the house now, and I will put the kettle on the fire while you tell me all the news.'

  Alasdair put his string of rabbits down outside the house and came inside to the fire, and the first thing he noticed was the string of pearls gleaming white against Morag's black dress.

  'Now where would a cailleach, an old woman, like Morag be getting these?' he asked himself but to Morag he said, 'Och, there is not much doing in the way of news just now, mistress—not unless you count that fine string of beads you are wearing.'

  'Beads!' Morag cried. 'These are pearls, Alasdair man!'

  'Yes, yes indeed,' said Alasdair slyly. 'I can see that now. But how did you come by such a fine string of pearls, mistress?'

  Morag poured out the tea. 'You will not be believing me, Alasdair,' she said as she handed him a cup, 'but I am telling you the truth. I had them from a kelpie that has lived in the burn for two hundred years.'

  'This is a sly old one,' Alasdair thought angrily. 'She is for trying to make a fool out of me!' And trying to keep the anger out of his voice he said,

  'Now, now, Mistress MacLeod, you know I am a modern man and do not believe such nonsense as kelpies.'

  No more he did of course, but in spite of that he listened with his mouth open like a landed trout as Morag told him how she had come to know the kelpie and how they had played skiffers with pearls night after night beside the pool.

  'It is a great story indeed,' he said at last, 'and if you are not telling it just to make a joke of me, the bottom of that pool must be covered with pearls.'

  'Aye so,' said Morag with a twinkle in her eye, 'but they are a bit light for skiffers.'

  'Skiffers!' exploded the Trapper. 'I am not thinking of any game, mistress. I am thinking how to get those pearls up from the bottom of the pool.'

  'But Alasdair man,' said Morag with her eyes twinkling more than ever, 'it was the kelpie that put the pearls there, and if there is no kelpie then there cannot be any pearls. And you are a modern man that does not believe such nonsense as kelpies!'

  Now this brought Alasdair up short, feeling more than a little foolish. Then his eye caught the white gleam of the pearls against Morag's dress and he fell to wondering if there could be such a thing as a kelpie, for surely there was no living soul could have given an old woman like her such a present. There was one thing he was sure of. If there were pearls at the bottom of the pool they would be in his game-bag before sundown or his name was not Alasdair the Trapper!

  When he had made up his mind on this he said to Morag, 'Well mistress, you are old enough to be my grandmother and goodness knows you have seen many a thing in your long life, and so it is maybe true that you have seen a kelpie. And if that is so, it is maybe true as well that the bottom of the pool is covered with pearls.'

  This made Morag wonder what was coming next and she was not left long in doubt for the Trapper went on,

  'Now you do not seem to set much st
ore by them, and even if the kelpie does—well, he has the next two hundred years to spend in gathering a new lot to throw away!'

  He got to his feet very well pleased with his joke and much as Morag tried to warn him that it was a wicked and dangerous thing to try to steal the kelpie’s pearls, he would not listen to a word.

  'Somebody might as well have the pearls,' he said, 'and there is nothing a kelpie can do against a modern man like myself.'

  He went out quickly before she could say another word and collected his gear. Then he went boldly down to the pool and peered into the water.

  There was nothing to be seen—not even the bottom of the pool, let alone any pearls, for the wind was skirling round the shoulder of the hill and ruffling the surface of the water, and the Trapper straightened up wondering what he could do to find out if the pearls were there.

  His eye lighted on the little canvas bag he had thrown down on the bank beside his rabbits. Quickly he tipped out the wire, string, pliers and other odds and ends in it, ran a piece of wire through the hem at the top so that the mouth of the bag was held open, and bound the two ends of the wire firmly to a stout stick he got from a bush growing on the bank.

  'Now,' said he, 'I can drag the pool.' And with that, he plunged the bag into the water.

  But the bag was too light to sink and after he had made one or two attempts to push it down into the water Alasdair pulled it out again and dropped a stone inside it. The bag sank straight down with the weight of the stone in it the next time he put it in the water, and he began to drag it over the bottom of the pool. Back and forward he swept it and the bag began to feel heavy. He tried to draw it to the surface but it seemed to have caught on something at the bottom of the pool, for no matter how he pulled and twisted at the stick the bag stayed at the bottom.

  Alasdair struggled on with it, panting and straining. It jerked to the surface at last, but so suddenly that it took him completely by surprise. He had just time to catch a glimpse of it when the stick was snatched from his grasp, and bag, stick and all went plunging back the bottom of the pool.

  'I doubt the kelpie is working against you, Alasdair,' said Morag's voice at his elbow.

  Alasdair whirled round to her. 'Did you see yon?' he demanded. 'That bag was full! It was full to the brim with pearls!' And sitting down on the bank he began tugging off his boots.

  'You're never going into the pool!' cried Morag.

  'I am that,' said Alasdair, throwing off his jacket, And paying no attention to Morag crying to him not to be foolish and tempt the kelpie, he stepped into the water.

  The icy chill of it gripped his knees like an iron band, and for a second or two Alasdair hesitated. Supposing he got a soaking in that cold water for nothing? But no, he had seen the pearls with his own two eyes! Supposing the kelpie caught him? Alasdair shook that thought away.

  'I am six foot three in my socks,' he muttered, 'and I am strong and hardy. Anyway, I am a modern man and I do not believe in kelpies.' And he took a deep breath and plunged to the bottom.

  Morag watched from the bank, holding her breath as he disappeared. 'If I count to ten and nothing happens, he is safe,' she thought, but she had only reached five when there was a flurry at the bottom of the pool and the surface of the water began to boil white. The next instant Alasdair's head broke through the foam, and beside him the head and shoulders of a great black horse.

  'The kelpie!' Morag gasped.

  The black horse reared upwards, nostrils flaring red, its sharp hooves striking out at Alasdair's head.

  'Look out! Look out, Alasdair!' Morag shrieked.

  The kelpie screamed with rage and its hooves plunged down. The Trapper gave a terrified shout and threw himself sideways, clutching at the kelpie's mane to try to force its head away from him. It reared again, swinging its head round and lifting him half out of the water as it tried to reach him with snapping teeth.

  Morag ran down the bank shouting wildly to the kelpie to let Alasdair go, but the great horse was too mad with rage to heed her.

  'Save me, mistress, save me!' roared Alasdair, dodging and twisting about like a demented eel. But what could an old woman do against the strength of the kelpie that a young man could not?

  Morag stood there wringing her hands in the greatest distress, and then suddenly something flashed into her mind. It was a thing she had learned long ago as a little girl from her grandmother—a woman that everyone at Abriachan used to swear was a witch—and the thing she remembered was the spell for binding a kelpie to her will.

  She snatched up a piece of string Alasdair had left lying on the bank, broke two twigs off the rowan-tree growing at the edge of the water, and with a couple of twists of her fingers bound the twigs together in the shape of a cross. Then she raised the hand with the cross in it above her head and called out at the top of her voice the words her grandmother had taught her.

  'In Christus name I conjure thee,

  Still as water shalt thou be.

  By this cross within my hand,

  Weak as water shalt thou stand!'

  The kelpie was caught with its hooves in mid-air, plunging down to strike once more at the Trapper’s head. It froze there at the sound of Morag's voice like a carved black statue of a horse, and when she had finished speaking it dropped its hooves to the water and stood with its head hanging, shivering and soundless while the water streamed off its great black body.

  'Come quickly, Alasdair,' Morag called quietly, and the terrified man scrambled out on to the bank. When he got there he did not stop to put on his shoes or his jacket or even to thank Morag for saving him. He just bundled everything together without a word and made off down the hill as fast as his long legs would carry him.

  'Ah well,' thought Morag, laughing a little as she watched him go, 'there is punishment enough for a modern man that does not believe such nonsense as kelpies.'

  She turned back to speak to the kelpie but he was gone. There was nothing to show that he had ever been there but a white swirl of foam on the surface of the pool and Morag walked back to her house thinking, with a great sadness at her heart, that she would probably never see him again.

  'I have seen the last of the kelpie,' were her first words to Torquil that afternoon, and she told him how Alasdair had tried to get the kelpie's pearls. Torquil was quiet for a moment after she had finished; then he said,

  'Your grandmother must have been a queer one, surely, to have known how to get the better of a kelpie.'

  'Maybe aye, maybe no,' said Morag. and that was all she said though she was not too well pleased at this description of her grandmother. However, she had no intention of telling Torquil that the old woman had been a witch. Witches in story-books, after all, are quite a different matter from real witches and real witchcraft, which are serious things and not the sort of subject that Morag thought should be discussed with a boy of Torquil's age. In any case, a witch in the family is a delicate matter and not the kind of thing that people care to talk about too much.

  'Anyway,' said Torquil, 'the Trapper got no more than he deserved. He is a right bad one, that Alasdair.'

  'So he is,' Morag agreed. 'But I will miss the kelpie, all the same.'

  'Och he'll come back again,' Torquil consoled her. 'He'll not be missing his blether with you over the head of Alasdair's foolishness.'

  He went off to look after his animals, thinking of the story Morag had told him and how it showed the power that was in a little cross of rowan wood, and feeling more pleased than ever that he had one for himself. Morag, however, went about her work that day feeling very downcast at the thought that she would not see the kelpie again, and nobody was more pleased and surprised than herself when she went down to the pool that evening and saw the kelpie sitting there as usual.

  It was soon clear, however, that he had not come in a friendly mood. As soon as Morag appeared he shouted at her,

  'Why did you deceive me, old woman?'

  'I did not deceive you!' she said, astonished.

/>   'You never told me you were a witch,' the kelpie said angrily.

  'You have no right to say that,' Morag said, feeling angry herself now. 'I am not a witch!'

  'You used a witch's spell,' the kelpie retorted.

  'Och, that!' she said. 'That was only an old rhyme I heard from my grandmother.'

  'That is not true,' the kelpie shouted. 'It was a spell! Well you know it was a spell. And well you know the power of a rowan cross against people like us!'

  'I am not a witch,' Morag insisted. 'And I'll thank you not to call me one. Anyway, there was no need to come here if you did not want to see me.'

  'You wanted me to come, didn't you?' the kelpie demanded.

  Morag nodded.

  'Well then,' he said, 'I had to come. When a witch defeats one of us we have to come when she calls and do her bidding whether we like it or not. And I am here tonight because you wanted me to be here. That proves you are a witch.'

  Morag shook her head sadly for she could see it was no use trying to convince the little man. 'Kelpie,' she said, 'it does not really matter whether or not you think I am a witch, but I've no wish to see someone who comes to speak to me only because he must and not because he wants to. Good night, kelpie, and goodbye.'

  'Wait, wait!' the kelpie cried.

  Morag looked down at him and saw that his small old face was all puckered up, whether it was with rage or something else she could not tell, and so she waited and the kelpie said,

  'Tell me why you sent that man down to my pool.'

  'He came of his own accord,' said Morag. 'I would never send anyone to torment you.' And she told him how it was that Alasdair had come to try and get the pearls from the pool.

  The kelpie let go her bucket when she had finished. 'It seems you are not to blame after all,' he said. Then he gave Morag another of his odd, puckered-up looks. 'Like it or not,' he said, 'you have the power to call me to your side. But I would have come tonight in any case. You are not the only one on the hill-side that is lonely for times gone past.'