“Tut,” said he, “ye ken nocht. But Yeddie had aye a queer crakin’ for waters. He never gangs on the road. Wi’ him it’s juist up yae glen and doon anither, and aye keepin’ by the burn-side. He kens every water i’ the warld, every bit sheuch and burnie frae Gallowa’ to Berwick. And then he kens the way o’ spates the best I ever saw, and I’ve heard tell o’ him fordin’ waters when nae ither thing could leeve i’ them. He can weyse and wark his road sae cunnin’ly on the stanes that the roughest flood, if it’s no juist fair ower his heid, canna upset him. Mony a sheep has he saved to me, and it’s mony a guid drove wad never hae won to Gledsmuir market but for Yeddie.”
I listened with a boy’s interest in any romantic narration. Somehow, the strange figure wrestling in the brown stream took fast hold on my mind, and I asked the shepherd for farther tales.
“There’s little mair to tell,” he said, “for a gangrel life is nane the liveliest. But d’ ye ken the lang-nebbit hill which cocks its tap abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he’s got a wee bit o’ grund on the tap frae the Yerl, and there he’s howkit a grave for himsel’. He’s sworn me and twae-three ithers to bury him there, wherever he may dee. It’s a queer fancy in the auld dotterel.”
So the shepherd talked, and as at evening we stood by his door we saw a figure moving into the gathering shadows. I knew it at once, and did not need my friend’s, “There gangs ‘Streams o’ Water’” to recognise it. Something wild and pathetic in the old man’s face haunted me like a dream, and as the dusk swallowed him up, he seemed like some old Druid recalled of the gods to his ancient habitation of the moors.
II
Two years passed, and April came with her suns and rains, and again the waters brimmed full in the valleys. Under the clear, shining sky the lambing went on, and the faint bleat of sheep brooded on the hills. In a land of young heather and green upland meads, of faint odours of moor-burn, and hill-tops falling in lone ridges to the sky-line, the veriest St. Anthony would not abide indoors; so I flung all else to the winds and went a-fishing.
At the first pool on the Callowa, where the great flood sweeps nobly round a ragged shoulder of hill, and spreads into broad deeps beneath a tangle of birches, I began my toils. The turf was still wet with dew and the young leaves gleamed in the glow of morning. Far up the stream rose the terrible hills which hem the mosses and tarns of that tableland, whence flow the greater waters of the countryside. An ineffable freshness, as of the morning alike of the day and the seasons, filled the clear hill-air, and the remote peaks gave the needed touch of intangible romance.
But as I fished, I came on a man sitting in a green dell, busy at the making of brooms. I knew his face and dress, for who could forget such eclectic raggedness?—and I remembered that day two years before when he first hobbled into my ken. Now, as I saw him there, I was captivated by the nameless mystery of his appearance. There was something startling to one, accustomed to the lack- lustre gaze of townbred folk, in the sight of an eye as keen and wild as a hawk’s from sheer solitude and lonely travelling. He was so bent and scarred with weather that he seemed as much a part of that woodland place as the birks themselves, and the noise of his labours did not startle the birds which hopped on the branches.
Little by little I won his acquaintance—by a chance reminiscence, a single tale, the mention of a friend. Then he made me free of his knowledge, and my fishing fared well that day. He dragged me up little streams to sequestered pools, where I had astonishing success; and then back to some great swirl in the Callowa where he had seen monstrous takes. And all the while he delighted me with his talk, of men and things, of weather and place, pitched high in his thin, old voice, and garnished with many tones of lingering sentiment. He spoke in a broad, slow Scots, with so quaint a lilt in his speech that one seemed to be in an elder time among people of a quieter life and a quainter kindliness.
Then by chance I asked him of a burn of which I had heard, and how it might be reached. I shall never forget the tone of his answer as his face grew eager and he poured forth his knowledge.
“Ye ‘ll gang up the Knowe Burn, which comes down into the Cauldshaw. It’s a wee tricklin’ thing, trowin’ in and out o’ pools i’ the rock, and comin’ doun out o’ the side o’ Caerfraun. Yince a merrymaiden bided there, I’ve heard folks say, and used to win the sheep frae the Cauldshaw herd, and bile them i’ the muckle pool below the fa’. They say that there’s a road to the Ill Place there, and when the Deil likit he sent up the lowe and garred the water faem and fizzle like an auld kettle. But if ye’ve gaun to the Colm Burn ye maun haud atower the rig o’ the hill frae the Knowe heid, and ye ‘ll come to it wimplin’ among green brae faces. It’s a bonny bit, rale lonesome, but awfu’ bonny, and there’s mony braw trout in its siller flows.”
Then I remembered all I had heard of the old man’s craze, and I humoured him.
“It’s a fine countryside for burns,” I said.
“Ye may say that,” said he, gladly, “a weel-watered land. But a’ this braw south country is the same. I’ve traivelled frae the Yeavering Hill in the Cheviots to the Caldons in Galloway, and it’s a’ the same. When I was young, I’ve seen me gang north to the Hielands and doun to the English lawlands, but now that I’m gettin’ auld, I maun bide i’ the yae place. There’s no a burn in the South I dinna ken, and I never cam to the water I couldna ford.”
“No?” said I. “I’ve seen you at the ford o’ Clachlands in’ the Lammas floods.”
“Often I’ve been there,” he went on, speaking like one calling up vague memories. “Yince, when Tam Rorison was drooned, honest man. Yince again, when the brigs were ta’en awa’, and the Back House o’ Clachlands had nae bread for a week. But O, Clachlands is a bit easy water. But I’ve seen the muckle Aller come roarin’ sae high that it washed awa’ a sheep-fold that stood weel up on the hill. And I’ve seen this verra burn, this bonny clear Callowa, lyin’ like a loch for miles i’ the haugh. But I never heeds a spate, for if a man just kens the way o’t it’s a canny, hairmless thing. I couldna wish to dee better than just be happit i’ the waters o’ my ain countryside, when my legs fail and I’m ower auld for the trampin ‘.”
Something in that queer figure in the setting of the hills struck a note of curious pathos. And towards evening as we returned down the glen the note grew keener. A spring sunset of gold and crimson flamed in our backs and turned the clear pools to fire. Far off down the vale the plains and the sea gleamed half in shadow. Somehow in the fragrance and colour and the delectable crooning of the stream, the fantastic and the dim seemed tangible and present, and high sentiment revelled for once in my prosaic heart.
And still more in the breast of my companion. He stopped and sniffed the evening air, as he looked far over hill and dale and then back to the great hills above us. “Yon’s Crappel, and Caerdon and the Laigh Law,” he said, lingering with relish over each name, “and the Gled comes doun atween them. I haena been there for a twalmonth, and I maun hae anither glisk o’t, for it’s a braw place.” And then some bitter thought seemed to seize him, and his mouth twitched. “I’m an auld man,” he cried, “and I canna see ye a’ again. There’s burns and mair burns in the high hills that I ‘ll never win to.” Then he remembered my presence, and stopped. “Ye maun excuse me,” he said huskily, “but the sicht o’ a’ thae lang blue hills makes me daft, now that I’ve faun i’ the vale o’ years. Yince I was young and could get where I wantit, but now I am auld and maun bide i’ the same bit. And I’m aye thinkin’ o’ the waters I’ve been to, and the green heichs and howes and the bricht pools that I canna win to again. I maun e’en be content wi’ the Callowa, which is as bonny as the best.”
And
