had no watch, so he could never be sure on occasions like these what o’clock it really was.
But one thing Kenneth never did forget, and that was to bring a few fish or a lobster or a lovely crab for Nancy.
If her light was burning when he reached the little cottage, then he would go in; if not, he knew she had gone to bed, so he would hang the string of fish to the door latch—a very old-fashioned one with a thumb-piece—and go quietly away with Kooran. Or if it was a lobster with its claws tied, he used to tether it to the foot of a rose tree that grew near the door, and poor old Nancy found it in the morning, and was thankful accordingly. I’m sure of this, that Nancy never said her prayers without asking guidance, and a blessing for her bonnie boy.
And it was in this very cottage that Kenneth and Duncan the keeper now found themselves, in front of a nice peat fire, for though it was yet early in autumn, in this bleak Highland moorland the evenings struck chill and cold.
Nancy herself sat in the corner, with her grey grimalkin on her shoulder. The cat seemed asleep, only she had one eye open, and that eye was watching the door.
Chapter Three.
The Story of the Fairy Knoll.
“I’ve heard my reverend Grannie say
In lanely glens ye like to stray,
Or where auld ruined castles grey
Nod to the moon.
Ye fright the nightly wanderer’s way,
Wi’ eldritch croon.”
Burns.
(Croon—low mournful moan.)
Scene: The interior of Nancy Dobbell’s cottage. Nancy and her visitors round the peat fire, the light from which ever and anon brings the features of each out in bold relief, from the Rembrandtine darkness in the background. Nancy is talking, but knitting as well. Click, click, clickety, click, go the wires, sometimes very fast indeed, at other times more slowly, as if keeping time with Nancy’s thoughts and her spoken words.
“And what brings my bairns so late across the muir the nicht?” she asked.
“We knew ye wadna be in bed, Grannie,” said Dugald. “The moon is shinin’ so brichtly, I had expected to meet ye on the muir, gatherin’ herbs by its ghastly licht. We heard the owlet cryin’; had we met you, Grannie, it would have scared our senses awa’.”
“I wouldn’t have been afraid, Grannie,” said Kenneth.
For a moment there was silence, the old woman’s head had drooped on her breast, and the knitting wires clicked more slowly, like a clock before it stops.
But only for a moment; she raised her head again, and click, click, click, went the wires as fast as before, but both Kenneth and his companion noticed that Nancy’s cheeks were wet.
“Nancy’s auld and silly,” she said, “but Nancy was not always so. Heigho!”
“Oh, Grannie!” cried honest Dugald, hastening to atone for the cruelty of his first speech, but, in his very hurry, making a poor job of it. “Oh, Grannie, dinna say you’re silly; really folk say you’re wise and—and—”
“A witch?” said Nancy, smiling.
“Well, may be so. Who can help what people say? But ’deed there is no’ a poor woman or man either in a’ the glen or parish that hasn’t a good word to say for you. Your simple medicines, Grannie, have brought comfort and joy to mony a hoose, no matter where ye got them or who—goodness be near us—helped you to gather them. When puir Jock Kelpie was drooned, did you no’ bide and comfort the widow, and sing to her and soothe her for weeks thegither? When Menzies’ bairns had the fever, and no’ a soul would gang near the hoose, wha tended them and cured them? Wha but Nancy Dobbell? And there’s no’ a bairn in a’ the clachan that doesn’t run to meet ye, Grannie, whenever ye come o’er the muir.”
The wires clicked very fast.
“And,” continued Dugald, “though you’re maybe no’ very bonnie noo, everybody says, ‘What a pretty woman Nancy must have been in her time!’ ”
Nancy’s chin fell again, but the wires worked steadily on. Her mind was away back now in the distant past. She was thinking of one summer’s evening by Saint Ronan’s Well, ’neath the old monk’s tree, of a plighted troth and a broken ring, and a lad that went away to sea, and never, never, never came back. A broken ring, and a broken heart, a sorrow that had shadowed her life.
Click, click, click. Ah, well, every life has its romance.
“But Kenneth here has something to tell ye, Grannie.”
Clickety, clickety, clickety, go the wires. Nancy is all interest now, for dearly does she love her boy Kennie.
Then Kenneth told her about the fairy knoll and the strange cave he had found in its interior.
He told her all the story, just as we already know it; and for once only during all that evening, the wires ceased to click, and the old woman’s hands fell on her lap as she listened.
“It was long, long ago,” said Nancy. “Your father, Kennie, was but a boy then, just like you are noo. And his father was but a young man—”
“Ahem!” said the superstitious Highland keeper, giving a hasty half-frightened glance behind him into the darkness. “Ahem! you’ll not mak’ your story very fearsome, will ye, Grannie? Dinna forget the lateness o’ the nicht. Mind that we’ve o’er the lonesome muir to gang yet.”
“It was long ago,” said Nancy, addressing herself more particularly to Kenneth. “I lived then down by the kirk in the clachan, and there I was born, and the wee village was quieter far in those days than it is even now. Ye know, Kennie, where the burn joins the river, where the old ruin is among the willow trees?”
“Yes, Grannie.”
“Well, that house was no ruin then. It was deserted, though. It had gotten a bad name. Nobody would take it; and it seemed falling to pieces. The house stood, as you know, about a mile below your fairy knoll, and two miles beyond is the sea.”
“You are right, Grannie.”
“Everybody was surprised to find masons and carpenters working at Mill House one morning. It was let. It had been taken by a stranger. Even the laird knew nought about him. Only he paid a year’s rent in advance. That was enough for Laird McGee, who was a grippy auld man, and just as rich as grippy.
“It was an
