Catriona, Robert Louis Stevenson [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

hung continually in our ears. It was chiefly so in moderate weather. When the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in the calm days that a man could daunt himself with listening⁠—not a Highlandman only, as I several times experimented on myself, so many still, hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.

This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my departure. It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the fire and (that little air of Alan’s coming back to my memory) began to whistle. A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil bade me to stop, for it was not “canny musics.”

“Not canny?” I asked. “How can that be?”

“Na,” said he; “it will be made by a bogle and her wanting ta heid upon his body.”13

“Well,” said I, “there can be no bogles here, Neil; for it’s not likely they would fash themselves to frighten solan geese.”

“Ay?” says Andie, “is that what ye think of it? But I’ll can tell ye there’s been waur nor bogles here.”

“What’s waur than bogles, Andie?” said I.

“Warlocks,” said he. “Or a warlock at the least of it. And that’s a queer tale, too,” he added. “And if ye would like, I’ll tell it ye.”

To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander that had the least English of the three set himself to listen with all his might.

The Tale of Tod Lapraik

My faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a wild, sploring lad in his young days, wi’ little wisdom and less grace. He was fond of a lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could never hear tell that he was muckle use for honest employment. Frae ae thing to anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in the garrison of this fort, which was the first way that ony of the Dales cam to set foot upon the Bass. Sorrow upon that service! The governor brewed his ain ale; it seems it was the warst conceivable. The rock was proveesioned frae the shore with vivers, the thing was ill-guided, and there were whiles when they but to fish and shoot solans for their diet. To crown a’, thir was the Days of the Persecution. The perishin’ cauld chalmers were all occupeed wi’ sants and martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of which it wasnae worthy. And though Tam Dale carried a firelock there, a single sodger, and liked a lass and a glass, as I was sayin’, the mind of the man was mair just than set with his position. He had glints of the glory of the kirk; there were whiles when his dander rase to see the Lord’s sants misguided, and shame covered him that he should be haulding a can’le (or carrying a firelock) in so black a business. There were nights of it when he was here on sentry, the place a’ wheesht, the frosts o’ winter maybe riving in the wa’s, and he would hear are o’ the prisoners strike up a psalm, and the rest join in, and the blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers⁠—or dungeons, I would raither say⁠—so that this auld craig in the sea was like a pairt of Heev’n. Black shame was on his saul; his sins hove up before him muckle as the Bass, and above a’, that chief sin, that he should have a hand in hagging and hashing at Christ’s Kirk. But the truth is that he resisted the spirit. Day cam, there were the rousing companions, and his guid resolves depairtit.

In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet was his name. Ye’ll have heard tell of Prophet Peden. There was never the wale of him sinsyne, and it’s a question wi’ mony if there ever was his like afore. He was wild ’s a peat-hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to hear, his face like the day of judgment. The voice of him was like a solan’s and dinnle’d in folks’ lugs, and the words of him like coals of fire.

Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do, for it was nae place far dacent weemen; but it seems she was bonny, and her and Tam Dale were very well agreed. It befell that Peden was in the gairden his lane at the praying when Tam and the lass cam by; and what should the lassie do but mock with laughter at the sant’s devotions? He rose and lookit at the twa o’ them, and Tam’s knees knoitered thegether at the look of him. But whan he spak, it was mair in sorrow than in anger. “Poor thing, poor thing!” says he, and it was the lass he lookit at. “I hear you skirl and laugh,” he says, “but the Lord has a deid shot prepared for you, and at that surprising judgment ye shall skirl but the ae time!” Shortly thereafter she was daundering on the craigs wi’ twa-three sodgers, and it was a blawy day. There cam a gowst of wind, claught her by the coats, and awa’ wi’ her bag and baggage. And it was remarked by the sodgers that she gied but the ae skirl.

Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it passed again and him none the better. Ae day he was flyting wi’ anither sodger-lad. “Deil hae me!” quo’ Tam, for he was a profane swearer. And there was Peden glowering at him, gash an’ waefu’; Peden wi’ his lang chafts an’ luntin’ een, the maud happed about his kist, and the hand of him held