Late in the evening, just at the darkening, a figure arrayed in Sunday clothes, but all wet and mud-stained, came up the road to the farm. Over his shoulder he carried a rod, and in one hand a long string of noble trout. But the expression on his face was not triumphant; a settled melancholy overspread his countenance, and he groaned as he walked.
Mephistopheles stood by the garden-gate, smoking and surveying his fields. A well-satisfied smile hovered about his mouth, and his air was the air of one well at ease with the world.
‘Weel, I see ye’ve had guid sport,’ said he to the melancholy Faust. ‘By-the-bye, I didna notice ye in the toun. And losh! man, what in the warld have ye dune to your guid claes?’
The other made no answer. Slowly he took the rod to pieces and strapped it up; he took the fly-book from his pocket; he selected two fish from the heap; and laid the whole before the farmer.
‘There ye are,’ said he, ‘and I’m verra much obleeged to ye for your kindness.’ But his tone was of desperation and not of gratitude; and his face, as he went onward, was a study in eloquence repressed.
Streams of Water in the South
As streams of water in the South,
Our bondage, Lord, recall.
Psalm CXXVI
Scots Metrical Version
I
It was at the ford of the Clachlands Water in a tempestuous August that I, an idle boy, first learned the hardships of the Lammas droving. The shepherd of the Redswirehead, my very good friend, and his three shaggy dogs, were working for their lives in an angry water. The path behind was thronged with scores of sheep bound for the Gledsmuir market, and beyond it was possible to discern through the mist the few dripping dozen which had made the passage. Between raged yards of brown foam coming down from murky hills, and the air echoed with the yelp of dogs and the perplexed cursing of men.
Before I knew, I was helping in the task, with water lapping round my waist and my arms filled with a terrified sheep. It was no light task, for though the water was no more than three feet deep it was swift and strong, and a kicking hogg is a sore burden. But this was the only road; the stream might rise higher at any moment; and somehow or other those bleating flocks had to be transferred to their fellows beyond. There were six men at the labour, six men and myself, and all were cross and wearied and heavy with water.
I made my passages side by side with my friend the shepherd, and thereby felt much elated. This was a man who had dwelt all his days in the wilds, and was familiar with torrents as with his own doorstep. Now and then a swimming dog would bark feebly as he was washed against us, and flatter his fool’s heart that he was aiding the work. And so we wrought on, till by midday I was dead-beat, and could scarce stagger through the surf, while all the men had the same gasping faces. I saw the shepherd look with longing eye up the long green valley, and mutter disconsolately in his beard.
‘Is the water rising?’ I asked.
‘It’s no rising,’ said he, ‘but I likena the look o’ yon big black clud upon Cairncraw. I doubt there’s been a shoor up the muirs, and a shoor there means twae mair feet o’ water in the Clachlands. God help Sandy Jamieson’s lambs, if there is.’
‘How many are left?’ I asked.
‘Three, fower – no abune a score and a half,’ said he, running his eye over the lessened flocks. ‘I maun try to tak twae at a time.’
So for ten minutes he struggled with a double burden, and panted painfully at each return. Then with a sudden swift look up-stream he broke off and stood up. ‘Get ower the water, every yin o’ ye, and leave the sheep,’ he said, and to my wonder every man of the five obeyed his word.
And then I saw the reason of his command, for with a sudden swift leap forward the Clachlands rose, and flooded up to where I had stood an instant before high and dry.
‘It’s come,’ said the shepherd in a tone of fate, ‘and there’s fifteen no ower yet, and Lord kens how they’ll dae’t. They’ll hae to gang roond by Gledsmuir Brig, and that’s twenty mile o’ a differ. ’Deed, it’s no like that Sandy Jamieson will get a guid price the morn for sic sair for-fochen beasts.’
Then with firmly gripped staff he marched stoutly into the tide till it ran hissing below his armpits. ‘I could dae’t alane,’ he cried, ‘but no wi’ a burden. For, losh, if ye slip-pit, ye’d be in the Tod’s Pool afore ye could draw breath.’
And so we waited with the great white droves and five angry men beyond, and the path blocked by a surging flood. For half an hour we waited, holding anxious consultation across the stream, when to us thus busied there entered a newcomer, a helper from the ends of the earth.
He was a man of something over middle size, but with a stoop forward that shortened him to something beneath it. His dress was ragged homespun, the cast-off clothes of some sportsman, and in his arms he bore a bundle of sticks and heather-roots which marked his calling. I knew him for a tramp who long had wandered in the place, but I could not account for the whole-voiced shout of greeting which met him as he stalked down the path. He lifted his eyes and looked solemnly and long at the scene. Then something of delight came into his eye, his face relaxed, and flinging down his burden he stripped his coat and came toward us.
‘Come on, Yeddie, ye’re sair needed,’ said the shepherd, and I watched with amazement this grizzled, crooked man seize a sheep by the fleece and drag it to the water. Then he was in the midst, stepping warily, now up, now down the channel, but always nearing the farther bank. At last with a final struggle he landed his charge, and turned to journey back. Fifteen times did he cross that water, and at the end his mean figure had wholly changed. For now he was straighter and stronger, his eye flashed, and his voice, as he cried out to the drovers, had in it a tone of command. I marvelled at the transformation; and when at length he had donned once more his ragged coat and shouldered his bundle, I asked the shepherd his name.
‘They ca’ him Adam Logan,’ said my friend, his face still bright with excitement, ‘but maist folk ca’ him “Streams O’ Water”.’
‘Ay,’ said I, ‘and why “Streams of Water”?’
‘Juist for the reason ye see,’ said he.
Now I knew the shepherd’s way, and I held my peace, for it was clear that his mind was revolving other matters, concerned most probably with the high subject of the morrow’s prices. But in a little, as we crossed the moor toward his dwelling, his thoughts relaxed and he remembered my question. So he answered me thus –
‘Oh, ay; as ye were sayin’, he’s a queer man, Yeddie – aye been; guid kens whaur he cam frae first, for he’s been trampin’ the countryside since ever I mind, and that’s no yesterday. He maun be sixty year, and yet he’s as fresh as ever. If onything, he’s a thocht dafter in his ongaein’s and mair silent-like. But ye’II hae heard tell o’ him afore?’
I owned ignorance.
‘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 burnside. He kens every water i’ the warld, every bit sheuch and burnie frae Gallowa’ to Berwick. And he kens the way o’ spates the best I ever seen, 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 further tales.
‘There’s little mair to tell,’ he said, ‘for a gangrel life is nane o’ the liveliest. But d’ye ken the langnebbit hill that cocks its tap abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he’s got a wee bit o’ grand 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 clean 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 labours. The turf was still wet with dew and the young leaves gleamed in the glow of morning. Far up the stream rose the grim hills which hem the mosses and tarns of the 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 lacklustre gaze of town-bred 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 that 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 doun 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 merry-maiden 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’re 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, lonesome but awfu’ bonny, and there’s mony braw trout in its siller flow.’
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 Tarn 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 oh, Clachlands is a bit easy water. But I’ve seen the muckle Aller come roarin’ sae high that it washed awa’ a sheepfauld 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 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 another glisk o’t, for it’s a braw place.’ 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 maunna mind me,’ he said huskily, ‘but the sicht o’ 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 linns that I canna win to again. I maun e’en be content wi’ the Callowa, which is as guid as the best.’
I left him wandering down by the streamside and telling his crazy meditations to himself.
III
A space of years elapsed ere I met him, for fate had carried me far from the upland valleys. But once again I was afoot on the white moor roads; and, as I swung along one autumn afternoon up the path which leads from the Glen of Callowa to the Gled, I saw a figure before me which I knew for my friend. When I overtook him, his appearance puzzled and troubled me. Age seemed to have come on him at a bound, and in the tottering figure and the stoop of weakness I had difficulty in recognising the hardy frame of the man as I had known him. Something, too, had come over his face. His brow was clouded, and the tan of weather stood out hard and cruel on a blanched cheek. His eye seemed both wilder and sicklier, and for the first time I saw him with none of the appurtenances of his trade.
He greeted me feebly and dully, and showed little wish to speak. He walked with slow, uncertain step, and his breath laboured with a new panting. Every now and then he would look at me sidewise, and in his feverish glance I could detect none of the free kindliness of old. The man was ill in body and mind.
I asked him how he had done since I saw him last.
‘It’s an ill world now,’ he said in a slow, querulous voice. ‘There’s nae need for honest men, and nae leevin’. Folk dinna heed me ava now. They dinna buy my besoms, they winna let me bide a nicht in their byres, and they’re no like the kind canty folk in the auld times. And a’ the countryside is changin’. Doun by Goldieslaw they’re makkin’ a dam for takin’ wate
r to the toun, and they’re thinkin’ o’ daein’ the like wi’ the Callowa. Guid help us, can they no let the works o’ God alane? Is there nae room for them in the dirty lawlands that they maun file the hills wi’ their biggins?’
I conceived dimly that the cause of his wrath was a scheme for waterworks at the border of the uplands, but I had less concern for this than his strangely feeble health.
‘You are looking ill,’ I said. ‘What has come over you?’
‘Oh, I canna last for aye,’ he said mournfully. ‘My auld body’s about dune. I’ve warkit it ower sair when I had it, and it’s gaun to fail on my hands. Sleepin’ out o’ wat nichts and gangin’ lang wantin’ meat are no the best ways for a long life’; and he smiled the ghost of a smile.
And then he fell to wild telling of the ruin of the place and the hardness of the people, and I saw that want and bare living had gone far to loosen his wits. I knew the countryside, and I recognised that change was only in his mind. A great pity seized me for this lonely figure toiling on in the bitterness of regret. I tried to comfort him, but my words were useless, for he took no heed of me; with bent head and faltering step he mumbled his sorrows to himself.
Then of a sudden we came to the crest of the ridge where the road dips from the hill-top to the sheltered valley. Sheer from the heather ran the white streak till it lost itself among the reddening rowans and the yellow birks of the wood. The land was rich in autumn colour, and the shining waters dipped and fell through a pageant of russet and gold. And all around hills huddled in silent spaces, long brown moors crowned with cairns, or steep fortresses of rock and shingle rising to foreheads of steel-like grey. The autumn blue faded in the far sky-line to white, and lent distance to the farther peaks. The hush of the wilderness, which is far different from the hush of death, brooded over the scene, and like faint music came the sound of a distant scythe-swing, and the tinkling whisper which is the flow of a hundred streams.