Kenneth McAlpine Part 9

Last night, ere gloaming fell, Kenneth had stood at his mother's cottage door for hours watching the sunset and the weird but splendid after-glow.

The sun had gone down rosy red and large behind a grey-blue bank of rock-and-tower clouds that bounded the horizon above the hills. But so strange and beautiful was the colour that soon spread over the firmament, with its tints of lavender, yellow, pink, and pale sea-green, that even Kenneth's mother must hold up her hands and cry,--

"Oh! dear laddie, a sky like that, I fear, bodes no good to the glen."

For uppermost in every one's mind in Glen Alva, at the present time, was the threatened eviction.

Then, just one hour afterwards, the pink colour had disappeared from the sky, and the yellow had changed to one of the reddest, fieriest orange hues ever eyes had looked upon; while away farther round towards the north the sky was an ocean of darkest green. The trees, ashes and elms, that bordered a field adjoining the kail-yard, stood strangely out against this glow; every branchlet and twig seemed traced in ink--the blackest of the black.

Above this orange, or rather through its upper edge, where it went melting into the zenith's blue, the stars glimmered green.

But looking earthward, all around the hills and fields were dark and bare, for winter had not yet donned her mantle of snow.

And now Kenneth has come out of doors almost before the sun is risen, for there are fowls to be fed, and rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the cow herself to be seen to, before he takes his own breakfast and starts to meet Dugald to enjoy a day among the hills.

What a change! The h.o.a.r frost has been falling gently all the livelong night. The good fairies seem to have been at work while others slept, changing the world to what he now sees it, and so silently too. And this is what strikes Kenneth as so wonderful: while shrub, and tree, and weeds, and gra.s.s, and heather, are transformed, as it were, into powdered ice, there is neither loss of shape nor form; not a branch bends down; not a leaf or twig is out of place. And the very commonest of objects, too, are turned to marvels of beauty.

The trees point heavenwards with fingers of coral. But to look lower down. Surely there could be no romance or beauty about a cabbage leaf.

Glance at these then fringed all round with needles and spiculae inches long; the leaf itself is a s.h.i.+mmering green, dusted over with a frosty down. The wire-netting around the poultry run, and the cobwebs that depend from outhouse eaves, are s.h.i.+ny silver lace-work all. A glorious morning, a wondrous scene; why, even the humble clothes line is changed into a white and feathery cable, and the tufts of gra.s.s that grow on the pathways are tufts of gra.s.s no longer, but radiant bunches of snow-white feathers.

Adown the glen, where Kenneth wanders at last, everything around him is of the same magical beauty, a beauty that is increased tenfold when he reaches the woods. Here, too, all is silence, only the murmur of the rippling stream, or the peevish twitter of birds, or the complaining notes of a throstle as she flies outwards from a thicket, scattering the silvery powder all around her.

But down here in the wood, through the dazzling white of the pine trees, the cypresses, and spruces and holly, comes a shade, a s.h.i.+mmer of green, brighter among the pines themselves, darker among the ivy that clings to their stems. And the seed b.a.l.l.s on the ivy itself are globes of feathery snow, and every spine on the holly leaves is a fairy plume.

Hark! the sound of ringing footsteps on frost-hard road, and a manly merry voice singing,--

"Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philibeg, Down by the Tummel and banks o' the Garry?

Saw ye the lad wi' his bonnet and white c.o.c.kade, Leaving his mountains to follow Prince Charlie?"

--And next moment, gun on shoulder, st.u.r.dy Dugald the keeper stalks round the corner.

"The top of the mornin' to ye, man," said Dugald. "Have you seen Archie?"

"No, not yet."

But even as they spoke Archie, bare-headed as usual, is seen coming up from the side of the stream, with a string of beautiful mountain trout in his hand.

He climbed up through the icy ferns, leapt the fence, and stood before them.

"I set twenty lines last night," he said, in joyful accents, "and caught thirteen trout."

Back the trio went to Mrs McAlpine's cottage, and those fish were fried for breakfast, with nut-brown tea, cream, and b.u.t.ter and cakes; and if there be anything in this world better for breakfast than mountain trout fresh from a stream, I trust some kind soul will send me a hamper of it.

What a day of it they had among the hills, to be sure!

Young as he was, Kenneth had a gun, while Archie did duty as ghillie; they went miles and miles away up among the mountains where the heather grew high as their waists--Kenneth's waist and Dugald's, I mean; it was often over Archie's head. But they came out of this darkness at last, and shook the snow off their jackets and kilts, and walked on over the moorland.

Gorc.o.c.ks stretched their red necks and stared at them in wonder.

Ptarmigans, too cold to fly, ran and hid in the heather, the black c.o.c.k and the grey hen often flew past them with a wild whirr-r-r, while far above, circling round and round in the blue sunny sky, was the bird of Jove himself.

But it was not the gorc.o.c.k, nor black c.o.c.k, nor the ptarmigan, nor the great golden eagle itself they were after, but the white or mountain hare.

And the sport was good. They took time to dine, though, for the air was bracing and keen; then they shot again till nearly sunset, and Kenneth's cheek flushed redder than usual as Dugald praised him for his skill as a marksman. But at the same time Dugald praised himself indirectly, for he added, "But no thanks to you, lad; sure, haven't you had Dugald McCrane himself to teach you this many a long day?"

Archie was wonderfully strong, but he couldn't carry half the hares, so Dugald and Kenneth had to help him as well as carry their own and their guns, and even Shot carried a white hare all the way to the glen below.

"Of course," said Kenneth, "you'll come up the glen, Dugald, to our cottage, and let us show my mother our game; she will be so pleased."

"'Deed, and I will, then," replied Dugald, "and there will be a pair of hares for the old lady, too, and one for Nancy the witch--goodness be about us--for the laird wrote me to say if I killed more than a dozen and a half to-day, I was to do what I liked with the rest."

"Dear old laird!" said Kenneth; "why doesn't he come down from London and stay among his people? We all love him so much."

"Ah! Kennie, he has ruined himself, like mony mair Highland lairds, by stoppin' in the big city, and it's myself that is sorry. But see, wha comes here?"

It was a tall stranger, dressed in knickerbockers, a broad-brimmed soft felt hat, and a surtout coat, a very ridiculous a.s.sociation of garments.

He carried a gun over his shoulder, and two beautiful Irish setters walked behind him. Both dogs were lame.

"Hullo, fellows!" he said. "Glad I've met some one at last. How far have I to walk to the little inn at the klakkin?"

Dugald threw down his game-bag, so did the others their burdens. No one was sorry to rest a bit, so they leant against the d.y.k.e and quietly surveyed the stranger. Meanwhile Shot was standing defiantly in front of the setters.

Shot wanted to know if either of these dogs would oblige him by fighting, singly or the two at once. But they did not seem inclined to accept the challenge.

"My good fellow," said the stranger, "when you have stared sufficiently to satisfy you, perhaps you will be good enough to answer my question."

"Well," said Dugald, "I'm staring because it's astonished I am."

"You'd be more astonished if you knew who I am. But never mind. I've been travelling all day among these tiresome hills and only managed to kill one brown hare. I was told at the inn that the white hares were in hundreds."

"Very likely," said Dugald, "but it's no' in the glen you'll find them.

"You're two miles from the clachan," continued Dugald. "I'm McGregor's keeper--his chief keeper. I'll trouble you, sir, to show your permit."

"You're a saucy fellow. I'm the future owner of these glens and all the estate, and lord of Castle Alva."

"I'll believe it when I see it. You're neither lord nor laird yet.

Your permit, please. I believe n.o.body since two students poached all over the hills here and called themselves friends of the laird's."

"As to my permit, fellow, I did not trouble to bring it from C--."

"Then you'll consider yourself my prisoner till you can produce it."

The stranger was a man about forty-five, tall and wiry and haughty. He looked at Dugald up and down for a moment.

"Dare you, fellow?" he shouted.

Dugald quietly laid down his gun and threw off his jacket. He then took off his scarf, and stretched it out in front of the stranger. It measured fully a yard and a half.