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Three Boys; or, the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 8. In The Old Tower |
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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. IN THE OLD TOWER "Father said I was to make you quite at home, Max," said Kenneth, "so let's see old Donald before we go. You have been introduced to the cook by deputy. Come along." "Who is old Donald--is he a chief?" "Chief! no. I thought I told you. He's our piper." "Oh!" "This way." Kenneth led his companion back to the great entrance of the ruined castle, through which gateway Scoodrach had gone in search of the rods. Tah-tah-tah! cried the jackdaws, as the lads entered the open gloomy yard, and half a dozen began to fly here and there, while two or three perched about, and peered inquiringly down first with one eye and then with the other. Max looked up at the mouldering walls, with their crevices dotted with patches of polypody and _ruta muraria_, velvety moss, and flaunting golden sun ragwort, and wondered whether the place was ever attacked. "Here's Scood," cried Kenneth, as the lad appeared through the farther arch, bearing a couple of long rods over his shoulder as if they were lances for the defence. "Here, we're going up to see Donald. Is he there?" "Yes, she heard him as she went to the house." "All right. You go on to Tavvy. Stop a moment. Go back and get a flask, and ask Grant to fill it with whisky. Tavvy will want a drop to christen the first fish." "She's got it," said Scoodrach, holding up a flask by its strap. "Did he give you plenty?" "She asked him, and Master Crant said he wouldn't give me a trop, and sent me away." "But, I say--" "Ta pottle's quite full," said Scood, grinning. "Master Crant sent her away, so she went rount to the window, and got in, and filled it at the sideboard." "I say, Scood, you mustn't do that!" cried Kenneth sharply. "Why not? She titn't want the whusky, but the young master tit. Who shall Master Crant be, she should like to know!" "Well, never mind now, only don't do it again. It's like stealing, Scood." "Like what?" cried the lad, firing up. "How could she steal the whusky when she ton't trink it hersel? She wanted her master's whusky for the young master. You talk creat nonsense." "Ah, well, go on. We'll come directly." Scoodrach went off scowling, and Kenneth scratched his head. "He's a rum fellow, isn't he? Never mind; nobody saw him; only he mustn't do it again. Why, I believe if father saw him getting in at the window, he'd pepper him. Here, this way." Kenneth entered another doorway, whose stones showed the holes where the great hinges and bolts had been, and began to ascend a spiral flight of broken stairs. "Mind how you come. I'll give you a hand when it's dangerous." "Dangerous!" said Max, shrinking. "Well, I mean awkward; you couldn't fall very far." "But why are we going up there?" "Never mind; come on." "But you are going to play me some trick." "If you don't come directly, I will play you a trick. I wasn't going to, but if you flinch, I'll shove you in one of the old dungeons, and see how you like that." "But--" "Well, you are a coward! I didn't think Cockneys were such girls." "I'm not a coward, and I'm coming," said Max quickly; "but I'm not used to going up places like this." "Oh, I am sorry!" cried Kenneth mockingly. "If I had known you were coming, we'd have had the man from Glasgow to lay on a few barrels of gas, and had a Brussels carpet laid down." "Now, you are mocking at me," said Max quietly. "I could not help feeling nervous. Go on, please. I'll come." "He is a rum chap," said Kenneth, laughing to himself, as he disappeared in the darkness. "Do the steps go up straight?" said Max from below. "No; round and round like a corkscrew. It won't be so dark higher up. There used to be a loophole here, but the stones fell together." Max drew a deep breath, and began stumbling up the spiral stairs, which had mouldered away till some of them sloped, while others were deep hollows; but he toiled on, with a half giddy, shrinking sensation increasing as he rose. "If you feel anything rush down by you," said Kenneth, in a hollow whisper, "don't be afraid; it's only an old ghost. They swarm here." "I don't believe it," said Max quietly. "Well, will you believe this?--there are two steps gone, and there's a big hole just below me. Give me your hand, or you'll go through." Max made no reply, but went cautiously on till he could feel that he had reached the dangerous place, and stopped. "Now then, give me your hand, and reach up with one leg quite high. That's the way." Kenneth felt that the soft hand he took was cold and damp. "Got your foot up? Ready?" "Yes." "There now, spring." There was a bit of a scuffle, and Max stood beside his young host. "That's the way. It's worse going down, but you'll soon get used to it. Why, Scood and I run up and down here." Max made no answer, but cautiously followed his leader, growing more and more nervous as he climbed, for his unaccustomed feet kept slipping, and in several places the stones were so worn and broken away that it really would have been perilous in broad daylight, while in the semi-obscurity, and at times darkness, there were spots that, had he seen them, the lad would have declined to pass. "Here we are," said Kenneth, in a whisper, as the light now shone down upon them. "Be quiet. I don't suppose he heard us come up." Max obeyed, and followed his guide up a few more steps, to where they turned suddenly to left as well as right--the latter leading to the ruined battlements of the corner tower, the former into an old chamber, partly covered in by the groined roof, and lit by a couple of loopholes from the outside, and by a broken window opening on to the old quadrangle. The floor was of stone, and so broken away in places that it was possible to gaze down to the basement of the tower, the lower floors being gone; and here, busy at work, in the half roofless place, with the furniture consisting of a short plank laid across a couple of stones beneath the window, and an old three-legged stool in the crumbling, arched hollow of what had been the fireplace, sat a wild-looking old man. The top of his head was shiny and bald, but from all round streamed down his long thin silvery locks, and, as he raised his head for a moment to pick up something from the floor, Max could see that his face was half hidden by his long white beard, which flew out in silvery strands from time to time, as a puff of wind came from the unglazed window. He too was in jacket and kilt, beneath which his long thin bare legs glistened with shaggy silver hairs, and, as Max gazed at the dull, sunken eyes, high cheek-bone, and eagle-beak nose of the wonderfully wrinkled face, he involuntarily shrank back, and felt disposed to hastily descend. For a few moments he did not realise what the old man was doing, for there was something shapeless in his lap, and what seemed to be three or four joints of an old fishing-rod beneath his arm, while he busily smoothed and passed a piece of fine string or twisted hemp through his hands, one of which Max saw directly held a piece of wax. "Is he shoemaking?" thought Max; but directly after saw that the old fellow was about to bind one of the joints of the fishing-rod. Just then, as he raised his head, he seemed to catch sight of the two lads standing in the old doorway, and the eyes that were dull and filmy-looking gradually began to glisten, and the face grow wild and fierce, but only to soften to a smile as he exclaimed, in a harsh, highly-pitched voice,-- "Ah, Kenneth, my son! Boy of my heart! Have you come, my young eagle, to see the old man?" "Yes; I've brought our visitor, Mr Max Blande." "Ah!" said the old man, half-rising and making a courtly bow; "she hurt that the young Southron laird had come, and there's sorrow in her old heart, for the pipes are not ready to give him welcome to the home of our Chief." "What, haven't you got 'em mended yet?" "Not quite, Kenneth, laddie. I'm doing them well, and to-morrow they shall sing the old songs once again." "Hurrah!" cried Kenneth. "My friend here is fra the sooth, but he lo'es the skirl o' the auld pipes like a son o' The Mackhai." "Hey! Does he?" cried the old man, firing up. "Then let him lay his han' in mine, and to-morrow, and the next day, and while he stays, he shall hear the old strains once again." "That's right." "Ay, laddie, for Donald has breath yet, auld as he is." "Ah, you're pretty old, aren't you, Donald?" "Old? Ay. She'll be nearly a hundert, sir," said the old man proudly. "A hundert--a hundert years." Max stared, and felt a curious sensation of shrinking from the weird-looking old man, which increased as he suddenly beckoned him to approach with his thin, claw-like hand, after sinking back in his seat. In spite of his shrinking, Max felt compelled to go closer to the old fellow, who nodded and smiled and patted the baize-covered skin in his lap. "Ta bag," he said confidentially, "she isn't a hundert years auld, but she's auld, and she was proke, and ta wint whustled when she plew, but she's chust mended, and to-morrow--ah, to-morrow!" "Yes; we're going fishing," said Kenneth, who was enjoying Max's shrinking way. "Chust going to fush," said the old man, who was gazing searchingly at Max. "And she likes ta music and ta pipes? She shall hear them then." "Yes, get them mended, Donald; we want to hear them again." "P'raps she could chust make enough music the noo." Kenneth laughed as he saw Max's horror, for the old man began hastily to twist up the wax end with which he had been binding one of the cracked pipes; but he laid his hand on his shoulder. "No, no; not this morning. Get them all right, Donald." "Yes; she was ketting them all right," he muttered, and he began with trembling fingers to unfasten the waxed thread. At a sign from his companion, Max hurriedly followed him to the doorway. "We'll go up on the top another time," said Kenneth. "There's such a view, and you can walk nearly all round the tower, only you have to be careful, or over you go." Max gave a horrified glance up the crumbling staircase, and then followed Kenneth, who began to descend with all the ease of one long accustomed to the dark place. "Take care here!" he kept on saying, as they came to the awkward places, where Max felt as if he would give anything for a candle, but he mastered his timidity, and contrived to pass over the different gaps in the stairs safely. "How does that old man manage?" he asked, as he drew breath freely at the bottom. "Manage? Manage what?" "Does he always stay there?" "What! Old Donald? Why, he cuts up and down there as quickly as I can." "Then he is not always there?" "Not he. Too fond of a good peat fire. He lives and sleeps at Long Shon's. But come along." He hurried Max out of the quadrangle and down toward the narrow neck of rock which was uncovered by the falling tide, and then along by a sandy path, which passed two or three low whitewashed bothies, from whose chimneys rose a faint blue smoke, which emitted a pungent, peculiar odour. Suddenly a thought occurred to Kenneth as they were passing one of the cottages, where a brown-faced, square-looking woman in a white mutch sat picking a chicken, the feathers floating here and there, and a number of fowls pecking about coolly enough, and exhibiting not the slightest alarm at their late companion's fate. "That's Mrs Long Shon, Max," whispered Kenneth hastily. "You go on along this path; keep close to the water, and I'll catch up to you directly." "You will not be long?" said Max, with a helpless look. "Long! no. Catch you directly. Go on. I just want to speak to the old woman." Max went on, keeping, as advised, close to the waters of the little bay, till he could go no farther, for a rapid burn came down from the hills and emptied itself there into the sea. "Hillo! ahoy!" came a voice from behind him, just as he was gazing helplessly about, and wondering whether, if he attempted to ford the burn, there would be any dangerous quicksands. Max turned, to see Kenneth coming trotting along with a basket in his hand. "Off with your shoes and socks, Max," cried Kenneth. He set the example, and was half across before Max was ready. "Tuck up your trousers," continued Kenneth, laughing. "Why don't you dress like I do? No trousers to tuck!" Max obeyed to the letter, and followed into the stream, flinching and making faces and balancing, as he held a shoe in each hand. "Why, what's the matter?" cried Kenneth. "It's--very--chilly," said Max, hurrying on as fast as he could, but managing so badly that he put one foot in a deep place, and to save himself from falling the other followed, with the result that he came out on the other side with the bottoms of his trousers dripping wet. _ |
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