A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Howard Pyle - "Twilight Land"

Henry van Dyke - "The Mansion"

W. S. Gilbert - "Songs of a Savoyard"

Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. - "Notes from the Underground, by Feodor Dostoevsky"

The Moon Endureth

J >> John Buchan >> The Moon Endureth




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 Tam Rorison was drooned, honest
man. Yince again, when the brigs were ta'en awa', and the Black
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 sheepfold 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 clear 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. "Yen'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 anither glisk o't, for it's
a braw place." And then 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' a' 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."

And then 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' water 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
no 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. And 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 scytheswing, and the tinkling whisper which is the flow
of a hundred streams.

I am an old connoisseur in the beauties of the uplands, but I
held my breath at the sight. And when I glanced at my companion,
he, too, had raised his head, and stood with wide nostrils and
gleaming eye revelling in this glimpse of Arcady. Then he found
his voice, and the weakness and craziness seemed for one moment
to leave him.

"It's my ain land," he cried, "and I'll never leave it. D'ye see
yon broun hill wi' the lang cairn?" and he gripped my arm
fiercely and directed my gaze. "Yon's my bit. I howkit it richt
on the verra tap, and ilka year I gang there to make it neat and
ordlerly. I've trystit wi' fower men in different pairishes that
whenever they hear o' my death, they'll cairry me up yonder and
bury me there. And then I'll never leave it, but be still and
quiet to the warld's end. I'll aye hae the sound o' water in my
ear, for there's five burns tak' their rise on that hillside, and
on a' airts the glens gang doun to the Gled and the Aller."

Then his spirit failed him, his voice sank, and he was almost the
feeble gangrel once more. But not yet, for again his eye swept
the ring of hills, and he muttered to himself names which I knew
for streams, lingeringly, lovingly, as of old affections. "Aller
and Gled and Callowa," he crooned, "braw names, and Clachlands
and Cauldshaw and the Lanely Water. And I maunna forget the
Stark and the Lin and the bonny streams o' the Creran. And what
mair? I canna mind a' the burns, the Howe and the Hollies and
the Fawn and the links o' the Manor. What says the Psalmist
about them?

'As streams o' water in the South,
Our bondage Lord, recall.'

Ay, but yen's the name for them. 'Streams o' water in the
South.'"

And as we went down the slopes to the darkening vale I heard him
crooning to himself in a high, quavering voice the single
distich; then in a little his weariness took him again, and he
plodded on with no thought save for his sorrows.


IV

The conclusion of this tale belongs not to me, but to the
shepherd of the Redswirehead, and I heard it from him in his
dwelling, as I stayed the night, belated on the darkening
moors. He told me it after supper in a flood of misty Doric, and
his voice grew rough at times, and he poked viciously at the
dying peat.

In the last back-end I was at Gledfoot wi' sheep, and a weary job
I had and little credit. Ye ken the place, a lang dreich shore
wi' the wind swirlin' and bitin' to the bane, and the broun Gled
water choked wi' Solloway sand. There was nae room in ony inn in
the town, so I bude to gang to a bit public on the Harbour Walk,
where sailor-folk and fishermen feucht and drank, and nae dacent
men frae the hills thocht of gangin'. I was in a gey ill way,
for I had sell't my beasts dooms cheap, and I thocht o' the lang
miles hame in the wintry weather. So after a bite o' meat I
gangs out to get the air and clear my heid, which was a' rammled
wi' the auction-ring.

And whae did I find, sittin' on a bench at the door, but the auld
man Yeddie. He was waur changed than ever. His lang hair was
hingin' over his broo, and his face was thin and white as a
ghaist's. His claes fell loose about him, and he sat wi' his
hand on his auld stick and his chin on his hand, hearin' nocht
and glowerin' afore him. He never saw nor kenned me till I shook
him by the shoulders, and cried him by his name.

"Whae are ye?" says he, in a thin voice that gaed to my hert.

"Ye ken me fine, ye auld fule," says I. "I'm Jock Rorison o'
the Redswirehead, whaur ye've stoppit often."

"Redswirehead," he says, like a man in a dream. "Redswirehead!
That's at the tap o' the Clachlands Burn as ye gang ower to the
Dreichil."

"And what are ye daein' here? It's no your countryside ava, and
ye're no fit noo for lang trampin'."

"No," says he, in the same weak voice and wi' nae fushion in
him, "but they winna hae me up yonder noo. I'm ower auld and
useless. Yince a'body was gled to see me, and wad keep me as
lang's I wantit, and had aye a gud word at meeting and pairting.
Noo it's a' changed, and my wark's dune."

I saw fine that the man was daft, but what answer could I gie to
his havers? Folk in the Callowa Glens are as kind as afore, but
ill weather and auld age had put queer notions intil his heid.
Forbye, he was seeck, seeck unto death, and I saw mair in his een
than I likit to think.

"Come in-by and get some meat, man," I said. "Ye're famishin'
wi' cauld and hunger."

"I canna eat," he says, and his voice never changed. "It's lang
since I had a bite, for I'm no hungry. But I'm awfu' thirsty. I
cam here yestreen, and I can get nae water to drink like the
water in the hills. I maun be settin' out back the morn, if the
Lord spares me."

I mindit fine that the body wad tak nae drink like an honest man,
but maun aye draibble wi' burn water, and noo he had got the
thing on the brain. I never spak a word, for the maitter was bye
ony mortal's aid.

For lang he sat quiet. Then he lifts his heid and looks awa ower
the grey sea. A licht for a moment cam intil his een.

"Whatna big water's yon?" he said, wi' his puir mind aye
rinnin' on waters.

"That's the Solloway," says I.

"The Solloway," says he; " it's a big water, and it wad be an
ill job to ford it."

"Nae man ever fordit it," I said.

"But I never yet cam to the water I couldna ford," says he. "But
what's that queer smell i' the air? Something snell and cauld and
unfreendly."

"That's the salt, for we're at the sea here, the mighty ocean.

He keepit repeatin' the word ower in his mouth. "The salt, the
salt, I've heard tell o' it afore, but I dinna like it. It's
terrible cauld and unhamely."

By this time an onding o' rain was coming up' frae the water, and
I bade the man come indoors to the fire. He followed me, as
biddable as a sheep, draggin' his legs like yin far gone in
seeckness. I set him by the fire, and put whisky at his elbow,
but he wadna touch it.

"I've nae need o' it," said he. "I'm find and warm"; and he
sits staring at the fire, aye comin' ower again and again, "The
Solloway, the Solloway. It's a guid name and a muckle water."

But sune I gaed to my bed, being heavy wi' sleep, for I had
traivelled for twae days.

The next morn I was up at six and out to see the weather. It was
a' changed. The muckle tides lay lang and still as our ain Loch
o' the Lee, and far ayont I saw the big blue hills o' England
shine bricht and clear. I thankit Providence for the day, for it
was better to tak the lang miles back in sic a sun than in a
blast o' rain.

But as I lookit I saw some folk comin' up frae the beach carryin'
something atween them. My hert gied a loup, and " some puir,
drooned sailor-body," says I to mysel', "whae has perished in
yesterday's storm." But as they cam nearer I got a glisk which
made me run like daft, and lang ere I was up on them I saw it was
Yeddie.

He lay drippin' and white, wi' his puir auld hair lyin' back frae
his broo and the duds clingin' to his legs. But out o' the face
there had gane a' the seeckness and weariness. His een were
stelled, as if he had been lookin' forrit to something, and his
lips were set like a man on a lang errand. And mair, his stick
was grippit sae firm in his hand that nae man could loose it, so
they e'en let it be.

Then they tell't me the tale o't, how at the earliest licht they
had seen him wanderin' alang the sands, juist as they were
putting out their boats to sea. They wondered and watched him,
till of a sudden he turned to the water and wadit in, keeping
straucht on till he was oot o' sicht. They rowed a' their pith
to the place, but they were ower late. Yince they saw his heid
appear abune water, still wi' his face to the other side; and
then they got his body, for the tide was rinnin' low in the
mornin'. I tell't them a' I kenned o' him, and they were sair
affected. "Puir cratur," said yin, "he's shurely better now."

So we brocht him up to the house and laid him there till the folk
i' the town had heard o' the business. Syne the
procurator-fiscal came and certifeed the death and the rest was
left tae me. I got a wooden coffin made and put him in it, juist
as he was, wi' his staff in his hand and his auld duds about him.
I mindit o' my sworn word, for I was yin o' the four that had
promised, and I ettled to dae his bidding. It was saxteen mile
to the hills, and yin and twenty to the lanely tap whaur he had
howkit his grave. But I never heedit it. I'm a strong man,
weel-used to the walkin' and my hert was sair for the auld body.
Now that he had gotten deliverance from his affliction, it was
for me to leave him in the place he wantit. Forbye, he wasna
muckle heavier than a bairn.

It was a long road, a sair road, but I did it, and by seven
o'clock I was at the edge o' the muirlands. There was a braw
mune, and a the glens and taps stood out as clear as midday. Bit
by bit, for I was gey tired, I warstled ower the rigs and up the
cleuchs to the Gled-head; syne up the stany Gled-cleuch to the
lang grey hill which they ca' the Hurlybackit. By ten I had come
to the cairn, and black i' the mune I saw the grave. So there I
buried him, and though I'm no a releegious man, I couldna help
sayin' ower him the guid words o' the Psalmist--

"As streams of water in the South,
Our bondage, Lord, recall."

So if you go from the Gled to the Aller, and keep far over the
north side of the Muckle Muneraw, you will come in time to a
stony ridge which ends in a cairn. There you will see the whole
hill country of the south, a hundred lochs, a myriad streams, and
a forest of hill-tops. There on the very crest lies the old man,
in the heart of his own land, at the fountain-head of his many
waters. If you listen you will hear a hushed noise as of the
swaying in trees or a ripple on the sea. It is the sound of the
rising of burns, which, innumerable and unnumbered, flow thence
to the silent glens for evermore.



THE GIPSY'S SONG TO THE LADY CASSILIS


"Whereupon the Faas, coming down fron the Gates of Galloway, did
so bewitch my lady that she forgat husband and kin, and followed
the tinkler's piping." --Chap-book of the Raid of Cassilis.


The door is open to the wall,
The air is bright and free;
Adown the stair, across the hall,
And then-the world and me;
The bare grey bent, the running stream,
The fire beside the shore;
And we will bid the hearth farewell,
And never seek it more, My love,
And never seek it more.


And you shall wear no silken gown,
No maid shall bind your hair;
The yellow broom shall be your gem,
Your braid the heather rare.
Athwart the moor, adown the hill,
Across the world away;
The path is long for happy hearts
That sing to greet the day, My love,
That sing to greet the day.


When morning cleaves the eastern grey,
And the lone hills are red
When sunsets light the evening way
And birds are quieted;
In autumn noon and springtide dawn,
By hill and dale and sea,
The world shall sing its ancient song
Of hope and joy for thee, My love,
Of hope and joy for thee.


And at the last no solemn stole
Shall on thy breast be laid;
No mumbling priest shall speed thy soul,
No charnel vault thee shade.
But by the shadowed hazel copse,
Aneath the greenwood tree,
Where airs are soft and waters sing,
Thou'lt ever sleep by me, My love,
Thou'lt ever sleep by me.



THE GROVE OF ASHTAROTH

VI

"C'est enfin que dans leurs prunelles
Rit et pleure-fastidieux--
L'amour des choses eternelles
Des vieux morts et des anciens dieux!"

--PAUL VERLAINE.

We were sitting around the camp fire, some thirty miles north of
a place called Taqui, when Lawson announced his intention of
finding a home. He had spoken little the last day or two, and I
had guessed that he had struck a vein of private reflection. I
thought it might be a new mine or irrigation scheme, and I was
surprised to find that it was a country house.

"I don't think I shall go back to England," he said, kicking a
sputtering log into place. "I don't see why I should. For
business purposes I am far more useful to the firm in South
Africa than in Throgmorton Street. I have no relation left
except a third cousin, and I have never cared a rush for living
in town. That beastly house of mine in Hill Street will fetch
what I gave for it,--Isaacson cabled about it the other day,
offering for furniture and all. I don't want to go into
Parliament, and I hate shooting little birds and tame deer. I am
one of those fellows who are born Colonial at heart, and I don't
see why I shouldn't arrange my life as I please. Besides, for
ten years I have been falling in love with this country, and now
I am up to the neck."

He flung himself back in the camp-chair till the canvas creaked,
and looked at me below his eyelids. I remember glancing at the
lines of him, and thinking what a fine make of a man he was. In
his untanned field-boots, breeches, and grey shirt, he looked the
born wilderness hunter, though less than two months before he had
been driving down to the City every morning in the sombre
regimentals of his class. Being a fair man, he was gloriously
tanned, and there was a clear line at his shirt-collar to mark
the limits of his sunburn. I had first known him years ago, when
he was a broker's clerk working on half-commission. Then he had
gone to South Africa, and soon I heard he was a partner in a
mining house which was doing wonders with some gold areas in the
North. The next step was his return to London as the new
millionaire,--young, good-looking, wholesome in mind and body,
and much sought after by the mothers of marriageable girls. We
played polo together, and hunted a little in the season, but
there were signs that he did not propose to become the
conventional English gentleman. He refused to buy a place in the
country, though half the Homes of England were at his disposal.
He was a very busy man, he declared, and had not time to be a
squire. Besides, every few months he used to rush out to South
Africa. I saw that he was restless, for he was always badgering
me to go big-game hunting with him in some remote part of the
earth. There was that in his eyes, too, which marked him out
from the ordinary blond type of our countrymen. They were large
and brown and mysterious, and the light of another race was in
their odd depths.

To hint such a thing would have meant a breach of friendship, for
Lawson was very proud of his birth. When he first made his
fortune he had gone to the Heralds to discover his family, and
these obliging gentlemen had provided a pedigree. It appeared
that he was a scion of the house of Lowson or Lowieson, an
ancient and rather disreputable clan on the Scottish side of the
Border. He took a shooting in Teviotdale on the strength of it,
and used to commit lengthy Border ballads to memory. But I had
known his father, a financial journalist who never quite
succeeded, and I had heard of a grandfather who sold antiques in
a back street at Brighton. The latter, I think, had not changed
his name, and still frequented the synagogue. The father was a
progressive Christian, and the mother had been a blonde Saxon
from the Midlands. In my mind there was no doubt, as I caught
Lawson's heavy-lidded eyes fixed on me. My friend was of a more
ancient race than the Lowsons of the Border.

"Where are you thinking of looking for your house?" I asked. "In
Natal or in the Cape Peninsula? You might get the Fishers'
place if you paid a price."

"The Fishers' place be hanged!" he said crossly. "I don't want
any stuccoed, over-grown Dutch farm. I might as well be at
Roehampton as in the Cape."

He got up and walked to the far side of the fire, where a lane
ran down through the thornscrub to a gully of the hills. The
moon was silvering the bush of the plains, forty miles off and
three thousand feet below us.

"I am going to live somewhere hereabouts," he answered at last.
I whistled. "Then you've got to put your hand in your pocket,
old man. You'll have to make everything, including a map of the
countryside."

"I know," he said; "that's where the fun comes in. Hang it
all, why shouldn't I indulge my fancy? I'm uncommonly well off,
and I haven't chick or child to leave it to. Supposing I'm a
hundred miles from rail-head, what about it? I'll make a
motor-road and fix up a telephone. I'll grow most of my
supplies, and start a colony to provide labour. When you come
and stay with me, you'll get the best food and drink on earth,
and sport that will make your mouth water. I'll put Lochleven
trout in these streams,--at 6,000 feet you can do anything.
We'll have a pack of hounds, too, and we can drive pig in the
woods, and if we want big game there are the Mangwe flats at our
feet. I tell you I'll make such a country-house as nobody ever
dreamed of. A man will come plumb out of stark savagery into
lawns and rose-gardens." Lawson flung himself into his chair
again and smiled dreamily at the fire.

"But why here, of all places?" I persisted. I was not feeling
very well and did not care for the country.

"I can't quite explain. I think it's the sort of land I have
always been looking for. I always fancied a house on a green
plateau in a decent climate looking down on the tropics. I like
heat and colour, you know, but I like hills too, and greenery,
and the things that bring back Scotland. Give me a cross between
Teviotdale and the Orinoco, and, by Gad! I think I've got it
here."

I watched my friend curiously, as with bright eyes and eager
voice he talked of his new fad. The two races were very clear in
him--the one desiring gorgeousness, the other athirst for the
soothing spaces of the North. He began to plan out the house.
He would get Adamson to design it, and it was to grow out of the
landscape like a stone on the hillside. There would be wide
verandahs and cool halls, but great fireplaces against winter
time. It would all be very simple and fresh--"clean as morning"
was his odd phrase; but then another idea supervened, and he
talked of bringing the Tintorets from Hill Street. "I want it to
be a civilised house, you know. No silly luxury, but the best
pictures and china and books. I'll have all the furniture made
after the old plain English models out of native woods. I don't
want second-hand sticks in a new country. Yes, by Jove, the
Tintorets are a great idea, and all those Ming pots I bought. I
had meant to sell them, but I'll have them out here."

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.