The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bog-Myrtle and Peat, by S.R. Crockett

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Title: Bog-Myrtle and Peat Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895

Author: S.R. Crockett

Release Date: October 7, 2004 [EBook #13667]

Language: English

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BOG-MYRTLE AND PEAT

TALES CHIEFLY OF GALLOWAY

GATHERED FROM THE YEARS 1889 TO 1895, BY

S.R. CROCKETT

LONDON

BLISS, SANDS AND FOSTER 15 CRAVEN STREET, STRAND MDCCCXCV

Inscribed with the Name of George Milner of Manchester, a Man most Generous, Brave, True, to whom, because he freely gave me That of His which I the most desired— I, having Nothing worthier to give, Give This.

KENMURE

1715

  "The heather's in a blaze, Willie,
    The White Rose decks the tree,
  The Fiery-Cross is on the braes,
    And the King is on the sea.

  "Remember great Montrose, Willie,
    Remember fair Dundee,
  And strike one stroke at the foreign foes
    Of the King that's on the sea.

  "There's Gordons in the North, Willie,
    Are rising frank and free,
  Shall a Kenmure Gordon not go forth
    For the King that's on the sea?

  "A trusty sword to draw, Willie,
    A comely weird to dree,
  For the royal Rose that's like the snaw,
    And the King that's on the sea!"

  He cast ae look upon his lands,
    Looked over loch and lea,
  He took his fortune in his hands,
    For the King was on the sea.

  Kenmures have fought in Galloway
    For Kirk and Presbyt'rie,
  This Kenmure faced his dying day,
    For King James across the sea.

  It little skills what faith men vaunt,
    If loyal men they be
  To Christ's ain Kirk and Covenant,
    Or the King that's o'er the sea.

ANDREW LANG.

CONTENTS

BOOK FIRST. ADVENTURES

I. THE MINISTER OF DOUR II. A CRY ACROSS THE BLACK WATER III. SAINT LUCY OF THE EYES IV. UNDER THE RED TERROR V. THE CASE OF JOHN ARNISTON'S CONSCIENCE VI. THE GLISTERING BEACHES

BOOK SECOND. INTIMACIES

I. THE LAST ANDERSON OF DEESIDE II. A SCOTTISH SABBATH DAY III. THE COURTSHIP OF TAMMOCK THAKANRAIP, AYRSHIREMAN IV. THE OLD TORY V. THE GREAT RIGHT-OF-WAY CASE VI. DOMINIE GRIER VII. THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

BOOK THIRD. HISTORIES

I. FENWICK MAJOR'S LITTLE 'UN II. MAC'S ENTERIC FEVER III. THE COLLEGING OF SIMEON GLEG IV. KIT KENNEDY, NE'ER-DO-WELL V. THE BACK O' BEYONT VI. NORTH TO THE ARCTIC

BOOK FOURTH. IDYLLS

I. ACROSS THE MARCH DYKE II. A FINISHED YOUNG LADY III. THE LITTLE LAME ANGEL

BOOK FIFTH. TALES OF THE KIRK

I. THE MINISTER-EMERITUS II. A MINISTER'S DAY III. THE MINISTER'S LOON IV. THE BIOGRAPHY OF AN INEFFICIENT V. JOHN VI. EUROCLYDON OF THE RED HEAD VII. THE CAIRN EDWARD KIRK MILITANT

EPILOGUE: IN PRAISE OF GALLOWAY

NIGHT IN THE GALLOWAY WOODS BIRDS AT NIGHT THE COMING OF THE DAWN FLOOD-TIDE OF NIGHT WAY FOR THE SUN THE EARLY BIRD FULL CHORUS THE BUTCHER'S BOY OF THE WOODS THE DUST OF BATTLE COMES THE DAY

PREFACE

There is a certain book of mine which no publisher has paid royalty upon, which has never yet been confined in spidery lines upon any paper, a book that is nevertheless the Book of my Youth, of my Love, and of my Heart.

There never was such a book, and in the chill of type certainly there never will be. It has, so far as I know, no title, this unpublished book of mine. For it would need the blood of rubies and the life of diamonds crusted on ivory to set the title of this book.

Mostly I see it in the late night watches, when the twilight verges to the cock-crowing and the universe is silent, stirless, windless, for about the space of one hour. Then the pages of the book are opened a little; and, as one that reads hungrily, hastily, at the bookstall of an impatient vendor a book he cannot buy, so I scan the idylls, the epics, the dramas of the life of man written in words which thrill me as I read. Some are fiercely tender, some yearning and unsatisfying, some bitter in the mouth but afterward sweet in the belly. All are expressed in words so fit and chaste and noble, that each is an immortal poem which would give me deathless fame—could I, alas! but remember.

Then the morning comes, and with the first red I awake to a sense of utter loss and bottomless despair. Once more I have clutched and missed and forgotten. It is gone from me. The imagination of my heart is left unto me desolate. Sometimes indeed when a waking bird—by preference a mavis—sings outside my window, for a little while after I swim upward out of the ocean of sleep, it seems that I might possibly remember one stanza of the deathless words; or even by chance recapture, like the brown speckled thrush, that "first fine careless rapture" of the adorable refrain.

Even when I arise and walk out in the dawn, as is my custom winter and summer, still I have visions of this book of mine, of which I now remember that the mystic name is "The Book Sealed." Sometimes in these dreams of the morning, as I walk abroad, I find my hands upon the clasps. I touch the binding wax of the seals. When the first rosy fingers of the dawn point upward to the zenith with the sunlight behind them, sanguine like a maid's hand held before a lamp, I catch a farewell glimpse of the hidden pages.

Tales, not poems, are written upon them now. I hear the voices of "Them Ones," as Irish folk impressively say of the Little People, telling me tales out of the Book Sealed, tales which in the very hearing make a man blush hotly and thrill with hopes mysterious. Such stories as they are! The romances of high young blood, of maidens' winsome purity and frank disdain, of strong men who take their lives in hand and hurl themselves upon the push of pikes. And though I cannot grasp more than a hint of the plot, yet as my feet swish through the dewy swathes of the hyacinths or crisp along the frost-bitten snow, a wild thought quickens within me into a belief, that one day I shall hear them all, and tell these tales for my very own so that the world must listen.

But as the rosy fingers of the morn melt and the broad day fares forth, the vision fades, and I who saw and heard must go and sit down to my plain saltless