Gordon Stables - Kenneth McAlpine - A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

Scene: A Highland mountain, clad almost to the summit in purple heather. On the right a ravine, half hidden by drooping birch trees. On the left a pine forest. Sheep grazing in the foreground. Smoke upcurling from a humble cottage in the distance. A shepherd-boy talking to his dog; between them a lamb is lying on the ground.

“It is dead, Kooran, dead, dead, dead. It is as dead as ever a lamb was, Kooran. Ay, my doggie, I ken you’re sorrowful and anxious, but you may stand there and lick its little face and legs, till this time the morn, Kooran, but you can never bring back life to it again.

“What do you say, Kooran? Its eyes are still bright and shinin’ and life-like? True; but wait a wee, Kooran. Yes, wait a wee, dear frien’. In less than an hour, Kooran, its poor eyes will be glassy enough, and its bits o’ legs as cold and stiff as the crook I’m holding in my hand.

“Let us hide it awa’ in under this bush o’ whins, – out o’ sight of the poor woeful mother of it. I canna bear to bury it just yet, while the heart is still warm, but by-and-bye, Kooran; by-and-bye, doggie.

“Yonder comes the mother, Kooran. She has left the flock again.”

The sheep bleats.

“Listen, Kooran, listen. What a mournfu’ bleat! It makes my blood creep. And look at her eyes, Kooran. They seem starting out o’ the sockets wi’ excitement. Drive her back, Kooran, but walk , doggie; dinna run. Drive her ever so gently. She’ll never have her lammie to trot at her heels again. Gently, Kooran, gently.

“And now, Kooran, off you trot home for the barley scones and the flagon o’ milk. I’ll have the lammie buried before you come back, so the sight of that will trouble you no more. Then we’ll have dinner, doggie, and it is time, too. Look at the sun where it is, right over the highest peak of Ben Varra. Off you trot, Kooran, and dinna let the grass grow under your feet till you’re back again.

“Heigho! another lammie dead!” The boy was alone now; the faithful dog had departed at once on his mission. In a bee-line down the mountain’s side went he, feathering along through the grass and the patches of blooming heather, jumping over boulders, and springing down from rocky ledges with a daring that would assuredly have proved fatal to any other kind of dog, save a Highland collie or a Scottish deerhound. Finally he went splashing through a broad though shallow river, and immediately after disappeared in a clump of those sweet-scented birch trees that grow so plentifully in “the land of the mountain and flood.”

“Heigho! another lammie dead!”

The boy had gone farther up the hill, and as he spoke he threw himself down on top of a couch made of heather, dislodging as he did so several mossy bees that had come to suck the honey from the little purple bells.

Quite a work of art was this couch. It had taken the boy all the livelong morning and forenoon to make it, Kooran meanwhile trotting about after him or standing by his side, with one ear pricked up, the other down, very much interested indeed in the progress of the work, and apparently sorry that he was only a dog and could not lend a hand.

Wouldst know how this couch was built? First and foremost, then, the lad had sought out a proper site, flat and smooth, on which to make it. This was chosen close to a steep-rising rock far up the mountain’s side, and whence he could see not only all the country far and wide, but the grazing ground of his flock of sheep some distance down beneath him.

Under the rock, but fully exposed to the rays of the summer sun, for Kenneth was not a bit afraid of spoiling his complexion. Indeed, such an accident would have been impossible, for neither his face nor his knees – he wore the Highland garb – could have been one whit browner than they were. And as for the sun giving him a headache, that was out of the question – the sun’s rays had not the power. For when taking a siesta , as shepherd lads are wont to do sometimes, his favourite attitude was lying on his back with one arm under his head and his face upturned to the god of day, for he feared the sun no more than does yonder eagle that goes circling up and up towards it, even as moths, on a summer’s evening, go wheeling round and round the lamp flame.

A black, bare, bleak-looking rock it was, but canopied over with the greenest of green moss and trailing saxifrages, bearing tiny flowerets of pink and white and blue.

Quite a work of art was this heather couch, and as perfect as any one could wish to see it. Not from any place near to the rock, however, had the boy pulled the heather with which he formed it. There was something of the poet and the artist about the lad, and he would never have dreamt of spoiling the gorgeous purple carpet that grew on the hill immediately in front of and beneath him. He went farther afield and higher up for his couch material. And he cut it close off by the roots, for if you pull heather, then with the roots are sure to come up both moss and turf.

When he had culled quite an armful, he proceeded to tie it up into little bundles or sheaves, and so on sheaf after sheaf he manufactured, singing to himself or talking to Kooran, until he had quite enough to build his heather sofa withal.

Then he took all his sheaves down to the rock and commenced operations, placing them side by side close together with the bloom uppermost, and lo and behold, in less than half an hour, a couch soft and fragrant enough for the dainty limbs of some fairy queen to recline upon.

It was on this heather bed, then, that Kenneth threw himself at full length as soon as Kooran had disappeared in the distant birch wood.

For fully a quarter of an hour Kenneth lay looking up at the white-grey clouds, that were scudding swiftly across the blue of the beautiful sky. He was wishing he could be up there, up riding on yonder cloud, away from the earth entirely. “Just for a time, oh! only for a time,” he muttered; “I would come back to my sheep and Kooran. Yonder is a laverock,” (lark). “I can hardly see it, it has flown so high but I can hear it, and how bonnie it sings as it flutters its wings, and seems to fan the very clouds. Let me see what the song says. But no, I mustn’t sing, and I mustn’t read. Kooran will soon be back wi’ the dinner, and I haven’t buried the poor lammie yet.”

So saying, he jumped up. He had a spade handy. Alas! much to Kenneth’s sorrow, that spade had been used many times too often this summer, for it had been a bad season among the sheep. He got the spade, and carried that and the dead lamb far up above the spot where he had cut the heather. Here the mountain was split as it were in two, or rather there were two hills, with a green strath or glen between, formed thousands of years or ages agone, by the gradual descent of some mighty glacier.

The glade was green and in many places soft, though by no means boggy. Near a bush Kenneth quickly dug a grave, and with a sigh he laid the lamb therein, and covered it up, laying the sod down again, so that it was scarcely discernible from the turf around it.

Then he shouldered his spade and prepared to go back. But remembering something else, he made a détour and came at last to a patch of whins.

Hidden in a cosy corner close to the ground was a nest well lined with feathers, and the little bird popped stealthily out as he approached.