by John Buchan
III
A space of years elapsed ere I met him, for fate had carried me farfrom the upland valleys. But once again I was afoot on the whitemoor-roads; and, as I swung along one autumn afternoon up the pathwhich leads from the Glen of Callowa to the Gled, I saw a figure beforeme which I knew for my friend. When I overtook him, his appearancepuzzled 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 difficultyin recognising the hardy frame of the man as I had known him.Something, too, had come over his face. His brow was clouded, and thetan of weather stood out hard and cruel on a blanched cheek. His eyeseemed both wilder and sicklier, and for the first time I saw him withnone of the appurtenances of his trade. He greeted me feebly anddully, and showed little wish to speak. He walked with slow, uncertainstep, and his breath laboured with a new panting. Every now and thenhe would look at me sidewise, and in his feverish glance I could detectnone 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 meava now. They dinna buy my besoms, they winna let me bide a nicht intheir byres, and they're no like the kind canty folk in the auldtimes. And a' the countryside is changin'. Doun by Goldieslaw they'remakkin' 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 theworks o' God alane? Is there no room for them in the dirty lawlandsthat they maun file the hills wi' their biggins?"
I conceived dimly that the cause of his wrath was a scheme forwaterworks at the border of the uplands, but I had less concern forthis 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 aboutdune. I've warkit it ower sair when I had it, and it's gaun to fail onmy hands. Sleepin' out o' wat nichts and gangin' lang wantin' meat areno 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 thehardness of the people, and I saw that want and bare living had gonefar to loosen his wits. I knew the countryside, and I recognised thatchange was only in his mind. And a great pity seized me for thislonely figure toiling on in the bitterness of regret. I tried tocomfort him, but my words were useless, for he took no heed of me; withbent 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 dipsfrom the hill-top to the sheltered valley. Sheer from the heather ranthe white streak till it lost itself among the reddening rowans and theyellow birks of the wood. The land was rich in autumn colour, and theshining waters dipped and fell through a pageant of russet and gold.And all around hills huddled in silent spaces, long brown moors crownedwith cairns, or steep fortresses of rock and shingle rising toforeheads of steel-like grey. The autumn blue faded in the farsky-line to white, and lent distance to the farther peaks. The hush ofthe wilderness, which is far different from the hush of death, broodedover the scene, and like faint music came the sound of a distantscytheswing, and the tinkling whisper which is the flow of a hundredstreams.
I am an old connoisseur in the beauties of the uplands, but I held mybreath at the sight. And when I glanced at my companion, he, too, hadraised his head, and stood with wide nostrils and gleaming eyerevelling in this glimpse of Arcady. Then he found his voice, and theweakness 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 yonbroun hill wi' the lang cairn?" and he gripped my arm fiercely anddirected 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 trystitwi' fower men in different pairishes that whenever they hear o' mydeath, they'll cairry me up yonder and bury me there. And then I'llnever leave it, but be still and quiet to the warld's end. I'll ayehae the sound o' water in my ear, for there's five burns tak' theirrise on that hillside, and on a' airts the glens gang doun to the Gledand the Aller."
Then his spirit failed him, his voice sank, and he was almost thefeeble gangrel once more. But not yet, for again his eye swept thering of hills, and he muttered to himself names which I knew forstreams, lingeringly, lovingly, as of old affections. "Aller and Gledand Callowa," he crooned, "braw names, and Clachlands and Cauldshaw andthe Lanely Water. And I maunna forget the Stark and the Lin and thebonny streams o' the Creran. And what mair? I canna mind a' theburns, the Howe and the Hollies and the Fawn and the links o' theManor. 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 himcrooning to himself in a high, quavering voice the single distich; thenin a little his weariness took him again, and he plodded on with nothought save for his sorrows.