Twelve Great Black Cats

by Sorche Nic Leodhas

  Wherever the battle was thickest, there was Hamish, the fool of the family, wielding his sword with a will, but as he had a very bad habit of screwing his eyes tight shut every time he dealt a blow, he hit friend as often as foe, so that any warrior was unlucky who came within reach of his flailing sword.

  As for himself, he had the good fortune of all fools, since those men amongst whom he fought were so intent on getting around him to fight with each other, that they seldom bothered to aim a blow at him.

  Hamish might have gone on in this fashion, doing much to impede the efforts of both his own clansmen and their foes, if the pressure of the battle had not carried him close to the brink of a crag at the side of the moor. Fortune then favored the warriors in whose way Hamish had so manfully put himself, for, in some manner or other, he managed to trip over the blade of his own sword. With his face to the fighting men before him and his back to the top of the crag, he did not know his danger. He took a backward step and his feet found nothing to stand upon. Over the cliff he went, heels over head, and tumbled into the wee burn that ran below. He landed upon his head with a thump that might well have killed him entirely, had it not been for the special protection that Heaven gives to fools. As it was, his senses were knocked out of him, and he lay in a swoon, half in and half out of the burn, while the battle went on without him on the moor above.

  His absence was not noticed by either the MacLeods or the MacDonalds, except for a feeling of relief that he was no longer in their way. Nobody saw him fall, nobody seemed to miss him at all, and the two clans went on fighting until the night began to fall.

  With the gloaming the dewmists began to rise, and the warriors saw that there was little likelihood of either side winning that day. All the fighting had brought neither one clan nor the other to the point of victory. The chiefs then held a consultation under a flag of truce, and decided to call it a draw, and to consider as settled the original cause of the dispute, which most of the lads had already forgotten in the joy of fighting for it anyway.

  Then the MacLeods went off one way and the MacDonalds went off the other. Although much blood had been spilt, none of the wounds seemed likely to prove fatal, and all of the clansmen were able to withdraw from the battlefield in good order, each on his own two feet. All, that is, except Hamish MacDonald, the fool of the family, who still lay at the foot of the crag in the wee burn.

  The MacDonalds marched up to the cairn of stones, and there each man of them took up a stone in his hand. When each man had done so, there was but one stone left upon the ground.

  “That would be the marker for Hamish, the fool of the family,” said the chief, and sent men to search about the moor to find the poor lad’s body there. They hunted through the heather but not a sign of Hamish did they find, and at last the chief, who wanted to be well on his way before the night was darker, called them back again.

  Everybody was puzzled that Hamish’s body had not been found, but no one thought to look over the edge of the crag. What with the mist and the shadows of the gloaming, they’d not have been likely to see him anyway, down there.

  “Leave it be,” said the chief. “The stone shall bide where it is. Happen he’s still alive, and if it be so, he’ll get it when he comes along, and if he’s dead it will show that we’ve lost one man in the fight.”

  So the MacDonalds gathered up their plaids and their kilts and put them on, and off they started on their journey home, leaving the one stone behind them lying alone on the ground.

  They had not gone more than half a mile or so when they met the MacDonald piper who had come out to find them. He had not been in the battle with them that day, being himself away from home when the clan went off that morn. When they told him that all the warriors had come through the battle safely except for Hamish, who was missing, but whether dead or alive they could not say, the piper shook his head with concern.

  “Lest he be dead,” said the piper, “he must have the coronach played for him. And should he happen to be alive, ’twill do him no harm, forbye.”

  So the piper blew up his bagpipes and led the clan homeward, playing the coronach to Hamish MacDonald as he went.

  It was just at this moment that Hamish came to his senses and found himself in the waters of the burn. ’Twas lucky for him they were no deeper or he’d have drowned long since. The evening breezes played about him, cold and chill, as he got to his feet, unsteady and shivering, with naught to cover him but his long white shirt, and it dripping burn water from neck to hem.

  He clambered up to the top of the crag and peered about him in the twilight shadows. De’il a MacLeod or a MacDonald was in sight upon the moor. Hamish limped over to the place where the clan had made its cairn and saw the one stone that remained upon the ground.

  “One stone!” exclaimed Hamish. “Och, then! One of our brave laddies gave up his life in the fight this day. Poor body! I wonder now, who would it be?”

  So he sat down beside the stone to think it over. It was then that from the distance the mournful sound of the music of the piper came floating across the moor to his ear. A horrid thought came into his mind.

  “Losh!” he cried. “There go the MacDonald men home, taking their wee stones awa’ wi’ them! Seeing that there is but one stone left behind and me the only man here, the stone must be my own. Och, dule and woe! Then it’s myself that’s dead, and that mournful piping I hear is the coronach the MacDonald piper is playing for me!”

  Not for a minute did Hamish doubt that he was dead, although he could not understand how it had come about. He had a few good slashing cuts upon his body but none so bad that they could cause a man to die. The last thing he remembered was getting his legs tangled up with his sword, so that he stumbled over the crag. It was the fall over the crag that killed him, he decided at last.

  “Och, weel,” he thought, “folk told me my head was awful saft. Many’s the time the laird said to me, ‘Hamish, have a care, now. Ye’re richt saft in the head, my lad!’ I ken well, now, that it was naught but the truth he was telling me, and the saftness of my head has brought about my death, for upon my head I fell.”

  So Hamish sighed dolefully, and sat down upon the ground beside his wee stone, to think about his sad fate.

  The night grew darker, and a hound bayed in the distance, and a midnight cock crowed at a croft far over the moor, but Hamish sat on thinking, as the hours of the night went by. He had never been a ghost before, but he did not feel much different than he had before he died. He wondered if it was in the natural way of things for a ghost to feel so terribly cold and wet. But that did not trouble him so much as the question of what he was going to do next.

  The stars began to flicker out in the sky and the morning breeze came riding by to welcome in the dawn. An early curlew raised its harsh note, flying high in the lift above, on its way back to the sea.

  Hamish came to a decision at last, as the sounds of waking life around him roused him from his thoughts. Ghost or not, his place was with his own folk, not upon this far off and unfamiliar moor. He would rise up and make his way home, to bide with his own folk again.

  He rose to his feet to start upon the homeward journey, and suddenly a fresh difficulty presented itself to his mind. He had no notion of which way to turn, whether to the right or to the left. “Och, I’m lost, to be sure!” Hamish cried.

  There was a track running through the heather across the moor, and while Hamish stood trying to make his mind up which way to go he heard the sound of someone coming along the track. It was neither dark nor daylight, but that time of early morn when the world is just making ready to show a bit of itself but is still wrapped in the mists of night.

  Through the fog that hung over the heather Hamish saw a farm lad walking slowly behind two cows that he was driving along the track.

  “I’ll ask the lad to gi’e me the directions,” said Hamish to himself, stepping out to meet the lad. The lad was idling along, switching the dew from the heather with a stick he carried in his hand
. As he was not looking up he did not see Hamish at first.

  Now Hamish had lain long in the burn, and then had sat thinking all through the chill night in his wet shirt, and it had given him a terrible frog in his throat so that his voice came out in a hoarse deep croak. As the lad came near, Hamish spoke up and said, “I am the ghost of Hamish MacDonald. Will ye gi’e me—?” He had no chance to say more, for the lad jumped a foot in the air and dropped his stick, and when he looked up again and saw Hamish standing before him in his wet shirt, with the morning mist swirling about him, the poor body let out a terrible screech.

  “Och, a ghost!” he cried. “Aye, I’ll gi’e ye the kyne. Take them!” And turning about he ran off the way he had come like the wind itself.

  Hamish stood and looked after the lad and wondered what made him run away. He meant him no harm. Well, the lad had told him to take the cows, and a man would be daft to turn down an offer of that sort, so Hamish took the cows. He picked up the stick the lad had flung away and started to drive the cows along the track, going the other way from that in which the lad had run away.

  Hamish had not gone far on his way, when again he heard someone coming along the track. Hamish stopped and waited for the newcomer to appear, for he still wanted to know the way to go home. Soon an old body appeared, stepping along the misty track, leading a shaggy wee pony with creels full of farm stuff fastened on either side.

  Hamish went up beside her and croaked out, “I am the ghost of Hamish MacDonald!”

  But the old wife let him say no more. “Ochone!” she shrieked. “Then it was the truth the laddie said, and me not believing him, may the Lord forgive me!” Away she went over the moor, and as she ran she cried back over her shoulder, “Take the wee pony, ’tis yours if you’re wanting it, but leave me be!” And soon she was out of sight.

  Hamish could not understand such carryings-on. Why should folk mind a ghost who bore them no ill will and did not threaten them at all? But she had said for him to take the pony, and such a gift he could not despise. So he took the pony’s bridle in his hand, and driving the two cows before him, he went on his way.

  The track led through a bit of wood, and though dawn was close to breaking, it was very still and dark there underneath the leafy branches of the trees. As Hamish, with his cows and his pony, moved along through the wood, he heard the sound of wheels coming briskly toward him. Hamish hoped that this time he’d have better luck in learning which way would lead him home. So he waited by the side of the track. Soon a cart came rolling along through the misty shadows of the wood. The cart was drawn by a wee tidy donkey, and in the front of the cart, driving the beastie along, was a jolly fat farmer, whistling a merry lilt as he came.

  Hamish left his cows and the pony by the roadside. He stepped into the middle of the road, and held up his hand for the farmer to stop. The farmer left off his whistling when he laid eyes on Hamish in his wet white shirt, and with the signs of battle upon him. It was plain to be seen that the farmer did not like the sight. But when Hamish croaked, “I am the ghost of Hamish MacDonald. Will ye gi’e me—?” the farmer bided no longer than the lad and the auld wife had done.

  “A ghaist!” he cried in terror, leaping out of the cart in a great hurry. “Aye—I’ll give you whate’er you’re wanting, so long as you do not fash yourself with me!” And out of the wood and over the moor he rushed away from Hamish, and never stopped to look behind.

  Hamish stood watching the farmer who was wasting no time in his flight.

  “The folk here about are unco queer,” Hamish said to himself. “I ne’er saw their like before. Lawks! They’re daft, the lot of them!”

  Then, remembering that the farmer had said he might have whatever he was wanting, he went over to the cart. The cart was small but sturdy, and the sleek little donkey looked to be a good creature. In the bed of the cart were several slatted crates in which there were a goose and a gander, a duck and a drake, and a half dozen plump hens, all of them making such a honking and quacking and clucking that a body could not hear himself think. They looked to be very fine fowl, so Hamish, since the farmer had told him to take whatever he wanted, took the lot—donkey, cart, geese, ducks, and hens. He tied the bridle of the wee shaggy pony to the back of the cart and tethered a cow at either side of the pony, then, getting into the cart, he drove on up the track away from the moor.

  When he came out of the wood it was daybreak and folk were beginning to stir about, but they paid no heed to Hamish, all of them being busy at their morning’s work. As for Hamish, he had taken a fair scunner against the folk in these parts, thinking them all daft feckless bodies, so he paid them no more heed than they did him.

  So on and on he traveled, taking roads at random, following his nose where it led him, and trusting to luck to take him the right way. His trust was not misplaced, for late in the day, Hamish MacDonald came safely home.

  As he drove down the glen to his own village, whom should he meet but the chief of the clan. The sight of Hamish with all his booty so dumbfoundered the chief that he could not speak a word. He stood staring at Hamish with his mouth agape. Hamish sighed. He wondered if he was going to have the same trouble with the chief that he had had with the folk on the moor that morn. He clambered down from the cart and stepped up to the chief.

  “I am the ghost of Hamish MacDonald,” said he. The chief’s mouth snapped shut, but he opened it again at once to give a great roar.

  “That you’re not!” shouted the chief.

  “I’m not?” asked Hamish, feeling terribly bewildered.

  “Nay, ye great coof! You’re Hamish MacDonald himself, and every bit alive as myself! And will you tell me what you think you’re doing, running about the countryside clad only in your shirt? Where’s your plaid and your kilt, man?”

  “Losh!” cried Hamish. “I forgot them entirely. I left them lying back there upon the moor.”

  “Where the de’il have you been, man?” demanded the chief. “All the night and all the day? And where did you get the cart and the creatures? You’ll not be telling me you left the battle to go reiving! The MacDonalds have aye been warriors, I’ll have you know. There’s ne’er been a reiver in the clan since it began.”

  “I was not reiving,” said Hamish, very much hurt by the accusation. “Och, I had a great fall o’er the crag back there where we was fighting, and when I started for home in the morning, I kept meeting the daftest class o’ folk, and they all gave these things to me.”

  When the chief had got the whole story from Hamish, he gathered the men of the clan together to decide what should be done. There were some who said that Hamish should be made to take the cart and the beasties back where they belonged. But most of them said that move would be bound to stir up trouble. If the folk Hamish met believed that they had seen a ghost on the moor, it might be wise to let them go on thinking that way, for in that case they’d not be expecting to see their things again. As for Hamish’s kilt and plaid, it would not be worthwhile for anyone to take the time to go so far to fetch them home. It was time Hamish had new ones anyway.

  The chief looked about and found a wee croft for Hamish. He told Hamish to take his creatures there and settle himself down, and Hamish, being a good-natured biddable lad, did as he was told. With his cows, his geese, his ducks, and his hens, his wee shaggy pony, and his donkey and cart, he was as happy as any man might ever hope to be.

  To tell the truth he was so much better at farming than at fighting that the chief persuaded him to give up fighting for good. He hung his sword up on the chimney breast and turned out to be a good crofter in the end.

  After that, whenever the men of the MacDonald clan went out to battle, they had to get along without Hamish, the fool of the family.

  The Weeping Lass at the

  Dancing Place

  OUTSIDE many a Scottish village, where the crossroads meet, there will be a level bit of ground lying in one of the triangles made by the intersection of the roads. In the old days folk would be calling s
uch a spot the dancing place, because it was the custom of the young lads and lasses of the neighborhood to gather there, to dance away the hours of a moonlit night. Generations of lively young feet trod down and packed the soil in these places, until the surface was as hard and smooth as stone. No fine laird and his lady could ever have found a grander floor to dance upon than a dancing place.

  It was once in the summer twilight, a long, long time ago, that a company of young folk gathered at such a dancing place to foot it gaily, by the light of the moon.

  They came from all directions; those from the village on foot, and those who lived farther away on crofts or farmsteads, riding upon their shaggy wee Highland ponies or upon their workaday mares. Some of the lads came riding with their lasses perched on their saddles behind them, and some of them came walking with their sweethearts on their arms. Their gay voices rose sweetly on the fresh breeze of the summer evening, and the sound of talk and laughter filled the air as the young folk met.

  Those who came alone soon found partners, except for one lass who came stealing along from the village, at the end of the merry line. She did not join the others but sat herself down in the shadows cast by a hedge along the road.

  The voices of the dancers provided the music for their dancing. Having neither pipe nor fiddle to mark the measures, they moved to the tunes of the songs they sang, and if the breath of some of them failed in the exertion of the dance, there were always enough of the singers to keep the song going until the laggards could take up the tune again.

  The lass who sat under the hedge made no move to join in the fun. Word had been brought to her in the early springtime, some months before, that her lover had been drowned in the sea during the herring fishing, and she had made a vow never to sing or dance again all her whole life long.

  From the day they told her of her true love’s death she had spent all her time lamenting and weeping. Even in her sleep she dreamed of her loss, and the tears ran down her cheeks while she slept.