waters when nae ither thing could leeve i' them.He can weyse and wark his road sae cunnin'ly on the stanes that the roughest flood, if it's no juist fair ower his heid, canna upset him.
Mony a sheep has he saved to me, and it's mony a guid drove wad never hae won to Gledsmuir market but for Yeddie."I listened with a boy's interest in any romantic narration.
Somehow, the strange figure wrestling in the brown stream took fast hold on my mind, and I asked the shepherd for further tales.
"There's little mair to tell," he said, "for a gangrel life is nane o' the liveliest.But d'ye ken the langnebbit hill that cocks its tap abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he's got a wee bit o' grund on the tap frae the Yerl, and there he's howkit a grave for himsel'.He's sworn me and twae-three ithers to bury him there, wherever he may dee.It's a queer fancy in the auld dotterel."So the shepherd talked, and as at evening we stood by his door we saw a figure moving into the gathering shadows.I knew it at once, and did not need my friend's "There gangs 'Streams o'
Water'" to recognise it.Something wild and pathetic in the old man's face haunted me like a dream, and as the dusk swallowed him up, he seemed like some old Druid recalled of the gods to his ancient habitation of the moors.
II
Two years passed, and April came with her suns and rains and again the waters brimmed full in the valleys.Under the clear, shining sky the lambing went on, and the faint bleat of sheep brooded on the hills.In a land of young heather and green upland meads, of faint odours of moor-burn, and hill-tops falling in clear ridges to the sky-line, the veriest St.Anthony would not abide indoors; so I flung all else to the winds and went a-fishing.
At the first pool on the Callowa, where the great flood sweeps nobly round a ragged shoulder of hill, and spreads into broad deeps beneath a tangle of birches, I began my toils.The turf was still wet with dew and the young leaves gleamed in the glow of morning.Far up the stream rose the grim hills which hem the mosses and tarns of that tableland, whence flow the greater waters of the countryside.An ineffable freshness, as of the morning alike of the day and the seasons, filled the clear hill-air, and the remote peaks gave the needed touch of intangible romance.
But as I fished I came on a man sitting in a green dell, busy at the making of brooms.I knew his face and dress, for who could forget such eclectic raggedness?--and I remembered that day two years before when he first hobbled into my ken.Now, as I saw him there, I was captivated by the nameless mystery of his appearance.There was something startling to one accustomed to the lack-lustre gaze of town-bred folk, in the sight of an eye as keen and wild as a hawk's from sheer solitude and lonely travelling.He was so bent and scarred with weather that he seemed as much a part of that woodland place as the birks themselves, and the noise of his labours did not startle the birds that hopped on the branches.
Little by little I won his acquaintance--by a chance reminiscence, a single tale, the mention of a friend.Then he made me free of his knowledge, and my fishing fared well that day.He dragged me up little streams to sequestered pools, where I had astonishing success; and then back to some great swirl in the Callowa where he had seen monstrous takes.And all the while he delighted me with his talk, of men and things, of weather and place, pitched high in his thin, old voice, and garnished with many tones of lingering sentiment.He spoke in a broad, slow Scots, with so quaint a lilt in his speech that one seemed to be in an elder time among people of a quieter life and a quainter kindliness.
Then by chance I asked him of a burn of which I had heard, and how it might he reached.I shall never forget the tone of his answer as his face grew eager and he poured forth his knowledge.
"Ye'll gang up the Knowe Burn, which comes down into the Cauldshaw.It's a wee tricklin' thing, trowin' in and out o'
pools i' the rock, and comin' doun out o' the side o' Caerfraun.
Yince a merrymaiden bided there, I've heard folks say, and used to win the sheep frae the Cauldshaw herd, and bile them i' the muckle pool below the fa'.They say that there's a road to the ill Place there, and when the Deil likit he sent up the lowe and garred the water faem and fizzle like an auld kettle.But if ye're gaun to the Colm Burn ye maun haud atower the rig o' the hill frae the Knowe heid, and ye'll come to it wimplin' among green brae faces.It's a bonny bit, rale lonesome, but awfu'
bonny, and there's mony braw trout in its siller flow."Then I remembered all I had heard of the old man's craze, and Ihumoured 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'
