Thistle and Thyme (7 page)

But when the year turned toward its end, and the days grew short and the nights long and dark, the sheep were penned in the fold and the soldier was penned in the house because of the winter weather outside. Then 'twas another story. The house was that quiet you'd be thinking you were alone in it. The soldier stopped talking, for the sound of his own voice going on and on all by itself fair gave him the creeps.

She was still his own dear lass and he loved her dearly, but there were times he felt he had to get out of the house and away from all that silence.

So he took to going out at night just to hear the wind blowing and the dead leaves rustling and a branch cracking in the frost or maybe a tyke barking at some croft over the hill. It was noisy outside compared to the way it was in the house.

One night he said to the lass, “The moonlight's bright this night. I'll be going down the road a piece to walk.” So after he'd had his tea, he went out of the house and started down the road. He paid little heed to where he was going, and that's how it happened he nearly walked into the horse. The horse stopped with a jingle of harness and then the soldier saw that the horse was hitched to a cart, and the cart was filled with household gear—furniture and the like. There were two people on the seat of the cart, a man and a woman. The man called out to him, “Are we on the road to Auchinloch?”

“Och, nay!” the soldier said. “You're well off your way. If you keep on this way you'll land in Crieff— some forty miles on. And not much else but hills between here and there.”

“Och, me!” said the woman. “We'll have to go back.”

“Poor lass,” the man said tenderly, “and you so weary already.”

“I'm no wearier than yourself,” the woman replied. “'Twas you I was thinking of.”

Suddenly the soldier said, “You're far out of your way and you'll never get there this night. Why do you not bide the night with us and start out fresh in the morn? Your horse will have a rest and so will you, and you'll travel faster by light of day, and you'll not be so much out in the end.”

But it was not so much for them, he asked it, as for himself, just to be hearing other voices than his own in the house.

They saw he really meant it, so they were soon persuaded. It wasn't long till he had them in his house, and their horse with a feed of oats in his barn. They were friendly, likeable folks, and it was easy to get them talking, which was just what the soldier wanted. They were flitting because their old uncle had left them his croft, and they wouldn't have come at such an unseasonable time, if they hadn't wanted to settle in before the lambing began. Besides, they'd never had a place of their own, and they couldn't wait to get there. So they talked and the soldier talked, and the lass sat and smiled. But if they noticed she had naught to say, neither of them mentioned it.

The next morning they got ready to leave, and the soldier came out to the gate to tell them how to go. After he'd told them, the woman leaned over and said, “What's amiss with your wife? Does she not talk at all?”

“Nay,” said the soldier. “She's spoken not a single word for two years past.”

“Och, me!” the woman said. “She's not deaf, is she?”

“That she's not!” the soldier told her. “She hears all one says. The folks where she comes from say that she's bewitched.”

“I thought it might be that,” the woman said. “Well, I'll tell you what to do. Back where we dwelt there's a woman that has the second sight and she's wonderful for curing folks of things. She cured my own sister after the doctors gave her up. It was ten years ago and my sister's living yet. You take your wife over there and see what she can do.” She told the soldier where to find the old body, and as they drove away, she said, “You needn't be afraid of her for she's as good as gold. She'll never take anything for helping anybody, and if she's a witch, nobody ever laid it against her. She's just a good old body that has the second sight.”

The soldier went into the house and told his lass to get herself ready, for they were going visiting. He did not tell her why, in case it all came to naught, for he couldn't bear to have her disappointed if the old body couldn't help her at all.

He hitched his own wee horse to his cart, and he and the lass drove off to the place where the folks that were going to Auchinloch had dwelt.

They found the old body without any trouble right where the woman said she'd be. She was little and round and rosy and as merry and kind as she could be. The only thing strange about her was her eyes, for they were the sort that made you feel that nothing in the world could ever be unseen if she took the trouble to look at it, no matter where it was hidden.

When she heard the soldier's story, she said at once that she'd be glad to help them if she could. Folks were probably right when they said the lass was bewitched, but what she'd have to find out was how it had happened. That might take time because the lass couldn't help her, since she couldn't talk.

Then the old woman told the soldier to take himself off for a walk and leave the lass with her and not to come back too soon for if he did, she'd just send him away again.

The soldier walked around and around, and at last he found the village that belonged to the place. There was a blacksmith shop and an old stone church and a post office and a pastry shop and a little shop with jars of sweeties in the windows, that sold everything the other shops didn't have. When he'd seen them all, he went and sat in the only other place there was, which was the tavern, and the time went very slow. But at last he thought it must be late enough for him to go back and fetch his lass. Maybe he'd been foolish to bring her to the old body after all. He'd not go back if the old woman sent him away again. He'd just pack up his lass in the cart and take her home and keep her the way she was. If he'd known what was going to happen, maybe that's what he'd have done.

They were waiting for him when he got back to the little old woman's cottage, and the old body told him at once she'd found where the trouble lay.

“'Tis plain enough,” said she. “Your wife has offended the water kelpie. When she went to walk in the gloaming, she drank from the well where the water kelpie bides. And as she leaned over to drink, one of the combs from her hair dropped into the water and she never missed it. The comb fouled the water, and the kelpie can bide in the well no more till she takes it out again. So angry he was, that while she drank of it, he laid a spell on the water that took her speech away.”

“But what shall we do now?” asked the soldier.

“All you need to do,” said the old woman, “is take your lass back to the well and have her take the comb from the water.”

“And she'll talk then?” the soldier asked.

“Och, aye! She'll talk. But watch out for the water kelpie, lest he do her more harm for he's a queer creature always full of wicked mischief and nobody knows what he may do.”

The lass and the soldier were so full of joy that they hardly knew how to contain it. The soldier wanted to pay the old woman for what she'd done, but she said it was nothing at all, and in any case she never took pay for doing a kindly service. So the soldier thanked her kindly, and he and his lass went home.

When they had found somebody to look after the croft, they started off to take the spell off the lass's tongue. When they got to the place, the soldier and the lass went out to find the well in the woods. The lass bared her arm and reached down into the water and felt around till she found the comb. She put it back in her hair, and as soon as she did, she found she could talk again.

The first thing she said was, “Och, my love, I can talk to you now!” And the second thing she said was, “Och, I have so much to say!”

They went back to the weaver's house, and when he found that his daughter could talk, he was that pleased. He ran about the village telling everybody, “My lass has found her tongue again!” 'Twas a rare grand day for the weaver. And of course for the soldier, too.

The weaver and the soldier couldn't hear enough of her chatter. They took to following her about just to listen to her as if it were music they were hearing.

After a day or two, she began to grow restless, for she wanted to go home to their own wee croft. So off they set, and she chattered to him every mile of the way. The sound of her voice was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

So they came home. It was still winter, and the sheep were still penned in the fold and the soldier in the house, but there wasn't a bit of silence in the cottage. There was this that she had to tell him, and something else she must say. The soldier could hardly slip a word in edgewise, but he still thought it was wonderful to hear her.

After a month or two had gone by and the winter was wearing off toward spring, he began to notice something he had not noticed before. And that was that his bonny wee wife talked away from morn to night, and he wasn't too sure that she did not talk in her sleep. He found he had in his house what he'd told the innkeeper he never could abide—a lass with a clackiting tongue.

He would not have had her silent again; ne'er the less, a little quiet now and then would not have come amiss. But he still loved her dearly, and she was his own dear lass.

So one fine morn after the lambing was over and the sheep were out on the hillside with their dams, he went off to see the old woman who had the second sight to find out if she could do aught about it.

“Deary me!” said she. “I misdoubted the kelpie would find a way to turn things against you.”

“That he did!” said the soldier, “or I'd not be here.”

“Did she drink of the water again?” the old body asked.

“She did not,” said the soldier. “Not even a drop.”

“'Twas not that way he got at her then,” said the old woman. “Well, tell me what she did do then?”

“She took the comb from the water and she stuck it in her hair,” the soldier told her, “and that's all she did do.”

“Did she wipe it off first?” the old body asked anxiously.

“Nay. She did not,” said the soldier.

“I see it plain,” the old body said. “The water that was on the comb was bewitched again. Och, there's not a fairy in the land so full of malice as the water kelpie.”

So the old woman sat and thought and thought, and the soldier waited and waited. At last the old woman said, “A little is good, but too much is more than enough. We'll give the kelpie a taste of his own medicine. Take your lass back to the well. Set her beside it and bid her to talk down the well to the kelpie the livelong day. The kelpie must answer whoever speaks to him, so the one of them that tires first will be the loser.”

“'Twill not be my lass,” said the soldier. “I'll back her to win the day.”

So he took his wife back to the well and sat her down beside it, and bade her call the kelpie and talk to him until he came back for her.

So she leaned over the well as he told her to and called to the kelpie. “Kelpie! Kelpie! I'm here!” cried she.

“I'm here!” answered the kelpie from the bottom of the well.

“We'll talk the whole of the day,” the lass said happily into the well.

“The whole of the day,” the kelpie agreed.

“I've such a lot to tell you,” the lass went on.

“A lot to tell you,” the kelpie said in return.

The soldier went away, leaving the lass by the well talking so fast that her words tripped over themselves, with the kelpie answering her back all the time.

He came back when the sun had set and the gloaming lay over the wood, to find the lass still sitting there, bending over the well. She was still talking, but very slow, and he could hardly hear the kelpie answer at all.

Well, now that the day was safely over, the soldier laid his hand on her shoulder. “Come away, lass,” said he. She looked at him so weary-like that his heart turned over with pity. He'd just take her the way she was from now on, silent or clackiting, he told himself.

She looked up and smiled at him, and then she called down the well. “I bid you good day, kelpie. 'Tis time for me to go home.”

There wasn't a sound from the well for a moment. Then in a great loud angry voice the kelpie shouted, “GO HOME!”

So the soldier gave his arm to the lass, and they started to walk back through the woods to her father's house. She said only two things on the way home.

The first thing she said was, “I'm awful thirsty,” but she drank no water from the well. The soldier made sure of that!

And the second thing she said was, “I'm tired of talking.”

Well, from that time on, she neither talked too little or too much but just enough. The soldier was content, for she was his own dear lass, and he loved her dearly.

Since the old body with the second sight would never let them pay her for the good she'd done them, they invited her to be godmother when their first bairn was born. That pleased her more than if they'd given her a sack of gold. But never again in all her days did the wife go out alone in the gloaming or drink from a fairy well.

The Drowned Bells
of the Abbey

I
N THE FAR-OFF DAYS WHEN THE PICTS AND THE SCOTS
were dividing the ancient land of Scotland and fighting amongst themselves to decide who could get hold of the most of it, there came good men from over the seas to settle in the land.

They found places for themselves here and there along the coasts by the sea and lived wherever they could find shelter and fed themselves on whatever the earth and the sea were willing to give them. 'Twas a hard life, but they made no complaint, for all they did was done for the glory of God.

These men called themselves monks, and what they had come for was to spread the word of God among these strange wild people, who had never heard tell of it before. The monks were learned men and wise in the arts of knowledge and healing. They taught the people and helped them in illness and in trouble. Soon they were greatly loved because of the goodness there was in them.