CHAPTER XXIII.
THE RUINED COTTAGE.
'Those who do injuries to others,' says the delightful author of I promessè Sposi, 'are not only accountable for the evil they inflict, but also for the perversion of sentiment which they cause in their victims.' I am happy that this trite sentence occurred to me, for by this mode of reasoning we shall find Mr. Snaggs alone guilty of Callum's unusual hardness of heart, and, in short, the author of his own untimely demise.
Chilled and almost terrified by the new and awful events of the night, I hastened away by the route we had come, descending the face of the rocks towards that part of the stream which lay below the cascade, and proceeding along its banks among the wet water-docks and green leaves which the fire, that was still raging in many parts of the muirland district. had failed to consume. Midnight was past now. The moon was waning behind the summit of the scorched and burning hills. We were weary and looked about us for a shelter; but in every direction the country seemed dotted by the fires which yet smouldered in the thickets and morasses, reddening and flashing in every puff of wind.
'Free—but homeless, houseless, penniless, and desperate!' said I.
'A chial!' responded my fosterer; 'how many brethren we have in this wide world, which is all before us now!'
A ruined cottage afforded us a resting-place, and there we threw ourselves down upon the thick soft grass that was springing up within its four bare walls of turf and boulder-stones. I was so overcome by lassitude, that even the supernatural terrors of this place failed to scare me from it, and Callum, who would rather have passed the night in any other part of the mountains, could not leave me. A mouthful of whisky from his hunting-flask revived us, and to change the current of my thoughts, which were incessantly and upbraidingly reverting to the terrible scenes we had just witnessed, he told me several wild and quaint stories of Dougald-with-the-Keys, the former occupant of the ruined cottage, and in whose service Callum had been when a boy.
Dougald was a smuggler and distiller of illicit spirits. He had his manufactory in a hollow of the adjacent morass, a high rock overlooking which was the post of his scout. Malie, his lynx-eyed wife, generally watched for the hated exciseman, who might be wandering along the road from Inverness or Tain. He was named Dougald-with-the-Keys, from a bunch of mysterious keys which he bore at his sporran-belt. These rattled when he walked, and gave him, it was averred, a mysterious power; for once, when conveying to Inverness two casks of the mountain-dew, slung across a stout pony, two excisemen gave him chase, and being well mounted, were about to make a capture of Dougald's distillation; but near the source of the Ora he shook his keys at them, and plucking a sprig of rowan, planted it by the wayside, uttering certain strange and terrible words. On approaching the sprig, the pursuers felt themselves constrained to alight from their saddles, and to dance round it furiously, hand-in-hand, while Dougald laughed and proceeded safely on his journey towards the Highland capital. The frantic and involuntary gyrations of the unfortunate excisemen were continued for more than two hours, until a passing shepherd pulled up the rowan-sprig, dissolved the spell, and permitted them to fall prostrate on the road, breathless, powerless, terrified, and resolved never more to meddle with Dougald, who continued to smuggle and distil in success and security, and had large sums to his credit, standing in the books of various discreet retailers in the vicinity of the Clachnacudden.
Once upon a time Callum had been despatched thither for payment, and was returning to the glen with a purse well filled with silver 'Georges,' and mounted on the active shelty which usually carried the casks. Pleased with the large sum he had to pay over to the gloomy, fierce, and avaricious Dougald, he switched up the nag as he entered the glen, and hastened on, for the double purpose of ridding himself of this important cash, and obtaining his supper.
The cottage and its little outhouses were buried in obscurity when he approached them; all was dark, yet the hour was not late, and, save a real or fancied sound of lamentation, all was still. According to his usual custom, Callum rode straight to the stable door, slipped from the bare-backed pony, which he had ridden in the Highland fashion, in his kilt, sans bridle and crupper. On opening the door, for the purpose of bedding and foddering the little nag, he heard a well-known rattling of keys. The sound seemed to be in the air! The pony started—snorted—perspired and trembled; its eyes shot fire; its fore-feet were firmly planted on the ground, and remained immovable. Again the keys were heard rattling, and between him and the moon, Callum saw the figure of Dougald pass like a shadow along the summit of the little garden wall. The pony then sprang into the stable with a convulsive bound. An indescribable emotion—a horror filled the heart of my fosterer; and closing his eyes, lest he might see something still more appalling, he flung down a few armfuls of hay and straw to the pony, locked the stable door, and sprang into the cottage, to find Dougald stretched on the floor, a corpse, and his wife, Malie, lamenting over him; for at the instant Callum had seen his figure passing, as it were, through the air, he had sunk down and expired of some disease unknown.