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042 - Mistress Conal · Whats Mines Mine

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  Speaker 1: Volume three, Chapter eight of What's Mine's Mind by George
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  Speaker 1: mac Donald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Mistress Connell, mister Peregrine. Palmer's generosity had in part rested
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  Speaker 1: on the idea of securing the estate against reverse of
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  Speaker 1: fortune sufficiently possible, though not expected. While with the improvements
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  Speaker 1: almost in hand the shooting would make him a large return,
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  Speaker 1: he felt the more wronged by the ridiculous scruples of
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  Speaker 1: the chief, in which, after all, though he could not
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  Speaker 1: have said why, he did not quite believe. It never
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  Speaker 1: occurred to him that, even had the land been so
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  Speaker 1: come by that the chief could accept a gift of it,
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  Speaker 1: he would, upon the discovery that it had been so
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  Speaker 1: secured from the donor's creditors, at once have insisted on
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  Speaker 1: placing it at their disposal. His wrath proceeded to vent
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  Speaker 1: itself in hastening the realization of his schemes of improvement,
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  Speaker 1: for he was well aware that they would be worse
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  Speaker 1: than distasteful to the mac crud. There first requirement was
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  Speaker 1: the removal of every peasant within his power capable of
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  Speaker 1: violating the sanctity of the deer forest into which he
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  Speaker 1: and his next neighborhood agreed to turn the whole of
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  Speaker 1: their property while the settlement of his daughter was pending.
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  Speaker 1: He had seen that the point might cause trouble unless
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  Speaker 1: previously understood between him and the chief, But he never
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  Speaker 1: doubted the recovery of the land would reconcile the latter
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  Speaker 1: to the loss of the men. Now he chuckled with
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  Speaker 1: wrathful chuckle to think how entirely he had him in
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  Speaker 1: his power for justifiable annoyance. For he believed himself about
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  Speaker 1: to do nothing but good to the country, in removing
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  Speaker 1: from it its miserable inhabitants, whom the sentimental indulgence of
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  Speaker 1: their so called chief kept contented with their property, and
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  Speaker 1: with whom interference must now enrage him. How he hated
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  Speaker 1: the whole wretched pack. Mister Palmer's doing of good to
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  Speaker 1: the country consisted in making the land yield more money
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  Speaker 1: into the pockets of mister Brander and himself, by feeding
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  Speaker 1: wild animals instead of men. To tell such landowners that
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  Speaker 1: they are simply running a tilt at the creed of
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  Speaker 1: energy can be of no use. They do not believe
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  Speaker 1: in God, however much they may protest and imagine they
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  Speaker 1: do the next day, but one he sent Mistress Connall
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  Speaker 1: the message that she must be out of her hut,
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  Speaker 1: goods and gear within a fortnight. He was not sure
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  Speaker 1: that the thing was legally correct, but he would risk it.
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  Speaker 1: She might go to the law, as she would, but
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  Speaker 1: he would make a beginning with her. The Chief might
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  Speaker 1: take up her quarrel if he chose. Nothing would please
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  Speaker 1: mister Palmer more than to involve him in a law suit,
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  Speaker 1: clear him out, and send him adrift. His money might
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  Speaker 1: be contemptible, but the Chief should find it at least dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: Contempt would not stave off a landslip. Mistress Connall, with
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  Speaker 1: a rage and scorn that made her feel every inch
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  Speaker 1: a witch, and accompanied by her black cat, which might
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  Speaker 1: or might not be the innocent animal. The neighbors did
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  Speaker 1: not think him, hurried to the mac Crude and informed
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  Speaker 1: him that the Lowland thief had given her notice to
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  Speaker 1: quit the house of her father's within a fortnight. I
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  Speaker 1: fear much. We cannot help it. The house is on
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  Speaker 1: his land, said the chief, sorrowfully. His land echoed The
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  Speaker 1: old woman is the nest of the old eagle his land.
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  Speaker 1: Can he make his heather white or his ptarm again black.
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  Speaker 1: Will he dry up the locks and stay the rivers?
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  Speaker 1: Will he remove the mountains from their places? Or cause
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  Speaker 1: the generations of men to cease from the earth? Defend me, Chief.
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  Speaker 1: I come to you for the help that was never
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  Speaker 1: sought in vain from the Makrud. What help I have
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  Speaker 1: is yours without the asking returned the Chief. I cannot
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  Speaker 1: do more than is in my power. One thing only
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  Speaker 1: I can promise you that you shall lack neither food
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  Speaker 1: nor shelter. My chief will abandon me to the wolf,
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  Speaker 1: she cried, Never, But I can only protect you, not
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  Speaker 1: your house. He may have no right to turn you
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  Speaker 1: out at such short notice, but it could only be
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  Speaker 1: a matter of weeks to go to law with him.
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  Speaker 1: Would but leave me without a roof to shelter you
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  Speaker 1: when your own was gone? The dead would have shown
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  Speaker 1: him into the dark. Ere he turned me into the cold,
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  Speaker 1: she muttered, and turning left him. The Chief was greatly troubled.
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  Speaker 1: He had heard nothing of such an intention on the
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  Speaker 1: part of his neighbor. Could it be for revenge? He
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  Speaker 1: had heard nothing yet of his answer to mercy. All
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  Speaker 1: he could do was to represent to mister Palmer the
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  Speaker 1: trouble the poor woman was in and let him know
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  Speaker 1: that the preceding threatened would render him very unpopular in
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  Speaker 1: the strath. This he thought it best to do by letter.
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  Speaker 1: It could not enrage mister Palmer more, but it enraged
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  Speaker 1: him afresh. He vowed that the moment the time was
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  Speaker 1: up out the old witch should go neck and crop, and,
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  Speaker 1: with the help of mister Brand, provided men for the
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  Speaker 1: enforcement of his purpose who did not belong to the neighborhood.
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  Speaker 1: The Chief kept hoping to hear from the new house,
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  Speaker 1: but neither his letter to Mercy nor to her father
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  Speaker 1: received any answer. How he wished for Ian to tell
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  Speaker 1: him what he ought to do. His mother could not
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  Speaker 1: help him. He saw nothing for it but wait. Events
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  Speaker 1: day after day passed and he heard nothing. He would
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  Speaker 1: have tried to find out the state of things at
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  Speaker 1: the new house, but until war was declared, that would
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  Speaker 1: not be right. Mister Palmer might be seeking, how with
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  Speaker 1: dignity to move in the matter, for certainly the Chief
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  Speaker 1: had placed him in a position yet more unpleasant than
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  Speaker 1: his own. He must wait. On the very day fortnight
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  Speaker 1: after the notice given, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: came flying to the chief, a ragged little urchin of
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  Speaker 1: the village, too breathless almost to make intelligible his news
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  Speaker 1: that there were men at Mistress Connell's who would not
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  Speaker 1: go out of her house, and she and her old
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  Speaker 1: black cat were swearing at them. The chief ran, could
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  Speaker 1: the new laird be actually unhousing the aged, helpless woman.
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  Speaker 1: It was the part of a devil and not of
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  Speaker 1: a man. As he neared the place, there were her
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  Speaker 1: poor possessions already on the road side, her one chair
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  Speaker 1: and stool, her bedding, her three footed pot, her girdle,
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  Speaker 1: her big chest, all that she could call hers in
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  Speaker 1: the world. And when he came in sight of the cottage,
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  Speaker 1: there she was being brought out of it, struggling, screaming
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  Speaker 1: and cursing in the grasp of two men. Fierce. In
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  Speaker 1: its glow was the torrent of Gaelic that rushed from
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  Speaker 1: the crater of her lips, molten in the volcanic depths
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  Speaker 1: of her indignant soul. When one thinks of the appalling
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  Speaker 1: amount of rage exhausted by poor humans upon wrong, the
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  Speaker 1: energy of indignation, whether issued or suppressed, and how little
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  Speaker 1: it has done to right wrong, To draw acknowledgment or
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  Speaker 1: amends from self satisfied insolence, He naturally asks, what becomes
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  Speaker 1: of so much vital force? Can it fare differently from
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  Speaker 1: other forces? And be lost? The energy of evil is
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  Speaker 1: turned into the mill race of good. But the wrath
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  Speaker 1: of man, even his righteous wrath, worketh not the righteousness
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  Speaker 1: of God. What becomes of it? If it be not lost,
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  Speaker 1: and have but changed its form? In what shape shall
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  Speaker 1: we look for it? Set her down? Cried the chief,
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  Speaker 1: I will take care of her. When she heard the
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  Speaker 1: voice of her champion, the old woman let go a
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  Speaker 1: catlike screech of triumph, and her gliding gallic smoothness itself
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  Speaker 1: in articulation flowed yet fierier in word and fiercer in tone.
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  Speaker 1: But the men who were thus objecting her, hangers on
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  Speaker 1: of the sheriff court in the county town, employed to
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  Speaker 1: give a color of law to the doubtful proceeding, did
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  Speaker 1: not know the Chief, Oh, will set her down, answered
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  Speaker 1: one of them, insolently, and glad enough too, But will
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  Speaker 1: have her on the public road with her sticks. First,
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  Speaker 1: infuriated by the man's disregard of her, Chief Mistress Connell
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  Speaker 1: struck her nails into his face, and with a curse.
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  Speaker 1: He flung her from him. She turned instantly on the
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  Speaker 1: other with the same argument ad hominem, and found herself
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  Speaker 1: staggering on her own weak limbs to a severe fall.
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  Speaker 1: When the chief caught and saved her, she struggled hard
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  Speaker 1: to break from him and rush again into the hut,
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  Speaker 1: declaring she would not leave it if they burned her
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  Speaker 1: alive in it. But he held her fast. There was
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  Speaker 1: a pause for one or two who had accompanied the
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  Speaker 1: men employed knew the chief, and their reluctance to go
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  Speaker 1: on with the ruthless deed in his presence influenced the rest.
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  Speaker 1: Report of the ejection had spread, and the neighbors came
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  Speaker 1: running from the village. A crowd seemed to be gathering
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  Speaker 1: again and again. Mistress Conall tried to escape from alistair
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  Speaker 1: and rush into the cottage. You too, my chief, she cried,
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  Speaker 1: You turned against the poor of your people. No, Mistress Conall,
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  Speaker 1: he answered, I'm too much your friend to let you
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  Speaker 1: kill yourself. We have orders mac crude to set fire
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  Speaker 1: to the hovel, said one of the men, touching his
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  Speaker 1: hat respectfully. They'll roast my black one, shrieked the old woman.
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  Speaker 1: Small fear for him, said a man's voice from the
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  Speaker 1: little crowd. If half be true, apparently, the speaker dared,
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  Speaker 1: no more. Fire won't sing a hair of him, Mistress
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  Speaker 1: Connall said another voice. You know it, he's used to it.
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  Speaker 1: Come along and let's get it over, cried the leader
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  Speaker 1: of the ejection party. It won't take many minutes once
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  Speaker 1: it's well agoing and there's fire enough on the hearth
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  Speaker 1: to set ben Kruakan in a blaze. Is everything out
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  Speaker 1: of it? Demanded the chief, All but her cat. We've
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  Speaker 1: done our best, sir, and searched everywhere, but he's not
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  Speaker 1: to be found. There's nothing else left. It's a lie,
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  Speaker 1: screamed Mistress Connall. Is there not a great pile of
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  Speaker 1: peats carried on my own back from the moss ach
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  Speaker 1: you robbers? Will you burn the good peats? What good
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  Speaker 1: will the peats be to you? Woman, said one of them,
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  Speaker 1: not unkindly, when you have no hearth, She gave a
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  Speaker 1: loud wail, but checked it. I will burn them on
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  Speaker 1: the road, she said. They will keep me a few
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  Speaker 1: hours from the dark. When I die, I will go
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  Speaker 1: straight up to God and implore his curse upon you.
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  Speaker 1: On your bed and board your hands and tools, your
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  Speaker 1: body and soul. May your every prayer be lost in
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  Speaker 1: the wide murk and never come at his ears. May hush, hush,
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  Speaker 1: interposed the Chief with great gentleness. You do not know
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  Speaker 1: what you are saying, but you do know who tells
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  Speaker 1: us to forgive our enemies. It is well for him
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  Speaker 1: to forgive, she screamed, sitting on his grand throne and
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  Speaker 1: leaving me to be turned out of my blessed house
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  Speaker 1: onto the cold road, Nanny, said the Chief, calling her
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  Speaker 1: by her name. Because a man is unjust to you,
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  Speaker 1: is that a reason for you to be unjust to
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  Speaker 1: him who died for you? You know as well as he
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  Speaker 1: that you will not be left out in the cold road.
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  Speaker 1: He knows, and so do you that while I have
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  Speaker 1: a house over my head, there is a warm corner
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  Speaker 1: in it for you. And as for his sitting on
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  Speaker 1: his throne, you know that all these years he has
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  Speaker 1: been trying to take you up beside him, and can't
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  Speaker 1: get you to set your foot on the first step
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  Speaker 1: of it. Be ashamed of yourself, Nanny, she was silent.
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  Speaker 1: Bring out her peats, he said, turning to the bystanders.
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  Speaker 1: We have small need. With winter on the road to
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  Speaker 1: waste any of God's gifts. They obeyed, But as they
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  Speaker 1: carried them out and down to the road, the number
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  Speaker 1: of Mistress Conall's friends kept growing, and a laying together
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  Speaker 1: of heads began, and a gathering of human fire under
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  Speaker 1: glooming eyebrows. It looked threatening. Suddenly Mistress Conall broke out
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  Speaker 1: in wild yet awful speech, wherein truth indeed was the fuel,
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  Speaker 1: but earthly wrath supplied the prophetic fire. Her friends suspended
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  Speaker 1: their talk, and her foes their work to listen. English
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  Speaker 1: is by no means equally poetic, with the Gaelic regarded
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  Speaker 1: as a language, and ill serves to represent her utterance.
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  Speaker 1: Much that seems natural in the one language seems forced
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  Speaker 1: and unreal amidst the less imaginative forms of the other.
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  Speaker 1: I will nevertheless attempt in English what can prove little
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  Speaker 1: better than an imitation of her prophetic outpouring. It was
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  Speaker 1: like a sermon in this that she began with a text.
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  Speaker 1: Woe unto them, she said, and her voice sounded like
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  Speaker 1: the wind among the great stones of a hillside that
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  Speaker 1: join house to house, lay field to field, till there
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  Speaker 1: be no place that they may be placed alone in
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  Speaker 1: the midst of the earth. This woe she followed with
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  Speaker 1: woe upon woe, and curse upon curse, now from the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: now from some old poem of the country, and now
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  Speaker 1: from the bitterness of her own heart. Then she broke out,
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  Speaker 1: in purely native eloquence. Who art thou, o man born
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  Speaker 1: of a woman, to say to thy brother, depart from
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  Speaker 1: this earth? Here is no footing for thee. All the
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  Speaker 1: room had been taken for me. Ere thou wast heard
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  Speaker 1: of What right hast thou in a world where I
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  Speaker 1: want room for the red deer and the big sheep
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  Speaker 1: and the brown cattle. Go up, thou infant bald head?
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  Speaker 1: Is there no room above in the fields of the air?
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  Speaker 1: Is there not room below? With the dead? Verily there
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  Speaker 1: is none here upon the earth? What art thou I
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  Speaker 1: say to speak thus to thy fellow as if he
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  Speaker 1: entered the world by another door than thyself? Because thou
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  Speaker 1: art rich? Is he not also a man, a man
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  Speaker 1: made in the image of the same God, who but
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  Speaker 1: God sent him? And who but God save thy father?
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  Speaker 1: Was indeed the devil hath sent thee? Thou hast to
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  Speaker 1: make room for thy brother? What brother of thy house?
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  Speaker 1: When a child is born into it would presume to say,
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  Speaker 1: let him be gone and speedily. I do not want him.
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  Speaker 1: There is no room for him. I require it all
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  Speaker 1: for myself. Wilt thou say of any man he is
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  Speaker 1: not my brother, when God says he is. If thou say,
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  Speaker 1: am I there for his keeper? God for that saying
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  Speaker 1: will brand thee with the brand of Cain. Yea. The
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  Speaker 1: hour will come when those ye will not give room
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  Speaker 1: to breathe will rise panting in the agony. YEA, fury
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  Speaker 1: of their need, and cry, if we may neither eat
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  Speaker 1: nor lie down by their leave. Lo we are strong.
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  Speaker 1: Let us take what they will not give. If we die,
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  Speaker 1: we but die, Then shall there be blood to the
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  Speaker 1: knees of the fighting men, yea, to the horses bridles,
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  Speaker 1: and the earth shall be left desolate because of you,
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  Speaker 1: foul feeders on the flesh, and blood on the bodies
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  Speaker 1: and souls of men. In the pit of hell, you
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  Speaker 1: will find room enough, but no drop of water. And
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  Speaker 1: it will comfort you little that ye lived merrily among
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  Speaker 1: pining men. Which of us has coveted your silver or
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  Speaker 1: your gold? Which of us has stretched out the hand
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  Speaker 1: to take of your wheat or your barley. All we
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  Speaker 1: ask is room to live. But because ye would seek
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  Speaker 1: the dust of the earth on the head of the poor,
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  Speaker 1: ye have crushed and straightened us till we are ready
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  Speaker 1: to cry out God for thy mercy's sake. Let us die,
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  Speaker 1: Let us be guilty of our own blood. A solitary
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  Speaker 1: man had come down the hill behind and stood alone listening.
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  Speaker 1: It was the mover of the wickedness. In the old
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  Speaker 1: time the rights of the people in the land were
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  Speaker 1: fully recognized. But when the chiefs of Clanrud sold it,
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  Speaker 1: they could not indeed sell the rites that were not theirs,
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  Speaker 1: but they forgot to secure them for the helpless, and
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  Speaker 1: they were now in the grasp of the selfish and greedy,
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  Speaker 1: the devourers of the poor. He did not understand a
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  Speaker 1: word the woman was saying, but he was pleased to
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  Speaker 1: look on her rage and see the man who had
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  Speaker 1: insulted him suffer with her. When he began to note
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  Speaker 1: the glances of lurid fire, which every now and then
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  Speaker 1: turned upon him during Mistress Connall's speech, he scorned the
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  Speaker 1: indication such poor creatures dared venture. Nothing he thought against
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  Speaker 1: the mere appearance of law under what he counted the
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  Speaker 1: chief's contempt. He had already grown worse, and the thought
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  Speaker 1: that perhaps the great world might one day look upon
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  Speaker 1: him with light contempt wrought in him bitterly. He had
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  Speaker 1: not the assurance of rectitude which makes contempt hurtless. He
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  Speaker 1: was crueler now than before the chief's letter to his daughter.
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  Speaker 1: When Mistress Conall saw him, she addressed herself to him
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  Speaker 1: directly what he would have felt had he understood, I
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  Speaker 1: cannot tell. Never in this life did he know how
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  Speaker 1: the weak can despise the strong, how the poor can
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  Speaker 1: scorn the rich worm, she said, uncontent withholding the land,
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  Speaker 1: eating the earth that another may not share. The worms
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  Speaker 1: eat but what their bodies will hold, And thou canst
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  Speaker 1: devour but the fill of thy life. The hour is
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  Speaker 1: at hand when the earth will swallow thee, and thy
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  Speaker 1: fellow worms will eat thee as thou hast eaten men.
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  Speaker 1: The possessions of thy brethren, thou hast consumed, so that
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  Speaker 1: they are not the holy and beautiful house of my father's.
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  Speaker 1: She spoke of her poor little cottage, but in the
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  Speaker 1: words lay spiritual fact mock not its poverty. She went on,
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  Speaker 1: as if forestalling contempt for is it not to me
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  Speaker 1: a holy house where a woman lay in agony whence
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  Speaker 1: first I opened my eyes to the sun. Is it
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  Speaker 1: not a holy house where my father prayed morning and
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  Speaker 1: evening and read the words of grace and comfort? Is
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  Speaker 1: it not to me sacred as the cottage at Nazareth
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  Speaker 1: to the poor man who lived there with his peasants.
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  Speaker 1: Is it not that a beautiful house in which a
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  Speaker 1: woman's ear did first listen to the words of love?
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  Speaker 1: Old and despised, I am, but once I was younger
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  Speaker 1: than any of you, and ye will be old and
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  Speaker 1: decrepit as I, if the curse of God do not
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  Speaker 1: cut you off too soon. My Allister would have taken
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  Speaker 1: any two of you and knocked your heads together. He
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  Speaker 1: died fighting for his country and for his sake. The
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  Speaker 1: voice of man's love has never again entered my heart.
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  Speaker 1: I knew a true man, and could be true also
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  Speaker 1: would to God I were with him, You man, trapping land,
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  Speaker 1: reaving house, burning sassenach, do your worst. I care not.
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  Speaker 1: She ceased and the spell was broken. Come come, said
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: one of the men, impatiently. Tom, you get a pete
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and set it on top of the wall under the roof.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: You too, George, and be quick. Pete's all round. There
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: are plenty on the hearth. How's the wind blowing you, Henry,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: make a few holes in the wall here outside, and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: will set live Pete's in them. It's time there was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: an end to this. You're right, but there's a better
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: way to end it, returned one of the clan, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: gave him a shove that said him to the ground. Men,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: do your duty, cried mister Palmer from behind. I am
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: here to see you do it. Never mind the old woman.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Of course, she thinks it hard, but hard things have
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: got to be done. It's the way of the world,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and all for the best, mister Palmer, said another of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the clan. The old woman has the right of you.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: She and hers have lived there in that cottage for
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: nine hundred years. She has no right if she thinks
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: she has, let her go to the law for it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, I choose to turn her off my land.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: What's mine's mine, as I mean, every man, Jack of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you to know, Chief and beggar the mc cru had
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: walked up to him. Pardon me, sir, he said, I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: doubt much if you have a legal right to disturb
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the poor woman. She has never paid rent for her hut,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and it has always been looked upon as her property.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Then the chief that's sold it swindled both me and her,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: stammered mister Palmer, quite with rage. But as for you,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: who call yourself a chief, you are the most insolent,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: ill bred fellow I ever had to do with. And
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I have not another word to say to you. A
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: silence like that before a thunder storm succeeded. Not a
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: man of the clan could, for the moment trust his hearing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But there is nothing the Celtic nature resents like rudeness.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Half a dozen at once of the Macruds rushed upon
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the insulter of their chief, intent on his punishment. One.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: If you touch him, cried alister, and I will knock
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: him down. I would if he were my foster brother.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Each eager assailant stood like a block. Finish your workmen,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: shouted mister Palmer, to do him justice. He was no coward, clansmen,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: said the chief. Let him have his way. I do
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: not see how to resist the wrong without bringing more
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: evil upon us than we can meet. We must leave
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it to him who says vengeance is mine. The Mokruids
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: murmured their obedience and stood sullenly looking on. The disseizars
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: went into the hut and carried out the last of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the fuel. Then they scooped holes in the turf walls
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: inside to leeward, outside to windward, and taking live peats
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: from the hearth, put them in the holes. A few
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: minutes and poor Nanny's holy and beautiful house was a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: great fire when they began to apply the peats. Allister
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: would at once have taken the old woman away, but
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: he dreaded an outbreak and lingered. When the fire began
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to run up the roof, Mistress Connell broke from him
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and darted to the door. Everyone rushed to seize her,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Mister Palmer with the rest Blackie blackye blackee. She shrieked
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: like a mad woman while the men encumbered each other
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: in their endeavors to get her away. Down shot the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: cat from the blazing roof, a fizz of fire in
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: his black fur, his tail as thick as his neck,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: an infernal howling screech of hatred in his horrible throat,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and wild with rage and fear, flung himself straight upon
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: mister Palmer. A roar of delighted laughter burst forth. He
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: bawled out, and his ball was mingled with a scream
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to take the brute off him, and his own men
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: hurried to his rescue, but the fury frantic animal had
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: dug his claws and teeth into his face and clung
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to him, so that they had to choke him off.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: The Chief caught up Mistress Connell and carried her away.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: There was no danger of anyone hurting mister Palmer. Now
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: he bore her on one arm like a child, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: indeed she was not much heavier. But she kept her
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: face turned and her eyes fixed on her burning home, and,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: leaning over the shoulder of the chief, poured out as
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: he carried her farther and farther from the scene of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the outrage, a flood of maledictory prophecy against the doers
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: of the deed. The laird said never a word, never
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: looked behind him, while she almost tumbling down his back
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: as she cursed with outstretched arms, deafened him with her raging.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: He walked steady down the path to the road, where
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: he stepped into the midst of her goods and chattels.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: The sight of them diverted a little the current of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: her wrath. Where are you going, macrud, she cried as
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: he walked on. See you not my property lying to
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the hand of the thief. Know you not that the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: greedy Sassanak will sweep everything away. I can't carry them,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and you too, Mistress Connell, said the chief gaily. Set
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: me down. Then who ever asked you to carry me?
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And where would you be carrying me? My place is
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: with my things. Your place is with me, Mistress Connell.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I belong to you, and you belong to me, and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I am taking you home to my mother. At the word,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: silence fell not on the lips, but on the soul
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of the raving prophetess. The chief. She loved his mother,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: she feared. Set me down, Macrud, she pleaded, in gentle tone.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Don't carry me to her empty handed. Set me down straight.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I will load my back with my goods and bear
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: them to my lady and throw them at her feet.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: As soon as we get to the cottage, said the chief,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: striding on with his reluctant burden. I will send up
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: two men with wheelbarrows to bring them home home. Said you,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: cried the old woman, and burst into the tearless wailing
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of a child. There is a home for me no more.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: My house was all that was left me of my people.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And it is your own that make a house a home.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: In the long winter nights, when I sat by the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: fire and heard the wind howl and the snow pat
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: pat like the small hands of my little brothers on
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the window, my heart grew glad within me, and the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: dead came back to my soul. When I took the book,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I heard the spirit of my father reading through my
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: own lips. And oh, my mother, my mother, She ceased,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: as if in despair. Surely, Nanny, you will be at
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: home with your chief, said Allister, My house is your
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: house now, and your dead will come to it and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: be welcome. It is their chief's house, and they will.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: She returned hopefully they loved their chief. Shall we not
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: make a fine clan when we're all gathered we mac
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Crud's man nor woman can say I did anything to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: disgrace it. Lest we should disgrace it, answered the chief.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: We must bear with patience what is sent upon it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: He carried her into the drawing room and told her story.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Then stood to the delighted amusement of his mother, with
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: his little old sister in his arms, waiting her orders
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like a big boy carrying the baby, who now and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: then moaned a little, but did not speak. Missus mc
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: cru had called Nancy and told her to bring the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: tea tray, and then get ready for Mistress connall the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: room next Nancy's own, that she might be near to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: wait on her, and thither warmed and fed. The Chief
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: carried her, but the terrible excitement had so thinned the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: mainspring of her time watch that it soon broke. She
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: did not live many weeks from the first she sank
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: into great dejection, and her mind wandered. She said her
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: father never came to see her now, that he was
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: displeased with her for leaving the house, and that she
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: knew now she ought to have stayed and been burned
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: in it. The Chief reminded her that she had no choice,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: but had been carried bodily away. Yes, yes, she answered,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: but they do not know that. I must make haste
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and tell them who can bear her own people to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: think ill of her. I'm coming, I'm coming. I'll tell
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you all about it. I'm an honest woman. Yet another
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: thing troubled her sorely, for which she would hear no consolation.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Blackie had vanished, whether he was killed at the time
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of his onslaught on mister Palmer, or was afterwards shot,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Whether disgusted with the treatment of his old home or
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the memory of what he had there suffered, he had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: fled the strath and gone to the wild cats among
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the hills, or back to the place which some averred
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he came from, no one could tell. In her wanderings,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: she talked more of her cat than of anything else,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and would say things that, with some would have gone
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: far to justify the belief that the animal was, by
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: nature on familiar terms with the element which had yet
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: driven him from his temporary home. Nancy was more than
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: uneasy at having the witch so near, but by no
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: means neglected her duty to her One night, she woke
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and had for some time lain listening whether she stirred
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: or not, when suddenly quavered through the dark the most
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: horrible cat cry she had ever heard. In abject terror,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: she covered her head and lay shuddering. The cry came again,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and kept coming at regular intervals, but drawing nearer and nearer.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Its expression was of intense and increasing pain. The creature,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: whence it issued, seemed to come close to the house,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: then with difficulty to scramble up on the roof, where
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it went on yowling and screeching, and throwing itself about
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: as if tying itself in knots, Nancy said, until at
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: last it gave a great choking, gobbling scream and fell
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to the ground, after which all was quiet. Persuading herself
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it was only a cat, she tried to sleep, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: at length succeeded. When she woke in the morning, the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: first thing she did was to go out, fully, expecting
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: to find the cat lying at the foot of the wall.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: No cat was there. She went, then, as usual to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: attend to the old woman, Mistress Conall was dead and cold.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: The clan followed her body to the grave, and the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: black cat was never seen. End of Volume three, Chapter
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: eight recording by Hannah Mary