第66章

But the tune was changing, and at the change the man shivered for the air ran up to the high notes and then down to the deeps with an eldrich cry, like a hawk's scream at night, or a witch's song in the gloaming.It told of those who seek and never find, the quest that knows no fulfilment."There is a road," it cried, "which leads to the Moon and the Great Waters.No changehouse cheers it, and it has no end; but it is a fine road, a braw road--who will follow it?" And the man knew (though no one told him) that this was the Ballad of Grey Weather, which makes him who hears it sick all the days of his life for something which he cannot name.It is the song which the birds sing on the moor in the autumn nights, and the old crow on the treetop hears and flaps his wing.It is the lilt which men and women hear in the darkening of their days, and sigh for the unforgettable; and love-sick girls get catches of it and play pranks with their lovers.It is a song so old that Adam heard it in the Garden before Eve came to comfort him, so young that from it still flows the whole joy and sorrow of earth.

Then it ceased, and all of a sudden the man was rubbing his eyes on the hillside, and watching the falling dusk."I have heard the Rime," he said to himself, and he walked home in a daze.The whaups were crying, but none came near him, though he looked hard for the bird that had spoken with him.It may be that it was there and he did not know it, or it may be that the whole thing was only a dream; but of this I cannot say.

The next morning the man rose and went to the manse.

"I am glad to see you, Simon," said the minister, "for it will soon be the Communion Season, and it is your duty to go round with the tokens.""True," said the man, "but it was another thing I came to talk about," and he told him the whole tale.

"There are but two ways of it, Simon," said the minister."Either ye are the victim of witchcraft, or ye are a self-deluded man.

If the former (whilk I am loth to believe), then it behoves ye to watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation.If the latter, then ye maun put a strict watch over a vagrant fancy, and ye'll be quit o' siccan whigmaleeries."Now Simon was not listening but staring out of the window.

"There was another thing I had it in my mind to say," said he.

"I have come to lift my lines, for I am thinking of leaving the place.""And where would ye go?" asked the minister, aghast.

"I was thinking of going to Carlisle and trying my luck as a dealer, or maybe pushing on with droves to the South.""But that's a cauld country where there are no faithfu'

ministrations," said the minister.

"Maybe so, but I am not caring very muckle about ministrations,"said the man, and the other looked after him in horror.

When he left the manse he went to a Wise Woman, who lived on the left side of the kirkyard above Threepdaidle burn-foot.She was very old, and sat by the ingle day and night, waiting upon death.

To her he told the same tale.

She listened gravely, nodding with her head."Ach," she said, "Ihave heard a like story before.And where will you be going?""I am going south to Carlisle to try the dealing and droving"said the man, "for I have some skill of sheep.""And will ye bide there?" she asked.

"Maybe aye, and maybe no," he said."I had half a mind to push on to the big toun or even to the abroad.A man must try his fortune.""That's the way of men," said the old wife."I, too, have heard the Rime, and many women who now sit decently spinning in Kilmaclavers have heard it.But woman may hear it and lay it up in her soul and bide at hame, while a man, if he get but a glisk of it in his fool's heart, must needs up and awa' to the warld's end on some daft-like ploy.But gang your ways and fare-ye-weel.

My cousin Francie heard it, and he went north wi' a white cockade in his bonnet and a sword at his side, singing 'Charlie's come hame'.And Tam Crichtoun o' the Bourhopehead got a sough o'

it one simmers' morning, and the last we heard o' Tam he was fechting like a deil among the Frenchmen.Once I heard a tinkler play a sprig of it on the pipes, and a' the lads were wud to follow him.Gang your ways for I am near the end o'

mine."

And the old wife shook with her coughing.So the man put up his belongings in a pack on his back and went whistling down the Great South Road.

Whether or not this tale have a moral it is not for me to say.

The King (who told it me) said that it had, and quoted a scrap of Latin, for he had been at Oxford in his youth before he fell heir to his kingdom.One may hear tunes from the Rime, said he, in the thick of a storm on the scarp of a rough hill, in the soft June weather, or in the sunset silence of a winter's night.But let none, he added, pray to have the full music; for it will make him who hears it a footsore traveller in the ways o' the world and a masterless man till death.

End