The Cave of the Pink Foxglove

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 305, 27 December 1939, Page 13

The Cave of the Pink Foxglove

BY ETHEL F. HEDDLE

Short Story

" M OW P la y 9 n the beach and don't Al worry me J I'm just going round to see if cook 19.back from the village." Nannie took her novel nearly finished, but which had utterly absorbed her for en hour, and looked at little Colin MsLean crossly. What a bore children were! Here wag his mother off shootinir, for the day, with her hu-sband and the others carefree, happy, and with all she could desire in life, and here was slie tied to look after a provoking boy, always wanting something—always wetting hi* feet, or dirtying his hands, or wanting a "'tory," or "something to eat, Nannie!" Well, he could stay there on the little strip of hard sand, before which was the lovely silent loch, girt by great mountains; they had no beauty for Nannie, who much preferred Piccadilly, and the cinema, and "Town,"' to any of Nature's beauties. She walked off to the house, and the boy sat down On the eatul and kicked it about for a little, and took up some shining pebbles, and watclu-d the boat rocking idly by the side. The boat! He wanted to get into the boat! He wanted to go round to the cave of the pink foxgloves! Dougall. the liPiid gillie's son. who elways went with him and hie father, had said lie would take him to the cave of the foxgloves some day. He liked it so much— one of the caves down tlie loch, with great boulders of pink granite near, and a row of pink foxgloves growing at the e<l<re. Dougall told him tinkers lived in the cave sometimes. '"Tinkers" were enviable people who ,slept in the heather, and travelled in carts with brown covers, on which jangled tin kettles. They had brown faces, and begged. "Common people you must not speak to," Nannie said, in her cockney "refeeiied" voice. Colin had said nothing, but he liked them all the same, and he decided that tea in the cave, in a tin cup, and with fried trout cooked on the red fire at the end, would be lovely! He got up presently and looked again at the boat. He could hear Nannie's "refeened" voice from the half open window.

"She wore pink tulle, Sarah, with paillettes of silver." (What were "paillettee," Colin wandered). Then nis mind returned to the boat. The loch was ruffled, and a keen, high wind came down from Ben Voirloch, and suddenly tlie boat seemed to dance, and it "broke loose, and turned and headed for the shore. "Oh, it's coming to me!" Colin cried, and ran suddenly down to the edj'e of the water. "I'll get in!—l see the oars—l'll row to the cave 'myself! I'll catch it!"

A voice hailed him suddenly as he ran towards the boat, a boy's voice, but h>? heeded nothing. He had caught the edje and climbed in, laughing merrily at hN own prowess nnd daring, and he seized an oar and pushed further out himself. Oh, it was lovely! "Master Colin, where are you going? Master Colin!" The bare-legged boy, with the brown /ace and eager eyes, ran down to the strip of beach, and was in time to see the little boat, carried by a new, strong current, drift out down the loch. What was this? The child could not row —! And then he saw the little lad lift an oar, and tumble backward, and the oar, as if possessed, slipping out of his grasp, was carried away! What was Dougall to do now? He could not swim! The boy in the boat, alone—drifting down the loch—and at the foot of the bay, unless it was driven on shore or wrecked, was the entrance to the great sea itself. Dougall knew all that. Somehow he must get into that boat beside the bov somehow! Only that morning Mrs. McLean had nodded to him as she joined her husband in the car. "I leave Colin in your charge, remember, Dougall! In your charge! I'd rather trust him than Nannie," she had said to her husband, who laughed. "Ten timee!" But how was Dougall to get the boat? Then he noticed that the little craft was dancing toward the side, where, on a boulder, he could stand and grab it as it passed. No sooner thought of, then lie ran down and climbed the rock, nnd waited. When it came, on those powerful, driving waves, Dougall made a leap, full into the loch. He grasped the gunwale of the boat. With Colin laughing delightedly, he clambered in, and seized the other oar and tried to guide them inshore. Another gust sweeping down from the hillside caught the boat. "Let us go to the cave of the foxgloves, Dougall!" the boy cried. "It's all right, now you are here! You promised to take me, Dougall. Be a sport 1 Oh, come on, Dougall! Come on!" Down the loch went the little boat with the two boys; it fairlv danced. Would another squall send it to ba wrecked on the rocks at the right? It was dusk when the McLeans returned and Viola put down her gun and called to Nannie and her boy. The last of the sunset stain was gone on the water, a purple gloom enveloped the hills; rsweet suggestion of bog myrtle and sun-kissed heather came with the cool little Mind. Viola looked at the house and called again. "Is the boy in bed, Nannie? Didn't he want to kiss mother? Has he said his prayers without mother? Colin, darliii"-, here ie mother back!" A distraught figure, flushed and gasping, came running from the servants'' quarters. "Oh, madam! How can I tell you? The boy—Colin!— he ie lost! Oh, madam, I have been nearly frantic!" Lost? What on earth do you mean? Stop crying, you fool, and speak!" McLean had her by the shoulder and he shook her. "Speak! Is he hurt?" "No, sir, not hurt—lost!" She wailed again. "Beseie thinks he's been kidnapped! But oh, madam, it can't bein Scotland! I left him here, playin» happily—when I came out he" was gone! Gone!" She sobbed again. "Please, Nannie, control yourself!" Viola, white-faced and wild-eyed, said. "Tell us all about it! When did you leave him, and where? Was there anyone here? Did you eee anyone?" Answer, please!"

, Questions and answers followed— Nannie's sobs and asseverations, and Viola, white-faced, staring up at the great mountains. "Colin is lost!" How could it be? They sent for the head gillie at once, and Dougall'e father came: a big, broad, capable man, who listened, standing before Viola, who felt a kind of comfort in his very presence. "Ach, yes, he would go and search the 'hill at once, he would be s-ure to find the wee laddie! He could not have gone far, a wee boy like that! Maybe Dougall had met him on the moor. He was keen

on Dougall, and Dougall had promised to take him fishing; Hβ would go and get Dougall at once—the lady r inuet not fret—and then he, would conie back and tell her*. He would be wishing them a' very good evening, and please- to cheer up!" "Conie and eat something,* , darling," Harry said, when the other strode off. "And I'll. go and meet him and bring you news at oriee. Don't listen to that weeping idiot Nannie! Of course she knows she should not have left him. We'll get the ear and I'll pick up Pharlane and the boy—l know his. croft. Come, now, you must not alarm.yourself! He can't have gone far." But he was secretly uneasy. Suppose the child had fallen into a "crevasse ? Broken his leg? Got into one of the hill streams? He saw his wife ate something and then went off to find Pharlane. But at the croft there was no news and no message, and his face darkened. Then lie could see the gillie's tall figure in the purple dusk, and Pharlane came up, his faoe rather grave. He had sent two shepherds over the nearest reaches of the moor and they ha<l called and called, and searched, and heard nothing! . Also, Dougall was gone! But that might be hopeful—for Dougall might have found the little lad and would bring him back, safe! They sat in the cave of the foxgloves—a wave had sent the little boat up on the pebbles before it—and Douo- a ii clambering out, lifted Colin out and set nun down before the row of pink foxgloves. Colin was quite delighted! But Dougall had stood , looking round him for a moment, with steady, considering eyce. * °

What were they going to do? Very few craft ever came down the lonely loch. He could not ewim ! He could not take the boy back that long wav—and in many parts of the way there were huge boulders over which they could not climb- He must get the boy back, but how? Above them towered the cliff leading up to the little village above. Only a few crofts, with sheep and -oats and a cow or two. Colin needed his supper! They could sleep in the cave trll he decided what to do, and there was fortunately a fire-that is to sa V , what the tinkers had left of a flre—and a pile of dry bracken and twig* and lops beside it. On the top was the box of matches they always left readv. And besides this, there was the old "tin pot in which they nia <le tea, a tin, with oat cakes, and some cheese! They always returned here, and in a corner w W the pile of dry heather on which they slept. Dougall took in all these things, and he told Colin to follow him. "We'll have «upper, Colin," he sa id in hie most grown-up voice. "I'll ma ke the tea, and you will be liking it ferry well here in the foxglove cave. And then you will go to sleep here, and Dougall" will be thinking what to do, and maybe climbing up to the clachan and getting them T iend .- the drtnkp y with old Pharaig or Lauchlan Og (him that is not quit! nght m his mind) to tell the McLean and your mother where you are." "I will say my prayers to you, Dougall, Colin said consideringly. Mother will miss me" (he swallowed •something in hi* throat). "I wish I could tell her I am in the foxglove cave— «™ d you will teH her somehow." 01' yes, I will be telling her-some-

He made some tea—he got water from * little spring that trickled from the cliff just above, and he spread some butter on the bannock; the tinkers had 'eft, just enough for Colin, and the boy ate it quite happily and drank the tea. He grew rather sleepy and beean to jawn, and Dougall took him to the nest of dry heather and covered him over Ihe loch was a dark shield now and the great hills had faded into the night Ihe pink foxgloves were ghostly sentinele. Sometimes a grouse cried "Go back, go back," faintly from above, or the far-off, lonely cry of the gulls came from the little islands—all sounds so familiar to Dougall. When Colin was asle9p, his fair head resting contentedly on the heather, Dougall went out and stood looking ui> and considering it all. What was he going to do? How was he going to tell Mrs. McLean and the McLean—he must tell them! The boy *ould need food to-morrow, for the bannock of the tinkere was almost done and the butter quite—and Colin would be hungry He wae accustomed to good breakfasts," with Nannie, very superior, watching for his plate being empty. But—how to get to them? He looked at the water and the one-oared boateven that had a split in it. Hβ had fastened the boat to a boulder; he did not think it would drift away He stood and looked up at the cliff, and took his resolve. He must climb up —he must!—and get Lauchlan 0~ or someone to go to the head of the°loch and bring help. He knew it was a perilous, if not an impossible, climb liven his father never dreamed of goin<r up to the clachan that way—no one ever did. . . . But . . . if he must? He went in and looked at the boy eound asleep, quite safe, quite safe. He looked out on the loch—nothing could harm him from there. No "mon° eters came to this loch; there were only fairy stories of a great bell which flew over it sometimes, and bells did not hurt people! Looking up he considered the climb— the bushes that could help him, the boulders, the dwarf rowan tree, the tough roots.

a ,"/ . will ,. be g oin g UP/' he said to himself in his soft, sing-song voice. "She said, I will leave hini in your charge, Dougall.' I muet be going up-to let Her know and send help! Nothing will hurt him here." °

Thinking over it after, Dougall never could remember how he did it—hie hande were cut and his feet, and once he fell a little way on the pebbles and shale and was brought up and saved by the twisted rowan tree, to which he clunor madly. The shale fell all. round and trickled down—there was only one small path down which the goats went: he kept to that. When he fell the second time he landed on an old, blackened whin bush and got terrible scratches, but he rested a little and then went on again. His blood was up—the splendid fire and determination of his race he must get to the clachan!

And at last he lay on the top, gasping and wiped the perspiration from his face, and the blood, nnd he refastened a bootlace—he had not dared to stop to do it before, and then he could, see a few

little twinkling ligMs from the cottages in the, clachan, and he went on, and knocked loudly at Pharaig's door. "

"Pbaraig!" he called. "It ie me, Dougall, and I- am wanting you to go at once, Pharaig, to the McLean's at the end of the loch, to Ardnambuth, and tell them to come for : Colin, the wee laddie! He i 3 with me, Pharaig, and quite safe, say that!"

Pharaig came out, a big man with a circular red beard, and wide-open, light eyes. He spoke very slowly end solemnly.

"And where the tevil do you come from, Dougall, at this hour of the night I Knocking at my door? And what are you talking about?"

Dougall told him, clearly and succinctly.

"I came from the cave of the pink foxgloves, below, and the Mctiean'e boy is there! He got into the bloat and it drifted off and the oar broke, and I cannot swim, but I got in beeide him. The tinkers had left supper, Pharaig, and the boy ig asleep on the heather, ami 1 lit a fire that he would not be cold. Hut I think it will have gone out now. And I must get back, for fear he wakes and is afraid. And you will go at once, Pharaig, and tell the lady and the McLean, and they will bring the other boat and get us. Go at once, please, and if you will give me that stick of youre and a bit of the rope, I will be glad!"

Pharaig listened to all this, and etared and said "Well! Well! Well! Well!" many times, but he got the stick and the rope, and he got Dougall a great draught of milk and a piece of bannock, and then he called his wife and told her the story, and that he would get the donkey and ride up to the top of the loch. Would she please give him his other boots ?

Dougall got down, somehow, slipping and sliding, but the etick was a great help, and once he tied ihe rope to a boulder and swung down by its aid, though he sprained his foot badly and his hands were cut and bruised* But he accomplished it and there was the cave and the boy safe, and above from the clachan he could hear Pharaig calling to the donkey and calling it not very nice namee in Gaelic, when it objected to letting him mount at this unearthly hour. Dougall smiled ae he heard, and then laughed out suddenly, and Colin woke and said "What are you laughing at, Dougall? But I—l want to go home now, Dougall!"

"We will be going ferry soon," Dougall said. He limped back and tried to relight the fire. "For they will be coming soon now, Colin! Pharaig will thrash the donkey and make it go—oh, yes, lie will thrash, him till he goes, he will bring the McLean to take us back —! Lie down, now, and sleep and I will hold my coat till this fire catches."

Colin looked at him eleepily and said briefly: "Your face is all scratched, poor Dougall!" and went to sleep again.

It seemed no time after that, for Dougall fell asleep, too, near the boy, that they heard oars in rowlocks and a shout, and a voice calling, "There it is, darling! There are the foxgloves! Oh, Colin, Colin, my darling boy!"

He was in her arms, Viola kneeling down in the cave, and her husband had hold of Dougall and was wringing the boy'e brown hand and patting his shoulder.

"You little—brick! . . . Pharaig eaye you . . . climbed up—that cliff!" He was almost incoherent, and Dougall blankly looked up in his face—his mind took things in slowly.

"I am glad the donkey went," he muttered sleepily. "Pharaig must have thrashed him well'"