THE NINE TIDES OF GRON-NA-BOGHAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11241, 9 December 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE NINE TIDES OF GRON-NA-BOGHAR.

A COMPLETE STORY. In the rush of the busy, clamorous nineteenth century, the lonely waste shore of the Machars of Galloway has forgotten much of the lore of its primeval birthright. Only in the green secluded Ehinns one yet finds an evinced belief in the lurking supernatural. During my stay at Drumore, a email, drowsy, out-of-world fishing village on the east side of the Rhinns facing Luce Bay, there existed a qualified "White Witch," who lived alone in a little white-washed thatched cottage, the door jambs of which were pierced with small oval holes for the averting of the Evil Eye by thrusting in the thumbs. I remember well walking in on her early one September evening just after sunset. She was kneeling before the peat fire burning on the old-fashioned open hearth that was built against the "butt-end" wall of her cottage. Her little, meagre, bowed figure in the dusk was silhouetted like to a large black hunch back against the blaze. " Why, mistress! you are busy!" I called from the doorway. " Oh, aye!" she replied, never turning round. " Jist roastin' a scayton for ma supper! Come yer ways into the hoose and never mind me! Sit doun on the stule by the kist; but mind the cat's milk aneath it." I sat down, and having picked up the piebald cat, began stroking it. "Ay, Melly tak's to ye, puir beastie," she remarked, rising up. " Wull ye hae a cup o' tea or a nip?" I took the whisky, and drank to her as she tottered about preparing her meal. "I daursay the Blednock's mair to yer taste than stewed tea wantin' milk," she said,

laconically. "Melly gets a' the milk, ye ken!" and having poured out a cupful of tannin (it was nothing else) began to eat. " I'm hearin' ye're gaein' oot wi' the nicht tide, ower the Bay to the Isle," she mumbled, with her mouth full. "If ye'ro a wise lad, ye'll stay at hame, ye'U stay at hame!" "What will happen?" I asked, setting down the emptied glass on the hard clay floor. "Mair than ye want!" was her short reply; and she ate 011 in silence. I pressed her for an explanation. " Stay at hame," was all I got; and she sat and munched, and glanced furtively at me with her faded brown eyes. Bodchen, my old boatman, rapped on the door, and came in. "The tide's turned, sir; tie wind's saft and westward; when will ye be off? The sutler the better, I maun say, to weather the race of the incurrent round the Mull Heid." "All right," I replied, rising. "Take the boat to the quay end; and I'll get my oilskins and bo down in a little!" Bodchen went off. The witch wife got up and hirpled to me. " Stay at hame, my laddie, stay at hame. Better die in yer am saft bed than seek the grund weed round the Scaurs," she cried, warningly. " Tuts, mistress," said I, smiling. " The wind's fallen and westward. No swell is coming in from the Irish Channel. Crossing the bay is as safe as sitting here!" "All, well, if we will gang, ye maun gang! I have had a braw sailor for ma mas, and have yeaned three sailor laddies in ma any; but nane 0' them would listen to ma teilin's; and was's me, the ldrkvard mool disna hap their bodies 1100. The sea tuk them a'," she added quietly. " What is in the wind, then," I inquired, being moved to curiosity with her pertinacity. "Maybe daeth, for a' I can tell," she mumbled; afore the chap' 0' midnight ye'll be hearin' the voices 0' the Nine Tides." "The Nine Tides," I repeated, in astonishment. "What tides are they?" "Sune when ye'll be hearin' them ye'll ken. Ay, maybe ye'll be seem' the Spanish ship fleein' up the Bay to destruction. Then God savo ye from the hand 0' death!" I looked at her and laughed; her notions were so odd and extravagant. " That will bo something fresh!" "Ay! fresh eneuch; but fresher is the storm wund blowin' along fra the west!'' she rejoined, curtly. I laughed again at her cock-and-bull statement, said good-night, and made for the door. She lagged after me, groaning and mumbling to herself. " Hand a wee," came her cry, when I was stepping out on the road; and she came tottering down the little garden, to pull off the last tea-rose of summer on her one bush that struggled half way down the path and overspread most of the tiny patch of ground. " Tak' that," and she put it in my buttonhole. " Tak' it, and keep it; it'll save ye fra the ill. God keep ye safe, ma lad and with that she slapped me 011 the shoulder, and, having picked up her cat, turned slowly into her cottage. I was rather taken aback at the old woman's strange warning, and looked about me. The sun had sunk, leaving the clear sky above it bathed in gold; the littl# fleeces of cloud dyed amethyst and scarlet; the long ridge of cloud on the other side of the Bay, above the Craigs of Garchic to Craignarget Hill, all flushed with soft orange against the blue unspotted heavens that reached over the Machars to the dim, distant bills of the Stewartry. According to the weathercock on the old flour mill opposite, the wind blew from the south-west-it seemed steady to me. Down the brae on the near end of the quay, some fishermen were busily sheeting their nets into the different boats, preparatory to going out for the night; to the south, before the low stony snout of Killness Point, a small boat was lazily plying up and down, its occupant fishing for the silver and green-blue mackerel ; at the foot of the little street the villagers and coastguard lounged against the parapet of the bridge spanning the mill-race, or leant over it and idly spat into the water and talked as the occasional spirit moved them. All was calm; never better weathei for crossing tho Bay! So I turned"-in for supper; then, having taken my oilskins with me in case of rough weather on the return, Bodchen and I set sail due southward, so as to reach in on the failing wind, and also to make the most of the inshore current of the out-going tide. As we slid past Cairgarrock Bay, with its rows of salmon stakes running down into the tide, and stood off Kilness Point, I let my eyes rove up the Bay behind us. Its smooth surface was shimmering with the fading glow of the sky, with branching stretches of faint green-and-silver shot here and there with varying blue, where undercurrents disturbed the reflections, for scarcely a ripple showed on them; now and again a solitary wave broke suddenly against the stony beach on our port, its silver notes echoed to us over the silent waters that were fast ebbing out to the open sea; there was no sound save the constant gurgling of little waves curling along the bows ana planking, as the boat headed out towards the south. " Bodchen," said I, foolishly enough, " the 'old speywife was against our coming!" He shoved his quid into his cheek, gave an uncertain look at the village vanishing into the haze of distance, then scratched his head as if perplexed at this new complexion on the affair. " What for was she again' it?" he asked, anxiously, at last. "God knows!" I remarked, carelessly, trailing my hand in the cool water. " Some remarkable tides and something else stood in the way of our safety." "No, the Nine Tides?" he pumped out slowly, hastily bending forward into my face. "That was it!— voice of the Nine Tides," I cried. He drew back, and stared about. " She maun be wiang, she maun be wrang," In muttered, as if to convince himself. " The glass is high, the sky clear, and the wind jist owre saft, if onything! Na, na, thf witches'll be quiet this nicht!" "Witches!" I exclaimed. "Ay," said he, "the nine auld jades-» witches that flew doun fra Kindraw Hill, and begat these same Nine Tides, that rin a' ways, for the droonin' 0' St. Medan as she came fra Mourne wi' a witchfinder to destroy familiars oot o the land. Sure, they drooned him ; but the Saintie, she jisb launched at them, and set them droonin' for ever amang their ain tides." I burst out laughing. " You're an old wife, Bodchen," I cried, in amusement. He steadied the rudder, then shook his head at me. " Na, na, my young sir!" he replied solemnly. "Gin tho wund blaws high, and we're owre near to the meetin' o' the Tides, ye'll be hearin' them cry and cry on yo to help them. And, then—God save us. Ay, the witchwife kens an unco lot." He lapsed into silence, and I said nothing, but continued to smoke my pipe. About half-past ten, two hours or so after starting, the night wind fell, leaving us becalmed, about seven furlongs off Portankill, lying under a mile and a half from the forbidding blunt head of the Mull. "Bodchen, my man," said I, as I re-lit my pipe; " this will never do! The wind's gone off altogether; never a puff to move a sparrow's feathers, far less a strong lump of a boat like this! Better out with the oars and put back; or else into Portankill, and wait for the first fair wind! When it does come it will be strong!" Bodchen had been peering about, now ahead on the Legvag, below the Mull Lighthouse, now toward the land that under the bright starlight gloomed out through the darkness a mere vague huge mass, best indicated by the flash of the Mull Light. "Na, na, sir," he exclaimed, rubbing his hands on his trousers to warm them, for the air was chilly. "That'll no do. There's a guid wund comin'. I ken it!" and he sniffed in the fresh briny atmosphere. " You need not put your nose up into the air, Bodchen, and sniff about; for devil a whiff of wind will come this way, until either the tide is on the turn or before sunrise. Hen it will be a three-reef below!" I persisted. " Weel, sir, we'll wait a wee and see, for I dinna like to draw back fra any venture gin the hand o' God seems again' it. We're movin'! The tide's carrying the boat! I feel the drag 0' it again' the rudder." •"All right then,' I said, "light your compass lantern, and remember the runs of the outer currents. It's getting pesky dark, and the Scaurs lie within four miles of us to the south-east." As he fumbled with the lamp-glass I looked over the dark weltering waters to where the rugged Scaurs lie midway across the month of the Bay; I had little desire

to get within seeing distance of them—even now the roar of the surf could be heard as it beat against them. " Bodchen," I cried, " this is ill-meaning calm; I can hear the surf against the Scaurs!" He snapped to the door of the latere, listened for a moment as he straightened his back, then looked about him into the night. "Na, sir," he answered slowly, "that canna' be the surf! It maun be the grund swell o' the Channel, it's so heavy." The loose rudder clung dully against the stern. Bodchen seized it again, drove the tiller further into the rudder-head with a vicious tap from a sinking-lead, and put the boat aport. "It's the ground swell and a devilish heavy yin!" he exclaimed as the boat began to lurch to and fro. "We had best get into the nor' current bearin' up the Bay, or the onset o' the sair swell again' the tide'll weet us sairly." I assented and took the tiller, when he bent his back to the oars. As the boat heaved from side to side on the undulating swell more acutely and more violently as time went on, the old man began to shake his head and talk in his beard. The light of the compass-lamp in the stern-sheets caught my right knee to shine out in a narrow wedge-shaped stream; lit up Bodchen's wizened, weatherlined face and stumpy beard; fell dimly on the slack brown lugsaij and just caught the jig halyard. Without the radius of the light the night seemed like to an ever-receding, everenclosing wall of solid darkness, that hid the heavy surges of the Irish Channel, when I they rolled up and lapped noisily against! the'frail side of the boat, and passed under ! it as it rose with a deep-drawn gurgle, sickening to hear. 1 looked into the west. Not a star could j now be seen. Only the flash of the Mull ! Light wavered over the wandering water to us. "Hullo, Bodchen, that's bad?'' I exclaimed, and pointed to the sudden gatherin" of blackness. He shook his head. "I'm fearing it'll ! get waur," he answered testily, resting on his oars. He sniffed in the cool air, but could smell no sharpness of the open sea, nothing save the fishiness of the boat; could note no j tokens of wind, nothing except the thickness extending now into the south. 1 was peering into the compass when a low monstrous hissing rang far and wide out of the murk darkness of our port. That great sibilant sound of swiftly travel-, ling wind made me shudder— fearful did j it sound to me in a small boat engulfed in the utter loneliness of a desolate, menacing • sea at black night time. I The boatman had ceased pulling to shield , his eyes from the lamp, the light of which | now shone a weakly yellow against the j thickening air. i A flurry of wind shook the idle sail flapping i against the mast; Bodchen gazed intently j out to the channel. The boat ran up the , unseen breast of a big surge and dropped ■ again with a sickening swoop. All in a | jump he had in his oars, and was tugging ; frantically at the mainsail halyards. " Port, ( port." he cried in a hoarse burst; for 'with | a wild screech the bellowing wind was down | on us. I Pressed forward by the big jib the boat I shoved her nose into it, climbed slowly the | mountainous foam-flecked ridge of dark i green water racing towards her, then • plunged headlong into the hollow beneath, j ■ which was already swelling with the next , roller. I Bodchen sprang to the rudder. In the I; cmve the relioisted close-reefed mainsail lost j the screaming wind, and with a clapping ! like slight thunder we staggered to the top j of the heavy sea. | "Off wi' "the jib and set the storm topsail. In wi' the mainsail; it canna keep the wund," he yelled in my ear. I crawled forward, hauled in the jib, and set the topsail, then loosening the mainsail tackle snugged the lug down by sheer main force along the side of the boat, yet kept it ready for instant use. Under the topsail the boat tore through the swirling water. As I was laying hold of the oilskins the white crest of a wave, breaking before the boat took it, swept in a solid mass of spray over the bows and port gunwale. I snatched the dippers from under a thwart and started bailing out the water. A warning cry from Bodchen, loud above , the howling of the wind, startled me. One I glance ahead was enough; I flung myself j down and gripped the thwarts. With a dex- i terous shove of the rudder the boat breasted | the immense black mass of roaring, frothing, I seas, but its spray shot over the port side | and half filled the boat. The water swirled half way up to our knees: I baled for dear j 1 life's sake. , The spindrift spattered stinging against | our faces; we could not see a boat's length before us in the howling darkness. But i Bodchen, with his lips compressed, never ; 1 moved or spoke. The soaking peaked cap I ' was .tugged down over his brows; I could j 1 see his eves beneath it glowering out over j 1 the boiling waste of waters, and his rigid 1 hands clutched firmly the tiller— never I shrank from man's combat against the over-] 1 mastering sea. 1 By this time I had grown fearful of the I I Scaurs, and. with the topsail halyards in my I ' hands in case of the wind suddenly veering, ; 1 sat streaming wet on the aft thwart, grip- | 1 ping it with my knees, and straining my j 1 eyes over the inky seas that burst toward ] the weather bow. Now they deluged us as 1 ' their seething white tops lashed thudding against the frail gunwale; now they slid 1 past, hissing and gleaming with phos- 1 phorous. ' The velocity of the wind blinded my 1 eyes; for a moment I turned to Bodchen. "Where are we?" I shouted. "South. ; 1 south-east inside of the Scaurs," he bellowed j 1 back; " she can weather the seas on that . I tack, no other! God help us gin we drift i into the channel." j 1 I looked at him and nodded, and having 1 slipped on my oilskins, gazed to windward. ! ' The pitch blackness had fled before the : ! wind: a strange grey misty darkness held ■ 1 the air. * ' : The wind fell suddenly. I thought I • 1 heard a faint cry. But it could only have : 1 been that of a sea bird or the creation of ! ' my sense overstrained with the terrific j night and the danger. j " Stand By for the change." Bodchen ! shouted. " Slack your sheets." j I did so, and sat quiet and ready. 1 To mv amazement a huge tub of a high ship forged suddenly out of the night from windward and stood down on our port bow. Past us it drove up the bay, with its square tattered main topsail, foresail, and lialfbrailed jibs full bellied with the wind; j tossing and scattering the seas with its bluff high-pitched stern; but with never a man visible. In another instant it was lost in the smother of mist and further gloom. " Bodchen!" 1 yelled in surprise, " what sort of ship is that?" At the same instant the boat lost way, and coming broadside on against the foaming surges, was almost swamped by the burst of green water. I was about to snatch the dipper and bale her out when I happened to look at Bodchen; he sat staring before him, a dazed look of fear on his face when he swayed toward into the compass light. I scrambled over the thwarts, and seized the rudder in time to avoid the next roller, which, striking us, would have filled the boat. I shook him violently. " What's wrong?" I shrieked. "We're lost, lost. O God, we're lost," was his hoarse crv. " How!" I flashed out all in a panic. "The ship, the Spanish Ship the Tides beguiled langsyne," he moaned. And the witchwife s prophecy darted into my head. " There was no ship, man! You imagined it. I saw no ship," I yelled angrily; for now lie seemed more a fool than a man. Bodchen did not answer; he covered his face with his hands, as if he was awaiting somethipg in dread. ~ About us the waters were now heavin" in confused runs; little swirls broke against the boat's gunwale and bows; several heads of spray shot up from the bank of a wave to splash on the water shipped in the body of the boat. Before me in the lightened darkness I could discern a great stretch of yeasty sea, the waves of which leapt up into the air like shooting, snarling tongues, to fall against one another with sharp sounds like to loud cracking whips. Clearly we were in the meeting of the nine currents running past the Mull Head. The boat could not live for a minute there. I roused Bodchen; but to no good, he only cowered the more. So jamming up the helm I hauled on the lee sheet of the trysail. The boat paid off handsomely before the wind; and not any too soon for our safety. ''

" Rouse up, Bodchen, rouse up and be a man," I howled. Down on the gusty blasts a sharp clamour of wild voices poured in my hearing; the horrible clamour of drowning people. I leapt up, and standing in the stern sheets scanned the angry sea far and near. It was impossible any folk could be drowning; for the noise sounded close, and I saw not a vestige of anything but raging water. Again it rang out. sharper and more horrid than before. What could it be but the voices of the Nine Tides as they clashed and swirled against each other? But Bodchen had sprung up. "Hear the folk cry," he shouted madly. " 'Bout helm and up to them. They're cryin' on me, cryin' on mc." And he grappled the tiller. "Sit down, man," I cried, pulling him aside. He thrust- me away, and shoving the rudder down brought the boat round slowly, j the wet topsail cracking like distant can- J non. He glared insanely at me. I called fiercely, | '"Youll sink the boat in a minute if you take her into the tides." "Do ye no' hear the cries," he shrieked furiously; and half rising up he aimed a blow at me. The boat was tossed up on the sudden swell of a hissing wave; he fell forward. I sprang on him. and in a trice had him bound fast hand and foot with the cords of his mackerel lines; and bundled him between the mid-thwarts, where he lay cursing and swearing at me with the water swishing about his struggling body. Then putting the boat before the wind—that was now steady though blowing hard—l hoisted a strip of close-reefed mainsail; and setting my course west-south-west made for home. The worst of the storm was over, and in an hour or so, though the swell was yet heavy, the danger bus gone. A little before sunrise, when the dark sky above the Machars was changing into light purple and scarlet and blue, I sighted Druniore; and never was man more glad For Bodchen lay in a heap, ominously still, breathing so softly, that I was afraid. Never again had Drumore thought to have seen us alive. A buzz of eager inquiries rang out from the first-of-thc-tide fishermen as I floated round the quay end. A glimpse of Bodchen silenced them, and they turned with awe. "Ay," said Murdoch M'Dowall, as he helped to lift him up the quay stairs, "thank God that ye heard the Nine Tides and cam' back alive to dry land. Few. few have done that! Puirßodchen." He and his mates carried the old boatirtan home. But I turned up the steep street, and tapped on the white witch's door and walked in on her as she was blowing up the newly-kindled fire. She nodded triumphantly when she saw me enter. " Ay." she cried in her high quavering voice, " I telt ye that ye'd come back alive. Ye'll believe an auld speywife 1100 when she warns ye." I told her about Bodchen. "Aince mair he'll hear the Nine Tides calling him, and he'll ne'er come liame again." She got upon her feet with an effort. " Come here, my lad. come here," she cried, and hobbled outside her little dew-drenched garden. "Maybe ye thinks the speerits o' the Nine Witches dinna live. Awa and see the foul mark o' their spite at me for the rose in yer breast." She pointed to the great straggling rosebush which I had repassed without looking at, so distracted was I with the night's adventure. I looked closely at it. Before my eyes in the pale grey light of morning it lay a mere black heap, all blasted and burned by the evil spirits of the Nine Tides of Gron-no-boghar. [the end.]