Happy birthday to poet Robert Burns and author Willie Meikle! For two hundred and twenty three years, the faithful have celebrated the life and writings of poet Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) on or around this day. And this day is also, as it happens, the birthday of Scottish* horror writer Willie Meikle, our inspiration for this series of peculiar Scottish supernatural tales and trivia, and who is still around, thank goodness.
*’Scottish’ and ‘Scots’ are both permitted and respectable; ‘Scotch’ is frowned upon, except when referring to specific items, such as Scotch eggs, Scotch whisky and so on.
Burns Nicht, or even Burns Day in some parts of the Scottish diaspora, is a time for haggis, whisky and verse, the traditional Burns Supper. And on the way to supper, we encounter a bridge, an abandoned church, , and Game of Thrones — because we’re like that…
Each in its cold hand held a light: By which heroic Tom was able To note upon the holy table, A murderer’s bones, in gibbet-irons; Two span-long, small, unchristened babies; A thief just cut from his hanging rope – With his last gasp his mouth did gape;
(‘Tam o’ Shanter’)
Yesterday’s story here, ‘The Eyes of Doom’, featured the small town of Arrochar, and if you drive for about an hour and half due south (trying not to drown in the Firth of Clyde), you will come to Alloway, the village where Robert Burns was born. Apart from its historical relevance as his birthplace, Alloway has two sites of of particular interest to us — the ruins of Alloway Kirk, and the Brig o’ Doon, a fifteenth century bridge located south of Alloway.
Brig o’ Doon, built somewhere between 1420 and 1465, still stands, though it has been repaired many times. It was by riding madly over this bridge that Tam o’ Shanter escaped the witches who pursued him, as described in the eponymous 1790 poem by Burns. Does its name sound familiar? Yes, that’s where the 1947 Brigadoon musical (and the subsequent 1954 film) got the title, though unlike Alloway, Brigadoon is a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years — a common enough element of European folk-tales.
The idea of a place cursed to have only a day or a few days in ‘normal’ space has become such a trope that it even occupies a whole Deep Space Nine episode — ‘Meridian’. Jadzia Dax encounters a whole planet, albeit with no more than a small village-sized community which disappears for decades and is only in phase with the usual DS9 universe for short periods. And it involves a love story, as usual, though not quite as successful a one as in Brigadoon.
Alloway Auld Kirk also still stands, but only as a well-kept ruin, and was built about a century later than the bridge. Robert Burns’s father is buried there (under the surname ‘Burnes’), and it is this church which is central to ‘Tam o’ Shanter’.
Burns himself told a friend that he drew upon a folk tale told to him to construct the poem, a tale which began (in his words):
“On a market-day, in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the River Doon, at the old bridge, which is almost two or three hundred yards farther on than the said old gate, had been detained by his business till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning.
“Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well known fact, that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, thorough the ribs and arches of an old gothic window which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty black-guard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe.”
In 1910, it was recorded that Burns had a snuffbox made from wood out of the kirk ruins, on which was inscribed the marvellous verse:
“Frae the oak that bare the riggin’,
O Alloway’s auld haunted biggin’,
Frae the thorn aboon the well,
Whaur Mungo’s mither hanged hersel’.”
the kirk today
TAM O’ SHANTER
So, to the poem itself, which is a grand horror tale of a man who observes a ‘Witches’ Sabbath’, and is pursued by sundry hags until he finally wins free at the last minute, courtesy of the Brig o’ Doon and his faithful mare, Maggie. That Game of Thrones connection? James Cosmo, who played Jeor Mormont, the Old Bear, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, has delivered perhaps the best aural version of ‘Tam O’Shanter’ yet. Born James Ronald Gordon Copeland, he’s been in too many film and TV series to list, everything from Dr Finlay’s Casebook, UFO, Gladiator, and the Chronicles of Narnia, to His Dark Materials. Here he is in very fine form:
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).
O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;
That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday,
She prophesied that late or soon,
Thou wad be found, deep drown’d in Doon,
Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld, haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!
But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi reaming saats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
His ancient, trusty, drougthy crony:
Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The Landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favours secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The Landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E’en drown’d himsel amang the nappy.
As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.—
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d:
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.
Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow’rin round wi’ prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.
By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoor’d;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murder’d bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel’.
Before him Doon pours all his floods,
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods,
The lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Near and more near the thunders roll,
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze,
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle,
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw’d the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi’ his last gasp his gabudid gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted:
Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled:
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled.
Whom his ain son of life bereft,
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,
Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.
As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The Piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
The reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linkit at it in her sark!
Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans,
A’ plump and strapping in their teens!
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flainen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!—
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush o’ guid blue hair,
I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,
Louping an’ flinging on a crummock.
I wonder did na turn thy stomach.
But Tam kent what was what fu’ brawlie:
There was ae winsome wench and waulie
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after ken’d on Carrick shore;
(For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!
But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewithc’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d:
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skreich and hollow.
Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell, they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy-utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stone o’ the brig;
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:
Whene’er to Drink you are inclin’d,
Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o’er dear;
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.
More SCOTLAND THE STRANGE in a couple of days. Previous article here:
This week, in honour of Burns Night, which celebrates Scottish poet Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), our greydogtales site begins a ramble through the subject of Scottish supernatural/horror and related cultural stuff. We’ll have some classic tales, new material, guest reviews of some really bad films set in Scotland, and all sorts, alongside which we will also celebrate veteran storyteller Willie Meikle’s forthcoming book of his own weird fiction, ‘Haunted Scotland’ — the other reason for staging this event.
And we should we, Yorkshire folk born and bred, be doing this? Partly because our friend Willie has had some very rough health problems this last couple of years — and partly because we are terribly Northern at heart. Remember, if you skin a Scotsman, you will find a Yorkshireman underneath, going through the Scotsman’s purse.
Dour, careful with money, generous with food, and sometimes incomprehensible to outsiders (there are elements of the Scots language and the old Yorkshire dialects which are mutually recognisable), the people of the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England have a long history of raiding each other and burning each other down, but both are rightly suspicious of the English in the South, where everyone lives on caviar and champagne, bought with the stolen wealth of the North. Or something like that.
ben lomond (see story)
So, rather than rattle on further today, we start with a tale which may be less well known, one of the 1920s supernatural stories of writer Ella Scrymsour, set in Scotland, of course. If you simply want a ‘good’ read, the first of Scrymsour’s six ‘Shiela Crerar’ tales is presented in full below. If you want more background, this post from a while ago may provide some enlightenment.
‘Eyes of Doom’ is classic fun, and though not without its faults and oddities, is a rare example of a female writer of those times writing a female ‘occult detective’…
THE EYES OF DOOM
by Ella Scrymsour
SHIELA CRERAR FELT VERY LONELY as she sat in her tiny sitting-room in her dreary lodgings. She was tired, too, mentally as well as physically, and she tried to forget the misery of the past six months.
An orphan, she had been brought up by an uncle who idolised her. For twenty-two years she had lived in happiness in their home in the Highlands. She could visualise it now. A smallish house for a laird, built in the true Scottish baronial style, with turreted roof and pepper-box corners and a tiny courtyard. ‘Kencraig’ was built on the top of a high eminence overlooking Loch Lubnaig, and it had been one of her chief delights to sit among the heather and watch the rippling waters of the lake beneath. To her left was Ben Ledi, and she revelled in his rugged beauty. He stood for strength and chivalry in her young mind, and she always thought of him as a rough but courteous Bruce, with shaggy locks and tartan kilts flying in the wind. It was only a girlish fancy, but to her the Ben was a living personality – nature’s gentleman – a Highland chief.
For twenty-two years she had bid him good morning and waved him a good night. For twenty-two years she had wandered among the heather, bathed in the Loch, and driven into Callender once a week to do her shopping. And now – she wondered why this sorrow should have come to her. Six months ago she had been out in the woods gathering rowan berries. She had gone home gay and bright, but there was no welcoming figure of Uncle John waiting at the door for her. She went into his study – and, oh, the horror of it! He was sitting at his desk, his eyes open wide, his mouth twisted sideways, his hands cold. He did not answer her call. She knew he was dead. ‘Heart failure,’ the doctor said, and Shiela felt that the light had gone out of her world.
The funeral over, she had gone into the library with Mr MacArthur, her uncle’s attorney. At first Shiela did not understand what Mr MacArthur was trying to tell her. She couldn’t realise that she had been left penniless, with only a heavily mortgaged estate as a legacy. Mr MacArthur advised her to sell Kencraig, pay off the mortgage, and with what little remained over fit herself to take her place among the workers of the great world. But Shiela refused to sell her home. Every stone was precious to her, every corner was a dear, living friend.
At last she agreed to let it on a five years’ lease to a rich American widow.
‘What do you intend doing now?’ he asked.
‘I shall have about a hundred pounds. I shall go to London, and try and get something to do there.’
She was obstinate. She procured cheap rooms in London in a road derisively called Air Street. Her hundred pounds did not go far. In vain she tried for work in the great Metropolis; no one wanted her. Depressed and silent, she sat in her little room, and wondered what would happen when her scanty money gave out. She was a petite maid, with nut-brown hair and grey eyes that looked all too trustingly at a cruel and heartless world.
She had no money to spend on amusements, and as she walked the streets of the great city she saw visions of the long ago. She wandered in Lincoln’s Inn, and saw the passing of sedan chairs; watched gallants, with silken coat and jewelled sword, bend low before their lady loves. She sought out ‘old London’, and lived alone in the seventeenth century. Always psychic, her gift seemed trebled in her sorrow and loneliness, and her only friends now were the dim ghosts of the past.
She was sitting in the gardens of Lincoln’s Inn one day, when she suddenly became aware of a quaint figure beside her – a wizened man of perhaps sixty years, in a dark, claret-coloured suit, with a black three-cornered hat upon his knee. And as she looked, he took a pinch of snuff from a beautifully enamelled box, and applied it to his nostrils, his little finger delicately poised like a bird on the wing.
‘You are sad and lonely, little lady,’ he said suddenly. ‘Why not help those that are sad and lonely too? You have a gift – a most wonderful gift of sight. Use that sight for your own benefit and the benefit of mankind. I promise you, you will not fail.’
‘But how?’ she began, but the quaint little figure had gone; and there was only a fat old woman, with an untidy dress and a rusty black bonnet, watching her curiously from the further corner of the seat.
Shiela felt dazed. She rose and looked round. No, she was still in the bustling world of taxis and motor-buses. The picturesque past had vanished. She smiled a little, and went home, but her brain was working hard. She slept well that night, and when morning came her mind was made up.
For the next three days an advertisement appeared in the agony column of The Times:
Lady of gentle birth, Scottish, young, penniless, possessing strong psychic powers, will devote her services to the solving of uncanny mysteries or the ‘laying of ghosts’. Offer quite genuine. Reply, with particulars and remuneration offered, to S. C. c/o Mrs Barker, 14b Air Street, Regent’s Park, London.
And now she was waiting – waiting. Two days had passed since her advertisement had first appeared. A double knock sounded. The postman! A footstep sounded outside, and Mrs Barker appeared.
‘A registered letter for you, my dear,’ she remarked cheerily. ‘I’ll be bringing yer supper in ‘alf a tick. See, it’s a bloater tonight, ain’t it? A poor man’s steak, I calls it.’
And Shiela shuddered slightly. The well-meant vulgarity repelled her; the stench of cooking fish nauseated her. She felt nervy, restless, ill. The Highlands were calling her – she longed to feel the springy heather under her feet – to drink in the strong air. It was the call of the hills!
She looked at the thick, crested envelope curiously. It was certainly an answer to her advertisement, for it was addressed to her initials – S. C. Slowly she read it, and a flush of excitement crept into her cheeks.
Dunfunerie,
Loch Long, N.B.
If S. C.’s offer is really genuine, will she accept the enclosed £10 on account for immediate expenses, and wire Lady Kildrummie that she is prepared to try to solve, and perhaps lay for ever, the very unpleasant mystery known as the ‘Kildrummie Weird’? If S. C. states the time she will arrive at Arrochar Station, Lady Kildrummie will see that there is a car sent to meet her.
Shiela’s eyes glowed. Arrochar! Scotland! Her luck had turned at last. She was going back to her beloved Highlands. But would she succeed in her undertaking? Then she remembered the ‘little old man’ in Lincoln’s Inn. ‘You will not fail,’ he had said. Of course, she had heard of the ‘Kildrummie Weird’. Who had not? Was it not as much speculated upon as the hidden mystery of Glamis? Was it not even as mysterious? What was the story – did not some great calamity happen when the Weird appeared?
Next day she wired Lady Kildrummie that she would come at once, and she caught the night train to Glasgow where she changed for the West Highland line. At Arrochar Station, over which Ben Lomond towers, she looked round eagerly.
A tall man in the late thirties came towards her – a handsome man, rugged, strong, in a kilt of the Cameron tartan, his mother’s clan.
‘Miss Crerar?’ he asked, raising his bonnet. ‘I am Stavordale Hartland. My aunt, Lady Kildrummie, asked me to meet you.’
His voice was pleasantly tuneful, and the wholesome admiration in his eyes could do nought but please her. Instantly she compared him to rugged Ben Ledi, and, had the man at her side but known, it was the greatest compliment she could have paid him.
Dunfunerie was situate on the Argyllshire side of Loch Long, nestling under the great shoulder of ‘The Cobbler’ himself. Lady Kildrummie met her with outstretched hands. ‘How good of you to come, my dear. Are you by any chance related to Crerar of Kencraig?’
‘He was my uncle.’
‘Then you are doubly welcome, for Kencraig was my late husband’s greatest friend. Now, Stavordale, you can leave Miss Crerar and me to have tea together.’
It was not until they had finished their tea that her hostess commenced her story.
‘My dear, I am in great trouble,’ she said, by way of starting. ‘Your advertisement interested me, and I wondered if you could “lay for ever” the Weird that haunts this place. Up to now the story has been kept absurdly secret – I think none of us wanted to believe in it. Since the time of Coinneach the Strong, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, Kildrummie has been cursed by this Weird. Every twenty-three years some terrible calamity has occurred in the family, preceded for about six months by “The Eyes”.’
‘The Eyes?’
‘Yes, the “Eyes of Doom” they are called. The Kildrummie Weird takes the form of eyes that appear and disappear, and are mainly seen in the west wing. In recent years calamity has fallen on this house after the Eyes have been seen. In 1874, the year I was married, my husband’s two elder brothers died – each by his own hand. One was found drowned in the Loch, the other was shot on the summit of the “Cobbler” yonder. At both inquests the verdict was “accidental death”, but we all knew better. It was “the Eyes” that had driven them mad. My husband became heir to the title, and in 1897 my eldest son poisoned himself. Again it was put down to an accident. He was dabbling in photography, and it was supposed that he took some cyanide by mistake for his medicine. But it was no accident – twenty-three years had passed, and he had seen “The Eyes”. This is 1920, Miss Crerar; it is twenty-three years since Diarmid died, and I am afraid. My son Duncan, the only one left to me, is now twenty-six years old. Lately he has complained of being kept awake at night by curious creakings. He has seen strange lights, and, oh, he is changed. I can’t explain what I mean; you will see for yourself; he is all nerves. I am convinced he has seen “The Eyes of Doom”. Will you try and solve the mystery for me, Miss Crerar? What the cause is I don’t know, but the hideous waiting for some tragedy to fall is terrible.’
‘I’ll do my best, Lady Kildrummie. I can promise you no more.’
That evening Shiela met Duncan Kildrummie. Although young, he was a distinguished soldier – had won the D.S.O., and been mentioned several times in despatches, and had the reputation among his friends of being a regular dare-devil. But Shiela had a shock when she saw him. His hands were restless, the flesh under his eyes was puffy and dark, and if he was spoken to suddenly his whole body would respond with nervous twitchings.
‘Lady Kildrummie,’ she said after dinner, ‘will you put your son into another room to sleep, and leave his empty for me to examine? I can see he is in a state of great mental distress. Can’t you get him to go away for a change?’
‘It’s no use, Miss Crerar. I have begged him to go away, but nothing will induce him to leave.’
That night Shiela changed into a dark rest-gown, and when everyone had retired to bed she prowled up and down the long corridors armed only with a tiny flash-lamp. She unlocked the chapel door and went inside. Suddenly she felt an icy blast that seemed to pierce through her, and the heavy door closed silently behind her. She felt startled, and tried to open it, but the catch was down on the other side. She was locked in! The sudden gust of wind was not repeated, yet she found she was shivering with cold from head to foot. Always venturesome, the thought never entered her head to find a way of rousing the household. If she was unable to get out, then she would stay in the chapel till day came.
She sat down in one of the old-fashioned pews and looked about her. The moon was conveniently bright, and she could distinguish objects quite clearly by its light.
As she sat she became aware that someone was looking at her, and she turned sharply round.
A pair of eyes was gazing at her, eyes so mournful, so full of grief that Shiela felt her own fill with tears of sympathy.
And as she met the piteous gaze she became suddenly conscious of the fact that the eyes were not framed by a face! She rose with a startled exclamation of horror, and turned away, but to her right another pair of eyes appeared, eyes this time that were mad with hate; eyes so filled with loathing and malevolence that Shiela backed away from them in fear. But now the whole chapel seemed filled with the ghastly sight. Eyes with expression, eyes without! Eyes kind, eyes cruel! Eyes imbecile, eyes fanatical! Eyes with every expression in them that man could conceive.
Shiela put out her hands to beat the swelling mass away, but even as her arms were extended in front of her they were caught in a ghostly vice, and she was dragged to the vestry door.
She was drawn by unseen hands – hands that possessed an unseen body. All that she could see of her captor was two eyes, eyes that shone in the moonlight and that looked at her with cruel menace.
The vestry door swung silently open, and she was dragged through, followed by the eyes. She had no time to look round, for the door that communicated with the west wing, which was always doubly locked and barred, now stood open wide, and through it Shiela was taken.
The west wing was partly a ruin, and the wind whistled through glassless windows and roofless halls. Then the grip of iron relaxed, and she found she was in a small turret chamber, and around her were twenty-three pairs of eyes – all baleful and cruel, except one, and that one pair seemed as if they might belong to a wounded deer, so plaintive were they, so mournful and sad.
Shiela moved towards the door, but the eyes surrounded her. She tried to dodge them, tried to get away from them, but it was impossible. She was as keenly guarded as if by living bodies. Then she grew really frightened, terrified, her brain seemed to go numb, her teeth chattered, and she cried aloud in her agony of dread. But the eyes grew fiercer and more cruel – they seemed to menace her. With a cry she threw herself at the bodiless terrors, and all became dark.
For awhile she remembered nothing, then she was conscious that she was being carried down long corridors and up steep stairs. There was the sound of a click, and a voice said, ‘Do you want anything, Miss Crerar? I heard you call out, so I came across to you.’ It was Lady Kildrummie.
‘I’m thirsty,’ cried Shiela, ‘and, oh, please, Lady Kildrummie, will you put the light on.’
But Lady Kildrummie stared in amazement, for she had switched on the electric light as she entered the room! She bent over the girl. Here eyes were open wide, but they met her gaze with a cold stare. The sight had gone!
‘My dear, my dear,’ she breathed, ‘what has happened?’
‘I – I hardly know. I – I was in the chapel – oh, do please put on the light. It is so dark here.’
Tenderly the elder woman put her arms about the girl.
‘Tell me first what is the matter,’ she said gently. ‘The dark is so peaceful, and I am here with you.’
Incoherently Shiela spoke. ‘I was in the chapel – through the turret room. There were twenty-three eyes – ‘ The girl’s voice trailed off. She seemed to be in a stupor, but her eyes were still wide open. Lady Kildrummie rang a bell.
‘Tell Doctor Graeme to come here at once,’ she said to the startled maid. ‘Miss Crerar is ill.’
The genial doctor, a guest in the house, came hurriedly and examined the girl.
‘She’s had a shock,’ he said.
‘Her eyes! Her eyes!’ cried Lady Kildrummie, distractedly.
‘My God! Blind! But she was all right at dinner!’ said the doctor.
That night a watchful vigil was kept over Shiela, and when the sun rose she awoke from her torpor and looked at Lady Kildrummie in amazement.
‘What is the matter?’ she asked, curiously. ‘Why are you here?’
And her hostess realised that she had regained the power of sight. When the doctor saw her he stared at her in amazement.
‘My dear young lady, why, I – I – bless my soul – there’s nothing wrong with her!’
Shiela told Lady Kildrummie of her experience in the night, but her hostess smiled.
‘You have certainly described the turret room, Miss Crerar, but you couldn’t have got into it last night, as I hold the key.’
‘But I did,’ protested Shiela. ‘The door was open wide.’
‘Well, we will go and look at it as soon as you are up, but I assure you it would be quite impossible for anyone to open the door without my key.’
‘Now,’ said Lady Kildrummie later, ‘you see this door is twice bolted and twice locked.’
The bolts were stiff and the key turned with great difficulty, but the nail-studded door swung open at last. Shiela gave a little cry of triumph. The floor, thickly coated with the dust of ages, was marked by freshly made footprints – footprints of long, pointed boots that crossed and recrossed each other – and among the old-fashioned prints were some made by a little, light modern shoe.
Shiela took hers off, and bent down to the mark nearest the door. It fitted exactly!
‘I was here last night,’ she whispered, hysterically.
But Lady Kildrummie was almost speechless, and terror shone in her eyes. ‘The Eyes of Doom,’ she muttered, hoarsely. ‘God help us, for our troubles are beginning.’
That night as Shiela was preparing for bed again the melancholy eyes appeared. She looked at them fearfully. It was an awe-inspiring sight to watch those expressive eyes move about, propelled by an unseen force. They seemed to float in the air, and she knew their power of locomotion rested in the bodies that were hidden from her sight. And even as she waited the other eyes manifested themselves. She tried to resist, but the ghostly hands were too strong, and again she was taken to the turret room. A circle of eyes was around her – eyes on a level with her own, but only space above them and space below. But they seemed less malignant, less cruel, though terrifying nevertheless. They seemed to be trying to tell her something, but she was unable to read their message. She was nervous, she was on the defensive, and unconsciously she rendered herself out of tune with the Weird. She was not in a fit psychic state to understand them. She was in too material a condition. The eyes seemed to realise this, and they grew menacing again, fretful, impatient. Again there came to the girl a space of forgetfulness, and when she awoke to realities she was back in her room, and she realised she was blind!
She moved uncertainly about the room. Everything seemed unfamiliar to her, unreal. Her eyes hurt her, they seemed inflamed, they were sore. All night long the pain was unbearable, and she sat on a chair, helpless and miserable. But as the dawn came so a veil seemed to be lifted from her eyes, and she could see once more. It was a blindness that came with the darkness and went with the morning light.
During the day Shiela was trying to get into communion with the astral world. She was trying to fit herself to ‘see’ even deeper into the mysteries of the ‘unknown’. It was her first trial alone, and she was gradually becoming fitted for the task she had set herself.
Daily Duncan Kildrummie grew more silent, more morose, more taciturn. The Kildrummie Weird was trying to claim him as its victim, and he realised it and knew he was too weak to hold out against it for long. Soon he, too, would die – and die ‘accidentally’, as so many members of his family had done.
The eyes grew more venturesome. One night a pair hovered over the dinner table, and gazed at Duncan intently. All saw them, and as Lady Kildrummie screamed in terror they disappeared. But Duncan rose, and stumbled blindly out of the room. Stavordale went quickly after him, and found his cousin staring at the cold waters of the Loch. He was staring, staring, and there was a look of madness in his eyes. The next night several pairs circled round him. He tried to beat them off, but they seemed always just out of his reach, and their expression mocked him.
Stavordale Hartland attached himself to Shiela, and she found his strong personality a great help to her in the nerve-racking time she was going through. Night after night when the eyes claimed her she found she was a helpless entity in their grasp. And in the turret room they supplicated, entreated, menaced her, and still she was unable to read their meaning.
And daily the eyes seemed to appear more often. They followed Duncan from room to room, they drove him out of the house, and he would disappear for hours at a time, and his mother’s heart would ache with apprehension.
One night Shiela resolved not to go to bed, and Lady Kildrummie and Stavordale agreed to sit up all night with her in the library. For Shiela had come to dread the period of blindness that was forced upon her in so mysterious a way, and she wondered if in company she would be strong enough to resist the ghostly hands.
First one pair of eyes appeared, and then another, until all twenty-three pairs surrounded the trio. As if turned to stone, Lady Kildrummie and Stavordale Hartland watched Shiela forcibly dragged out of the room. They could neither move nor speak, and when Shiela returned to them she found that three helpless people would have to stay in the library until dawn, for this time they were all blind!
Next night Shiela and Stavordale were standing together watching Duncan walking restlessly up and down the terrace.
‘Don’t you think you had better give all this up, little girl?’ said Stavordale Hartland, and his voice held a tender, caressing note.
‘I can’t’ she said, passionately. ‘Look at him. He is all his mother has. Can’t you see the Eyes are driving him mad? The Weird will claim another victim unless I can prevent it.’ And even as she spoke the evil eyes appeared, phosphorescent in the darkness, and with a wild shriek Duncan Kildrummie fled into the blackness of the night. Until the morning he roamed the country at large, and when he appeared at breakfast he was haggard and worn, and the most inexperienced eye could tell that he was really ill.
Shiela alone seemed to have a soothing effect upon him, and when later in the day Dr Graeme administered a sleeping draught, he suggested that Shiela should sit by his bedside until it took effect. Lady Kildrummie left her for a moment, and immediately Shiela was conscious that the Eyes were watching her.
Before she realised it she was in the turret room, and she found she was numb from head to foot – she was powerless to move. As she watched, the eyes suddenly materialised into men. Gradually their bodies appeared until twenty-two men in doublet and hose stood before her. Their garments were of silk and velvet – rich, costly, gay. And the twenty-third of that ghostly company was a girl, almost a child of not more than fifteen years. Her hair was unbound and her face distorted with grief, and she clung piteously to a black-bearded man of middle age. A ghostly play began, and all the while Shiela watched with increasing horror. Others appeared on the scene – men in kilt and plaid, with dirks drawn, dirks red with blood. Roughly the girl was torn from the arms of her father and bound with hempen ropes.
The scenes that followed were hideous to behold, and Shiela knew that there was a power at work that compelled her to watch. The captive girl writhed and tore at her bonds, but all to no purpose – they were too cunningly tied. Not a word was said aloud, but the agonised expressions, the black terror spoke louder than words.
Two ghostly figures in black carried in a red-hot brazier; the coal burned and seemed to splutter, yet made no sound. Two long irons were placed in the glowing coals. The prisoners made a desperate effort to overpower their captors; for a few moments the whole place was in confusion, but gradually their efforts were subdued, and one by one they were dragged to the fire. One by one the red-hot iron was plunged into their eyes, one by one they were blinded and flung aside to die.
Shiela watched twenty-two men done to death in this awful way. She watched their agonies of pain, their writhings, their torments, and the scene was all the more horrible because of the deathly silence that accompanied it.
There was but one more victim – the girl. Roughly she was dragged to the brazier, but a merciful Providence intervened, she stumbled and fell, and when a man roughly turned her over with his foot he found the gentle spirit had fled.
The assassins looked round the room at the dead, and even as they did so the scene changed, and Shiela found she was out in the chestnut avenue, standing before the giant tree, the pride of Dunfunerie. The rain poured down in torrents, the wind blew hard, her dress clung to her figure and chilled her, her shoes were covered with mud. A black-cowled monk approached, with beads and breviary. Horror came into his countenance as he stumbled over the still warm bodies. He touched the girl in gentle pity, but he was jostled away rudely. He opened his book, and Shiela could see that he was pleading to be allowed to say a prayer over the bodies. A huge man struck him, and as he picked himself up he silently cursed the murderers. He cursed them on the Holy Book, but they jeered in his face and continued their nefarious work.
There under the spreading chestnut tree a pit was dug, and, with neither prayer nor priest, into it the girl was flung. Then followed the other twenty-three. The hole was small – the bodies protruded above the sides. With a ribald smile on his cruel face, the menacing figure in black forced the ground to receive them. The pit was covered in with earth, the murdered ones were safely hidden away, and Shiela realised she had witnessed a scene that had taken place some three hundred years before, a scene that had been re-enacted for her benefit. At last she knew what ‘the Eyes’ had tried to tell her.
The figures died away, they seemed to be absorbed into the atmosphere itself, and once more only twenty-three pairs of eyes were left, but they were eyes that looked at her with gratitude. They knew she understood.
And as she watched them, too, fade away she was conscious that her limbs were once more warm. She looked round in bewilderment – there on the bed lay the sleeping form of Duncan Kildrummie. She was back in his room. She felt her dress – it was quite dry. Her shoes had no trace of mud upon them. Lady Kildrummie entered.
‘My dear, I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I am afraid I have been rather a long time. Why ‘ she broke off, ‘what’s the matter?’ For Shiela was gazing at the open door, and her expression was soft and pitiful. But Lady Kildrummie could not see the figure of a frail young girl, dressed in a soft homespun with a white kerchief round her shoulders, a girl who looked at Shiela with thanks in her soft brown eyes.
‘I think I shall be able to help you lay your “Weird” successfully, Lady Kildrummie,’ said Shiela. ‘I’ll tell you later, after I have had time to think.’ Next day a small party gathered underneath the chestnut tree. The turf was smooth and velvety – it had grown undisturbed for many centuries, but now it was being removed.
‘Ah!’ said Shiela, suddenly, for as the spade dug deep into the rich brown earth a skeleton arm appeared. Reverently the mould was moved. Twenty-two skeletons were unearthed, twenty-two skeletons of full-grown men, but at the bottom of the pit was a tiny skeleton, a skeleton crushed and broken. And Shiela knew it was the last remains of the girl – the Weird with the mournful eyes!
Reverently the bones were placed in an empty stone sarcophagus in the little chapel, and reverently the minister spoke the prayers for the dead. And as the last amen was said, Shiela heard an unseen choir burst out in song. It was the ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’.
Lady Kildrummie drew her cloak about her shoulders. ‘Do you hear the wind whistling?’ she asked. Shiela smiled. She knew.
Six weeks later Duncan Kildrummie was up for the first time, after a serious attack of brain fever, during which for some days his life had been in the balance. But now the nervous twitchings were entirely gone, and his eye was clear and steady.
‘And you think we are free of the “Weird” at last?’ asked Lady Kildrummie, as she was bidding Shiela goodbye.
‘I hope so. I don’t know the history of the turret room, but I should say the twenty-three were trapped there, and perhaps for religious reasons were foully murdered by some of your forebears. They were refused a Christian burial, and that accounted for their hatred and their hauntings. Their poor spirits were unable to rest in peace. Every twenty-three years – their number – they returned, but they could not make themselves understood.’
Stavordale accompanied Shiela to Glasgow. He was very silent during the journey, but as the train was drawing into the city he suddenly took one of her hands.
‘Miss Crerar – Shiela – I – I – won’t you give all this up?’ he urged.
‘I – I can’t,Mr Hartland.’
‘But why? Shiela, won’t you be my wife?’
‘I – I can’t explain, but I have a mission to fulfil. I have set myself a task, and I must complete it.’ She smiled at him. ‘Won’t you wait a little?’
‘Then you do care,’ he said, triumphantly, as he sought to draw her towards him, but the train had already stopped at the platform of the Glasgow terminus. Then all was bustle and rush, and it was not until he had said goodbye to her as she left for Edinburgh, where she had engaged rooms, that he realised she had not replied to his question!
Well, perhaps the time was not yet ripe for his love-making, but he realised whate’er might befall he had met his fate. And, like a knight in the ‘days of long ago’, the wish of his lady was his law. He would bide her time, impatient though he might be.
Lots more SCOTLAND THE STRANGE over the next couple of weeks, so do check back again!
