THE EXILE OF COLIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 4032, 23 June 1931, Page 73

THE EXILE OF COLIN.

By

Alisdair Macleod.

“ Man,” said old Angus, and there was a ring of pride in his voice, “ you would go far to find the equal of that, I’m thinking.” I nodded in silent agreement. Seated up here on the heather-clad height, with the grand peak of Ben Doran towering above, the whole of Stratharradale was spread out beneath us, from where the river Arradale swept in a wide curve into the valley, from the higher ground to the west, to where, after winding its way through the green pasture land on the valley floor, it emptied itself into the waters of the firth seven miles away. It was, indeed, a beautiful scene. The southern slopes of the valley were'clothed in the rich dark green of the Scotch fir, relieved here and there by the flaming russet of a stray birch—for it was late autumn —or by patches of the light green of a colony of larches. Right below us, and round to the north, were scattered little, white-washed, thatched cottages, each with its croft attached and each with a spiral of faint, blue smoke, ascending into the clear air from its chimney-can. “ Ay,” said Angus again, “ it’s a bonny bit o’ country indeed, and there’s many a laddie, thousands of miles away, that would be giving his right hand to be getting a sight of it again.” This, I thought, was putting it rather strongly. “ Perhaps,” I said. “ But, after being back for a little while, it’s my opinion these same laddies would be willing enough to return to Canada or Australia. It’s all very well to come back to the land of one’s birth, but what is there here for a man with his way to make to come back to ? ”

“ Indeed and you’re right,” said Angus. “ The crofters hereabouts are hard put to it to make ends meet as it is, and och! the pity of it. The old folks dying out, the young ones going away, and the land going over to the grazing. Man! do you see that patch of green on the far side of the slope there? Twenty years ago there were four families living and thriving on that piece of land, and now look at it! Ay! the old days and the old ways are passing, and the people themselves are changing.” “For the better, you must admit,” I said.

This seemed to rouse the old man’s ire. “For the better!” he cried fiercely. " And is it a change for the better that’s driving all the young lads like sheep out o’ the village and far away, and

nothing but a handful of doddering old bodaehs left to work the crofts? Ay, it’ll end up with Macdonald of Arkan having his sheep on Stratharradale from end to end. The sheep grazing where the corn grew, and a fine end to it all.” There was a bitterness in his tone that surprised me. During my short stay in the strath I had come to look upon Angus as an easy-going old bachelor, who was content to draw his old-age pension each week and generally spend his days in a state of genial loafing. But this side of his nature was new to me.

“ Angus,” I said, “ there may be a few young men left in Stratharradale, as you say, but isn’t it good to think of the name these same lads, and many more besides, are making for themselves in the far corners of the earth? And I’m sure there’s not one of them but that has the love for his own bit of Scotland and his own people in his heart, and the thought of one day succeeding and coming back again in his mind!” For a while Angus was silent, and then when he spoke the fierceness had gone from his tone, and his voice was far away.

“ Ay, the going away is bitter and hard, but, oh! Would the coming home be sweet? It’s a fine thing to come back and see the old place and meet the old folks with a smile and a greeting for the sake of times gone by. Och! The thought of home is half the world to the Highlander, and isn’t that just no’ what it should be to a man born and bred in a country like this?” I was secretly rather amused at this exhibition of Highland pride, and yet, so much had the natural charm of the place impressed me, I was half inclined to agree with the old man. So it was half-laughingly that I said, “It would be rather a calamity, then, if your Highland laddie had to spend the rest of his days abroad and completely cut off from his native glen ? ” Angus drew himself up at this, and there was a distinct aloofness in_ his voice when he replied:— “ Maybe you wouldn’t be understanding, but it’s just thinking I was of a young fellow who went away from Stratharradale with a blot on his good name, the black rage in his heart, and with a vow never to come within a hundred miles of Ben Doran again. • But you wouldn’t like to be hearing that story ? ” I was feeling very comfortable in a bed of sweet-smelling heather, and since the tale of this youthful renegade promised to be an interesting one, I intimated to Angus that I should like to hear it all.

There ■was silence for a minute or so while the old man gazed abstractedly at the distant firth. Then he roused himself with an effort and began. “ It would be about twenty years ago, when there were twice as many people in Stratharradale as there are now, and only an occasional young fellow who would take the idea into his head and go abroad. They were most of them quite content to spend their days working the land their fathers and grandfathers had worked before them. Well, Colin, that would be his name, was an only bairn, and lived with his father and mother on one of the crofts where Macdonald’s sheep are cropping the grass the day. It was no exactly an easy bit o’ land to work, being so high up, and Colin’s father was glad to think of the time when the lad would be able to give him a hand with it. But Colin had other notions. The bairns at that time used to go to school in the winter time only—they had to go to the herding in the summer. Young Colin wasn’t what you could say a good scholar, but he was for ever reading books, and many’s the time the red cow would be straying when he was lying reading his book and knowing nothing about it at all. “ His father didn’t quite know what to make of him. He-let him stay at the school till he was almost fifteen, but when the boy came home one day and said he was wanting to go to some college or other he would have none of it. He couldn’t afford it to begin with, and, besides, he would be needing him to work the croft. Colin had been too long at the school already to his way of thinking, and in spite of all the boy’s pleading he took him away from it and put him to the ploughing.” “ But surely,” I said, “ if he was anxious for his son to get on he would have allowed him to go to college? ” “Ay, there’s that to it; but being only a poor crofter, college was a long way beyond his means, and, forbyc, Colin hadna shown very great promise at the school either. So he had to put the thought out o’ his head and bend his back to working the land like the other young fellows of his age. “ Well, that would seem to be an end of the trouble, but, ’deed, it was only beginning. Colin hadna been two months on the croft when it became plain that he was just like a trout out o’‘water. It wasna that he didn’t work hard enough, but he hadna just got the knack of it, or maybe he just didna put his heart into the work. Whatever it was, even his father couldn’t help seeing that he was never cut out for the croft, and since there had been four generations of them in the place the thought that there would be no more was a bitter enough one for him. Not only that, but he didn’t know what to do with young Colin. He couldn’t afford to keep him idle at home, and there was nothing in Stratharradale other than the croft, that he could put his hand to. “ Colin had enough pride in him, alf the same, to try and earn a living for himself. He didna say anything to the old folks —that was his way—but one day he came home and told them that he was going to start the clerking at the

railway station at Corran. That’s the village' you can see yonder on the edge o’ the firth.” “ It’s rather far away, surely,” I said.

“ Ay, it’s all of seven miles .and every day tlie boy walked the length of it in the early morning and home again late at night. He would take some of his mother’s oatcakes in his pocket, and Cameron, that was the stationmaster, would be giving him a cup of tea in the middle o’ the day, and maybe a bite of something before he came away at night. “ For all that, it was weary work for a young lad. He never let on, either, whether he liked it or no, but once his mother came upon him down beside the burn with his head on his arms and weeping by his lee lane. She never said anything then, but many’s the time there would be something baked specially for his lunch after that.

“ He hadna got very much time for his reading either, but every minute he could spare he would be studying his books, and now and again he would be writing things in a little book of his own.

“ His father used to wonder a bit what he put into the book, till, one day, he saw for himself, and then he had a queer feeling of_ pride and something like pity. For the hook was full of bits o’ | written by Colin himself. They were nearly all about Stratharradale, and there were verses about the Arradale, Ben Doran, and the hills and lochs round about. It was then that his father got a glimmer of what was in the mind of the boy. and of the love for the place that he had in his soul. But he didna altogether understand, even then. No, he wouldna’ be understanding even then.” The voice of the old man trailed off. and, looking at him, I again found him absorbed in a dreamy contemplation of the fu th. “ What was it he didn’t understand ? ” I said.

Angus did not seem to have heard my question, but continued his day-dream ing till, suddenly remembering, no doubt, that he was in the middle of a story, he began again. " It would be about a year after Colin had started the clerking that it happened. He was still doing the seven miles to Corran and back again every day, and aye reading his books when he had the time.

“ Except for one or two o’ the bairns, he hadna’ made any real friends in the place—he kept too much to himself for that —but there was nobody that had a word against him, and, like as not, the crofters liked him well enough in their own way.

“ He was getting on well at the clerking. too, and it’s promotion he’d have got if it wasna that he was disgraced before the whole of Stratharradale, from the laird himself down to the poorest crofter in the place. “ It was one morning in the summer that Cameron found out that somebody had been helping himself to the money in the iron box at the station, and, being an old man with 20 years’ service to his credit, he took it badly. You see, Corran being but a small station, there was only himself and Colin in the place, so it must have been one or other of them that had done it. “ As I said before, it was a bit of a blow to Cameron for this to happen, and the thought that Colin —for who else could it be?—was a thief, went hard with him, for he had come to like the lad. So, though it went against his grain to have to do it, he asked Colin to put back what he had taken, meaning to say no more about it. He thought, perhaps, h c had taken it in a fit o’ weakness, so he was a wee bit set ajee when Colin denied that he knew anything at all about it.

“ All the same, he was pretty certain that Colin had done it —how could he be anything else?—and since he wanted the whole thing hushed up at any cost, he offered to pay back the money himself if the boy would own up. But it was no use at all. Colin still stuck to it that hc knew nothing about it. “ Well, it got known in Stratharradale that young Colin had been stealing money, and that even when Cameron was going to pay it back out o’ his own pocket he wouldna own up to it. The story went the round o’ the place, and the boy’s character was painted blacker every time it was told. Och, man, folks may be broad o’ mind and kind o’ heart, but when there’s one o’ them falls they’re aye ower ready to trample him deeper into the muck. Maybe they had some justification for it. You see, they had been friends with Cameron all their lives nearly, and because Colin, who was almost a stranger, was trying to put suspicion on him for his own dirtv work, they were ready to hate him as they hated the Black One himself. When Colin went through the village of Corran that night the older folks drew away from him as he came near and the bairn's shouted ‘Thief!’ and threw stones at him, who was hardly more than a bairn himself. And in Stratharradale it was the same.” “And his father?” I asked.

“Ay, his father got to hear of it. At first he just wouldna believe it till, all of a sudden, he remembered that the Saturday before Colin had .been over to Inverallan—that’s the nearest town—and had come back with a lot of new books; and in that minute he despised his own son as much as they hated him in Corran.

“But if it hurt him to think of his son as a thief, it was a bitter, bitter blow to his mother. She would be having her own joy in seeing him at his books, and her own dreams about what he

would be till the news of this just shattered it all. “It was a wee bit later than usual that night that his father saw Colin come slowly up the brae to the house, and if it wasna that there was a cold rage in him he’d have noticed how tired the boy was and how he was stumbling along like a man in his sleep. “ Colin came slowly up to where his father was standing before the door, and ‘ You'll have heard what they’re saying about me,’ said he in a queer, choked voice.

“ God knows what it was his father expected him to say, but the thought that not only was the boy a thief, but was now trying to make out that people had no right to call him one, was too much for him.

“ Saying about you,” he cried, “ and have you the bare-faced insolence to stand there and deny it all? Man, the thought o’ what you’ve done should be enough to turn your stomach sour. It was a black day for your mother and me that you ever came into the world, and do you think I’ll- be standing for it? You’ll go now and gather what belongs to you ami leave this house within the hour. I’ll sec to it that you never enter it again as long as I’ll be having the strength in my body to stop you.’ “ Colin had been listening without a word to it all, but his face had gone white as death, and his eyes were fair blazing in his head. ‘ You can be sparing me any more of that,’ he said, and went past his father into the house.

“ His mother met him inside and, ‘Och, Colin, Colin!’ she sobbed, ‘what for did you do it?’ “He gave a wild laugh at that and pointed to a cut on his temple, where the blood was flowing. ‘Do you know who did that?’ he said. ‘lt was wee lan Maclean that I taught to fish in the burn, and now it’s my own mother who will be turning against me. I’m thinking that I’ve been too long in the place altogether' ’ “ Then he went up the ladder to his own little attic upstairs, and down below they could hear him walking about. “ In half-an-hour he came down again, carrying his box. He swung out o the house and down the wee path through the field without once looking back. His mother was watching him through the window, and she saw him wander off the path altogether, and walk straight into the fence. Then he brushed his hand across his eyes, made his way to the gate, and a minute afterwards he disappeared over the brow o’ the slope.” “ Then he never came back to Stratharradale again?” I asked. “ No,” said Angus. “He never set foot in the Strath again, and it just broke his mother’s heart. You see, there would be nothing else she had to live for, and from that day she just pined away. At first she used to look for a letter from him or to hear some news of him. But the weary months w’ent by and there was nothing. “ For days after Colin left home there was nothing else talked about in Stratharradale, but they were all of the opinion that it was the best thing he could have done, and since there was no one to miss him very much, by-and-by he was almost forgotten. “Then a year or so later they had cause to remember him again. ' Man, have you ever believed in the workings of a divine Providence ? ” “Well,” I demurred, “I can’t say that I do really. But then, nothing has ever happened to me to give me cause to.” “Well,” said Angus, “Providence or no, it was a gey queer thing got caught one day crossing the line between the buffers o’ a train.” “Good gracious!” I exclaimed. “ Ay, it was terrible at the time. 1 was hearing afterwards that when they got him out he was just crushed to pieces!” ‘‘Was he dead?” I asked. “No, he didna die just at once, that was the bad bit of it, and maybe it was that made me think o’ the hand o’ Providence.” “What do you mean?” I said. “ It’s just this,” said Angus. “ Cameron died that night, but before he died ho would be making a confession.” I was beginning to see light. “ Why,” I said, “ You mean that it was Cameron ” “Ay, and may God have mercy on him for blackening an innocent bairn’s good name, it was Cameron himself took the money.” “Then what‘happened to Colin?” “I was just coming to that,” said Angus. “ You see, after what had happened, folks were a wee bit ashamed o’ the way the boy had been treated, and they would be willing enough to make up to him for it, but nobody had heard a word about him since the day he left home.

‘ It was his father, though, that was suffering for it. He would be remembering that day at the door and och! but the thought of it was like a knife in his heart.' Then in the fall o’ the year the boy’s mother took sick. She had been ailing for. some time back and the coming, o’ the winter frost was too much for her. It was on the day that the first snows were lying on the shoulders of Ben Doran that she died, and with her passing the father was left alone in the little house at the head o’ the brae. Ay, all his lone in the house at the head o’ the brae.” “And Colin?” I asked.

“ It was in the spring o’ the next year that there was word from Colin, and it was this way. Mrs M‘Callum—she used to keep the shop in the place—had a son, Jimmie, in Canada, and it was he

who wrote and told his mother that he’d met Colin in Toronto. Jimmie was never a great hand at the pen, but this was the story he told.

, “It was one day that he walking along the street that he came face to face with Colin. He wasna too sure of him at first—it was a different Colin altogether that stood before him. He was terribly old looking and instead o’ the dreaminess o’ the old days in Stratharradale his face was hard and bitter as granite.

“As soon as Jimmie made sure it was Colin he went up to him with his hand * ,u t-—and Colin drew back from it as if it was poison. ‘ Good day to you, James McCallum,’ said he, and turned to go. “ Well, Jimmie was a bit taken aback at this, but hc caught him by the shoulder as he was going and said, ‘ But, Colin, man, ye canna be going away like this! Besides it was all a mistake about your taking the money. It was Cameron himself.’

“ Colin just looked at him and, ‘ Man,’ he said, ‘will you be trying to tell me something I knew all along? And do you think that that’ll be softening the memory of that day in Stratharradale. I’ll be stiff and stark in the grave before I’ll be forgetting what they did to me then. And now, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be getting on.’ “ He had grown bitter, you see,” said Angus, “ and was it any wonder either that he felt that way about it? And oh God! what he must have gone through to turn as bitter as that.” “ Had he a thought for anybody at home, then ? ” I asked. “ Ay, he had that. He was just walking away when he turned back to Jimmie and ‘ There’s just one thing I’d like to be asking you,’ he said. ‘ Will you be telling me how is my mother?’ And when Jimmie told him she was dead he said. ‘ I’ll be thanking you for that. Good-bye, Jimmie.’ Then he walked away, but no’ before Jimmie had seen the tears in his eyes.” “ Surely that would make him forgive all and come back,” I said. “In the end he must have forgiven all,” said Angus. “ There was a poem of his that was in the Canadian magazines. It was to his mother; and he couldn’t have framed the beauty of that with the iron still in his soul. And then there would be the way he died. He was drowned in Lake Ontario trying to save a bairn that had fallen in. Ay, Colin had forgiven all.” Angus finished his tale and there was silence for some time. The sun had just gone down over the ben and I was watching the shadows deepening down in the valley when it occurred to me to ask what had become of Colin’s father. “ His father worked the croft till he got too old for it,” said Angus. “ Then he gave it up and went to live down in the village, and since there was nobody to take the house it just fell into ruin. The croft, as I was saying, is .now under the grazing.” “And is the old man still alive?” I asked. Angus looked at me with a queer little smile. “ Och, man! would you no be guessing for yourself ? ” he said. “ Angus,” I cried, “ you don’t mean that you—that Colin—

“ Ay,” said Angus, “ and God forgive me for the black day I doubted him. Colin was my ain son.”—Weekly Scotsman.