The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (best books to read .TXT) 📕

school of 'em—off the starb'd quarter 'bout five mile away—big ones!

KEENEY (galvanized into action). Are you lowerin' the boats?

MATE. Yes, sir.

KEENEY (with grim decision). I'm a-comin' with ye.

MATE. Aye, aye, sir. (Jubilantly) You'll git the ile now right enough, sir.

(His head is withdrawn and he can be heard shouting orders.)

KEENEY (turning to his wife). Annie! Did you hear him? I'll git the ile. (She doesn't answer or seem to know he is there. He gives a hard laugh, which is almost a groan.) I know you're foolin' me, Annie. You ain't out of your mind—(anxiously) be you? I'll git the ile now right enough—jest a little while longer, Annie—then we'll turn hom'ard. I can't turn back now, you see that, don't ye? I've got to git the ile. (In sudden terror) Answer me! You ain't mad, be you?

(She keeps on playing the organ, but makes no reply. The MATE'S face appears again through the skylight.)

MATE. All ready, sir.

(KEENEY turns his back on his wife and strides to the doorway, where he stands for a moment and looks back at her in anguish, fighting to control his feelings.)

MATE. Comin', sir?

KEENEY (his face suddenly grown hard with determination). Aye.

(He turns abruptly and goes out. MRS. KEENEY does not appear to notice his departure. Her whole attention seems centred in the organ. She sits with half-closed eyes, her body swaying a little from side to side to the rhythm of the hymn. Her fingers move faster and faster and she is playing wildly and discordantly as the Curtain falls.)

CAMPBELL OF KILMHOR[1]

J.A. Ferguson

[Footnote 1: Included by special permission of the publishers,
Messrs. Gowans and Gray, Glasgow.]

CHARACTERS MARY STEWART MORAG CAMERON DUGALD STEWART CAPTAIN SANDEMAN ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL JAMES MACKENZIE SCENE: Interior of a lonely cottage on the road from Struan to Rannoch in North Perthshire.

TIME: After the Rising of 1745.

MORAG is restlessly moving backwards and forwards. The old woman is seated on a low stool beside the peat fire in the centre of the floor.

The room is scantily furnished and the women are poorly clad. MORAG is barefooted. At the back is the door that leads to the outside. On the left of the door is a small window. On the right side of the room there is a door that opens into a barn. MORAG stands for a moment at the window, looking out.

MORAG. It is the wild night outside.

MARY STEWART. Is the snow still coming down?

MORAG. It is that, then—dancing and swirling with the wind too, and never stopping at all. Aye, and so black I cannot see the other side of the road.

MARY STEWART. That is good.

(MORAG moves across the floor and stops irresolutely. She is restless, expectant.)

MORAG. Will I be putting the light in the window?

MARY STEWART. Why should you be doing that? You have not heard his call (turns eagerly), have you?

MORAG (with sign of head). No, but the light in the window would show him all is well.

MARY STEWART. It would not, then! The light was to be put there after we had heard the signal.

MORAG. But on a night like this he may have been calling for long and we never hear him.

MARY STEWART. Do not be so anxious, Morag. Keep to what he says.
Put more peat on the fire now and sit down.

MORAG (with increasing excitement). I canna, I canna! There is that in me that tells me something is going to befall us this night. Oh, that wind! Hear to it, sobbing round the house as if it brought some poor lost soul up to the door, and we refusing it shelter.

MARY STEWART. Do not be fretting yourself like that. Do as I bid you. Put more peats to the fire.

MORAG (at the wicker peat-basket). Never since I…. What was that?

(Both listen for a moment.)

MARY STEWART. It was just the wind; it is rising more. A sore night for them that are out in the heather.

(MORAG puts peat on the fire without speaking.)

MARY STEWART. Did you notice were there many people going by to-day?

MORAG. No. After daybreak the redcoats came by from Struan; and there was no more till nine, when an old man like the Catechist from Killichonan passed. At four o'clock, just when the dark was falling, a horseman with a lad holding to the stirrup, and running fast, went by towards Rannoch.

MARY STEWART. But no more redcoats?

MORAG (shaking her head). The road has been as quiet as the hills, and they as quiet as the grave. Do you think will he come?

MARY STEWART. Is it you think I have the gift, girl, that you ask me that? All I know is that it is five days since he was here for meat and drink for himself and for the others—five days and five nights, mind you; and little enough he took away; and those in hiding no' used to such sore lying, I'll be thinking. He must try to get through to-night. But that quietness, with no one to be seen from daylight till dark, I do not like it, Morag. They must know something. They must be watching.

(A sound is heard by both women. They stand listening.)

MARY STEWART. Haste you with the light, Morag.

MORAG. But it came from the back of the house—from the hillside.

MARY STEWART. Do as I tell you. The other side may be watched.

(A candle is lit and placed in the window. Girl goes hurrying to the door.)

MARY STEWART. Stop, stop! Would you be opening the door with a light like that shining from the house? A man would be seen against it in the doorway for a mile. And who knows what eyes may be watching? Put out the light now and cover the fire.

(Room is reduced to semi-darkness, and the door unbarred. Someone enters.)

MORAG. You are cold, Dugald!

(STEWART, very exhausted, signs assent.)

MORAG. And wet, oh, wet through and through!

STEWART. Erricht Brig was guarded, well guarded. I had to win across the water.

(The old woman has now relit candle and taken away plaid from fire.)

MARY STEWART. Erricht Brig—then—

STEWART (nods). Yes—in a corrie, on the far side of Dearig, half-way up.

MARY STEWART. Himself is there then?

STEWART. Aye, and Keppoch as well, and another and a greater is with them.

MARY STEWART. Wheest! (Glances at MORAG.)

STEWART. Mother, is it that you can—

MARY STEWART. Yes, yes, Morag will bring out the food for ye to carry back. It is under the hay in the barn, well hid. Morag will bring it.—Go, Morag, and bring it.

(MORAG enters other room or barn which opens on right.)

STEWART. Mother, I wonder at ye; Morag would never tell—never.

MARY STEWART. Morag is only a lass yet. She has never been tried.
And who knows what she might be made to tell.

STEWART. Well, well, it is no matter, for I was telling you where
I left them, but not where I am to find them.

MARY STEWART. They are not where you said now?

STEWART. No; they left the corrie last night, and I am to find them (whispers) in a quiet part on Rannoch moor.

MARY STEWART. It is as well for a young lass not to be knowing.
Do not tell her.

(He sits down at table; the old woman ministers to his wants.)

STEWART. A fire is a merry thing on a night like this; and a roof over the head is a great comfort.

MARY STEWART. Ye'll no' can stop the night?

STEWART. No. I must be many a mile from here before the day breaks on Ben Dearig.

(MORAG reënters.)

MORAG. It was hard to get through, Dugald?

STEWART. You may say that. I came down Erricht for three miles, and then when I reached low country I had to take to walking in the burns because of the snow that shows a man's steps and tells who he is to them that can read; and there's plenty can do that abroad, God knows.

MORAG. But none spied ye?

STEWART. Who can tell? Before dark came, from far up on the slopes of Dearig I saw soldiers about; and away towards the Rannoch Moor they were scattered all over the country like black flies on a white sheet. A wild cat or anything that couldna fly could never have got through. And men at every brig and ford and pass! I had to strike away up across the slopes again; and even so as I turned round the bend beyond Kilrain I ran straight into a sentry sheltering behind a great rock. But after that it was easy going.

MORAG. How could that be?

STEWART. Well, you see I took the boots off him, and then I had no need to mind who might see my steps in the snow.

MORAG. You took the boots off him!

STEWART (laughing). I did that same. Does that puzzle your bonny head? How does a lad take the boots off a redcoat? Find out the answer, my lass, while I will be finishing my meat.

MORAG. Maybe he was asleep?

STEWART. Asleep! Asleep! Well, well, he sleeps sound enough now, with the ten toes of him pointed to the sky.

(The old woman has taken up dirk from table. She puts it down again. MORAG sees the action and pushes dirk away so that it rolls off the table and drops to the floor. She hides her face in her hands.)

MARY STEWART. Morag, bring in the kebbuck o' cheese. Now that all is well and safe it is we that will look after his comfort to-night. (MORAG goes into barn.)—I mind well her mother saying to me—it was one day in the black winter that she died, when the frost took the land in its grip and the birds fell stiff from the trees, and the deer came down and put their noses to the door—I mind well her saying just before she died—

(Loud knocking at the door.)

A VOICE. In the King's name!

(Both rise.)

MARY STEWART. The hay in the barn, quick, my son.

(Knocking continues.)

A VOICE. Open in the King's name!

(STEWART snatches up such articles as would reveal his presence and hurries into barn. He overlooks dirk on floor. The old woman goes towards door.)

MARY STEWART. Who is there? What do you want?

A VOICE. Open, open.

(MARY STEWART opens door and CAMPBELL OF KILMHOR follows CAPTAIN SANDEMAN into the house. Behind KILMHOR comes a man carrying a leather wallet, JAMES MACKENZIE, his clerk. The rear is brought up by soldiers carrying arms.)

SANDEMAN. Ha, the bird has flown.

CAMPBELL (who has struck dirk with his foot and picked it up).
But the nest is warm; look at this.

SANDEMAN. It seems as if we had disturbed him at supper. Search the house, men.

MARY STEWART. I'm just a lonely old woman. You have been misguided. I was getting through my supper.

CAMPBELL (holding up dirk). And this was your toothpick, eh? Na! Na! We ken whaur we are, and wha we want, and by Cruachan, I think we've got him.

(Sounds are heard from barn, and soldiers return with MORAG. She has stayed in hiding from fear, and she still holds the cheese in her hands.)

SANDEMAN. What have we here?

CAMPBELL. A lass!

MARY STEWART. It's just my dead brother's daughter. She was getting me the cheese, as you can see.

CAMPBELL. On, men, again: the other turtle doo will no' be far away. (Banteringly to the old woman) Tut, tut, Mistress Stewart, and do ye have her wait upon ye while your leddyship dines alane! A grand way to treat your dead brother's daughter; fie, fie, upon ye!

(Soldiers reappear with STEWART, whose arms are pinioned.)

CAMPBELL. Did I no' tell ye! And this, Mrs. Stewart, will be your dead sister's son, I'm thinking; or aiblins your leddyship's butler! Weel, woman, I'll tell ye this: Pharaoh spared ae butler, but Erchie Campbell will no' spare anither. Na! na! Pharaoh's case is no' to be taken as forming ony preceedent. And so if he doesna answer certain questions we have to speir at him, before morning he'll hang as high as Haman.

(STEWART is placed before the table at which CAMPBELL has seated himself. Two soldiers guard STEWART. Another is behind CAMPBELL'S chair and another is by the door. The clerk, MACKENZIE, is seated at up corner of table. SANDEMAN stands by