fast, I says to mysel’, ower fast for a man o’ God, for what saith the Word, “He that believeth shall not make haste!”’
The creature spoke in a voice of great beauty and softness—the voice rather of a woman than of a man. And as he spoke he bowed, and patted the minister’s arm, and peered into his face with bright wild eyes. Then he clutched David and forced him round till again he was looking over the Wood.
‘The Hill o’ Deer’s a grand bit for a prospect, sir, for is it no like the Hill o’ Pisgah from which ye can spy the Promised Land? Ye can lift up your eyes to the hills, and ye can feast them on the bonny haughs o’ the Aller, or on the douce wee clachan o’ Woodilee, wi’ the cots sittin’ as canty round the kirk as kittlins round an auld cat.’
‘I was looking at the Wood,’ said David.
The man laughed shrilly. ‘And a braw sicht it is in the gloamin’ frae the Hill o’ Deer. For ye can see the size o’ the muckle spider’s wab, but doun in the glen ye’re that clamjamphried wi’ michty trees that your heid spins like a peery and your e’en are dozened. It’s a unco thing the Wud, Mr Sempill, sir?’
‘Do you know your ways in it, Gibbie?’
‘Me! I daurna enter it. I keep the road, for I’m feared o’ yon dark howes.’ Then he laughed again, and put his mouth close to the minister’s ear. ‘Not but what I’ll tak’ the Wud at the proper season. Tak’ the Wud, Mr Sempill, like other folk in Woodilee.’
He peered in the minister’s face to see if he were understood. Satisfied that he was not, he laughed again.
‘Tak’ Gibbie’s advice, sir, and no gang near the Wud. It’s nae place for men o’ God, like yoursel’, sir, and puir Gibbie.’
‘Do they call it the Black Wood?’
Gibbie spat. ‘Incomin’ bodies, nae doot,’ he said in contempt. ‘But ken ye the name that auld folk gie’d it?’ He became confidential again. ‘They ca’d it Melanudrigill,’ he whispered.
David repeated the word. His mind had been running on heathen learning and he wondered if the name were Greek.
‘That might mean the “place of dark waters”,’ he said.
‘Na, na. Ye’re wrong there, Mr Sempill. There’s nae dark waters in Melanudrigill. There’s the seven burns that rin south, but they’re a’ as clear as Aller. But dinna speak that name to ither folk, Mr Sempill, and dinna let on that Gibbie telled ye. It’s a wanchancy name. Ye can cry it in a safe bit like the Hill o’ Deer, but if ye was to breathe it in the Wud unco things might happen. I daurna speak my ain name among the trees.’
‘Your name is Gibbie. Gibbie what?’
The man’s face seemed to narrow in fear and then to expand in confidence. ‘I can tell it to a minister o’ the Word. It’s Gilbert Niven. Ken ye where I got that name? In the Wud, sir. Ken ye wha gie’d it me? The Guid Folk. Ye’ll no let on that I telled ye.’
The night was now fallen, and David turned for home, after one last look at the pit of blackness beneath him. The idiot hobbled beside him, covering the ground at a pace which tried even his young legs, and as he went he babbled.
‘Tak’ Gibbie’s advice and keep far frae the Wud, Mr Sempill, and if ye’re for Roodfoot or Calidon haud by the guid road. I’ve heard tell that in the auld days, when there was monks at the kirkton, they bode to gang out every year wi’ bells and candles and bless the road to keep it free o’ bogles. But they never ventured into the Wud, honest men. I’ll no say but what a minister is mair powerfu’ than a monk, but an eident body will run nae risks. Keep to fine caller bits like this Hill o’ Deer, and if ye want to traivel gang west by Chasehope or east by Kirk Aller. There’s nocht for a man o’ God in the Wud.’
‘Are there none of my folk there?’
For a second Gibbie stopped as if thunderstruck. ‘Your folk!’ he cried. ‘In the Wud!’ Then he perceived David’s meaning. ‘Na, na. There’s nae dwallin’ there. Nether Fennan is no far off and Reiverslaw is a bowshot from the trees, but to bide in the Wud!—Na, na, a man would be sair left to himsel’ ere he ventured that! There’s nae hoose biggit by human hand that wadna be clawed doun by bogles afore the wa’ rase a span frae the grund.’
At the outfield of Mirehope Gibbie fled abruptly, chanting like a night bird.
The minister sat at his supper of porridge and buttermilk when Isobel broke in on him, her apple-hued face solemn and tearful.
‘There’s ill news frae up the water, Mr Sempill. It’s Marion Simpson, her that’s wife to Richie Smail, the herd o’ the Greenshiel. Marion, puir body, has been ill wi’ a wastin’ the past twalmonth, and now it seems she’s near her release. Johnnie Dow, the packman, is ben the house, and he has brocht word that Richie is fair dementit, and that the wife is no like to last the nicht, and would the minister come up to the Greenshiel. They’ve nae bairns, the Lord be thankit; but Richie and Marion have aye been fell fond o’ ither, and Richie’s an auld exercised Christian and has been many times spoken o’ for the eldership. I doot ye’ll hae to tak’ the road, sir.’
It was his first call to pastoral duty, and, though he had hoped to be at his books by candle-light, David responded gladly. He put his legs into boots, saddled his grey cob, flung his plaid round his shoulders, and in ten minutes was ready to start. Isobel watched him like a mother.
‘I’ll hae a cup o’ burned yill waitin’ for ye to fend off the cauld—no but what it’s a fine lown nicht. Ye ken the road, sir? Up by Mirehope and round by the Back o’ the Hill.’
‘There’s a quicker way by Roodfoot, and on this errand there’s no time to lose.’
‘But that’s through the Wud,’ Isobel gasped. ‘It’s no me that would go through the Wud in the dark, nor naebody in Woodilee. But a minister is different, nae doot.’
‘The road is plain?’ he asked.
‘Aye, it’s plain eneuch. There’s naething wrong wi’ the road. But it’s an eerie bit when the sun’s no shinin’. But gang your ways, sir, for a man o’ God is no like common folk. Ye’ll get a mune to licht ye back.’
David rode out of the kirkton, and past the saughs and elders which marked the farm of Crossbasket, till the path dipped into the glen of the Woodilee burn and the trees began. Before he knew he was among them, old gnarled firs standing sparsely among bracken. They were thin along the roadside, but on the hill to his right and down in the burn’s hollow they made a cloud of darkness. The August night still had a faint reflected light, and the track, much ribbed by tree roots, showed white before him. The burn, small with the summer drought, made a faraway tinkling, the sweet scents of pine and fern were about him, the dense boskage where it met the sky had in the dark a sharp marmoreal outline. The world was fragrant and quiet; if this be the Black Wood, thought David, I have been in less happy places.
But suddenly at a turn of the hill the trees closed in. It was almost as if he had stripped and dived into a stagnant pool. The road now seemed to have no purpose of its own, but ran on sufferance, slinking furtively as the Wood gave it leave, with many meaningless twists, as if unseen hands had warded it off. His horse, which had gone easily enough so far, now needed his heel in its side and many an application of his staff. It shied at nothing visible, jibbed, reared, breathing all the while as if its wind were touched. Something cold seemed to have descended on David’s spirits, which, as soon as he was aware of it, he tried to exorcise by whistling a bar or two, and then by speaking aloud. He recited a psalm, but his voice, for usual notably full and mellow, seemed