"THE Conan is as bonny a river as we
hae in a’ the north country. There’s mony a sweet sunny spot on its banks,
an’ many a time an’ aft hae I waded through its shallows, whan a boy, to
set my little scauting-line for the trouts an’ the eels, or to gather the
big pearl-mussels that lie sae thick in the fords. But its bonny wooded
banks are places for enjoying the day in—no for passing the nicht. I kenna
how it is; it’s nane o’ your wild streams that wander desolate through a
desert country, like the Aven, or that come rushing down in foam and
thunder, ower broken rocks, like the Foyers, or that wallow in darkness,
deep, deep in the bowels o’ the earth, like the fearfu’ Auldgraunt; an’
yet no ane o’ these rivers has mair or frightfuller stories connected wi’
it than the Conan. Ane can hardly saunter ower half-a-mile in its course,
frae where it leaves Contin till where it enters the sea, without passing
ower the scene o’ some frightful auld legend o’ the kelpie or the
waterwraith. And ane o’ the most frightful looking o’ these places is to
be found among the woods of Conan House. Ye enter a swampy meadow that
waves wi’ flags an’ rushes like a cornfield in harvest, an’ see a hillock
covered wi’ willows rising like an island in the midst. There are thick
mirk-woods on ilka side; the river, dark an’ awesome, an’ whirling round
an’ round in mossy eddies, sweeps away behind it; an’ there is an auld
burying-ground, wi’ the broken ruins o’ an auld Papist kirk, on the tap.
Ane can see amang the rougher stanes the rose-wrought mullions of an
arched window, an’ the trough that ance held the holy water. About twa
hunder years ago—a wee mair maybe, or a wee less, for ane canna be very
sure o’ the date o’ thae old stories—the building was entire; an’ a spot
near it, whar the wood now grows thickest, was laid out in a corn-field.
The marks o’ the furrows may still be seen amang the trees.
"A party o’ Highlanders were busily
engaged, ae day in harvest, in cutting down the corn o’ that field; an’
just aboot noon, when the sun shone brightest an’ they were busiest in the
work, they heard a voice frae the river exclaim, ‘The hour but not the man
has come.’ Sure enough, on looking round, there was the kelpie stan’in’ in
what they ca’ a fause ford, just foment the auld kirk. There is a deep
black pool baith aboon an’ below, but i’ the ford there’s a bonny ripple,
that shows, as ane might think, but little depth o’ water; an’ just i’ the
middle o’ that, in a place where a horse might swim, stood the kelpie. An’
it again repeated its words, ‘The hour but not the man has come,’ an’ then
flashing through the water like a drake, it disappeared in the lower pool.
When the folk stood wondering what the creature might mean, they saw a man
on horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste, making straight for
the fause ford. They could then understand her words at ance; an’ four o’
the stoutest o’ them sprang oot frae amang the corn to warn him o’ his
danger, an’ keep him back. An’ sac they tauld him what they had seen an’
heard, an’ urged him either to turn back an’ tak’ anither road, or stay
for an hour or sae where he was. But be just wadna hear them, for he was
baith unbelieving an’ in haste, an’ wauld hae taen the ford for a’ they
could say, hadna the Highlanders, determined on saving him whether he
would or no, gathered round him an’ ‘pulled him frae his horse, an’ then,
to mak’ sure of him, locked him up in the auld kirk. Weel, when the hour
had gone by—the fatal hour o’ the kelpie—they flung open the door, an’
cried to him that he might noo gang on his journey. Ah! but there was nae
answer, though; an’ sac they cried a second time, an’ there was nae answer
still; and then they went in, an’ found him lying stiff an’ cauld on the
floor, wi’ his face buried in the water o’ the very stone trough that we
may still see amang the ruins. His hour had come, an’ he had fallen in a
fit, as ‘twould seem, head-foremost amang the water o’ the trough, where
he had been smothered,—an’ sac ye see, the prophecy o’ the kelpie availed
naething."
