Red Tam

I had been staying with the McGregors for nearly a fortnight, and I believe it had rained every day. True, the country folk said it was only “a wee bit saft,” But I called it a regular downpour. And now, here was the first fine day.

“If I may, I will just go for a blow over the moors,” I said, coming down equipped or a walk.

“You’ll lose yourself,” replied Elsie. “Much better wait till Harold comes in; he said he would be early today.”

“And the moors aren’t fit for a young lassie like you to go roaming about on alone,” added Mrs. McGregor, anxiously.

“It isn’t like the London suburbs here,” I pleaded. “There one does meet the most cut-throat-looking tramps at times, but here - -.”

“I was thinking of Red Tam,” sighed Mrs. McGregor, laying down her work. “He’s an ill body to meet – isn’t he, Elsie? – and really make s the moors a perfect danger!”

“He has been, lots of times, for robbing or frightening people. He is a bad character.”

But they let me go at last, in spite of many warnings and blood – curdling recollections of the sins of Red Tam.

“”If I see him in the distance, I’ll run home,” I promised.

It was glorious outside, with a boisterous autumn wind rioting over the purple moors, which made one long to run and laugh and shout just for the pure joy of living. I am a good walker, and the loneliness of my tramp did not daunt me in the least. I gave a heavy sigh of regret as I turned homewards. It is rough walking over the heather, and I was stooping to get a stone out of my shoe when, close by, I heard a most pitiful whine.

It didn’t startle me, for I am thankful to say I never went in for twentieth – century nerves, and I guessed at once that it must be some poor dog that had fallen into a nearby pit. I went to the side and peeped over. Sure enough there lay the dog at the bottom.

“You poor, poor thing,” I cried, “I believe you’ve broken your leg.”

I had been attending a course of nursing lectures lately, and was anxious to put my knowledge into practice, so, without hesitation, I began to scramble down the side of the pit. It wasn’t very easy, and I got scratched and disheveled before I alighted – more precipitately than I intended– at the bottom. The poor animal knew quite well that I had come to succor him, and whined a deprecating little whine.

I was right: he had broken leg, as a yelp of pain told me. I soothed him again as well as I could, and tearing my handkerchief in pieces, bound the limb up tightly. I was so busy that I did not look up till a whine of pleasure told me that my wounded friend was welcoming his master; and I confess that my heart did give a big jump as I saw the man who was swinging himself down into the pit beside me. He was about as ruffianly-looking a villain as you could meet, with a shock of brick – red hair, and a weather-beaten face. I knew at once that this must be the terror of the moorland – Red Tam.

I did not, however, run away as I had promised, for I should have found it difficult, seeing I was encompassed by four steep banks – almost walls. So, swallowing my fears as best I might, I turned to greet the new arrival.

“Your dog has broken its leg.” I said.

He stood glowering down at me from under his red brows, and I suppose he expected me to be frightened; so I was, but I did not mean to show it. A moan from the sufferer turned my attention.

“Poor old fellow,” I said, patting him, “Is it very bad?”

The poor creature licked my hand and turned its eyes to its master’s face, as much as to say, “She’s been very kind to me.”

Red Tam dropped down on his knees, and his whole face softened as he bent over the shaggy heap, rubbing his face close to that of the dog, whilst he murmured caressing words to it. Then he faced me. “I’m Red Tam McEven,” he said, proudly straightening his back.

Again I knew he expected me to be afraid. I smiled, for the man had lost his terror for me, and a sudden gust of pity swept over me.

“I am so sorry your dog is hurt, Red Tam,” I said gently. “I have bound up his leg as well as I can, but it will be difficult to move him; do you live far from here?”

His jaw dropped, and he looked at me as if I were some unearthly being.

“Ye are no’ afrait of me?”

I looked him squarely in the face and smiled.

“No,” I replied.

The dusky color crept to his weather – tanned cheeks. Then he looked at the dog.

“Ye would na ha’e doon that for Roy if ye’d kenned he was Red Tam’s.”

“Indeed I would. Poor old Roy.”

His face twisted with sudden emotion.

“He’s a’ I have,” he muttered. “A’ I have – an’ ye’re no feart of me?”

“I’m going to help you get your dog home,” I said. “Take off your plaid and let’s put him in it; it will hurt him if you try to carry him in your arms – so.”

He obeyed without a word, still eyeing me in a sort of mute wonder.

We slung Roy in his ragged tartan, and somehow managed to hoist him up out of the pit. Tam said no word, however, but strode on, with Roy carried hammock-wise between us. It appeared that Red Tam’s cabin was not very far off. I could not help a shudder at the sight of it. It seemed awful to think of a human creature existing in such a hovel, or, rather, cavern in the hillside. When Roy was safely disposed of on a bed of bracken, Red Tam turned to me.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded thickly, and I could read a reckless defiance in his hard eyes.

“Why?” I said very gently – “Because I am sorry for your dog, and – and I am sorry for you too,” and in a quick impulse I put out my hand.

He shrank back a little.

“Won’t you shake hands?” I asked.

He gripped it then in such a vice as nearly made me scream aloud.

“Ye’re sorry for me?” he said harshly. “Ye don’t mean that, lassie! Ah, then ye don’t know Red Tam. I’m a thief, lassie, an’ a blackguard wha’s the terror of the country side. There’s not a man or a woman who would na be feart to meet me alone on these moors.”

“I know,” I replied, “at least, I heard; but I am not afraid – only sorry.”

He dropped my hand, and, sinking down on the ground, began to sob, I think it was the first human word of kindness he had heard for years, and it unmanned him.

I laid my hand lightly on his shoulder; his loneliness and degradation moved me intensely.

“Red Tam,” I whispered, “God pities you too – and loves you.” And then I left him.

That was the beginning of my strange acquaintance with Red Tam. I went several times to the cave hut on the moors, ostensibly to inquire after Roy, really to talk to Roy’s master. It was no easy task to win the confidence of such a man, but bit by bit the sad tale of a ruined life was told. A faithless sweetheart and bad friends were the beginning of the downward path, and Tam had learnt the lesson of how breakneck a speed that descent attains unchecked.

I talked to him–long, serious talks about his soul. Some chord of early youth and a mother’s love had been quickened into life at my pity, and opened the way to a dim, wavering understanding of God’s great and infinite love and forgiveness. Bitterly he would sob out his repentance, despairing of forgiveness at times, or again repeating in his broad Scottish tongue, ”Him that cometh to Me I’ll in no wise cast oot – no wise cast oot – na, na, not even Red Tam.”

His gratitude to me I did not in the least deserve, but it touched me to the quick; I grew, indeed, to take the keenest interest in this poor outcast, whom his fellows had agreed to cast out of the pale of humanity. But without the pale he found–Christ.

It had come to within two days of my departure, and Harold had made me promise to motor over with him to Berrington Abbey. We waved our good-byes to Mrs. McGregor, and off we went.

It was delicious, and we were as supremely happy as two young people could be who are soon to be man and wife, and start their wedded life with God.

“What a steep hill,” I was saying, when click, something seemed to snap and go wrong. I saw Harold turn very white.

“The brake won” act,” he said, hoarsely. “I -- I --.”

He turned towards me and caught me round the waist with one arm, whilst the other hand still gripped the wheel.

I understood in a flash. We were tearing down hill at top speed, and at the bottom was a heavy five-barred gate; facing us was another hill. If only the gate had been opened we might have been saved. As it was –

I closed my eyes and hid my face on Harold’s shoulder, faltering out a prayer as I waited for the crash.

I heard Harold cry out, and by instinctive impulse I looked up.

Ahead of us, far ahead, ran a strange figure in a ragged tartan, which streamed in the wind behind. At its heels was a shaggy sheep-dog. Downwards we rushed like some great terrible bird swooping upon destruction.

I felt Harold’s arm like a vice around me, and then - then–a rush, a yelp, a cry, and the great machine, panting and throbbing like a live thing, was slowly crawling up the opposite hill.

I was dazed and trembling when Harold at length brought it to a standstill.

“Wait here for me, darling,” he said in an odd husky voice, “We’re all right now, but don’t look behind.”

The momentary giddiness of fear had passed. I quite understood, clearer, perhaps, than he did.

“I am coming,” I said steadily; and, in spite of his entreaties, jumped out of the car.

Behind us, at the bottom of the hill, I saw an open gate still quivering on its hinges, and a figure in ragged tartan lying across the road with a dog beside it.

“It’s Red Tam!” I said, in a choked voice. “He opened the gate, he died to save me!”

In silence we went down the hill, and in silence I knelt beside that bruised and battered body, in which, however, the spirit still lingered, as if anxious to give me its last message.

Red Tam’s face was white and drawn with physical agony, but the wide open eyes had lost for ever their look of bold and cruel defiance; only a wonderful look of triumph and joy was left in them. His blood-frothed lips moved, and I bent low, sobbing bitterly as I tried to tell him my thanks. But his thoughts were far from the self-sacrifice which stretched him there. “It’s true, lassie,” he whispered. “It’s true, after all. He’s sent the old mither to tell me, ‘Him that cometh-I’ll in no wise cast oot – no wise cast oot’ – not even Red Tam. God bless ye for that message.”

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” I whispered very gently, and, stooping low, kissed the dead man’s face. He was no more Red Tam the outcast, but the lost sheep brought home to the fold, over whom angels rejoiced, and a Saviour smiled.

M. W.

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