He couldn’t ever after say why he stopped, entered the shop, and picked up the instrument. It’d been years since he’d held a violin. In fact it’d only been in the last few months he’d taken to tinkling (he wouldn’t call it playing) on the church pipe-organ. But his hands and his ears tuned it, the bow – loose a few strands of horse-hair – rosined, and he drew the bow across the strings. The instrument ... sang. Initially, he didn’t try to play anything specific, but suddenly realised that he was playing a Scottish lament. He stopped and laid the instrument down.

“It’s a fine instrument,” he told the shop-keeper. “Excellent tone. How much?”

The shop-keeper shrugged. “Make me an offer.”

“I have no idea,” he shrugged.

The shop-keeper sighed. “I suppose I have to tell you that you’re the first person to show any interest in it. Several customers have refused to even touch it. Quite honestly, I don’t know what to do with it either.”

He plucked a figure out of the air. “Fifty pounds.” Surely, it had to be worth that, didn’t it?

“Sir, you have a deal.”

The man handed over the notes, and accepted the case, violin and bow in exchange. Wondering at himself, at the impulsive purchase, he carried the instrument home.

Fergus McCubbin:

It was a beautiful violin. At least, it was once I’d given it a little TLC. Temporarily, the case rested on my sideboard, and I took the instrument out, tuned it, and started to play a little each evening. However, no matter what I played, the tune turned into a lament. A very beautiful, but soul-searing, lament. In fact, I sometimes thought I could hear the instrument humming quietly while I was doing things in my flat.

Let me explain. I began to learn violin at school, but dropped it about the time I reached puberty. That was, perhaps, a little later than my contemporaries. Certainly my voice didn’t break until I was about thirteen. Anyway, when I went to college – I read physics – I joined a group who were into folk music. I was encouraged to get out my descant recorder, and when I confessed to learning violin, a degree of pressure was brought to bear on me to resume playing. Thus, much of my musical skill was in the area of folk music and I got so I could play such as ‘Wild Rover’, and some sea songs too. That drew me in to the folk scene as a participant even after I finished my degree and my PGCE in order to begin teaching. The violin I was using was my old one, and it was not a great instrument, but adequate for the purpose. My impulsive purchase of the much better instrument, however, had an interesting consequence.

By working hard and concentrating, I could extract any tune I knew from the instrument. I was very aware, though, that I was playing much better when I relaxed. I formed the theory that the instrument was playing me when I relaxed, and certainly the sound was better. My friends actually commented, and would ask for MacCrimmon, or The Hills of Lorne, or perhaps the Ashokan Farewell.

Eilidh Baird was a pretty, if quiet, member of the group. She did have an excellent voice, but needed a lot of encouragement to use it. For some reason she gravitated to my side in our meetings. I certainly didn’t mind, but that didn’t stop me dating other young ladies. It was interesting, though. Several times I found her caressing the violin, and when I commented, she blushed.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “There’s something about that violin, and I can’t resist touching it.”

“Can you play?” I asked. She’d never shown any sign of ability with any instrument, but as I mentioned she was quiet; reserved, I suppose, and shy.

“Oh, no,” she stuttered, blushing. “A pipe, a little. Tin whistle, you know.”

Someone overheard. “Eilidh! Don’t hide your light!” One of the other girls, Alison, appeared next to Eilidh, holding several different tin whistles. Reluctantly, Eilidh chose one. Afterwards, Alison told me that Eilidh obviously knew what she was doing, as she’d chosen the D instrument, which suited our music best. Tin whistles are described as ‘diatonic’, meaning that they ‘only’ play music in that key. However, a skilled player can play any tin whistle in any key; it’s just much easier to select the appropriate whistle.

Eilidh put the instrument to her lips, and there issued a Scottish reel. After the first few bars I lifted my fiddle and joined in, followed by Jimmy with his bodhran. After that, we explored Eilidh’s repertoire for several more similar pieces until she refused to do any more and handed her whistle back to Alison.

“Thanks.”

“Bring your own, next time? You have got your own, haven’t you?”

“Actually, no. But I know where I can buy one. Or two. You really want me to?”

“Absolutely! We had fun together, didn’t we?”

“I guess. Once I started, I was okay...”

We played a little more until closing time. As I was putting my instrument away, Eilidh touched my arm.

“Um ... Fergus...” I glanced at her and nodded. “Would you mind ... I mean ... Would you walk with me back to Hall?”

It happened that the hall of residence where Eilidh was staying was not to far from my flat, so I shrugged. “Of course. My pleasure.”

And it was a pleasure. Eilidh was quiet, but, as I say, a pretty girl. In some ways not spectacular; of average height and build, neither slim nor cuddly, light brown hair and blue eyes. She could pass without notice and often did. We walked briskly, passing groups of rowdy students.

“They make me nervous,” she commented after the first batch.

“I can understand that,” I told her, smiling (though she couldn’t see, of course), “I don’t mind escorting you another time, if you’d like.”

“Really? You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

I left her at the door of the Hall. I understand things have changed and students can have guests in ‘after hours’. But she didn’t invite me in, and anyway I needed to be home to get up for work in the morning. But after that, walking Eilidh home became a regular thing and it was only a short step to going together to concerts and folk festivals. She blossomed somewhat, playing regularly in our group, expanding her repertoire and beginning to assert herself. Almost imperceptibly, it became assumed that we were an item.

It was but another short step to her appropriating my ‘old’ violin and starting lessons.

The semester ended, and Eilidh went home to her parents, who lived in a little market town thirty or so miles east of the city. As a matter of course, I visited most weekends. Her parents, like mine, might be described as ‘expatriot’ Scots. Despite having been born and brought up in England, they retained both the habits, opinions and accent of their family’s origins. Taking Eilidh to meet my parents, twenty miles south of the city was much the same. In fact, Eilidh was very warmly welcomed, as the first young lady I’d ever bothered to take home. You might understand, as well, that both our families are rather traditional, Scots Presbyterians. While Eilidh and I progressed quite naturally in intimacy, there was no question but that we wouldn’t officially live together without benefit of a marriage licence. The wedding took place the week after Easter of Eilidh’s final year, and the honeymoon deferred until her graduation.

The foregoing is a perhaps long-winded explanation of how two people of Scottish descent came to be married and heading to Scotland for their honeymoon...

Eilidh Baird ... McCubbin:

I was smitten. I won’t describe the painful development of my relationship with Fergus. In fact I despaired of his even noticing me. Eventually I plucked up courage and asked him to walk me back to Hall. Happily, he responded and in due course we were married.

The violin. Oh, yes, the violin. Honestly, the violin was not what attracted me to him, but once I touched it, it drew me, somehow. I borrowed his old instrument, not having the nerve to ask for the good one, and began to play. The first time he let me play the good instrument, though ... I cannot satisfactorily describe the feeling. I’m told that my playing was very good, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s not what I remember. What I remember was an overwhelming sadness. Nonetheless, I hated to put the violin down, to release it.

Fergus:

Our honeymoon was spent well north of Edinburgh. The ‘hotel’ was actually a large house in the care of National Trust for Scotland, standing in landscaped grounds. We checked in and were shown to a room overlooking the formal garden, and a lake beyond. When we entered the house, I thought I felt my violin shiver and hum, but dismissed it as imagination. We climbed the spectacular grand staircase to our room and at a turn I looked up at a portrait, somewhat dulled by age. Old oil paintings often appear dark and gloomy as a result of the varnish discolouring with age and grime, and this was no exception. Despite that, the image seemed familiar, somehow. Our guide noticed my hesitation, and my gaze at the portrait.

“A very sad story,” she said. “In fact, it’s said that she ... Ailidh McQuarrie ... walks the halls of this house from time to time.”

I shrugged, not noticing Eilidh’s wide eyes, as I was dubious of tales of ghosts.

“The tale is in the guide book, of course,” our guide said.

Our room certainly fitted the description ‘period’, with dark wood panelling, brocade curtains and hangings, deep pile carpets and so on, though I feel certain that it was all modern. It hardly seems likely that real period furniture and fittings would be used by visitors. But it was comfortable. We put away our clothes, and relaxed in a love-seat to read the leaflets about the house.

Most of it was much like any other large house with a history, but the one point of interest was Ailidh McQuarrie. It seems that that young woman was both beautiful and gifted. Bright and intelligent, with a lovely voice and skilled with several musical instruments, especially the violin. She, it seems, fell in love with a young man who was deemed unsatisfactory, perhaps beneath her socially, and she was ordered to stay away from him. That – you can see it coming – did not sit well with the strong-willed young woman. She continued assignations with her lover, with the obvious consequence that she became pregnant. The young man was forced to leave the area. Different strands of the story had him joining the army, or going to sea. In one, he ended as a gamekeeper in an English estate. Ailidh, however, was secluded by her family and never left her rooms in the big house, her only solace her violin. When the baby was born, it was given to a family to raise who were paid substantially to look after it and keep it well away from Ailidh’s family.

Ailidh, however, was variously said to have committed suicide or to have pined away or died of consumption.

“How sad,” Eilidh commented.

“How cruel and self-seeking her family,” I responded.

“Yes,” Eilidh responded.

We dined extremely well and enjoyed appropriate liquid refreshment – wine for Eilidh and whisky for me, and we retired to sleep off the alcohol and the day’s travel. Perhaps it was because I was tired, or maybe it was the whisky, but I dreamed the violin was playing.

At breakfast, Eilidh questioned, “Could you not sleep last night?”

“I slept really well, actually.”

“It’s just, well, I thought you were playing the violin.”

“No. But ... I dreamed of the instrument playing.”

We were both silent after that. Making our way back to our room, I first hummed, then sang:

“Can’t we two go walkin’ together, out beyond the valley of trees?
Out where there’s a hillside of heather, curtsyin’ gently in the breeze
That’s what I’d like to do, see the heather, but with you
The mist of May is in the gloamin’, and all the clouds are holdin’ still

So take my hand and let’s go roamin’ through the heather on the hill
The mornin’ dew is blinkin’ yonder, there’s lazy music in the rill
And all I want to do is wander through the heather on the hill
There may be other days as rich and rare

There may be other springs as full and fair
But they won’t be the same, they’ll come and go, for this I know
That when the mist is in the gloamin’, and all the clouds are holdin’ still
If you’re not there I won’t go roamin’ through the heather on the hill
The heather on the hill.”
(Just in case you don’t know, ‘Heather on the Hill is a song from Lerner and Loewe’s musical, Brigadoon.)

Eilidh laughed. “How could I refuse that? Let’s go!”

We picked up packed lunches and a Thermos of coffee to augment bottles of water, dressed carefully, and headed out. I can’t claim that either of us is very fit, but we clambered up out of the valley to wander the higher ground. Sometimes it’s difficult to avoid midges in Scotland, but we were lucky. Blue skies, and a few puffy clouds to moderate the heat of the sun. We almost tripped over a stone circle, the stones flat in the ground, and we decided to stop there to have lunch. Sitting quietly, small birds, and some larger ones, became apparent, and a buzzard circling lazily overhead.

“I was hoping to see an eagle,” Eilidh commented.

“We’ll have to ask where to go to see one,” I commented. “I think they like crags to nest, and open ground to hunt.”