The Low Road
"Quiet, Please!"
Wyllis Cooper
Wednesday, October 1, 1947
10:00 – 10:30 PM EST
No. 16 – THE LOW ROAD
WOR – 1000-1025 PM EST, MON. SEPT. 29, 1947
MBS – 830-825 PM EST, WED. OCT. 1, 1947
REH – 200-500 PM EST, MON. SEPT. 29 – STUDIO 16
800-1000 PM EST, MON. SEPT. 29 – STUDIO 15
CHAPPELL: Quiet, please.
(SEVEN SECONDS SILENCE)
CHAPPELL: Quiet, please.
(MUSIC ... THEME ... FADE FOR)
ANNCR: The Mutual Broadcasting System presents "Quiet, Please!" which is
written and directed by Wyllis Cooper, and features Ernest Chappell.
"Quiet, Please!" for tonight is called "The Low Road."
(MUSIC ... THEME ... FADE AND MODULATE TO)
SINGER: By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes
Where the sun shines bright on Ben Lomond
ROBERT: In the evening, in the fair evening, I stand by the banks of Loch
Lomond, and the crest of Ben Lomond is golden in the last sun across the
water; and here is the first blue dusk of evening along the braes, and the
Black Mountain behind me as it was all those years ago when I, proud in my
first kilt and my fine Balmoral broad bonnet with the red toorie upon it,
stood and watched another sunset upon the Ben.
Och aye, and it was many years ago when I said goodbye to Loch Lomond and the
Vale of Leven, and took ship a lone laddie for America, sailing away from
Dumbarton where Robert the Bruce himself onetime built his ships. Around Loch
Lomond is the Land of the Colquhouns, and I am of that ilk, being named Robert
Kilpatrick Colquhoun for the founder of Clan Colquhoun, who had these lands
from Malcolm of Lennox in the time of Alexander the second.
Now I have lost the burr from my voice in those long motherless years in the
New World; but I have not forgotten these bonnie braes and the setting sun on
the mountain across Loch Lomond. And I can still shout our clan's war-cry Cnoc
Eilachann with any man that wears a sprig of dogberry in his bonnet. Aye, and
the feel of the philibeg, the small kilt, is good about my knees, and the
sgain-dubh, the little black knife, in my stocking-top, is a comfort.
I have found that I remember many things: my grandfather when I was small
taught me four-and-twenty tartans, and today I have seen the yellow and black
MacLeod, and the green and black and red Leslie, very difficult to tell from
our own, and even an ancient parson in the dark blue and light blue of the
Clergy. And I am happy that my brother Patrick has come down from the town to
stand on the banks of Loch Lomond with me and watch the sunset shadows crawl
up the slopes of Ben Lomond.
PATRICK: Do ye find it as ye remembered it, Robert?
ROBERT: Aye, it's the same, Patrick, though the loch seems smaller and the
mountains not so high as they all were then.
PATRICK: It maun be yersel that's grawn bigger, lad, for I've been here to
seem them a' every day o' the years ye've been awa', and they havena changed
at a' at a'.
ROBERT: It was a joke I was making, Patrick.
PATRICK: Oh? (DOUBTFULLY) Weel. Aiblins ye'd like tae walk alang the shore up
t'wards Glen Douglas?
ROBERT: Along the old path....
PATRICK: Na, the auld path isna there any mair, Robert. We maun just walk up
the highroad tae Inverbeg if ye like.
There's time before dark, if ye will.
ROBERT: The highroad. I've not heard that word in speech for many's the long
year, Patrick.
PATRICK. Ye mind the song, though.
ROBERT: Ay, I mind the song. Many's the time I've heard the song sung back
there in the States, and even the times I've heard 'em making it a jazz song
in the night-clubs, I—
PATRICK: They dinna do that!
ROBERT: Ay, they do, but they're Sassenachs that do it, not knowing the
meaning.
PATRICK: But whit dae ye do aboot it?
ROBERT: Nothing.
PATRICK: Nothing! Are you a Scot!
ROBERT: What's the good? I'd not be thanked for interferin'. So I take the
song to my heart, and – in good time I come back to Scotland.
PATRICK: And God be thankit ye come to the high-road, Robert.
ROBERT: Highroad or lowroad, we all come back.
PATRICK: Ay. Ye mind how grandfather told us how Charlie's men cam back frae
Carlisle along this very road on the way to Culloden in the '45?
ROBERT: All that was left of the six thousand that invaded England..marching
back to the Well o' the Dead –
PATRICK: Aye, and the lowroad crowded too, wi' them that was left behind at
Carlisle.
ROBERT: Patrick, have you ever heard them at night, as grandfather used to
tell?
PATRICK: There's mony a strange thing to be heard of a winter's night alang
the banks o' Loch Lomond, Robert. I have heard the coronach skirlin' amang the
braes on a night when no livin' mon wad be oot in the storm, and waked to hear
the news o' death in the village in the mornin'.
ROBERT: You're fey, Patrick.
PATRICK: Aye. We're a' fey, we Scots. We hear things that ither men canna
hear, and we see things that naebody sees but us, and here amang the lowerin'
crags an' the dark tarns we're ay closer t' Death an' all his secrets than
ither race upon the Earth. Aye, we're a dour, dowie, fey folk, Robert, and noo
the sun has set should we no be turnin' oor steps back tae the village and a
guild willie-wacht.
ROBERT: Now that I've forgotten, Patrick.
PATRICK: Weel, ye have been a lang time away frae hame, then, Robert, to've
fergot that a guild willie-wacht is a gey long drink of uisge-beatha. Come
alang, noo, before the bogles o' the nicht come oot an' charm ye awa' wi'
their singin' –
ROBERT: Listen!
SINGER: ...where me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond...
(MUSIC .. WITH THE FEELING OF PIPES IN IT)
ROBERT: Ben Lomond has looked upon many's the dying sun since that night I
first heard your voice, Janet. The winds that stir the heather in the Vale of
Leven tonight are a coronach above your lonely grave beside the bonnie banks
of the lonely loch.
And there was prophecy in the words of the song you sang, Janet.
SINGER: ...will never meet again...
ROBERT: For neither the High Road nor the Low Road brought your lover back in
time.
I saw you first, Janet, in the gloaming, and Orion the Mighty Hunter was
rising behind you. I saw him not as the huntsman he seems to others, but as a
giant in kilt and plaid, with Aldebaran for a cairngorm at his shoulder, and
the mighty drones of his war-pipes upon his arm. And from the jewel-studded
chanter that some think to be his sword came the high, wild skirling of a
Highland song that was old when Kenneth MacAlpin was King of the Picts and
Scots.
And I have heard the song many another time, Janet, as Orion nightly rises
above Ben Lomond or above the thousand-windowed towers of a city far away.
Then I remember the Low Road waits for me, Janet, and a day will come when I
shall hear the Lament, and follow the ancient pipes back to the land whence I
came.
(MUSIC ... "ADAGIO LAMENTOSO")
ROBERT: I had no words when I first saw you, Janet.
I remember how my brother spoke your name. I remember how he called you by the
old Gaelic "Seonaid" ...
PATRICK: Ye'd not be rememberin' Seonaid MacFarlane, Robert...
ROBERT: And you spoke, Janet, Seonaid....
JANET: I was a wee bairn when you went awa', Robett, all the years syne, but I
remember you.
ROBERT: You remembered ME!
You'd not know me, though, Janet, Seonaid, now I'm a grown man...
JANET: Oh, no, but that ye look like Patrick. I'd know ye, Robert.
ROBERT: And I stared at her in the dusk, until she laughed ...
JANET: (LAUGHS) But ye'll know me anither time, Robert frae the way ye're
gogglin' at me the noo!
ROBERT: And I spoke; like some back-country loon I spoke. I said you're so
beautiful, Seonaid. And Patrick laughed, too
PATRICK: (LAUGHS) Robert thocht ye some bogle or kelpie i' the dark, Seonaid,
syne we was bletherin' aboot the like.
JANET: Ay, then, Robert, see ye mind yersel', for 'tes true there are fairy-
folk that dwell beside the loch.
ROBERT: And I spoke like a loon again, and the long-forgotten burr came to my
tongue as I said Och aye, and it wad seem that I ha' foond ane o' them ...
Seonaid.
(MUSIC ... REFRAIN "ON THE BONNIE, BONNIE BANKS O' LOCH LOMOND")
ROBERT: Long walks in the shining days of the fall ... Up the steep hill above
Rudha Mor to the Fairch Loch where the waters are forever blue because the
fairies used to wash their clothes there... Down to scones and wild bramble
jam at Inverbeg ... Across the Loch Rowardennan, and once we climbed Ben
Lomond himself and set to watch the sun go down behind the Black Mountain ...
Patrick, and Seonaid, and me.....And the song, the song...
SINGER: ... me and my true love will never, never meet
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond ...
ROBERT: Patrick, and Seonaid, and me ...
And one day; one day at last,
Only Seonaid and me.
The first time, Seonaid, you and I have been alone together.
JANET: Why, so it is, Rob.
ROBERT: I had begun to think you never wanted to be alone with me, Seonaid.
JANET: Had you?
ROBERT: Aye. (A PAUSE) Is it so?
JANET: Do you think so?
ROBERT: Seonaid.
JANET: Yes, Rob?
ROBERT: I must go back to America soon.
JANET: To America! (A PAUSE) I thought you had come to stay.
ROBERT: No. Not this time. Another time I will come back ... to stay.
JANET: We will be sorry to see you go, Rob. It has been good having you. But
must you go?
ROBERT: Will you care?
JANET: I will care, aye.
ROBERT: Seonaid, do you know what I am trying to say to you?
JANET: (AFTER A PAUSE) Aye, Rob.
ROBERT: Must I say it?
JANET: Dinna say it.
ROBERT: Seonaid, I love you.
JANET: (SLOWLY) Aye, I ken you do, Rob.
ROBERT: I love you.
JANET: Ye ha' loved me ever syne the first time ye saw me.
ROBERT: You knew it?
JANET: I saw yer face in the starlicht, Rob.
ROBERT: Ah, Seonaid ...
JANET: No.
ROBERT: Dearest, Seonaid –
JANET: No, Rob! No!
ROBERT: But you –
JANET: Rob. Hasna Patrick said aught to ye?
ROBERT: Patrick!
JANET: Aye, Patrick. Ye rain brither ...
ROBERT: Janet! No!
JANET: Aye, Rob. Didna ye ken that we are betrothed?
ROBERT: And the skies above me darkened then.
I saw the white leven-fire lash at the brow of Ben Lomond across the loch, and
Through the thunder's crash (SOUND) a burst of music from the blackened skies
Louder than the roar of the drones of the great war-pipes of MacCrimmon, and
the music hammered at me like the blows of a Lochaber axe –
(MUSIC ... THROUGH THE THUNDER THE ORGAN (ECHO) REPEATS THE PHRASE "NEVER MEET
AGAIN, NEVER MEET AGAIN" AND STOPS ABRUPTLY.)
ROBERT: And in that moment I hated my brother.
(MUSIC ... A SOMBRE CODA)
ROBERT: We Scots are a strange race.
There is something in us of the berserk Norsemen who came to conquer us and
became a part of us.
There is something of the Pict in us; the dark dwarfs who opposed their bare,
blue-painted bodies against the wicket short swords and darting spears of
Agricola's legions from Rome;
And amongst us there are men with races that you might see on a Roman coin of
Hadrian's time; for we did not put all our Roman captives to the sword.
A strange race; strange even to ourselves. A race of violent men with all the
virtues of our forefathers, and not a little of their forgotten wickedness.
Brother has hated brother before, in Scotland.
Were not the Protestant Campbells arrayed against Charles Edward at Culloden?
Was not the very chief of my own clan slain by Alistair MacGregor three
hundred years ago? I hated my brother.
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT)
PATRICK: Me, I was no sure aboot it.
I dinna ken why I didna tell Robert about Seonaid and mysel'.
Aiblins I thocht Seonaid herself wad tell him.
Aiblins I hesitated aboot it, thinkin' a better dee wad come, and a fairer
opportunity.
I dinna ken.
Noo I can see that perhaps a' that scather could ha' been avoided had I just
spoke the richt words at the richt time.
Or maybe it couldn't.
Anyways, it was too late.
Robert spoke to ME:
ROBERT: You're a luck man, young Patrick.
PATRICK: Och, aye?
ROBERT: Aye; you're a luck man.
PATRICK: And what's brought that up, Robbie?
ROBERT: I mean about Seonaid.
PATRICK: Oh. (A PAUSE) Ye – ye know aboot it, then?
ROBERT: She told me.
PATRICK: Oh. Weel ... I mean to tell ye aboot it afore, Rob, but somehow or
ither –
ROBERT: Well ... it wasn't quite fair to me, you know.
PATRICK: I ken that, Robbie, and I'm sorry. But – I – I (HE STOPS)
ROBERT: Forget it, Patrick.
PATRICK: I know, but ...
ROBERT: Forget it. I'm going back to the States next week.
PATRICK: Oh, no! Why, ye said ye was come hame to stay, Robbie!
ROBERT: I thought so at first, but ... I can't stay.
PATRICK: Is it because ... Seonaid ....
ROBERT: Well ... that's part of it, Pat. (HE LAUGHS SHORTLY) As a matter of
fact, I told her I was going back ...
PATRICK: Ye did!
ROBERT: I ... it was by way of asking her if she'd come back to the States
with me that I ... I didn't know, Pat.
PATRICK: I should ha' told ya.
ROBERT: Yes; you should have. I – I thought she – she might have loved me. But
--- well, you're a lucky man, Pat.
PATRICK: Och, aye, Robbie. But no a happy one the noo.
ROBERT: It's all right, Pat. So you see I've got an even better reason for
leaving now.
PATRICK: Aye. Aye, so. (A PAUSE) Ye'll be leavin' soon, then, eh?
ROBERT: Very soon. Next week.
PATRICK: I looked forward so many years tae seein' ye again, Rob.
ROBERT: Well, you've seen me, Patrick. And you know, even if Janet hadn't
already said the word to you ... even if she'd been free, and even if she'd
have said yes to me, I couldn't have stayed anyway.
PATRICK: Why, Robbie?
ROBERT: Because. I knew you loved her, and I thought if I'd prove myself the
better man to her, and married her ... even then one of us'd have to leave,
wouldn't we?
PATRICK: Weel ...
ROBERT: And this is home to you. I have another home, you know. I haven't seen
Loch Lomond in nearly thirty years, and now I've seen it, and seen you, and ..
you do see I must go, don't you?
PATRICK: (AFTER A PAUSE) Aye.
ROBERT: Well, then.
PATRICK: Aye. Weel, then.
ROBERT: And I couldn't say to my brother, there is a better reason than any
other for my leaving. I couldn't say to my brother, Patrick, I hate you. I
couldn't tell him that if I stayed, a day would come when ... when ... I knew
in my heart that if I stayed...
And I didn't want the crime of murder on my soul.
(MUSIC ... FOR AN ACCENT)
ROBERT: Not then, I didn't.
But in the dark of the night, alone at the window, staring out at Orion
striding across the sky, and shutting my eyes and seeing the bright hair of
Seonaid against the pattern of Betelgeuse and Aldebaran in the blackness of
that sky above Ben Lomond, then ...
Then another thought came.
And I opened my eyes, and that great smouldering red star that some folk call
Siris the Dog Star – that star was the hilt of a blood-stained sgain-dubh that
the mighty piper of the skies carried ... even as I did ... in his stocking.
The little black-hafted knife that is as much a part of Highland dress as
plaidie, sporran, or filibeg.
And the toneless rhythm of MacRimmon's Lament
Return, return, return no more ...
SINGER: .... Shall never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond
ROBERT: And I, Robert Kilpatrick Colquohoun of Luss in Dumbartonshire, fell to
my knees and prayed in the night that I should not slay my brother.
(MUSIC ... AND THE RHYTHM OF THE LAMENT "RETURN, RETURN, RETURN NO MORE" COMES
UP AND SUBSIDES.
OUT OF IT COMES THE FIRST FEW NOTES OF "BY YON BONNIE BANKS" PITCHED TO LEAD
JANET'S VOICE IN)
JANET: I am glad he is going.
Had it not been for the word I gave Patrick ...
If he stayed...
I love Patrick. I love Patrick.
It is good that he is taking Patrick with him to see him off on the ship that
will take him back to America.
Patrick has never been out of Scotland.
It will be good for him to have a few days alone with his brother, to laugh
together and talk of old days, and then to say good-by.
Come back soon, Patrick.
Come back to Scotland.
(MUSIC ... WITH THE RHYTHM OF THE LAMENT IN IT)
ROBERT: Down the highroad through Balloch in a bumpy motorbus; down above
Kilpatrick along the hillside and John Brown's shipyard along the Clyde; onto
the Great Western Road and the last into Glasgow.
And my heart is heavy in my breast, but my brother is gay at the thought of a
few days with me, to talk mantalk and perhaps to sit in an ancient public-
house in the City of the Bells and take a stowp o' Dew o' Glenlivet, and
another and another, till our pates ring louder than all the bells o' Glasgow
put together.
And this we do; aye, this we do.
And in the heavy peat-smoke reek of the unblended spirit we are suddenly
brothers again, with naught but song and story between us.
But there is an end to the night, and in the biting air of the streets
sobriety comes to me, and above me the Mighty Piper takes his stately way, and
faintly, faintly a certain rhythm that beats itself out to the sound of our
echoing footsteps
SOUND: (ECHOING FOOTSTEPS)
ROBERT: Patrick is only faintly puzzled when I say no to the deoch an doruis,
the drink at the door, and make my way to the room, stony-sober to sit the
night out.
SINGER: NEVER, NEVER MEET....
ROBERT: South from Glasgow, and a sudden impulse at Carlisle, the first town
on the English side of the Border. Here it was that the song was born. Did you
know? It was after the '45, after Prince Charles Edward's invasion of England
with six thousand men. He paused at Carlisle, and the wounded who were too far
gone to struggle north with him were left.
And many of them died.
It was some sorely-wounded, dour old warrior who took leave of a comrade still
able to march. He knew his fate was upon him, and his farewell was as dour as
anything he ever did in a hard life. "Ye'll tak' the high-road," he said to
his friend. "Ye'll tak' the high-road, and I'll take the Low Road – och, aye,
and I'll be in Scotland afore ye."
You don't understand?
The Low Road is the last way home for the Scot who dies beyond the Border,
beyond the seas. It's the Long Way Home for many a man.
That's why we don't like to have it sung the way we sometimes hear it.
Would you remember that?
No, that isn't the end of the story.
We saw the old gaol in Carlisle, and the place where they hanged the men of
the Highlands who couldn't take the High Road. We stayed there two days.
We were about to leave when the telegram came.
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT)
ROBERT: Seonaid.
She was dying.
She had been stricken suddenly, and the telegram had followed us from Glasgow.
It was addressed to Patrick, but I opened it.
I think I went mad in that moment.
I flung myself down the stairway of the little inn where we were staying.
There was a hire-garage across the street. I ran inside, and I remember I was
screaming.
But I got a car. I flung all my money in the man's face, and I leap into the
seat of the car.
Patrick?
I didn't even think of Patrick.
Not even when he came racing out of the door, waving the telegram that I had
dropped in my haste.
I didn't think of Patrick even when the car struck him and flung him still
screaming under the wheels as I headed out the highroad to the North and Loch
Lomond.
(MUSIC ... IN FOR B.G.)
ROBERT: I have only confused memories of that ride northward.
I roared past the border guards.
Through Greta Green, and Dumfries, and through Ayr and Kilmarnock, through the
streets of Glasgow in the earliest hours of the morning....
I think policemen shouted at me; probably someone chased me.
Certainly there were motorcycles waiting for me when I passed through Balloch,
my tyres screaming like banshees at the tight turn there, and motorcycles
scattering all-which ways....
And up the high road to Loch Lomond, to Luss, where Seonaid lay dying.
I called her name.
(MUSIC ... SAYS "SEONAID SEONAID SEONAID")
ROBERT: And the high road stretched white ahead of me.
And I had a confused thought that there was another road alongside me, and a
hurrying crowd of men who raced along it with me....
I could have sworn that I caught a glimpse of a broad Balmoral bonnet flying
across the road in the glare of my headlamps, and I could see the golden
hart's head badge of the Colquhouns upon it, and a red toorie that somehow
seemed to be bloody....
And I drove faster and faster and faster.
And the men on the other road kept pace with me and I could have sworn I heard
the skirl of pipes – what was it Patrick had said about the skirl of the
coronach abune the braes? – and the waters of the Loch gleaming blackly in my
headlamps, and then at last the white church at Luss.
Yes. I was too late.
Seonaid was dead.
The telegram had been delayed two days, you remember?
And so I walked down the highroad to the little church-yard and somewhere I
heard a clock strike three.
I looked up to the sky, and Orion was there.
And the red jewel in the haft of the sgain-dubh glittered evilly down at me.
Yes, I found Seonaid's grave; her new-made grave.
And in the starlight that came down from the figure of the great piper above
me there stood another figure.
A figure in full Highland dress, with plaidie and shawl, with bonnet and
claymore and sporran, and the golden hart's head badge of the Colquhouns
gleaming in the starlight.
And I remembered as I knelt down by her grave.
I remembered when Patrick spoke to me.
PATRICK: You are late, brother.
SINGER: Ye'll tak' the high road and I'll tak' the Low Road
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye...
(MUSIC ... THE END OF THE SONG)
ROBERT: In a little while they'll take a man from his cell in Carlisle Gaol,
and then a warden will come to the street door, and he'll tack up a little
notice and if you can get close enough you can read it. It'll say "The
sentence of death upon the person of Robert Kilpatrick Colquhoun, late of
Luss, Dumbartonshire, Scotland, has been duly carried out."
And then I'll take the Low Road back to Scotland.
But where will I go?
I have murdered my brother.
(MUSIC ... THEME)
ANNCR: You have listened to "Quiet, Please", which is written and directed by
Wyllis Cooper. The man who spoke to you was Ernest Chappell.
CHAPPELL: And Pat O'Malley played Patrick. Betty Wragge was Janet, and it was
she who sang "The Bonnie Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond."
The music on "Quiet Please" is composed and played by Gene Perrazzo.
Now, for a word about next week's "Quiet, Please" here is our writer-director
Wyllis Cooper.
COOPER: "Not Enough Time" is the title of next week's story, which is about
another of those interesting scientists who invented a machine for traveling
in time. This one has an interesting twist that I hope you'll like.
CHAPPELL: And so until our next week at this time, I am quietly yours, Ernest
Chappell.
(MUSIC ... THEME FADE FOR)
ANNCR: "Quiet, Please" comes to you from New York.
THIS IS THE MUTUAL BROADCASTING SYSTEM.
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