The Low Road

Title The Low Road
Description Episode 17
Message Text “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 can’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 hightroad, 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 tying sun since that night I first yeard 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 Might 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 l.ike.

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’thhem … 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” AN D STOPS ABRUPTLY.

ROBERT: And in that moment I hated my brother.

(MUSIC … A SOMBRE CODA)
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Submission Date Sep 03, 2003