Lochinvar: A Novel
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CHAPTER XLIV
GREAT DUNDEE
At Keppoch the months passed slowly enough for our two exiles. Theyheard no news from the south--of Barra nothing, no word of Kate McGhie.The country about them was in a constant ferment--gatherings here andthere on behalf of King James; false reports about the doings of theHamiltonians and Conventiclers in Edinburgh; reports that the WestlandWhigs were marching to exterminate the lads of the glens, in revengefor the doings of the Highland Host. They had sworn (so the tale ran)to take back to Ayrshire and Galloway the booty of the "Seventy-nine,"which still constituted the best part of the plenishings of mostHighland cottages to the north of the lands of Breadalbane and McCallumMore.
It was hard to wait in blank ignorance; but Wat knew that his best hopeof coming to his own again, and so to the winning of his love, was toabide the chances of war, and by good service to the king to deservethe restoration of his fiefs and heritages.
Luckily for the two outlaws, no French officers came to Keppoch, norany, indeed, who knew either Scarlett or Wat, otherwise their liveshad not been worth an hour's purchase. But as week after week wentby, they became great favorites with McDonald, and were taken onseveral occasions to see Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiell--a wise, silent,benignant man, who at first said little, but contented himself withwatching them silently and subtly from under his eyebrows.
"I remember your father," he said, suddenly flashing a look on Wat.
"You remember my father?" repeated Wat, eagerly; "I did not know he hadever been in the Highlands."
"Nor was he," said Lochiell; "it was in Edinburgh, when his head wascocked up on the Nether Bow, that I mind him--and a fine, wiselike;honest-seeming head it was."
The young man straightened himself fiercely, suspecting an intention toinsult him.
"Na, na," said Lochiell, smilingly; "that's where every honest man'shead ought to land at the last. James Graham's was there afore yourfather's, and mine, I doubt not, will follow one day. But they willsend Keppoch's black puddock-stool tied up in a poke to fricht thebairns of Inverness."
"Ye are acquaint with my Lord Dundee, they tell me?" was Lochiell'snext question.
"Aye," said Wat, "and well acquaint--though I know not how he wouldreceive me now. Yet many a time have I ridden blithely enough at hisside when I was a lad, until I had the misfortune to be outlawed andattainted by the Privy Council--"
"What was that for--not ony maitter o' religion and godliness, I hope?Nae sic Whiggery about a brisk lad like you, surely?" said Keppoch.
"It was for the small matter of sticking a sword into a man or twobelonging to my Lord Duke of Wellwood," interrupted Scarlett, "andmaybe for helping his Grace himself to an ounce of lead--"
"Hoot!" cried Keppoch, "John Graham will never steer ye for ony siccause. He is great on the drill and discipline, but as to the richtin'o' a bit private misunderstanding, that surely is every gentleman's ainbusiness."
"That was not the view the Council took of the matter," said Wat,smiling.
"Oh, they wad doubtless be o' the ither man's clan, or his connectionsand well-wishers in some shape--ye couldna blame them. They wad do thebest they could for their side, nae doot," answered Keppoch.
And Lochiell listened to all with a gravely smiling face, like a manwell pleased.
At Keppoch there was one day a muster and a show of weapons, afterwhich came sword-play and fighting with the Lochaber axe, assault withtarge and without targe--all of which Wat and Scarlett watched withinfinite zest and unwearied amusement.
When it was well over, and all the champions from the glens hadperformed before the chief and Lochiell (who were then in greatamity), Keppoch invited Wat to try a bout with him. Wat professed hisinexperience with the heavier blade of the claymore, but asked to bepermitted to retain his own lighter and finer "Andrea"--which, indeed,had scarcely ever left his side since he recovered it in the locker ofthe boat from which he had been cast ashore on the isle of Fiara.
So before long, weapon in hand, the huge black chieftain facedLochinvar, towering over him like a son of Anak, his very sword castinga shadow like a weaver's beam.
They saluted in form and fell-to.
Clash! The blades met, and almost immediately Keppoch swept his swordin a full cut at Wat's shoulder. The young man measured his distance,stepped aside, and the next moment his Andrea pricked Keppoch's sidebelow the arm. It was a mere touch with the point, but had the bladestood a handbreadth in the giant's body, as it might have done, thesons of Ian would have needed another chief.
Coll o' the Cows was more than a little astonished; but thinking thematter some accidental chance which could not be repeated, he professedhis readiness to proceed.
"Man," cried Lochiell, who had been attentively watching the combat,"not Coll o' the Cows, but Coll o' the Corbies ye would have been ifthat laddie had liked. For oh, man, ye would hae been deid as DugaldMore, and the clan looking for a tree to hang the young man on by thistime."
With this most disabling thought in his mind to warn him from a toocomplete victory, Wat once more guarded, and for a long time contentedhimself with keeping off the furious strokes of the chief's assault,as easily, to all appearance, as a roof turns aside the pelting of asummer shower. Then, as Keppoch took breath a moment, his first furyhaving worn itself out, Wat attacked in his turn, and, puzzling hisopponent, as was his wont, with the lightning swiftness of his thrustand recovery, caught his claymore deftly near the hilt, and in a momentit was flying out of his fingers.
Keppoch gazed after his weapon with as much surprise as if a hand hadbeen reached out of the blue sky to snatch it from his grasp.
"God!" he cried, "but ye are a most mighty sworder--ne'er a one like yewithin the Highland line. Who was your master at the play?"
Wat pointed to where old Jack Scarlett sat smiling complacently besideLochiell.
"There is my teacher," he said, "and at my best I am but a bairn with awindlestraw in my master's hands."
Scarlett wagged his beard at Keppoch's evident consternation.
"No, no," he said, "I am old and stiff. Do not believe him. Why, lad,ye beat me the last time I tried ye with that same trick, though indeedI myself had taught it ye at the first."
"But I was vexed for the lad," he added under his breath, "and maybe Idid not just try my best."
Of course after this nothing would serve the chiefs but that Wat andScarlett must fight a long bout with the blunted point, which presentlythey did amid tremendous excitement.
"Oich! Oich!" shouted the clansmen, jumping in the air and yelling atevery good stroke and lightning parry.
"Bone o' Dugald More--what heevenly fechtin'!" cried Keppoch. "Ideclare I am like to greet--me that hasna grat since the year sixty,when Ian Mackintosh of Auchnacarra died afore I could kill him. Oh, forthe like o' you twa to lead a foray intil the country of the LochiellCamerons--_I mean the Appin Stewarts, foul fa' them!_ We wad gang inthe daytime. For oh! it wad be a peety that sic bonny sword-play shouldbe wasted in killing folk in the nicht season."
And the tears actually streamed from the eye of Black Colin as hewatched the swords clash and click, meeting each other sweetly andwillingly like trysted lovers.
"This is worth a' the kye frae Achnasheen to Glen Urquhart," he cried."Ah, that was a stroke! 'Tis better than ganging to a kirk!"
More than once Wat nearly got home. But old Jack, standing a littlestiffly on his legs and biting at a bit of sour-grass, always turnedthe point an inch aside at the critical moment. At last came theopening, and the master's return flew like lightning. Wat's blade wasforced upward in spite of his lowered wrist, and lo! Scarlett's pointstood against the third button of his coat as steadily as a master in aschool points at the blackboard with his ferule.
A great shout went up from the throng. The hands of both combatantswere shaken. Keppoch's defeat was avenged. Such swordsmanship had neverbefore been seen by any son of Ian. The reputation of both master andpupil was made on the spot. Lochiell and Keppoch vied with each oth
erin civilities, and the event became a daily one--but after this with apair of foils, which the master-at-arms deftly manufactured.
In many such ways the months passed, and the spring came again withdelicate green kindling along the watercourses, as the birch began tocast her tresses to the winds, and the grass tufts fought hard with theconquering heather.
But upon a day late in the month of May the party at Keppoch was brokenby a sudden definite call. Three horsemen rode up to the door oneblazing noontide. Scarlett and Keppoch were playing cards, the chiefeagerly and noisily, Scarlett with the dogged use-and-wont of a hundredcamps. Wat Gordon was cleaning his arms and accoutrements in the hall;for though they two had landed with little save the swords by theirsides--now, thanks to their quality as swordsmen, and also somewhatto the weight of the gold in Wat's belt (which had so nearly been thedeath of him in the Suck of Suliscanna), they had been equipped withall the necessities of war.
The first of the three riders who entered into the hall of Keppochwas no other than my Lord Dundee. He looked thirty years older thanwhen Wat had seen him last riding by in the gloaming to the house ofBalmaghie--grayer, more wearied, sadder, too, with his face drawn andpale in spite of the sun and the wind.
He greeted Keppoch courteously but without great cordiality, glancedhis eye once over Jack Scarlett, and seemed to take his quality in amoment--gravely saluting the good soldier of any rank and all ranks.Then he looked about him slowly.
"Why, Lochinvar!" he cried, astonished, "what wind hath blown youhere--not recruiting for the Prince of Orange, I hope, nor yet tryingto cut my favor with Keppoch?"
"Nay," said Wat, "but, if an outlaw and an exile may, ready as ever tofight to the death for King James."
"Why, well said," answered my Lord Dundee, smiling, "yet, if I rememberrightly, I think you owed his Majesty not so much favor."
"In the matter of the Privy Council and my Lord Wellwood?" said Wat,shrugging his shoulders. "As to that, I took my risks like another. Andif I had to pay the piper--why, it was at least no one but myself whocalled the tune."
"Not my lady--my late Lady Wellwood, I mean?" said Dundee, glancing athim with the pale ghost of mirthfulness on his face.
Wat shook his head.
"Of my own choice I took the barred road, and wherefore should Icomplain that I had to settle the lawing when I came to the toll-gates?But at least I am glad that you bear me no grudge, my lord," said Wat,"for doubtless, after all, it was a matter of the king's justice."
"Grudge!" cried one of those who were with the viscount, "it had been aGod's blessing if you had stood your weapon a hand-breadth out on theother side of his Grace of Wellwood when you were about it."
Whereupon, with no further word, Dundee and Keppoch retired to conferapart; and that night, when the viscount rode away from the house, histhree followers had become four. For Wat Gordon rode by his side as inold days on the braes of Garryhorn before any of these things befell.But Jack Scarlett abode still with Keppoch and Lochiell to help them tobring their clansmen into the field.