by Neil Munro
CHAPTER IV.--A NIGHT ALARM.
Writing all this old ancient history down, I find it hard to riddle outin my mind the things that have really direct and pregnant bearing onthe matter in hand. I am tempted to say a word or two anent my LordMarquis's visit to my father, and his vain trial to get me enlistedinto his corps for Lorn. Something seems due, also, to be said about thekindness I found from all the old folks of Inneraora, ever proud tosee a lad of their own of some repute come back among them; and of myfather's grieving about his wae widowerhood: but these things must standby while I narrate how there arose a wild night in town Inneraora, withthe Highlandmen from the glens into it with dirk and sword and steelDoune pistols, the flambeaux flaring against the tall lands, and theLowland burghers of the place standing up for peace and tranquil sleep.
The market-day came on the morning after the day John Splendid and Iforegathered with my Lord Archibald. It was a smaller market than usual,by reason of the troublous times; but a few black and red cattle camefrom the landward part of the parish and Knapdale side, while Lochowand Bredalbane sent hoof nor horn. There was never a blacker sign ofthe time's unrest But men came from many parts of the shire, withtheir chieftains or lairds, and there they went clamping about thisLowland-looking town like foreigners. I counted ten tartans in as manyminutes between the cross and the kirk, most of them friendly withMacCailein Mor, but a few, like that of MacLachlan of that ilk, atvariance, and the wearers with ugly whingers or claymores at theirbelts. Than those MacLachlans one never saw a more barbarous-lookingset. There were a dozen of them in the tail or retinue of old Lachie'sson--a henchman, piper, piper's valet, _gille-mor_, _gille_ wet-sole, orrunning footman, and such others as the more vain of our Highland gentryat the time ever insisted on travelling about with, all stout junky menof middle size, bearded to the brows, wearing flat blue bonnets with apervenke plant for badge on the sides of them, on their feet deerskinbrogues with the hair out, the rest of their costume all belted tartan,and with arms clattering about them. With that proud pretence which iscommon in our people when in strange unfamiliar occasions--and I wouldbe the last to dispraise it--they went about by no means braggardly butwith the aspect of men who had better streets and more shops to showat home; surprised at nothing in their alert moments, but now and againforgetting their dignity and looking into little shop-windows with thewonder of bairns and great gabbling together, till MacLachlan fluted onhis whistle, and they came, like good hounds, to heel.
All day the town hummed with Gaelic and the round bellowing of cattle.It was clear warm weather, never a breath of wind to stir the gildingtrees behind the burgh. At ebb-tide the sea-beach whitened and smokedin the sun, and the hot air quivered over the stones and the crispingwrack. In such a season the bustling town in the heart of the stemHighlands seemed a fever spot. Children came boldly up to us forfairings or gifts, and they strayed--the scamps!--behind the droves andthumped manfully on the buttocks of the cattle. A constant stream of menpassed in and out at the change-house closes and about the Fisherlandtenements, where seafarers and drovers together sang the maddestlove-ditties in the voices of roaring bulls; beating the while withtheir feet on the floor in our foolish Gaelic fashion, or, as one couldsee through open windows, rugging and riving at the corners of a plaidspread between them,--a trick, I daresay, picked up from women, who atthe waulking or washing of woollen cloth new spun, pull out the fabricto tunes suited to such occasions.
I spent most of the day with John Splendid and one Tearlach Fraser, onold comrade, and as luck, good or ill, would have it, the small hours ofmorning were on me before I thought of going home. By dusk the bulk ofthe strangers left the town by the highroads, among them the MacNicolls,who had only by the cunning of several friends (Splendid as busy as any)been kept from coming to blows with the MacLachlan tail. Earlier in theday, by a galley or wherry, the MacLachlans also had left, but not theyoung laird, who put up for the night at the house of Provost Brown.
The three of us I have mentioned sat at last playing cartes in theferry-house, where a good glass could be had and more tidiness than mostof the hostelries in the place could boast of. By the stroke of midnightwe were the only customers left in the house, and when, an hour after, Imade the move to set out for Glen Shira, John Splendid yoked on me as ifmy sobriety were a crime.
"Wait, man, wait, and I'll give you a convoy up the way," he would say,never thinking of the road he had himself to go down to Coillebhraid.
And aye it grew late and the night more still. There would be a footgoing by at first at short intervals, sometimes a staggering one and avoice growling to itself in Gaelic; and anon the wayfarers were no more,the world outside in a black and solemn silence. The man who kept theferry-house was often enough in the custom of staying up all night tomeet belated boats from Kilcatrine; we were gentrice and good customers,so he composed himself in a lug chair and dovered in a little roomopening off ours, while we sat fingering the book. Our voices as wecalled the cartes seemed now and then to me like a discourtesy to thepeace and order of the night.
"I must go," said I a second time.
"Another one game," cried John Splendid. He had been winning every bout,but with a reluctance that shone honestly on his face, and I knew it wasto give Tearlach and me a chance to better our reputation that he wouldhave us hang on.
"You have hard luck indeed," he would say. Or, "You played that trick asfew could do it" Or, "Am not I in the key to-night? there's less craftthan luck here." And he played even slovenly once or twice, flushing,we could read, lest we should see the stratagem. At these times, by thecurious way of chance, he won more surely than ever.
"I must be going," I said again. And this time I put the cartes bye,firmly determined that my usual easy and pliant mood in fair companywould be my own enemy no more.
"Another chappin of ale," said he. "Tearlach, get Elrigmore to bideanother bit. Tuts, the night's but young, the chap of two and a fineclear clean air with a wind behind you for Shira Glen."
"Wheest!" said Tearlach of a sudden, and he put up a hand.
There was a skliffing of feet on the road outside--many feet and wary,with men's voices in a whisper caught at the teeth--a sound at that hourfull of menace. Only a moment and then all was by.
"There's something strange here!" said John Splendid, "let's out andsee." He put round his rapier more on the groin, and gave a jerk at thenarrow belt creasing his fair-day crimson vest For me I had only thedirk to speak of, for the _sgian dubh_ at my leg was a silver toy, andTearlach, being a burgh man, had no arm at all. He lay hold on anoaken shinty stick that hung on the wall, property of the ferry-houselandlord's son.
Out we went in the direction of the footsteps, round Gillemor's cornerand the jail, past the Fencibles' arm-room and into the main street ofthe town, that held no light in door or window. There would have beenmoon, but a black wrack of clouds filled the heavens. From the kirkcorner we could hear a hushed tumult down at the Provost's close-mouth.
"Pikes and pistols!" cried Splendid. "Is it not as I said? yonder's yourMacNicolls for you."
In a flash I thought of Mistress Betty with her hair down, roused by themarauding crew, and I ran hurriedly down the street shouting the burgh'sslogan, "Slochd!"
"Damn the man's hurry!" said John Splendid, trotting at my heels, andwith Tearlach too he gave lungs to the shout.
"Slochd!" I cried, and "Slochd!" they cried, and the whole town clangedlike a bell. Windows opened here and there, and out popped heads, andthen--
"Murder and thieves!" we cried stoutly again.
"Is't the Athole dogs?" asked some one in bad English from a window, butwe did not bide to tell him.
"Slochd! slochd! club and steel!" more nimble burghers cried, jumpingout at closes in our rear, and following with neither hose nor brogue,but the kilt thrown at one toss on the haunch and some weapon in hand.And the whole wide street was stark awake.
The MacNicolls must have numbered fully threescore. They had only madea pretence (we learned again) o
f leaving the town, and had hung on theriverside till they fancied their attempt at seizing Maclachlan wassecure from the interference of the townfolk. They were packed in a massin the close and on the stair, and the foremost were solemnly batteringat the night door at the top of the first flight of stairs, crying,"_Fuil airson fuil!_--blood for blood, out with young Lachie!"
We fell to on the rearmost with a will, first of all with the bare fist,for half of this midnight army were my own neighbours in Glen Shira,peaceable men in ordinary affairs, kirk-goers, law-abiders, thoughmaybe a little common in the quality, and between them and the musteringburghers there was no feud. For a while we fought it dourly in thedarkness with the fingers at the throat or the fist in the face, orwrestled warmly on the plain-stones, or laid out, such as had staves,with good vigour on the bonneted heads. Into the close we couldnot--soon I saw it--push our way, for the enemy filled it--a dense massof tartan--stinking with peat and oozing with the day's debauchery.
"We'll have him out, if it's in bits," they said, and aye upon thestair-head banged the door.
"No remedy in this way for the folks besieged," thought I, and steppingaside I began to wonder how best to aid our friends by strategy ratherthan force of arms. All at once I had mind that at the back of the landfacing the shore an outhouse with a thatched roof ran at a high pitchwell up against the kitchen window, and I stepped through a closefarther up and set, at this outhouse, to the climbing, leaving myfriends fighting out in the darkness in a town tumultuous. To get upover the eaves of the outhouse was no easy task, and I would have failedwithout a doubt had not the stratagem of John Splendid come to his aida little later than my own and sent him after me. He helped me first onthe roof, and I had him soon beside me. The window lay unguarded (allthe inmates of the house being at the front), and we stepped in andfound ourselves soon in a household vastly calm considering the rabbledunting on its doors.
"A pot of scalding water and a servant wench at that back-window we camein by would be a good sneck against all that think of coming after us,"said John Splendid, stepping into the passage where we had met MistressBetty the day before--now with the stair-head door stoutly barred andbarricaded up with heavy chests and napery-aumries.
"God! I'm glad to see you, sir!" cried the Provost, "and you,Elrigmore!" He came forward in a trepidation which was shared by few ofthe people about him.
Young MacLachlan stood up against the wall facing the barricaded door, alad little over twenty, with a steel-grey quarrelsome eye, and there wasmore bravado than music in a pipe-tune he was humming in a low key tohimself. A little beyond, at the door of the best room, half in and halfout, stood the goodwife Brown and her daughter. A long-legged lad, ofabout thirteen, with a brog or awl was teasing out the end of a flambeauin preparation to light it for some purpose not to be guessed at, and aservant lass, pock-marked, with one eye on the pot and the other up thelum, as we say of a glee or cast, made a storm of lamentation, crying inGaelic--
"My grief! my grief! what's to come of poor Peggy?" (Peggy beingherself.) "Nothing for it but the wood and cave and the ravishing of theBen Bhuidhe wolves."
Mistress Betty laughed at her notion, a sign of humour and courage inher (considering the plight) that fairly took me.
"I daresay, Peggy, they'll let us be," she said, coming forward to shakeSplendid and me by the hand. "To keep me in braws and you in ashets tobreak would be more than the poor creatures would face, I'm thinking.You are late in the town, Elrigmore."
"Colin," I corrected her, and she bit the inside of her nether lip in astyle that means temper.
"It's no time for dalliance, I think. I thought you had been up theglen long syne, but we are glad to have your service in this trouble,Master--Colin" (with a little laugh and a flush at the cheek), "alsoBarbreck. Do you think they mean seriously ill by MacLachlan?"
"Ill enough, I have little doubt," briskly replied Splendid. "A corpsof MacNicolls, arrant knaves from all airts, worse than the Macaulaysor the Gregarach themselves, do not come banging at the burgh door ofInner-aora at this uncanny hour for a child's play. Sir" (he went on,to MacLachlan), "I mind you said last market-day at Kilmichael, with notruth to back it, that you could run, shoot, or sing any Campbell everput on hose; let a Campbell show you the way out of a bees'-bike. Takethe back-window for it, and out the way we came in. I'll warrant there'snot a wise enough (let alone a sober enough) man among all the idiotsbattering there who'll think of watching for your retreat."
MacLachlan, a most extraordinarily vain and pompous little fellow, puthis bonnet suddenly on his head, scragged it down vauntingly on oneside over the right eye, and stared at John Splendid with a good deal ofcholer or hurt vanity.
"Sir," said he, "this was our affair till you put a finger into it. Youmight know me well enough to understand that none of our breed ever tooka back-door if a front offered."
"Whilk it does not in this case," said John Splendid, seemingly in amood to humour the man. "But I'll allow there's the right spirit in theobjection--to begin with in a young lad. When I was your age I had thesame good Highland notion that the hardest way to face the foe wasthe handsomest 'Pallas Armata'* (is't that you call the book of arms,Elrigmore?) tells different; but 'Pallas Armata' (or whatever it is) isfor old men with cold blood."
* It could hardly be 'Pallas Armata.' The narrator anticipates Sir James Turner's ingenious treatise by several years.--N. M.
Of a sudden MacLachlan made dart at the chests and pulled them backfrom the door with a most surprising vigour of arm before any one couldprevent him. The Provost vainly tried to make him desist; John Splendidsaid in English, "Wha will to Cupar maun to Cupar," and in a jiffy thelast of the barricade was down, but the door was still on two woodenbars slipping into stout staples. Betty in a low whisper asked me tosave the poor fellow from his own hot temper.
At the minute I grudged him the lady's consideration--too warm, Ithought, even in a far-out relative, but a look at her face showed shewas only in the alarm of a woman at the thought of any one's danger.
I caught MacLachlan by the sleeve of his shirt--he had on but that and akilt and vest--and jerked him back from his fool's employment; but I wasa shave late. He ran back both wooden bars before I let him.
With a roar and a display of teeth and steel the MacNicolls came intothe lobby from the crowded stair, and we were driven to the far parlourend. In the forefront of them was Nicol Beg MacNicoll, the nearestkinsman of the murdered Braleckan lad. He had a targe on his left arm--around buckler of _darach_ or oakwood covered with dun cow-hide, hairout, and studded in a pleasing pattern with iron bosses--a prong severalinches long in the middle of it Like every other scamp in the pack, hehad dirk out. _Beg_ or little he was in the countryside's bye-name, butin truth he was a fellow of six feet, as hairy as a brock and in thesame straight bristly fashion. He put out his arms at full reach to keepback his clansmen, who were stretching necks at poor MacLachlan likeweasels, him with his nostrils swelling and his teeth biting his badtemper.
"Wait a bit, lads," said Nicol Beg; "perhaps we may get our friendhere to come peaceably with us. I'm sorry" (he went on, addressing theProvost) "to put an honest house to rabble at any time, and the Provostof Inneraora specially, for I'm sure there's kin's blood by my mother'sside between us; but there was no other way to get MacLachlan once histail was gone."
"You'll rue this, MacNicoll," fumed the Provost--as red as a bubblyjockat the face--mopping with a napkin at his neck in a sweat of annoyance;"you'll rue it, rue it, rue it!" and he went into a coil of lawyer'sthreats against the invaders, talking of brander-irons and gallows,hame-sucken and housebreaking.
We were a daft-like lot in that long lobby in a wan candle-light. Overme came that wonderment that falls on one upon stormy occasions (I mindit at the sally of Lecheim), when the whirl of life seems to come to asudden stop, all's but wooden dummies and a scene empty of atmosphere,and between your hand on the basket-hilt and the drawing of the swordis a lifetime. We could hear at the close-mouth
and far up and down thestreet the shouting of the burghers, and knew that at the stair-footthey were trying to pull out the bottom-most of the marauders like todsfrom a hole. For a second or two nobody said a word to Nicol MacNicoll'sremark, for he put the issue so cool (like an invitation to saunteralong the road) that all at once it seemed a matter between him andMacLachlan alone. I stood between the housebreakers and the women-folkbeside me--John Splendid looking wonderfully ugly for a man fairly cleanfashioned at the face by nature. We left the issue to MacLachlan, and Imust say he came up to the demands of the moment with gentlemanliness,minding he was in another's house than his own.
"What is it ye want?" he asked MacNicoll, burring out his Gaelic _r's_with punctilio.
"We want you in room of a murderer your father owes us," said MacNicoll.
"You would slaughter me, then?" said MacLachlan, amazingly undisturbed,but bringing again to the front, by a motion of the haunch accidental tolook at, the sword he leaned on.
"_Fuil airson fuil!_" cried the rabble on the stairs, and it seemedghastly like an answer to the young laird's question; but Nicol Begdemanded peace, and assured MacLachlan he was only sought for a hostage.
"We but want your red-handed friend Dark Neil," said he; "your fatherkens his lair, and the hour he puts him in our hands for justice, you'llhave freedom."
"Do you warrant me free of scaith?" asked the young laird.
"I'll warrant not a hair of your head's touched," answered Nicol Beg--novery sound warranty, I thought, from a man who, as he gave it, had toput his weight back on the eager crew that pushed at his shoulders,ready to spring like weasels at the throat of the gentleman in the redtartan.
He was young, MacLachlan, as I said; for him this was a delicatesituation, and we about him were in no less a quandary than himself. Ifhe defied the Glen Shira men, he brought bloodshed on a peaceable house,and ran the same risk of bodily harm that lay in the alternative of hisgoing with them that wanted him.
Round he turned and looked for guidance--broken just a little at thepride, you could see by the lower lip. The Provost was the first to meethim eye for eye.
"I have no opinion, Lachie," said the old man, snuffing rappee with thebutt of an egg-spoon and spilling the brown dust in sheer nervousnessover the night-shirt bulging above the band of his breeks. "I'm wae tosee your father's son in such a corner, and all my comfort is thatevery tenant in Elrig and Braleckan pays at the Tolbooth or gallows ofInneraora town for this night's frolic."
"A great consolation to think of!" said John Splendid.
The goodwife, a nervous body at her best, sobbed away with herpock-marked hussy in the parlour, but Betty was to the fore in a passionof vexation. To her the lad made next his appeal.
"Should I go?" he asked, and I thought he said it more like one whoalmost craved to stay. I never saw a woman in such a coil. She lookedat the dark Mac-Nicolls, and syne she looked at the fair-haired youngfellow, and her eyes were swimming, her bosom heaving under her screenof Campbell tartan, her fingers twisting at the pleated hair that fellin sheeny cables to her waist.
"If I were a man I would stay, and yet--if you stay---- Oh, poorLachlan! I'm no judge," she cried; "my cousin, my dear cousin!" and overbrimmed her tears.
All this took less time to happen than it tikes to tell with pen andink, and though there may seem in reading it to be too much palaver onthis stair-head, it was but a minute or two, after the bar was off thedoor, that John Splendid took me by the coat-lapel and back a bit towhisper in my ear--
"If he goes quietly or goes gaffed like a grilse, it's all one on thestreet. Out-bye the place is hotching with the town-people. Do you thinkthe MacNicolls could take a prisoner bye the Cross?"
"It'll be cracked crowns on the causeway," said I.
"Cracked crowns any way you take it," said he, "and better on thecauseway than on Madame Brown's parlour floor. It's a gentleman'spolicy, I would think, to have the squabble in the open air, and savethe women the likely sight of bloody gashes."
"What do you think, Elrigmore?" Betty cried to me the next moment, and Isaid it were better the gentleman should go. The reason seemed to flashon her there and then, and she backed my counsel; but the lad was notthe shrewdest I've seen, even for a Cowal man, and he seemed vexed thatshe should seek to get rid of him, glancing at me with a scornful eye asif I were to blame.
"Just so," he said, a little bitterly; "the advice is well meant," andon went his jacket that had hung on a peg behind him, and his bonnetplayed scrug on his forehead. A wiry young scamp, spirited too! He wasputting his sword into its scabbard, but MacNicoll stopped him, and hewent without it.
Now it was not the first time "Slochd a Chubair!" was cried as slogan inBaile Inneraora in the memory of the youngest lad out that early morningwith a cudgel. The burgh settled to its Lowlandishness with something ofa grudge. For long the landward clans looked upon the incomers to it asforeign and unfriendly. More than once in fierce or drunken escapadesthey came into the place in their _mogans_ at night, quiet as ghosts,mischievous as the winds, and set fire to wooden booths, or shot inwantonness at any mischancy unkilted citizen late returning from thechange-house. The tartan was at those times the only passport to theirgood favour; to them the black cloth knee-breeches were red rags to abull, and ill luck to the lad who wore the same anywhere outside theCrooked Dyke that marks the town and policies of his lordship! If hefared no worse, he came home with his coat-skirts scantily filling anoffice unusual. Many a time "Slochd!" rang through the night on theAthole winter when I dosed far off on the fields of Low Germanie,or sweated in sallies from leaguered towns. And experience made theburghers mighty tactical on such occasions. Old Leslie or 'PallasArmata' itself conferred no better notion of strategic sally than thesimple one they used when the MacNicolls came down the stair with theirprisoner; for they had dispersed themselves in little companies up thecloses on either side the street, and past the close the invaders boundto go.
They might have known, the MacNicolls, that mischief was forward in thatblack silence, but they were, like all Glen men, unacquaint with thequirks of urban war. For them the fight in earnest was only fair thatwas fought on the heather and the brae; and that was always my shameof my countrymen, that a half company of hagbutiers, with wall coverto depend on, could worst the most chivalrous clan that ever carriedtriumph at a rush.
For the middle of the street the invaders made at once, half ready forattack from before or behind, but ill prepared to meet it from all airtsas attack came. They were not ten yards on their way when Splendid andI, emerging behind them, found them pricked in the rear by one company,brought up short by another in front at Stonefield's land, and harassedon the flanks by the lads from the closes. They were caught in a ring.
Lowland and Highland, they roared lustily as they came to blows, and thestreet boiled like a pot of herring: in the heart of the commotion youngMacLachlan tossed hither and yond--a stick in a linn. A half-scoremore of MacNicolls might have made all the difference in the end ofthe story, for they struck desperately, better men by far as weightand agility went than the burgh half-breds, but (to their credit) sounwilling to shed blood, that they used the flat of the claymore insteadof the edge and fired their pistols in the air.
The long-legged lad flung up a window and lit the street with the flareof the flambeau he had been teasing out so earnestly, and dunt, duntwent the oaken rungs on the bonnets of Glen Shira, till Glen Shira smeltdefeat and fell slowly back.
In all this horoyally I took but an onlooker's part MacLachlan's quarrelwas not mine, the burgh was none of my blood, and the Glen Shira menwere my father's friends and neighbours. Splendid, too, candidly keptout of the turmoil when he saw that young MacLachlan was safely freeof his warders, and that what had been a cause militant was now only aHighland diversion.
"Let them play away at it," he said; "I'm not keen to have wounds in aburgher's brawl in my own town when there's promise of braver sport overthe hills among other tartans."
Up the town drifte
d the little battle, no dead left as luck had it, butmany a gout of blood. The white gables clanged back the cries, inclaps like summer thunder, the crows in the beech-trees complained ina rasping roupy chorus, and the house-doors banged at the back of men,who, weary or wounded, sought home to bed. And Splendid and I were onthe point of parting, secure that the young laird of MacLachlan was atliberty, when that gentleman himself came scouring along, hard pressedby a couple of MacNicolls ready with brands out to cut him down. He waswithout steel or stick, stumbling on the causeway-stones in a stupor ofweariness, his mouth gasping and his coat torn wellnigh off the back ofhim. He was never in his twenty years of life nearer death than then,and he knew it; but when he found John Splendid and me before him hestopped and turned to face the pair that followed him--a fool's vanityto show fright had not put the heels to his hurry! We ran out besidehim, and the MacNicolls refused the _rencontre_, left their quarry,and fled again to the town-head, where their friends were in a dusk thelong-legged lad's flambeau failed to mitigate.
"I'll never deny after this that you can outrun me!" said John Splendid,putting up his small sword.
"I would have given them their kail through the reek in a double dose ifI had only a simple knife," said the lad angrily, looking up the street,where the fighting was now over. Then he whipped into Brown's close andup the stair, leaving us at the gable of Craignure's house.
John Splendid, ganting sleepily, pointed at the fellow's disappearingskirts. "Do you see yon?" said he, and he broke into a line of a Gaelicair that told his meaning.
"Lovers?" I asked.
"What do you think yourself?" said he.
"She is mighty put about at his hazard," I confessed, reflecting on hertears.
"Cousins, ye ken, cousins!" said Splendid, and he put a finger in myside, laughing meaningly.
I got home when the day stirred among the mists over Strone.