John Splendid: The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER VIII.--THE BALE-FIRES ON THE BENS.

  Hard on the heels of the snow came a frost that put shackles on the verywind. It fell black and sudden on the country, turning the mud floorsof the poorer dwellings into iron that rang below the heel, though thepeat-fires burned by day and night, and Loch Finne, lying flat as agirdle from shore to shore, crisped and curdled into ice on the surfacein the space of an afternoon. A sun almost genial to look at, but withno warmth at the heart of him, rode among the white hills that lookeddoubly massive with their gullies and cornes, for ordinary black orgreen, lost in the general hue, and at mid-day bands of little whitebirds would move over the country from the north, flapping weakly to awarmer clime. They might stay a little, some of them, deceived by thehanging peat-smoke into the notion that somewhere here were warmth andcomfort; but the cold searched them to the core, and such as did not dieon the roadside took up their dismal voyaging anew.

  The very deer came down from the glens--_cabarfeidh_ stags, hinds, andprancing roes. At night we could hear them bellowing and snorting asthey went up and down the street in herds from Ben Bhrec or the barrensides of the Black Mount and Dalness in the land of Bredalbane, seekingthe shore and the travellers' illusion--the content that's always tocome. In those hours, too, the owls seemed to surrender the fir-woodsand come to the junipers about the back-doors, for they keened in thedarkness, even on, woeful warders of the night, telling the constanthours.

  Twas in these bitter nights, shivering under blanket and plaid, Ithought ruefully of foreign parts, of the frequented towns I had seenelsewhere, the cleanly paven streets, swept of snow, the sea-coal fires,and the lanterns swinging over the crowded causeways, signs of friendlyinterest and companionship. Here were we, poor peasants, in a waste offrost and hills, cut off from the merry folks sitting by fire and flameat ease! Even our gossiping, our _ceilidh_ in each other's houses, wasstopped; except in the castle itself no more the song and story, thepipe and trump.

  In the morning when one ventured abroad he found the deer-slot dimplingall the snow on the street, and down at the shore, unafeared of man,would be solitary hinds, widows and rovers from their clans, sniffingeagerly over to the Cowal hills. Poor beasts! poor beasts! I've seenthem in their madness take to the ice for it when it was little thickerthan a groat, thinking to reach the oak-woods of Ardchyline. For a timethe bay at the river mouth was full of long-tailed ducks, that ata whistle almost came to your hand, and there too came flocks ofwild-swan, flying in wedges, trumpeting as they flew. Fierce ottersquarrelled over their eels at the mouth of the Black Burn that flowsunderneath the town and out below the Tolbooth to the shore, or made thegloaming melancholy with their doleful whistle. A roebuck in his winterjacket of mouse-brown fur died one night at my relative's door, and asea-eagle gorged himself so upon the carcass that at morning he couldnot flap a wing, and fell a ready victim to a knock from my staff.

  The passes to the town were head-high with drifted snow, our warders atthe heads of Aora and Shira could not themselves make out the road, andthe notion of added surety this gave us against Antrim's Irishmen wasthe only compensation for the ferocity of nature.

  In three days the salt loch, in that still and ardent air, froze likea fishpond, whereupon the oddest spectacle ever my country-side sawwas his that cared to rise at morning to see it. Stags and hinds intremendous herds, black cattle, too, from the hills, trotted boldly overthe ice to the other side of the loch, that in the clarity of the airseemed but a mile off. Behind them went skulking foxes, pole-cats,badgers, cowering hares, and bead-eyed weasels. They seemed to havea premonition that Famine was stalking behind them, and they fled ourluckless woods and fields like rats from a sinking ship.

  To Master Gordon I said one morning as we watched a company of dunheifers mid-way on the loch, "This is an ill omen or I'm sore mistaken."

  He was not a man given to superstitions, but he could not gainsay me."There's neither hip nor haw left in our woods," he said; "birdsI've never known absent here in the most eager winters are gone, andwild-eyed strangers, their like never seen here before, tamely pickcrumbs at my very door. Signs! signs! It beats me sometimes to know howthe brute scents the circumstance to come, but--whats the Word?--'Nota sparrow shall fall.'"

  We fed well on the wild meat driven to our fireside, and to it therenever seemed any end, for new flocks took up the tale of the old ones,and a constant procession of fur and feather moved across our whiteprospect. Even the wolf--from Benderloch no doubt--came baying at nightat the empty gibbets at the town-head, that spoke of the law's suspense.

  Only in Castle Inneraora was there anything to be called gaiety.MacCailein fumed at first at the storm that kept his letters from himand spoiled the laburnums and elms he was coaxing to spring about hisgarden; but soon he settled down to his books and papers, ever hissolace in such homely hours as the policy and travel of his lifepermitted. And if the burgh was dull and dark, night after night therewas merriment over the drawbrig of the castle. It would be on the 10thor the 15th of the month that I first sampled it I went up with a partyfrom the town and neighbourhood, with their wives and daughters, findingan atmosphere wondrous different from that of the cooped and anxioustenements down below. Big logs roared behind the fire-dogs, long candlesand plenty lit the hall, and pipe and harp went merrily. Her ladyshiphad much of the French manner--a dainty dame with long thin face andbottle shoulders, attired always in Saxon fashion, and indulgent inwhat I then thought a wholesome levity, that made up for the Gruamachhusband. And she thought him, honestly, the handsomest and noblestin the world, though she rallied him for his overmuch sobriety ofdeportment. To me she was very gracious, for she had liked my mother,and I think she planned to put me in the way of the Provost's daughteras often as she could.

  When his lordship was in his study, our daffing was in Gaelic, for herladyship, though a Morton, and only learning the language, loved to haveit spoken about her. Her pleasure was to play the harp--a clarsach ofgreat beauty, with Iona carving on it--to the singing of her daughterJean, who knew all the songs of the mountains and sang them like thebird. The town girls, too, sang, Betty a little shyly, but as daintilyas her neighbours, and we danced a reel or two to the playing of ParuigDall, the blind piper. Venison and wine were on the board, and whiterbread than the town baxters afforded. It all comes back on me now--thatlofty hall, the skins of seal and otter and of stag upon the floor, theflaring candles and the glint of glass and silver, the banners swingingupon the walls over devices of pike, gun, and claymore--the same to beused so soon!

  The castle, unlike its successor, sat adjacent to the river-side, itsfront to the hill of Dunchuach on the north, and its back a stone-castfrom the mercat cross and the throng street of the town. Between it andthe river was the small garden consecrate to her ladyship's flowers, apatch of level soil, cut in dice by paths whose tiny pebbles and brokenshells crunched beneath the foot at any other season than now when thesnow covered all.

  John Splendid, who was of our party, in a lull of the entertainment waslooking out at the prospect from a window at the gable end of thehall, for the moon sailed high above Strone, and the outside world wasbeautiful in a cold and eerie fashion. Of a sudden he faced round andbeckoned to me with a hardly noticeable toss of the head.

  I went over and stood beside him. He was bending a little to get the topof Dunchuach in the field of his vision, and there was a puzzled look onhis face.

  "Do you see any light up yonder?" he asked, and I followed his querywith a keen scrutiny of the summit, where the fort should be lying indarkness and peace.

  There was a twinkle of light that would have shown fuller if themoonlight were less.

  "I see a spark," I said, wondering a little at his interest in so smallan affair.

  "That's a pity," said he, in a rueful key. "I was hoping it might be aprivate vision of my own, and yet I might have known my dream last nightof a white rat meant something. If that's flame there's more to follow.There should be no lowe on this side of the fort after
nightfall, unlessthe warders on the other side have news from the hills behind Dunchuach.In this matter of fire at night Dunchuach echoes Ben Bhuidhe or BenBhrec, and these two in their turn carry on the light of our friendsfarther ben in Bredalbane and Cruachan. It's not a state secret to tellyou we were half feared some of our Antrim gentry might give us a call;but the Worst Curse on the pigs who come guesting in such weather!"

  He was glowering almost feverishly at the hill-top, and I turned roundto see that the busy room had no share in our apprehension. The onlyeyes I found looking in our direction were those of Betty, who findingherself observed, came over, blushing a little, and looked out into thenight.

  "You were hiding the moonlight from me," she said with a smile, a remarkwhich struck me as curious, for she could not, from where she sat, seeout at the window.

  "I never saw one who needed it less," said Splendid, and still he lookedintently at the mount. "You carry your own with you."

  Having no need to bend, she saw the top of Dun-chuach whenever she gotclose to the window, and by this time the light on it looked like aplanet, wan in the moonlight, but unusually large and angry.

  "I never saw star so bright," said the girl, in a natural enough error.

  "A challenge to your eyes, madam," retorted Splendid again, in araillery wonderful considering his anxiety, and he whispered in myear--"or to us to war."

  As he spoke, the report of a big gun boomed through the frosty air fromDunchuach to the plain, and the beacon flashed up, tall, flaunting, andunmistakable.

  John Splendid turned into the hall and raised his voice a little, to saywith no evidence of disturbance--

  "There's something amiss up the glens, your ladyship."

  The harp her ladyship strummed idly on at the moment had stopped on aludicrous and unfinished note, the hum of conversation ended abruptly.Up to the window the company crowded, and they could see the balefireblazing hotly against the cool light of the moon and the widelysprinkled stars. Behind them in a little came Argile, one arm onlythrust hurriedly in a velvet jacket, his hair in a disorder, the pallorof study on his cheek. He very gently pressed to the front, and lookedout with a lowering brow at the signal.

  "Ay, ay!" he said in the English, after a pause that kept the room moreintent on his face than on the balefire. "My old luck bides with me.I thought the weather guaranteed me a season's rest, but here's theclaymore again! Alasdair, Craignish, Sir Donald, I wish you gentlemenwould set the summons about with as little delay as need be. We haveno time for any display of militant science, but as these beacons carrytheir tale fast we may easily be at the head of Glen Aora before theenemy is down Glenurchy."

  Sir Donald, who was the eldest of the officers his lordship addressed,promised a muster of five hundred men in three hours' time. "I can havea _crois-tara_," he said, "at the very head of Glen Shira in an hour."

  "You may save yourself the trouble," said John Splendid; "Glen Shira'sawake by this time, for the watchers have been in the hut on Ben Bhuidhesince ever we came back from Lorn, and they are in league with otherwatchers at the Gearron town, who will have the alarm miles up the Glenby now if I make no mistake about the breed."

  By this time a servant came in to say Sithean Sluaidhe hill on Cowal wasablaze, and likewise the hill of Ardno above the Ardkinglas lands.

  "The alarm will be over Argile in two hours," said his lordship. "We'regrand at the beginnings of things," and as he spoke he was pouring, witha steady hand, a glass of wine for a woman in the tremors. "I wish toGod we were better at the endings," he added, bitterly. "If these Atholeand Antrim caterans have the secret of our passes, we may be rats in atrap before the morn's morning."

  The hall emptied quickly, a commotion of folks departing rose in thecourtyard, and candle and torch moved about. Horses put over the bridgeat a gallop, striking sparks from the cobble-stones, swords jingled onstirrups. In the town, a piper's tune hurriedly lifted, and numerouslights danced to the windows of the burghers. John Splendid, theMarquis, and I were the only ones left in the hall, and the Marquisturned to me with a smile--

  "You see your pledge calls for redemption sooner than you expected,Elrigmore. The enemy's not far from Ben Bhuidhe now, and your sword ismine by the contract."

  "Your lordship can count on me to the last ditch," I cried; and indeed Imight well be ready, for was not the menace of war as muckle against myown hearth as against his?

  "Our plan," he went on, "as agreed upon at a council after my returnfrom the north, was to hold all above Inneraora in simple defence whilelowland troops took the invader behind. Montrose or the Mac Donaldscan't get through our passes."

  "I'm not cock-sure of that, MacCailein," said Splendid. "We're here inthe bottom of an ashet; there's more than one deserter from your tartanon the outside of it, and once they get on the rim they have, by allrules strategic, the upper hand of us in some degree. I never had muchfaith (if I dare make so free) in the surety of our retreat here. It'san old notion of our grandads that we could bar the passes."

  "So we can, sir, so we can!" said the Marquis, nervously picking at hisbuttons with his long white fingers, the nails vexatiously polished andshaped.

  "Against horse and artillery, I allow, surely not against Gaelic foot.This is not a wee foray of broken men, but an attack by an army ofnumbers. The science of war--what little I learned of it in the LowCountries with gentlemen esteemed my betters--convinces me that if a bigenough horde fall on from the rim of our ashet, as I call it, they mightsweep us into the loch like rattons."

  I doubt MacCailein Mor heard little of this uncheery criticism, for hewas looking in a seeming blank abstraction out of the end window at thetown lights increasing in number as the minutes passed. His own piper inthe close behind the buttery had tuned up and into the gathering--

  "Bha mi air banais 'am bail' Inneraora. Banais bu mhiosa bha riamh airan t-saoghal!"

  I felt the tune stir me to the core, and M'Iver, I could see by thetwitch of his face, kindled to the old call.

  "Curse them!" cried MacCailein; "Curse them!" he cried in the Gaelic,and he shook a white fist foolishly at the north; "I'm wanting but peaceand my books. I keep my ambition in leash, and still and on they must besnapping like curs at Argile. God's name! and I'll crush them like antson the ant-heap."

  From the door at the end of the room, as he stormed, a little bairntoddled in, wearing a night-shirt, a curly gold-haired boy with hischeeks like the apple for hue, the sleep he had risen from still heavyon his eyes. Seemingly the commotion had brought him from his bed, andup he now ran, and his little arms went round his father's knees. Onmy word I've seldom seen a man more vastly moved than was Archibald,Marquis of Argile. He swallowed his spittle as if it were wool, and tookthe child to his arms awkwardly, like one who has none of the handlingof his own till they are grown up, and I could see the tear at the cheekhe laid against the youth's ruddy hair.

  "Wild men coming!" said the child, not much put about after all.

  "They shan't touch my little Illeasbuig," whispered his lordship,kissing him on the mouth. Then he lifted his head and looked hard atJohn Splendid. "I think," he said, "if I went post-haste to Edinburgh,I could be of some service in advising the nature and route of theharassing on the rear of Montrose. Or do you think--do you think----?"

  He ended in a hesitancy, flushing a little at the brow, his lipsweakening at the corner.

  John Splendid, at my side, gave me with his knee the least nudge on theleg next him.

  "Did your lordship think of going to Edinburgh at once?" he asked, withan odd tone in his voice, and keeping his eyes very fixedly on a window.

  "If it was judicious, the sooner the better," said the Marquis, nuzzlinghis face in the soft warmth of the child's neck.

  Splendid looked helpless for a bit, and then took up the policy thatI learned later to expect from him in every similar case. He seemed toread (in truth it was easy enough!) what was in his master's mind, andhe said, almost with gaiety--

  "The best thing you co
uld do, my lord. Beyond your personalencouragement (and a Chiefs aye a consoling influence on the field, I'llnever deny), there's little you could do here that cannot, with yourpardon, be fairly well done by Sir Donald and myself, and Elrigmorehere, who have made what you might call a trade of tulzie and brulzie."

  MacCailein Mor looked uneasy for all this open assurance. He set thechild down with an awkward kiss, to be taken away by a servant lass whohad come after him.

  "Would it not look a little odd!" he said, eyeing us keenly.

  "Your lordship might be sending a trusty message to Edinburgh," I said;and John Splendid with a "Pshaw!" walked to the window, saying what hehad to say with his back to the candle-light.

  "There's not a man out there but would botch the whole business if yousent him," he said; "it must be his lordship or nobody. And what's tohinder her ladyship and the children going too? Snugger they'd be by farin Stirling Lodge than here, I'll warrant. If I were not an old runtof a bachelor, it would be my first thought to give my women and bairnssafety."

  MacCailein flew at the notion. "Just so, just so," he cried, and of asudden he skipped out of the room.

  John Splendid turned, pushed the door to after the nobleman, and in asoft voice broke into the most terrible torrent of bad language ever Iheard (and I've known cavaliers of fortune free that way). He called hisMarquis everything but a man.

  "Then why in the name of God do you urge him on to a course that a foolcould read the poltroonery of? I never gave MacCailein Mor credit forbeing a coward before," said I.

  "Coward!" cried Splendid. "It's no cowardice but selfishness--thedisease, more or less, of us all. Do you think yon gentleman a coward?Then you do not know the man. I saw him once, empty-handed, in theforest, face the white stag and beat it off a hunter it was goring todeath, and they say he never blenched when the bonnet was shot off hishead at Drimtyne, but jested with a 'Close on't: a nail-breadth more,and Colin was heir to an earlhood!'"

  "I'm sorry to think the worst of an Argile and a Campbell, but surelyhis place is here now."

  "It is, I admit; and I egged him to follow his inclination because I'ma fool in one thing, as you'll discover anon, because ifs easier andpleasanter to convince a man to do what he wants to do than to convincehim the way he would avoid is the only right one."

  "It's not an altogether nice quirk of the character," I said, drily. Itgave me something of a stroke to find so weak a bit in a man of so manynotable parts.

  He spunked up like tinder.

  "Do you call me a liar?" he said, with a face as white as a clout, hisnostrils stretching in his rage.

  "Liar!" said I, "not I. It would be an ill time to do it with our commonenemy at the door. A lie (as I take it in my own Highland fashion) isthe untruth told for cowardice or to get a mean advantage of another:your way with MacCailein was but a foolish way (also Highland, I'venoticed) of saving yourself the trouble of spurring up your manhood toput him in the right."

  "You do me less than half justice," said Splendid, the blood coming backto his face, and him smiling again; "I allow I'm no preacher. If aman must to hell, he must, his own gait. The only way I can get intoargument with him about the business is to fly in a fury. If I let mytemper up I would call MacCailein coward to his teeth, though I knowit's not his character. But I've been in a temper with my cousin beforenow, and I ken the stuff he's made of: he gets as cold as steel thehotter I get, and with the poorest of causes he could then put me in ablack confusion----"

  "But you----"

  "Stop, stop! let me finish my tale. Do you know, I put a fair face onthe black business to save the man his own self-respect. He'll knowhimself his going looks bad without my telling him, and I would at leastleave him the notion that we were blind to his weakness. After allit's not much of a weakness--the wish to save a wife and children fromdanger. Another bookish disease, I admit: their over-much study hasdeadened the man to a sense of the becoming, and in an affair demandingcourage he acts like a woman, thinking of his household when he shouldbe thinking of his clan. My only consolation is that after all (exceptfor the look of the thing) his leaving us matters little."

  I thought different on that point, and I proved right. If it takes shorttime to send a fiery cross about, it takes shorter yet to send a naughtyrumour, and the story that MacCailein Mor and his folks were off in ahurry to the Lowlands was round the greater part of Argile before theclansmen mustered at Inneraora. They never mustered at all, indeed, forthe chieftains of the small companies that came from Glen Finne and downthe country no sooner heard that the Marquis was off than they took theroad back, and so Montrose and Colkitto MacDonald found a poltroon anddeserted countryside waiting them.