by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XVII.--IN THE LAND OF LORN.
We might well be at our prayers. Appin paid dearly for its merriment inthe land of Cailein Mor, and the MacDonalds were mulct most generouslyfor our every hoof and horn. For when we crossed Loch Etive there camebehind us from the ruined glens of Lower Lorn hordes of shepherds,hunters, small men of small families, who left their famished dens andholes, hunger sharping them at the nose, the dead bracken of concealmentin their hair, to join in the vengeance on the cause of their distress.Without chieftains or authority, they came in savage bands, affrontingthe sea with their shouts as they swam or ferried; they made up with thewildest of our troops, and ho, ro! for the plaids far and wide on theerrands of Hell. In that clear, cold, white weather--the weather ofthe badger's dream, as our proverb calls it--we brought these glensunfriendly, death in the black draught and the red wine of fire. Amadness of hate seized on us; we glutted our appetites to the verygorge. I must give Argile the credit of giving no licence toour on-goings. He rode after us with his Lowlanders, protesting,threatening, cajoling in vain. Many a remonstrance, too, made Gordon,many an opening fire he stamped out in cot and bam. But the black smokeof the granary belching against the white hills, or the kyloe, houghedand maimed, roaring in its agony, or the fugitive brought bloody on hisknees among the rocks--God's mercy!
Do you know why those unco spectacles were sometimes almost sweet to me,though I was more often a looker-on than a sharer in their horror? Itwas because I never saw a barn blaze in Appin or Glencoe but I minded onour own black barns in Shira Glen; nor a beast slashed at the sinew witha wanton knife, but I thought of Moira, the dappled one that was thepride of my mother's byre, made into hasty collops for a Stewart meal.Through this remoter Lorn I went, less conscious of cruelty than when Iplied fire and sword with legitimate men of war, for ever in my mindwas the picture of real Argile, scorched to the vitals with the invadingflame, and a burgh town I cherished reft of its people, and a girl witha child at her neck flying and sobbing among the hills.
Montrose and MacColkitto were far before us, marching up the Great Glen.They had with them the pick of the clans, so we lived, as it were, atfree quarters, and made up for weeks of short fare by a time of highfeeding.
Over Etive and through the Benderloch, and through Appin and even upto Glencoe, by some strange spasm of physique--for she was frail andfamished--the barefooted old _cailleach_ of Carnus came after us, a birdof battle, croaking in a horrible merriment over our operations. TheDark Dame we called her. She would dance round the butchery of thefold, chanting her venomous Gaelic exultation in uncouth rhymes thatshe strung together as easily as most old people of her kind can dosuch things in times of passion or trance. She must have lived like avulture, for no share would she have in our pots, though sometimes sheadded a relish to them by fetching dainties from houses by the way,whose larders in our masculine ignorance we had overlooked.
"I would give thee the choicest of the world," she would say. "What istoo good for my heroes, O heroes of the myrtle-badge?"
"Sit down and pick," John Splendid bade her once, putting a roysterer'splayful arm round her waist, and drawing her to the fire where a dinnerstewed.
Up she threw her claws, and her teeth were at his neck with a weasel'sinstinct But she drew back at a gleam of reason.
"Oh, darling, darling," she cried, patting him with her foul hands,"did I not fancy for the moment thou wert of the spoilers of my home andhonour--thou, the fleet foot, the avenger, the gentleman with an accountto pay--on thee this mother's blessing, for thee this widow's prayers!"
M'Iver was more put about at her friendliness than at her ferocity, ashe shook his plaiding to order and fell back from her worship.
"I've seldom seen a more wicked cat," said he; "go home, grandam,and leave us to our business. If they find you in Lochaber they willgralloch you like a Yule hind."
She leered, witch-like, at him, clutched suddenly at his sword-hilt, andkissed it with a frenzy of words, then sped off, singing madly as sheflew.
We left the Dark Dame on Levenside as we ferried over to Lochaber,and the last we saw of her, she stood knee-deep in the water, calling,calling, calling, through the grey dun morning, a curse on Clan Donaldand a blessing on Argile.
His lordship sat at the helm of a barge, his face pallid and drawn withcold, and he sighed heavily as the beldame's cries came after us.
"There's little of God's grace in such an omen," said he, in English,looking at the dim figure on the shore, and addressing Gordon.
"It could happen nowhere else," said the cleric, "but in such aferocious land. I confess it, my lord--I confess it with the bittershame of surrender, that I behold generations of superstition andsavagery still to beat down ere your people are so amenable to theGospel as the folks of the Lowland shires. To them such a shriekingharridan would be an object of pity and stern measure; they wouldcall her mad as an etter-cap, and keep her in bounds: here she is madesomething of a prophetess------"
"How?" asked Argile, shortly, and he was looking wistfully at the hillswe were leaving--the hills that lay between him and his books.
"There's not a Highlander in your corps but has bowed his head to herblessing; there's not one but looks upon her curse of the MacDonalds asso much of a gain in this enterprise."
"Oh," said his lordship, "you are a little extravagant We have ourfoolish ways, Gordon, but we are not altogether heathen; and do youthink that after all there might not be something in the portents of awitch like yon in her exaltation?"
"No more than's in the howling of the wind in the chimney," said Gordon,quickly.
"Perhaps not," said Argile, after a little, "perhaps not; but even thepiping of the vent has something of prophecy in it, though the windbloweth where it listeth. I have only a scholar's interest in thesethings, I give you my word, and----"
He laughed with a little restraint before he went on.
"Do you know, John," he called out to M'Iver--"do you know what our_cailleach_ friend says of our jaunt? She put a head in at my tent lastnight, and 'Listen, MacCailein,' said she, 'and keep on high roads,'said she, 'and Inverlochy's a perilous place,' said she, 'and I'd be waeto see the heather above the gall.'"
John Splendid's back was to him as he sat at the prow of a boat comingclose on our stern, but I saw the skin of his neck flame. He neverturned: he made no answer for a moment, and when he spoke it was with alaughing allusion in English to the folly of portents.
This was so odd an attitude for a man usually superstitious to take up,that I engaged him on the point whenever we landed.
"You seem to have no great respect for the Dark Dame's wizardy," said I.
He took me aside from some of the clansmen who could overhear.
"Never let these lads think that you either lightly Dame Dubh or makeovermuch of her talk about the heather and gall, for they prize herblessing, strangely enough, and they might lay too great stress on itsfailure. You catch me?"
I nodded to keep him going, and turned the thing over in my mind.
"What do you think of the prophecy yourself?" he asked; "is it notfamiliar?"
In a flash it came to my mind that I had half-hinted to him at what theMacaulay woman had said in the fold of Elrigmore.
"I think," said I, "the less the brooding on these things the better."
If we had our own misgivings about the end of this jaunt, our companionshad none. They plunged with hearts almost jocular into the woods onLochaber's edge, in a bright sunshine that glinted on the boss of thetarget and on the hilt of the knife or sword, and we came by the middleof the day to the plain on which lay the castle of Inverlochy--a staunchquadrangular edifice with round towers at the angles, and surrounded bya moat that smelled anything but freshly. And there we lay for a base,and thence we sent out round Keppoch and Locheil some dashing companiesthat carried on the work we began in Athole.
Auchinbreac's notion, for he was more than my lord the guide of thisenterprise, was to rest a day or two in the castle and then foll
ow onthe heels of Montrose, who, going up Loch Ness-side, as we knew he was,would find himself checked in front by Seaforth, and so hemmed betweentwo fires.
It was about three o'clock on Wednesday afternoon when Argile sent forM'Iver and myself to suggest a reconnoitring excursion up the Great Glenby the side of the lochs, to see how far the enemy might have reachedbefore us.
"I'm sorry to lose your company, gentlemen," said he, "even for a day;but this is a delicate embassy, and I can fancy no one better able tocarry it through successfully than the two gentlemen who have done moredelicate and dangerous work in the ranks of the honourable ScotsBrigade."
"I can say for myself," said John, "that there's not a man in Keppochcould guess my nativity or my politics if I had on another tartan thanthat of the Diarmaid."
"Ah! you have the tongue, no doubt of it," said Argile, smiling; "and ifa change of colour would make your task less hazardous, why not effectit? I'm sure we could accommodate you with some neutral fabric for kiltand plaid."
"For the humour of the thing," said John, "I would like to try it; butI have no notion of getting hanged for a spy. James Grahame of Montrosehas enough knowledge of the polite arts of war to know the differencebetween a spy in his camp in a false uniform and a scout taking all therisks of the road by wearing his own colours. In the one case he wouldhang us offhand, in the other there's a hair's-breadth of chance that hemight keep us as hostages."
"But in any tartan, cousin, you're not going to let yourself be caught,"said Argile. "We have too much need for you here. Indeed, if I thoughtyou were not certain to get through all right, I would send cheaper menin your place."
John laughed.
"There's no more cure," said he, "for death in a common herd than forthe same murrain in an ensign of foot."
"A scholar's sentiment!" cried Argile. "Are you taking to thephilosophies?"
"It's the sentiment, or something like it, of your chaplain, MasterGordon," said John; "he reproved me with it on Dunchuach. But to domyself justice, I was never one who would run another into any danger Iwas unwilling to face myself."
The Marquis said no more, so we set about preparing for the journey.
"Well, Elrigmore, here we are running the loupegarthe with MacDonaldson the one side of us and Camerons on the other," said my comrade, as weset out at the mouth of the evening, after parting from a number of theclan who went up to the right at Spean to do some harrying in Glen Roy.
No gavilliger or provost-marshal ever gave a more hazardous gauntletto run, thought I, and I said as much; but my musings brought only agood-humoured banter from my friend.
All night we walked on a deserted rocky roadway under moon and star.By the side of Loch Lochy there was not a light to be seen; even thesolitary dwellings we crept bye in the early part of our journey werewithout smoke at the chimney or glimmer at the chink. And on thatloch-side, towards the head of it, there were many groups of mean littlehovels, black with smoke and rain, with ragged sloven thatch, the middenat the very door and the cattle routing within, but no light, no sign ofhuman occupation.
It was the dawning of the day, a fine day as it proved and propitious toits close, that we ventured to enter one such hut or bothy at the footof another loch that lay before us. Auchinbreac's last order to us hadbeen to turn wherever we had indication of the enemy's whereabouts, andto turn in any case by morning. Before we could go back, however, wemust have some sleep and food, so we went into this hut to rest us. Itstood alone in a hollow by a burn at the foot of a very high hill,and was tenanted by a buxom, well-featured woman with a herd of duddychildren. There was no man about the place; we had the delicacy not toask the reason, and she had the caution not to offer any. As we rappedat her door we put our arms well out of sight below our neutral plaids,but I daresay our trade was plain enough to the woman when she came outand gave us the Gael's welcome somewhat grudgingly, with an eye on ourapparel to look for the tartan.
"Housewife," said John M'Iver, blandly, "we're a bit off our way hereby no fault of our own, and we have been on the hillside all night,and----"
"Come in," she said, shortly, still scrutinising us very closely, tillI felt myself flushing wildly. She gave us the only two stools in herdwelling, and broke the peats that smouldered on the middle of herfloor. The chamber--a mean and contracted interior--was lit mainlyfrom the door and the smoke-vent, that gave a narrow glimpse of heaventhrough the black _cabar_ and thatch. Round about the woman gathered herchildren, clinging at her gown, and their eyes stared large and round inthe gloom at the two of us who came so appallingly into their nest.
We sat for a little with our plaids about us, revelling in the solace ofthe hearty fire that sent wafts of odorous reek round the dwelling;and to our dry rations the woman added whey, that we drank from birchcogies.
"I am sorry I have no milk just now," she said. "I had a cow till theday before yesterday; now she's a cow no more, but pith in Colkitto'sheroes."
"They lifted her?" asked John.
"I would not say they lifted her," said the woman, readily, "for whowould be more welcome to my all than the gentlemen of Keppoch andSeumais Grahame of Montrose?" And again she looked narrowly at ourclose-drawn plaids.
I stood up, pulled out my plaid-pin, and let the folds off my shoulder,and stood revealed to her in a Diarmaid tartan.
"You see we make no pretence at being other than what we are," I said,softly; "are we welcome to your whey and to your fire-end?"
She showed no sign of astonishment or alarm, and she answered withgreat deliberation, choosing her Gaelic, and uttering it with an air toimpress us.
"I dare grudge no one at my door," said she, "the warmth of a peat andwhat refreshment my poor dwelling can give; but I've seen more welcomeguests than the spoilers of Appin and Glencoe. I knew you for Campbellswhen you knocked."
"Well, mistress," said M'Iver, briskly, "you might know us forCampbells, and might think the worse of us for that same fact (which wecannot help), but it is to be hoped you will know us for gentlemen too.If you rue the letting of us in, we can just go out again. But we areweary and cold and sleepy, for we have been on foot since yesterday, andan hour among bracken or white hay would be welcome."
"And when you were sleeping," said the woman; "what if I went out andfetched in some men of a clan who would be glad to mar your slumber?"
John studied her face for a moment It was a sonsy and simple face, andher eyes were not unkindly.
"Well," he said, "you might have some excuse for a deed so unhospitable,and a deed so different from the spirit of the Highlands as I know them.Your clan would be little the better for the deaths of two gentlemenwhose fighting has been in other lands than this, and a wife with achild at her breast would miss me, and a girl with her wedding-gown atthe making would miss my friend here. These are wild times, goodwife, wild and cruel times, and a widow more or less is scarcely worthtroubling over. I think we'll just risk you calling in your men, for,God knows, I'm wearied enough to sleep on the verge of the Pit itself."
The woman manifestly surrendered her last scruple at his deliverance.She prepared to lay out a rough bedding of the bleached bog-grass ourpeople gather in the dry days of spring.
"You may rest you a while, then," said she. "I have a husband withKeppoch, and he might be needing a bed among strangers himself."
"We are much in your reverence, housewife," said John, nudging me sothat I felt ashamed of his double-dealing. "That's a bonny bairn," hecontinued, lifting one of the children in his arms; "the rogue has yourown good looks in every lineament."
"Aye, aye," said the woman, drily, spreading her blankets; "I would needno sight of tartan to guess your clan, master. Your flattery goes wrongthis time, for by ill-luck you have the only bairn that does not belongto me of all the brood."
"Now that I look closer," he laughed, "I see a difference; but I'll takeback no jot of my compliment to yourself."
"I was caught yonder," said he to me a little later in a whisper inEnglish, as we lay down in
our corner. "A man of my ordinary acutenessshould have seen that the brat was the only unspoiled member of all theflock."
We slept, it might be a couple of hours, and wakened together at thesound of a man's voice speaking with the woman outside the door. Up wesat, and John damned the woman for her treachery.
"Wait a bit," I said. "I would charge her with no treachery till I hadgood proofs for it I'm mistaken if your lie about your wife and weanshas not left her a more honest spirit towards us."
The man outside was talking in a shrill, high voice, and the woman in asofter voice was making excuses for not asking him to go in. One of herlittle ones was ill of a fever, she said, and sleeping, and her house,too, was in confusion, and could she hand him out something to eat?
"A poor place Badenoch nowadays!" said the man, petulantly. "I've seenthe day a bard would be free of the best and an honour to have by anyone's fire. But out with the bannocks and I'll be going. I must be atKilcumin with as much speed as my legs will lend me."
He got his bannocks and he went, and we lay back a while on our beddingand pretended to have heard none of the incident It was a pleasantfeature of the good woman's character that she said never a word of hertactics in our interest.
"So you did not bring in your gentlemen?" said John, as we werepreparing to go. "I was half afraid some one might find his wayunbidden, and then it was all bye with two poor soldiers of fortune."
"John MacDonald the bard, John Lorn, as we call him, went bye a whileago," she answered simply, "on his way to the clan at Kilcumin."
"I have never seen the bard yet that did not demand his bardic right tokail-pot and spoon at every passing door."
"This one was in a hurry," said the woman, reddening a little inconfusion.
"Just so," said M'Iver, fumbling in his hand some coin he had taken fromhis sporran; "have you heard of the gold touch for fever? A child hasbeen brought from the edge of the grave by the virtue of a dollar rubbedon its brow. I think I heard you say some neighbour's child was ill? I'mno physician, but if my coin could--what?"
The woman flushed deeper than ever, an angered pride this time in herheat.
"There's no child ill that I know of," said she; "if there was, we havegold of our own."
She bustled about the house and put past her blankets, and out with aspinning-wheel and into a whirr of it, with a hummed song of the countryat her lips--all in a mild temper, or to keep her confusion from showingitself undignified.
"Come away," I said to my comrade in English; "you'll make her bitterlyangry if you persist in your purpose."
He paid no heed to me, but addressed the woman again with a mostingenious story, apparently contrived, with his usual wit, as he went onwith it.
"Your pardon, goodwife," said he, "but I see you are too sharp for mysmall deceit I daresay I might have guessed there was no child ill; butfor reasons of my own I'm anxious to leave a little money with you tillI come back this road again. We trusted you with our lives for a coupleof hours there, and surely, thinks I, we can trust you with a couple ofyellow pieces."
The woman stopped her wheel and resumed her good-humour. "I thought,"said she,--"I thought you meant payment for----"
"You're a bit hard on my manners, goodwife," said John. "Of course Ihave been a soldier, and might have done the trick of paying foragewith a sergeant's blunt-ness, but I think I know a Gaelic woman's spiritbetter."
"But are you likely to be passing here again at any time?" cried thewoman, doubt again darkening her face, and by this time she had themoney in her hand. "I thought you were going back by the Glen?"
"That was our notion," said my comrade, marvellously ready, "but to tellthe truth we are curious to see this Keppoch bard, whose songs we knowvery well in real Argile, and we take a bit of the road to Kilcuminafter him."
The weakness of this tale was not apparent to the woman, who I daresayhad no practice of such trickery as my friend was the master of, and sheput the money carefully in a napkin and in a recess beneath one of theroof-joists. Our thanks she took carelessly, no doubt, because we wereCampbells.
I was starting on the way to Inverlochy when M'Iver protested we mustcertainly go a bit of the way to Kilcumin.
"I'm far from sure," said he, "that that very particular bit ofMacDonald woman is quite confident of the truth of my story. At anyrate, she's no woman if she's not turning it over in her mind by now,and she'll be out to look the road we take before very long or I'mmistaken."
We turned up the Kilcumin road, which soon led us out of sight of thehut, and, as my friend said, a glance behind us showed us the woman inour rear, looking after us.
"Well, there's no turning so long as she's there," said I. "I wish yourgenerosity had shown itself in a manner more convenient for us. There'sanother example of the error of your polite and truthless tongue! Whenyou knew the woman was not wanting the money, you should have put it inyour sporran again, and----"
"Man, Elrigmore," he cried, "you have surely studied me poorly if youwould think me the man to insult the woman--and show my own stupidity atthe same time--by exposing my strategy when a bit fancy tale and a shortdaunder on a pleasant morning would save the feelings of both the ladyand myself."
"You go through life on a zigzag," I protested, "aiming for some goalthat another would cut straight across for, making deviations of anhour to save you a second's unpleasantness. I wish I could show you thediplomacy of straightforwardness: the honest word, though hard to saysometimes, is a man's duty as much as the honest deed of hand."
"Am I not as honest of my word as any in a matter of honour? I but glozesometimes for the sake of the affection I have for all God's creatures."
I was losing patience of his attitude and speaking perhaps withbitterness, for here were his foolish ideas of punctilio bringing us amile or two off our road and into a part of the country where we weremore certain of being observed by enemies than in the way behind us.
"You jink from ambuscade to ambuscade of phrase like a fox," I cried.
"Call it like a good soldier, and I'll never quarrel with yourcompliment," he said, good-humouredly. "I had the second excuse for thewoman in my mind before the first one missed fire."
"Worse and worse!"
"Not a bit of it: it is but applying a rule of fortification to apeaceful palaver. Have bastion and ravelin as sure as may be, but saferstill the sally-port of retreat."
I stood on the road and looked at him, smiling very smug andself-complacent before me, and though I loved the man I felt bound toprick a hole in his conceit.
But at that moment a dead branch snapped in a little plantation that layby the way, and we turned quickly to see come to us a tall lean man inMacDonald clothing.