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

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER XX.--INVERLOCHY.

  When we came up with the main body of MacDonald's army, the country, asI say, was shining in the light of the moon, with only a camp-fire downin the field beside the castle to show in all the white world a sign ofhuman life. We had got the Campbells in the rear, but they never knewit A few of their scouts came out across the fields and challenged ourpickets; there was an exchange of musketry, but, as we found again,we were thought to be some of the Lochaber hunters unworthy of seriousengagement.

  For the second time in so many days we tasted food, a handful of meal tothe quaich of water--no more and no less; and James Grahame, Marquis ofMontrose, supped his brose like the rest of us, with the knife from hisbelt doing the office of a horn-spoon.

  Some hours after us came up the Camerons, who had fallen behind, butfresher and more eager for fighting than our own company, for they hadfallen on a herd of roe on the slope of Sgur an Iolair, and had suppedsavagely on the warm raw flesh.

  "You might have brought us a gigot off your take," Sir Alasdair said tothe leader of them, Dol Ruadh. He was a short-tempered man of no greatmanners, and he only grunted his response.

  "They may well call you Camerons of the soft mouth," said Alasdair,angrily, "that would treat your comrades so."

  "You left us to carry our own men," said the chief, shortly; "we leftyou to find your own deer."

  We were perhaps the only ones who slept at the mouth of Glen Nevis thatwoeful night, and we slept because, as my comrade said, "What cannot bemended may be well slept on; it's an ease to the heart." And the counselwas so wise and our weariness so acute, that we lay on the bare groundtill we were roused to the call of a trumpet.

  It was St Bridget's Day, and Sunday morning. A myriad bens aroundgave mists, as smoke from a censer, to the day. The Athole pipershigh-breastedly strutted with a vain port up and down their lines andplayed incessantly. Alasdair laid out the clans with amazing skill,as M'Iver and I were bound to confess to ourselves,--the horse (withMontrose himself on his charger) in the centre, the men of Clanranald,Keppoch, Locheil, Glengarry, and Maclean, and the Stewarts of Appinbehind. MacDonald and O'Kyan led the Irish on the wings.

  In the plain we could see Argile's forces in a somewhat similar order,with the tartan as it should be in the midst of the bataille and theLowland levies on the flanks. Over the centre waved the black galley ofLorne on a gold standard.

  I expressed some doubt about the steadfastness of the Lowlanders, andM'Iver was in sad agreement with me.

  "I said it in Glenaora when we left," said he, "and I say it again.They would be fairly good stuff against foreign troops; but they have nosuspicion of the character of Gaelic war. I'm sore feared they'll provea poor reed to lean on. Why, in heaven's name, does Mac-Cailein takethe risk of a battle in such an awkward corner? An old soldier likeAuchinbreac should advise him to follow the Kilcumin road and joinforces with Seaforth, who must be far down Glen Albyn by now."

  As we were standing apart thus, up to us came Ian Lorn, shaking thebrogue-money he got from Grahame in his dirty loof. He was very bitter.

  "I never earned an honester penny," he said, looking up almostinsolently in our faces, so that it was a temptation to give him a clouton the cunning jowl.

  "So Judas thought too, I daresay, when he fingered his filthy shekels,"said I. "I thought no man from Keppoch would be skulking aside here whenhis pipers blew the onset."

  "Och!" said M'Iver, "what need ye be talking? Bardery and bravery don'tvery often go together."

  Ian Lorn scowled blackly at the taunt, but was equal to answer it.

  "If the need arise," said he, "you'll see whether the bard is brave ornot There are plenty to fight; there's but one to make the song of thefight, and that's John MacDonald, with your honours' leave."

  We would, like enough, have been pestered with the scamp's presence andgarrulity a good deal longer; but Montrose came up at that moment andtook us aside with a friendly enough beckon of his head.

  "Gentlemen," he said in English, "as cavaliers you can guess fairly wellalready the issue of what's to happen below there, and as Cavaliers who,clansmen or no clansmen of the Campbell chief, have done well for oldScotland's name abroad, I think you deserve a little more considerationat our hands at this juncture than common prisoners of war can lay claimto. If you care you can quit here as soon as the onset begins, abidingof course by your compact to use no arms against my friends. You have noobjection?" he added, turning about on his horse and crying to Alasdair.

  The Major-General came up and looked at us. "I suppose they may go,"said he,--"though, to tell my mind on the matter, I could devise asimpler way of getting rid of them. We have other methods in Erin O, butas your lordship has taken the fancy, they may go, I daresay. Only theymust not join their clan or take arms with them until this battle isover. They must be on the Loch Linnhe road before we call the onset."

  Montrose flushed at the ill-breeding of his officer, and waved us awayto the left on the road that led to Argile by Loch Linnhe side, and tookus clear of the coming encounter.

  We were neither of us slow to take advantage of the opportunity, butset off at a sharp walk at the moment that O'Kyan on the right flank wasslowly moving in the direction of Argile's line.

  John broke his sharp walk so quickly into a canter that I wondered whathe meant I ran close at his heels, but I forbore to ask, and we hadput a good lump of moorland between us and the MacDonalds before heexplained.

  "You perhaps wondered what my hurry was," he said, with the sweatstanding in beads on his face, though the air was full of frost. "Itwasn't for exercise, as you might guess at anyrate. The fact is, we werewithin five minutes of getting a wheen Stewart dirks in our doublets,and if there was no brulzie on foot we were even yet as good as lost onBrae Lochaber."

  "How does that happen?" I asked. "They seemed to let us away generouslyenough and with no great ill-will."

  "Just so! But when Montrose gave us the _conge_, I happened to turn aneye up Glen Nevis and I saw some tardy Stewarts (by their tartan) comerunning down the road. These were the lads Dol Ruadh left behind lastnight, and they could scarcely miss in daylight the corpse we left bythe road, and their clansmen missed in the mirk. That was my notion atthe first glance I got of them, and when we ran they ran too, and whatdo you make of that?"

  "What we should make of it," I said in alarm, "is as good a pace intoLorn as we can: they may be on the heels of us now,"--for we were ina little dip of the ground from which the force we had just parted sogladly were not to be seen.

  On that point M'Iver speedily assured me.

  "No, no!" he said. "If Seumas Grahame himself were stretched outyonder instead of a Glenart cearnoch of no great importance to any one,Alasdair MacDonald would be scarcely zealous fool enough to spoil hisbattle order to prosecute a private feud. Look at that," he proceeded,turning round on a little knowe he ran lightly up on and I after him--"Look at that! the battle's begun."

  We stood on that knowe of Brae Lochaber, and I saw from thence aspectacle whose like, by the grace of God, I have never seen before norsince in its agony for any eye that was friendly to Diarmaid Clan. Ineed not here set down the sorry end of that day at Inverlochy. It hasbeen written many times, though I harbour no book on my shelves thattells the story. We saw MacDonald's charge; we saw the wings of Argile'sarmy--the rotten Lowland levies--break off and skurry along the shore;we saw the lads of the Diarmaid tartan hewn down on the edge of the tidetill its waves ran red; but we were as helpless as the rush that wavedat our feet. Between us and our friends lay the enemy and our parole--Idaresay our parole was forgotten in that terrible hour.

  John M'Iver laid him down on the _tulaich_ and clawed with his nails thestunted grass that in wind-blown patches came through the snow. Noneof my words made any difference on his anguish. I was piping to thesurrender of sorrow, nigh mad myself.

  The horses of Ogilvie--who himself fell in the brulzie--chased theLowlanders along the side of Loch Linnhe, and so few of the flying
hadthe tartan that we had no great interest in them, till we saw six menwith their plaid-ing cast run unobserved up the plain, wade waist-deepthrough the Nevis, and come somewhat in our direction. We went down tojoin them, and ran hard and fast and came on them at a place called theRhu at the water of Kiachnish.