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

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER XXII.--DAME DUBH.

  We had eaten to the last crumb, and were ready to be going, when again Iasked Gordon what had come over Argile.

  "I'll tell you that," said he, bitterly; but as he began, some wildfowlrose in a startled flight to our right and whirred across the sky.

  "There's some one coming," said M'Iver; "let us keep close together."

  From where the wildfowl rose, the Dame Dubh, as we called the old womanof Carnus, came in our direction, half-running, half-walking through thesnow. She spied us while she was yet a great way off, stopped a secondas one struck with an arrow, then continued her progress more eagerlythan ever, with high-piped cries and taunts at us.

  "O cowards!" she cried; "do not face Argile, or the glens you belongto. Cowards, cowards, Lowland women, Glencoe's full of laughter at yourdisgrace!"

  "Royal's my race, I'll not be laughed at!" cried Stewart.

  "They cannot know of it already in Glencoe!" said M'Iver, appalled.

  "Know it!" said the crone, drawing nearer and with still more frenzy;"Glencoe has songs on it already. The stench from Invcrlochy's inthe air; it's a mock in Benderloch and Ardgour, it's a nightmare inGlenurchy, and the women are keening on the slopes of Cladich. Cowards,cowards, little men, cowards! all the curses of Conan on you and theblack rocks; die from home, and Hell itself reject you!"

  We stood in front of her in a group, slack at the arms and shoulders,bent a little at the head, affronted for the first time with the fullshame of our disaster. All my bright portents of the future seemed,as they flashed again before me, muddy in the hue, an unfaithful man'sremembrance of his sins when they come before him at the bedside ofhis wife; the evasions of my friends revealed themselves what they wereindeed, the shutting of the eyes against shame.

  The woman's meaning. Master Gordon could only guess at, and he faced hercomposedly.

  "You are far off your road," he said to her mildly, but she paid him noheed.

  "You have a bad tongue, mother," said M'Iver.

  She turned and spat on his vest, and on him anew she poured hercondemnation.

  "_You_, indeed, the gentleman with an account to pay, the hero, theavenger! I wish my teeth had found your neck at the head of Aora Glen."She stood in the half-night, foaming over with hate and evil words, hertaunts stinging like asps.

  "Take off the tartan, ladies!" she screamed; "off with men's apparel andon with the short-gown."

  Her cries rang so over the land that she was a danger bruiting ourpresence to the whole neighbourhood, and it was in a common panic we ranwith one accord from her in the direction of the loch-head. The man withthe want took up the rear, whimpering as he ran, feeling again, it mightbe, a child fleeing from maternal chastisement: the rest of us wentsilently, all but Stewart, who was a cocky little man with a largebonnet pulled down on the back of his head like a morion, to hide theabsence of ears that had been cut off by the law for some of hisAppin adventures. He was a person who never saw in most of a day'stransactions aught but the humour of them, and as we ran from thisshrieking beldame of Camus, he was choking with laughter at the ploy.

  "Royal's my race," said he at the first ease to our running--"Royal'smy race, and I never thought to run twice in one day from an enemy. Stopyour greeting, Callum, and not be vexing our friends the gentlemen."

  "What a fury!" said Master Gordon. "And that's the lady of omens! Whatabout her blessing now?"

  "Ay, and what about her prophecies?" asked M'Iver, sharply. "She was notso far wrong, I'm thinking, about the risks of Inverlochy; the heather'sabove the gall indeed."

  "But at any rate," said I, "MacCailein's head is not on a pike."

  "You must be always on the old key," cried M'Iver, angrily. "Oh man,man, but you're sore in want of tact" His face was throbbing and hoved."Here's half-a-dozen men," said he, "with plenty to occupy their witswith what's to be done and what's to happen them before they win home,and all your talk is on a most vexatious trifle. Have you found me, acousin of the Marquis, anxious to query our friends here about the insand outs of the engagement? It's enough for me that the heather's abovethe gall. I saw this dreary morning the sorrow of my life, and I'm in nohurry to add to it by the value of a single tear."

  Sonachan was quite as bitter. "I don't think," said he, "that it mattersvery much to you, sir, what Argile may have done or may not have done;you should be glad of your luck (if luck it was and no design), thatkept you clear of the trouble altogether." And again he plunged ahead ofus with Ardkinglas, to avoid my retort to an impertinence that, comingfrom a younger man, would have more seriously angered me.

  The minister by now had recovered his wind, and was in another of hissermon moods, with this ruffling at Mac-Cailein's name as his text.

  "I think I can comprehend," said he, "all this unwillingness to talkabout my lord of Argile's part in the disaster of to-day. No Gael thoughI am, I'm loath myself to talk about a bad black business, but that'sbecause I love my master--for master he is in scholarship, in gifts,in every attribute and intention of the Christian soldier. It is for adifferent reason, I'm afraid, that our friend Barbreck shuffles."

  "Barbreck never shuffles," said John, stiffly. "If he did in thismatter, it would be for as true an affection for his chief as anylalland cleric ever felt for his patron."

  "And yet, sir, you shuffle for another reason too. You do not want togive your ridiculous Highland pride the shock of hearing that your chiefleft in a galley before the battle he lost had well begun."

  A curious cry came from M'Iver's lips. He lifted his face, lined withsudden shadows, to the stars that now were lighting to the east, and Iheard his teeth grind.

  "So that's the bitter end of it!" said I to myself, stunned by thispitiful conclusion. My mind groped back on the events of the wholewaeful winter. I saw Argile again at peace among his own people; I heardanew his clerkly but wavering sentiment on the trade of the sword; I satby him in the mouth of Glen Noe, and the song and the guess went roundthe fire. But the picture that came to me first and stayed with melast was Argile standing in his chamber in the castle of Inneraora, thepallor of the study on his face, and his little Archie, with his goldhair and the night-gown, running out and clasping him about the knees.

  We struggled through the night, weary men, hungry men. Loch Leven-headmay be bonny by day, but at night it is far from friendly to theunaccustomed wanderer. Swampy meadows frozen to the hard bone, anduncountable burns, and weary ascents, and alarming dips, lie there atthe foot of the great forest of Mamore. And to us, poor fugitives, eventhese were less cruel than the thickets at the very head where theriver brawled into the loch with a sullen surrender of its mountainindependence.

  About seven or eight o'clock we got safely over a ford and into thehilly country that lies tumbled to the north of Glencoe. Before us laythe choice of two routes, either of them leading in the direction ofGlenurchy, but both of them hemmed in by the most inevitable risks,especially as but one of all our party was familiar (and that one butmiddling well) with the countryside. "The choice of a cross-road atnight in a foreign land is Tall John's pick of the farmer's daughters,"as our homely proverb has it; you never know what you have till themorn's morning. And our picking was bad indeed, for instead of takingwhat we learned again was a drove-road through to Tynree, we stood moreto the right and plunged into what after all turned out to be nothingbetter than a corrie among the hills. It brought us up a most steephillside, and landed us two hours' walk later far too much in the heartand midst of Glencoe to be for our comfort. From the hillside we emergedupon, the valley lay revealed, a great hack among the mountains.