by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XXV.--THE ANGRY EAVESDROPPER.
It may seem, in my recounting of these cold wanderings, of days andnights with nothing but snow and rain, and always the hounds of fear onevery hand, that I had forgotten to exercise my mind upon the blunderand the shame of Argile's defeat at Inverlochy. So far is this from thefact that M'Iver and I on many available occasions disputed--as oldmen at the trade of arms will do--the reasons of a reverse so muchunexpected, so little to be condoned, considering the advantage wehad in numbers compared with the fragments of clans Alasdair MacDonaldbrought down from the gorges of Lochaber to the waters of Loch Linnheand Locheil. It was useless to bring either the baron-bailie or Sonachaninto our deliberations; neither of them had any idea of how the thinghad happened, though they were very well informed indeed about certaintrivial departures from strict forms of Highland procedure in thehurried marshalling of the troops.
"Cheap trash of pennyland men from Lochow-side were put on the rightof gentlemen cadets of the castle and Loch Finne-side lairds," was thebaron-bailie's bitter protestation.
Sonachan, who was naturally possessed of a warm side to the people, evencommon quality, of his own part of the country, would sniff at this withsome scorn.
"Pennyland here, pennyland there, they were closer in blood on BlackDuncan than any of your shore-side par-tans, who may be gentrice bysheepskin right but never by the glaive."
So the two would be off again into the tanglements of Highland pedigree.
The mind of the man with the want was, of course, a vacant tablet,washed clean of every recollection by the copious tears he had wept inhis silliness since ever the shock of the battle came on him; Stewartwas so much of an unscrupulous liar that no word of his could betrusted; and the minister alone could give us any idea of what had beenthe sentiment in the army when the men of Montrose (who were really themen of Sir Alas-dair, his major-general) came on them. But, for reasonsevery true Gael need not even have a hint of, we were averse fromquerying this dour, sour, Lowland cleric on points affecting a Highlandretreat.
So it was, I say, that the deliberations of M'Iver and myself werewithout any outside light in somewhat dark quarters: we had to guide usonly yon momentary glimpse of the stricken field with its flying men,seen in a stupid blur of the senses,--as one lying by a dark hill tarnat night, waiting for mallard or teal, sees the birds wheeling above thewater ere he has appreciated the whirr of their presence, lets bang hispiece at the midst of them, and is in a dense stillness again before hecomprehends that what he has waited for in the cold night has happened.
"The plan of old Gustavus did it, I'll wager my share of thesilver-mine," would John insist; "and who in heaven's name would thinkAlasdair _mosach_ knew the trick of it? I saw his horsemen fire onepistol-shot and fall on at full speed. That's old Gustavus for you,isn't it? And yet," he would continue, reflecting, "Auchin-breac knewthe Swedish tactics too. He had his musketeers and pikemen separate,as the later laws demand; he had even a hint from myself of the dueproportion of two pikes to three muskets."
"But never a platoon fired a volley," I recalled. "It was steel andtarge from the onset." And then I would add, "What's to be said forMacCailein?"
On this John Splendid would ruffle up wrothily with blame for my harpingon that incident, as if it were a crime to hint at any weakness in hischief.
"You are very much afraid of a waff of wind blowing on your cousin'sname," I would cry.
"My chief, Elrigmore, my chief. I make no claim to consideration fora cousin, but I'll stand up for Argile's name so long as the gyrony ofeight and the galley for Lorn are in his coat of arms."
Inverlochy, Inverlochy, Inverlochy--the black name of it rang in my headlike a tolling bell as I sought to doze for a little in Dalness house.The whole events of the scandalous week piled up on me: I no soonerwandered one thought away in the mists of the nether mind than a newone, definite and harassing, grew in its place, so that I was turningfrom side to side in a torture-rack of reflection when I should be lostin the slumber my travel and weariness so well had earned me. Somethingof an eeriness at our position in that genteel but lonely house layheavy on me too: it had no memories of friendship in any room for me; itwas haunted, if haunted at all, with the ghosts of people whose names weonly breathed with bitterness in the shire of Argile. And constantly thewind would be howling in it, piping dismally in the vent of the room theminister and I were in together; constant the rain would be hissing onthe embers of the fire; at a long distance off a waterfall, in veeringgusts of greater vehemence, crashed among its rocks and thundered in itslinn.
M'Iver, who was the first to take watch for the night, paced back andforth along the lobbies or stood to warm himself at the fire he fed atintervals with peat or pine-root Though he had a soldier's reverence forthe slumbers of his comrades, and made the least of noises as he movedaround in his deer-skins, the slightest movement so advertised his zeal,and so clearly recalled the precariousness of our position, that Icould not sleep. In an hour or more after I lay down M'Iver alarmedthe advance-guard of my coming sleep by his unconscious whistle of apibroch, and I sat up to find that the cleric was sharing my waukriferest He had cast his peruke. In the light of a cruisie that hung at themantel-breas he was a comical-looking fellow with a high bald head, andhis eyes, that were very dark and profound, surrounded by the red ringsof weariness, all the redder for the pallor of his face. He stretchedhis legs and rubbed his knees slowly, and smiled on me a littlemournfully.
"I'm a poor campaigner," said he; "I ought to be making the best of thechance we have; but instead I must be thinking of my master and patron,and about my flock in Inneraora town."
I seized the opportunity as a gled would jump at a dove.
"You're no worse than myself," I said, rising to poke up the fire; "I'mthinking of Argile too, and I wish I could get his defalcation--if thatit may be called--out of my mind. Was it a--was it--what you might calla desertion without dignity, or a step with half an excuse in policy? Iknow MacCailein had an injured arm."
Gordon rose and joined me at the fireside. He seemed in a swither as towhether I was a fit confidant or not in such a matter, but at last wouldappear to decide in my favour.
"You have heard me speak well of Argile," he said, quietly. "I neversaid a word in his praise that was not deserved; indeed I have beenlimited in my valuation of his virtues and ornaments, lest they shouldthink it the paid chaplain who spoke and not the honest acquaintance.I know pious men, Highland and Lowland, but my lord of Argile has morethan any of them the qualities of perfection. At home yonder, he risesevery morning at five and is in private till eight. He prays in hishousehold night and morning, and never went abroad, though but for onenight, but he took his write-book, standish, and English New Bible, andNewman's Concordance with him. Last summer, playing one day with thebullats with some gentlemen, one of them, when the Marquis stopped tolift his bullat, fell pale, and said to them about him, 'Bless me, itis that I see my lord with his head off and all his shoulder full ofblood.' A wicked man would have counted that the most gloomy portentand a fit occasion for dread, for the person who spoke was the Laird ofDrimmindorren's seventh son, with a reputation for the second sight.But Argile laughed at the thing, no way alarmed, and then with a gravedemeanour he said, said he, 'The wine's in your head, sir; and even ifit was an omen, what then? The axe in troublous times is no disgrace,and a chief of Clan Diarmaid would be a poor chief indeed if he failedto surrender his head with some show of dignity."'
"But to leave his people twice in one war with no apparent valid excusemust look odd to his unfriends," I said, and I toasted my hose at thefire.
"I wish I could make up my mind whether an excuse is valid or not," saidthe cleric; "and I'm willing to find more excuses for MacCailein thanI'll warrant he can find for himself this morning, wherever he mayhappen to be. It is the humour of God Almighty sometimes to put two menin the one skin. So far as I may humbly judge, Argile is the poorvictim of such an economy. You have seen the sort of man I mea
n: to-daygenerous to his last plack, to-morrow the widow's oppressor; Sunday asoul humble at the throne of grace, and writhing with remorse for somechild's sin, Monday riding vain-gloriously in the glaur on the roadto hell, bragging of filthy amours, and inwardly gloating upon a crimeanticipated. Oh, but were the human soul made on less devious plan, howmy trade of Gospel messenger were easy! And valour, too, is it not inmost men a fever of the moment; at another hour the call for couragemight find them quailing and flying like the coney of the rocks."
"Then Argile, you think, was on those occasions the sport of his weakerself?" I pushed. I found so many obstacles in the way of satisfaction tomy natural curiosity that I counted no persistence too rude now.
"He was the result of his history," said the minister, quickly, his faceflushing with a sudden inspiration. "From the start of time those blackmoments for the first Marquis of Argile have been preparing. I can speakmyself of his more recent environment He has about him ever flatterersof the type of our friend the sentinel out there, well-meaning but awoeful influence, keeping from him every rumour that might vex his ear,colouring every event in such a manner as will please him. They kept theman so long in a delusion that fate itself was under his heel, that whenthe stress of things came--"
"Not another word!" cried M'Iver from the doorway.
We turned round and found him standing there wrapped up in his plaid,his bonnet over a frowning brow, menace in his eye.
"Not another word, if it must be in that key. Has Archibald Marquis ofArgile and Lord of Lochow no friends in this convocation? I would havethought his own paid curate and a neighbour so close as Elrigmore wouldnever waste the hours due to sleep upon treason to the man who deservedbetter of them."
"You should have eavesdropped earlier and you would have learned thatthere was no treason in the matter. I'm as leal friend to my lord ofArgile as you or any of your clan. What do I care for your bubbly-jockHighland vanity?" said Gordon.
"We were saying nothing of MacCailein that we would not say to you," Iexplained to M'Iver, annoyed in some degree by his interference.
"Ay, ay," said he, with a pitying shrug of the shoulder, and throwingoff his last objection to my curiosity; "you're on the old point again.Man, but you're ill to satisfy! And yet we must have the story sooneror later, I suppose. I would rather have it anywhere than in this waufand...
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...malcontents as we thought them, and found Montrose on the braes aboveus as the dawn broke. We had but a shot or two apiece to the musket,they tell me. Dun-barton's drums rolled, the pipes clamoured, the camprose from its sleep in a confusion, and a white moon was fainting behindus. Argile, who had slept in a galley all night, came ashore in a wherrywith his left arm in a sling. His face was like the clay, but he had afirm lip, and he was buckling a hauberk with a steady hand as the menfell under arms. Left alone then, I have a belief that he would havecome through the affair gallantly; but the Highland double-dealings weretoo much for him. He turned to Auchinbreac and said 'Shall I take thecommand, or----?' leaving an alternative for his relative toguess at Auchinbreac, a stout soldier but a vicious, snapped him veryshort 'Leave it to me, leave it to me,' he answered, and busied himselfagain in disposing his troops, upon whom I was well aware he had nogreat reliance. Then Sir James Rollock-Niddry, and a few others pushedthe Marquis to take his place in his galley again, but would he? Nottill Auchinbreac came up a second time, and seeing the contention of hismind, took your Highland way of flattering a chief, and made a poltroonact appear one of judgment and necessity. 'As a man and soldier only,you might be better here at the onset,' said Auchinbreac, who had a wilyold tongue; 'but you are disabled against using sword or pistol; you arethe mainstay of a great national movement, depending for its success onyour life, freedom, and continued exertion.' Argile took to the galleyagain, and Auchinbreac looked after him with a shamed and dubious eye.Well, well, Sir Duncan has paid for his temporising; he's in his placeappointed. I passed the knowe where he lay writhing to a terrible end,with a pike at his vitals, and he was moaning for the chief he hadhelped to a shabby flight."
"A shabby flight!" said M'Iver, with a voice that was new to me, soharsh was it and so high-set.
"You can pick the word for yourself," said the minister; "if by heaven'sgrace I was out of this, in Inneraora I should have my own way ofputting it to Argile, whom I love and blame."
"Oh you Lowland dog!" cried John Splendid, more high-keyed than ever,"_you_ to blame Argile!" And he stepped up to the cleric, who wasstanding by the chimney-jambs, glowered hellishly in his face, then witha fury caught his throat in his fingers, and pinned him up against thewall.