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

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER XXVIII.--LOST ON THIS MOOR OF KANNOCH.

  I stood on the hillock clothed with its stunted saughtrees and waitedfor the day that was mustering somewhere to the cast, far by the frozensea of moss and heather tuft. A sea more lonely than any ocean the mostwide and distant, where no ship heaves, and no isle lifts beckoningtrees above the level of the waves; a sea soundless, with no life belowits lamentable surface, no little fish or proud leviathan plunging andromping and flashing from the silver roof of fretted wave dishevelledto the deep profound. The moorfowl does not cry there, the coney has nohabitation. It rolled, that sea so sour, so curdled, from my feet awayto mounts I knew by day stupendous and not so far, but now in the darkso hid that they were but troubled clouds upon the distant marge. Therewas a day surely when, lashing up on those hills around, were watersblue and stinging, and some plague-breath blew on them and they shiveredand dried and cracked into this parched semblance of what they werein the old days when the galleys sailed over. No galleys now. No whitebirds calling eagerly in the storm. No stiver bead of spray. Only in itsseason the cannoch tuft, and that itself but sparsely; the very bluebellshuns a track so desolate, the sturdy gall itself finds no nourishmenthere.

  The grey day crept above the land; I watched it from my hillock, andI shrunk in my clothing that seemed so poor a shielding in a land sochill. A cold clammy dawn, that never cleared even as it aged, but helda hint of mist to come that should have warned me of the danger I facedin venturing on the untravelled surface of the moor, even upon its saferverge. But it seemed so simple a thing to keep low to the left and downon Glenurchy that I thought little of the risk, if I reflected upon itat all.

  Some of the stupidity of my venturing out on the surface of Rannoch thatday must have been due to my bodily state. I was not all there, asthe saying goes. I was suffering mind and body from the strain of myadventures, and most of all from the stormy thrashings of the few daysbefore--the long journey, the want of reasonable sleep and food. Therehad come over all my spirit a kind of dwam, so that at times my headseemed as if it were stuffed with wool; what mattered was of no account,even if it were a tinker's death in the sheuch. No words will describethe feeling except to such as themselves have known it; it is thecondition of the man dead with care and weariness so far as the body isconcerned, and his spirit, sorry to part company, goes lugging his fleshabout the highways.

  I was well out on Rannoch before the day was full awake on the country,walking at great trouble upon the coarse barren soil, among rottenbog-grass, lichened stones, and fir-roots that thrust from the blackpeatlike skeletons of antiquity. And then I came on a cluster oflochs--grey, cold, vagrant lochs--still to some degree in the thrall offrost Here's one who has ever a fancy for such lochans, that are lostand sobbing, sobbing, even-on among the hills, where the reeds and therushes hiss in the wind, and the fowls with sheeny feather make nightand day cheery with their call But not those lochs of Rannoch, thoseblack basins crumbling at the edge of a rotten soil. I skirted them asfar off as I could, as though they were the lochans of a nightmare thatdrag the traveller to their kelpie tenants' arms. There were no birdsamong those rushes; I think the very deer that roamed in the streets ofInneraora in the Novembers blast would have run far clear of so strickena territory. It must be horrible in snow, it must be lamentable in thehottest days of summer, when the sun rides over the land, for what doesthe most kindly season bring to this forsaken place except a scorchingfor the fugitive wild-flower, if such there be?

  These were not my thoughts as I walked on my way; they are what liein my mind of the feelings the Moor of Rannoch will rouse in everystranger. What was in my mind most when I was not altogether in theswound of wearied flesh was the spae-wife's story of the girl inInneraora, and a jealousy so strong that I wondered where, in all myexhausted frame, the passion for it came from. I forgot my friends leftin Dalness, I forgot that my compact and prudence itself called for myhurrying the quickest way I could to the Brig of Urchy; I walked in anindifference until I saw a wan haze spread fast over the country inthe direction of the lower hills that edged the desert I looked with acareless eye on it at first, not reflecting what it might mean or howmuch it might lead to. It spread with exceeding quickness, a grey silversmoke rolling out on every hand, as if puffed continually from some glenin the hills. I looked behind me, and saw that the same was happeningall around. Unless I made speed out of this sorrowful place I was caughtin the mist Then I came to the full understanding that trouble wasto face. I tightened the thongs of my shoes, pinched up a hole in mywaist-belt, scrugged my bonnet, and set out at a deer-stalker's runacross the moor. I splashed in hags and stumbled among roots; I madewild leaps across poisonous-looking holes stewing to the brim withcoloured water; I made long detours to find the most fordable part of astream that twisted back and forth, a very devil's cantrip, upon myway. Then a smirr of rain came at my back and chilled me to the marrow,though the sweat of travail a moment before had been on every part ofme, and even dripping in beads from my chin. At length I lifted my eyesfrom the ground that I had to scan most carefully in my running, andbehold! I was swathed in a dense mist that cut off every view of theworld within ten yards of where I stood. This cruel experience dashedme more than any other misadventure in all my wanderings, for it cutme off, without any hope of speedy betterment, from the others of ourbroken band. They might be all at Urchy Bridge by now, on the veryselvedge of freedom, but I was couped by the heels more disastrouslythan ever. Down I sat on a tuft of moss, and I felt cast upon the dustby a most cruel providence.

  How long I sat there I cannot tell; it may have been a full hour ormore, it may have been but a pause of some minutes, for I was in astupor of bitter disappointment And when I rose again I was the sport ofchance, for whether my way lay before me or lay behind me, or to leftor right, was altogether beyond my decision. It was well on in the day:high above this stagnant plain among tall bens there must be shininga friendly and constant sun; but Elrigmore, gentleman and sometimecavalier of Mackay's Scots, was in the very gullet of night for all hecould see around him. It was folly, I knew; but on somewhere I must begoing, so I took to where my nose led, picking my way with new cautionamong the bogs and boulders. The neighbourhood of the lochs was a sortof guidance in some degree, for their immediate presence gave to anostril sharpened by life in the wild a moist and peaty odour fresh fromthe corroding banks. I sought them and I found them, and finding them Ifound a danger even greater than my loss in that desolate plain. For inthe grey smoke of mist those treacherous pools crept noiselessly tomy feet, and once I had almost walked blindly into an ice-clear turgidlittle lake. My foot sank in the mire of it almost up to the knees ereI jumped to the nature of my neighbourhood, and with an effort littleshort of miraculous in the state of my body, threw myself back on thesafe bank, clear of the death-trap.

  And again I sat on a hillock and surrendered to the most dolefulmeditations. Noon came and went, the rain passed and came again, andpassed once more, and still I was guessing my way about the lochs,making no headway from their neighbourhood, and, to tell the truth, alittle glad of the same, for they were all I knew of the landscapein Moor Rannoch, and something of friendship was in their treacherouspresence, and to know they were still beside me, though it said littlefor my progress to Glenurchy, was an assurance that I was not making myposition worse by going in the wrong airt.

  All about me, when the rain was gone for the last time, there was a cryof waters, the voices of the burns running into the lochans, tinkling,tinkling, tinkling merrily, and all out of key with a poor wretchin draggled tartans, fleeing he knew not whither, but going about inshortened circles like a hedgehog in the sea.

  The mist made no sign of lifting all this time, but shrouded the countryas if it were come to stay for ever, and I was doomed to remain till theend, guessing my way to death in a silver-grey reek. I strained my ears,and far off to the right I heard the sound of cattle bellowing, thesnorting low of a stirk upon the hillside when he wonders at the lostpastures of hi
s calfhood in the merry summer before. So out I set inthat direction, and more bellowing arose, and by-and-by, out of the mistbut still far off, came a long low wail that baffled me. It was likeno sound nature ever conferred on the Highlands, to my mind, unlessthe rare call of the Benderloch wolf in rigorous weather. I stopped andlistened, with my inner head cracking to the strain, and as I was thusstanding in wonder, a great form leaped out at me from the mist, andalmost ran over me ere it lessened to the semblance of a man, and I hadJohn M'Iver of Barbreck, a heated and hurried gentleman of arms, in mypresence.

  He drew up with a shock, put his hand to his vest, and I could see himcross himself under the jacket.

  "Not a bit of it," I cried; "no wraith nor warlock this time, friend,but flesh and blood. Yet I'm bound to say I have never been nearerghostdom than now; a day of this moor would mean death to me."

  He shook me hurriedly and warmly by the hand, and stared in my face, andstammered, and put an arm about my waist as if I were a girl, and turnedme about and led me to a little tree that lifted its barren branchesabove the moor. He was in such a confusion and hurry that I knewsomething troubled him, so I left him to choose his own time forexplanation. When we got to the tree, he showed me his black knife--avery long and deadly weapon--laid along his wrist, and "Out dirk," saidhe; "there's a dog or two of Italy on my track here." His mind, by thestress of his words, was like a hurricane.

  Now I knew something of the Black Dogs of Italy, as they were called,the abominable hounds that were kept by the Camerons and others mainlyfor the hunting down of the Gregarich.

  "Were they close on you?" I asked, as we prepared to meet them.

  "Do you not hear them bay?" said he. "There were three on my track: Istruck one through the throat with my knife and ran, for two Italianhounds to one knife is a poor bargain. Between us we should get rid ofthem before the owners they lag for come up on their tails."

  "You should thank God who got you out of a trouble so deep," I said,astounded at the miracle of his escape so far.

  "Oh ay," said he; "and indeed I was pretty clever myself, or it was allbye with me when one of the black fellows set his fangs in my hose. Hereare his partners; short work with it, on the neck or low at the bellywith an up cut, and ward your throat."

  The two dogs ran with ferocious growls at us as we stood by the littletree, their faces gaping and their quarters streaked with foam. Strongcruel brutes, they did not swither a moment, but both leaped at M'Iver'sthroat. With one swift slash of the knife, my companion almost cut thehead off the body of the first, and I reckoned with the second. Theyrolled at our feet, and a silence fell on the country. Up M'Iver puthis shoulders, dighted his blade on a tuft of bog-grass, and whistled astave of the tune they call "The Desperate Battle."

  "If I had not my lucky penny with me I would wonder at this meeting,"said he at last, eyeing me with a look of real content that he shouldso soon have fallen into my company at a time when a meeting wasso unlikely. "It has failed me once or twice on occasions far lessimportant; but that was perhaps because of my own fumbling, and Iforgive it all because it brought two brave lads together like barks ofone port on the ocean. 'Up or down?' I tossed when it came to puttingfast heels below me, and 'up' won it, and here's the one man in allbroad Albainn I would be seeking for, drops out of the mist at the veryfeet of me. Oh, I'm the most wonderful fellow ever stepped heather, andI could be making a song on myself there and then if occasion allowed.Some people have genius, and that, I'm telling you, is well enough sofar as it goes; but I have luck too, and I'm not so sure but luck is ahantle sight better than genius. I'm guessing you have lost your way inthe mist now?"

  He looked quizzingly at me, and I was almost ashamed to admit that I hadbeen in a maze for the greater part of the morning.

  "And no skill for getting out of it?" he asked.

  "No more than you had in getting into it," I confessed.

  "My good scholar," said he, "I could walk you out into a drove-road inthe time you would be picking the bog from your feet I'm not makingany brag of an art that's so common among old hunters as the snaring ofconies; but give me a bush or a tree here and there in a flat land likethis, and an herb here and there at my feet, and while winds from thenorth blow snell, I'll pick my way by them. It's my notion that theylearn one many things at colleges that are no great value in the realtrials of life. You, I make no doubt, would be kenning the name of anherb in the Latin, and I have but the Gaelic for it, and that's goodenough for me; but I ken the use of it as a traveller's friend wheneverrains are smirring and mists are blowing."

  "I daresay there's much in what you state," I confessed, honestlyenough; "I wish I could change some of my schooling for the art ofwinning off Moor Rannoch."

  He changed his humour in a flash. "Man," said he, "I'm maybe givingmyself overmuch credit at the craft; it's so seldom I put it to thetrial that if we get clear of the Moor before night it'll be as much toyour credit as to mine."

  As it happened, his vanity about his gift got but a brief gratification,for he had not led me by his signs more than a mile on the way to thesouth when we came again to a cluster of lochans, and among them a largefellow called Loch Ba, where the mist was lifting quickly. Through thecleared air we travelled at a good speed, off the Moor, among Bredalbanebraes, and fast though we went it was a weary march, but at last wereached Loch Tulla, and from there to the Bridge of Urchy was no morethan a meridian daunder.

  The very air seemed to change to a kinder feeling in this, the frontierof the home-land. A scent of wet birk was in the wind. The river,hurrying through grassy levels, glucked and clattered and plopped mostgaily, and bubble chased bubble as if all were in a haste to reachLochow of the bosky isles and holy. Oh! but it was heartsome, and as werested ourselves a little on the banks we were full of content to knowwe were now in a friendly country, and it was a fair pleasure to thinkthat the dead leaves and broken branches we threw in the stream would bedancing in all likelihood round the isle of Innishael by nightfall.

  We ate our chack with exceeding content, and waited for a time on thechance that some of our severed company from Dalness would appear,though M'Iyer's instruction as to the rendezvous had been given on theprospect that they would reach the Brig earlier in the day. But after anhour or two of waiting there was no sign of them, and there was nothingfor us but to assume that they had reached the Brig by noon as agreedon and passed on their way down the glen. A signal held together by twostones on the glen-side of the Brig indeed confirmed this notion almostas soon as we formed it, and we were annoyed that we had not observed itsooner. Three sprigs of gall, a leaf of ivy from the bridge arch whereit grew in dark green sprays of glossy sheen, and a bare twig of oakstanding up at a slant, were held down on the parapet by a peeled willowwithy, one end of which pointed in the direction of the glen.

  It was M'Iver who came on the symbols first, and "We're a day behind thefair," said he. "Our friends are all safe and on their way before us;look at that."

  I confessed I was no hand at puzzles.

  "Man," he said, "there's a whole history in it! Three sprigs of gallmean three Campbells, do they not? and that's the baron-bailie andSonachan, and this one with the leaves off the half-side is the fellowwith the want And oak is Stewart--a very cunning clan to be fighting orforaying or travelling with, for this signal is Stewart's work or I'ma fool: the others had not the gumption for it. And what's the ivy butClan Gordon, and the peeled withy but hurry, and--surely that will bedoing for the reading of a very simple tale. Let us be taking our ways.I have a great admiration for Stewart that he managed to do so well withthis thing, but I could have bettered that sign, if it were mine, by achapter or two more."

  "It contains a wonderful deal of matter for the look of it," Iconfessed.

  "And yet," said he, "it leaves out two points I consider of the greatestimportance. Where's the Dark Dame, and when did our friends pass thisway? A few chucky-stones would have left the hour plain to our view, andthere's no word of the old lady."

>   I thought for a second, then, "I can read a bit further myself," saidI; "for there's no hint here of the Dark Dame because she was not here.They left the _suaicheantas_ just of as many as escaped from----"

  "And so they did! Where are my wits to miss a tale so plain?" said he."She'll be in Dalness yet, perhaps better off than scouring the wilds,for after all even the MacDonalds are human, and a half-wit widow womanwould be sure of their clemency. It was very clever of you to think ofthat now."

  I looked again at the oak-stem, still sticking up at the slant "Itmight as well have lain flat under the peeled wand like the others," Ithought, and then the reason for its position flashed on me. It was withjust a touch of vanity I said to my friend, "A little coueging may beof some use at woodcraft too, if it sharpens Elrigmore's wits enough toread the signs that Barbreck's eagle eye can find nothing in. I couldtell the very hour our friends left here."

  "Not on their own marks," he replied sharply, casting his eyes veryquickly again on twig and leaf.

  "On nothing else," said I.

  He looked again, flushed with vexation, and cried himself beat to makemore of it than he had done.

  "What's the oak branch put so for, with its point to the sky if------?"

  "I have you now!" he cried; "it's to show the situation of the sun whenthey left the rendezvous. Three o'clock, and no mist with them; goodlad, good lad! Well, we must be going. And now that we're on the safeside of Argile there's only one thing vexing me, that we might havebeen here and all together half a day ago if yon whelp of a whey-facedMacDonald in the bed had been less of the fox."

  "Indeed and he might have been," said I, as we pursued our way. "Acommon feeling of gratitude for the silver----"

  "Gratitude!" cried John, "say no more; you have fathomed the cause ofhis bitterness at the first trial. If I had been a boy in a bed myself,and some reckless soldiery of a foreign clan, out of a Sassenach notionof decency, insulted my mother and my home with a covert gift of coin topay for a night's lodging, I would throw it in their faces and follow itup with stones."

  Refreshed by our rest and heartened by our meal, we took to thedrove-road almost with lightness, and walked through the evening tillthe moon, the same that gleamed on Loch Linnhe and Lochiel, and lightedArgile to the doom of his reputation for the time being, swept a pathof gold upon Lochow, still hampered with broken ice. The air was still,there was no snow, and at Corryghoil, the first house of any dignitywe came to, we went up and stayed with the tenant till the morning. Andthere we learned that the minister and the three Campbells and Stewart,the last with a bullet in his shoulder, had passed through early in theafternoon on their way to Cladich.