by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XXXII.--A SCANDAL AND A QUARREL.
On some days I kept to Glen Shim as the tod keeps to the cairn whenheather burns, afraid almost to let even my thoughts wander there lestthey should fly back distressed, to say the hope I cherished was invain. I worked in the wood among Use pines that now make rooftrees formy home, and at nights I went on ttilidh among some of the poorerhouses of the Glen, and found a drug for a mind uneasy in the talcs ourpeasants told around the fire. A drug, and yet a drug sometimes with thevery disease in itself I sought for it to kill. For the love of a manfor a maid is the one story of all lands, of all ages, trick it as wemay, and my good people, telling their old ancient histories round thelire, found, although they never knew it, a young man's quivering hearta score of times a night.
Still at times, by day and night--ay! in the very midmost watches of thestars-I walked, in my musing, as I thought, upon the causeyed street,where perhaps I had been sooner in the actual fact if M'Iver's departurehad not been delayed. He was swaggering, they told me, about the town inhis old regimentals, every pomp of the foreign soldier assumed again asif they had never been relaxed in all those yean of peace and commerce.I drank stoutly in the taverns, and 'twas constantly, "Landlady, I'mthe lawing," for the fishermen, that they might love him. A tale wentround, too, that one morning he went to a burial in Kilmalieu, andArgile was there seeing the last of an old retainer to his long home,and old Macnachtan came riding down past corpse and mourner with hisonly reverence a finger to his cap. "Come down off your horse when deathor Argile goes bye," cried M'Iver, hauling the laird off his saddle. Butbetween Argile and him were no transactions; the pride of both would notallow it, though it was well known that their affections were strongerthan ever they had been before, and that Gordon made more than oneattempt at a plan to bring them together.
It is likely, too, I had been down--leaving M'Iver out of considerationaltogether--had there not been the tales about MacLachlan, tales thatcame to my ears in the most miraculous way, with no ill intention on thepart of the gossips--about his constant haunting of Inneraora and thecompany of his cousin. He had been seen there with her on the road toCarlunnan. That venue of all others! God! did the river sing for him tooamong its reeds and shallows; did the sun tip Dunchuach like a thimbleand the wild beast dally on the way? That was the greatest blow of all!It left plain (I thought in ray foolishness) the lady's coolness whenlast I met her; for rae henceforth (so said bitterness) the seriousaffairs of life, that in her notion set me more than courtship. I grewsolemn, so gloomy in spirit that even my father observed the ceasing ofmy whistle and song, and the less readiness of my smile. And he, poorman, thought it the melancholy of Inverlochy and the influence of thisruined countryside.
When I went down to the town again the very house-fronts seemedinhospitable, so that I must pass the time upon the quay. There are daysat that season when Loch Finne, so calm, so crystal, so duplicate of thesky, seems like water sunk and lost for ever to wind and wave, when thesea-birds doze upon its kindly bosom like bees upon the flower, and asilence hangs that only breaks in distant innuendo of the rivers or thelow of cattle on the Cowal shore. The great bays lapse into hillsthat float upon a purple haze, forest nor lea has any sign of spring'sextravagance or the flame of the autumn that fires Dunchuach till itblazes like a torch. All is in the light sleep of the year's morning,and what, I have thought, if God in His pious whim should never awake itany more?
It was such a day when I went up and down the rough cobble of the quay,and to behold men working there at their noisy and secular occupationsseemed, at first, a Sabbath desecration. But even they seemed affectedby this marvellous peace of sea and sky, as they lifted from the netor rested on the tackle to look across greasy gunnels with some vagueunquiet of the spirit at the marvellous restfulness of the world. Theirvery voices learned a softer note from that lulled hour of the enchantedseason, and the faint blue smoke of their den fires rose and mingled inthe clustered masts or nestled wooing in the drying sails. Then a man indrink came roaring down the quay, an outrage on the scene, and the magicof the day was gone! The boats bobbed and nudged each other or strainedat the twanging cord as seamen and fishers spanged from deck to deck;rose cries in loud and southward Gaelic or the lowlands of Air. Theworld was no longer dreaming but stark awake, all but the sea and thelapsing bays and the brown floating hills. Town Inneraora bustled to itsmarge. Here was merchandise, here the pack and the bale; snuffy menin perukes, knee-breeched and portly, came and piped in high English,managing the transport of their munitions ashore.
I was standing in the midst of the throng of the quay-head, with mytroubled mind rinding ease in the industry and interest of those peoplewithout loves or jealousies, and only their poor merchandise to exercisethem, when I started at the sound of a foot coming up the stone slipfrom the wateredge. I turned, and who was there but MacLachlan? He wasall alone but for a haunch-man, a gillie-wet-foot as we call him, and hehad been set on the slip by a wherry that had approached from Cowal sideunnoticed by me as I stood in meditation. As he came up the slopingway, picking his footsteps upon the slimy stones, he gave no heed to theidentity of the person before him; and with my mood in no way favourableto polite discourse with the fellow, I gave a pace or two round theelbow of the quay, letting him pass on his way up among the clankingrings and chains of the moored gaberts, the bales of the luggers,and the brawny and crying mariners. He was not a favourite among thequay-folk, this pompous little gentleman, with his nose in the air andhis clothing so very gaudy. The Lowlands men might salute his gentilityif they cared; no residenters of the place did so, but turned theirshoulders on him and were very busy with their affairs as he passed. Hewent bye with a waff of wind in his plaiding, and his haunch-man as hepassed at a discreet distance got the double share of jibe and glunchfrom the mariners.
At first I thought of going home; a dread came on me that if I waitedlonger in the town I might come upon this intruder and his cousin, whenit would sore discomfort me to do so. Thus I went slowly up the quay,and what I heard in the bye-going put a new thought in my head.
Two or three seamen were talking together as I passed, with nudges andwinks and sly laughs, not natives of the place but from farther up theloch, yet old frequenters with every chance to know the full ins andouts of what they discoursed upon. I heard but three sentences as Ipassed; they revealed that MacLachlan at Kilmichael market had oncebragged of an amour in Inneraora. That was all! But it was enough to setevery drop of blood in my body boiling. I had given the dog credit fora decent affection, and here he was narrating a filthy and impossiblestory. Liar! liar! liar! At first the word rose to my mouth, and I hadto choke it at my teeth for fear it should reveal my passion to thepeople as I passed through among them with a face inflamed; then doubtarose, a contention of recollections, numb fears--but the girl's eyestriumphed: I swore to myself she at least should never know the villanyof this vulgar and lying rumour set about the country by a rogue.
Now all fear of facing the street deserted me. I felt a man upright,imbued with a strong sense of justice; I felt I must seek out JohnSplendid and get his mind, of all others, upon a villany he eould teachme to avenge. I found him at Aakaig's comer, a flushed man with perhaps(as I thought at first) too much spirits in him to be the most sensibleof advisers in a matter of such delicacy.
"Elrigmore!" he cried; "sir, I give you welcome to Inneraora! You willnot know the place, it has grown so much since you last visited itshumble street."
"I'm glad to see you now, John," I said, hurriedly. "I would sooner seeyou than any other living person here."
He held up a finger and eyed me pawkily. "Come, man, cornel" he said,laughing, "On your oath now, is there not a lady? And that minds me;you have no more knowledge of the creatures, no more pluck in theirpresence, than a child. Heavens, what a soldier of fortune is this?Seven years among the army; town to town, camp to camp, here to-day andaway to-morrow, with a soldier's pass to love upon your back and haunch,and yet you have not learned to lift t
he sneck of a door, but must betap-tapping with your finger-nails."
"I do not know what you mean," said I.
"Lorf! lord!" he cried, pretending amazement, "and here's schooling!Just think it over for yourself. You are not an ill-looking fellow(though I think I swing a kilt better myself), you are the proper age(though it's wonderful what a youngish-looking man of not much overforty may do), you have a name for sobriety, and Elrigmore carries agood many head of cattle and commands a hundred swords,--would a girlwith any wisdom and no other sweetheart in her mind turn her back onsuch a list of virtues and graces? If I had your reputation and yourestate, I could have the pick of the finest women in Argile--ay, and farbeyond it."
"Never mind about that just now," I demanded, gripping my preacher bythe hand and forcing him with me out of the way of the passers-by, whoseglance upon us would have seemed an indelicacy when we were discussingso precious a thing as my lady's honour.
"But I shall mind it," insisted M'Iver, pursing his lips as much tocheck a hiccough as to express his determination. "It seems I am theonly man dare take the liberty. Fie on ye! man, fie! you have not oncegone to see the Provost or his daughter since I saw you last I dare notgo myself for the sake of a very stupid blunder; but I met the old mancoming up the way an hour ago, and he was asking what ailed you at them.Will I tell you something, Colin? The Provost's a gleg man, but he's notso gleg as his wife. The dame for me! say I, in every household, if it'sher daughter's love-affairs she's to keep an eye on."
"You know so much of the lady and her people," said I, almost losingpatience, "that it's a wonder you never sought her for yourself."
He laughed. "Do you think so?" he said. "I have no doubt of the result;at least I would have had no doubt of it a week or two ago, if I hadtaken advantage of my chances." Then he laughed anew. "I said thegood-wife was gleg; I'm just as gleg myself."
This tipsy nonsense began to annoy me; but it was useless to try tocheck it, for every sentence uttered seemed a spark to his vanity.
"It's about Betty I want to speak," I said.
"And it's very likely too; I would not need to be very gleg to see thatShe does not want to speak to me, however, or of me, as you'll find outwhen once you see her. I am in her black books sure enough, for I sawher turn on the street not an hour ago to avoid me."
"She'll not do that to MacLachlan," I put in, glad of the opening,"unless she hears--and God forbid it--that the scamp lightlies her nameat common fairs."
M'Iver drew himself up, stopped, and seemed to sober.
"What's this you're telling me?" he asked, and I went over the incidenton the quay. It was enough. It left him as hot as myself. He fingeredat his coat-buttons and his cuffs, fastening and unfastening them; heplayed nervously with the hilt of his dirk; up would go his brows anddown again like a bird upon his prey; his lips would tighten on histeeth, and all the time he was muttering in his pick of languagessentiments natural to the occasion. Gaelic is the poorest of tongues toswear in: it has only a hash of borrowed terms from Lowland Scots; butmy cavalier was well able to make up the deficiency.
"Quite so; very true and very comforting," I said at last; "but what'sto be done?"
"What's to be done?" said he, with a start "Surely to God there's nodoubt about that!"
"No, sir; I hope you know me better. But how's it to be done? I thoughtof going up in front of the whole quay and making him chew his lie atthe point of my dagger. Then I thought more formality was needed--afriend or two, a select venue, and careful leisure time for so importanta meeting."
"But what's the issue upon which the rencontre shall take place?" askedM'Iver, it seemed to me with ridiculous scrupulosity.
"Why need you ask?" said I. "You do not expect me to invite him torepeat the insult or exaggerate the same."
M'Iver turned on me almost roughly and shook me by the shoulder. "Man!"said he, "wake up, and do not let your wits hide in the heels of yourboots. Are you clown enough to think of sending a lady's name aroundthe country tacked on to a sculduddry tale like this? You must make theissue somewhat more politic than that."
"I agree with you," I confessed; "it was stupid of me not to think ofit, but what can I do? I have no other quarrel with the man."
"Make one, then," said M'Iver. "I cannot comprehend where you learnedyour trade as cavalier, or what sort of company you kept in Mackay's, ifyou did not pick up and practise the art of forcing a quarrel with a manon any issue you cared to choose. In ten minutes I could make this youngfellow put down his gage in a dispute about the lacing of boots."
"But in that way at least I'm the poorest of soldiers; I never picked aquarrel, and yet here's one that sets my gorge to my palate, but cannotbe fought on."
"Tuts, tuts! man," he cried, "it seems that, after all, you must leavethe opening of this little play to John M'Iver. Come with me a bit yontthe Cross here and take a lesson."
He led me up the wide pend close and round the back of old Stonefield'sdwelling, and into a corner of a lane that gave upon the fields, yet atthe same time kept a plain view of the door of Askaig's house, where weguessed MacLachlan was now on his visit to the Provost's family.
"Let us stand here," said he, "and I'll swear I'm not very wellacquainted with our friend's habits if he's not passing this way toCarlunnan sometime in the next ten minutes, for I saw Mistress Bettygoing up there, as I said, not so very long ago."
This hint at MacLachlan's persistency exasperated me the more. I feltthat to have him by the throat would be a joy second only to one otherin the world.
M'Iver saw my passion--it was ill to miss seeing it--and seemed struckfor the first time by the import of what we were engaged upon.
"We were not given to consider the end of a duello from the openingwhen abroad," he said; "but that was because we were abroad, and had noremonstrance and reminder in the face of familiar fields and houses andtrees, and the passing footsteps of our own people. Here, however, theend's to be considered from the beginning--have you weighed the risks inyour mind?"
"I've weighed nothing," said I, shortly, "except that I feel in me hereI shall have his blood before nightfall."
"He's a fairly good hand with his weapon, they tell me."
"If he was a wizard, with the sword of Great Donald, I would touchhim to the vitals. Have I not learned a little, if you'll give me thecredit, from Alasdair Mor?"
"I forgot that," said M'lver; "you'll come through it all right Andhere's our man coming up the lane. No anger now; nothing to be said onyour side till I give you a sign, and then I can leave the rest to yourwisdom."
MacLachlan came staving up the cobbles in a great hurry, flailingthe air, as he went, with a short rattan, for he affected some of thefoppish customs the old officers brought back from the Continent. He wasfor passing us with no more than a jerk of the head, but M'Iver and Ibetween us took up the mouth of the lane, and as John seemed to smile onhim like one with gossip to exchange, he was bound to stop.
"Always on the going foot, MacLachlan," said John, airily. "I never seea young gentleman of your age and mettle but I wish he could see thewisdom of putting both to the best purpose on the field."
"With your cursed foreigners, I suppose you mean," said the youngfellow. "I could scarcely go as a private pikeman like yourself."
"I daresay not, I daresay not," answered M'Iver, pricked at his heart (Icould tell by his eye) by this reflection upon his humble office, butkeeping a marvellously cool front to his cockerel. "And now when I thinkof it, I am afraid you have neither the height nor width for even soornamental a post as an ensign's."
MacLachlan restrained himself too, unwilling, no doubt, as I thought,to postpone his chase of the lady by so much time as a wrangle withJohn M'Iver would take up. He affected to laugh at Splendid's rejoinder,turned the conversation upon the disjasket condition of the town, andedged round to get as polite a passage as possible between us, withoutbetraying any haste to sever himself from our company. But both JohnSplendid and I had our knees pretty close together, and
the very topiche started seemed to be the short cut to the quarrel we sought.
"A poor town indeed," admitted M'Iver, readily, "but it might be worse.It can be built anew. There's nothing in nature, from a pigsty to a namefor valour and honour, that a wise man may not patch up somehow."
MacLachlan's retort to this opening was on the tip of his tongue; buthis haste made him surrender a taunt as likely to cause trouble. "You'revery much in the proverb way to-day," was all he said. "I'm sure I wishI saw Inneraora as hale and complete as ever it was: it never had a morehonest friend than myself."
"That one has missed," thought I, standing by in a silent part of thisthree-cornered convention. M'Iver smiled mildly, half, I shouldthink, at the manner in which his thrust had been foiled, half tokeep MacLachlan still with us. His next attack was more adroit thoughroundabout, and it effected its purpose.
"I see you are on your way up to the camp," said he, with an appearanceof indifference. "We were just thinking of a daunder there ourselves."
"No," said MacLachlan, shortly; "I'm for farther up the Glen."
"Then at least we'll have your company part of the way," said John, andthe three of us walked slowly off, the young gentleman with no greatwarmth at the idea, which was likely to spoil his excursion to somedegree. M'Iver took the place between us, and in the rear, twenty paces,came the _gille cas-fleuch_.
"I have been bargaining for a horse up here," said John in a while,"and I'm anxious that Elrigmore should see it. You'll have heard I'm offagain on the old road."
"There's a rumour of it," said MacLachlan, cogitating on his ownaffairs, or perhaps wondering what our new interest in his company wasdue to.
"Ah! it's in my blood," said John, "in my blood and bones! Argile was afairly good master--so to call him--but--well, you understand yourself:a man of my kind at a time like this feels more comfortable anywhereelse than in the neighbourhood of his chief."
"I daresay," replied MacLachlan, refusing the hook, and yet with a sneerin his accent.
"Have you heard that his lordship and I are at variance since our returnfrom the North?"
"Oh! there's plenty of gossip in the town," said MacLachlan. "It'scommon talk that you threw your dagger in his face. My father, who's asmall chief enough so far as wealth of men and acres goes, would haveused the weapon to let out the hot blood of his insulter there andthen."
"I daresay," said M'Iver. "You're a hot-headed clan. And MacCailein hashis own ways."
"He's welcome to keep them too," answered the young fellow, his sneerin no ways abated I became afraid that his carefully curbed tongue wouldnot give us our opening before we parted, and was inclined to force hishand; but M'Iver came in quickly and more astutely.
"How?" said he; "what's your meaning? Are you in the notions that hehas anything to learn of courtesy and gallantry on the other side of theloch at Strath-lachlan?"
MacLachlan's eyes faltered a little under his pent brows. Perhaps hehad a suspicion of the slightest that he was being goaded on for somepurpose, but if he had, his temper was too raw to let him qualify hisretort with calmness.
"Do you know, Barbreck," said he, "I would not care to say much aboutwhat your nobleman has to learn or unlearn? As for the gallantry--goodLord, now!--did you ever hear of one of my house leaving his men toshift for themselves when blows were going?"
M'Iver with an utterance the least thought choked by an anger due to theinsult he had wrought for, shrugged his shoulders, and at the same timegave me his elbow in the side for his sign.
"I'm sorry to hear you say that about Gillesbeg Gruamach," saidhe. "Some days ago, half as much from you would have called for mycorrection; but I'm out of his lordship's service, as the rumour rightlygoes, and seeing the manner of my leaving it was as it was, I have noright to be his advocate now."
"But I have!" said I, hotly, stopping and facing MacLachlan, with myexcuse for the quarrel now ready. "Do you dare come here and call downthe credit of MacCailein Mor?" I demanded in the English, with an ideaof putting him at once in a fury at having to reply in a language hespoke but indifferently.
His face blanched; he knew I was doubling my insult for him. The skin ofhis jaw twitched and his nostrils expanded; a hand went to his dirk hilton the moment.
"And is it that you are the advocate?" he cried to me in a laughablekind of Scots. I was bitter enough to mock his words and accent withthe airs of one who has travelled far and knows other languages than hisown.
"Keep to your Gaelic," he cried in that language; "the other may be goodenough to be insolent in; let us have our own for courtesies."
"Any language," said I, "is good enough to throw the lie in your facewhen you call MacCailein a coward."
"Grace of God!" said he; "I called him nothing of the kind; but it'swhat he is all the same."
Up came his valet and stood at his arm, his blade out, and his wholebody ready to spring at a signal from his master.
I kept my anger out of my head, and sunk to the pit of my stomach whileI spoke to him. "You have said too much about Archibald, Marquis ofArgile," I said. "A week or two ago, the quarrel was more properlyM'Iver's; now that he's severed by his own act from the clan, I'm readyto take his place and chastise you for your insolence. Are you willing,John?" I asked, turning to my friend.
"If I cannot draw a sword for my cousin I can at least second hisdefender," he answered quickly. MacLachlan's colour came back; he lookedfrom one to the other of us, and made an effort to laugh with cunning.
"There's more here than I can fathom, gentlemen." said he. "I'll swearthis is a forced quarrel; but in any case I fear none of you.Alasdair," he said, turning to his man, who it seemed was his dalta orfoster-brother, "we'll accommodate those two friends of ours when andwhere they like."
"Master," cried the gillie, "I would like well to have this on my ownhands," and he looked at me with great venom as he spoke.
MacLachlan laughed. "They may do their dangerous work by proxy in thispart of the shire," said he; "but I think our own Cowal ways are better;every man his own quarrel."
"And now is the time to settle it," said I; "the very place for ourpurpose is less than a twenty minutes' walk off."
Not a word more was said; the four of us stepped out again.