by Neil Munro
CHAPTER VI -- MUNGO BOYD
It was difficult for Count Victor, when he went abroad in the morning,to revive in memory the dreary and mysterious impressions of hisarrival; and the melody he had heard so often half-completed in the darkwaste and hollow of the night was completely gone from his recollection,leaving him only the annoying sense of something on the tongue's-tip, aswe say, but as unattainable as if it had never been heard. As he walkedupon a little knoll that lay between the seaside of the castle and thewave itself, he found an air of the utmost benignity charged with theodours of wet autumn woodlands in a sunshine. And the sea stretchedserene; the mists that had gathered in the night about the hills wererising like the smoke of calm hearths into a sky without a cloud. Thecastle itself, for all its natural arrogance and menace, had somethingpleasant in its aspect looked at from this small eminence, where thegarden did not display its dishevelment and even the bedraggled bowerseen from the rear had a look of trim' composure.
To add to the morning's cheerfulness Mungo was afoot whistling a balladair of the low country, with a regard for neither time nor tune in hispuckered lips as he sat on a firkin-head at an outhouse door and guttedsome fish he had caught with his own hands in a trammel net at theriver-mouth before Montaiglon was awake and the bird, as the Gaelicgoes, had drunk the water.
"Gude mornin' to your honour," he cried with an elaborately flourishedsalute as Montaiglon sauntered up to him. "Ye're early on the move,Monsher; a fine caller mornin'. I hope ye sleepit weel; it was a gowstynicht."
In spite of his assumed indifference and the purely casual nature ofhis comment upon the night, there was a good deal of cunning, thoughtMontaiglon, in the beady eyes of him, but the stranger only smiled atthe ease of those Scots domestic manners.
"I did very well, I thank you," said he. "My riding and all the restof it yesterday would have made me sleep soundly inside the drum of amarching regiment."
"That's richt, that's richt," said Mungo, ostentatiously handlingthe fish with the awkward repugnance of one unaccustomed to a task somenial, to prove perhaps that cleansing them was none of his accustomedoffice. "That's richt. When we were campaignin' wi' Marlborough oor ladshad many a time to sleep wi' the cannon dirlin' aboot them. Ye get us'dto't, ye get us'd to't, as Annapla says aboot bein' a weedow woman.And if ye hae noticed it, Coont, there's nae people mair adapted forfechtin' under diffeeculties than oor ain; that's what maks the Scotsthe finest sogers in the warld. It's the build o' them, 'Lowlan' or'Hielan', the breed o' them; the dour hard character o' their countryand their mainner o' leevin'. We gied the English a fleg at the'Forty-five,' didnae we? That was where the tartan cam' in: man, there'snaethin' like us!"
"You do not speak like a Highlander," said Montaiglon, finding some ofthis gasconade unintelligible.
"No, I'm no' exactly a'thegether a Hielan'man," Mungo admitted, "thoughI hae freends con-nekit wi' the auldest clans, and though I'm, in amainner o' speakin', i' the tail o' Doom, as I was i' the tail o' hisfaither afore him--peace wi' him, he was the grand soger!--but Hielan'or Lowland, we gied them their scuds at the 'Forty-five.' Scotsregiments, sir, a' the warld ower, hae had the best o't for fechtin',marchin', or glory. See them at the auld grand wars o' Sweden wi'Gus-tavus, was there ever the like o' them? Or in your ain country,whaure's the bate o' the Gairde Ecossay, as they ca't?"
He spoke with such a zest, he seemed to fire with such a martial glow,that Montaiglon began to fancy that this amusing grotesque, who instature came no higher than his waist, might have seen some service assutler or groom in a campaigning regiment.
"_Ma foi!_" he exclaimed, with his surprise restrained from the mostdelicate considerations for the little man's feelings; "have you been inthe wars?"
It was manifestly a home-thrust to Mungo. He had risen, in his momentof braggadocio, and was standing over the fish with a horn-hiltedgutting-knife in his hands, that were sanguine with his occupation, andhe had, in the excess of his feeling, made a flourish of the knife,as if it were a dagger, when Montaiglon's query checked him. He wasa bubble burst, his backbone--that braced him to the tension of acuirassier of guards--melted into air, into thin air, and a ludicrouslimpness came on him, while his eye fell, and confusion showed about hismouth.
"In the wars!" he repeated. "Weel--no jist a'thegether what ye michtcall i' the wars--though in a mainner o' speakin', gey near't. I had anuncle oot wi' Balmerina; ye may hae heard tell o'm, a man o' tremendousvalour, as was generally al-ooed--Dugald Boyd, by my faither's side.There's been naethin' but sogers in oor family since the be-ginnin'o' time, and mony ane o' them's deid and dusty in foreign lands. It ithadnae been for the want o' a half inch or thereby in the height o'my heels "--here he stood upon his toes--"I wad hae been in the airmymysel'. It's the only employ for a man o' spunk, and there's spunk inMungo Boyd, mind I'm tellin' ye!"
"It is the most obvious thing in the world, good Mungo," saidMontaiglon, smiling. "You eviscerate fish with the gusto of agladiator."
And then an odd thing happened to relieve Mungo's embarrassment and endincontinent his garrulity. Floating on the air round the bulge of theturret came a strain of song in a woman's voice, not powerful, butrich and sweet, young in its accent, the words inaudible but the airstartling to Count Victor, who heard no more than half a bar beforehe had realised that it was the unfinished melody of the nocturnalflageolet. Before he could comment upon so unexpected and surprising aphenomenon, Mungo had dropped his gutting-knife and made with suspiciousrapidity for the entrance of the castle, without a word of explanationor leave-taking.
"I become decidedly interested in Annapla," said Montaiglon to himself,witnessing this odd retreat, "and my host gives me no opportunityof paying my homages. Malediction! It cannot be a wife; Bethune saidnothing of a wife, and then M. le Baron spoke of himself as a widower.A domestic, doubtless; that will more naturally account for the ancientfishmonger's fleet retirement. He goes to chide the erring Abigail.Or--or--or the cunning wretch!" continued Montaiglon with new meaning inhis eyes, "he is perhaps the essential lover. Let the Baron at breakfastelucidate the mystery."
But the Baron at breakfast said never a word of the domestic economyof his fortalice. As they sat over a frugal meal of oat porridge, thepoached fish, and a smoky, high-flavoured mutton ham, whose history theCount was happy not to know, his host's conversation was either uponParis, where he had spent some months of sad expatriation, yawning atits gaiety (it seemed) and longing for the woods of Doom; or upon theplan of the search for the spy and double traitor.
Montaiglon's plans were simple to crudeness. He had, though he did notsay so, anticipated some assistance from Doom in identifying the objectof his search; but now that this was out of the question, he meant, itappeared, to seek the earliest and most plausible excuse for removalinto the immediate vicinity of Argyll's castle, and on some pretext tomake the acquaintance of as many of the people there as he could, thento select his man from among them, and push his affair to a conclusion.
"A plausible scheme," said Doom when he heard it, "but contrived withoutany knowledge of the situation. It's not Doom, M. le Count---oh no, it'snot Doom down by there; it's a far more kittle place to learn the outsand ins of. The army and the law are about it, the one about as numerousas the other, and if your Drimdarroch, as I take it, is a traitor oneither hand--to Duke Archie as well as to the king across the water,taking the money of both as has happened before now, he'll be noDrimdarroch you may wager, and not kent as such down there. Indeed, howcould he? for Petullo the writer body is the only Drimdarroch thereis to the fore, and he has a grieve in the place. Do you think thisby-named Drimdarroch will be going about cocking his bonnet over hisFrench amours and his treasons? Have you any notion that he will be themore or the less likely to do so when he learns that there's a Frenchgentleman of your make in the country-side, and a friend of Doom's, too,which means a Jacobite? A daft errand, if I may say it; seeking a needlein a haystack was bairn's play compared to it."
"If you sit down on the haystack you
speedily find the needle, M. leBaron," said Montaiglon playfully. "In other words, trust my sensibilityto feel the prick of his presence whenever I get into his society. Thefact that he may suspect my object here will make him prick all thequicker and all the harder."
"Even yet you don't comprehend Argyll's court. It's not Doom, mind you,but a place hotching with folk--half a hundred perhaps of whom havetravelled as this Drimdarroch has travelled, and in Paris too, andjust of his visage perhaps. Unless you challenged them all seriatim, asPetullo would say, I see no great prospect."
"I wish we could coax the fly here! That or something like it was what Ihalf expected to be able to do when Bethune gave me your address as thatof a landlord in the neighbourhood."
Doom reddened, perhaps with shame at the altered condition of his statein the house of his fathers. "I've seen the day," said he--"I've seenthe day they were throng enough buzzing about Doom, but that was onlyso long as honey was to rob with a fair face and a nice humming at therobbery. Now that I'm a rooked bird and Doom a herried nest, they neverlook the road I'm on."
Mungo, standing behind his master's chair, gave a little crackling laughand checked it suddenly at the angry flare in his master's face.
"You're mighty joco!" said the Baron; "perhaps you'll take my friend andme into your confidence;" and he frowned with more than one meaning atthe little-abashed retainer.
"Paurdon! paurdon!" said Mungo, every part of the chart-like facethrilled with some uncontrollable sense of drollery, and he exploded inlaughter more violent than ever.
"Mungo!" cried his master in the accent of authority.
The domestic drew himself swiftly to attention.
"Mungo!" said his master, "you're a damned fool! In the army ye wouldhave got the triangle for a good deal less. Right about face."
Mungo saluted and made the required retreat with a great deal less thanhis usual formality.
"There's a bit crack in the creature after all," said the Baron,displaying embarrassment and annoyance, and he quickly changed theconversation, but with a wandering mind, as Count Victor could not failto notice. The little man, to tell the truth, had somehow laughed atthe wrong moment for Count Victor's peace of mind. For why should hebe amused at the paucity of the visitors from Argyll's court to theresidence of Doom? Across the table at a man unable to conceal hisconfusion Montaiglon stole an occasional glance with suspicion growingon him irresistibly.
An inscrutable face was there, as many Highland faces were to him, evenamong old friends in France, where Balhaldie, with the best possiblehand at a game of cards, kept better than any gambler he had ever knownbefore a mask of dull and hopeless resignation. The tongue was soft andfair-spoken, the hand seemed generous enough, but this by all accountshad been so even with Drimdarroch himself, and Drimdarroch was rotten tothe core.
"Very curious," thought Montaiglon, making poor play with his braxy ham."Could Bethune be mistaken in this extraordinary Baron?" And he patchedtogether in his mind Mungo's laughter with the Baron's history asbriefly known to him, and the inexplicable signal and alarm of thenight.
"Your Mademoiselle Annapla seems to be an entrancing vocalist," said heairily, feeling his way to a revelation.
The Baron, in his abstraction, scarcely half comprehended.
"The maid," he said, "just the maid!" and never a word more, but into anew topic.
"I trust so," thought the Count; "but the fair songster who signalsfrom her window and has clandestine meetings at midnight with masculinevoices must expect some incredulity on that point. Can it be possiblethat here I have Bluebeard or Lothario? The laughter of the womanseems to indicate that if here is not Lothario, here at all events issomething more than seems upon the surface. _Tonnerre de dieu!_ I becomesuspicious of the whole breed of mountaineers. And not a word about lastnight's alarm--that surely, in common courtesy, demands some explanationto the guest whose sleep is marred."
They went out together upon the mainland in the forenoon to makeinquiries as to the encounter with the Macfarlanes, of whose presencenot a sign remained. They had gone as they had come, without theknowledge of the little community on the south of Doom, and the veryplace among the bracken where the Count had dropped his bird revealed nofeather; the rain of the morning had obliterated every other trace. Hestood upon the very spot whence he had fired at the luckless robber, andrestored, with the same thrill of apprehension, the sense of mysteryand of dread that had hung round him as he stole the day before throughvoiceless woods to the sound of noisy breakers on a foreign shore.He saw again the brake nod in a little air of wind as if a form washarboured, and the pagan rose in him--not the sceptic but the childof nature, early and remote, lost in lands of silence and of omen indim-peopled and fantastic woods upon the verge of clamorous seas.
"_Dieu!_" said he with a shiver, turning to his host. "This is decidedlynot Verrays in the Rue Conde. I would give a couple of louis d'or for amoment of the bustle of Paris.
"A sad place yon!" said Doom.
And back they went to the castle to play a solemn game of lansquenet.