by Neil Munro
CHAPTER X -- SIM MACTAGGART, CHAMBERLAIN
On the roof of a high old church with as little architectural eleganceas a dry-stone barn, a bell jerked by a rope from the church-yardindicated the close association of law and the kirk by ringing a sortof triumphal peal to the procession of the judges between the court-roomand the inn. Contesting with its not too dulcet music blared forth thefanfare of two gorgeous trumpeters in scarlet and gold lace, tie wigs,silk stockings, and huge cocked hats, who filled the street with abrassy melody that suggested Gabriel's stern and awful judgment-summonsrather than gave lightness and rhythm to the feet of those who madeup the procession. The procession itself had some dreadful aspects andelements as well as others incongruous and comical. The humorous fancymight see something to smile at in the two grey-wigged bent old menin long scarlet coats who went in front of the trumpeters, preparedto clear the way if necessary (though a gust of shrewd wind would haveblown them off their feet), by means of the long-poled halberts theycarried; but this impression of the farcical was modified by the natureof the body whereof they were the pioneers or advance guard.Sleek magistrates and councillors in unaccustomed black suits andsilver-buckled shoes, the provost ermined at their head, showed the wayto the more actual, the more dignified embodiment of stern Scots law. Atleast a score of wigs were there from the Parliament House of Edinburgh,a score of dusty gowns, accustomed to sweep the lobbies of the Courtsof Session, gathered the sand of the burgh street, and in theirmidst walked the representatives of that old feudal law at long-lastostensibly abandoned, and of the common law of the land. Argyll was ina demure equivalent for some Court costume, with a dark velvet coat, aribbon of the Thistle upon his shoulder, a sword upon his haunch, andfor all his sixty-six years he carried himself less like the lawyer madeat Utrecht--like Justice-General and Extraordinary Lord of Session--thanlike the old soldier who had served with Marlborough and took the fieldfor the House of Hanover in 1715. My Lords Elchies and Kilkerranwalked on either side of him--Kilkerran with the lack-lustre eye of thepassionate mathematician, the studious moralist devoted to midnight oil,a ruddy, tall, sturdy man, well filling the crimson and white silk gown;Elchies, a shrivelled atomy with a hirpling walk, leaning heavily upon arattan, both with the sinister black tri-corne hats in their hands, andflanked by a company of musketeers.
A great band of children lent the ludicrous element again to the companyby following close upon its heels, chanting a doggerel song to the tuneof the trumpets; the populace stood at the close-mouths or leaned overtheir windows looking at the spectacle, wondering at the pomp given tothe punishment of a Stewart who a few years ago would have been sent tothe gallows by his Grace with no more formality than might have attendedthe sentence of a kipper salmon-poacher to whipping at the hands of LongDavie the dempster.
His Grace was entertaining the Lords, the Counsel (all but the convict'slawyers--a lot of disaffected Jacobites, who took their food bythemselves at the inn, and brusquely refused his Grace's hospitality),the magistracy, and some county friends, to a late dinner at the castlethat night, and an hour after saw them round the ducal board.
If Count Victor was astonished at the squalid condition of things in thecastle of the poor Baron of Doom, he would have been surprised to findhere, within an hour or two's walk of it, so imposing and luxuriant adomesticity. Many lands, many hands, great wealth won by law, battle,and the shrewdness of generations, enabled Argyll to give his castlegrandeur and his table the opulence of any southern palace. And it was abright company that sat about his board, with several ladies in it, forhis duchess loved to have her sojourn in her Highland home made gay bythe company of young women who might by their beauty and light heartsrecall her own lost youth.
A bagpipe stilled in the hall, a lute breathed a melody from aneighbouring room, the servants in claret and yellow livery noiselesslyserved wine.
Elchies sourly pursed his lips over his liquor, to the mingled amusementand vexation of his Grace, who knew his lordship's cellar, or even theJusticiary Vault in the town (for the first act of the Court had beento send down bins from Edinburgh for their use on circuit), containedno vintage half so good, and "Your Grace made reference on the way up tosome one killed in the neighbourhood," he said, as one resuming a topicbegun elsewhere.
"Not six miles from where we sit," replied the Duke, his cultivatedEnglish accent in a strong contrast with the broad burr of the Edinburghjusticiar, "and scarcely a day before you drove past. The man shot, sofar as we have yet learned, was a Macfarlane, one of a small but ancientand extremely dishonest clan whose country used to be near the head ofLoch Lomond. Scarcely more than half a hundred of them survive, butthey give us considerable trouble, for they survive at the cost of theirneighbour's gear and cattle. They are robbers and footpads, and it looksas if the fatality to one of their number near Doom has been incurredduring a raid. We still have our raids, Lord Elchies, in spite of whatyou were saying on the bench as to the good example this part of thecountry sets the rest of the Highlands--not the raids of old fashion,perhaps, but more prosaic, simply thefts indeed. That is why I have hadthese troops brought here. It is reported to me pretty circumstantiallythat some of the Appin people are in the key to attempt a rescue ofJames Stewart on his way to the place of execution at Lettermore. Theywould think nothing of attempting it once he was brought the length ofBenderloch, if only a law officer or two had him in charge."
"I would have thought the duty of keeping down a ploy of that kindwould have been congenial to your own folk," said Elchies, drenching hisnostrils vulgarly with macabaw.
Argyll smiled. "You may give us credit for willingness to take our shareof the responsibility of keeping Appin in order," said he. "I shouldnot wonder if there are half a hundred claymores with hands in themsomewhere about our old barracks in Maltland. Eh! Simon?" and he smileddown the table to his Chamberlain.
"Five-and-forty, to be strict," said the gentleman appealed to, andnever a word more but a sudden stop, for his half-eaten plum hadmiraculously gone from his plate in the moment he had looked up at theDuke.
"Was't in your lands?" asked Elchies, indifferent, but willing tohelp on a good topic in a company where a variety of classes made theconversation anything but brisk.
"No," said Argyll, "it was in Doom, the place of a small landowner,Lamond, whose castle--it is but a ramshackle old bigging now--you mayhave noticed on your left as you rode round. Lamond himself is a man Ihave a sort of softness for, though, to tell the truth, he has forced meinto more litigation than he had money to pay for and I had patience totake any lasting interest in."
"The Baron of Doom, is that the man?" cried Elchies, dryly. "Faith,I ken him well. Some years syne he was living months at a time in theCourt of Session, and eating and sleeping in John's Coffee-house, andhis tale--it's a gey old one--was that the litigation was always fromthe other side. I mind the man weel; Baron he called himself, though, ifI mind right, his title had never been confirmed by the king _n liberambaroniam_ He had no civil nor criminal jurisdiction. A black-avised man;the last time he came before me--Mr. Petullo, ye were there--it was in along-standing case o' multiple poinding, and if I'm no'mistaken, a placeca'd Drimadry or Drimdarry, or something like that, changed hands owerthe head o't."
Petullo the writer, shrinking near the foot of the table in an adequatesense of his insignificance, almost choked himself by gulping thewhole glass of wine at his lips in his confusion, and broke into aperspiration at the attention of the company thus drawn to him. Hesqueaked back an unintelligible acquiescence; and completed his owntorture by upsetting a compote of fruit upon his black knee-breeches.
Opposite the unhappy lawyer sat a lady of extraordinary beauty--ahaughty, cold, supercilious sort of beauty, remarkable mainly fromthe consciousness of its display. Her profile might have been cut frommarble by a Greek; her neck and bust were perfect, but her shoulders,more angular than was common in that time of bottle-shape, were carriedsomewhat too grandly for a gentle nature. The cruelty of hercharacter betrayed it
self in a faint irrestrainable smile at Petullo'sdiscomfiture, all the more cruel because his eyes were entreatingly onhers as he mopped up awkwardly the consequences of his gaucherie. Shesmiled, but that was not the strangest part of her conduct, for at thesame time she nudged with her knee the Chamberlain who sat next to her,and who had brought her into the room. To cap the marvel, he showed nosurprise, but took her hint with a conspirator's enforced composure.He looked at the little, dried-up, squeaking creature opposite,and--refused the lady the gratification of a single sign of theamusement she had apparently expected. She reddened, bit her netherlip, and "Your poor man of business is in a sore plight," she whispered,using the name Sim with significant freedom.
"My dear Kate," said he quietly, "as God's my judge, I can find nothingto laugh at in the misery of a poor wretch like yon."
"That's the second time!" she whispered with well-concealed ill-humour,a smile compelled upon her face but a serpent in her voice.
"The second time?" he repeated, lifting his eyebrows questioning, andalways keeping a shoulder to her--a most chilly exterior. "Your ladyshipis in the humour to give guesses."
She gave a swift reply to some only half-heard remark by her next-handneighbour, then whispered to him, "It's the second time you have beencruel to me to-day. You seem bent on making me unhappy, and it is notwhat you promised. Am I not looking nice?"
"My dear girl," said he calmly, "do you know I am not in the mood formaking sport of an old fool to prove my Kindness of heart to you."
"To me, Sim!" she whispered, the serpent all gone from her voice, and awarm, dulcet, caressing accent in it, while her eyes were melting withdiscreetly veiled love. "And I plotted so much to get beside you."
"That is the damned thing," he replied between his teeth, and smilingthe while to some comment of his other neighbour, "you plot too much,my dear. I do not want to be unkind, but a little less plotting wouldbecome you more. I have no great liking for your husband, as you mayguess; but there he's covered with compote and confusion, and for thelook of the thing, if for no more, it would suit his wife to pretendsome sympathy. In any case, for God's sake do not look at me as if Ishared your amusement at his trouble. And I'm sure that Elchies by hisglowering saw you eat my plum."
Mrs. Petullo cast a glance of disdain at the poor object she was boundto by a marriage for position and money, and for a moment or two gaveno attention to the society of his Grace's Chamberlain, who was sosuspiciously in her confidence.
Simon MacTaggart played idly with the stem of his glass. He was oddin that bibulous age, inasmuch as he never permitted wine to tempt hispalate to the detriment of his brains, and he listened gravely to theconversation that was being monopolised at the head of the table roundthe Duke.
Women liked him. Indeed women loved this Chamberlain of Argyll readily,more for his eyes and for his voice and for some odd air of mystery andromance in his presence than for what generally pass for good looks.He had just the history and the career and reputation that to menand women, except the very wisest and the somewhat elderly, have anattraction all unreasonable; for his youth had been stormy; he hadknown great dangers, tremendous misfortunes, overcoming both by anatural--sometimes spendthrift--courage; he was credited with more thanone amorous intrigue, that being in high quarters was considered ratherin his favour than otherwise; he was high in the esteem of families inthe social scale considerably above his own (that had greatly declinedsince his people could first boast a coat impaled with the galleyof Lome); he was alert, mind and body, polite to punctilio, a fartraveller, a good talker, and above all a lover of his kind, so that hewent about with a smile (just touched a little by a poetic melancholy)for all. To the women at Argyll's table he was the most interesting manthere, and though materially among the least eminent and successful,had it been his humour to start a topic of his own in opposition tohis patron's, he could have captured the interest of the gathering in asentence.
But Simon MacTaggart was for once not in the mood for the small changeof conversation. Some weighty thought possessed him that gave his eye aremote quality even when he seemed to be sharing the general attentionin the conversation, and it was as much resentment at the summons fromhis abstraction and his mood as a general disinclination to laugh at awretch's misery on the bidding of the wretch's wife, that made him socurt to Mrs. Petullo's advances. To him the dinner seemed preposterouslyunending. More than once his hand went to his fob with an unconsciousresponse to his interest in the passage of the time; with difficulty heclenched his teeth upon the yawns that followed his forced smiles at themurmured pleasantries of the humble bailies and town councillors inhis midst, who dared only venture on a joke of their own, and thatdiscreetly muffled, when there was a pause in the conversation of theDuke and the Judges. And to the woman at his shoulder (the one on hisleft--the wife of the Provost, a little fair-haired doll with a gigglingappreciation of the importance of her situation in such grand company,and a half-frightened gladness at being so near MacTaggart) he seemedmore mysterious and wonderful than ever. Mrs. Petullo, without lookingat his half-averted face, knew by the mere magnetic current from hiscold shoulder that of her he was just now weary, that with his companyas a whole he was bored, and that some interest beyond that noisy hallengaged his abstracted thought.
"No," the Duke was saying; "the murderer has not been discovered, norindeed have we the most important evidence that there was a murder atall--for the body itself is as yet a mere matter of rumour, though ofits existence there is no reasonable ground for doubt. It was carriedoff, as I am informed, by the Macfarlanes, whose anxiety to hush theaffair is our main proof that they were on no honest expedition whenthis happened. But an affair like that gets bruited abroad: it came tous from Cairndhu that the corpse of a Macfarlane was carried past inthe gloaming by some of his friends, anxious to get it smuggled throughArd-kinglas with as little public notice as possible."
"_Acta exteriora indicant interiora seceta_, to somewhat misapply awell-kent maxim. The _res gesto_ show, I think, that it was a murder onthe part of the robbers themselves." It was Elchies who spoke, crackingfilberts the while with his great yellow teeth that gave him so cruel alook upon the bench.
"As a matter of fact," said the Chamberlain suddenly, "the man was shotby a French pistol," and a hush fell on the table in expectation offurther details, but they were not forthcoming.
"Well, I'm astonished to hear it, and I hope you know where to lay handson the homicide," said the Duke.
"It's none of our affair--nowadays," said the Chamberlain. "And, forbye,I'm only telling a carried tale after all. There may be no more in itthan the fancy of the Glen Fyne folk who told me of it."
The Duke looked at his Chamberlain, saw that the topic, so far as hewas concerned, was ended, and signalled to the Duchess. It was not thecustom of the time, but her Grace had introduced into her Highland courtthe practice of withdrawing the ladies for some time after dinner, andleaving the men to their birling of the wine, as they phrased it. Outshe swept at her husband's signal with her company--Lady Strachur, LadyCharlotte, Mrs. Petullo, the Provost's wife, and three or four of nogreater importance to our story--and of all that were left behind,perhaps there was none but her husband, who, oddly' enough (as peoplethought) for a duke, loved her as if he were a boy courting still, toreflect that the room was colder and less human wanting the presenceof her and her bright company. His Grace, who cared for the bottleeven less than did his Chamberlain, slid round the wine sun-wise for aHighlander's notion of luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhatat the eyes when they forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepinessand glowing content of potations carried to the verge of indiscretion;Kilkerran hummed, Petullo hawed, the Provost humbly ventured asculduddery tale, the Duke politely listening the while to some argumentof Elchies upon the right of any one who had been attacked by theMacfarlanes to use arms against them.
"It's a well-allowed principle, your Grace," he maintained. "_Arma inarmatos sumere jura sinunt_--the possessor may use violence to
maintainhis possession, but not to recover that of which he has been deprived."He looked like a Barbary ape as his shrunk jaws masticated the kernelshe fed to his mouth with shaking claws: something deep and foxishlycunning peered forth below his bristling red eyebrows. The Duke couldnot but look at his protruding ears and experience an old sensation ofhis in the company of the more animal of his fellows, that, after all,man with a little practice might easily swing among trees or burrow inthe earth.
An ill-trained servant removing empty bottles left the door open behindhis Grace's chair, and through it came the strains of a duet in women'svoices, accompanied by the strumming of a harp. They sang an English airtouching upon groves and moonlit waterfalls, Lady Charlotte lending adulcet second to the air of the Duchess, who accompanied them upon herinstrument in sweeping chords and witching faint arpeggios. Into theroom that fumed with tobacco and wine (and the Provost at the secondof his tales in the ear of the advocate) the harmony floated like thepraise of cherubim, and stilled at once the noisy disquisition round theboard.
"Leave the door open," said the Duke to his servants, and they did so.When the song was done he felt his Jean was calling to him irresistible,and he suggested that they had better join the ladies. They rose--someof them reluctantly--from the bottles, Elchies strewing his front againwith snuff to check his hiccoughs. MacTaggart, in an aside to theDuke, pleaded to be excused for his withdrawal immediately, as he feltindisposed.
"I noticed that you were gey glum to-night," said Argyll with a kind andeven fraternal tone, for they were cousins and confidants as well asin a purely business relation to each-other. "I'm thinking we both wantsome of the stimulant Elchies and the Provost and the advocate lads takeso copiously."
"Bah!" said the Chamberlain; "but Sassenachs, Argyll, but Sassenachs,and they need it all. As for us, we're born with a flagon of heatherale within us, and we may be doing without the drug they must have, poorbodies, to make them sparkle."
Argyll laughed. "Good-night, then," said he, "and a riddance to yourvapours before the morning's morning."
Mrs. Petullo had begun a song before the Duke entered, a melody ofthe Scots mode, wedded to words that at that period hummed round thecountry. It was the one triumphant moment of her life--her musicallyvocal--when she seemed, even to the discriminating who dive forcharacter below the mere skin, to be a perfect angel. Pathos, regret,faith, hope, and love, she could simulate marvellously: the last wasall that was really hers, and even that was lawless. She had nothalf-finished the air when the Duke came into the room softly on histiptoes, humming her refrain. A keen ear might have perceived theslightest of alterations in the tone of her next stanza; a quick eyemight have noticed a shade of disappointment come to her face whenher intent but momentary glance at the door revealed that some one shesought was not entering. The only ear that heard, the only eye thatsaw, was Kilkerran's. He was a moralist by repute, and he would havesuspected without reasons. When Mrs. Petullo broke down miserably--inher third verse, he smiled to himself pawkily, went up to her with acompliment, and confirmed his suspicions by her first question, whichwas as to the Chamberlain's absence.
As for the Chamberlain, he was by now hurrying with great speed throughthe castle garden. Only once he slacked his pace, and that was when thegarden path joined the more open policies of the Duke, and another stepor two would place a thicket of laburnums and hawthorns between him andthe sight of the litten windows. He hung on his heel and looked back fora minute or two at the castle, looming blackly in the darkness againstthe background of Dunchuach; he could hear the broken stanza of Mrs.Petullo's ballad.
"Amn't I the damned fool?" said he half-aloud to himself with bittercertainty in the utterance. "There's my punishment: by somethingsham--and I ken it's sham too--I must go through life beguiled fromright and content. Here's what was to be the close of my folly, and SimMacTaggart eager to be a good man if he got anything like a chance, butnever the chance for poor Sim MacTaggart!"
He plunged into the darkness of the road that led to the Maltlandbarracks where the fifty claymores were quartered.