John Splendid Part 31

John Splendid laughed again. "Wise man, Rob!" said he; "you learnt the first principles of campaigning in Appin as nicely as ever I did in the wars of the Invincible Lion (as they called him) of the North. Our reverend comrade here, by the wisdom of his books, never questions, it seems, that we have a lease of Dalness house as long as we like to stay in it, its pendicles and pertinents, lofts, crofts, gardens, mills, multures, and sequels, as the lawyers say in their d.a.m.ned sheep-skins, that have been the curse of the Highlands even more than books have been. Now I've had an adventure like this before. Once in Regenwalde, between Danzig and Stettin, where we lay for two months, I spent a night with a company of Hepburn's blades in a castle abandoned by a cousin of the Duke of Pomerania. Roystering dogs! Stout hearts! Where are they now, those fine lads in corslet and morgensterne, who played havoc with the casks in the Regenwalde cellar? Some of them died of the pest in Schiefelbein, four of them fell under old Jock Hepburn at Frankfort, the lave went wandering about the world, kissing and drinking, no doubt, and lying and sorrowing and dying, and never again will we foregather in a vacant house in foreign parts! For that is the hardship of life, that it's ever a flux and change. We are here to-day and away to-morrow, and the bigger the company and the more high-hearted the merriment, the less likely is the experience to be repeated. I'm sitting here in a miraculous dwelling in the land of Lorn, and I have but to shut my eyes and round about me are cavaliers of fortune at the board. I give you the old word, Elrigmore: 'Claymore and the Gael '; for the rest--pardon me--you gentlemen are out of the ploy. I shut my eyes and I see Fowlis and Farquhar, Mackenzie, Obisdell, Ross, the two _balbiren_ and _stabknechten_ with their legs about the board; the wind's howling up from Stettin road; to-morrow we may be carrion in the ditch at Guben's Gate, or wounded to a death by slow degrees in night scaladoe. That was soldiering. You fought your equals with art and science; here's---- Well, well, G.o.d's grace for MacCailein Mor!"

"G.o.d's grace for us all!" said the minister.

The man with the want fell fast asleep in his chair, with his limbs in gawky disposition. Stewart's bullet-head, with the line of the oval unbroken by ears, bobbed with affected eagerness to keep up with the fast English utterance and the foreign names of M'Iver, while all the time he was fingering some metal spoons and wondering if money was in them and if they could be safely got to Inneraora. Sonachan and the baron-bailie dipped their beaks in the jugs, and with lifted heads, as fowls slocken their thirst, they let the wine slip slowly down their throats, glucking in a gluttonous ecstasy.

"G.o.d's grace for us all!" said the minister again, as in a benediction.

M'Iver pushed back his chair without rising, and threw a leg across its arm with a complacent look at the shapely round of the calf, that his hose still fitted with wonderful neatness considering the stress they must have had from wind and rain.

"We had grace indeed," said he, "in Pomerania. We came at night, just as now, upon this castle of its most n.o.ble and puissant lord. It was Palm Sunday, April the third, Old Style. I mind, because it was my birthday; the country all about was bursting out in a most rare green; the gardens and fields breathed sappy odours, and the birds were throng at the Digging of their homes in bush and eave; the day sparkled, and river and cloud too, till the spirit in a person jigged as to a fiddle; the nights allured to escapade."

"What was the girl's name?" I asked M'Iver, leaning forward, finding his story in some degree had parallel with my own.

"Her name, Colin--I did not mention the girl, did I? How did you guess there was a girl in it?" said John, perplexed.

I flushed at my own transparency, and was glad to see that none but the minister (and M'Iver a little later) had observed the confession of my query. The others were too busy on carnal appet.i.tes to feel the touch of a sentiment wrung from me by a moment's illusion.

"It is only my joke," I stammered; "you have a reputation among the snoods."

M'Iver smiled on me very warm-heartedly, yet cunningly too.

"Colin, Colin," he cried. "Do I not know _you_ from boot to bonnet? You think the spring seasons are never so fond and magic as when a man is courting a girl; you are minding of some spring day of your own and a night of twinkling stars. I'll not deny but there was a girl in my case in the parlour of Pomerania's cousin at Regenwalde; and I'll not deny that a recollection of her endows that season with something of its charm. We had ventured into this vacant house, as I have said: its larders were well plenished; its vaults were full of marshalled brigades of bottles and battaglia of casks. Thinking no danger, perhaps careless if there was, we sat late, feasted to the full, and drank deep in a house that like this was empty in every part It was 1631--I'll leave you but that clue to my age at the time--and, well I was an even prettier lad than I am to-day. I see you smile, Master Gordon; but that's my bit joke. Still there's some relevance to my story in my looks too. Though I was but a sergeant of pikes (with sons of good families below me, as privates, mind you), I was very trim and particular about my apparel.

I carried myself with a good chest, as we say,--my features and my leg speak for themselves. I had sung songs--trifles of my own, foolishly esteemed, I'm hearing, in many parts of Argile. I'll not deny but I like to think of that, and to fancy young folks humming my ditties by warm Ares when I'm maybe in the cold with the divot at my mouth. And I had told a tale or two--a poor art enough, I'll allow, spoiled by bookcraft It was a cheery company as you may guess, and at last I was at a display of our Highland dancing. I see dancing to-day in many places that is not the thing as I was taught it by the strongest dancer in all Albainn. The company sat facing me as I stepped it over a couple of sword-blades, and their backs were to the door. Mackenzie was humming a _port-a-bheul_ with a North Country tw.a.n.g even in his nose, and I was at my last step when the door opened with no noise and a girl looked in, her eyes staring hard at me alone, and a finger on her lips for silence. A man of less discernment would have stopped his dance incontinent and betrayed the presence of the lady to the others, who never dreamt so interesting a sight was behind them. But I never let on. I even put an extra flourish on my conclusion, that came just as the girl backed out at the door beckoning me to follow her. Two minutes later, while my friends were bellowing a rough Gaelic chorus, I was out following my lady of silence up a little stair and into a room below the eaves. There she narrated to me the plot that we unhappy lads were to be the victims of. The house was a trap: it was to be surrounded at night, when we had eaten and drunken over-well, and the sword was our doom arranged for.

The girl told me all this very quietly in the French she learned I was best master of next to my own Gaelic, and--what a mad thing's the blood in a youth--all the time I was indifferent to her alarum, and pondering upon her charms of lip and eye. She died a twelvemonth later in Glogoe of Silesia, and---- G.o.d give her peace!"

"You may save your supplication," said Gordon; "her portion's a.s.signed, a thing fixed and unalterable, and your prayer is a Popish conceit."

"G.o.d give her peace! I'll say it, Master Gordon, and I'll wish it in the face of every Covenanter ever droned a psalm! She died in Silesia, not careless, I'm thinking, of the memory of one or two weeks we spent in Frankfort, whose outer lanes and faubourgs are in my recollection blossoming with the almond-flower and scented at eve."

He rose to his feet and paced the floor beside us, strong, but loosened a little at the tongue by the generous wine of Dalness; his mien a blending of defiance against the cheatry of circ.u.mstance and a display of old ancient grief.

"Heart of the rose, _gramachree_, bird-song at the lip, star eye and wisdom, yet woman to the core! I wish I were so young as then I was, and _ochanie_, what availed my teens, if the one woman that ever understood me were no more but a dust in Glogoe!"

"Come, come, man," I cried; "it's a world full of very choice women."

"Is it indeed?" asked he, turning on me a pitiful eye; "I'm wrong if you ever met but one that was quite so fine as you must have them---- Tuts, tuts, here I'm on the key of old man's history. I cheat myself at times of leisure into the notion that once I loved a foreign girl who died a spotless maiden. You'll notice, Master Gordon, I have something of the sentiment you Low-landers make such show of, or I play-act the thing very well. Believe me, I'll hope to get a wife out of your parish some day yet; but I warn you she must have a tocher in her stocking as well as on her father's hill."

The minister surveyed him through half-shut eyes, leaning back on the rungs of his chair. I think he saw the truth as clearly as I did myself, for he spoke with more than common softness when he answered.

"I like your tale," he said, "which had a different conclusion and a more n.o.ble one than what I looked for at the opening." Then he leaned out and put a hand on John Splendid's sleeve. "Human nature," said he, "is the most baffling of mysteries. I said I knew you from boot to bonnet, but there's a corner here I have still to learn the secret of."

"Well, well," cried M'Iver, lifting a gla.s.s confusedly, and seating himself again at the board, "here's a night-cap--MacCailein Mor and the Campbell cause!"

"And a thought for the lady of Regenwalde," I whispered, pressing his foot with my toe beneath the table, and clinking my gla.s.s with his.

We drank, the two of us, in a silence, and threw the gla.s.ses on the hearth.

The windows, that now were shuttered, rattled to gowsty airs, and the rain drummed on. All about the house, with its numerous corners, turrets, gussets, and corbie-stepped gables, the fury of the world rose and wandered, the fury that never rests but is ever somewhere round the ancient universe, jibing night and morning at man's most valiant effort.

It might spit and blow till our sh.e.l.l shook and creaked, and the staunch walls wept, and the garden footways ran with bubbling waters, but we were still to conquer. Our lanthorn gleamed defiance to that brag of night eternal, that pattern-piece of the last triumph of the oldest enemy of man--Blackness the Rider, who is older than the h.o.a.ry star.

Fresh wood hissed on the fire, but the candles burned low in their sockets. Sonachan and the baron-bailie slept with their heads on the table, and the man with the want, still sodden at the eyes, turned his wet hose upon his feet with a madman's notion of comfort.

"I hope," said M'Iver, "there's no ambuscade here, as in the house of the cousin of his Grace of Pomerania. At least we can but bide on, whatever comes, and take the night's rest that offers, keeping a man-about watch against intrusion."

"There's a watch more pressing still," said Master Gordon, shaking the slumber off him and jogging the sleeping men upon the shoulders. "My soul watcheth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. We have been wet with the showers of the mountain, like Job, and embracing the rock for want of a shelter. We are lone-haunted men in a wild land encompa.s.sed by enemies; let us thank G.o.d for our safety thus far, and ask. His continued shield upon our flight."

And in the silence of that great house, dripping and rocking in the tempest of the night, the minister poured out his heart in prayer. It had humility and courage too; it was imbued with a spirit strong and calm. For the first time my heart warmed to the man who in years after was my friend and mentor--Alexander Gordon, Master of the Arts, the man who wedded me and gave my children Christian baptism, and brought solace in the train of those little ones lost for a s.p.a.ce to me among the gra.s.ses and flowers of Kilmalieu.

CHAPTER XXV.--THE ANGRY EAVESDROPPER.

It may seem, in my recounting of these cold wanderings, of days and nights with nothing but snow and rain, and always the hounds of fear on every hand, that I had forgotten to exercise my mind upon the blunder and the shame of Argile's defeat at Inverlochy. So far is this from the fact that M'Iver and I on many available occasions disputed--as old men at the trade of arms will do--the reasons of a reverse so much unexpected, so little to be condoned, considering the advantage we had in numbers compared with the fragments of clans Alasdair MacDonald brought down from the gorges of Lochaber to the waters of Loch Linnhe and Locheil. It was useless to bring either the baron-bailie or Sonachan into our deliberations; neither of them had any idea of how the thing had happened, though they were very well informed indeed about certain trivial departures from strict forms of Highland procedure in the hurried marshalling of the troops.

"Cheap trash of pennyland men from Lochow-side were put on the right of gentlemen cadets of the castle and Loch Finne-side lairds," was the baron-bailie's bitter protestation.

Sonachan, who was naturally possessed of a warm side to the people, even common quality, of his own part of the country, would sniff at this with some scorn.

"Pennyland here, pennyland there, they were closer in blood on Black Duncan than any of your sh.o.r.e-side par-tans, who may be gentrice by sheepskin 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 in his silliness since ever the shock of the battle came on him; Stewart was so much of an unscrupulous liar that no word of his could be trusted; and the minister alone could give us any idea of what had been the sentiment in the army when the men of Montrose (who were really the men of Sir Alas-dair, his major-general) came on them. But, for reasons every true Gael need not even have a hint of, we were averse from querying this dour, sour, Lowland cleric on points affecting a Highland retreat.

So it was, I say, that the deliberations of M'Iver and myself were without any outside light in somewhat dark quarters: we had to guide us only 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 tarn at night, waiting for mallard or teal, sees the birds wheeling above the water ere he has appreciated the whirr of their presence, lets bang his piece at the midst of them, and is in a dense stillness again before he comprehends 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 the silver-mine," would John insist; "and who in heaven's name would think Alasdair _mosach_ knew the trick of it? I saw his hors.e.m.e.n fire one pistol-shot and fall on at full speed. That's old Gustavus for you, isn't it? And yet," he would continue, reflecting, "Auchin-breac knew the Swedish tactics too. He had his musketeers and pikemen separate, as the later laws demand; he had even a hint from myself of the due proportion of two pikes to three muskets."

"But never a platoon fired a volley," I recalled. "It was steel and targe from the onset." And then I would add, "What's to be said for MacCailein?"

On this John Splendid would ruffle up wrothily with blame for my harping on that incident, as if it were a crime to hint at any weakness in his chief.

"You are very much afraid of a waff of wind blowing on your cousin's name," I would cry.

"My chief, Elrigmore, my chief. I make no claim to consideration for a cousin, but I'll stand up for Argile's name so long as the gyrony of eight and the galley for Lorn are in his coat of arms."

Inverlochy, Inverlochy, Inverlochy--the black name of it rang in my head like 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 sooner wandered one thought away in the mists of the nether mind than a new one, definite and hara.s.sing, grew in its place, so that I was turning from side to side in a torture-rack of reflection when I should be lost in the slumber my travel and weariness so well had earned me. Something of an eeriness at our position in that genteel but lonely house lay heavy on me too: it had no memories of friendship in any room for me; it was haunted, if haunted at all, with the ghosts of people whose names we only breathed with bitterness in the shire of Argile. And constantly the wind would be howling in it, piping dismally in the vent of the room the minister and I were in together; constant the rain would be hissing on the embers of the fire; at a long distance off a waterfall, in veering gusts of greater vehemence, crashed among its rocks and thundered in its linn.

M'Iver, who was the first to take watch for the night, paced back and forth along the lobbies or stood to warm himself at the fire he fed at intervals with peat or pine-root Though he had a soldier's reverence for the slumbers of his comrades, and made the least of noises as he moved around in his deer-skins, the slightest movement so advertised his zeal, and so clearly recalled the precariousness of our position, that I could not sleep. In an hour or more after I lay down M'Iver alarmed the advance-guard of my coming sleep by his unconscious whistle of a pibroch, and I sat up to find that the cleric was sharing my waukrife rest He had cast his peruke. In the light of a cruisie that hung at the mantel-breas he was a comical-looking fellow with a high bald head, and his eyes, that were very dark and profound, surrounded by the red rings of weariness, all the redder for the pallor of his face. He stretched his legs and rubbed his knees slowly, and smiled on me a little mournfully.

"I'm a poor campaigner," said he; "I ought to be making the best of the chance 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'm thinking of Argile too, and I wish I could get his defalcation--if that it may be called--out of my mind. Was it a--was it--what you might call a desertion without dignity, or a step with half an excuse in policy? I know MacCailein had an injured arm."