Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 11

"It wa.s.s not possible, and it iss maybe no good speaking about it now"--Janet felt she had a minister now she could open her mind to--"but it would hef been better if our Lord could hef had twelve Macphersons for His Apostles."

"You mean they would have been more brave and faithful?"

"There 'wa.s.s a price of six thousand pounds, or it might be four, put on Cluny's head after Culloden, and the English soldiers were all up and down the country, but I am not hearing that any clansman betrayed his chief.

"Thirty pieces of silver wa.s.s a fery small reward for such a dirty deed, and him one of the Chief's tail too; it wa.s.s a mistake to be trusting to fisher folk instead of Glen's men.

"There iss something I hef wished," concluded Janet, who seemed to have given her mind to the whole incident, "that Peter or some other man had drawn his skean-dhu and slippit it quietly into Judas. We would hef been respecting him fery much to-day, and it would hef been a good lesson--oh yes, a fery good lesson--to all traitors."

As they got more confidential, Janet began to speak of signs and dreams, and Carmichael asked her if she had the second sight.

"No; it iss not a lie I will be telling you, my dear, nor will I be boasting. I have not got it, nor had my mother, but she heard sounds, oh yes, and knew what wa.s.s coming to pa.s.s.

"'Janet,' she would say, 'I have heard the knock three times at the head of the bed; it will be your Uncle Alister, and I must go to see him before he dies.'"

"And was she--"

"Oh yes, she wa.s.s in time, and he wa.s.s expecting her; and once she saw the shroud begin to rise on her sister, but no more; it never covered the face before her eyes; but the knock, oh yes, many times."

"Have you known any one that could tell what was happening at a distance, and gave warning of danger?" for the latent Celt was awakening in Carmichael, with his love of mystery and his sense of the unseen.

"Listen, my dear"--Janet lowered her voice as one speaking of sacred things--"and I will tell you of Ina Macpherson, who lived to a hundred and two, and had the vision clear and sure.

"In the great war with Russia I wa.s.s staying in the clachan of my people, and then seven lads of our blood were with the Black Watch, and every Sabbath the minister would pray for them and the rest of the lads from Badenoch that were away at the fighting.

"One day Ina came into my sister's house, and she said, 'It iss danger that I am seeing,' and my heart stood still in my bosom for fear that it wa.s.s my own man Hamish.

"'No,' and she looked at me, 'not yet, and not to-day,' but more she would not say about him. 'Is it my son Ronald?' my sister cried, and Ina only looked before her. 'It's a sore travail, and round a few black tartans I see many men in grey, pressing them hard; ochone, ochone.'

"'It 's time to pray,' I said, and there wa.s.s a man in the clachan that wa.s.s mighty in prayer, and we gathered into his kitchen, four and twenty women and four men, and every one had a kinsman in the field.

"It iss this minute that I hear Dugald crying to the Almighty, 'Remember our lads, and be their help in the day of battle, and give them the necks of their enemies,' and he might be wrestling for half an hour, when Ina rose from her knees and said, 'The prayer is answered, for the tartans have the field, and I see blood on Ronald, but it is not his own.'"

"And did you ever hear--"

"Wait, my dear, and I will tell you, for the letter came from my nephew, and this is what he wrote:

"'It wa.s.s three to one, and the gloom came on me, for I thought that I would never see Glenfeshie again, nor the water of the loch, nor the deer on the side of the hill. Then I wa.s.s suddenly strengthened with all might in the inner man, and it iss five Russians that I hef killed to my own hands.'

"And so it wa.s.s, and a letter came from his captain, who wa.s.s of Cluny's blood, and it will be read in church, and a fery proud woman wa.s.s my sister."

These were the stories that Janet told to her minister in the days before the Carnegies came home, as well as afterwards, and so she prepared him to be an easier prey to a soldier's daughter.

CHAPTER IX.

A DAUGHTER OF DEBATE.

They met under the arch of the gate, and Carmichael returned with the Carnegies, Kate making much of him and insisting that he should stay to luncheon.

"You are our first visitor, Mr. Carmichael, and the General says that we need not expect more than six, so we mean to be very kind to them.

Do you live far from here?"

"Quite near--just two miles west. I happened to be pa.s.sing; in fact, I 'm going down to the next parish, and I . . . I thought that I would like to call and . . . and bid you welcome;" for Carmichael had not yet learned the art of conversation, which stands mainly in touching details lightly and avoiding the letter I.

"It is very cruel of you to be so honest and dispel our flattering illusions"--Kate marvelled at his mendacity--"we supposed you had come 'anes errand'--I'm picking up Scotch--to call on your new neighbours.

Does the high road pa.s.s the Lodge?"

"Oh no; the road is eight miles further; but the Drumtochty people take the near way through the woods; it's also much prettier. I hope you will not forbid us, General? two people a week is all the traffic."

"Forbid them--not I," said Carnegie, laughing. "A man is not born and bred in this parish without learning some sense. It would be a right of way case, and Drumtochty would follow me from court to court, and would never rest till they had gained or we were all ruined.

"Has it ever struck you, Mr. Carmichael, that one of the differences between a Highlander and a Scot is that each has got a pet enjoyment?

With the one it's a feud, and with the other it's a lawsuit. A Scot dearly loves a 'ganging plea.'

"No, no; Tochty woods will be open so long as Kate and I have anything to say in the matter. The Glen and our people have not had the same politics, but we 've lived at peace, as neighbours ought to do, with never a lawsuit even to give a fillip to life."

"So you see, Mr. Carmichael," said Kate, "you may come and go at all times through our territory; but it would be bare courtesy to call at the Lodge for afternoon tea."

"Or tiffin," suggested the General; "and we can always offer curry, as you see. My daughter has a capital recipe she wiled out of an old Hindoo rascal that cooked for our mess. You really need not take it on that account," as Carmichael was doing his best in much misery; "it is only meant to keep old Indians in fair humour--not to be a test of good manners. By the way, Janet has been sounding your praises, how have you won her heart?"

"Oh, very easily--by having some drops of Highland blood in my veins; and so I am forgiven all my faults, and am credited with all sorts of excellences."

"Then the Highlanders are as clannish as ever," cried the General.

"Scotland has changed so much in the last half century that the Highlanders might have become quite unsentimental and matter-of-fact.

"Lowland civilisation only crossed the Highland line after '45, and it will take more than a hundred and thirty years to recast a Celt.

Scottish education and theology are only a veneer on him, and below he has all his old instincts.

"So far as I can make out, a Celt will rather fish than plough, and be a gamekeeper than a workman; but if he be free to follow his own way, a genuine Highlander would rather be a soldier than anything else under the sun."

"What better could a man be?" and Kate's eyes sparkled; "they must envy the old times when their fathers raided the Lowlands and came home with the booty. It's a pity everybody is so respectable now, don't you think?"

"Certainly the police are very meddlesome," and Carmichael now devoted himself to Kate, without pretence of including the General; "but the spirit is not dead. A Celt is the child of generations of cattle-stealers, and the raiding spirit is still in the blood. May I offer an anecdote?"

"Six, if you have got so many, and they are all about Highlanders," and Kate leant forward and nursed her knee, for they had gone into the library.

"Last week I was pa.s.sing the cattle market in Edinburgh, and a big Highland drover stopped me, begging for a little money.

"'It iss from Lochaber I hef come with some beasties, and to-morrow I will be walking back all the way, and it iss this night I hef no bed.

I wa.s.s considering that the gardens would be a good place for a night, but they are telling me that the police will be disturbing me.'

"He looked so simple and honest that I gave him half-a-crown and said that I was half a Highlander. I have three Gaelic sentences, and I reeled them off with my best accent.

"'Got forgive me,' he said, 'for thinking you to be a Sa.s.senach body, and taking your money from you. You are a fery well-made man, and here iss your silver piece, and may you always hef one in your pocket.'"