John Splendid Part 21

Auchinbreac's notion, for he was more than my lord the guide of this enterprise, was to rest a day or two in the castle and then follow on the heels of Montrose, who, going up Loch Ness-side, as we knew he was, would find himself checked in front by Seaforth, and so hemmed between two fires.

It was about three o'clock on Wednesday afternoon when Argile sent for M'Iver and myself to suggest a reconnoitring excursion up the Great Glen by the side of the lochs, to see how far the enemy might have reached before us.

"I'm sorry to lose your company, gentlemen," said he, "even for a day; but this is a delicate emba.s.sy, and I can fancy no one better able to carry it through successfully than the two gentlemen who have done more delicate and dangerous work in the ranks of the honourable Scots Brigade."

"I can say for myself," said John, "that there's not a man in Keppoch could guess my nativity or my politics if I had on another tartan than that of the Diarmaid."

"Ah! you have the tongue, no doubt of it," said Argile, smiling; "and if a change of colour would make your task less hazardous, why not effect it? I'm sure we could accommodate you with some neutral fabric for kilt and plaid."

"For the humour of the thing," said John, "I would like to try it; but I have no notion of getting hanged for a spy. James Grahame of Montrose has enough knowledge of the polite arts of war to know the difference between a spy in his camp in a false uniform and a scout taking all the risks of the road by wearing his own colours. In the one case he would hang us offhand, in the other there's a hair's-breadth of chance that he might keep us as hostages."

"But in any tartan, cousin, you're not going to let yourself be caught,"

said Argile. "We have too much need for you here. Indeed, if I thought you were not certain to get through all right, I would send cheaper men in your place."

John laughed.

"There's no more cure," said he, "for death in a common herd than for the same murrain in an ensign of foot."

"A scholar's sentiment!" cried Argile. "Are you taking to the philosophies?"

"It's the sentiment, or something like it, of your chaplain, Master Gordon," said John; "he reproved me with it on Dunchuach. But to do myself justice, I was never one who would run another into any danger I was unwilling to face myself."

The Marquis said no more, so we set about preparing for the journey.

"Well, Elrigmore, here we are running the loupegarthe with MacDonalds on the one side of us and Camerons on the other," said my comrade, as we set out at the mouth of the evening, after parting from a number of the clan who went up to the right at Spean to do some harrying in Glen Roy.

No gavilliger or provost-marshal ever gave a more hazardous gauntlet to run, thought I, and I said as much; but my musings brought only a good-humoured banter from my friend.

All night we walked on a deserted rocky roadway under moon and star.

By the side of Loch Lochy there was not a light to be seen; even the solitary dwellings we crept bye in the early part of our journey were without smoke at the chimney or glimmer at the c.h.i.n.k. And on that loch-side, towards the head of it, there were many groups of mean little hovels, black with smoke and rain, with ragged sloven thatch, the midden at the very door and the cattle routing within, but no light, no sign of human occupation.

It was the dawning of the day, a fine day as it proved and propitious to its close, that we ventured to enter one such hut or bothy at the foot of another loch that lay before us. Auchinbreac's last order to us had been to turn wherever we had indication of the enemy's whereabouts, and to turn in any case by morning. Before we could go back, however, we must have some sleep and food, so we went into this hut to rest us. It stood alone in a hollow by a burn at the foot of a very high hill, and was tenanted by a buxom, well-featured woman with a herd of duddy children. There was no man about the place; we had the delicacy not to ask the reason, and she had the caution not to offer any. As we rapped at her door we put our arms well out of sight below our neutral plaids, but I daresay our trade was plain enough to the woman when she came out and gave us the Gael's welcome somewhat grudgingly, with an eye on our apparel to look for the tartan.

"Housewife," said John M'Iver, blandly, "we're a bit off our way here by no fault of our own, and we have been on the hillside all night, and----"

"Come in," she said, shortly, still scrutinising us very closely, till I felt myself flus.h.i.+ng wildly. She gave us the only two stools in her dwelling, and broke the peats that smouldered on the middle of her floor. The chamber--a mean and contracted interior--was lit mainly from the door and the smoke-vent, that gave a narrow glimpse of heaven through the black _cabar_ and thatch. Round about the woman gathered her children, clinging at her gown, and their eyes stared large and round in the gloom at the two of us who came so appallingly into their nest.

We sat for a little with our plaids about us, revelling in the solace of the hearty fire that sent wafts of odorous reek round the dwelling; and to our dry rations the woman added whey, that we drank from birch cogies.

"I am sorry I have no milk just now," she said. "I had a cow till the day before yesterday; now she's a cow no more, but pith in Colkitto's heroes."

"They lifted her?" asked John.

"I would not say they lifted her," said the woman, readily, "for who would be more welcome to my all than the gentlemen of Keppoch and Seumais Grahame of Montrose?" And again she looked narrowly at our close-drawn plaids.

I stood up, pulled out my plaid-pin, and let the folds off my shoulder, and stood revealed to her in a Diarmaid tartan.

"You see we make no pretence at being other than what we are," I said, softly; "are we welcome to your whey and to your fire-end?"

She showed no sign of astonishment or alarm, and she answered with great deliberation, choosing her Gaelic, and uttering it with an air to impress us.

"I dare grudge no one at my door," said she, "the warmth of a peat and what refreshment my poor dwelling can give; but I've seen more welcome guests than the spoilers of Appin and Glencoe. I knew you for Campbells when you knocked."

"Well, mistress," said M'Iver, briskly, "you might know us for Campbells, and might think the worse of us for that same fact (which we cannot help), but it is to be hoped you will know us for gentlemen too.

If you rue the letting of us in, we can just go out again. But we are weary and cold and sleepy, for we have been on foot since yesterday, and an hour among bracken or white hay would be welcome."

"And when you were sleeping," said the woman; "what if I went out and fetched in some men of a clan who would be glad to mar your slumber?"

John studied her face for a moment It was a sonsy and simple face, and her eyes were not unkindly.

"Well," he said, "you might have some excuse for a deed so unhospitable, and a deed so different from the spirit of the Highlands as I know them.

Your clan would be little the better for the deaths of two gentlemen whose fighting has been in other lands than this, and a wife with a child at her breast would miss me, and a girl with her wedding-gown at the making would miss my friend here. These are wild times, good wife, wild and cruel times, and a widow more or less is scarcely worth troubling over. I think we'll just risk you calling in your men, for, G.o.d knows, I'm wearied enough to sleep on the verge of the Pit itself."

The woman manifestly surrendered her last scruple at his deliverance.

She prepared to lay out a rough bedding of the bleached bog-gra.s.s our people gather in the dry days of spring.

"You may rest you a while, then," said she. "I have a husband with Keppoch, and he might be needing a bed among strangers himself."

"We are much in your reverence, housewife," said John, nudging me so that I felt ashamed of his double-dealing. "That's a bonny bairn," he continued, lifting one of the children in his arms; "the rogue has your own good looks in every lineament."

"Aye, aye," said the woman, drily, spreading her blankets; "I would need no sight of tartan to guess your clan, master. Your flattery goes wrong this time, for by ill-luck you have the only bairn that does not belong to me of all the brood."

"Now that I look closer," he laughed, "I see a difference; but I'll take back no jot of my compliment to yourself."

"I was caught yonder," said he to me a little later in a whisper in English, as we lay down in our corner. "A man of my ordinary acuteness should have seen that the brat was the only unspoiled member of all the flock."

We slept, it might be a couple of hours, and wakened together at the sound of a man's voice speaking with the woman outside the door. Up we sat, and John d.a.m.ned the woman for her treachery.

"Wait a bit," I said. "I would charge her with no treachery till I had good proofs for it I'm mistaken if your lie about your wife and weans has not left her a more honest spirit towards us."

The man outside was talking in a shrill, high voice, and the woman in a softer voice was making excuses for not asking him to go in. One of her little ones was ill of a fever, she said, and sleeping, and her house, too, was in confusion, and could she hand him out something to eat?

"A poor place Badenoch nowadays!" said the man, petulantly. "I've seen the day a bard would be free of the best and an honour to have by any one's fire. But out with the bannocks and I'll be going. I must be at Kilc.u.min with as much speed as my legs will lend me."

He got his bannocks and he went, and we lay back a while on our bedding and pretended to have heard none of the incident It was a pleasant feature of the good woman's character that she said never a word of her tactics in our interest.

"So you did not bring in your gentlemen?" said John, as we were preparing to go. "I was half afraid some one might find his way unbidden, and then it was all bye with two poor soldiers of fortune."

"John MacDonald the bard, John Lorn, as we call him, went bye a while ago," she answered simply, "on his way to the clan at Kilc.u.min."

"I have never seen the bard yet that did not demand his bardic right to kail-pot and spoon at every pa.s.sing door."

"This one was in a hurry," said the woman, reddening a little in confusion.

"Just so," said M'Iver, fumbling in his hand some coin he had taken from his sporran; "have you heard of the gold touch for fever? A child has been brought from the edge of the grave by the virtue of a dollar rubbed on its brow. I think I heard you say some neighbour's child was ill? I'm no physician, but if my coin could--what?"

The woman flushed deeper than ever, an angered pride this time in her heat.