COLL O' THE COWS
Then, almost before Wat and Scarlett had time to draw their swords
and stand on the defensive, they in their turn became the centre of
all the noise in the village. Steel flashed in plenty all about, and
half a score of wild men crouched and "hunkered" round them waiting
for the chance to spring. But with Walter Gordon and Jack Scarlett
standing back to back, each with a long sword in one hand and a pistol
in the other, it was not easy for the most alert to find an unprotected
opening.
Meanwhile the tall, dark man, who had the manifest air of a chief,
walked leisurely towards them and stood looking on at the affray.
"Sir!" cried Wat, "call off your men, and permit us to explain our
presence."
But the man vouchsafed not a word in reply, only stood and looked over
the heads of his men at Scarlett's legs.
"Why, man!" he cried, at length, "ye should be for the Good Cause; ye
have gotten the King of France's boots on!"
"Aye," said Scarlett, instantly dropping his point; "certainly we are
for the Good Cause. Truly, also, I have the King of France's boots on,
and that with good reason, for when I left France I was officer in His
Majesty's Luxembourg regiment."
Which, indeed, was very true, but certain other things had happened in
between.
The tall man seemed pleased at his own acute observation. He called off
his men with a single stern word, which sounded almost like a bidding
given to a dog to lie down.
"But what seek you in my country?" he asked them.
Now Scarlett would have given something to know in what country he was,
and still more to know who was the owner of it; but not knowing either,
he had to do the best he could with the limited information at his
disposal.
"We are here," he said, laying his finger meaningly on his lip, "on the
part of his Majesty the King of France, for the furtherance of the Good
Cause."
And he added, under his breath, "And a precious deal would I give to
know for certain what in this instance the Good Cause is!"
For indeed it seemed not likely that Louis was fomenting any rebellion
against the arms of King James, who, when Wat and Scarlett left the
harbor of Lis-op-Zee, ruled unquestioned at Whitehall.
But Scarlett's diplomatic answer was accepted without reserve.
"Friends of the true king and officers of his Christian Majesty of
France are ever friends of Keppoch's," he cried, striding forward
frankly and giving a hand to each.
Scarlett felt a strong desire to whistle as the chief revealed himself.
"Coll o' the Cows!" he muttered, softly; "we are indeed in the gled's
claws this day."
For Coll o' the Cows was the wildest chief as well as the most noted
cattle-lifter beyond the Highland line, and though now apparently
standing for "the Good Cause" (whatever that might be), he had all his
life hitherto stood entirely for the very excellent cause of his own
vested right to drive other folks' cattle and eat other folks' beef.
"Doubtless you will have seen my Lord Dundee?" said Keppoch to
Scarlett, whom, very evidently, he considered the leading spirit of the
two.
Wat pricked up his ears.
"Is Colonel Graham here?" he said, looking inquiringly at the chief.
Keppoch frowned, and for the first time looked a little suspicious.
"Ye must have come over the line but lately," he said, "if ye know not
that my Lord Dundee hath broken with Duke Hamilton's Cat Convention,
and is now raking the highlands for levies as a servant lass rakes the
night-coals to light her morning fires."
"Indeed ye may say so, for we have within the hour been landed from the
ship which gave us passage from France--landed upon the shore at the
mouth of your fine loch there," replied Scarlett, pointing westward
with his hand.
The brow of Coll o' the Cows instantly cleared.
"It is true; I see by your boots ye have been in the salt-water coming
ashore." For his pursuit of cattle seemed manifestly to have sharpened
his faculty of observation.
"We have to be careful these ill days," he said, "when one cannot
tell whether a man is for the Good Cause or for the Dutch thief that
cocks his dirty orange plumes so bravely on the road 'twixt Torbay and
London."
Observing their evident interest, he went on with his information. It
is good in a wild country to be the first bearer of great tidings.
[Illustration: "STRIDING FORWARD FRANKLY AND GIVING A HAND TO EACH"]
"We have e'en just sent the fiery cross on to the country o' the
Camerons. Some o' my lads were no that carin' aboot carrying it, for
there has been a bit nimble-going feud betwixt us, and it is the
Camerons' turn to make the score even."
"And how was the matter settled?" asked Wat, with curious interest.
"Och!" said Keppoch, "I just gied the fiery cross to Duncan o'
Taliskier. He is no to say a very right son of Ian at any rate. Ye see,
his mother was a woman from the north--from the country of the Grants.
And as for the father o' him, faith, there was nane kenned to rights
wha he was--even hersel'. But for a' that, Duncan o' Taliskier is
wonderful handy to keep about a house for jobs o' this kind."
"It is indeed excellently invented," said Scarlett, approvingly, "for I
learned long ago that 'always sacrifice your worst troops--your allies
if you can'--is an ancient and well-considered military maxim."
The chief went on: "You will be wondering what Keppoch does here on
the edge of this country o' Camerons? Faith, ye may well wonder! But
there's a bit plantation of McDonald's over the hill there, and though
they have taken Lochiell's name they find it for the good of their
healths to pay a bit cess to Keppoch--just as the peetifu' burgher
bodies of Inverness do; for money a loon is feared o' Colin--Guid kens
what for."
Wat and Scarlett nodded. They were too completely ignorant of the
niceties of the state of society into the midst of which they were cast
to venture on any reply.
"But ye shall not bide here," said Keppoch; "ye are instantly to come
your ways with me to Keppoch, my head place, where my castle is. This
bit townie here is well enough, but it is not fit for the like of
gentlemen that have been in France even to set their feet within."
So in a little while Wat and Scarlett found themselves following Coll
o' the Cows and his ragged regiment towards "Keppoch, my head place,
where my castle is."
First there went a dozen or so of small, black-felled, large-horned
cattle, mostly young, which constantly put their heads over their
shoulders and looked back towards the pastures they had left, routing
and roaring most excruciatingly. Then came a round dozen of Keppoch's
men urging them on, sometimes with the flat of the scabbard and
sometimes pricking them with the naked points of their claymores.
On the hills above skirmished an irregular force of small light men and
half-naked lads. Keppoch pointed them out to his companions.
"Yonder goes my flying column," he said, cunningly, "for so it is
designated in the books of war. Keppoch is not an ignorant man--far
from it, as ye shall know ere ye win clear of him. He did not go to the
schools of Edinburgh for the best part of three winters for nothing.
That was where he learned the English so well--frae the 'prentice lads
o' the Lawnmarket--fair good drinkers they are, too, and as ready wi'
their nieves as the prettiest gentleman with his blade."
He considered a little, as if measuring his own qualifications.
"Maybe ye wunda juist say that I am what ye might call a learned man,
nor do I set myself up for an authority on law and doctrine, like Black
Ewan owerby at Lochiell. But at least, for every good milch cow in his
byres there are ten in mine, and never a Sassenach bonnet-laird comes
to Keppoch to claim them. So ye see, so muckle education has not been
thrown away on me."
At this moment three hungry-looking loons came down the side of a
glen, wading waist-deep among the heather, and driving a small, shaggy
Highland cow before them, little bigger than a lowland sheep.
"Ah, good lads," he cried, "plaided men, carriers of the buckler, where
gat ye that ane?"
The nearest man cried something that sounded like
"Deil-a-mony-mae!" whereat Keppoch laughed and nodded his head.
The small cow joined the herd, and was soon racing up the long glen
towards the north. But the incident was not ended, for before they had
gone far over the heather a woman came tearing down the hill-side, and
flinging herself down at Keppoch's feet, she clasped him by the legs
and kissed the hem of his tartan in an agony of supplication.
"Some blood-feud," thought Wat, as he listened to the frenzied
outpouring of appeal. Keppoch stood awkwardly enough, listening at
first frowningly, and then with some signs of yielding in his brow, the
sight of which made the woman yet more earnest.
After a moment's thought he looked up and cried some direction to the
clansmen who followed the cattle ahead of them. The little red cow was
turned and came uncertainly along the glen, sometimes roaring back to
the herd and at other times casting up her head to look for her own
well-noted landmarks. As soon, however, as she saw the woman, the cow
ran to her like a dog and nuzzled a wet foam-flecked mouth into her
mistress's bosom.
The woman again clasped Keppoch's hand, kissing it over and over
and calling down blessings upon him. Then right briskly she took
the heather, skipping along the side of the hill with a light
well-accustomed foot, the little red cow following her as closely as a
dog, leaping runnels of water and skirting perilous screes on the way
to her native pastures.
"What might all this be?" asked Scarlett.
Keppoch looked rather shamefaced, like a man expecting to do a good
deed by stealth who suddenly finds it fame.
"Och," said he, "it was just a widow woman that had a bit coo, and some
o' my lads met the coo. And the coo it cam' after them, and the widow
woman she cam' after the coo; and then, puir body, she asked me if I
was a Christian man, and I said, 'No; I was a McDonald.' And she said
that so was she. So because she was a McDonald, I gied the puir woman
back her coo. It wasna a guid coo, ony way. But she was very gratefu'.
She said she was gaun to be mairried again, and that the man--an Appin
Stewart, greedy hound!--wadna hae her without the coo."