When we came up with the main body of MacDonald’s army, the country, as
I say, was shining in the light of the moon, with only a camp-fire down
in the field beside the castle to show in all the white world a sign of
human life. We had got the Campbells in the rear, but they never knew
it A few of their scouts came out across the fields and challenged our
pickets; there was an exchange of musketry, but, as we found again,
we were thought to be some of the Lochaber hunters unworthy of serious
engagement.
For the second time in so many days we tasted food, a handful of meal to
the quaich of water--no more and no less; and James Grahame, Marquis of
Montrose, supped his brose like the rest of us, with the knife from his
belt doing the office of a horn-spoon.
Some hours after us came up the Camerons, who had fallen behind, but
fresher and more eager for fighting than our own company, for they had
fallen on a herd of roe on the slope of Sgur an Iolair, and had supped
savagely on the warm raw flesh.
“You might have brought us a gigot off your take,” Sir Alasdair said to
the leader of them, Dol Ruadh. He was a short-tempered man of no great
manners, and he only grunted his response.
“They may well call you Camerons of the soft mouth,” said Alasdair,
angrily, “that would treat your comrades so.”
“You left us to carry our own men,” said the chief, shortly; “we left
you to find your own deer.”
We were perhaps the only ones who slept at the mouth of Glen Nevis that
woeful night, and we slept because, as my comrade said, “What cannot be
mended may be well slept on; it’s an ease to the heart.” And the counsel
was so wise and our weariness so acute, that we lay on the bare ground
till we were roused to the call of a trumpet.
It was St Bridget’s Day, and Sunday morning. A myriad bens around
gave mists, as smoke from a censer, to the day. The Athole pipers
high-breastedly strutted with a vain port up and down their lines and
played incessantly. Alasdair laid out the clans with amazing skill,
as M’Iver and I were bound to confess to ourselves,--the horse (with
Montrose himself on his charger) in the centre, the men of Clanranald,
Keppoch, Locheil, Glengarry, and Maclean, and the Stewarts of Appin
behind. MacDonald and O’Kyan led the Irish on the wings.
In the plain we could see Argile’s forces in a somewhat similar order,
with the tartan as it should be in the midst of the bataille and the
Lowland levies on the flanks. Over the centre waved the black galley of
Lorne on a gold standard.
I expressed some doubt about the steadfastness of the Lowlanders, and
M’Iver was in sad agreement with me.
“I said it in Glenaora when we left,” said he, “and I say it again.
They would be fairly good stuff against foreign troops; but they have no
suspicion of the character of Gaelic war. I’m sore feared they’ll prove
a poor reed to lean on. Why, in heaven’s name, does Mac-Cailein take
the risk of a battle in such an awkward corner? An old soldier like
Auchinbreac should advise him to follow the Kilcumin road and join
forces with Seaforth, who must be far down Glen Albyn by now.”
As we were standing apart thus, up to us came Ian Lorn, shaking the
brogue-money he got from Grahame in his dirty loof. He was very bitter.
“I never earned an honester penny,” he said, looking up almost
insolently in our faces, so that it was a temptation to give him a clout
on the cunning jowl.
“So Judas thought too, I daresay, when he fingered his filthy shekels,”
said I. “I thought no man from Keppoch would be skulking aside here when
his pipers blew the onset.”
“Och!” said M’Iver, “what need ye be talking? Bardery and bravery don’t
very often go together.”
Ian Lorn scowled blackly at the taunt, but was equal to answer it.
“If the need arise,” said he, “you’ll see whether the bard is brave or
not There are plenty to fight; there’s but one to make the song of the
fight, and that’s John MacDonald, with your honours’ leave.”
We would, like enough, have been pestered with the scamp’s presence and
garrulity a good deal longer; but Montrose came up at that moment and
took us aside with a friendly enough beckon of his head.
“Gentlemen,” he said in English, “as cavaliers you can guess fairly well
already the issue of what’s to happen below there, and as Cavaliers who,
clansmen or no clansmen of the Campbell chief, have done well for old
Scotland’s name abroad, I think you deserve a little more consideration
at our hands at this juncture than common prisoners of war can lay claim
to. If you care you can quit here as soon as the onset begins, abiding
of course by your compact to use no arms against my friends. You have no
objection?” he added, turning about on his horse and crying to Alasdair.
The Major-General came up and looked at us. “I suppose they may go,”
said he,--“though, to tell my mind on the matter, I could devise a
simpler way of getting rid of them. We have other methods in Erin O, but
as your lordship has taken the fancy, they may go, I daresay. Only they
must not join their clan or take arms with them until this battle is
over. They must be on the Loch Linnhe road before we call the onset.”
Montrose flushed at the ill-breeding of his officer, and waved us away
to the left on the road that led to Argile by Loch Linnhe side, and took
us clear of the coming encounter.
We were neither of us slow to take advantage of the opportunity, but
set off at a sharp walk at the moment that O’Kyan on the right flank was
slowly moving in the direction of Argile’s line.
John broke his sharp walk so quickly into a canter that I wondered what
he meant I ran close at his heels, but I forbore to ask, and we had
put a good lump of moorland between us and the MacDonalds before he
explained.
“You perhaps wondered what my hurry was,” he said, with the sweat
standing in beads on his face, though the air was full of frost. “It
wasn’t for exercise, as you might guess at anyrate. The fact is, we were
within five minutes of getting a wheen Stewart dirks in our doublets,
and if there was no brulzie on foot we were even yet as good as lost on
Brae Lochaber.”
“How does that happen?” I asked. “They seemed to let us away generously
enough and with no great ill-will.”
“Just so! But when Montrose gave us the _congé_, I happened to turn an
eye up Glen Nevis and I saw some tardy Stewarts (by their tartan) come
running down the road. These were the lads Dol Ruadh left behind last
night, and they could scarcely miss in daylight the corpse we left by
the road, and their clansmen missed in the mirk. That was my notion at
the first glance I got of them, and when we ran they ran too, and what
do you make of that?”
“What we should make of it,” I said in alarm, “is as good a pace into
Lorn as we can: they may be on the heels of us now,”--for we were in
a little dip of the ground from which the force we had just parted so
gladly were not to be seen.
On that point M’Iver speedily assured me.
“No, no!” he said. “If Seumas Grahame himself were stretched out
yonder instead of a Glenart cearnoch of no great importance to any one,
Alasdair MacDonald would be scarcely zealous fool enough to spoil his
battle order to prosecute a private feud. Look at that,” he proceeded,
turning round on a little knowe he ran lightly up on and I after him--
“Look at that! the battle’s begun.”
We stood on that knowe of Brae Lochaber, and I saw from thence a
spectacle whose like, by the grace of God, I have never seen before nor
since in its agony for any eye that was friendly to Diarmaid Clan. I
need not here set down the sorry end of that day at Inverlochy. It has
been written many times, though I harbour no book on my shelves that
tells the story. We saw MacDonald’s charge; we saw the wings of Argile’s
army--the rotten Lowland levies--break off and skurry along the shore;
we saw the lads of the Diarmaid tartan hewn down on the edge of the tide
till its waves ran red; but we were as helpless as the rush that waved
at our feet. Between us and our friends lay the enemy and our parole--I
daresay our parole was forgotten in that terrible hour.
John M’Iver laid him down on the _tulaich_ and clawed with his nails the
stunted grass that in wind-blown patches came through the snow. None
of my words made any difference on his anguish. I was piping to the
surrender of sorrow, nigh mad myself.
The horses of Ogilvie--who himself fell in the brulzie--chased the
Lowlanders along the side of Loch Linnhe, and so few of the flying had
the tartan that we had no great interest in them, till we saw six men
with their plaid-ing cast run unobserved up the plain, wade waist-deep
through the Nevis, and come somewhat in our direction. We went down to
join them, and ran hard and fast and came on them at a place called the
Rhu at the water of Kiachnish.