keep quiet tongues in your heads," he said. Then he disappeared
under the fall, and Jean instantly followed him. For a moment
Jock and Sandy were as mystified as Jean had been when Alan first
found the secret stairway, but it was not long before they, too,
saw the hole in the rock, plunged in and, following the winding
passage-way, came out upon the top of the rock.
"There," said Alan, beaming with pride, as he displayed his
wonderful lair, "doesn't this beat Robinson Crusoe all to pieces?
If he had found a place like this on his desert island, he
wouldn't have had to build a stockade or anything."
"It's one of the very caves where Rob Roy hid! I'm sure of it,"
Jock declared with conviction, and Sandy was so overcome with
admiration that he turned a back somersault and almost upset
Jean, who was coming out of the cave with the basket on her arm.
"You see," said Alan, "we could stay here a week if we had food
enough, and never come down at all. All we'd have to do for water
would be to hold a pan under the edge of the fall. There's no way
of getting up here except by the secret stair, and that's not
easy to find. There never was such a place for fun."
Sandy had righted himself by this time and was gazing
ecstatically at the basket, which Jean had begun to unpack.
"Losh!" he cried. "Look, Jock! Bacon and eggs and scones! Oh, my
word!" Jock gave one look and whooped for joy.
"Keep still," said Alan. "Angus may be coming back this way, and
he has a gun with him. We're safe enough up here, if we keep
quiet, but if you go howling around like that, he'll surely hunt
for the noise."
For a moment they kept quiet and listened, but there was no sound
except the noise of the falling waters. "Huh!" Sandy snorted, "he
couldn't hear anything, anyway. The roar of the fall hides all
the other noises."
"Oh, let's eat!" begged Jock, caressing his empty stomach and
gazing longingly at the food.
"You can't eat now," said Jean; "the food must be cooked first,
and what shall we do for a fire?"
"We could make one right here on the rock," said Alan, "if we had
something to burn. I've got matches."
"We'll have to get twigs and dry pine-needles and broken
branches," said Jock, "and bring them up the secret stair, though
it'll be hard work getting them through the narrow places. We
ought to have a rope. We could pull a basketful up over the edge
of the rock as easy as nothing."
"We'll bring a rope next time," said Alan. "Hurry! I'm starving!"
The three boys disappeared down the secret stair, and while they
were gone, Jean found loose stones, with which she made a support
for the frying-pan around a space for the fire. The boys were
soon back with plenty of small fuel, and in a short time a bright
fire was blazing on the rock and there was a wonderful smell of
frying bacon in the air. The boys sat cross-legged around the
fire, while Jean turned the bacon and broke the eggs into the
sputtering fat.
"You look just exactly like Tam watching the rabbit-hole,"
laughed Jean. "I wonder you don't paw the ground and bark!"
At last the scones were handed out, each one laden with a slice
of bacon and a fried egg, and there was blissful silence for some
moments.
"Oh, aren't you glad you didn't die of the measles and miss
this?" Sandy said to Alan, rolling over on his back and waving
his legs in the air as he finished his third egg. Alan's mouth
was too full for a reply other than a cordial grunt.
"Why, Sandy Crumpet!" exclaimed Jean, reprovingly, "don't you
believe heaven is nicer than Scotland?"
"Maybe it is," Sandy admitted, doubtfully, "but I like this
better than sitting around playing on harps and trumpets the way
the angels do."
"Sandy Crumpet played the trumpet," howled Jock in derision.
"Indeed and indeed, Sandy, I like this better than having to hear
you." Then, before Sandy could think of an answer a memory of the
catechism crossed his mind, and he added as afterthought, "How do
you ken you're one of the elect, anyway, Sandy Crumpet? If you're
not, you'd not be playing on any trumpets, or harps either, but
like as not frying in the hot place like that bacon there."
Sandy rushed to the defense of his character. "I'm just as elect
as you are, Jock Campbell," he said.
This time Jock had no answer ready, and Jean reproved them both.
"Shame on you!" she said. "You'll neither one of you get so much
as a taste of heaven, I doubt, and you talking like that."
"Where will Angus Niel be going, then, when he dies?" asked Jock.
"I don't just mind whether there's a chance for thieves, but the
Bible says drunkards and such-like stand no chance at all."
"It's not for us to judge," said Jean primly, "but I have my
opinion."
Alan had been busily eating during this conversation, and now he
joined in. "I say," he began, "I'm not worrying about what will
become of Angus Niel after he's dead. I want to know what's going
to be done with him right now. We're the only ones that know
about this. Are we just going to keep whist, or shall we tell on
him?"
"Let's tell on him!" shouted Sandy.
"Who'll you be telling?" said Jean with some scorn.
"Why, the bailie, maybe, or the Auld Laird himself," said Sandy.
"Havers!" said Jean. "You're a braw lad to go hobnobbing with
the bailie. He'll not believe you, anyway; he's a friend of Angus
himself, and, as for the Auld Laird, how would you get hold of
him at all, and he far away in London?"
Sandy subsided, crushed, and then Jock had a bright idea. "I tell
you what we'll do," he cried, springing to his feet. "Let's have
a clan, like Rob Roy, and we'll just badger the life out of Angus
Niel. We'll never let him know who we are, but keep kim forever
stepping and give him no rest. If he thinks somebody's following
him up all the time, he'll not sleep easy o' nights!"
This suggestion was greeted with riotous applause. "He'd not
sleep easy if he knew Jean was after him, I'll go bail," laughed
Alan.
"Hooray!" shouted Sandy, waving his legs frantically. "What shall
we call it?"
"Let's call it the Rob Roy Clan," said Alan.
"Hooray!" roared Sandy again.
"If we're a Clan, we'll have to have a chief," said Jean, "and if
the Chief bids us do anything, we'll just have to do it. That's
the way it was in the real Rob Roy Clan. Father said so."
"Jock thought of it first. Let him be Chief," said Alan.
"No!" cried Jean promptly. "Are you thinking I'll put my head in
a bag like that, and he my own brother? 'Deed, I'd never get a
lick of work out of him on Saturday if I did! Na, na, lads!
Whoever's Chief, it won't be Jock."
"Maybe you'd like to be the Chief yourself," retorted Jock, "but
it's enough to be bossed by you at home! Besides, whoever heard
of a girl being Chief, anyway?"
"Alan can be Chief," said Jean, and so the matter was settled.
"If I'm Chief," said Alan, "you'll all have to swear an oath of
fealty to me."
"What's an oath of fealty?" Jock demanded suspiciously, and Jean
added in a shocked voice, "Alan, you'd never be asking us to take
the name of the Lord in vain!"
"It's not that kind of an oath," laughed Alan. "You just have to
vow to obey the Chief in everything." Then an idea popped into
his head. "In a real Clan they are all kinsmen, but here's Sandy,
and he's neither Campbell nor McGregor. We'll have to make a
blood brother of him before he can join."
"What's a blood brother? How do you make 'em?" asked Sandy.
"I'll show you," said Alan. He drew his knife from his pocket and
while the other three watched him in breathless admiration, he
made a little cut in his wrist and immediately passed the knife
to Jock. "You do the same," he commanded.
Jock obeyed his Chief and passed the knife to Jean, who promptly
followed his example.
"Now, Sandy," said Alan.
Sandy hated the sight of blood, and he was a little pale under
his freckles as he shut his eyes and jabbed himself gingerly with
the point. Then Alan took a drop of blood from each wrist and
mingled them with a drop from Sandy's.
"Now, Sandy," he said, as he stirred the compound into a gory
paste, "you repeat after me, 'My foot is on my native heath, my
name it is McGregor.'" Sandy obeyed with solemnity, and, this
important ceremony over, Alan pronounced him a member of the Clan
in good and regular standing.
Then, by the Chief's orders, Jean, Jock, and Sandy, each in turn
placed their hands under Alan's hand, while they promised to obey
him without question in all matters pertaining to the Clan.
"Only," said Jean, "you mustn't tell us to do anything wrong."
"I won't," promised Alan. And so the Rob Roy Clan came into
being.
Alan took command at once. "We must have a sign," he said. "Just
like Clan Alpine in 'The Lady of the Lake.' Go, my henchmen," he
cried, striking a noble attitude, and waving his hand toward the
forest, "bring hither sprays of the Evergreen Pine, and we'll
stick 'em in our bonnets just like Roderick Dhu and his men.
Roderick Vich Alpine Dhu, ho! iero!"
The two boys instantly disappeared down the hole in the rock on
this errand, leaving Jean and Alan to guard the cave.
VIII. THE POACHERS
While all these things were happening, Angus Niel had returned
from his errand across the little lake, and was making his way
slowly toward home, following the course of the stream. As he
came near the fall he stopped and sniffed. There was certainly a
most appetizing smell of bacon in the air!
"It can't be!" he said aloud to himself. He sniffed again, and
his face turned purple with rage. "Meat," he snorted, "as I live!
The bold rascals! Poaching in broad daylight and cooking their
game right under my nose!" It wasn't under his nose at all, of
course, for the rock was far above him, and it wasn't game
either.
"I'll soon cure them of that trick," he muttered, as he climbed
silently over the rocks and gazed searchingly about. It was not
long before he caught sight of a thin curl of blue smoke rising
from the top of the rock.
"Aha!" he growled under his breath, "I've got you now, my bold
gentlemen! I'll teach you to flaunt your thefts in the face of
the Laird's own gamekeeper, once I get my hands on you!" At once
he began nosing about the rocks in search of the path by which
the poachers had climbed the cliff.
Meanwhile Sandy and Jock had found the sprays of the Evergreen
Pine and were on their way back to the cave with them, when Jock
suddenly seized Sandy by the arm and ducked down behind a
boulder. There, not a hundred feet away, stood Angus Niel gazing
up at the top of the rock! His back was toward them, and the
noise of the waterfall had drowned out the sound of voices, or
they surely would not have escaped his notice. As it was, they
slipped behind the fall, whisked into the hole, and began
climbing the secret stair like two frightened squirrels. An
instant later they startled Alan and Jean, who were in the cave,
by dashing in after them on all fours.
"What on earth is the matter?" cried Jean.
"Matter, indeed!" gasped Jock, out of breath. "Angus Niel is down
there, and he's seen the smoke! He almost saw us, but we just
gave him the slip and got by."
"Keep out of sight, all of you," commanded the Chief, "and leave
him to me."
The obedient Clan flattened themselves against the back of the
cave, while Alan crept to the edge of the rock on his stomach
like a lizard, and, lying there, was able to peep through the
thick screen of leaves and see what was going on below. The
gamekeeper was still scrambling over the rocks and looking, as
Alan said afterward, "for all the world like a dog who had lost
the trail and was trying to find it again."
As the lookout was well screened, Alan soon allowed the rest of
the Clan to join him, and Angus Niel little guessed, as he
prowled about over the rocks, that every move was watched from
above. Despairing of finding the path, he decided at last to get
up a tree and make an observation. He selected a large pine which
grew near the cave and began to climb.
So long as he stood on the ground, the children knew it was
impossible for Angus to see them, but when he began to climb,
they scuttled back into the cave as fast as they could go.
Climbing is hard work for a fat man, and the gamekeeper found
himself covered with pitch before he had gone more than halfway
up, but he puffed on in spite of difficulties and at last reached
a point from which he could look directly across the surface of
the rock, but from which the cave was entirely hidden behind a
projection in the wall of the cliff.
Angus saw what he supposed to be the whole shelf of the rock, and
he saw that there was no one there. He could see the fire and the
frying-pan, the egg shells lying about, and even the portion of
bacon that Jean had not cooked. They were all in full view, but
apparently the poachers had gone away into the woods, leaving
their airy camp deserted. There was no one there; of that he
felt, certain.
"I'll just give'em a surprise," thought the gamekeeper to
himself. "If they found a way up, I can, too. I'll help myself to
a snack of that bacon, and if they come back and find me--well, I
have my gun with me and I don't like being interrupted at my
meals."
He backed down the tree like a fat cat, and made a desperate
search for the path, and this time he actually succeeded in
finding it. He chuckled to himself as he plunged into the passage
and began to climb. He had gone about a third of the way up, when
he reached the narrowest point of the channel and tried to force
himself through, but the space was so small that no matter how
much he tried, he could not get by. His gun was in his way too,
but he could not leave it below, as that would be putting it into
the hands of the poachers if they should return too soon.
In vain he twisted and squirmed, he could get no farther, and
moreover he was afraid the gun might go off by accident in his
struggles. When he found that he could not possibly go up, he
decided to go down; but he found, to his horror, that he couldn't
do that either. There he stuck, and an angrier man than Angus
Niel it would have been hard to find. A projecting rock punched
him in the stomach, and when he pressed back against the rock
behind him, to free himself, he scraped the skin off his back.
Casting prudence to the winds, he howled with pain and rage, and
the sound, carried up through the narrow passage, echoed in the
cave like the roar of a lion.
The children, meanwhile, had kept in hiding, and when they heard
these blood-curdling sounds, they at first did not know what
caused them, because, of course, they could not see what was
happening below, but they knew very soon that they were not made
by a wild animal because wild animals do not swear.
"It's Angus, stuck in the secret stairway," Alan said, smothering
his laughter. "He's too fat to get through!" He crept to the edge
and peeped down the hole. There, far below, he could see the top
of Angus's head and the muzzle of his gun.
The Chief was a boy of great presence of mind. He backed hastily
away from the hole and ran to the fall, snatching up the pan as
he passed. This he filled with water and, rushing back, he
instantly sent a small deluge down upon the head of the hapless
Angus.
The gamekeeper was dumbfounded by this new attack. Had he not
with his own eyes seen that the rocky shelf was empty? How, then,
could this thing be? He rolled his eyes upward, but there was no
one in sight. He had heard all his life tales of witches and
water cows, of spells cast upon people by fairies, of their being
borne away by them into mountain caverns and held as prisoners
for years and years; and he made up his mind that such a fate had
now befallen him.
Firmly convinced that he was the victim of enchantment, he became
palsied with terror, arid began to plead with the unseen
tormentors who he believed held him in thrall. "Only leave me
loose, dear good little people," he howled, "and I'll never,
never trouble you more!"
At this point Alan, shaking with mirth, sent down another panful
of water, and Angus, redoubling his efforts, wrenched himself
free, scraping off quantities of skin as he did so. They could
hear him scuttling down the secret stair as fast as his legs
would carry him, and when he emerged below, they watched him
hurry away through the forest, casting fearful glances over his
shoulder as he ran. Alan made a hollow of his two hands and sent
after him a wild note, like the wailing of a banshee.
"Angus Niel, Angus Niel," rose the piercing note, "bring back my
beautiful stag, my stag that lived by the tarn!"
As the sound reached his ears, Angus redoubled his speed, and
they could hear him crashing through the underbrush as if the
devil himself were really at his heels.
When the sounds died away in the distance, the Rob Roy Clan
rolled on the floor of the cave with laughter.
"There!" said Alan, as he sat up and wiped his eyes. "That'll fix
Angus Niel! We've scared him out of a year's growth, and he'll
never dare meddle with this place again. Come on, now. It's time
to go home, but to-morrow we'll come back and fix this place up
in a way that would make Robinson Crusoe green with envy."
They carefully put water on the ashes of their fire, stuck the
sprigs of Evergreen Pine in their bonnets, and sped down the
secret stairway and home.
IX. A RAINY DAY
The next morning, as she was finishing the beds, Jean heard the
pewit call and at once knew that the Clan was abroad. She ran to
the door, and the three boys came in together,--Jock from the
garden, where he had been pulling weeds in the potato-patch, and
Sandy and Alan from the road. They were carrying a large basket,
and Sandy was laden down with a coil of rope in addition.
"What have you got there?" demanded Jean.
"Stores for the Cave," said Alan, "and a rope to let down from
the rock. Come on; let's go as soon as we can, for it looks like
rain and we've got a lot to do to get the cave ready for wet
weather."
"Where did you get 'em?" asked Jock, eyeing the basket with
interest and wondering what was inside.
"Oh," said Alan, "I just asked Eppie. She lets me have anything I
want. My mother told her to stuff me while I'm here, and if I
take the food off to the woods with me she doesn't have to cook
it at home, so she's suited, and I am, too."
Jean hastily gathered together a few cooking utensils, and a few
minutes later the four set forth, carrying the provisions and wearing
proudly in their bonnets the sprig of pine, the insignia of the Clan.
The sky was downcast and the woods seemed dark and gloomy as they
made their way toward the waterfall.
"What'll we do if it rains?" cried Sandy. "It's no such fine
thing just sitting still in a cave."
"I've a plan in my head," said the Chief. "Wait and see."
As they reached the fall, Alan sent Sandy and Jock to gather
wood, while Jean guarded the basket at the foot of the rock and
he himself darted up the secret stairway with the rope. From the
top he let down the rope and Jean fastened it through the handles
of the basket. Alan then drew it up, emptied the contents, and
sent back the basket for the wood which Sandy and Jock had by
that time collected.
They all worked as swiftly as possible, for the woods were
growing darker and darker every minute and they could now hear
the roll of thunder above the noise of the waterfall. They had
gathered and sent up six basketfuls, when the rain came splashing
down in earnest, and the Clan scrambled up the secret stair and
into the cave for shelter. Alan had piled the wood in the cave as
fast as he had pulled it up, and there was now a fine pile of dry
fuel.
"Sandy, you build the fire," commanded the Chief, seating himself
on the wood-pile.
"The rain will put it out," said Sandy.
"Make it in the cave," said Alan.
"Then the smoke will put us out," cried Jean.
"Try it and see," said Alan. "We can't have lunch without a fire,
for I've brought mealy puddings."
"Mealy puddings!" cried Sandy, licking his lips, and he went to
work with a will. Fortunately the wind blew from the east, so
they were not absolutely choked by the smoke, and soon the fire
was burning briskly; making a spot of flaming color against the
dark background of the cave. Jock ran to the fall and filled the
pan with water, and soon the mealy puddings were bobbing merrily
about in the boiling water, while the boys, snug and safe in the
shelter of the cave, watched the boughs of the pine trees swaying
in the wind and waited for Jean to tell them that dinner was
ready. She could cook but one thing at a time over the fire, but
it was not long before the feast was spread, and they fell to
with appetites that caused the food to disappear like dew before
the morning sun.
"Losh!" said Sandy, rolling over with his feet to the fire, when
he could eat no more, "I thought you said you had a rainy day
plan, Chief."
"So I have," said Alan, drawing a little book from his pocket.
"I'm going to read to you."
Sandy glanced at the book. "Not poetry, Chief!" he said with
alarm. "Surely you don't mean that!"
"It isn't just poetry," said Alan. "It's a story about Roderick
Dhu and Clan Alpine, and hunting deer in these very mountains.
You'll like it, I know."
Sandy groaned and laid his head on his arm. "Go ahead," he said
with resignation. "You're the Chief and I can't help myself."
"I'll be washing up the dishes while you read," said Jean.
"Blaze away," said Jock, who loved books as much as he disliked
work.
"It's 'The Lady of the Lake,'" Alan began.
"Oh!" snorted Sandy, to whom Walter Scott was scarcely more than
a name, "I thought it was about fighting and robbers, and things
like that, and here it's about a lady! and it's about love too, I
doubt! I wonder at you, Alan McRae!"
Alan made no reply but began to read. When he reached a line
about "Beauty's matchless eye," Sandy snored insultingly and was
promptly kicked by Jock. But when Alan reached the lines
"The stag at eve had drunk his fill
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,"
Sandy sat up and began to think the despised poem might amount to
something after all. Jean had finished the dishes by this time
and sat cross-legged with her chin in her hand, staring into the
fire, as Alan read how the splendid stag pursued by hunters,
"Like crested leader proud and high
Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,"
Then she cried out, "Michty me! It's just exactly like the stag
we saw Angus Niel shoot by the tarn; isn't it, now, Alan?"
"And Benvoirlich is the very mountain we can see far away to the
south from our house," interrupted Jock, when Alan reached that
part of the poem.
"Did the hunters get the stag?" demanded Sandy, and "Go on with
the tale," shouted all three. Alan read on and on by the
flickering light of the fire, and so absorbed were they all in
the story of the region they knew and loved so dearly that a
shaft of sunlight from the west shot across the cave, lighting up
the gloomy corners, before they realized that the day was far
gone and the rain had stopped.
"It's time to go home," said Jean. "The sun is low in the west,
and Father and Tam will be coming back wet and hungry from the
hills, and no broth hot."
They packed the remainder of their supper carefully away in the
basket and left it in the corner of the cave behind the wood-pile,
put out every spark of the fire, and picked their way carefully
down the wet chasm to the ground.
"Hark," said Jock, as they started home. Faraway in the distance
there was the frantic barking of a dog. They stopped and
listened.
"It's Tam," said Jean, with conviction, "and he's after
something. It's either the rabbit or else he's found a weasel
hole," and instantly all the children were off at a bound,
tearing through the woods in the direction of the sound. They had
been having such a good time they had not once thought of Angus
Niel, but as they reached the edge of the forest, there he was,
standing behind a tree with his gun pointing toward the little
gray house! They stopped short in their wild race and instantly
hid themselves among the trees. They could see Tam barking and
pawing the ground with the greatest excitement in the open field
which lay between the forest and the garden-patch.
"Tam's after the rabbit as sure as sure," Jock whispered to Alan,
who had crept with him underneath a spreading pine. "That's the
very place where he went after him before. If that old thief
kills Tam, I'll--I'll--" Jock could think of no fit punishment
for such a crime, and in his rage and excitement would have run
right out into the open, after the dog if Alan had not held him
by his jacket. "Let go--let go!" said Jock, struggling to get
away. "I tell you, if he shoots that dog."