THE CRAPE SCARF OF M'ALPINE.
While relating the adventures of Gabrielle, as I afterwards learned
them, I must not lose sight of my own.
With sixty Highland soldiers, accompanied by Angus Roy M'Alpine,
Kildon, and one or two other officers, I had formed a little bivouac
at a small clump of trees, about three or four miles from the castle
of Helnœs; there we waited anxiously the result of Bernhard's
mission, and made many resolutions, if it failed, to bring on the
whole regiment, and, though we had only twelve hours to spare, set
the king's commands at naught, and--if Ian consented--take the
Merodeurs by storm.
We lay in concealment near the thicket, and our advanced sentinels
sat among the long grass beyond it, rolled up in their green plaids,
and were quite invisible; for we made use of every precaution that
Scottish warfare and Highland hunting made familiar to us, to
approach Helnœs as near as possible without being seen.
Our _Weywacht_, as the Germans would call it, was made on a spot of
the greenest turf; there we piled our loaded muskets; opened our
havresacks, and every man who had been able to procure a bottle
containing spirit of any kind, from Neckar down to plain Odenzee
beer, produced it, and the quaighs of wood and horn were passed round
from man to man without distinction, in the good old northern
fashion; for the patriarchal system, and the acknowledged
relationship of the lowest in station to the highest in rank, is one
of the finest features in social Highland life. Every Gordon is the
kinsman of Lord Huntly, and every Campbell is a cousin to Breadalbane
and Macallum Mhor, as the humblest gilly is the kinsman of his chief.
Different from many a bivouac I have seen--where (like the camps of
the Egyptians of Scotland, or the gitanos of Spain) it seemed to be
little better than systematic vagabondizing in the cold and rain,
with no covering but a blanket, nestling together for warmth--on this
summer evening our halt near that fiörd, which is formed by the long
narrow promontory of Helnœs, resembled a pleasure party.
We saw the sun set in the amber west, and the moon rise in all her
silver glory; the soft night wind rustled the leaves above our heads,
and bore on its breath that peculiar fragrance which night exhales
from the teeming land and darkened sea. Afar off, several beacons of
turf and wood were burning on distant promontories, to mark the
shoals and sands; and, amid the summer haze, they gleamed on the
trembling waters of the Belt like flickering _ignes fatui_.
In the lower parts of the level landscape, large pools of water
glittered here and there in the rushy hollows; a shower of rain had
fallen about mid-day, and now a bright silver haze floated over the
enamelled meadows. Near our bivouac a stream gurgled on its way
almost noiselessly to the sea, unlike our mountain burns at home,
which, after a shower, rush in fury sheeted with foam, and bearing at
times rocks, trees, and stones, to the German ocean or the Caledonian
sea.
As the time wore slowly on, and I did nothing in the way of
conversation to lighten its tedium, but sat at the foot of a tree
lost in thought, old Kildon, as he filled the quaighs of all around
him, proposed that we should have a song or a story after the good
old fashion at home; and he forthwith set the example by singing, in
very good style, that old and dirge-like song which Ossian has
addressed to _The Owl_, and which elicited a burst of applause from
our soldiers.
"_Aire Muire!_ let us have a story now," said he, "or we shall all
mope here like the owls of the song; come, Phadrig Mhor--a story; or
do you, Rollo, tell us something. You did not study at the King's
College for naught--and, faith! that same study must have cost the
old Laird of the Craig a good many silver bonnet-pieces."
"He is in the region of clouds," said M'Alpine, "and has nothing to
tell or propose."
"Except your health, Angus," said I; "and that you will please to
tell us why you wear that crape scarf on your arm."
Red Angus started, and a fierce gleam shot athwart his fiery eyes and
darkening face.
A murmur of dissent among those near us, warned me that I had
broached an unfortunate subject, which some of them knew.
"Pardon my thoughtlessness, Angus," said I, grasping his hand; "if I
have probed an old wound, or awakened a bitter memory, by my soul it
was done unwittingly."
"You have probed an old and a deep wound, Philip, and referred to a
badge which I never can behold without bitterness and regret. Had
you come from among the clans in the west, instead of from those of
the north, you had known the story. Kildon, M'Coll, Sir Donald the
chief, all knew it, and might a hundred times have told it; but they
respected the sorrow and shame of their comrade--said I shame? Nay,
there is in it none to me; then why should I refrain from relating
what I have so little reason to conceal."
Captain M'Alpine filled twice his quaigh with wine, and twice he
drained it, with the air of a man who requires false courage to tell
his story, and after twirling his long mustaches, began thus in his
native and forcible Gaëlic:--
"Though I am descended from that portion of the Siol nan Alpin which
inhabit the frontier of the Highlands, forming one of the greatest
barriers against the aggressive spirit of the Lowlander, an ancestor
of mine, who had fought under Angus of the Isles, at the great sea
battle of the Battle Bay, in Mull, obtained the isle of Gometra as a
free gift from the Lord of the Ebudæ. There my people dwelt for
several generations, and, without going back to the days of Fergus
the son of Ere, that is enough to give one consequence in the west.
"The isle was poor and barren, for it lies between the tremendous
mountains of Mull and the basaltic cliffs of Staffa, and is separated
from the dark blue terraces of Ulva by a narrow strip of ocean. My
father's people never took the field under less than a hundred
claymores and forty bowmen; they were poor, but honest, brave, and
industrious, clothing and feeding themselves by the fruits of their
labour--by the loom and the forge, the breeding of sheep, cattle, and
horses, and the manufacture of kelp.
"We held our lands of a M'Lean--Hector of Lochdon," added Angus,
grinding his teeth; "he dwelt in a castle which had towers and gates;
brass cannon and iron bombardes; we occupied a little mansion by the
Sound of Ulva. By our tenure, we were required to have always a
war-galley in the Sound, but M'Lean had never less than twelve; five
hundred brass targets hung in his hall, and a thousand claymores; yet
we cocked our bonnets as high as he did; and, unless when under his
banner, would never yield an inch to him, at kirk or market--at
hunting or hosting.
"To our family was entrusted the education of the successive heirs of
Lochdon. We taught them the use of arms, the sword, the oar, the
harp, and the bow; with every accomplishment becoming a duinewassal.
All these, four successive generations had acquired at our little
dwelling on the Sound of Ulva. I was twenty when my father died----"
"With an arrow in his throat," said M'Coll.
"Ay--shot in a quarrel with the McDonalds; but he bequeathed to me,
as a sacred trust, the chieftain's motherless son, M'Garadh, then in
his sixth year, a noble and beautiful boy.
"To enable me to fulfil my charge with honour, and in obedience to my
father's special wish, as well as my own, I married the daughter of a
kinsman, a brave and honourable gentleman of the isles, whose name I
need not sully anew, by linking it with mine in this bitter revival
of the past.
"Una, for she bore that fine old Highland name, was beautiful, and
every harper between Isla and the Lewis sung of her beauty, and
composed songs in her honour. These songs cost her father (for the
old man doted on her) not less than a hundred brooches, silver
quaighs, and carved dirk-handles; for no cunning harper of the
Hebrides strung his harp to Una's praise in vain.
"Una was graceful and tall among the maids of the Isles; the
proportion of her form, was so perfect, that her height could only be
distinguished when she stood among others. Her hair was dark and
luxuriant; parted over her forehead, and bound by a fillet of gold,
it fell in silky waves upon her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and
dangerously beautiful; they were like two stars; her cheek had a
transparent olive tint, for her mother had a tinge of the Douglas'
blood in her. Her eyes were as if a pencil had traced them, and her
nose had that aquiline arch which is ever indicative of pride. When
calm and thoughtful, she might have passed for the Malvina of Ossian,
or the Goddess of the Parthenon; when smiling, for the Goddess of
Love herself. I was proud of my beautiful bride, and I loved her for
her gentleness, for the memory of the battles her forefathers had
won, and for the lustre which their name, with all her charms and
virtues, would cast around my island home.
"Una, alas! had no heart. Her bosom was high and spotless as the
new-fallen snow; but it swelled only at the emotions of vanity.
"M'Lean visited us often; and when his great gilded birlinn, with his
banner waving, the pipers playing in the prow, the oarsmen chanting
as they bent to the wave, the axes of his Leine Chrios sparkling in
the sun, swept down the Sound of Ulva, she more than once stung me to
the soul by drawing a cold comparison between his state and mine.
"Una was not content. I redoubled my efforts to procure luxuries for
her, and exacted a heavy kain from my poor tenants, that I might
barter with the English traders for silks and velvets, and with the
Norwegians for fine furs and broadcloths; the finest gloves from
Perth, the finest laces from Glasgow, the fairest pearls from Cluny,
the most sparkling stones from Cairngorm--our Scottish jaspers,
topazes, and amethysts--were procured for her. I parted with my
father's Spanish gun (which he received from Dunvegan, when he
destroyed the _Florida_, the great Spanish treasure-ship)--I parted
with my _Florida_, the great Spanish treasure-ship)--I parted with my
best coat of harness--my polished lurich, with all its rings of
steel--to procure for her ornaments and passements, such trumpery and
trash as had not been seen in the Isles since the days of Alexander
the Great Steward.
"We had visited our chief; the splendour and luxuries of his mansion
dwelt long in her mind, and my exertions were unavailing.
"Yet I redoubled my efforts and exchanged my wild ponies and
short-legged cattle for the luxuries brought to the Clyde by the
merchants of Bordeaux and the Flemings of the Dam. M'Lean came often
to visit us--and always when I chanced to be absent, hunting in Mull,
or in my birlinn on the Sound, looking after my fishermen.
"I saw little to suspect; but I dreaded much, and thought more. Una
was often pensive, cold, and irritable. Then a pain gnawed my heart,
and a whisper that seemed to come from hell ascended to my ear. I
was jealous--jealous of this bright being, whom I loved with my whole
heart: for, I could perceive that, though she sometimes smiled on me,
her smile was ever brightest when the birlinn of M'Lean was seen upon
the Sound, sweeping down between the isles, with banner flaunting,
and oars, shields, and axes flashing in the sun.
"'Una!' said I, one day, making a terrible effort to suppress my
rising passion; 'you look after M'Lean as if you had never seen him
before.'
"'Ah!' said she with a smile, 'I know that a Highland matron should
only have eyes for her husband--for the man she loves. Surely, dear
Angus, you are not jealous of me?'
"'No, Una--true love has no jealousy.' (I knew that I spoke false.)
"'It has--it must--just to infuse a little life into it!'
"Then she playfully kissed my cheek, saying--
"'Now, Angus, I would never suspect you, though I have heard that
dark men are more constant than fair.'
"'And fair women more constant than dark.'
"'Oh, fie! to say so, dear Angus Roy, after my pretty compliment.'
"My heart leaped within me; methought I was a wretch to suspect her;
and, taking my gun, I climbed the western cliffs of the isle in quest
of a great golden eagle, which had then built an eyry there, and the
yellow pinions of which I resolved to bring Una, though at the risk
of my neck.
"It was _Di Donich_, or St. Duncan's day, as we call the Sabbath in
the west, from some great missionary of the olden time; and I
remember it well, as if every hour of it had passed but yesterday. I
was long away; when, descending towards my house on the beach, I
heard the sound of pipes and the song of the rowers. A turn of the
rocks brought me in view of the azure Sound, then tinged red with the
flush of a western sun; the bannered barge of M'Lean was speeding
across as fast as the broad flashing blades of twenty oars could
carry it. M'Lean was at the stern, and a lady sat beside him.
Anxiety and fear must have sharpened my vision; for, even at the vast
distance between us, I could recognise the dark hair of Una, bound by
its fillet of gold, and, among the green tartans of the M'Leans, her
scarlet plaid, with its bridal brooch, that shone like a star. That
brooch I had placed upon her shoulder at the altar. It was indeed my
wife; she had left me! I was alone upon the rock--and the fury of a
demon swelled up within me.
"I levelled my gun at Una, but my heart failed me; then I pointed it
at M'Lean, but withdrew it from my shoulder; for the distance was too
great. I sat down on the hillside and wept like a deserted child.
Long I lingered there; the daylight faded from the ocean, and its
tints of gold and blue deepened into black; the moon rose, and waned
again; the shadows of night melted into the light of day--but, alas!
I was still sitting there. The sun came out of the waters, and his
rays shed a roseate tint on Ulva's brows of rock, and the loftier
peaks of Mull; while that beautiful island, with its deep inlets, its
rock-built castles, and grey old Scandinavian burghs, raised by the
long-haired warriors of Ivar and Acho, were before me; but I saw only
one spot in all that line of coast. It was the tall grim tower of
M'Lean.
"Upon the solitary shore, with no eye upon me but the blessed one of
God, with my knees on the sand, and the dirk on my lips--the Holy
Iron--I swore by the black stones of Iona, by the grey rock of
M'Gregor, by the four blessed Gospels, and by my own soul, a terrible
vow, to revenge myself upon M'Lean, and to make his hand the means of
punishing Una. I remembered the proverb--that deeds are men, and
words are women; but I was resolved that my deeds should make me
little less than a fiend.
"My people met me with shame, with anger, and with silent sorrow;
there were some who showed the wounds they had received from the
Leine Chrios of M'Lean, for they had manfully resisted the departure
of my wife, and blows had been given and arrows shot before that
abduction--to which she consented with a willingness she was at no
pains to conceal--had been effected. A savage thought seized me.
"'By the soul of Mary! I have still a hostage!' said I; "'where is
M'Garadh--the cub of yonder wolf?'
"'The M'Leans were too wary to trust the child among us after the
deed of yesterday, and he is away with his father in the birlinn.'
"I gnashed my teeth with rage, for I knew that M'Lean loved the
boy--the hope of his house--even as his own life, and more. But why
protract this story? among you, there are many who know it but too
well. It has an echo yet in Mull; for there my vengeance gave a name
to a mountain which, as yet, had been unnamed since Time began.
"I was too true a son of Alpin to take unwary measures. I bided my
time for revenge, and the time came, though slowly; for the passing
fishermen of Aros, the traffickers of Tobermory, and the pilgrims who
came to drink of St. Mary's well (from which that clachan took its
name), told me how Una had lost all sense of shame and honour; and,
to the eternal disgrace of her father's name and mine, was living
with M'Lean, even as Fair Helen lived with Paris. Her aged father
sent a duine-wassal, proposing to lend me four hundred swordsmen,
three brass cannon, and ninety archers, if I wished to assail M'Lean
under his roof-tree; but I declined, for the men of Mull were too
many for us, and I brooded over a deeper revenge.
"M'Lean proclaimed a great hunting-match, and it took place on St.
Duncan's day--exactly one year after Una had left me. All the men of
Mull were there; M'Coll of that Ilk, the M'Donalds of Aros, the
M'Leans of Duairt and those of Lochbuy. As a poor fisherman from
Lochlinnhe, disguised in bonnet, kilt, and plaid of undyed wool, with
a long beard, and a face so pale and wan, that not even Una would
have known me, I mingled with the hunters. For three days the sport
continued, and one great stag--the prince of the island--after
escaping many a spear, bullet, and arrow--after flinging the
strongest of the grey dogs aloft on its branching antlers--and after
swimming Loch Uisc and Loch Ba; was slain by my foe at the foot of a
great hill which overlooks a narrow valley, above which it rises on
pillars of basalt, two hundred feet in height. He laid the horns at
the feet of Una, who, regardless of the darkened brows, averted
faces, and muttered reprehensions of the Highland chieftains, was
queen of the chase, and presided at the feast on the greensward,
where a thousand men sat down to banquet on the fruits of their
prowess, while the war-pipe and harp, the uisquebaugh, the ale of the
Lowland bodachs, and the wine of the Frenchman and Spaniard, made the
merriment ring between the mountain peaks.
"I alone was sad. A snake was in my breast. Una sat beside M'Lean,
and with painful acuteness my eye saw every movement of both. When
their hands touched, or their eyes met, my heart seemed to burn, and
my pulses beat like lightning. I knew that there was a glare in my
eye, and a terrible expression in my face, that would discover me,
and reveal the wild thoughts of murder and assassination that were
rising in my heart; and yet my Una was so beautiful, her smile was so
full of fascination, and her deportment so full of unstudied grace,
that, though I might loathe, I could not wonder at M'Lean for loving
her, and robbing me of a being so adorable. But Hector of Lochdon,
with all his barbarous magnificence, could never love as I--her
husband--loved her.
"His son, the little boy M'Garadh, recognised me through all my
disguise, my agony of visage, and outward change; and, creeping to my
side, he clambered into my arms. As if he had been my own, I loved
this child; but now I felt something strange fluttering about my
heart, and with a pang that hovered between the throb of pleasure and
the thrill of rage, I clasped the boy to my breast; and then, holding
him aloft in one hand and my naked dirk in the other, I sprang with a
wild shout from, the sward where the hunters were carousing, and
rushed up the side of the mountain.
"''Tis M'Alpine!' cried a hundred voices; ''tis Red Angus of
Gometra!' I soon reached a shelf of overhanging rock, some ninety
feet above the hunting-party, and there I paused.
"'M'Lean--Hector of Lochdon!' I cried with a wild voice, and the
aspect of a madman, for I felt there was madness in my brain, and the
emotions of a devil in my heart; 'from the summit of this rock I will
dash your son to its foot, if you slay not the infamous woman who
sits beside you!'
"'Shoot--shoot!' he exclaimed; 'to your bows and hand-guns! Aid me,
M'Coll--Aros--Duairt, and Lochbuy!' But these chiefs looked darkly
on, and made no response.
"'Dost thou pause, villain?' I cried again; 'then hear me.--I swear
by the four blessed gospels of God, by the Holy Iron, and by the
grave of Alpin, that I will dash this screaming child brainless at
your feet, if you do not--this instant--and with your own hand, slay
the wretch who sits beside you!' I swung the fair-haired child above
my head, and his cries came faintly downward to his father's ear.
Then could I feast my eyes upon that father's agony; as trembling in
every limb, with sword unsheathed, he gazed alternately upward at me
and downward at his pallid and voiceless paramour, who bowed her
beautiful head like a lily to the blast, and had bared her white
bosom to the impending steel; for well she knew that M'Lean loved his
boy, the hope of his house, better than her--the tool of guilty
pleasure, the plaything of an hour.
"'Red Angus!' cried M'Lean, in a choking voice; 'I will restore your
wife, and with her yield a thousand head of cattle, a hundred targets
of brass, and as many Spanish guns; I will yield you the best farm I
possess, with the salmon-fishings of Lochdon, to thee and thine for
ever, freely and irredeemably, but spare my boy!'
"'Wretch!' I replied; and once more swung the unhappy child aloft;
'if thou and all thy posterity yielded to me their possessions on
earth and their share of paradise, I would not spare thy whelp, nor
will I now if thou sparest her who sits beside thee! _Once!_'
"'Shoot--shoot!' he cried to his Leine Chrios.
"Thirty archers bent their bows and drew their arrows to the ear, but
relinquished them; thirty long-barrelled guns were levelled at me,
but were lowered again, for the gillies feared to shoot the boy.
"'Dost them hear me?--_twice!_' I cried, swinging the child again,
for I was mad, but had no intention of throwing the boy, alone at
least. I intended to spring down with him, that we might perish
together.
"Trembling with terror for the safety of his child, and urged by the
fierce persuasions of his Leine Chrios, who considered the life of
the heir of more value than the lives of a hundred adulterous women,
M'Lean ran his sword into the heart of Una! She bent over the blade
and died at his feet.
"From the edge of that frightful precipice I saw the white bosom of
my wife, and the blood (red as the checks of her tartan plaid) that
dyed her yellow kirtle. Then the light left my eyes, the strength of
my hands relaxed, and the boy fell from them into the valley below.
From that abyss I heard a terrible cry ascend to the summit of the
basaltic columns; there was a confused discharge of fire-arms;
bullets and arrows whistled about me; I reeled like a drunken man, a
swoon came over me, and I remember no more.
"The poor child had been killed. In my madness and helplessness I
destroyed him; and, to this hour, the men of Mull call that rocky
hill which had no name before, _Ben Garadh_.*
* The Hill of Garadh. This is still a tradition of the Isle of Mull.
"Why prolong a tale so painful? Grey dawn was stealing along the
narrow Sound and tumbling sea; and morning was reddening the summits
of the hills when I awoke, or recovered, to find myself in silence,
with honest M'Coll of that Ilk (who now commands our pikes), standing
by me, while his men were in the valley below. All the other
huntsmen had departed, and taken with them the bodies of the dead.
He had protected me at the risk of his life; for our fathers had
fought side by side in the same galley, at the battle of the Bloody
Bay.
"'You must fly, Angus,' said he; 'for all the Isles cannot afford you
long a hiding-place, and the Lowlanders will not receive you.'
"I knew the truth of this, and had no wish to remain, where every
thing was hateful to me. I was outlawed by the Lord Justice-General
of Scotland; I was proclaimed a fugitive by the High Court of
Justiciary, and my lands were given to the Campbells (of course), for
every thing in the west that is in want of an owner belongs to them.
I hid me long in M'Kinnon's cave, and other recesses of the isle,
until an opportunity occurred of leaving the place, and joining old
Sir Andrew Gray, whose Scottish bands were sailing for Bohemia. The
memory of that _Di Donich_ will never die but with myself; and in
token of the sorrow, the bitterness, and remorse I have endured, for
the barbarity of my revenge, and the unwitting death of the poor
child I loved, I have worn this _scarf of crape_, and on many a field
and in many a breach, since the battle of the White Mountain, where
the walls of Prague rang to the slogan of the Scottish musketeers,
down to the battle of Semigallia, when, under the gallant Gustavus,
we cut the Poles to pieces, I have worn this mark of mourning. Now,
gentlemen and brother soldiers," continued Angus, heaving a deep sigh
as he filled his quaigh from Kildon's brandy bottle, "you have heard
my story; pray tell me if ever--ha! what is that?"
A pistol-shot, followed by the low faint cry of a woman, came towards
us on the night wind. Every man looked in his comrade's face, and
listened.
The cry, with the impression made upon me by M'Alpine's horrid story,
brought a deadly chill over my heart; but I unsheathed my claymore,
exclaiming--
"To your arms, and follow me!"
The whole party snatched up their muskets, and rushed through the
thicket, in the direction from whence the cry seemed to come.