THE CAVE IN GLENMORISTON
"Muckle John," said Rob, as the cart came to a standstill, and his
companion had kept a tight mouth for a full half-hour after his last
curt words, "Muckle John, why did you rescue me?"
"Why indeed?" he replied dourly enough.
Acting on a sudden impulse Rob leapt over the side of the cart upon
the bank of grass beside it, and began to walk in the direction they
had come.
"Where are you going?" cried Muckle John, startled for once.
Rob paused and spoke over his shoulder.
"I'm not the one to take favours from you nor any one," he said. "I
know fine why you wanted to keep me safe; and now that you've lost
the thing you sought I'm no more to you than a peewit's egg." With
that he set off again towards Fort Augustus.
"Stop, Rob!" shouted Muckle John. "What's taken ye?" and flinging
his legs over the side of the cart, he began to run in pursuit.
"Rob!" he cried again, and came up with him.
"Well?"
"What has come over ye?" he asked.
"Would ye hang yersel' just to spite me? What's done is done, Rob;
and I'm no perhaps the saint ye took me for. But save ye I will, and
that's the naked truth."
"Let me pass!" cried Rob, and took a step to the right of him.
"Very good," he replied grimly, "but come ye will," and catching him
into his huge arms, he flung him suddenly upon the ground and bound
his wrists. Struggle as Rob would it availed him less than nothing,
and so at last, with hands tied together and a dirk-point in his
ribs, he must needs march in the direction Muckle John wished.
For a full hour they trudged on thus, leaving the cart to care for
itself.
Then at last he spoke.
"Stop!" he said, holding out his wrists. "I have had enough of this."
"Brawly spoken!" said Muckle John, and he cut the thongs.
"Where," asked Rob, "are you taking me, for I have important business
in the south?"
"What might that be?"
"It is the warning of Lord Lovat."
"It is done already; I have sent a man two days since."
"Am I, then, your prisoner?"
His captor broke into a laugh.
"Just a visitor, Rob," he replied, "and nothing more."
In this manner they travelled northwards, passing through wild,
desolate glens and black ravines, scaling rugged hills, seeing few
upon the road, and more in the heather. Several times in the night
they saw the camp-fires of the English, but Muckle John seemed as
familiar with the country even in black darkness. During the day
they lay close hid in some cranny of the rocks, or skulked upon the
crest of a hill, watching the surrounding district for sight of
moving troops.
It was nearing nightfall two days after Rob's escape from Fort
Augustus when they entered a small, precipitous glen, shut in by
lowering, ragged crags, while through its tortuous course a burn was
drumming in a melancholy undertone. No drearier spot had ever met
Rob's eye. Deserted even by the eagles, it might have been a
habitation of the dead.
Now at the side of the burn a shattered pine tree was standing
against the evening sky, and as such gruesome thoughts passed through
Rob's mind he raised his eyes, and a cry came and died unuttered on
his lips. For on a solitary branch about the height of a tall man
from the heather, a human head was stuck with the hair still
fluttering in the breeze; while underneath dangled the faded uniform
of an English soldier.
"Look!" cried Rob.
But Muckle John only nodded absently.
"They're as common as berries hereabouts," he replied.
"Hereabouts?" repeated Rob. "Then whose land is this?"
For answer Muckle John sprang upon a rock and with his hands hollowed
about his mouth, sent a clear, penetrating call. From up the
hillside a reply came swift as an echo.
"Some call it," he said, "the country of Muckle John."
Before Rob could reply several Highlanders came running down the
hill-side, and greeted his companion with every sign of respect and
pleasure, all of which he took very naturally.
Then passing onward they came to a narrow defile with a man on guard
at the entrance, and continuing their way, reached the opening to a
cave.
In the sheltered ground which lay before the cave three men were
engaged around a fire, and the smell of cooking drifted in a cloud
about their stooping forms.
"Rob," said Muckle John, making way for him to pass, "will you step
inside, for if I am not mistaken there is one who will be pleased to
see ye."
Without a word, but anxious to know to whom Muckle John could refer,
Rob entered the cave. For a moment the darkness of the place made
him think he was alone. Then of a sudden he made out the form of a
man lying upon the floor; and with a quick fear he knelt down and
recognized Archibald Cameron, bound hand and foot.
It took Rob but a couple of slashes with his skian dhu and Cameron
was free of his bonds.
Sitting up he groaned and surveyed Rob with a whimsical smile.
"This is a queer manner of hospitality," said he. "If ye had
mentioned the name o' the gentleman you were serving I would have
taken the hint kindly."
"I serving?" broke in Rob, "I do not understand."
Cameron shrugged his shoulders cynically.
"Maybe ye do not remember the letter," he said very politely, "maybe
ye are not Rob Fraser?"
"Dr. Cameron," replied Rob, "this is no time for quarrelling. I know
of no letter, and I am a prisoner like yourself. We are both in the
hands of Muckle John."
"Muckle John! So that's how the wind blows, eh? Oh, I begin to see.
Poor Rob, you're aye the scapegoat. Muckle John, indeed!"
"You know of him?"
Cameron snorted.
"Wha does not?" said he, "there's few between here and Rome has not
heard tell of Muckle John."
"Then is he Hanoverian?"
"He's mair like a kite that hovers above the squabbles of other folk."
"Then what does he want with us?"
"Money."
"It's little of that I have."
"You, Rob? Oh no!" And he smiled in a way as though the idea
tickled him.
Very greatly puzzled, Rob fell back on silence, and presently Muckle
John himself entered the place.
He was in Highland dress and made a great appearance of surprise at
seeing Cameron, which ill accorded with the reception that
unfortunate gentleman gave him. Then turning, he clapped Rob upon
the shoulder and bade them both be seated.
"It's poor hospitality," said he in Gaelic; "but these are sad times,
Dr. Cameron. Old campaigners like us know there's thin rations when
one takes to the heather."
"Come, sir," replied Cameron, still standing and replying in Scots,
"what is it you want? I ken ye fine, and well ye know it. It is not
for the pleasure of my company that your cutthroats brought me here.
But I warn you there will be a reckoning for this. There will be a
bonny ending for you, sir, when it is known in Lochaber."
"Lochaber," sneered Muckle John. "While there is a guineapiece
buried in Lochaber neither you nor the Prince himself would raise a
Cameron to his side."
"Braw words for a nameless man," cried Cameron bitterly, but very red
about the neck. "Hark, Rob, for maybe ye will never hear the like
again."
"I am no nameless man!" roared Muckle John; "and well ye know it."
Cameron smiled quietly to himself.
"Then the greater the smirch on your clan--though I'm no just
remembering the tartan," he said.
At that Muckle John, flinging back his stool, leaped to his feet, and
called out a name which no man Lochaber way can hear in silence.
For an instant, indeed, Cameron seemed on the point of springing upon
him; then restraining himself with an effort, he spoke in a very
polite tone:
"You will perceive," said he, "I have no sword."
But now that the thing was said Muckle John appeared greatly put
about and anxious to smooth it over. He shrugged his shoulders and
fiddled with the brooch upon his plaid.
"Tuts, Dr. Cameron!" he said. "I spoke over warmly."
But Cameron only frowned and shook his head.
"I have no sword," he said again.
There was no mistaking his meaning. With a shrug Muckle John turned
and left the cave.
"Do not fight him, doctor," broke in Rob. "It is sheer madness. Oh,
how could ye fall into such a trap? It is to kill you he led you on."
"Rob," replied Cameron, "you are too young to understand the ways of
a Highland gentleman."
"But surely you are more service to the Prince..."
"Whisht, boy! Dinna haver. Ye heard what word he used. A man's
name means mair than a whole clan of Princes."
After that there was nothing more to be said.
The doorway darkened again and Muckle John entered with two claymores
and targes.
"It is lighter outside, Dr. Cameron," he said, as though they were
about to discuss a friendly bout together.
"As you will," replied Cameron with equanimity, and bowed to him to
take the lead. But Muckle John bowed still lower, and with his head
cocked very high Cameron passed through.
A level place of about ten feet square lay before the cave, and
clustered on a ledge above sprawled and sat some dozen ragged
Highlanders, who evinced no sort of interest whatever in the
impending encounter.
Cameron swung his blade once or twice and tested the steel upon the
ground. The targe he threw aside. Then taking off their coats they
rolled up their sleeves, and saluted each other. Seeing that the
thing was past mending, Rob took his seat very sadly upon a mound and
wondered how it would all end. The grey, desolate sky, the silence
of utter solitude, the cluster of dirty, unmoved Highlanders, and
above and upon them all the smirr of thin hill rain, made his heart
sink like lead.
And in the weary greyness of it all, two men about to fight to the
death over a hasty word. It was a situation typically Highland.
Cameron, as sturdy a figure as one could wish to see, was standing on
guard right foot foremost, his left arm behind his back.
Muckle John was facing him, his long hair loose about his neck, his
vast forearms bared, perfectly motionless, a figure of colossal
strength.
Suddenly there was a faint scuffle and footsteps in the entrance way.
"Dr. Cameron--Dr. Cameron!" said a low voice, with the round softness
of a foreign accent.
They all looked towards the narrow passage which led from the valley
below, and Rob sprang to his feet at the sight. For standing there,
dressed in faded, tattered clothes, thin and harassed, but with a
smile upon his lips, was Prince Charlie.