“Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe,
Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.”
“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man--“peace or
war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!”
The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of
something to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported
with the prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and
Drimfern sent it leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green
corries of Lecknamban. “Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!”
rasped a crow to his mate far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy
black wings flapped east. The friendly wind forgot to dally with the
pine-tuft and the twanging bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown
linn was the tinkle of wine in a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war;
come which will, we care not,” sang the pipe-reeds, and there was the
muster and the march, hot-foot rush over the rotting rain-wet moor, the
jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, the choked roar of hate and
hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, the old, old feud with
Appin!
Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They
felt at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his
child, “White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the
basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his
face and went home crying.
And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand”
and “The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe
of the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt
the ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers'
springs.
“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a
reel in your budget?”
“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into
“Duniveg's Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the
west on a day when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him,
and his barge put nose about in time to save his skin.
“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the
taunting of Giorsal and all but a father's pride.
'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the
stirrup, came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind,
on his way to Lochow.
“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for
drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under
black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the _clarsach_ and wants
the pipes.”
“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her
spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away
rode the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to
the _cabar_ and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his
bonnet, home to Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father.
Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his
wife poisoned his mind.
“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black,
burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!”
“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man.
“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood
on his _biodag_, and the pride to crow over you.”
And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White
Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He
was bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for
his language. “But _Dhé!_ the boy can play!” he said at the last.
“Oh, _amadain dhoill_” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off the
cub before the mouth of day.”
“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger:
look at Alasdair Corrag!”
“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has
gralloched deer with a keen _sgian-dubh_. Will ye do't or no'?”
Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow.
Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the
dark glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round
about the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper
leaves of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing
up from the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked
with the drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast.
Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head,
and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm.
Her heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at
her draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with
one thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of
the Black Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle
Inneraora lay at the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the
salt loch that made tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of
the mountains. Now and then the moon took a look at things, now and then
a night-hag in the dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast
feathers; a roe leaped out of the gloom and into it with a feared
hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a thunderbolt struck in the dark against the
brow of Ben Ime and rocked the world.
In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's
room at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the
night while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach
to Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a
half-dead peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman
to herself, as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the
bed. And lo! it was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast
sweep on the sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot
blood of her husband's son.
Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the
house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked
stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and
confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag
Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her
husband.
“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?”
“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You
can give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.”