DOWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the
road on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair
than Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,.
and if they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little
difference on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty
Irishers came scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword
and other arms invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of
fighting, with not a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of
Shira Glen, where a clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of
heather-ale that the world envied the secret of.
“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the
chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe--a neat tune that roared gallant and
far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank
fellows on the road!
At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais--the same gentleman namely
in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in the
world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at
us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day.
“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose
of the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado,
catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled
back.
Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of
eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing,
singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets--and
only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face.
The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging
branches, and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for
more, straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on
Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under
his bonnet and showed his teeth.
“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country
cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!”
Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went
swinging down the glen.
The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the
fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed,
and the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn,
whose birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben.
Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the
MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the
solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the
style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the
head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the
pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one--Iver-of-the-Oars--tripped on
a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a Diarmaid's
dirk.
To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came
twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together
faced the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though
the pick of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face.
It was fast cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and
the hand low to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black
knife. The choked breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new
blood brought a shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan
had the best of it.
“_Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!_” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of his
breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the
hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow
hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small
room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the
shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a
blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at
the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on
a coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one
rolled on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot
the grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek.
Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor,
sword and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand,
pulled the _sgian-dubh_ from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed
like a lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in
between; the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge,
and the blood spouted on the deer-horn haft.
“_Mallachd ort!_ I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but
it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour
and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men.
Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen
like smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where
their herds could be, and the herds--stuck, slashed, and cudgelled--lay
stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house.
From end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the
fighting. The hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind
the roe, turned when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a
lover left his lass among the heather; and all, with tightened belts,
were at the old game with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on
the sappy levels between the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs,
span at the wheel or carded wool, singing songs with light hearts and
thinking no danger.