“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.”
Winter I said, and winter it was, before _faoilteach_, and the edge of
the morning. The fellow of my _sgeul_, more than a twelvemonth older,
went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting for
the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas.
In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and
the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made,
I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of
MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer!
The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put
under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs.
It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind
were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows
grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and
oat that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the
rich scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking
in the best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes
levelled, or their way out of the country--if they were Lowland--was
barred by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and
eating the fattest--a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for
women and wine and gentlemanly sword-play.
They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in
rings and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles
guttered in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At
the head of the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the
lady of the house dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's
shoulder, and him sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company
girls from the house in the forest slept forward on the table, their
heads on the thick of their arms, and on either hand of them the
lairds and foreigners. Of the company but two were awake, playing at
_bord-dubh_, small eyed, oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by
like the lave, and sleep had a hold of Castle Dark through and through.
Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park.
One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her
elbow, and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the
table, crawling to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the
mistress of the house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her
moving started up the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her
on the hair, and got to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled
his face when he looked about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the
guttering candlelight.
Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain.
The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming
scowl--the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow touching
the first of a cold day.
Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river
cried high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its
sleeping company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle
and daybreak.
The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat.
He laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and
wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his
merry life.
“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering
with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor
better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet--and yet--who's
George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some
of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds
would have us!”
He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running
his fingers among his curls.
Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in,
soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found,
by the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the
mud on his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow
at the window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep),
making for the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword
from a pin.
Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old
moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees.
The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise;
they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor
were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.”
“She's as honest a wife as ever--”
“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow--when the wind's in that airt. It's been a
dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but,
man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!”
He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's
shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was
fairly on the country.
“A bit foolish is your wife--just a girl, I'm not denying; but true at
the core.”
“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking
a widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is
lost for good and all.”
“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and
myself the flambeau was at the root o't.”
“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over
such friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.”
“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.”
“_Thoir an aire!_--Guard, George Mor!”
They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades
set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that
wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles.
She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of
muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none
of her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the
foreign trees to the summons of the playing swords.
“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting;
but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head.
She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way
to the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his
sword, when she got through the trees.
“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody
a little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill
at diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my
un-friends are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little
humour to stop them. Fare ye weel!”
A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his
feet, the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off.
It was the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but
the fellow of my story could not see it.
“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?”
Another peat on the fire, little one. So! _That_ the fellow of my story
would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all,
high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm.