The piper's anger seemed to be modified on the following morning; but
he still growled when his daughter introduced the name MacTavish as he
sat before a steaming bowl of porridge and a basin of milk, which he
attacked with a large horn spoon and an appetite comparable only to
the giant's who fell a victim to the adroitness of Jack the celebrated
Giant-killer. Maggie's enthusiastic account of Angus's gift of the boat
was received with a critical coldness that made her heart sink within
her.
'O ay, Maggie; it iss no doot a peautiful poat--she wass sure to
pe that if Angus built her; but it iss fery easy to see what Angus
MacTavish iss driving at. Maybe he'll find he has peen counting without
his host mirofer, if he thinks he iss going to get you for his wife
by gifing you a fishing-poat; what wass a fishing-poat to a lass like
you?--as if ye wass a poor lass! Ye're no to pe fashing your head apoot
Angus MacTavish, lass--no; he iss no doot a cood lad, but no for the
like o' you! There iss Sandy Buchanan noo, the lawyer's clerk mirofer,
a far more likely lad to make ye a cood man, and willing?'
'O dad, and how can ye pe saying such things to me on the happiest day
o' my life, for Angus asked me yesterday to be his wife; and I--I'----
'Ye what?' said the piper, laying down his spoon and eyeing his
daughter sternly.
'Weel, dad, I--I--didna say No.'
'Then I'm thinking ye'll hef to go this fery day whatefer and say "No,"
my lass, for I'm telling ye I won't hef it!'
Maggie was not generally one of the tearful sort, but the sudden
emphasis of her father's words filled her eyes with tears and drove
her to silence. She did not trust herself to speak, but lifted her
pail hurriedly with a flushed face, and went sorrowfully to milk the
'kye,' whose deep impatient lowing from the byre was urgently demanding
attention. When she was half across the court-yard she heard her father
calling her back. She turned and went to him.
'Maggie,' he said, drawing her to his knee and holding her brown face
between his rough hands tenderly, 'it iss not crying ye are, my bonny
lass? No; I wad not hef my lass crying for any MacTavish that efer
drank a dram! Not that Angus iss a pad lad--no, I will not say he
iss that--he plays the pipes petter than any lad of his years I efer
saw--but the MacTavishes---- Ah weel, they're no jist the clan that the
Camerons should marry into. Noo, dry your eyes, lass, and pe off to
your milking mirofer--Crumple iss moaning as if her udder wass going to
crack.'
The maiden said, nothing; she kissed him, but the smile was all
vanished from her face as she stooped to relieve Crumple of her milky
burden.
The piper went to the stable, and the sound of his whistling rang over
the place as he brushed down his horses and gave them their morning
feed.
Maggie was in strong hopes, as the morning advanced, that before
nightfall, when she expected Angus to come, the tempest would be
over, and Angus hailed by her father in his old manner. This hope
was dispelled, and poor Maggie made miserable beyond bearing when
her father returned to his mid-day meal. The piper had early in the
forenoon taken his fishing-rod and gone to a favourite spot of his
known as 'the Black Hole,' on the stream, where he had wiled away many
an hour and tempted to the bank many a fat spotted trout. When he
returned to dinner, his daughter saw with surprise that he brought no
fish with him, and that his fishing-rod was broken into half-a-dozen
pieces; and moreover, that he was white with anger. Fingal his collie
was following with dejected tail and a torn ear, apparently in as bad a
temper as his master, judging from the snarling greeting he gave Diana
who went to meet them.
'Py the powers, but I'll put the law on him; I'll hef him put in the
jail,' cried the piper, as he went into his kitchen and tossed the
fragments of his fishing-rod into a corner. 'The plaguard, to preak my
fishing-rod and steal my fish mirofer; but I'll hef the law on him! He
shall go pefore the shirra as sure as my name iss John Cameron!'
Maggie did not know that Mr MacTavish was at the same moment on his way
home with a swollen black eye, carrying with him a goodly fish that
ought to have been in the piper's basket, 'Jet' limping behind his
master very much bruised indeed.
'And it iss the Teuk that wull pe told all apoot it; the prood teffle,
poaching the salmon like a common thief, and knocking a man apoot as
if he wass a lower animal,' said the game-keeper, recording _his_
grievance indignantly to his buxom wife, in answer to sympathetic
ejaculations as to the state of his eye, when he returned to his dinner.
* * * * *
True to his word, the piper sent the herd-boy to the lawyer's office to
tell Sandy Buchanan, with the piper's compliments, &c., that Mr Cameron
desired to see him at Glen Heath on important business.
'Well, dad,' Maggie had said impetuously when she heard this message
given to 'Geordy,' as they sat at dinner, hardly understanding from
what motive her father sought the presence of the detested Sandy
Buchanan, 'I can only say that I shall not bide in the hoose if that
red-headed, ill-looking man comes to the hoose; I won't inteed!'
'Ye are red-headed yourself!' said the piper abruptly.
'No; I'm not.'
'Yes, ye are. The man canna help himself if the Almichty gef him a red
head. The best o' folks iss red-headed. I'm red-headed; and ye are red
as a fox or a squirrel yourself, I tell ye'----
'Well, well, dad, we'll no quarrel apoot that; maybe I am; but'----
'I tell ye what it iss, Maggie, ye will bide at home when Mr Buchanan
comes, and ye'll pehave yourself civilly, or maybe it may pe worse for
ye. Angus MacTavish hass turned your head; but he'll get a bit o' my
mind maybe yet, as his father hass pefore him mirofer, and that pefore
the set o' sun too!'
'O dad, dad! ye'll break my heart, so ye will, inteed and inteed ye
will, dad, if it iss in that way ye speak o' Angus.'
'I'll not hef him come apoot my hoose longer! He iss a wanderin' rake;
efery sailor iss that, and no fit to make a cood huspand to the like o'
you.'
'He iss not a rake! Ye are no speaking the words of truth, father!'
exclaimed the girl passionately.
'Efery sailor iss a rake, Maggie; eferypody knows that; and I daresay
he iss none better than his neibors.'
Stung by the cruel words, Maggie ran to the dairy, where she shut
herself in and burst into a flood of tears. The Highland maid had few
hatreds; she had the impulsive almost passionate temperament of every
true Celt, but her impulsiveness ran in loving channels. But if she
did hate, she hated warmly--also after the Celtic manner. And the one
living object for whom she felt undying scorn was this Sandy Buchanan,
who knew more of her father's affairs than any man in Inversnow; and
whose studied civility to her on all occasions, and attentions more or
less marked, were resented by her as she would have resented another
man's insults. Perhaps he was all the more despised because he kept
at a respectful distance when Angus was at home; a peculiarity that
Maggie attributed to a certain dread of physical consequences, that was
not to be wondered at in a weak-legged milksop fellow like him. But
whenever the Duke's yacht was away, Mr Sandy danced attendance upon her
assiduously, insisting upon seeing her safely home from the kirk on
Sunday evenings, and otherwise thrusting his obnoxious presence upon
her in ways which she considered offensive.
And sure enough, just as the sun was veering round to the west, the
piper was seated at the table of his best parlour with a bottle of
whisky and glasses, and a plate of Maggie's crisp oatmeal bannocks
between him and the detested Sandy Buchanan, whose breath blew forth
gales of peppermint--an odour that Maggie always associated with him,
and put the worst construction upon--as he listened patiently to
the rather confused statement of the piper's grievance. Sandy tried
honestly to look at the case from the piper's stand-point; but put
in any form, it appeared that if any legal action was to be taken
the decision could hardly take the only form which would satisfy the
irate piper--namely the immediate arrest, trial, conviction, and
imprisonment of Mr MacTavish for an undefined number of months in the
county jail. Sandy gathered that the piper had succeeded in hooking
a 'cood seven-pound grilse;' that while he was landing the same, Mr
MacTavish appeared on the scene threatening to report him to the
Duke for poaching; words passed between them, not of a complimentary
nature, ending ultimately in one of two catastrophes--the piper could
not clearly remember which--either the game-keeper had seized the
piper's rod with result of breaking it to pieces, or the piper had
broken his fishing-rod over the game-keeper's back; and then a struggle
had ensued, the upshot of which was that the latter walked off with
the 'grilse' and a black eye, while the former did the like with his
shattered fishing-rod and empty basket, each vowing to lay the matter
before 'the shirra.'
The Sheriff, as represented by Sandy Buchanan the fiscal's clerk,
thought, much to the delight of the piper, that he had good ground for
an action for assault against Mr MacTavish; and presently father and
daughter (poor Maggie was compelled to remain in the room to hear the
brutal manner in which he, a Cameron, had been treated by a MacTavish)
were thrown into a state of mental confusion by the adroit manner in
which Sandy now addressing the piper as 'our client,' now as 'the
plaintiff;' both of which phrases the piper received and acknowledged
in the light of a personal compliment, and also by liberal but not very
coherent allusion to Act of Queen Victoria this, and chapter of Act
Queen Victoria that; all tending to prove the piper the most abused and
injured of men.
In the midst of the conference Angus MacTavish appeared at the door. He
indiscreetly opened it and looked in without knocking. The piper, who
was feeling at the moment keenly alive to his own importance, with the
delightful sense that he had matter to bring before the 'shirra' (as
he called the Sheriff), looked up and frowned, fingering his glass of
whisky the while.
'What idiot iss it that walks into a shentleman's hoose withoot
knocking at the door, and withoot waiting to be asked to come in?'
'Come, piper,' said Angus, walking boldly into the room, somewhat
surprised to see Buchanan there, but holding an outstretched hand
to the piper; 'it iss not the first, nor the second, nor maybe the
twentieth time I hef bed your hospitality, and I am thinking it will
not pe the last time--and that without claiming it.'
'My name is Maister Cameron--Maister Cameron of Glen Heath, Maister
Angus MacTavish! And apoot its peing the last time or not depends
upon more consiterations than one!' The piper spoke with a sternness
and pomposity of manner that made his visitor allow his hand to drop
quickly to his side, and brought an indignant flush to the young face.
'What does it all mean?' said Angus in a bewildered way, turning to
Maggie.
Maggie stood behind her father's chair the personification of misery.
The man of law sat looking stolidly before him with the most wooden of
expressions on his pale face.
'It means,' said the piper in the same harsh sharp key, 'that _that_ is
the door, that yonder is the road, that the quicker ye are there the
petter it will pe for you, and the petter pleased too will all in this
room pe.'
'Iss that it?' said Angus slowly, looking still at Maggie, and turning
again towards the door.
'No, Angus, no! It iss not true that all in this room will pe petter
pleased that ye should go. It iss not true!' burst out the girl in the
fullness of her heart.
'But it _shall_ pe true!' shouted the piper, bringing his hand firmly
down upon the table. Angus did not stay to argue the matter, but
sorrowfully went his way.
'Stop that whining, Maggie--stop that foolish whining; I will not hef
it!' said the piper, turning upon his daughter fiercely, who tried in
vain to repress a sob as Angus disappeared.
'O Sandy Buchanan, it iss muckle that ye'll hef to answer for, if ye'll
make me that I'll hate my own father too,' said the poor girl, storming
out into open mutiny.
'Leave the room, Maggie!' cried the piper, waving his hand. The maiden
gladly availed herself of her dismissal, and fled to the solitude of
her own room. 'Cott has not gifen to women the brains to understand
pusiness,' he continued, generalising apologetically to his guest.
A week passed, and the piper's wrath against the clan MacTavish
endured. The feud was not one-sided. Mr MacTavish replied to a letter
full of nothing, expressed in the bitterest legal phraseology, written
by Sandy Buchanan on the piper's behalf, by a document of elaborate
counter-charges, written by the banker-lawyer of the town, breathing
threatenings and lawsuits. And the case promised to be profitable to
both of these astute gentlemen, as such cases generally manage to be.