THE ROARING GAME.
When the Christmas holidays drew near, Alec obtained his father’s
permission to ask his friend, Duncan Cameron, to spend a week at the
Castle Farm; and, after a little hesitation, Cameron accepted the
proposal.
‘There’s just one thing, Duncan, I would like you to mind,’ said
Alec, as they drew near the farm; ‘my father’s an old man, and he
doesn’t like to be contradicted. More than that, he doesn’t care
to hear anyone express opinions contrary to his own, at least on
two subjects--politics and religion. If you can’t agree with him on
these points, and I dare say you won’t, hold your tongue, like a good
fellow. And my sister--you’d better keep off religion in her case too.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ was Cameron’s inward thought;
but he only said he would of course be careful not to wound the old
gentleman’s susceptibilities.
Mr. Lindsay received his guest with a hearty welcome--it was not one
of his faults to fail in hospitality--indeed, a stranger might have
thought that he was better pleased to see his guest than his son. He
led the way through the great stone-floored kitchen to the parlour,
where an enormous fire of coals was blazing, and where the evening meal
was already laid out on the snowy table-cloth.
‘You had better warm your hands before going upstairs,’ he said to
Duncan. ‘You must have had a very cold drive. Margaret!’ he called out,
finding that his daughter was not in the sitting-room. ‘Margaret! where
are you? Come away at once.’
In his eyes Margaret was a child still. He was a little annoyed that
she should have been out of the way, and not in her place, ready to
welcome the guest.
Margaret, however, had taken her stand in the dairy, which was on the
opposite side of the passage from the kitchen. She wanted to greet her
brother in her own way. And Alec, as soon as he saw that she was not
with his father, knew where she was. The dairy had been a favourite
refuge in their childish days. It was a little out of the way, and
seldom visited, while it commanded a way of retreat through the
cheese-house.
As soon as his father had taken charge of Cameron, Alec hurried back
through the kitchen, ran along the passage, opened the dairy-door, and
there, sure enough, was Margaret.
‘Maggie!’ he cried; and the two were fast locked in each other’s
embrace.
It was but eight weeks since they had parted; but they had never been
separated before.
For a moment neither spoke.
‘What made you come here, Maggie?’ asked Alec, with boyish
inconsiderateness.
‘I came for the cream for tea,’ said Margaret.
‘Oh, Maggie!’
‘I did indeed. Go and get me a light. Oh, Alec! it has been so lonely
without you!’
She kissed him again, and pushed him out of the dairy. Then she burst
into tears. He was not so glad to see her as she had been to see him.
He was changed; she knew he was changed, though she had not really seen
him. He was going to be a man, to grow beyond her, to forget, perhaps
to despise her. Why had he asked why she had come there? Surely he
might have----
At this point in Margaret’s reflections, Alec returned with a candle,
and seeing the traces of tears on his sister’s cheeks, he turned and
gave her another hug. She tenderly returned the caress; but her first
words were:
‘Why did you bring a stranger home with you, Alec? And we are to be
together such a short time, too!’
‘Oh, nonsense, Maggie! Cameron is a great friend of mine, and you’ll
like him, I’m sure. But there’s father calling; we must go.’
Mr. Lindsay had divined what his daughter had been doing; but he
thought it was now quite time that she should come forward and play her
part as hostess.
‘You go first, Alec,’ she said, taking up the cream-jug which she had
brought as her excuse for her visit to the dairy.
‘And I tell you, sir, that till we have the ballot we can have no
security against persecution,’ Mr. Lindsay was exclaiming, as they
entered the sitting-room. ‘A man cannot vote now according to his
conscience unless he is prepared to risk being driven from his home, to
lose his very livelihood. Let me give you an instance----’
But here Margaret came forward, calm and serene as usual. Cameron
rose to meet her; and the political harangue was cut short by the
appearance of a stout damsel with cheeks like peonies, bearing an
enormous silver teapot.
Cameron was struck by Margaret Lindsay’s beauty, as everyone was who
saw her; but the effect was to render him shy and ill at ease. He felt
inferior to her; and the calm indifference of her manner made him fancy
that she treated him with disdain. Mr. Lindsay did most of the talking;
Cameron, mindful of his friend’s warning, sat almost dumb, totally
unlike his usual self. Alec began to think that he had made a mistake
in inviting him to the Castle Farm.
As it happened, a keen frost had set in some days before, and farm
operations were at a standstill. Margaret was busy next morning in
superintending matters in the dairy and the kitchen; but the three men
had nothing to do. Mr. Lindsay fastened on his guest, and extracted
from him a full and particular account of the state of agriculture and
of religion in the island of Scalpa and the neighbouring mainland
before the one o’clock dinner.
In the evening, however, there was a promise of a little break in the
monotony of life at the farm. A message was brought to Alec enjoining
him to be at ‘The Lang Loch’ by half-past nine next morning, and take
part in a curling-match between the Muirburn parish and the players of
the neighbouring parish of Auchinbyres.
‘You can’t possibly go, Alec,’ said the laird, when the message was
delivered; ‘Mr. Cameron won’t care to hang about here alone all day.’
Mr. Lindsay was secretly proud of his son’s reputation as a curler; but
he did not wish him to go to the match, because he did not care that
he should be exposed to the contaminating influences of a very mixed
company, and he did not relish the prospect of Alec’s carrying away
his friend and leaving him alone for the day. But when Duncan heard
of the match he declared that he must see it--there was hardly ever
any frost worth speaking of in the Hebrides; and he had never seen a
curling-match.
‘You’ll want the dog-cart to take your stones to the loch, Alec,’ said
Mr. Lindsay. ‘I think I will go with you, and go on to Netherburn about
those tiles.’
‘I wish you would come with us, Maggie,’ said Alec. ‘Father will be
passing the loch on his way back in half an hour, and he can pick you
up and bring you home. The drive will do you good.’
To this arrangement Margaret consented, and early next morning the
little party set out in the keen wintry air. The sun, not long risen,
was making the snow sparkle on the fields, and turning the desolate
scene into fairyland.
After an hour’s drive they arrived at the scene of the match--a sheet
of water, on one side of which the open moor stretched away to the
horizon, while on the other side there was a thin belt of fir-trees.
The ice, two or three acres in extent, was covered with a sprinkling
of snow, which had been carefully cleared from the ‘rinks.’ The rinks
were sixty or seventy yards long by six or eight wide, and they showed
like pools of black water beside the clear white snow.
Already the surface of the little lake was dotted with boys on
‘skeitchers,’ as skates are called in that part of the country; and
the margin was fringed with dog-carts from which the horses had been
removed. The stones, circular blocks of granite, nearly a foot in
diameter, and about five inches thick, fitted with brass handles, were
lying in order on the bank on beds of straw.
Quite a little crowd of farmers, farm-servants, and schoolboys were
assembled beside the stones, waiting till the match should begin. Lord
Bantock, the chief landowner in that part of Kyleshire, was there, his
red, good-humoured face beaming on everybody, his hands thrust into the
pockets of his knickerbockers, the regulation green broom under his
arm. Next him stood a little spare man in a tall hat. This was Johnnie
Fergus, draper, ironmonger, guardian of the poor, and Free Church
deacon in the neighbouring village of Auchinbyres.
Nothing was ever done at Auchinbyres without Johnnie Fergus having a
hand in it. He was a man of importance, and he knew it. No man had ever
seen Johnnie in a round hat. He always carried his chin very much in
the air, and kept his lips well pursed up, and spoke in a peremptory
tone of voice--especially when (as on the present occasion) he was in
the company of his betters.
Next to him stood Hamilton of the Holme, a great giant of a man, slow
in his movements, slow in his speech, wearing the roughest of rough
tweeds, and boots whose soles were at least an inch in thickness.
At present, however, he was encased as to his lower man in enormous
stockings, drawn over boots and trousers, to prevent him from slipping
about on the ice; and many of the players were arrayed in a similar
fashion.
‘Come awa’, Castle Fairm!’ cried one of the crowd as Mr. Lindsay drove
up. ‘Aw’m glaid to see ye; ye play a hantle better nor yer son.’
‘Na, na, Muirfuit,’ responded the laird; ‘my playin’-days are by.’
Meantime Lord Bantock strolled over to the dog-cart, his ostensible
reason being to shake hands with Mr. Lindsay, whom he recognised in his
fallen state as one of the small gentry of the county.
‘Are you going to honour us with your presence, Miss Lindsay?’ he
asked, as he helped Margaret to alight.
‘Only for half an hour,’ she answered, as she sprang lightly to the
ground. ‘You will be back by that time?’ she continued, addressing her
father.
‘In less than an hour, at any rate,’ he answered as he drove away; and
Margaret, seeing some schoolgirls whom she knew engaged in sliding,
went off to speak to them.
At this point a loud roar of laughter came from the group of men
standing at the side of the loch; and Lord Bantock, who dearly loved a
joke, hurried back to them.
‘Old Simpson is telling some of his stories; let us go and hear him,’
said Alec Lindsay, as, passing his arm through his friend’s, he led him
up to the little crowd.
A tall man with a lean, smooth face, dressed in a high hat and black
frock-coat, and wearing an old-fashioned black silk handkerchief round
his neck, was standing in a slouching attitude, his hands half out of
his pockets, while the others hung around in silence, waiting for his
next anecdote.
‘That minds me,’ he was saying, as Alec and Cameron came up, ‘that
minds me o’ what auld Craig o’ the Burn-Fuit said to wee Jamieson the
writer.[4] Craig was a dour,[5] ill-tempered man; and though he had
never fashed the kirk muckle, the minister cam’ to see him on one
occasion when it was thocht he was near his hinner-en’.
‘“Ye’re deein’, Burn-Fuit,” says Maister Symie.
‘“No jist yet, minister,” says Craig.
‘“I doot ye’re deein’; an’ it behoves ye to mak’ your peace wi’ the
haill warl’,” says the minister.
‘Craig gied a sigh, as if it was the hardest job he could set himself
tae. After a heap o’ talkin’ the minister got him persuaded to see
Jamieson, who just then was his great enemy--he aye had ane or twa o’
them--an’ forgie him for some ill-turn the writer had dune him. An’ wi’
jist as much persuasion he got Jamieson to come to the deein’ man’s
bedside, and be a pairty to the reconciliation.
‘Sae the twa met, and had a freenly crack i’ the minister’s presence.
Guid Mr. Symie was delighted. As the writer was depairtin’, they shook
hands.
‘“Guid-day, Maister Jamieson,” says Craig. “Ye’ve done me many an
ill-turn, but I forgie ye. But mind--mind, if I get weel, a’ this gangs
for nowt!”’
A laugh followed the schoolmaster’s story; and the group dispersed to
see that the preparations which were being made on the ice were duly
performed. A small hole had already been bored at each end of the
principal rink. Each of these was to be in its turn the ‘tee,’ or mark.
At some distance from each of the tees, a line called the ‘hog-score’
was drawn across the ice. Stones which did not pass this line were not
to be allowed to count, and were to be removed at once from the ice. A
long piece of wood, with nails driven through it at fixed intervals,
was now placed with one of its ends resting on the tee, and held there
firmly, while it was slowly turned round on the ice. The result of
this operation was that the ice was marked by circles drawn at equal
distances from the tee, by which the relative distances of two stones
from the central point could be easily determined.
The players having been already selected, the match began as soon as
this was done.
Alec Lindsay, being one of the youngest men present, was told to begin,
his adversary being Simpson the schoolmaster.
Cameron and Margaret, standing together on one side of the players,
who assembled at one end of the rink, watched Alec, who went forward,
lifted one of his father’s heavy granite stones, and swung it lightly
in his hand. Meanwhile one of the players from his own side had gone
to the other side of the rink, and holding his broom upright in the
tee-hole, enabled Alec to form a more accurate idea of the distance.
Swinging his stone, Alec stooped down, and with no apparent effort
‘placed’ it on the ice. Away it sailed with a loud humming sound, sweet
to a curler’s ear.
Every man eagerly watched its rate of speed, while some, running
alongside, accompanied it on its course.
‘Soop it up! Soop it up!’ cried some of the younger members of the
Muirburn side; and they began to sweep the ice in front of the stone
with their brooms, so as to expedite its progress.
‘Let her alane! She’s comin’ on brawly!’ cried Hamilton, from the other
end of the rink, in an authoritative tone. They immediately left off
sweeping; and two of the Auchinbyres men, acting on the principle that
if the stone had, from the Muirburn players’ point of view, just enough
way on it, they had better give it a little more, began to ply their
brooms vigorously in front of it.
These attentions, however, did no harm. The stone glided up towards the
tee, slackened its speed, and finally stopped, exactly where it ought
to have stopped, about a foot in front of the mark.
A slight cheer greeted this good shot; and ‘Ye’ll mak’ as guid a player
as your faither, Alec!’ from one of the bystanders made Margaret’s face
flush with pleasure.
It was now the schoolmaster’s turn. One of his side took Hamilton’s
place as pilot; and the old man, playing with even less apparent
effort than Alec had used, sent his stone right in the face of his
adversary’s. The speed was so nicely graduated that Alec’s stone was
disposed of for good, while Simpson’s stone occupied almost exactly the
spot on which Alec’s had formerly rested.
Again Hamilton advanced to lend the young player his advice, while
Alec took up his remaining stone, and went to the front. He sent
a well-aimed shot, but rather too powerfully delivered, and the
adversaries of course hastened to make it worse by sweeping. The stone
struck Simpson’s slightly on one side, sending it to the left, while
it went on towards the right, and finally stopped considerably to
the right of the tee, but near enough to make it worth guarding. The
schoolmaster’s next shot was not a success. His stone went between the
two which were already on the ice, and passing over the tee landed
about two feet beyond it.
This gave a chance to the Muirburn men. Their next player placed his
stone a long way from the tee, but right in front of Alec’s, so that it
was impossible, or almost impossible, to dislodge the latter without
first getting rid of the former. To him succeeded Johnnie Fergus; and
he, preferring his own judgment before that of the official guide,
played the guard full on, with the result that he sent it well into the
inner circle, while his own stone formed a very efficient guard for
that of his enemy. As every stone which, at the end of the round, is
found nearer the tee than anyone belonging to a player of the opposite
side counts for one point, the Muirburn men had now two stones in a
position to score; and they patiently surrounded them with guards,
which the Auchinbyres players knocked away whenever they could. So the
game went with varying success, till only one pair of players was left
for that round--Hamilton, playing for Muirburn, and Lord Bantock, who
belonged to the enemy.
Things at that moment were very bad for the Muirburn men. Four stones
belonging to the opposite side were nearer the tee than any one of
their own; while a formidable array of guards lined the ice in front of
them.
Hamilton went and studied the situation carefully. Then he went back,
and played his first shot.
‘Soop it! Soop it! Soop it!’ roared the schoolmaster, flourishing
his broom, and dancing like a maniac. He alone, of the Auchinbyres
players, understood the object of the shot, and saw that it could only
be defeated, if at all, by giving it a little extra impetus. But the
advice came too late. The brooms were plied before it like lightning,
but the stone came stealing up like a live thing, and just avoiding an
outlying guard, gave a knock to one stone at such an angle that the
impetus was communicated to a second and from it to a third, while it
took the third place, thus cutting off two of the adversaries’ points.
‘Noo, m’ lord, a wee thocht tae the richt o’ this,’ said Johnnie
Fergus, as he stooped down and held his broom over the spot where he
desired Lord Bantock’s stone should come in.
But Lord Bantock had been given the place of honour as last player more
out of consideration for his rank than for his skill. He played with
far too much force, and sent his stone smashing on one of the outside
guards, from which it rushed to the side of the rink and disappeared.
‘Did I no tell ye no to pit that sumph at the tail?’ quoth Johnnie in
an undertone of deep disgust, as he rose from his stooping posture.
‘Haud your tongue, man! I’ve seen his lordship play as weel as ony
deacon amang ye,’ said the leader, angry at being suspected of unduly
favouring the great man.
But with a cry of expectation from the crowd, Hamilton’s second stone
left his hand and came spinning over the ice, right in the track of
its predecessor. A roar went up from the players, as the Muirburn men
rushed forward, and distributing themselves over the path which the
stone had to traverse, polished it till the ice was like glass. The
stone came in beautifully, displaced the best stone, and took the first
place, by cannoning off another of the enemy.
A loud hurrah greeted this feat, and Lord Bantock stepped forward,
determined to do something to redeem his reputation, which he knew had
suffered from the result of his former effort.
An old farmer ran as fast as his years would permit to offer his
lordship a word of advice before the last shot was fired.
‘All right, Blackwater,’ said Lord Bantock, with a nod, as he planted
his feet firmly on the ice, and gripped the handle of his stone, as if
he would bend the brass. Away went the stone with a rush, and a roar
from the crowd. Crash--crash--it struck against one and another; but
it had force enough to go on. Smash it came among the group of stones,
sending them flying in all directions, while everybody jumped aside to
avoid a collision. It was not a first-rate shot; but it was successful.
The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth stones were knocked, or
rather knocked one another, out of the way. Lord Bantock’s stone itself
went right ahead, ploughing a path for itself in the snow beyond the
rink. Alec’s second stone, long since considered to be out of the
running, was found to be half an inch nearer the tee than any one
belonging to the other side; and the Muirburn men accordingly scored
one towards the game.
At the other rinks, meanwhile, subsidiary contests were in full
progress, and the scene was a very animated one. It was, however, very
cold work for bystanders, and Cameron, as he saw that his companion
was shivering in spite of her winter clothing, proposed to Alec that
Margaret and himself should set out at once for the farm, leaving Mr.
Lindsay to overtake them when he returned. To this arrangement Alec of
course assented, and Margaret and Cameron set off together.
Most young men would have been glad to be in Cameron’s place; but the
Highlander felt very ill at ease. He began to seek for a subject which
might be supposed to be interesting to a girl, and dismissed one after
another as totally unsuitable. The silence continued, and the young
man was nearly in despair, when Margaret, totally unconscious of any
embarrassment, came to his assistance.
‘That is the way to Drumclog,’ she said, pointing to a moorland road
which crossed their path; ‘Alec and you ought to walk over some day.’
‘Is there anything to see there?’ inquired her companion.
‘Have you never heard of the Battle of Drumclog?’ asked the girl in
surprise.
The Highlander was obliged to confess that he had not.
‘Have you never read of the persecutions of the Covenanters, and Graham
of Claverhouse, and the martyrs?’ asked Margaret again, with wonder in
her eyes.
‘Oh yes, of course; but I didn’t know that these things happened in
this part of the country.’
‘Yes,’ said Margaret. ‘The Martyrs’ Cairn is only a little way beyond
Blackwater. You know the Covenanters were not allowed to worship in
their own way, and they used to meet in hollows of the hills and on the
open moors. The country was full of soldiers, sent to keep down the
people; and when the Covenanters went to the preaching, they used to
take arms with them. One Sabbath morning a large number of them were
attending a service on the lonely moor at Drumclog when the English
soldiers, who had somehow heard of the gathering, bore down upon
them. They were dragoons, led by “the bloody Claverhouse,” as they
call him to this day. Providentially there was a bog in front of the
Covenanters. The horses of the dragoons could not cross it; and those
soldiers who did cross at last were beaten off by the Covenanters, and
many of them were killed.’
‘I remember it now,’ said Cameron; ‘I have read about it in “Old
Mortality.”’
‘The most unfair book that ever was written!’ exclaimed Margaret with
some heat--‘a book that every true Scotchman should be ashamed of.’
‘I don’t see that,’ returned Cameron; ‘I think Sir Walter held the
balance very fairly.’
‘He simply turns the Covenanters into ridicule and tries to make his
readers sympathize with the persecutors,’ said Margaret.
‘Well, you can’t deny that a good many of them _were_ ridiculous,’ said
Cameron lightly.
‘And you have no sympathy for these brave men who won our liberties for
us with their blood!’ exclaimed the girl.
‘I don’t say that,’ said the young Highlander cautiously; ‘but I’m not
so sure about their having won our liberties for us,’ he added with a
laugh. ‘There wasn’t much liberty in the Highlands when _their_ King
got the upper hand.’
Then he tried to change the subject; but Margaret answered him only
in monosyllables. This daughter of the Covenanters could not forgive
anyone who refused to consider those who took part in the petty
rebellion of the west as heroes and martyrs. She made their cause her
own, and decided that Cameron was thenceforth to be regarded as a
‘malignant.’
As for Cameron, he mentally banned the whole tribe of Covenanters,
as well as his own folly in offering any opposition to Margaret’s
prejudices; and before he could make his peace with her Mr. Lindsay
drove up, and the _tête-à-tête_ came to an end.
Duncan Cameron had felt the spell of Margaret’s beauty, as everyone
did who approached her. But he had made a bad beginning in his
intercourse with her, and he now felt a strong sense of repulsion
mingling with his admiration. It was not only that he despised her
narrowness of mind; there was between the two something of the old
antagonism between Cavalier and Puritan. For the rest of his stay at
Castle Farm he avoided meeting her alone, and only spoke to her when
ordinary politeness required it. And yet, whenever she addressed him,
he felt that the fascination of her beauty was as strong as ever. When
Alec came home on the day of the curling-match, and shouted out in
triumph that Muirburn had won, Margaret’s eyes flashed, and her cheek
flushed in sympathy; and Cameron, watching her, forgot that she had not
forgiven him for his lack of sympathy with the men of Drumclog.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] A lawyer.
[5] Hard.