hidden, or, at least, uncertain, even if he was no more to her than a
kinsman. It is from those delicate things that half our troubles
spring, because, as between man and woman, they cannot be explained in
words. They must be left to reveal themselves, and meanwhile they may
destroy sweet possibilities or gracious relationships.
My difficulty with the Black Colonel was still more complicated, for it
was as if a hair-rope of many strands, such as the Highlanders made,
enwound us. We were public enemies, sworn to causes which could have
no dealings with each other. Yet we had met secretly; and though that
mattered little to him it might easily ruin me, or, at all events, my
military career.
But, may be, I could remove that danger by a simple report to my
superiors saying what had happened. Could I? No; I could not, for a
woman's reputation was, all unknown to her, engaged in the affair, and
that takes us directly to Marget Forbes and the Black Colonel's designs
upon her name and estates.
I knew he would not stop at the sending to me of his letter, and
getting no immediate answer, which was the course I had taken, if only
because his last throw with affairs was involved. Therefore I looked
for some further act, and, having regard to the difficulty of personal
meetings, and his amiable weakness for writing, as something in which
he excelled, I was not surprised when it came in the form of another
dispatch, also borne secretly by the vagrant Red Murdo.
We actually had an old clanish knowledge of each other, this fellow and
I, because, although he was a Farquharson, the croft on which his
people dwelt was near the Gordon estate of Balmoral. We had played
with each other as boys, for the feudal system of the clans was
communal and democratic. It was, to take one illustration, customary
for the sons of chiefs to have foster-brothers adopted from the
commonalty, companions in peace time, comrades and defenders in war
time.
When then, Red Murdo, who had been lurking in a peat-moss near Corgarff
Castle, surprised me, out-of-doors, one day, it was with the friendly
salutation, "Good-morning, Captain Ian."
"Hullo," I said, "isn't it dangerous for you to be here again?"
"Not when it's to see you, but I wis gettin' weary waitin' in this damp
hole, an' the Cornel, he'll be wonderin' why I'm no' back."
"Well, my friend," said I coldly; "I won't keep you from him."
"But, I've a word to say to ye for him, and something to gie ye. I'm
to say that he expects to hear from ye in satisfaction of his letter.
But if you need remindin', will ye study, as conveyin' his feelin's and
intents, a plain copy, made by him, which I've carried in my sporran,
of my Earl Mar's known epistle to the first Jock Forbes of Inverernan,
near by Corgarff."
With this mysterious message haltingly said, as if the Black Colonel
had drilled it into his man, which was, no doubt, the truth. Red Murdo
held me out a crumpled sheet of paper.
"Tak' it, sir," he added, "an', as advice from a humble man who wishes
ye no ill, obleege the Black Cornel if you can, or he'll be tryin'
other means. You an' I ken him, Captain, ken him weel, I'm thinkin',
an' it disna' dae to neglect him, as I've found mysel' at various
times."
It was a famous and familiar document with which I had been served, or,
rather, with a fair copy of it, in the Black Colonel's best round-hand;
but its use by him to convey his sentiments and intentions to me was
quaintly original. Here was he, framing himself in the words of
urgency and high consequence, which the Earl of Mar, when that nobleman
was raising the "Standard on the Braes o' Mar," flung, like a fiery
cross, at Jock Forbes of Inverernan. You will perceive the lordly
egotism of the Black Colonel when I give you the missive, as I read it
myself, with its new, intimate and individual bearing, immediately Red
Murdo had disappeared.
"Jock," it opened, "ye was right not to come with the hundred men ye
sent up tonight, when I expected four times that number. It is a
pretty thing, when all the Highlands of Scotland are now rising upon
the King and the country's account, as I have accounts from them since
they were with me, and the gentlemen of the neighbouring homelands
expecting us down to join them, that my men should only be refractory.
"Is not this the thing we are about which they have been wishing these
twenty-six years? And now, when it is come, and the King and the
country's cause is at stake, will they for ever sit still and see all
perish? I have used gentle means too long and shall be forced to put
other means into execution.
"I have sent you, enclosed, an order for the Lordship of Kildrummy,
which you are immediately to intimate to all my vassals; if they give
ready obedience it will make some amends, and, if not, you may tell
them from me that it will not be in my power to save them--were I
willing?--from being treated as enemies by those who are ready soon to
join me; and they may depend on it that I will be the first to propose
and order their being so.
"Particularly let my own tenants in Kildrummy know that if they come
not forth with their best arms, that I will send a party immediately to
burn what they shall miss taking from them. And they may believe this
only a threat, but by all that's sacred, I'll put it into execution,
that it may be an example to others.
"You are to tell the gentlemen that I'll expect them in their best
accoutrements, on horseback, and no excuse to be accepted of. Go about
this with diligence, and come yourself and let me know your having done
so. All this is not only as ye will be answerable to me, but to your
King and country."
Straight writing enough! And that was why the Black Colonel had sent
me the historic epistle, laughing in his sleeve, I had no doubt, at the
slim originality of his method. He was for gentle means, if he could
so win his ends and Marget, but if they answered not, then, like my
Lord Mar with Jock Forbes of Inverernan, he would be "forced to put
other means into execution." While I was the immediate target for his
threat, I quite saw that the Black Colonel was aiming at a larger prize
behind me.
But what could he, a "broken man," a fugitive from justice, the justice
of the Hanoverian though it was, do to compel anybody to his schemes
and ambitions? That was to forget his place of notoriety, which gave
its own power, among the people of the Aberdeenshire Highlands.
Whenever, in going about the hills and the valleys, I met a simple man
of the soil he would touch his bonnet in salute to me, never to my
uniform, and, after a little, remark in his soft Gaelic, "So the Black
Colonel is still defying you all--a tremendous lad, isn't he?" This
would be said with a gleam in the eye, to give it delicacy, a bearing
of personal courtesy which I did not miss because I was liked for
myself, and we all like to be liked for ourselves.
You will apprehend by now, perhaps, that I knew my Highland men,
whether I found them digging peats in the moss, or gathering in their
skimp harvest of unopened corn, so that it should escape the hungry
grouse and the coming winter. They were wholly kindly, as follows from
simple living, generous in their narrow outlook, and yet strongly
individual. They had, as a people, character, which is the noblest
gift of the gods, for everything else depends on it, and hardly
anything can be achieved without it.
They took a pride in the Black Colonel, as one of themselves, and in
his deeds as a fighter who, on many occasions, had reversed the saying
about being willing to wound but afraid to strike. He had, they
admitted, wrong ways at times, and if these could not openly be
defended, still they were almost forgiven a man with his back to the
wall where a shot, or a stab, might find him any day or any night.
Withal, too, he bore about him a touch of romance, a gallant
atmosphere, and your Highlander, loving to sit on a stile and look at
the sun, will pardon much for that. Thus there was a general sympathy
with the Black Colonel, which he could draw upon either as a veil to
conceal his doings, or for active help, and it was this knowledge which
caused me to be apprehensive.
For, though thirty years had passed since his lordship of Mar
peremptorily wrote to the chief of Inverernan, our Highland life had
not changed vitally. The same rude passion ran through it, as like
mists hung over the Slock of Morvan and the gaping chasm in the side of
Lochnagar. Civilization remained primitive, love and hatred could run
high on the ebbing Jacobite tide, and the common round was still very
much what a strong hand could do and a weak one could not do.
Affections and hatreds bloom even more strongly in times of ordeal than
in times of tranquillity, perhaps because the moral reins governing
them have grown worn, and so become slacker.
It should be said, however, of the Scottish Highlands, that the chiefs,
at least, those of the northern ridge of the Grampians, were humane in
their doings, even kindly, and certainly they were never fond of taking
a clansman's life on the gallows-tree. Their whole code was against
that ignoble death, unless when an enemy had played them unfair, or a
vassal had proved himself traitor, and then they swiftly slipped a life
to the other world, holding this world to have no use for it.
Possibly, too, they found the sight of a corpse dangling from a tree
uncanny, a vision armed with threats which made them hold their
hangman's hand, for, while crafty enough, they were superstitious to a
degree. They let the gallows-tree stand grim and expectant on the
hill-side, a terror to foes and a clan discipline, and, when necessary,
found a way to their desires by the short dirk or the long sword.
Moreover, at the time of my writing, we were between the immediate
butchery of Culloden, a red and rueful business, and the insecurity of
tenure in life and home, which was to follow. It was a rough marking
of time, when national elements were in the mill, as well as those
which go to the chronicle of the Black Colonel, Marget Forbes, and
myself.
Here was I, on the edge of such happenings as assail one when he finds
subtle intrigue on the one side and innocent misunderstanding on the
other. It is always hard enough to manage such elements, but let them
get out of hand and a miracle is needed for salvation. Also you have
to find the miracle, and I composed myself to search for it in the
little things, the natural things of the situation. They have a knack
of conducting you to the heart of a problem, if you will only have
simple faith and follow them, and be not otherwise, which is
presumption.
Faith and miracles go hand in hand, in story as in fact, and when one's
mind, working rapidly, if unconsciously, has got an issue down to a
point where it can be expressed in a word, a decision has been taken.
If it be a human decision, the hills, which grow strangely mothering
and kind to their people, seem to know it, for they talk to each other
of everything but their own secrets; and they knew that I had decided
upon my course of action.
_VII.--A Parley and a Surprise_
You must ride with fortune if you expect to win many of her favours.
Like a woman, she sighs to be courted, even if she fears to be
captured. She likes adventures for themselves, and may be good to you
if you give her some. But the man who lets her ride by alone, or with
somebody who has already bridled her, and then goes out in pursuit, has
a long chase before him.
My affair with the Black Colonel was both private and public, and thus,
in a two-fold sense, the right policy was to take the offensive. Yes,
I would tell him bluntly that there could be nothing between us on the
matters he had raised, and that it was war to the dirk, with such an
eventual issue as God might will.
This was my decision, and it seemed to me that, as an officer and a
gentleman, I must intimate it to him at first-hand by invading his
retreat, the Colonel's Bed, over there in Strathdee, near his Inverey.
Singly, and alone, I would seek the Black Colonel in his den,
honourably shake myself clear of his dark overtures, and tell him to
cease his designs.
If I were to read this chronicle as remote from its occurrences as you
may do, I should, probably, toss my head and call that a quixotic
decision, but I have enough pride in being a Gordon, to wish that I may
stand fairly with the future, in small as in great matters. Therefore,
I beg you that you put yourself in my place, bearing in mind the
difficult conditions of the time in the Scottish Highlands.
A man needs a stout heart, a clear head, and a sure hand, to hold his
own in a welter of interests and antagonisms such as beset me. The
eternal instinct in a full man is to get through, to achieve, to live,
aye, and to love, thus making life a great, clamorous thing not a mere
existence. So concluding, I took the first occasion by the hand, with
what personal risk there might be, and made across the rugged bridge of
mountain which both binds and divides the Don and the Dee, to interview
the Black Colonel.
My mood was less heroic by the time I had done the miles of scarped
hill, clinging moor, and lifting wood, with bridle-paths for roads,
which took me to the locality of the Colonel's Bed. Where it was
exactly I did not know, but he had friends around who kept him
informed, and I counted on meeting one of them. Then I could send a
message to him, saying I desired to speak with him privately, and he
would guess the rest.
Things fell out like that, and I was bidden to rest in a Highland
shieling, squat of form, thatched with rushes, floored with earth, and
eat a bannock and drink a bowl of goat's milk, while my message went
forward and an answer returned. Perhaps two hours passed, and I slept
a little, for I was tired, before that answer did arrive by the eternal
Red Murdo.
To be sure, I would be made welcome by his master, but I must not feel
offended if I was blindfolded during the walk to the Colonel's Bed.
This request, courteously put by Red Murdo, showed me the situation I
had invited for myself, but, having gone so far, I was not to turn
back, and I said, "Very well." He tied a coarse tartan scarf of
home-spun wool, which he wore himself, tightly round my eyes, so
tightly that at first it hurt a little, and we started for our
destination.
We had a rough, difficult track, all up and down again, to follow, as
my feet discovered, with no sight to guide them. But Red Murdo, a
study in loyalty to his chief and in consideration for me, supported me
sturdily, and I broke no shin on the many rocks strewing our road.
I was wondering if we should ever arrive, when I heard the rush of a
stream almost beneath us. Instinctively I stopped, as one does when an
unseen danger is near, but Red Murdo said, "It's a' right; we're near
there." Next I felt as if I were walking in a cave, for there was a
peculiar hollow echo to our tread. Then the tartan scarf was removed
from my eyes, and, opening them, I saw the Black Colonel holding out
his hand.
"Glad, Sir Visitor, to see you," he said, "and such hospitality as this
poor place can offer is yours."
I took his hand, without holding it, bowed stiffly, and sat myself on a
chair made of birch branches, to which he pointed. It was, apart from
an equally rude litter-bed and a rough table, the only furniture in the
refuge. This I saw by the light of a fire of broken wood and peat
which burned slowly in a corner, where, apparently, the smoke found
some channel of escape, because it drifted slowly upward in spirals.
My feeling had been right, for this was a cave, or, rather, a tunnel,
worn in the course of centuries by the stream which had now deserted
it, to flow lower down. Above us, as I judged, rose the side of a
small hill, and immediately without there would be a sheer drop to the
departed waters, whose noise soughed like a strong wind among pine
trees.
It was a retreat made by Nature in her chance moods, and used by the
Black Colonel at that straitened time of his life. Probably only he,
Red Murdo, and a few others actually knew he was there, though he had
boasted that many did, and I should know no more than that I had been a
visitor to the Colonel's Bed. And yet I should probably know a good
deal more, for otherwise why was I there?
Anyhow, after the previous hour or two of tensity, it was a relief to
be face to face with my man, I able to read his, if I could, he able to
read mine. It was only in the grey half-light of his hole in the
rocks, but, at least, we should look each other in the eyes, as men
wish to do when they are acting honestly towards each other, even if
later they must fight.
You are quick, at a drawn moment, to seize the picture of a man, to
sound his being, and the Black Colonel, as he stood there courteously
attentive, intelligently alert, made a picture which vouchsafed a clear
personality. He would have been something ripely over thirty, but ten
years of adventure and philandering sat lightly on him, and he looked
even younger than he was. A dark man keeps the freshness of youth
well, until it begins to go in the greying of his hair, when it goes
quickly; while a fair man grows middle-aged soon, but fends off old age
well, or, at all events, the look of it.
The Black Colonel was dark entirely; dark of skin, or rather olive, as
you find men and women among a Celtic people; dark of eye to the point
of a scowl, behind which, however, there was a well of mirth; dark of
hair and dark of beard. His hair he wore long, not being always within
reach of scissors, and his beard had that silky texture which comes of
never having known a razor.
Once, as the story went, he asked Red Murdo, so-called for sundry
reasons besides his tousled red hair, to shave him with the sharp edge
of a dirk. The experiment began so ill that it never actually began at
all, and the Black Colonel had a virgin beard in which he took a due
conceit--why not? He thought it manly, where, perhaps he was right,
and he had learned in France that women thought it manly, so he was
doubly right.
The Celts, wherever found, are not generally tall, and the Black
Colonel was a pure Celt in body as well as in nature. He was
upstanding, bore himself easily, was clean in line and tough of frame.
True, he was long of the leg, among a people who, having to climb and
descend hills constantly, are, in the providence of fitness,
short-legged, but he was all of a part. The kilt tests a man's figure,
bringing out any flaw in it, and the Black Colonel's stood the test
admirably.
Moreover, he had that physical quality peculiar to the Celt which you
might call elasticity, for it is comparable to a mountain ash which
bends but does not break. There was, too, a fineness, a delicacy about
him, such as proclaims a race which has dreamt dreams and lived with
the wild glories of Nature. You cannot make common men of her
gentlemen, and her women are music to the French chanson, "It's love
that makes the world go round."
None knew this better than the Black Colonel, a Highlander with that
venturing air which goes to a woman's heart, because she fondly wants a
man who will give her the gamble of danger, and yet be strong enough to
save her from herself? You might say that he was born for quest and
conquest, what with his suavity of tongue, his grace of manner, his
roguery of eye, and his fame as a great lover.
But I was keeping him waiting and I had no desire to do that, so I
said, "You may suppose that I am not here very willingly, that it is
only duty which brings me."
"Not official duty, I hope," he answered, with an acid emphasis on the
words.
"No; I simply want, as between Highland gentlemen, to tell you two
things: first, that I return you, point blank, your overtures touching
our kinswoman, Marget Forbes, and her estate; and, second, this being
done, that I, as an officer of his Majesty's forces, will unrelentingly
discharge my commission, as best I can, next time we meet, be it soon
or not so soon."
I fired out the words as if I had been loaded with them, which, truly,
was the case, but I felt, somehow, as if the shot had not gone home.
It had no outward effect on the Black Colonel, who turned the peat
ashes of the fire with his brogued foot, and looked at the little spits
of smoke and flame which flew up. Evidently he was not so unprepared
for my ultimatum as I had expected, but I had delivered it, and the
rest was for him.
"Captain Gordon," he said, putting his hands behind his back and
looking hard at me, "I appreciate the sense of personal honour which
has brought you here. You felt you must clean the private slate
between us, before you were free to write what is to be on the public
slate. You wanted to give due declaration of war, and you have done it
at close quarters, which is the action of a Highland gentleman. But,
Captain Gordon, haven't you begun at the end of the story, instead of
at the beginning?"
"I am only concerned with the end of the story, although I have
probably been foolish in thinking that I must myself bring you news of
it."
"No honourable action is ever lost," he rejoined; "and, however events
go, I'll always put this to your credit in the account between us."
"Thank you," said I, laconically, and he moved as if my tone had stung
him, which I did not intend, because even in a war parley one may be
correct--courteous.
"What I wished to say," he went on, "is this: isn't there a way out of
our affairs which shall be creditable to you, nay, to us both, and, at
the same time, be in the public interest? Can't this private
relationship into which we have drifted, thanks to circumstances, be so
managed that it shall be fair to you as a soldier of King George, as
well as relieve me from my difficulties?"
"Surely, Jock Farquharson," I protested with warmth, "you forget your
place when you, an outlaw by decree, the doer, by admission, of many
wrongs, presume to make terms with a King's officer, even in his
private capacity."
"Strong words, my young friend," and he laughed in an airy tone that
stung me; "strong words don't belong to youth, but to the years when
the blood grows sour. You say outlaw! Why, yes and no; I am a loyal
subject of the King--the King over the water! You say I'm a cateran!
Well, I do no more than tax my enemies for what I need, and I need
little, holding as I do by the simple life, especially as no other is
open to me."
"This," I said stiffly, "is neither the rendezvous nor the time for
high-flown sentiments, especially if they have no sincerity."
"That," he added, "would be a windy business, and here the die is far
too serious to be played with, anyhow for me. Let us get down to the
humanities, which are the final element in solving a problem or leaving
it unsolved. There need be no personal bitterness between us; merely
we are in antagonism in politics and war, for the two count together
just now."
"You are unusually modest to eliminate yourself like that," I cut in,
thinking of the Black Colonel's record, but only striking his Highland
pride.
"If it so please me," he said almost angrily, "I can afford to be
modest, for I have done things. I come of good blood; I bear a name
which is old among the hills; I have carved my way to a colonelcy under
the Stuart flag, where promotion, like kissing, has often gone by
favour, yet sometimes by merit. The Prince himself, when he gave me my
rank, called me the Black Colonel in compliment to my beard, which
nobody has ever singed. The Black Colonel I remained when the Stuart
army melted in the bloody furrows of Culloden, and in truth I have, and
need not deny it, left my name in many quarters. I took it with me
when I sought the safe retreat of my own corner of the Highlands, among
friends, and I submit it with pride to you, Captain Ian Gordon."
He was aflame between wrath and egotism, and I was afraid the contagion
might catch me, which was the least desirable thing, because there lies
the road to a losing cause. But, next moment, he laughed and said,
"No, no; temper beseems neither high nor low, being kitchen work. You
are sensible enough, Captain Gordon, to let a full man have his talk,
and I have not finished yet." He thought for a moment, as if he
expected me to say something, but I only got up from my somewhat hard
seat, as if preparing to go.