a disturbance of the birds and animals of the wild. A grouse ran with
a flutter and took wing with a cry, half in protest at being wakened
from its sleep, half in alarm at my presence. A rabbit rushed from a
sheltering hole in such a hurry that, as I could tell by its clatter
among the bracken, it nearly fell over itself, as rabbits clumsily do,
making fluffy, woolly balls of themselves.
When there is danger about, Nature gives all her children of the open a
chance to escape by instantly warning them, and, in this, alarming
their instinct. My particular rabbit had scarcely run out of hearing
when half a dozen others were scurrying hither and thither in the same
expectant confusion. Poor little things! What a fluster they made,
and their scare communicated itself to a crow in a solitary fir-tree,
against which I nearly collided. He croaked, flapped his wings and
sailed off heavily, blackly, also anxious for safety.
Now, by the sheer exercise of walking, I had spent my restlessness, and
the hill air had driven the blood from my head. Moreover, I grew
tired, for the road tells when you have to pick your steps in the dark,
over rough ground. So, coming upon a fir-tree root, I made a seat of
it, and waited for night to fully turn into day, a transformation which
came swiftly.
We have all seen the first flicker of a piece of tinder, fired by a
beaten flint. It is like something come, only to go again, but
presently it passes into a stronger flame, and then into light. This
is the awakening of a Highland day, when the conditions resemble those
of that morning.
The heavy pall of clouds, lying low over the hills, seemed to take
motion, for trifling rents appeared in them. The rents grew bigger,
and then the stars, which had been shining all the time in the welkin
above, began to look through those peep-holes. It was the sun setting
to work upon the earth once more, our side of the globe returning to
his rays and warmth.
Slowly I looked about me, like one roused from a half-dream, seeing the
near things first, and, as the dawn grew, ranging for the far things.
Beneath me lay a glen pavilioned in the splendour of the rising sun,
and gilded with the praise of the hills. Browns and reds and greens
swam before my eyes into a radiant landscape, along which flowed the
water of Don, a ribbon of silver, whose surface the fat trout would
presently be breaking. Beside it wandered the road, on which,
presently, to my astonishment, I made out two figures. Who could they
be, there, at that time?
When I left Corgarff Castle I had, out of habit, slung my spyglass over
my shoulder, and I set it towards the men. One was in the tartan of my
own regiment, the other in a tartan of darkish green with a red stripe
in it, like the Farquharson tartan. I made out, by their actions, that
they were quarrelling, so I started for them, and who do you think I
found? My own sergeant and the Black Colonel's Red Murdo.
"What are you men doing and how are you here?" I asked abruptly, for I
was breathless, as well as surprised and angry.
The sergeant's answer was a salute, for he had not time to speak before
Red Murdo was launched on a torrent of indignant words. He had, he
said, come over to the ball in attendance on the Black Colonel, as I
might know. He intended to depart with him, but had taken more of my
hospitality--stout fellow!--than he could carry, which delayed his
departure. Some of my men had old scores against him, old crows to
pick with him, particularly this sergeant, who, therefore, had followed
him, determined to have the quarrel out: "While I," quoth Red Murdo,
"only want to go quietly home."
"What's the quarrel?" I demanded of the sergeant.
"Well," he replied quaintly, "it does na' matter what it is, tho' he
kens, as lang's we settle who's the better man. He's up to every
dodge, but there's no room for that wi' only the twa o's here."
"And what were you doing when I arrived? What was about to happen?" I
asked.
"We were jist arguin' which was the better man," declared the sergeant,
"and I was na' goin' to leave it at that. A deceesion for me; he
beggit to be let awa'!"
"Beggit!" broke in Red Murdo; "beggit anything from you, my man! Na,
na; I was beggin' you to return to Corgarff Castle in case something
happen't to you. You wid'na', as I tell ye, be the first red-coat on
whose hide I had left a mark. But I was forbearin', because I did na'
want trouble to follow Captain Ian's kindness in askin' us to the ball
last evening."
Red Murdo glanced at me, as if he expected me to side with him, but my
thoughts were not yet for words. You can best hold a judicial air when
you say little, give no reasons, and here I had to be judge and jury.
For the quarrel, if it was carried to a violent end, might have
unfortunate results on the general peace of the country. It would not
do to have my sergeant killing Red Murdo in single combat, or Red Murdo
killing my sergeant, certainly not with me looking on.
If you happen to know some legal jingle of words you can almost
certainly pacify the raw man of strife, by gravely reciting it at him.
Sheriffs, procurators-fiscal, bailies and others accustomed to take
oaths, and sometimes to say them, will confirm this curious influence
of formality. Partly it impresses, and it will surely confuse, and
then the subject can be led to a better frame of mind.
So I thought of the oath banning the Highland dress, which, in the
unwisdom of our over-lords, exercised by right of force, a Jacobite
rebel had to take, before he could get a pardon. It had an official
place among the papers of my office, and there I had let it rest, but I
loathed it so much that its language had bitten itself into my mind.
How this foully conceived oath had fired the spirit of a people proud
to wear their tartans, because of the Highland sentiment which they
clothed! But to use it to compass a private quarrel, to twist its
possible tragedy into healing honour, that was appealing! My sergeant
I must support outwardly, and my stratagem would secure this, without
putting Red Murdo in peril. He, probably, had a secret inkling that I
was searching for a way out, because he kept looking, looking at me,
even while he talked and talked.
"You know the law?" I slowly addressed him.
"Only like my master," he said, "by breakin' it."
"You know that any man who has been in rebellion against his Majesty
King George may be apprehended on sight, tried, punished and executed."
"If you say that it'll be so, but it does na' interest me; I tak' my
orders frae the Chief of Inverey, nae frae King George or his officers,
least o' all a mere sergeant."
"Still," I went on, "you will perceive that he was doing his duty, or
what he thinks his duty." Red Murdo's look suggested that he thought I
was rambling, but I went on sharply; "and in the exercise of his duty
he is entitled to all the support of his superior officer."
The sergeant's face beamed with approval, as if he had been discovered
in an act of great public advantage and was to be rewarded
[Transcriber's note: a line appears to be missing from the book here.]
that of Red Murdo simply asked, "What are you driving at?"
"Now," I said, lifting my right hand in the manner of judges, "I am
going to administer an oath to you, and when you have taken it all will
be well and you shall go your way."
"What sort o' oath," he asked; "what has it to do wi' me, who's only
concern't wi' the Black Cornel's oaths? Tell it to me, first."
"Very well, listen," and with as much solemnity as I could muster I
repeated the words of the oath:
"I do swear, as I shall answer to God at the Great Day of Judgment, I
have not, nor shall have, in my possession, any gun, sword or arm
whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland
garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family and
property; may I never see my wife and children, father, mother or
relations; may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without
Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my
forefathers and kindred: may all this come across me if I break my
oath."
Red Murdo kept looking at me, mute, perhaps impressed; anyhow, he
presently asked, "What if I refuse?"
"The penalties laid down by law," I told him, still solemnly, "are six
months in prison for a first offence and transportation beyond the seas
for a second."
"A device o' the devil and King George," grunted Red Murdo, and I
should have been glad to agree with him, only I had to play the game
out.
"Will you take the legal oath?"
"Never. It's what I suppose the sergeant was goin' to cram doon my
throat an' he could, the same infernal thing. Never, frae you, or him,
or the pair o' ye."
This was a turn I had not expected, and I was wondering what to do next
when Red Murdo said, "I'll tell ye what I'll dae. I'll wrestle the
sergeant which o's will eat a copy of that ugly oath, and that'll also
satisfy him who's the better man."
The sergeant did not show an instant keenness for this challenge, but
it got me round a corner, and must be accepted. I declared to that
effect, and desired both men to get ready, saying I would be umpire. I
added that there should be only one bout because, secretly, I had no
wish to see them hurt one another.
Red Murdo and the sergeant put their plaids, their jackets, their
bonnets, their sporans, and their brogues, in little heaps, with each
man's weapons above each man's things. Neither spoke, for action,
which naturally has the effect of sealing the tongue, had now arrived,
and I chose a level piece of sward where they might fall with
comparative softness.
When I saw how nearly they were matched in physique, the spirit of
primitive combat in me began to be interested, to calculate who would
win. True to the fighting tactics he knew Red Murdo rushed to grips,
but the sergeant drove him off, and they manoeuvred round each other
for the next effort. It was pretty to see them, that bright morning,
with the whole picturesque valley for arena and I for the only
spectator of their prowess. Moreover, they were warming to the fight,
which was one between the disciplined strength and skill of the soldier
and the wild agility of Red Murdo.
Those different qualities met so evenly that feint, and catch and heave
as each combatant would, the other remained unthrown. Once Red Murdo
got his antagonist by the waist, lifted him clean off the ground and
whirled him round like a totum, only to have him alight on his feet.
Once, also, the sergeant, by a supple twist of arm and leg, working
together, got Red Murdo half down and no more. Really it was a toss-up
who should win, or whether there would be a winner at all.
My only ground of interference would be foul play, and although they
went at each other almost savagely there was no absolute act of that
kind. But the strain was telling on both men, for they took no rest,
and hardly waited to get fresh breath. The sinews of their legs stood
out like whip-cord, their chest heaved like bellows in distress, their
necks were scarlet with the tumult of the blood there. Only the
unexpected would make a victor or a loser, and the unexpected did not
happen, as it does sometimes.
Red Murdo tried a last torrential rush, but the sergeant withstood it,
and they merely locked themselves together. Nay, they were now so
exhausted that they could only hang on to each other for support, a
spectacle which brought me to their side. Their bulging eyes stared at
me with the pleading look which a horse has after being driven too far
and too fast. When I divided them by a touch of my hand they both fell
to the ground like logs and so lay.
Honour was satisfied, the hated oath of the kilt had not to be eaten by
anybody, and I was glad.
_X.--The Way of a Woman_
Between you and me, I fancy that the average, natural woman likes to
think any man who is after her a bit of the devil. It makes her pulse
beat, if not her heart; it gives a fine spice to the pursuit, and she
is confident there will be no capture, unless she wills it. Anyhow, I
was not going to help the Black Colonel in his schemes by holding him
up as a hero of that order, and he would have made the comment that he
needed not the service from me.
Marget Forbes and I had fallen into the pleasant custom of lending each
other such books as came the way of our remote land, and I called at
the Dower House to leave her one, a newly imprinted volume entitled
"Robinson Crusoe." I did not seem to wish to make meetings with her,
though I was glad of them, so I chose a time, the mid-afternoon, at
which she and her mother usually walked out. However, Marget was at
home, and she called to me from the parlour, would I not enter and rest
a minute? Necessarily I must step inside to say I would not wait, and
necessarily I found myself sitting down near her.
"Mother," she said, "is on her weekly round among the sick and old, to
whom a kind word from her is like gold, of which we now have none to
give. Usually I go with her, but to-day she would have it that I
looked tired, and she bade me stay indoors and rest. I'm glad you
called and brought me a book, especially this wonderful 'Robinson
Crusoe,' of which I have heard vaguely, and which they say is founded
on the adventure of a Scotsman, Alexander Selkirk. You are always
thoughtful, or shall I say sometimes?" and Marget looked as if she
expected me to understand the qualification.
Was it a reproach that I did not come into her company often enough;
was it a playful invitation to do so oftener; or was it the woman's
primal instinct, old as Eve in the Garden of Eden, just to tease the
man? I scarcely asked myself those questions. They ran through my
mind with the kind of physical impulse which you feel in the presence
of the possible woman. You are aware, then, of feelings and shadows of
feeling which cannot be expressed. There is something in you which
goes on speaking to the something in her, and you let it speak, glad,
wondering, expectant, never sure, never sorry. Odd, isn't it, this
language of sex which says most when it says nothing by speech, which
needs not speech, because it is spiritual, though springing, maybe,
from the call of the blood.
Marget had been reading, and when she invited me in, and I went, she
put the open book face downward on a little table, beside a half-made
sampler. She saw my eye wandering to the volume, a mere mechanical
curiosity on my part, and she picked it up with a laugh, saying, "There
is no need to hide those pages, unless it be that they are dull."
"What is the book all about?" I asked idly.
"It is a French romance," she said, "in which a lovely heroine treads
her way through an endless maze of difficult paths and a brigade of
villains to what, I have no doubt, when I get there with her, if ever I
do, will be endless wedded bliss. It is an over-sentimental story, for
the French young girl, but, then, one must try to keep up what French
one has, because it is a delightful language."
Marget had learned it as a girl in France, for she had lived there a
while, seen something of the Stuart Court over the water, of the Court
of King Louis also, and even heard the passing rustle of the skirts of
"the Pompadour" and Madame du Barry. Already the breath of a freer day
to come was blowing across that fair land, and her stay in it
definitely influenced Marget's character, ripened it quickly on broadly
beautiful lines, without hurting its pure scent of Scottish heather.
Hospitality was a duty as well as a pleasure in every Highland home,
and, after our trifles of a few minutes, she rose and went to give some
order. When she returned she said she had a small treat in store for
me, and it came into the room almost with herself. What do you think
it was? Why, tea!
It was a beverage then almost unknown in the Scottish Highlands, but
Marget's family, as she said, had at intervals received packets of it
from their friends in the south. Those gifts were hoarded as if they
contained treasure, and only dipped into for very special reasons.
"It flatters me," I remarked airily, "to think I am a special reason,
because that must come near being a special friend."
"Oh," quoth Marget, "but you are an official enemy, so how could you be
a special friend? And still such things are possible, you know, but I
shall not tell you how they are possible. You would not understand a
bit"; and, as she spoke, her eyes and hands were arranging the
tea-table.
"I should, I assure you, try very hard," said I, "and it would be odd
if I did not succeed, with a dish of tea for stimulant. I don't
remember when I tasted tea last," I added laconically, as Marget poured
it out of a quaint old pot into dwarfy cups of French mould. Most of
the dainty things, the bric-à-brac of households in the Jacobite
Highlands were from France, just as we had come to say "ashets" and
"gigots" of mutton, and generally to graft French cookery into our
Scottish meals, for the "Auld Alliance" had various harvests.
As we talked over the tea-cups, Marget and I, I thought how quickly in
that Nature's cradle of Corgarff she had ripened to woman's estate.
She had, at times, been in touch with the artificialities of social
life, but they had not dulled her free, strong character. She had
drawn her instincts, as she had drawn her blood, from the long hills,
and she had no self-consciousness to dim her lights. But when I rose
to leave she said merrily, "We have spoken much foolish nonsense, have
we not, Captain Gordon?"
"Wise nonsense, Mistress Forbes," I answered.
"Thank you, but wise nonsense is most becoming when it is expressed as
a parable."
"Then let us have the parable."
"Oh! parables are not in fashion with so many hard realities about, and
there should not be three people in one. Three's never company, they
say, good company, even in a parable."
"Then, dear lady, why put in three?"
"This parable, dear Captain, would need three; first, a high-minded
young man who wears arms and dreams dreams, who is beloved by everybody
for his good nature and qualities, who is on the other side of where he
would be most welcome, and who will probably never summon courage to
get there; secondly, an older man of more picturesque, more risky
qualities, an adventurer in love and war, never afraid to strike, even
if the stroke might wound, a personality able, on occasion, to
commandeer what could not be secured by affection, thanks to an
understanding of woman's nature and the imperfections of man's
government; and, thirdly, between those personal forces a woman who
might, to her undoing, be captured by the force of family and state
circumstances, instead of by the man of her tell-tale heart's desire."
"A very subtle parable!" I remarked, for no reason whatever, but the
tone of it held more than this banality, although she showed no heed of
that, but remarked:
"No; a very common parable; it's what every woman knows by instinct or
experience, if few would care to reveal it, even in a parable."
We said good-bye without more ado, and I set off for the castle,
troubled for my unreadiness in woman nature, the most puzzling,
calling, captivating skein in all the universe, because it holds,
behind the silken veil of its treasure-house, the eternal mystery of
creation, that something divine which is nearest to God Himself.
When in trouble, my trouble, anyhow, one sighs for a song, and my
heart-quaking carried me to a ballad, very familiar in our countryside,
which tells of an unbridled lover laying siege to a woman he covets.
Her men were absent, and she and her domestics were the only garrison
of the castle when he knocked roysterously at its gates:
"The lady ran up to her towe-head,
As fast as she could drie,
To see if by her fair speeches
She could with him agree.
"As soon he saw the lady fair,
And her yates all locked fast,
He fell into a rage of wrath,
And his heart was aghast.
"Cum doon to me, ye lady fair;
Cum doon to me; let's see;
This nigh ye's ly by my ain side
The morn my bride sall be!"
It was pagan wooing, but it has often won the day, only why should I
let it disturb me, whose cause stood by itself? What I must realize
was that powers above me were at work, for "state reasons," on affairs
in which I was concerned, privately. I must try to meet this influence
without letting as much be known outwardly, because I was an officer
bound by my commission to serve his Majesty's desires and commands.
Now I am no good schemer, and I merely drifted to those conclusions as
a swimmer goes with a tide in which he happens to find himself. He
feels that he is in its custody, but, on the instinct for life, he
makes a stroke now and then and their cumulative effect probably bears
him somewhere safe to land. Might it be so with me!
Unfortunately I was a swimmer in the dark, for I did not know, however
I might guess, what Marget and her mother were thinking. Perhaps my
heart really assured my mind as to Marget, or so I was fain to
conclude. Her mother, however, might take a mother's view, the
far-carrying view which thinks of daughters settled in such a manner as
will continue the old line.
Every man has, deep down in him, the desire to own a little bit of
land, even though most of us only get six feet for a grave. It is
man's form of ancestor-worship, and in woman it finds expression in the
home, and continuous olive branches to fill that home. The man likes
to have his foot securely on a rood of Mother Earth, a patch to call
his very own. The woman supplements that by peopling a house; and is
not this service of the maternal instinct the greater, the finer of the
two?
One placed in circumstances which need strong action, should not think
too much, because by doing that he raises a wall of difficulties around
him. Mental ghosts are no use to anybody, although, to be sure, they
weren't unknown to me. So I welcomed a letter that reached me next
morning from Marget's mother, but I opened it with a dread. It
addressed me as "Dear Captain Gordon," and it read:
"I am troubling you for advice, because there is nobody else whom I can
ask, and because the matter may interest you, both as a relative, far
removed I admit, and as a soldier of the reigning king. You will guess
what it is, and that makes it easier for me to explain.
"It has been made known to us in a round-about, but authoritative way,
that it would give King George and his ministers satisfaction to see
our house and people established again, and that Jock Farquharson, the
laird of Inverey, would be confirmed in the chiefship, if as much were
agreeable to my daughter and myself.
"They don't ask me will I give my daughter in ransom for the house and
possessions of our ancestors, but that is what is meant, and you can
judge how the idea has concerned me. You may also, however, concern
and interest a mother at the same time, and I have hesitated to return
a 'No,' especially as Marget said, about the letter, when I showed it
to her, 'Well, the sons of the house have sacrificed enough for it. It
may now be the turn of the daughter to sacrifice something . . .!"
"That was dutifully said, but what she expects, I'm certain, is that I
shall say the 'No' of my own accord, and I want your advice as to the
manner in which it can best be done. I want it at once, because news
comes to me, through the early channel of our domestics, that the Black
Colonel means to ride over upon us one of these evenings, a friendly
call, I suppose. Marget does not know of this intention on his part,
and I am not going to tell her, for a mother's instinct naturally
wishes to shield a daughter from disturbance.
"If you would advise me how to say 'No' without bringing further
displeasure from high places upon our ruined house, you would be doing
us a service. If, besides that, you were to find a means of keeping
the Black Colonel away, why, you would be doing a further service."
As I read that last sentence an idea struck me, and I at once sent a
note to the dear lady, saying I would solve her difficulty. Then I
dispatched a pair of trusty scouts in quest of certain information I
needed, and in eight hours they were back with it. After that, I felt
more myself than I had done for some time, just because I was now
committed to definite, perhaps even dangerous, action.
_XI--The Crack of Thunder_
It is fine how the spur of danger, especially danger to somebody else,
dear if not near, helps a man's spirits upward. The blood flows more
quickly in him, his hand is surer, his brain works better. He feels
that the die has been cast, that nothing more matters, except the
reckoning, and, so feeling, he sheds all timorous self-consciousness
and is himself.
That, at all events, was how I felt as I took the road southward,
across the hills towards Deeside, with a cracking wind to walk against.
I would intercept the Black Colonel's raid on Marget and her mother,
and break the whole scheme behind it--if I could!