by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XIII.--WHERE TREADS THE DEER.
When the English minister, in his odd lalland Scots, had told us thistale of the dying MacDonald, I found for the first time my feeling tothe daughter of the Provost of Inneraora, Before this the thought of herwas but a pleasant engagement for the mind at leisure moments; now itflashed on my heart with a stound that yon black eyes were to me thedearest jewels in the world, that lacking her presence these glens andmountains were very cold and empty. I think I gave a gasp that let JohnSplendid into my secret there and then; but at least I left him no doubtabout what I would be at.
"What's the nearer way to Strongara?" I asked; "alongside the river, orthrough Tombreck?"
He but peered at me oddly a second under his brows--a trifle wistfully,though I might naturally think his mood would be quizzical, then hesobered in a moment That's what I loved about the man; a fool would havelaughed at the bravado of my notion, a man of thinner sentiment wouldhave marred the moment by pointing out difficulties.
"So that's the airt the wind's in!" he said, and then he added, "I thinkI could show you, not the shortest, but the safest road."
"I need no guidance," I cried in a hurry, "only----"
"Only a friend who knows every wood in the country-side, and has yourinterest at heart, Colin," he said, softly, putting a hand on my elbowand gripping it in a homely way. It was the first time he gave me myChristian name since I made his acquaintance.
His company was not to be denied.
We made up some bear-meal bannocks, and a collop of boiled venison ina knapsack that I carried on my back, borrowed plaids from some of thecommon soldiery, and set out for Strongara at the mouth of the night,with the snow still driving over the land.
MacLachlan was for with us, but John turned on him with a great dealof determination, and dared him to give extra risk to our enterprise byadding another man to the chance of the enemy seeing us.
The lad met the objection ungraciously, and John took to his flattery.
"The fact is, MacLachlan," said he, taking him aside with a hand on hislapel, and a show of great confidence--"the fact is, we can't be leavingthis place in charge of a lot of old _bodachs_--Sir Donald the leastable of them all,--and if there's another attack the guidance of thedefence will depend on you. You may relish that or you may not; perhapsafter all you would be safer with us----"
MacLachlan put up his chest an inch or two, unconscious that he did it,and whistled a stave of music to give evidence of his indifference. Thenhe knitted his brows to cogitate, as it were, and--
"Very well!" said he. "If you come on my coz, you'll bring her backhere, or to the castle, I suppose?"
"I had no thought of running away with the lass, I'll take my oath,"cried John, sticking his tongue in the cheek nearest me.
"I wish I could fathom yon fellow's mind," I said to my comrade, as westepped out through the snow and into the wooded brae-side, keeping awary eye about for spies of the enemy, whose footprints we came on hereand there, but so faint in the fresh snowfall that it was certain theywere now in the valley.
"Do you find it difficult?" asked John. "I thought a man of schooling,with Latin at his tongue's-end, would see to the deepest heart ofMacLachlan."
"He's crafty."
"So's the polecat till the fox meets him. Tuts, man, you have a singularjealousy of the creature."
"Since the first day I saw him."
John laughed.
"That was in the Provost's," quo' he, and he hummed a song I caught themeaning of but slightly.
"Wrong, wrong!" said I, striding under the trees as we slanted to theright for Tombreck. "His manner is provoking."
"I've seen him polish it pretty well for the ladies."
"His temper's always on the boil."
"Spirit, man; spirit! I like a fellow of warmth now and then."
"He took it most ungraciously when we put him out of the Provost's houseon the night of the squabble in the town."
"It was an awkward position he was in. I'd have been a bit black-browedabout it myself," said John. "Man! it's easy to pick holes in thecharacter of an unfriend, and you and MacLachlan are not friendly, forone thing that's not his fault any more than yours."
"You're talking of the girl," I said, sharply, and not much caring toshow him how hot my face burned at having to mention her.
"That same," said he; "I'll warrant that if it wasn't for the girl (theold tale! the old tale!), you had thought the young sprig not a badgentleman after all."
"Oh, damn his soul!" I blurted out "What is he that he should pester hisbetters with his attentions?"
"A cousin, I think, a simple cousin-german they tell me," said John,drily; "and in a matter of betters, now--eh?"
My friend coughed on the edge of his plaid, and I could swear he waslaughing at me. I said nothing for a while, and with my skin burning,led the way at a hunter's pace. But John was not done with the subject.
"I'm a bit beyond the age of it myself," he said; "but that's no reasonwhy I shouldn't have eyes in my head. I know how much put about you areto have this young fellow gallivanting round the lady."
"Jealous, you mean," I cried.
"I didn't think of putting it that way."
"No; it's too straightforward a way for you,--ever the roundabout wayfor you. I wish to God you would sometimes let your Campbell tongue comeout of the kink, and say what you mean."
With a most astonishing steady voice for a man as livid as the snow onthe hair of his brogues, and with his hand on the hilt of his dirk, Johncried--
"Stop a bit."
I faced him in a most unrighteous humour, ready to quarrel with myshadow.
"For a man I'm doing a favour to, Elrigmore," he said, "you seem to havea poor notion of politeness. I'm willing to make some allowance for alover's tirravee about a woman who never made tryst with him; but I'llallow no man to call down the credit of my clan and name."
A pair of gowks, were we not, in that darkening wood, quarrelling onan issue as flimsy as a spider's web, but who will say it was not humannature? I daresay we might have come to hotter words and bloody blowsthere and then, but for one of the trifles that ever come in the way tochange--not fate, for that's changeless, but the semblance of it.
"My mother herself was a Campbell of an older family than yours," Istarted to say, to show I had some knowledge of the breed, and at thesame time a notion of fairness to the clan.
This was fresh heather on the fire.
"Older!" he cried; "she was a MacVicar as far as ever I heard; it wasthe name she took to kirk with her when she married your father."
"So," said I; "but----"
"And though I allow her grandfather Dpl-a-mhonadh [Donald-of-the-Hills]was a Campbell, it was in a roundabout way; he was but the son of one ofthe Craignish gentry."
"You yourself----"
"Sir!" said he in a new tone, as cold as steel and as sharp, misjudgingmy intention.
"You yourself are no more than a M'Iver."
"And what of that?" he cried, cooling down a bit "The M'ivers of Asknishare in the direct line from Duncan, Lord of Lochow. We had Pennymore,Stron-shira, and Glenaora as cadets of Clan Campbell when your Craignishcross-breeds were under the salt."
"Only by the third cousin," said I; "my father has told me over and overagain that Duncan's son had no heir."
And so we went into all this perplexity of Highland pedigree like oldwives at a waulking, forgetting utterly that what we began to quarrelabout was the more serious charge of lying. M'lver was most franticabout the business, and I think I was cool, for I was never a personthat cared a bodle about my history bye the second generation. Theymight be lairds or they might be lackeys for all the differ it made tome. Not that there were any lackeys among them. My grandfather was thegrandson of Tormaid Mor, who held the whole east side of Lochow fromFord to Sonachan, and we have at home the four-posted bed that Tormaidslept on when the heads of the house of Argile were lying on white-hayor chaff.
At last John b
roke into a laugh.
"Aren't you the _amadan_ to be biting the tongue between your teeth?" hesaid.
"What is it?" I asked, constrained to laugh too.
"You talk about the crook in our Campbell tongue in one breath," saidhe, "and in the next you would make yourself a Campbell more sib tothe chief than I am myself. Don't you think we might put off ourlittle affairs of family history till we find a lady and a child inStron-gara?"
"No more of it, then," said I. "Our difference began on my fool's notionthat because I had something of what you would call a liking for thisgirl, no one else should let an eye light on her."
By now we were in a wide glade in the Tombreck wood. On our left wecould see lying among the grey snow the house of Tombreck, with no lightnor lowe (as the saying goes); and though we knew better than to expectthere might be living people in it, we sped down to see the place.
"There's one chance in a million she might have ventured here," I said.
A most melancholy dwelling! Dwelling indeed no more but for thehoodie-crow, and for the fawn of the hill that years after I sawtreading over the grass-grown lintel of its door. To-night the place wasfull of empty airs and ghosts of sounds inexplicable, wailing among thecabars that jutted black and scarred mid-way from wall to wall The byrewas in a huddle of damp thatch, and strewn (as God's my judge) by thebones of the cattle the enemy had refused to drive before them in thesauciness of their glut A desolate garden slept about the place,with bush and tree--once tended by a family of girls, left orphan anddesolate for evermore.
We went about on tiptoes as it might be in a house of the dead, andpeeped in at the windows at where had been chambers lit by the cheerfulcruisie or dancing with peat-fire flame--only the dark was there,horrible with the odours of char, or the black joist against thedun sky. And then we went to the front door (for Tombreck was agentle-house), and found it still on the hinges, but hanging half backto give view to the gloomy interior. It was a spectacle to chill theheart, a house burned in hatred, the hearth of many songs and thechambers of love, merrymaking, death, and the children's feet, robbed ofevery interest but its ghosts and the memories of them they came to.
"It were useless to look here; she is not here," I said in a whisper tomy comrade.
He stood with his bonnet in his hand, dumb for a space, then speakingwith a choked utterance.
"Our homes, our homes, Colin!" he cried. "Have I not had the happynights in those same walls, those harmless hospitable halls, those deadhalls?"
And he looked broadcast over the country-side.
"The curse of Conan and the black stones on the hands that wrought thiswork!" he said. "Poison to their wells; may the brutes die far afield!"
The man was in a tumult of grief and passion, the tears, I knew by hisvoice, welling to his eyes. And indeed I was not happy myself, had notbeen happy indeed, by this black home, even if the girl I loved waswaiting me at the turn of the road.
"Let us be going," I said at last.
"She might be here; she might be in the little plantation!" he said (andstill in the melancholy and quiet of the place we talked in whispers).
"Could you not give a call, a signal?" he asked; and I had mind of thecall I had once taught her, the doleful pipe of the curlew.
I gave it with hesitancy to the listening night. It came back an echofrom the hills, but brought no other answer.
A wild bird roosting somewhere in the ruined house flapped out by thedoor and over us. I am not a believer in the ghostly--at least to theextent of some of our people; yet I was alarmed, till my reason came tome and the badinage of the professors at college, who had twitted me onmy fears of the mischancy. But M'Iver clutched me by the shoulder in afrenzy of terror. I could hear his teeth chittering as if he had comeout of the sea.
"Name of God!" he cried, "what was yon?"
"But a night-hag," said I.
He was ashamed of his weakness; but the night, as he said, had too manyholes in it for his fancy.
And so we went on again across the hill-face in the sombre gloaming. Itwas odd that the last time I had walked on this hillside had been fora glimpse of that same girl we sought to-night. Years ago, when I was alad, she had on a summer been sewing with a kinswoman in Car-lunnan, themill croft beside a linn of the river, where the salmon plout in a mostwonderful profusion, and I had gone at morning to the hill to watch herpass up and down in the garden of the mill, or feed the pigeons at theround doo-cot, content (or wellnigh content) to see her and fancy thewind in her tresses, the song at her lip. In these mornings the animalsof the hill and the wood and I were friendly; they guessed somehow,perhaps, no harm was in my heart: the young roes came up unafraid,almost to my presence, and the birds fluttered like comrades about me,and the little animals that flourish in the wild dallied boldly in mypath. It was a soft and tranquil atmosphere, it was a world (I thinknow) very happy and unperplexed. And at evening, after a hurried meal,I was off over the hills to this brae anew, to watch her who gave mean unrest of the spirit, unappeasable but precious. I think, thoughthe mornings were sweet, 'twas the eve that was sweeter still. All thevalley would be lying soundless and sedate, the hills of Salacharyand the forest of Creag Dubh purpling in the setting sun, a rich goldtipping Dunchuach like a thimble. Then the eastern woods filled withdark caverns of shade, wherein the tall trunks of the statelier firsstood grey as ghosts. What was it, in that precious time, gave me, inthe very heart of my happiness, a foretaste of the melancholy of comingyears? My heart would swell, the tune upon my lip would cease, my eyeswould blur foolishly, looking on that prospect most magic and fine.Rarely, in that happy age, did I venture to come down and meet thegirl, but--so contrary is the nature of man!--the day was happier when Iworshipped afar, though I went home fuming at my own lack of spirit.
To-day, my grief! how different the tale! That bygone time loomed uponme like a wave borne down on a mariner on a frail raft, the passion ofthe past ground me inwardly in a numb pain.
We stumbled through the snow, and my comrade--good heart!--said never aword to mar my meditation. On our right the hill of Meall Ruadh rose uplike a storm-cloud ere the blackest of the night fell; we walked on theedges of the plantations, surmising our way by the aid of the grey snowaround us.
It was not till we were in the very heart of Strongara wood that I cameto my reason and thought what folly was this to seek the wanderer insuch a place in dead of night. To walk that ancient wood, on the coarseand broken ground, among fallen timber, bog, bush, water-pass, andhillock, would have tried a sturdy forester by broad day; it was, to usweary travellers, after a day of sturt, a madness to seek through it atnight for a woman and child whose particular concealment we had no meansof guessing.
M'lver, natheless, let me flounder through that perplexity for a time,fearful, I suppose, to hurt my feelings by showing me how little I knewof it, and finally he hinted at three cairns he was acquaint with, eachelevated somewhat over the general run of the country, and if not theharbourage a refugee would make for, at least the most suitable coign tooverlook the Strongara wood.
"Lead me anywhere, for God's sake!" said I; "I'm as helpless as a mowdieon the sea-beach."
He knew the wood as 'twere his own garden, for he had hunted it manytimes with his cousiri, and so he led me briskly, by a kind of naturalpath, to the first cairn. Neither there nor at the second did I getanswer to my whistle.
"We'll go up on the third," said John, "and bide there till morning;scouring a wood in this fashion is like hunting otters in the deep sea."
We reached the third cairn when the hour was long past midnight I pipedagain in vain, and having ate part of our coilop, we set us down to waitthe dawn. The air, for mid-winter, was almost congenial; the snowfell no longer; the north part of the sky was wondrous clear and evenjubilant with star.
