John Splendid: The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER XIX.--THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY.

  The month of January, as our old Gaelic notion has it, borrows threedays from July for a bribe of three young lambs. Those three days wecall Faoilteaeh, and often they are very genial and cheerful days, witha sun that in warmth is a sample of the mellow season at hand. But thisyear, as my history has shown, we had no sign of a good _Faoilteach_,and on the morning of the last day of January, when Alasdair MacDonald'sarmy set over the hills, it was wild, tempestuous weather. A wind rosein the dawning and increased in vehemence as the day aged, and with itcame a storm of snow--the small bitter sifting snow that, encounteredon the hill, stings like the ant and drifts in monstrous and impassablewreaths. Round about us yawned the glens, to me nameless, mysterious,choked to the throat with snow-mist that flapped and shook like greyrags. The fields were bleak and empty; the few houses that lay inthe melancholy plain were on no particularly friendly terms withthis convocation of Erse-men and wild kerns: they shut their doorssteadfastly on our doings, and gave us not even the compliment oflooking on at our strange manoeuvres. There was but one exception, in astaunch and massive dwelling,--a manifest baron keep or stout domicileof that nature, just on the border of the Meld in which the camp waspitched: it was apparently in the charge of two old spinster sisterswhose men-folk were afield somewhere else, for they had shutteredthe windows, barricaded the gates, and ever and anon would they showblanched faces as the tumult of our preparation disturbed them, and theycame to the door and cunningly pulled it open a little and looked outon this warlike array. If a soldier made a step in their direction theyfled inside with terror, and their cries rang in the interior.

  Those two spinsters--very white, very thin clad for a morn so rigorous,and with a trepidation writ on every feature--were all that saw us offon our march to the south-east They came out and stood hand in hand onthe door-stoop, and I have little doubt the honest bodies thanked theGod of Israel that the spoilers were departed furth their neighbourhood.

  The country we now plunged into, as may be guessed, was a _terraincognita_ to me. Beyond that it was Bade-noch and an unhealthy climefor all that wear the Campbell tartan, I could guess no more. Itwas after these little wars were over I discovered the names of thelocalities--the glens, mounts, passes, streams, and drove-roads--overwhich we passed in a march that Gustavus never faced the like of.

  With good judgment enough our captors put a small advance-guard ahead,a score of Airlie's troopers, swanky blaspheming persons, whose horsespranced very gaily up Glen Tarf, guided by John Lom. M'Iver and Iwalked together with the main body, quite free and unfettered, sometimestalking with affability to our captors. The Irish were in good humour;they cracked jokes with us in their peculiar Gaelic that at first isill for a decent Gael of Albion to follow, if uttered rapidly, but soonbecomes as familiar as the less foreign language of the Athole men,whose tongue we Argiles find some strange conceits in. If the Irishwere affable, the men of our own side of the ocean were most singularlymorose--small wonder, perhaps, for we have little reason to love eachother. Sour dogs! they gloomed at us under their bonnets and swore intheir beards. I have no doubt but for their gentry there had been dirksin us before we reached Corryarick.

  It was with the repartee of the Irish and the scowls of the Gaelswe went up the rough valley of the Tarf, where the wind moaned mostdrearily and drove the thin fine snow like a smoke of burning heather.But when we got to the pass of Corryarick our trials began, and thensuch spirit did M'Iver put in the struggle with the task before us,such snatches of song, sharp saying and old story,--such commradary asit might be named,--that we were on good terms with all. For your manof family the Gael has ever some regard. M'Iver (not to speak of myself)was so manifestly the _duine-uasail_ that the coarsest of the companyfell into a polite tone, helped to their manners to some degree no doubtby the example of Montrose and Airlie, who at the earliest moments ofour progress walked beside us and discoursed on letters and hunting, andsoldiering in the foreign wars.

  The pass of Corryarick met us with a girning face and white fangs. OnTarf-side there was a rough bridle-path that the wind swept the snowfrom, and our progress was fairly easy. Here the drifts lay waist high,the horses plunged to the belly-bands, the footmen pushed through ina sweat. It was like some Hyperborean hell, and we the doomed wretchessentenced to our eternity of toil. We had to climb up the shoulder ofthe hill, now among tremendous rocks, now through water unfrozen, nowupon wind-swept ice, but the snow--the snow--the heartless snow was ourconstant companion. It stood in walls before, it lay in ramparts roundus, it wearied the eye to a most numbing pain. Unlucky were they whowore trews, for the same clung damply to knee and haunch and froze,while the stinging sleet might flay the naked limb till the blood roseamong the felt of the kilted, but the suppleness of the joints wasunmarred.

  It was long beyond noon when we reached the head of the pass, andsaw before us the dip of the valley of the Spey. We were lost in awilderness of mountain-peaks; the bens started about us on everyhand like the horrors of a nightmare, every ben with its death-sheet,menacing us, poor insects, crawling in our pain across the landscape.

  I thought we had earned a halt and a bite of meat by this forenoon oflabour; and Montrose himself, who had walked the pass on foot like hisfellows, seemed anxious to rest, but Sir Alasdair pushed us on like afate relentless.

  "On, on," he cried, waving his long arms to the prospect before; "here'sbut the start of our journey; far is the way before; strike fast, strikehot! Would ye eat a meal with appetite while the Diarmaids wait in theway?"

  M'iver, who was plodding beside MacDonald when he said these words, gavea laugh. "Take your time, Sir Sandy," said he; "you'll need a bowl ortwo of brose ere you come to grips with MacCailein."

  "Well never come to grips with MacCailein," said MacDonald, taking thebadinage in good part, "so long as he has a back-gate to go out at or abarge to sail off in."

  "I could correct you on that point in a little affair of arms as betweengentlemen--if the time and place were more suitable," said M'Iver,warmly.

  "Let your chief defend himself, friend," said MacDonald. "Man, I'llwager we never see the colour of his face when it comes to closequarters."

  "I wouldn't wonder," I ventured. "He is in no great trim for fighting,for his arm is----"

  Sir Alasdair gave a gesture of contempt and cried, "Faugh! we've heardof the raxed arm: he took care when he was making his tale that he nevermade it a raxed leg."

  Montrose edged up at this, with a red face and a somewhat annoyedexpression. He put his gloved hand lightly on MacDonald's shoulder andchided him for debate with a prisoner of war.

  "Let our friends be, Alasdair," he said, quietly. "They are, in a way,our guests: they would perhaps be more welcome if their tartan was adifferent hue, but in any case we must not be insulting them. Doubtlessthey have their own ideas of his lordship of Argile----"

  "I never ask to serve a nobler or a more generous chief," said M'Iver,firmly.

  "I would expect no other sentiment from a gentleman of Argile's clan.He has ever done honestly enough by his own people. But have we not hadenough of this? We are wasting our wind that should be more precious,considering the toils before us."

  We found the descent of Corryarick even more ill than its climbing.The wind from the east had driven the snow into the mouth of it like awedge. The horses, stepping ahead, more than once slipped into driftsthat rose to their necks. Then they became wild with terror, dashedwith frantic hooves into deeper trouble, or ran back, quivering in everysinew and snorting with affright till the troopers behove to dismountand lead them. When we in the van reached the foot of the come we lookedback on a spectacle that fills me with new wonder to this day when Ithink of it,--a stream of black specks in the distance dropping, asit were, down the sheer face of white; nearer, the broken bands ofdifferent clansmen winding noiselessly and painfully among the drifts,their kilts pinned between their thighs, their plaids crossed on theirchests--all their weapons a weariness to them.
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  In the afternoon the snow ceased to fall, but the dusk came on earlynotwithstanding, for the sky was blotted over with driving clouds.

  At the head of Glen Roy the MacDonalds, who had lost their bauchles ofbrogues in the pass, started to a trot, and as the necessity was we hadto take up the pace too. Long lank hounds, they took the road like deer,their limbs purple with the cold, their faces pinched to the aspect ofthe wolf, their targets and muskets clattering about them. "There areCampbells to slay, and suppers to eat," the Major-General had said.It would have given his most spiritless followers the pith to run tillmorning across a strand of rock and pebble. They knew no tiring, theyseemingly felt no pain in their torn and bleeding feet, but put mileafter mile below them.

  But the Campbells were not in Glen Roy. They had been there andskirmished for a day among their old foes and had gone back toLochyside, little thinking the fires they left in the Cameron barns atmorning would light the enemy on ere night The roofs still smouldered,and a granary here and there on the sides of the valley sent up itsflames,--at once a spur to the spirit of the MacDonalds and a light totheir vengeance.

  We halted for the night in Glen Spean, with Ben Chlin-aig looming highto the south, and the river gulping in ice beside our camp. Around wasplenty of wood: we built fires and ate as poor a meal as the Highlandsever granted in a bad year, though it was the first break in our fastfor the day. Gentle and simple, all fared alike--a whang of barleybannock, a stirabout of oat-and-water, without salt, a quaich of spiritsfrom some kegs the troopers carried, that ran done before the half ofthe corps had been served. Sentinels were posted, and we slept till themorning pipe with sweet weariness in our bones.

  Our second day was a repetition of the first. We left without even abreakfast whenever the pipers set up the Cameron rant, "Sons of thedogs, O come and get flesh!" The Campbells had spoiled the bridge witha charge of powder, so we had to ford the river among the ice-lumps,MacDonald showing the way with his kilt-tail about his waist A hunterfrom a hamlet at the glen foot gladly left the smoking ruin of hishome and guided us on a drove-road into the wilds of Lochaber,among mountains more stupendous than those we had left behind. Theserelentless peaks were clad with blinding snow. The same choking driftsthat met us in Corryarick filled the passes between Stob Choire andEasan Mor and Stob Ban, that cherish the snow in their crannies in thedepths of midsummer. Hunger was eating at our hearts when we got to GlenNevis, but the glen was empty of people, and the second night fell erewe broke fast.

  I have hungered many times on weary marches, but yon was the most cruelhunger of my life. And though the pain of the starving could be dulled alittle by draughts of water from the wayside springs, what there was noremede for was the weakness that turned the flesh in every part of meto a nerveless pulp. I went down Nevis Glen a man in a delirium. My headswam with vapours, so that the hillside seemed to dance round and beforeme. If I had fallen in the snow I should assuredly have lain there anddied, and the thought of how simple and sweet it would be to stretch outmy heavy limbs and sleep the sleep for ever, more than once robbed me ofmy will. Some of the Stewarts and Camerons, late recruits to the army,and as yet not inured to its toils, fell on the wayside halfway down theglen. Mac Donald was for leaving them--"We have no need for weaklings,"he said, cruelly, fuming at the delay; but their lairds gave him a sharpanswer, and said they would bide bye them till they had recovered. Thusa third of our force fell behind us in the march, and I would have beenbehind too, but for M'Iver's encouragement. His songs were long done;his stories chilled on his lip. The hunger had him at the heart, but hehad a lion's will and a lion's vigour.

  "For the love of God!" he said to me, "do not let them think we are somuch of the Covenanter that we cannot keep up! For a Scots Cavalier youare giving in over early."

  "Campaigning with Mackay was never like this," I pleaded, wearily; "giveme the open road and an enemy before me, and I would tramp gaily tothe world's end. Here's but a choked ravine the very deer abhor in suchweather, and before us but a battle we must not share in."

  He said never a word for a few moments, but trudged on. My low-heeledshoon were less fitted for the excursion than his close-thonged broguesthat clung to the feet like a dry glove, and I walked lamely. Ever andanon he would look askance at me, and I was annoyed that he should thinkme a poorer mountaineer than those unwearied knaves who hurried us. Imust have shown my feeling in my face, for in a little he let-on to falllame too, and made the most grievous complaint of ache and weariness.His pretence deceived me but for a little. He was only at his old quirkof keeping me in good repaie with myself, but he played the part withskill, letting us both fall behind the general company a little, so thatthe Mac Donalds might not witness the indignity of it.

  Glen Nevis, as I saw it that night in the light of the moon, is whatcomes to me now in my dreams. I smell the odour of the sweat-drenched,uncleanly deeding of those savage clans about us; I see the hills lifton either hand with splintered peaks that prick among the stars--gorgeand ravine and the wide ascending passes filled ever with the sound ofthe river, and the coarse, narrow drove-road leads into despair. Thatnight the moon rode at the full about a vacant sky. There was not even avapour on the hills; the wind had failed in the afternoon.

  At the foot of the hill Cam Dearg (or the Red Mount), that is one ofthree gallant mountains that keep company for Nevis Ben the biggest ofall, the path we followed made a twist to the left into a gully fromwhich a blast of the morning's wind had cleaned out the snow as by agiant's spade.

  So much the worse for us, for now the path lay strewn with bouldersthat the dragoons took long to thread through, and the bare feet of theprivate soldiers bled redly anew. Some lean high fir-trees threw thispart into a shadow, and so it happened that as I felt my way wearily on,I fell over a stone. The fall lost me the last of my senses: I but heardsome of the Stewarts curse me for an encumbrance as they stumbled overme and passed on, heedless of my fate, and saw, as in a dwam, one ofthem who had abraded his knees by his stumble over my body, turn roundwith a drawn knife that glinted in a shred of moonlight.

  I came to, with M'Iver bent over me, and none of our captors at hand.

  "I had rather this than a thousand rix-dollars," said he, as I sat upand leaned on my arm.

  "Have they left us?" I asked, with no particular interest in the answer.It could work little difference whatever it might be. "I thought I sawone of them turn on me with a knife."

  "You did," said M'Iver. "He broke his part of the parole, and islying on the other side of you, I think with a hole in his breast.An ugly and a treacherous scamp! It's lucky for us that Montrose orMacColkitto never saw the transaction between this clay and John M'Iver,or their clemency had hardly been so great 'You can bide and see toyour friend,' was James Grahame's last words, and that's the reason I'mhere."

  M'Iver lifted me to my feet, and we stood a little to think what weshould do. My own mind had no idea save the one that we were boundto keep in touch with the company whose prisoners we were, but M'Iverhinted at an alternative scarce so honest--namely, a desertion and adetour to the left that would maybe lead us to the Campbell army beforeactive hostilities began.

  "You would surely not break parole?" said I, surprised, for he wasusually as honourable in such matters as any Highlander I ever met.

  "Bah!" he cried, pretending contempt at hesitation, though I couldperceive by his voice he was somewhat ashamed of the policy he proposed."Who quitted the contract first? Was it not that Stewart gentleman onyour other side who broke it in a most dastardly way by aiming at yourlife?"

  "I'm thankful for the life you saved, John," said I, "little worththough it seems at this time, but Montrose is not to be held responsiblefor the sudden impulse of a private. We made our pact as betweengentleman and gentleman--let us be going."

  "Oh, very well!" said he, shortly. "Let us be going. After all, we arein a trap anyway we look at all; for half the Stewarts and Gainerons arebehind in the wood there, and our flank retreat among these hills mightb
e a tempting of Providence. But are you thinking of this Athole corpand what his kin will be doing to his slayers?"

  "I'll risk it," I said, shortly. "We may be out of their hands one wayor the other before they miss him."

  On a sudden there rose away before us towards the mouth of the glen thesound of a bagpipe. It came on the tranquil air with no break in itsuproar, and after a preparatory tuning it broke into an air called"Cogadh no Sith"--an ancient braggart pibroch made by one Macruimen ofthe Isle of Skye,--a tune that was commonly used by the Campbells as anight-retreat or tattoo.

  My heart filled with the strain. It gave me not only the simple illusionthat I saw again the regimentals of my native country--many a friend andcomrade among them in the shelter of the Castle of Inverlochy--but itroused in me a spirit very antique, very religious and moving too, asthe music of his own land must in every honest Gael.

  "_Cruachan_ for ever!" I said lightly to M'Iver, though my heart wasfull.

  He was as much touched by that homely lilt as myself. "The old days, theold styles!" said he. "God! how that pibroch stings me to the core!" Andas the tune came more clearly in the second part, or _Crunluadh_ as wecall it, and the player maybe came round a bend of the road, my comradestopped in his pace and added with what in another I might have thoughta sob--"I've trudged the world; I have learned many bravadoes, so thatmy heart never stirred much to the mere trick of an instrument but one,and the _piob mhor_ conquers me. What is it, Colin, that's in us, richand poor, yon rude cane-reeds speak so human and friendly to?"

  "Tis the Gaelic," I said, cheered myself by the air. "Never a roar ofthe drone or a sob of the chanter but's in the Gaelic tongue."

  "Maybe," said he, "maybe: I've heard the scholars like yourself say thesheepskin and the drones were Roman--that or Spanish, it's all one tome. I heard them at Boitzenburg when we gave the butt of the gun toTilly's _soldadoes_, they played us into Holstein, and when the ditchof Stralsund was choked with the tartan of Mackay, and our lads werefalling like corn before the hook, a Reay piper stood valiantly in frontand played a salute. Then and now it's the pipes, my darling!"

  "I would as lief have them in a gayer strain. My fondest memories are ofreels I've danced to their playing," I said, and by now we were walkingdown the glen.

  "And of one reel you danced," said he, quizzingly, "not more than twomonths gone in a town that was called Inneraora?"

  "Two months!" I cried,--"two months! I could have sworn offhand we havebeen wandering in Lorn and Badenoch for as many years!"

  Such spirit did my native pipes, played by a clansman, put in me that myweariness much abated, and we made great progress down the glen, so thatbefore the tune had ceased we were on the back of Montrose's men as theycrept on quietly in the night.

  The piper stopped suddenly enough when some shots rang out,--an exchangeof compliments between our pickets ahead and some wandering scouts ofArgile.

  And yonder below us, Loch Linnhe and Locheil glanced in the moonlight,and the strong towers of Inverlochy sat like a scowl on the fringe ofthe wave!