This moderation put it in my mind to question him of the Red Fox and the Appin tenants; questions which, I thought, would seem natural enough in the mouth of one travelling to that country.
He said it was a bad business. “It’s wonderful,” said he, “where the tenants find the money, for their life is mere starvation. (Ye don’t carry such a thing as snuff, do ye, Mr. Balfour? No. Well, I’m better wanting it.) But these tenants (as I was saying) are doubtless partly driven to it. James Stewart in Duror (that’s him they call James of the Glens) is half-brother to Ardshiel, the captain of the clan; and he is a man much looked up to, and drives very hard. And then there’s one they call Alan Breck—”
“Ah!” I cried, “what of him?”
“What of the wind that bloweth where it listeth?” said Henderland. “He’s here and awa; here to-day and gone to-morrow: a fair heather-cat. He might be glowering at the two of us out of yon whin-bush, and I wouldnae wonder! Ye’ll no carry such a thing as snuff, will ye?”
I told him no, and that he had asked the same thing more than once.
“It’s highly possible,” said he, sighing. “But it seems strange ye shouldnae carry it. However, as I was saying, this Alan Breck is a bold, desperate customer, and well kent to be James’s right hand. His life is forfeit already; he would boggle at naething; and maybe, if a tenant-body was to hang back he would get a dirk in his wame.”
“You make a poor story of it all, Mr. Henderland,” said I. “If it is all fear upon both sides, I care to hear no more of it.”
“Na,” said Mr. Henderland, “but there’s love too, and self-denial that should put the like of you and me to shame. There’s something fine about it; no perhaps Christian, but humanly fine. Even Alan Breck, by all that I hear, is a chield to be respected. There’s many a lying sneck-draw sits close in kirk in our own part of the country, and stands well in the world’s eye, and maybe is a far worse man, Mr. Balfour, than yon misguided shedder of man’s blood. Ay, ay, we might take a lesson by them. — Ye’ll perhaps think I’ve been too long in the Hielands?” he added, smiling to me.
I told him not at all; that I had seen much to admire among the Highlanders; and if he came to that, Mr. Campbell himself was a Highlander.
“Ay,” said he, “that’s true. It’s a fine blood.”
“And what is the King’s agent about?” I asked.
“Colin Campbell?” says Henderland. “Putting his head in a bees’ byke!”
“He is to turn the tenants out by force, I hear?” said I.
“Yes,” says he, “but the business has gone back and forth, as folk say. First, James of the Glens rode to Edinburgh, and got some lawyer (a Stewart, nae doubt — they all hing together like bats in a steeple) and had the proceedings stayed. And then Colin Campbell cam’ in again, and had the upper-hand before the Barons of Exchequer. And now they tell me the first of the tenants are to flit to-morrow. It’s to begin at Duror under James’s very windows, which doesnae seem wise by my humble way of it.”
“Do you think they’ll fight?” I asked.
“Well,” says Henderland, “they’re disarmed — or supposed to be — for there’s still a good deal of cold iron lying by in quiet places. And then Colin Campbell has the sogers coming. But for all that, if I was his lady wife, I wouldnae be well pleased till I got him home again. They’re queer customers, the Appin Stewarts.”
I asked if they were worse than their neighbours.
“No they,” said he. “And that’s the worst part of it. For if Colin Roy can get his business done in Appin, he has it all to begin again in the next country, which they call Mamore, and which is one of the countries of the Camerons. He’s King’s Factor upon both, and from both he has to drive out the tenants; and indeed, Mr. Balfour (to be open with ye), it’s my belief that if he escapes the one lot, he’ll get his death by the other.”
So we continued talking and walking the great part of the day; until at last, Mr. Henderland after expressing his delight in my company, and satisfaction at meeting with a friend of Mr. Campbell’s (“whom,” says he, “I will make bold to call that sweet singer of our covenanted Zion”), proposed that I should make a short stage, and lie the night in his house a little beyond Kingairloch. To say truth, I was overjoyed; for I had no great desire for John of the Claymore, and since my double misadventure, first with the guide and next with the gentleman skipper, I stood in some fear of any Highland stranger. Accordingly we shook hands upon the bargain, and came in the afternoon to a small house, standing alone by the shore of the Linnhe Loch. The sun was already gone from the desert mountains of Ardgour upon the hither side, but shone on those of Appin on the farther; the loch lay as still as a lake, only the gulls were crying round the sides of it; and the whole place seemed solemn and uncouth.
We had no sooner come to the door of Mr. Henderland’s dwelling, than to my great surprise (for I was now used to the politeness of Highlanders) he burst rudely past me, dashed into the room, caught up a jar and a small horn-spoon, and began ladling snuff into his nose in most excessive quantities. Then he had a hearty fit of sneezing, and looked round upon me with a rather silly smile.
“It’s a vow I took,” says he. “I took a vow upon me that I wouldnae carry it. Doubtless it’s a great privation; but when I think upon the martyrs, not only to the Scottish Covenant but to other points of Christianity, I think shame to mind it.”
As soon as we had eaten (and porridge and whey was the best of the good man’s diet) he took a grave face and said he had a duty to perform by Mr. Campbell, and that was to inquire into my state of mind towards God. I was inclined to smile at him since the business of the snuff; but he had not spoken long before he brought the tears into my eyes. There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people; but Mr. Henderland had their very speech upon his tongue. And though I was a good deal puffed up with my adventures and with having come off, as the saying is, with flying colours; yet he soon had me on my knees beside a simple, poor old man, and both proud and glad to be there.
Before we went to bed he offered me sixpence to help me on my way, out of a scanty store he kept in the turf wall of his house; at which excess of goodness I knew not what to do. But at last he was so earnest with me that I thought it the more mannerly part to let him have his way, and so left him poorer than myself.
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX
The next day Mr. Henderland found for me a man who had a boat of his own and was to cross the Linnhe Loch that afternoon into Appin, fishing. Him he prevailed on to take me, for he was one of his flock; and in this way I saved a long day’s travel and the price of the two public ferries I must otherwise have passed.
It was near noon before we set out; a dark day with clouds, and the sun shining upon little patches. The sea was here very deep and still, and had scarce a wave upon it; so that I must put the water to my lips before I could believe it to be truly salt. The mountains on either side were high, rough and barren, very black and gloomy in the shadow of the clouds, but all silver-laced with little watercourses where the sun shone upon them. It seemed a hard country, this of Appin, for people to care as much about as Alan did.
There was but one thing to mention. A little after we had started, the sun shone upon a little moving clump of scarlet close in along the water-side to the north. It was much of the same red as soldiers’ coats; every now and then, too, there came little sparks and lightnings, as though the sun had struck upon bright steel.
I asked my boatman what it should be, and he answered he supposed it was some of the red soldiers coming from Fort William into Appin, against the poor tenantry of the country. Well, it was a sad sight to me; and whether it was because of my thoughts of Alan, or from something prophetic in my bosom, although this was but the second time I had seen King George’s troops, I had no good will to them.
At last we came so near the point of land at
the entering in of Loch Leven that I begged to be set on shore. My boatman (who was an honest fellow and mindful of his promise to the catechist) would fain have carried me on to Balachulish; but as this was to take me farther from my secret destination, I insisted, and was set on shore at last under the wood of Lettermore (or Lettervore, for I have heard it both ways) in Alan’s country of Appin.
This was a wood of birches, growing on a steep, craggy side of a mountain that overhung the loch. It had many openings and ferny howes; and a road or bridle track ran north and south through the midst of it, by the edge of which, where was a spring, I sat down to eat some oat-bread of Mr. Henderland’s and think upon my situation.
Here I was not only troubled by a cloud of stinging midges, but far more by the doubts of my mind. What I ought to do, why I was going to join myself with an outlaw and a would-be murderer like Alan, whether I should not be acting more like a man of sense to tramp back to the south country direct, by my own guidance and at my own charges, and what Mr. Campbell or even Mr. Henderland would think of me if they should ever learn my folly and presumption: these were the doubts that now began to come in on me stronger than ever.
As I was so sitting and thinking, a sound of men and horses came to me through the wood; and presently after, at a turning of the road, I saw four travellers come into view. The way was in this part so rough and narrow that they came single and led their horses by the reins. The first was a great, red-headed gentleman, of an imperious and flushed face, who carried his hat in his hand and fanned himself, for he was in a breathing heat. The second, by his decent black garb and white wig, I correctly took to be a lawyer. The third was a servant, and wore some part of his clothes in tartan, which showed that his master was of a Highland family, and either an outlaw or else in singular good odour with the Government, since the wearing of tartan was against the Act. If I had been better versed in these things, I would have known the tartan to be of the Argyle (or Campbell) colours. This servant had a good-sized portmanteau strapped on his horse, and a net of lemons (to brew punch with) hanging at the saddle-bow; as was often enough the custom with luxurious travellers in that part of the country.
As for the fourth, who brought up the tail, I had seen his like before, and knew him at once to be a sheriff’s officer.
I had no sooner seen these people coming than I made up my mind (for no reason that I can tell) to go through with my adventure; and when the first came alongside of me, I rose up from the bracken and asked him the way to Aucharn.
He stopped and looked at me, as I thought, a little oddly; and then, turning to the lawyer, “Mungo,” said he, “there’s many a man would think this more of a warning than two pyats. Here am I on my road to Duror on the job ye ken; and here is a young lad starts up out of the bracken, and speers if I am on the way to Aucharn.”
“Glenure,” said the other, “this is an ill subject for jesting.”
These two had now drawn close up and were gazing at me, while the two followers had halted about a stone-cast in the rear.
“And what seek ye in Aucharn?” said Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, him they called the Red Fox; for he it was that I had stopped.
“The man that lives there,” said I.
“James of the Glens,” says Glenure, musingly; and then to the lawyer: “Is he gathering his people, think ye?”
“Anyway,” says the lawyer, “we shall do better to bide where we are, and let the soldiers rally us.”
“If you are concerned for me,” said I, “I am neither of his people nor yours, but an honest subject of King George, owing no man and fearing no man.”
“Why, very well said,” replies the Factor. “But if I may make so bold as ask, what does this honest man so far from his country? and why does he come seeking the brother of Ardshiel? I have power here, I must tell you. I am King’s Factor upon several of these estates, and have twelve files of soldiers at my back.”
“I have heard a waif word in the country,” said I, a little nettled, “that you were a hard man to drive.”
He still kept looking at me, as if in doubt.
“Well,” said he, at last, “your tongue is bold; but I am no unfriend to plainness. If ye had asked me the way to the door of James Stewart on any other day but this, I would have set ye right and bidden ye God speed. But to-day — eh, Mungo?” And he turned again to look at the lawyer.
But just as he turned there came the shot of a firelock from higher up the hill; and with the very sound of it Glenure fell upon the road.
“O, I am dead!” he cried, several times over.
The lawyer had caught him up and held him in his arms, the servant standing over and clasping his hands. And now the wounded man looked from one to another with scared eyes, and there was a change in his voice, that went to the heart.
“Take care of yourselves,” says he. “I am dead.”
He tried to open his clothes as if to look for the wound, but his fingers slipped on the buttons. With that he gave a great sigh, his head rolled on his shoulder, and he passed away.
The lawyer said never a word, but his face was as sharp as a pen and as white as the dead man’s; the servant broke out into a great noise of crying and weeping, like a child; and I, on my side, stood staring at them in a kind of horror. The sheriff’s officer had run back at the first sound of the shot, to hasten the coming of the soldiers.
At last the lawyer laid down the dead man in his blood upon the road, and got to his own feet with a kind of stagger.
I believe it was his movement that brought me to my senses; for he had no sooner done so than I began to scramble up the hill, crying out, “The murderer! the murderer!”
So little a time had elapsed, that when I got to the top of the first steepness, and could see some part of the open mountain, the murderer was still moving away at no great distance. He was a big man, in a black coat, with metal buttons, and carried a long fowling-piece.
“Here!” I cried. “I see him!”
At that the murderer gave a little, quick look over his shoulder, and began to run. The next moment he was lost in a fringe of birches; then he came out again on the upper side, where I could see him climbing like a jackanapes, for that part was again very steep; and then he dipped behind a shoulder, and I saw him no more.
All this time I had been running on my side, and had got a good way up, when a voice cried upon me to stand.
I was at the edge of the upper wood, and so now, when I halted and looked back, I saw all the open part of the hill below me.
The lawyer and the sheriff’s officer were standing just above the road, crying and waving on me to come back; and on their left, the red-coats, musket in hand, were beginning to struggle singly out of the lower wood.
“Why should I come back?” I cried. “Come you on!”
“Ten pounds if ye take that lad!” cried the lawyer. “He’s an accomplice. He was posted here to hold us in talk.”
At that word (which I could hear quite plainly, though it was to the soldiers and not to me that he was crying it) my heart came in my mouth with quite a new kind of terror. Indeed, it is one thing to stand the danger of your life, and quite another to run the peril of both life and character. The thing, besides, had come so suddenly, like thunder out of a clear sky, that I was all amazed and helpless.
The soldiers began to spread, some of them to run, and others to put up their pieces and cover me; and still I stood.
“Jouk* in here among the trees,” said a voice close by.
* Duck.
Indeed, I scarce knew what I was doing, but I obeyed; and as I did so, I heard the firelocks bang and the balls whistle in the birches.
Just inside the shelter of the trees I found Alan Breck standing, with a fishing-rod. He gave me no salutation; indeed it was no time for civilities; only “Come!” says he, and set off running along the side of the mountain towards Balachulish; and I, like a sheep, to follow him.
Now we ran among the birches; now stooping behind low hum
ps upon the mountain-side; now crawling on all fours among the heather. The pace was deadly: my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had neither time to think nor breath to speak with. Only I remember seeing with wonder, that Alan every now and then would straighten himself to his full height and look back; and every time he did so, there came a great far-away cheering and crying of the soldiers.
Quarter of an hour later, Alan stopped, clapped down flat in the heather, and turned to me.
“Now,” said he, “it’s earnest. Do as I do, for your life.”
And at the same speed, but now with infinitely more precaution, we traced back again across the mountain-side by the same way that we had come, only perhaps higher; till at last Alan threw himself down in the upper wood of Lettermore, where I had found him at the first, and lay, with his face in the bracken, panting like a dog.
My own sides so ached, my head so swam, my tongue so hung out of my mouth with heat and dryness, that I lay beside him like one dead.
CHAPTER XVIII
I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE
Alan was the first to come round. He rose, went to the border of the wood, peered out a little, and then returned and sat down.
“Well,” said he, “yon was a hot burst, David.”
I said nothing, nor so much as lifted my face. I had seen murder done, and a great, ruddy, jovial gentleman struck out of life in a moment; the pity of that sight was still sore within me, and yet that was but a part of my concern. Here was murder done upon the man Alan hated; here was Alan skulking in the trees and running from the troops; and whether his was the hand that fired or only the head that ordered, signified but little. By my way of it, my only friend in that wild country was blood-guilty in the first degree; I held him in horror; I could not look upon his face; I would have rather lain alone in the rain on my cold isle, than in that warm wood beside a murderer.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Page 83
