The Yeoman Adventurer

by George W. Gough

  CHAPTER XXIII

  DONALD

  I got my wound in the early forenoon of December the 10th. About eighto'clock on the night of the 17th I sat down in a deserted shepherd's hutto the meal Donald had got ready for me. The week had been in one respecta blank, for I had not seen Margaret. In every other respect it had beenlaborious, strenuous, and exciting, and we had just seen the end of thetoughest job so far. We, meaning my dragoons and myself, were on the topof Shap. Some ammunition wagons had broken down on the upward climb,bunging up the road at its stiffest bit and delaying us for hours. Hislordship and the Colonel, with the infantry of the rear-guard, were inShap village a mile or two ahead. The Prince was still farther on,probably in Penrith.

  The delay was dangerous. Our army had rested one full day at Preston andanother at Lancaster. Even at Preston the Colonel and I, with my dragoons,had barely ridden out of the town when a strong body of enemy horse rodein from the east, sent by Wade to reinforce the Duke. Our margin of safetywas being cut down daily. We should have to fight before long, and I wasposted here, on the top of Shap, to see that no surprise was sprung uponus.

  The shieling, as Donald called it, was about a hundred yards past thehighest point of the road, where a picket was on the watch. Across theroad was a bit of a dip, and here my dragoons were making themselvescomfortable round a roaring fire, fuel for which was provided by thesmashed-up carcass of a derelict wagon. The country was as bare as abird's tail, but by a slice of great good luck one of them had shot astray sheep on the way up, and the air was thick with the smell of singedmutton.

  Here I must say of my dragoons that they were men I loved to command.After twelve days' work of a sort to knock up an elephant they were asfresh as daisies. Donald they all feared, and as Donald, for my behoof,made no bones about telling them how the laddie's nief, sma' as it lookit,'ad dinged 'im, Donald, oot o' his seven senses, they feared me. I thinkthey even liked me. Anyhow, I never had an ugly look or a glum word fromone of them. Some people express surprise at the splendid Highlandregiments now, thanks to Mr. Pitt's politic genius, serving in our army.It is no surprise to me who have commanded a body of clansmen for afortnight in the back-end of a retreat.

  Donald was a very jewel of a man. He was servant, sergeant, nurse, andcompanion, and unbeatable in all capacities. My wound had given me moretrouble than I expected, even though Mr. Bamford had told me that one ofthe larger arteries was injured. Once or twice since, as occasion served,a doctor had dressed it, but it was Donald's incessant care that did mostfor it. I still wore my left arm in a sling.

  He had made me a fire of wood and turfs; given me roast mutton, a sliceof cheese sprinkled with oatmeal, and good bread to eat, and a pint ofmilk laced with whisky to drink. Refinements which he would have scoutedfor himself in any place, he had taken thought to provide for me in thesewilds--a pewter plate and a silver beaker, both stolen. The onlyfurnishing in the hut was a squat log, almost the size of a butcher'sblock, which served as a table. For seat, Donald rigged up half thetail-board of the wagon across two heaps of turfs. He completed his workby producing a tallow candle stuck in a dab of clay by way of candlestick.

  Donald had left me to my food and gone over to the camp to get his own. Imade a nourishable meal and then sat down before the fire to smoke andthink.

  I had not seen Margaret since Leek, and had not been alone with hersince, her hand in mine, we had crept out of the gracious presence of thedead. And I had got into a mood in which I felt that it was well I did notsee her. Some day I should have to do without her altogether, and this wasa chance of learning how to do it.

  Though I had not seen her, I had heard of her. While our army stayed theday in Lancaster I had been watching the road within sight of the spiresof Preston, wondering why the Duke's horse, after their accession ofstrength, did not come after us. The Marquess of Tiverton has since toldme that the Duke had been kept a day at Preston by rumours of a Frenchlanding on the south coast. Being far behind, I had ridden throughLancaster without drawing rein, but in the main street a stranger--one ofus, however, as his white cockade showed--had stepped up to my saddle andhanded me a letter. It was plainly of a woman's writing, and I burned tothink that it was Margaret's hand that had penned the direction to "OliverWheatman, Esquire, Captain of Dragoons in the army of His Royal Highnessthe Prince Regent." I tore it open, and found it was from the LadyOgilvie. She would understand and forgive if she could ever know howdisappointed I was.

  It had been written that morning before leaving the town, and bore tracesof hasty composition. It ran as follows:--

  "SIR,--This is to let ye know, dear Oliver, that I'm sure M. has got abee in his bonnet. I'm thinking that some one we know has tell't him shewill hae no trokings with him in the way he wants. I dinna ken forcertain, mark ye, but they were taegither last night, and this morninghe's not hanging round to pit us in ye carriage, as he ordinarily does,and she is pale and quiet, and says she wishes her father was at hand, andI like it not, dear Oliver. I call you dear Oliver because y'are such aguid laddie, just as I'm a guid girl. Davie tell't me how you stood up andsaluted him, and I was glad I'd kissed ye ance upon a time, though it wasonly to plague ye. Remember what I tell't ye about these Highland boddys.M. is like all the rest of 'em, and moreover the Prince made ye hisaide-de-camp, and it was to have been him, tho' he didna mind at the firstbecause it left him free to be courting his leddy, but noo he'll hae itrankling in his heart like poison. And keep your eye on that chiel,Donald. He's foster-brother to M., and wad stick his dirk in the Princehimself if M. tell't him to. They're not bad boddys, but that's how theyare. She says naething about ye, and that's a guid sign, I'm thinking. Iwish ye knew the French instead of that silly Lattin, for then I cud writeye a propper letter wi' nice words in it, but she says yell hae to learnItalian first to suit her, but that's only her daffery. Excuse thisill-writ note, for the paper is bad and I'm no sure o' my English whenit's guid.--Your obedient servant and loving guid friend,

  "ISHBEL OGILVIE"

  I pulled the dab of mud close to my elbow and read it again. In part itwas plain enough. That Maclachlan was madly in love with Margaret hadbecome almost a matter of common gossip. My Lord George Murray had hintedat it more than once, as he had at my displacing the young Chief in thePrince's favour. Maclachlan was son and heir to a chief of considerablepower and reputation. That he should fall in love with Margaret wasnatural, and had she fallen in love with him I should not have beensurprised. Even after the event, I still say that he was a fine,upstanding man, delightful to look on, and, so far as I knew, worthy ofany woman, even of such a one as Margaret. But the heart is master notservant, and cannot be commanded. She loved him not and there was an endof it.

  Next, Lady Ogilvie hinted at danger to me from him. Well, if he wanted afight, a fight he should have. There's no Englishman living thinks more ofScotsmen than I do, but I have never thought enough of the best Scotbreathing to run away from him. As for Donald, unless I was an idiot andhe a better actor than Mr. Garrick, he would far sooner have driven hisdirk into himself than into me. That matter could rest. There would be nofighting that night, and I never put on my breeches till it's time to getup.

  Where her ladyship was wrong was in supposing, as clearly she did, thatMargaret's love affairs interested me otherwise than as being Margaret's.I loved her, loved her dearly, all the more dearly because hopelessly. Ihad no qualifications which would enable me to speak my love. At my bestnothing but a poor yeoman, I was now not even that, I was a declared rebelin a rebellion that had failed. And if I had had every qualification thatrank and wealth could give me, it would still have been the same. Betweenher and me was the dead body of my friend and the widowed heart of mysister.

  I was meditatively refilling my pipe when I heard Donald's voice without,raised in earnest explanation.

  "An' if I didna think it wass auld Nick comin' for me afore ma reetfu'time, may I never drink anither drap whisky as lang as I live."

  Some one laughed at the explanatio
n, and Donald, still explaining, pushedopen the door and made way for Margaret, who, before I could rise, wasglowering over me, in the delightful way she had, girlish pretence justdashed with womanly earnest.

  "I shall never forgive you, nor father, nor Donald, nor anybody else. Andyou're not to move, sir!"

  "I'm sorry, madam," said I.

  "You always are. It's your favourite mood. You live on sorrow," she said,pelting me with the terse, sharp sentences. Then, for I twitched at hertelling me I lived on sorrow, she melted at once, and said, "Oh, Oliver,I'm so sorry. Why did you not send for me and let me nurse it better?Surely that was my right as well as my duty."

  There was no contenting her till she had seen and dressed my wound. Shehad brought lint and linen with her, some kind of balsam which nearly mademe glad she had not had the daily dressing of my arm, and even a basin anda huge bottle of clear spring water, which were brought in from the calashby Bimbo, Lady Ogilvie's little black coachman. The hut looked like asurgery, and Donald and Bimbo got mixed up in the most laughable way indodging about to wait on her.

  "Com' oot of it!" said Donald desperately, unwinding the little black outof his plaid for the second time.

  "You one big elephant in pekkaloats!" he retorted, grinning bare his bigwhite teeth. "You tread on Bimbo, Bimbo go squash."

  "How does it feel now?" asked Margaret, when her task was over.

  "I shall be able to clout Donald with it in the morning," I answered.

  "Tat's petter," said he, grinning with delight. "I'm thinkin' I'd sunerbe dinged wi' 'er again than see 'er hinging there daein' naethin'."

  He took Bimbo off to the camp-fire and left us alone. We wrangled aboutthe seating accommodation of the hut, for the cart-tail was but short, andI wanted her to have it to herself. She flouted the idea, and in the endwe shared it, and I minded its shortness no longer. She would fill my pipefor me, and held a burning splinter to the bowl while I got it going. Overher doctoring she had been very pale and quiet. Now she got her colourback in the light and warmth of the fire, but she quietened down again assoon as I was smoking in comfort.

  She told me briefly that she had stayed in Shap to see her father. LadyOgilvie had insisted on her keeping the calash, so that she could come onin comfort in the morning. From her father she had learned of my wound,and had come on at once to see for herself how I was. She would start backfor Shap shortly, where she was to stay the night with her father.

  She told me this and then leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hands,and went quiet again.

  I was glad of her silence, glad that she was hiding her face from me, forI needed to pull myself together. That something had happened was clear,and, whatever it was, it had struck home. In some way of deep concernmentthere was a new Margaret by my side, but in another way it was the oldfamiliar Margaret as well, for she was wearing mother's long grey domino.She had unclasped it so that it now hung loosely on her, and flung backthe hood so that the firelight made lambent flickerings in her hair.

  "I have not seen you for twelve days," she said at last.

  "No, madam."

  "Have you been neglecting me, sir?" Just a touch of vigour was in hervoice, but she still gazed at the fire.

  "You are a soldier's daughter, not an alderman's," I said quietly, andthe retort brought her head round with a jerk.

  "And how does that excuse your neglect?"

  "By giving you the chance of ascertaining from your father whether mymilitary duties have left me any opportunity of neglecting you," Ianswered steadily. As usual with me, since I could not woo, I would bemaster where I could. It was a source of mean delight to me.

  "More logic," she said briefly, and turned to the fire again.

  Apparently she tested the logic in her mind and came to the conclusionthat it was sound. She got up, threw some wood on the fire, thrusting meback playfully when I tried to forestall her, and then said merrily, "Whatdo you think dad said to-night?"

  "It would take hours to guess, I expect, so tell me at once, since I seeit hipped you."

  "It did," she said, with playful emphasis. "I fear I've not trained himup as fathers should be trained, for he coolly told me that if I had nothad the misfortune to be a girl, I might perhaps have turned out as good alad as you."

  "Misfortune!" I echoed almost angrily.

  "The exact word," she replied.

  "Misfortune! To be the most beautiful woman in England, with the world atyour feet--he calls that a misfortune?"

  I spoke energetically as the occasion demanded, being, moreover, glad ofan outlet. Before I had finished, however, she was back in her oldposition, with her face hidden from me by her hands. She puzzled me morethan ever, for, after a long silence, she burst out, "Not my world,Oliver!"

  The phrase shot up like a spout of lava from some deep centre of moltenthought. I pitied and loved her, but I was helpless. To make a diversion Ilooked at my watch and luckily it was the time when the picket at the topshould be changed, so I went to the door and opened it. A splendid blareof piping came in from the camp-fire as I did so, and Margaret tripped tothe door to listen.

  "Who is it?" she asked.

  "Donald," said I. "He's one of the great masters of the pipes. I believein the tale of Amphion and the walls of Thebes now, for this afternoon Isaw Donald pipe some broken-down wagons out of the road."

  I went across to see to the change of picket, and when I got back intothe hut I saw that the tension was over. I relit my pipe, sat down againat her side, and started a rapid series of questions as to what she hadseen and heard during the retreat. Try how I would, nay, try as we would,we did not get back to our old footing. We were afraid of silences, andskipped from topic to topic at breakneck speed. We two who had saunteredtogether in the sunlight, now stumbled along in a mist.

  At last she said she must be going, and I went out and shouted to Donaldto get Bimbo and the calash ready, and four men as an escort. When I gotback to her, she arose, somewhat wearily, and I put the domino on fullyand fitted the hood round her head.

  "You see I've gone back to the domino, Oliver," she said.

  "It's the very thing for a cold night and a dirty road," I repliedcheerfully, stepping in front of her, a couple of paces off, to take mylast look at her in the light.

  "I have never met a man who understands so much about women as you do,"she said.

  "Thank you, madam," I cried boisterously, and bowed so as to avoid hereyes. But when I was upright again, they caught mine once more, andsomething in them made me tremble.

  "Or so little," she whispered, and she was pitifully white and miserable.

  If it had not been for what I saw between us--there, on the floor ofcrazed and trampled mud, I should have flung my arms around her. But Icould not step over _that_.

  "Ta carrish iss ready," cried Donald from the door-sill.

  I packed her snugly in the calash and started two dragoons ahead. Bimboclucked to his horse and was off. I walked a hundred yards by the side ofthe carriage till it was time to whistle for the other dragoons to start.Then I made Bimbo pull up.

  The young moon was battling with great stacks of clouds, but just at thatmoment won a brief victory, and gave me a clear view of Margaret. She putout her hand, which she had not yet gloved, and I took it in mine, bowedmy head over it, and kissed it.

  "Good night, Oliver," she whispered.

  "Good night, Margaret," I replied, and whistled shrilly to hide myemotions. Something sent her away with her eyes ashine and her faceglorious with a smile.

  The dragoons clattered by, and I stood for a few minutes staringdownhill. _And so little. Not my world. And so little. Not my world_.The words rang in my ears like a peal of bells. Then, by one of the oddtricks the mind plays us, I remembered that I had left the Hanyards forthe work's sake, and that my love for Margaret could only be justified tomyself--the only one who could ever know it--by my work. Over the blacktop there, down in the blacker valley, was the enemy, her enemy, nibblingup the space between us as a rabbit
nibbles up a lettuce leaf. I closed mymind to the maddening chime, and started forthright to visit my picket.

  The road was flush with the bare windswept summit. The crumpled groundwas matted with coarse grass, almost too poor for sheep-feed. Thecamp-fire still blazed; near it a bagpipe crooned; now and again a horseshook in its harness. The moon whipped out for a moment, and then it waspitch dark again.

  As I stepped it out there was a rush at me from the grass, behind and tomy left. Down I dropped full length, and a man shot over me and sprawledin the road, but he was quick and lithe as a cat, and was up before me,for my slung arm disadvantaged me. I could just see his sword poised for acut as he fairly pounced on me. I dived outward as he jumped, and hemissed me, but before I could get behind him he was round and at me againlike a fury. I was weaponless and crippled, but if I could once get pasthis sword, it would be all over with him. The pace was so hot, and my mindwas so bent on the work, that I did not call for aid. At last I trickedhim, for in jumping aside I flung my hat hard in his face, and in a flashhad my right hand at his throat. He jabbed at me with his left, and Itwisted round to his right side, pressing his sword-arm against his body,and digging my fingers into his windpipe. I heard his sword drop, and felthim feeling for a pistol. He was as hard as a nail, and I began to dreamthat he would get me before I had choked him.

  Donald ended the matter. He, doglike in his fidelity, came striding downthe road after me. The moon outpaced the clouds again. He saw us at ourdeath-grips, and came on with a rush and a yell. He drove his dirk intothe nape of the man's neck and twisted the blade in its ghastly socket. Asharp, sickening click--and the man dropped out of my fingers like astone. The moon went in again, and hid the evil thing from us.

  "Pe she hurtit?" asked Donald anxiously.

  "Not a scratch!" I replied.

  "Tat's goot! Carry 'er up to the fire," he added to three or four men whohad run up on hearing his yell. "She's English and, maybe, she sall haefine pickins on 'er."

  He stooped down, careless of a dead man as of a dead buck, and stroppedhis dirk clean and dry on the man's breeches. Then the men, equallyindifferent, picked up the body and started off.

  "D'ye ken wha the chiel is?" asked Donald, as we walked after them.

  "A certain sergeant of dragoons, or one of his men," I answered.

  "He winna fash ye ony more," said he. "Tat's a fine way of mine, when Ican get behint a mon. I've killt mony a stot like it, shoost t' keep inthe way of it." And he stabbed the air, twisted his wrist, and clickeddelightedly.

  The men dumped the body near the fire. One of them stooped down and wasfor putting his hand in the man's pocket, but drew it back as if he hadthrust it by mischance into the flames.

  Then I knew.

  I have heard a mare squeal in a burning stable, but I have never heardagony in sound as I heard it there, on the top of Shap, when Donald flunghimself across the dead body of his chief and foster-brother.

  There is one tender memory of this distressing scene. Neither by look,word, nor tone did Donald attach blame or responsibility to me. Herecovered himself in a few minutes, and then stood up, and gave a briefcommand in Gaelic. Four awe-struck men spread a plaid on the ground,placed the dead body on it, and carried it into the hut. Donald, gravelysilent, took the pipes from the man who had been playing, and followedthem. I bared my head and went after him miserably.

  Maclachlan's body lay on the floor of the hut. The eyes were wide open,but on his fine composed face there was no trace of the agony and passionin which he had gone before his God. It was as if, in that last terriblesecond, some vision of beauty had swept his soul clean. I knelt down andreverently closed the staring eyes.

  "Donald," said I, when I arose, "I would to God that you had killed meinstead."

  "It's weird," said he solemnly, "and weird mun hae way."

  I looked at him closely. That he was struck to the heart was plain tosee, but, the first uprush of grief over, he had become sober, steadfast,almost business-like, as if he had something great in hand to do, andwould be doing it.

  He took the candle, now only the length of my ring-finger, and stuck iton the narrow window-ledge. Again he spoke to the men in Gaelic, and theymoved out of the hut. Turning to me, he said, "Com in when ta licht gaesoot!"

  He had the right to be alone with his dead. I wrung his hand and lefthim. When I looked back from the doorway, he was filling his bag withwind, but stopped to say, "Weird mun hae way." And as he said it he smiled.

  I crossed the road to the edge of the dip. More wood had been piled onthe fire, which now blazed cheerfully. Most of the men lay asleep in theirplaids, but a few stood guard over the horses, and the men who had carriedthe body into the hut were squatting on the grass by the roadside. I tookmy stand near them, and looked and listened.

  The terrible similarity of Donald's case to mine appalled me. Each of us,in saving another, had struck down in the darkness a man near and dear tohim. Two good men and true had gone when the lust of life is sweetest andthe will to live strongest. I, who three weeks ago had never seen humanlife taken, had taken it, and seen it taken, as if men were of no moreaccount than cattle. Between the house-place of the Hanyards and the topof Shap, Death had become my familiar.

  For Maclachlan I had nothing but pity. He had thought that I stoodbetween him and Margaret. Clearly he had learned of her coming back to me,and the thought had maddened him. He had disguised himself as anEnglishman and come after me, and this was the end of it.

  These were my thoughts as I watched the flickering flame dropping nearerand nearer to the window-ledge, and listened to the pipes. Donald wasinspired. He and the pipes were one. In his hands they became a livingthing. What he felt, they felt. They wept as he wept, they gloried as hegloried, they triumphed as he triumphed.

  He began with a murmur of grief that grew into a wail, became apassionate tempest, and died into a prolonged sob. Then he changed hisnote as memory wandered backward. The music became tenderly reminiscent,subduedly cheerful. They were again boys together at their play, youthfulhunters swinging over the mountains after the red deer; young men with themaidens; warriors on their first foray. The threads of life ran in and outthrough the pattern of sounds he was weaving, and the older days offighting and victories followed as I listened. There was hurrying,marching, charging; the groan of defeat; the mad slogan of final victory.

  "He's fechtin' the Macleans noo," cried out one of the men, who had someEnglish, and the others chattered vigorously for a minute in their ownGaelic.

  The candle was now guttering on the window-ledge. These glories over,Donald came hard up against the end of them all--the Chief dead at hisfeet, slain by his own hand. For a time he faltered, playing only inlittle, melancholy snatches. Then he got surer, and the music began tocome in blasts. He was seeing his way, learning what it all meant to himand the Maclachlans. Weird mun hae way. Destiny must work itself out. Wechildren of a day are helpless before it.

  The flame fell to a golden bead as the music grew in strength andpurpose. There was a burst of light, a peal of triumph, and the music andthe flame went out together.

  Across the road I raced, threw open the door, and rushed in. Everythingwas dark and still.

  "Donald!" I called passionately.

  There was no reply. I crept on tip-toe to the fire and kicked the embersinto a flame.

  Donald was lying dead across the dead body of his Chief, his dirk buriedto the hilt in his own heart.

  * * * * *

  At daybreak we buried them side by side in one grave on the top of Shap,their feet pointing northward to their own mountains. When the last clodhad been replaced, and a great boulder reverently carried up to mark thespot, I turned, covered my head, and prepared to go, but the men stood on.I looked back. They were loath to go. Something that should be done, hadbeen left undone.

  I divined what they had in mind, turned back, bared my head as theyuncovered, and repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud.

  I am
thankful to this day to those men whom fools and bigots callsavages. They taught me to pray again.

  "Man Captain," said the one who had English, as we walked away in a body,"ye wad mak' a gran' meenister."

  I could not withhold a smile, but before I could reply there was ascattered rattle of shots from the dip. Looking around, I saw a body ofenemy horse on the lower hill across the valley to my left.

  We were overtaken. We should have to fight.