CHAPTER XXIV.--A NIGHT'S SHELTER.
The rain that was a smirr or drizzle on the north side of Glencoe grewto a steady shower in the valley itself, and when we had traversed a bitin the airt of Tynree it had become a pouring torrent--slanting in ourfaces with the lash of whips, streaming from the hair and crinklingthe hands, and leaving the bonnet on the head as heavy as any Frenchsoldier's salade. I am no great unlover of a storm in the rightcircumstances. There is a long strath between Nordlingen and Donauworthof Bavaria, where once we amazed our foreign allies by setting out, bareto the kilt and sark, in threshing hail, running for miles in the peltof it out of the sheer content of encounter--and perhaps a flagon or twoof wine. It was a bravado, perhaps, but a ploy to brace the spirit; wegathered from it some of the virtues of our simple but ample elders, whowere strong men when they lay asleep with a cheek to the naked earth andheld their faces frankly up to sun or rain. But if we rejoiced in therains of Bavaria, there was no cause for glee in those torrents ofGlencoe, for they made our passage through the country more difficultand more dangerous than it was before. The snow on the ground was forhours a slushy compost, that the foot slipped on at every step, or thatfilled the brogue with a paste that nipped like brine. And when themelting snow ran to lower levels, the soil itself, relaxing the rigourof its frost, became as soft as butter and as unstable to the foot Thebums filled to the lip and brawled over, new waters sprung up amongthe rocks and ran across our path, so that we were for ever wading andslipping and splashing and stumbling on a route that seemed never tocome to any end or betterment.
Seven more pitiful men never trod Highlands. The first smirr soaked ourclothing; by the middle of the glen we were drenched to the hide, andthe rain was flowing from the edges of our kilts in runnels. Thus heavenscourged us with waters till about the hour of noon, when she alternatedwater with wind and gales burst from the west, the profound gorgesof Stob Dubh belching full to the throat with animus. There werefir-plantings by the way, whose branches twanged and boomed in thoseterrific blasts, that on the bare brae-side lifted up the snow with aninvisible scoop and flung it in our faces.
Stewart and the man with the want led the way, the latter ever with hiseyes red a-weeping, looking about him with starts and tremors, moaninglamentably at every wail of wind, but pausing, now and then, to gnawa bone he had had enough of a thief s wit to pouch in the house of theblind widow. Stewart, a lean wiry man, covered the way with a shepherd'slong stride-heel and toe and the last spring from the knee-mostpoverty-struck and mean in a kilt that flapped too low on his leg andwas frayed to ribbons, a man with but one wish in the world, to save hisown unworthy skin, even if every one else of our distressed corps founda sodden and abominable death in the swamps or rocks of that dolefulvalley. Then on the rear behind those commoners came the minister andJohn Splendid and myself, the minister with his breeks burst at theknees, his stockings caught up with a poor show of trimncss by a braidof rushes, contrived by M'Iver, and his coat-skirts streaming behindhim. You could not but respect the man's courage: many a soldier I'veseen on the dour hard leagues of Germanie--good soldiers too, heart andbody---collapse under hardships less severe. Gordon, with a drawn andcurd-white face, and eyes burning like lamps, surrendered his body tohis spirit, and it bore him as in a dream through wind and water, overmoor and rock, and amid the woods that now and again we had to hide in.
That we had to hide so little was one of the miracles of our traverse.At any other time perhaps Glencoe and the regions round about it wouldbe as well tenanted as any low-country strath, for it abounded on eitherhand with townships, with crofts that perched on brief plateaux, hereand there with black bothy-houses such as are (they say) the commondwellings over all the Hebrid Isles. Yet, moving, not in the ultimatehollow of the valley, but in fighting fashion upon the upper levels, wewere out of the way of molestation, and in any case it was a valley forthe time deserted of men. Women we could see in plenty, drawing water orbearing peats in from the bogs behind their dwellings, or crossing fromhouse to house or toun to toun, with plaids drawn tightly over theirheads, their bodies bent to meet the blasts that made their clothingbanner and full. Nor children either were there in that most barrencountry, or they kept within, sheltering the storms assailing, and thewant of them (for I have ever loved the little ones) added twenty-foldto my abhorrence of the place.
We had to hide but rarely, I say: two or three times when down in thevalley's depths there showed a small group of men who were going in thesame direction as ourselves by the more natural route, at a quarter ofa league's distance in advance of us. They were moving with more speedthan we, and for a time we had the notion that they might be survivors,like ourselves, of Argile's clan. But at last this fancy was set atflight by the openness of their march, as well as by their stoppage atseveral houses by the way, from which they seemed to be joined by othermen, who swelled their numbers so that after a time there would be overa score of them on the mission, whatever it might be. In that mistyrain-swept day the eye could not carry far, and no doubt they wereplainer to our view than we were to theirs among the drab vapours ofthe hillside. But once or twice we thought they perceived us, for theystopped and looked to the left and up the brae-face we were on, and thenit was we had to seek the shelter of tree or bush. If they saw us, theyseemed to suspect no evil, for they held on their way, still ahead ofus, and making for Tynree. Whoever they were, they became at last somanifest a danger to our escape out of the head of the glen that we fellback anew on the first plan of going through the corries on the southside of the glen and piercing by them to Dalness. In the obscurity of agreat shower that set up a screen between us and the company marchingto Tynree, we darted down the brae, across the valley, and over to thepassage they call the Lairig Eilde, that is on the west of the greatLittle Herd hill of Etive, and between it and Ben Fhada or the LongMount, whose peaks you will find with snow in their gullies in theheight of summer.
It was with almost a jocund heart I turned my back on Glencoe as we tooka drove-path up from the river. But I glanced with a shiver down itsterrible distance upon that nightmare of gulf and eminence, of gash, andpeaks afloat upon swirling mists. It lay, a looming terror, forgotten ofheaven and unfriendly to man (as one might readily imagine), haunted forever with wailing airs and rumours, ghosts calling in the deeps of duskand melancholy, legends of horror and remorse.
"Thank God," said I, as we gave the last look at it--"thank God I wasnot born and bred yonder. Those hills would crush my heart against myvery ribs."
"It's good enough for the people who are in it," said John. "What arethey but MacDonalds? 'Take and not give' is their motto. They can haveGlencoe for me, with M'Millan's right to Knapdale,--as long as wavebeats on rock."
Master Gordon, though we had spoken in the Gaelic, half guessed ourmeaning. "A black place and mournful," said he; "but there may be lovethere too and warm hearts, and soil where the truth might flourish as inthe champaign over against Gilgal beside the plains of Moreh."
Now we were in a tract of country mournful beyond my poor description.I know comes in Argile that whisper silken to the winds with juicygrasses, corries where the deer love to prance deep in the cool dew, andthe beasts of far-off woods come in bands at their seasons and togetherrejoice. I have seen the hunter in them and the shepherd too, coarsemen in life and occupation, come sudden among the blowing rush andwhispering reed, among the bog-flower and the cannoch, unheeding themoor-hen and the cailzie-cock rising, or the stag of ten at pause, whilethey stood, passionate adventurers in a rapture of the mind, held as itwere by the spirit of such places as they lay in a sloeberry bloom ofhaze, the spirit of old good songs, the baffling surmise of the piperand the bard. To those corries of my native place will be coming in theyellow moon of brock and foumart--the beasts that dote on the autumneves--the People of Quietness; have I not seen their lanthoms and heardtheir laughter in the night?--so that they must be blessed corries, soendowed since the days when the gods dwelt in them without tartan andspear in the years of
the peace that had no beginning.
But the corries of Lorn; black night on them, and the rain rot!They were swamps of despair as we went struggling through them. Theknife-keen rushes whipped us at the thigh, the waters bubbled in ourshoes. Round us rose the hills grey and bald, sown with boulders andcrowned with sour mists. Surely in them the sun never peeps even in thelong days of summer: the star, I'll warrant, never rains on them hiscalm influence!
Dolour left us speechless as we trudged, even when for a time we werelost We essayed in a silence at openings here and there, at hacks andwater-currents, wandering off from each other, whistling and calling,peering from rock-brows or spying into wounds upon the hills, so thatwhen we reached Dalness it was well on in the day. If in summer weatherthe night crawls slowly on the Highlands, the winter brings a fast blackrider indeed. His hoofs were drumming on the hills when first we sawsight of Dalness; he was over and beyond us when we reached the plain.The land of Lorn was black dark to the very roots of its trees, andthe rivers and burns themselves got lost in the thick of it, and wentthrough the night calling from hollow to hollow to hearten each othertill the dawn.
Dalness lies in Glen Etive, at a gusset of hills on either side of whichlie paths known to the drover and the adventurer. The house receded fromthe passes and lay back in a plcasance walled by whin or granite, havinga wattled gate at the entrance. When we were descending the pass wecould see a glare of light come from the place even though the mistshrouded, and by the time we got to the gate h was apparent that thehouse was lit in every chamber. The windows that pierced the tall gablesthrew beams of light into the darkness, and the open door poured outa yellow flood. At the time we came on it first we were unaware of ourpropinquity to it, and this mansion looming on us suddenly through thevapours teemed a cantrip of witchcraft, a dwelling's ghost, grey, eerie,full of frights, a phantom of the mind rather than a habitable home. Wepaused in a dumb astonishment to look at it lying there in the darkness,a thing so different from the barren hills and black bothies behind us.
We gathered in a cluster near the wattle gate, the minister perhaps theonly man who had the wit to acknowledge the reality of the vision.His eyes fairly gloated on this evidence of civilised state, so muchrecalling the surroundings in which he was most at home. As by aninstinct of decency, he drew up his slack hose and bound them anew withthe rushen garters, and pulled his coat-lapels straight upon his chest,and set his dripping peruke upon his head with a touch of the dandy'sair, all the time with his eyes on those gleaming windows, as if hefeared to relinquish the spectacle a moment, lest it should fly like adream.
We had thought first of pushing across the glen, over the river, throughCorrie Ghuibhasan, and into the Black Mount; but the journey in a nightlike what was now fallen was not to be attempted. On the hills beyondthe river the dog-fox barked with constancy, his vixen screeching like achild--signs of storm that no one dare gainsay. So we determined toseek shelter and concealment somewhere in the policies of the house. Butfirst of all we had to find what the occasion was of this brilliancyin Dalness, and if too many people for our safety were not in theneighbourhood. I was sent forward to spy the place, while my companionslay waiting below a cluster of alders.
I went into the grounds with my heart very high up on my bosom, notmuch put about at any human danger, let me add, for an encounter with anenemy of flesh and blood was a less fearsome prospect than the chance ofan encounter with more invulnerable foes, who, my skin told me, hauntedevery heugh and howe of that still and sombre demesne of Dalness. ButI set my teeth tight in my resolution, and with my dirk drawn in myhand--it was the only weapon left me--I crept over the grass frombush to bush and tree to tree as much out of the revelation of thewindow-lights as their numbers would let me.
There was not a sound in the place, and yet those lights might havebetokened a great festivity, with pipe and harp going, and dancers' feetthudding on the floor.
At one of the gables there was a low window, and I made for it, thinkingit a possible eye to a lobby or passage, and therefore not so hazardousto look in at I crept up and viewed the interior.
My window, to my astonishment, looked in on no bare plain lobby, buton a spacious salmanger or hall, very rosy with sconce-light andwood-fire--a hall that extended the whole length of the house, with abye-ordinar high ceil of black oak carved very handsomely. The walls atthe far end were hung with tapestry very like MacCailein's rooms at homein Inneraora, and down the long sides, whose windows streamed the lightupon the hall, great stag-heads glowered with unsleeping eyes, stags ofnumerous tines. The floor was strewn with the skins of the chase, and onthe centre of it was a table laden with an untouched meal, and bottlesthat winked back the flicker of the candle and the hearth.
The comfort of the place, by contrast with our situation, seemed, as Ilooked hungrily on it through the thick glass of the lozen, more greatand tempting than anything ever I saw abroad in the domains of princes.Its air was charged with peace and order; the little puffs and coils andwisps of silver-grey smoke, coming out of the fireplace into the room,took long to swoon into nothingness in that tranquil interior.
But the most wonderful thing of all was, that though the supper seemedready waiting for a company, and could not have been long left, I waitedfive or ten minutes with my face fast to the pane and no living footstepentered the room. I watched the larger door near the far-off endeagerly; it lay ajar, smiling a welcome to the parts of the housebeyond, but no one came in.
"Surely they are throng in some other wing," I thought, "and not sohungry as we, or their viands did not lie so long untouched in thatdainty room."
I went round the house at its rear, feeling my way slowly among thebushes. I looked upon parlours and bed-closets, kitchens and corridors;they were lighted with the extravagance of a marriage-night, andas tenantless and silent as the cells of Kilchrist The beds werestraightened out, the hearths were swept, the floors were scrubbed,on every hand was the evidence of recent business, but the place wasrelinquished to the ghosts.
How it was I cannot say, but The mystery of the house made me giddy atthe head. Yet I was bound to push my searching further, so round with aswithering heart went Elrigmore to the very front door of the mansionof Dalness--open, as I have said, with the light gushing lemon-yellow onthe lawn. I tapped softly, my heart this time even higher than my bosom,with a foot back ready to retreat if answer came. Then I rasped an alarmon the side of the yett with a noise that rang fiercely through theplace and brought the sweat to my body, but there was even then noanswer.
So in I went, the soft soles of my brogues making no sound on theboards, but leaving the impress of my footsteps in a damp blot.
Now, to me, brought up in a Highland farm-steading (for the house ofElrigmore is without great spaciousness or pretence), large and ramblingcastles and mansions ever seem eerie. I must in them be thinking, likeany boy, of the whisperings of wraiths in their remote upper rooms;I feel strange airs come whipping up their long or crooked lobbies atnight; the number of their doors are, to my Highland instinct, so manyunnecessary entrances for enemies and things mischancy.
But to wander over the house of Dalness, lit from tol-booth togarret with lowe--to see the fires, not green but at their prime withhigh-banked peat that as yet had not thrown an ash--to see so fine asupper waiting in a mansion utterly desolate and its doors open to thewilds, seemed a thing so magical that I felt like taking my feet fromthe place in a hurry of hurries and fleeing with my comrades from sounco a countryside. High and low I ranged in the interior. I had founda nut without a kernel, and at last I stood dumfoundered and afraid,struck solemn by the echo of my own hail as it rang unfamiliar throughthe interior.
I might have been there fifteen minutes or half an hour when M'Iver,impatient at my delay or fearing some injury to my person, came in andjoined me. He too was struck with amazement at the desertion of thehouse.
He measured the candles, he scrutinised the fires, he went round thebuilding out and in and he could but conclude that we m
ust be close uponthe gate when the house was abandoned.
"But why abandon it?" I asked.
"That's the Skyeman's puzzle; it would take seven men and seven years toanswer it," said he. "I can only say it's very good of them (if there'sno ambuscade in it) to leave so fine an inn and so bonny a supper witha bush above the door and never a bar against entrance. We'll just takeadvantage of what fortune has sent us."
"The sooner the better," said I, standing up to a fire that delightedmy body like a caress. "I have a trick of knowing when good fortune'sa dream, and i'll be awake and find myself lying on hard heather beforethe bite's at my mouth."
M'Iver ran out and brought in our companions, none of them unwilling toput this strange free hostel to the test for its warmth and hospitality.We shut and barred the doors, and set ourselves down to such a coldcollation as the most fortunate of us had not tasted since the littlewars began. Between the savage and the gentleman is but a good night'slodging. Give the savage a peaceful hearth to sit by, a roof to hishead, and a copious well-cooked supper, and his savagery will surrenderitself to the sleek content of a Dutch merchantman. We sat at a tablewhose load would have rationed a company of twice our number, and Icould see the hard look of hunting relax in the aspect of us all: thepeering, restless, sunken eyes came out of their furrowed caverns,turned calm, full, and satisfied; the lines of the brow and mouth, thecontour of the cheek, the carriage of the head, the disposition of thehands, altered and improved. An hour ago, when we were the sport offerocious nature in the heart of a country infernal, no more than oneof us would have swithered to strike a blow at a fellow-creature and tohave robbed his corpse of what it might have of food and comfort Now wegloated in the airs benign of Dalness house, very friendly to the worldat large, the stuff that tranquil towns are made of. We had even theminister's blessing on our food, for Master Gordon accepted themiracle of the open door and the vacant dwelling with John Splen-did'sphilosophy, assuring us that in doing so he did no more than he wouldwillingly concede any harmless body of broken men such as we were,even his direst enemies, if extremity like ours brought them to hisneighbourhood.
"I confess I am curious to know how the thing happened, but the hand ofthe Almighty's in it anyway," he said; and so saying he lay back in hischair with a sigh of satisfaction that lost nothing of its zest by theinfluence of the rain that blattered now in drumming violence on thewindow-panes.
John Splendid, at the table-end, laughed shortly between his sups at aflagon of wine.
"All the same," said he, "I would advise you to put some of theAlmighty's provand in your pouch, for fear the grace that is ours nowmay be torn suddenly enough from us."
Sonachan pointed at Stewart, who had already filled every part of hisgarments with broken meat, and his wallet as well. "There's a cautiousman," said he, "whatever your notion of sudden ceasing may be. He hasbeen putting bite about in his wallet and his stomach since ever we satdown. Appin ways, no doubt."
"_Biadh an diugh, cogadh a maireach_--food to-day, war to-morrow," saidthe son of kings. "Royal's my race! A man should aye be laying in as hegoes: if I had not had my wallet on Loch Leven-side, I ken some gentrywho would have been as hungry as common herds, and with nothing to helpit."
John Splendid laughed again. "Wise man, Rob!" said he; "you learnt thefirst principles of campaigning in Appin as nicely as ever I did inthe wars of the Invincible Lion (as they called him) of the North. Ourreverend comrade here, by the wisdom of his books, never questions, itseems, that we have a lease of Dalness house as long as we like to stayin it, its pendicles and pertinents, lofts, crofts, gardens, mills,multures, and sequels, as the lawyers say in their damned sheep-skins,that have been the curse of the Highlands even more than books havebeen. Now I've had an adventure like this before. Once in Regenwalde,between Danzig and Stettin, where we lay for two months, I spent a nightwith a company of Hepburn's blades in a castle abandoned by a cousinof the Duke of Pomerania. Roystering dogs! Stout hearts! Where are theynow, those fine lads in corslet and morgensterne, who played havoc withthe casks in the Regenwalde cellar? Some of them died of the pest inSchiefelbein, four of them fell under old Jock Hepburn at Frankfort, thelave went wandering about the world, kissing and drinking, no doubt, andlying and sorrowing and dying, and never again will we foregather in avacant house in foreign parts! For that is the hardship of life, thatit's ever a flux and change. We are here to-day and away to-morrow, andthe bigger the company and the more high-hearted the merriment, theless likely is the experience to be repeated. I'm sitting here in amiraculous dwelling in the land of Lorn, and I have but to shut my eyesand round about me are cavaliers of fortune at the board. I give youthe old word, Elrigmore: 'Claymore and the Gael '; for the rest--pardonme--you gentlemen are out of the ploy. I shut my eyes and I seeFowlis and Farquhar, Mackenzie, Obisdell, Ross, the two _balbiren_ and_stabknechten_ with their legs about the board; the wind's howling upfrom Stettin road; to-morrow we may be carrion in the ditch at Guben'sGate, or wounded to a death by slow degrees in night scaladoe. Thatwas soldiering. You fought your equals with art and science; here's----Well, well, God's grace for MacCailein Mor!"
"God's grace for us all!" said the minister.
The man with the want fell fast asleep in his chair, with his limbsin gawky disposition. Stewart's bullet-head, with the line of the ovalunbroken by ears, bobbed with affected eagerness to keep up with thefast English utterance and the foreign names of M'Iver, while all thetime he was fingering some metal spoons and wondering if money was inthem and if they could be safely got to Inneraora. Sonachan and thebaron-bailie dipped their beaks in the jugs, and with lifted heads, asfowls slocken their thirst, they let the wine slip slowly down theirthroats, glucking in a gluttonous ecstasy.
"God's grace for us all!" said the minister again, as in a benediction.
M'Iver pushed back his chair without rising, and threw a leg across itsarm with a complacent look at the shapely round of the calf, that hishose still fitted with wonderful neatness considering the stress theymust have had from wind and rain.
"We had grace indeed," said he, "in Pomerania. We came at night, just asnow, upon this castle of its most noble and puissant lord. It was PalmSunday, April the third, Old Style. I mind, because it was my birthday;the country all about was bursting out in a most rare green; the gardensand fields breathed sappy odours, and the birds were throng at theDigging of their homes in bush and eave; the day sparkled, and river andcloud too, till the spirit in a person jigged as to a fiddle; the nightsallured to escapade."
"What was the girl's name?" I asked M'Iver, leaning forward, finding hisstory in some degree had parallel with my own.
"Her name, Colin--I did not mention the girl, did I? How did you guessthere was a girl in it?" said John, perplexed.
I flushed at my own transparency, and was glad to see that none but theminister (and M'Iver a little later) had observed the confession of myquery. The others were too busy on carnal appetites to feel the touch ofa sentiment wrung from me by a moment's illusion.
"It is only my joke," I stammered; "you have a reputation among thesnoods."
M'Iver smiled on me very warm-heartedly, yet cunningly too.
"Colin, Colin," he cried. "Do I not know _you_ from boot to bonnet? Youthink the spring seasons are never so fond and magic as when a man iscourting a girl; you are minding of some spring day of your own and anight of twinkling stars. I'll not deny but there was a girl in my casein the parlour of Pomerania's cousin at Regenwalde; and I'll not denythat a recollection of her endows that season with something of itscharm. We had ventured into this vacant house, as I have said: itslarders were well plenished; its vaults were full of marshalled brigadesof bottles and battaglia of casks. Thinking no danger, perhaps carelessif there was, we sat late, feasted to the full, and drank deep in ahouse that like this was empty in every part It was 1631--I'll leave youbut that clue to my age at the time--and, well I was an even prettierlad than I am to-day. I see you smile, Master Gordon; but that's my bitjoke. Still th
ere's some relevance to my story in my looks too. ThoughI was but a sergeant of pikes (with sons of good families below me, asprivates, mind you), I was very trim and particular about my apparel.I carried myself with a good chest, as we say,--my features and my legspeak for themselves. I had sung songs--trifles of my own, foolishlyesteemed, I'm hearing, in many parts of Argile. I'll not deny but I liketo think of that, and to fancy young folks humming my ditties by warmAres when I'm maybe in the cold with the divot at my mouth. And I hadtold a tale or two--a poor art enough, I'll allow, spoiled by bookcraftIt was a cheery company as you may guess, and at last I was at a displayof our Highland dancing. I see dancing to-day in many places that is notthe thing as I was taught it by the strongest dancer in all Albainn. Thecompany sat facing me as I stepped it over a couple of sword-blades,and their backs were to the door. Mackenzie was humming a _port-a-bheul_with a North Country twang even in his nose, and I was at my laststep when the door opened with no noise and a girl looked in, her eyesstaring hard at me alone, and a finger on her lips for silence. A man ofless discernment would have stopped his dance incontinent and betrayedthe presence of the lady to the others, who never dreamt so interestinga sight was behind them. But I never let on. I even put an extraflourish on my conclusion, that came just as the girl backed out at thedoor beckoning me to follow her. Two minutes later, while my friendswere bellowing a rough Gaelic chorus, I was out following my lady ofsilence up a little stair and into a room below the eaves. There shenarrated to me the plot that we unhappy lads were to be the victimsof. The house was a trap: it was to be surrounded at night, when we hadeaten and drunken over-well, and the sword was our doom arranged for.The girl told me all this very quietly in the French she learned I wasbest master of next to my own Gaelic, and--what a mad thing's the bloodin a youth--all the time I was indifferent to her alarum, and ponderingupon her charms of lip and eye. She died a twelvemonth later in Glogoeof Silesia, and---- God give her peace!"
"You may save your supplication," said Gordon; "her portion's assigned,a thing fixed and unalterable, and your prayer is a Popish conceit."
"God give her peace! I'll say it, Master Gordon, and I'll wish it in theface of every Covenanter ever droned a psalm! She died in Silesia, notcareless, I'm thinking, of the memory of one or two weeks we spentin Frankfort, whose outer lanes and faubourgs are in my recollectionblossoming with the almond-flower and scented at eve."
He rose to his feet and paced the floor beside us, strong, but looseneda little at the tongue by the generous wine of Dalness; his mien ablending of defiance against the cheatry of circumstance and a displayof old ancient grief.
"Heart of the rose, _gramachree_, bird-song at the lip, star eye andwisdom, yet woman to the core! I wish I were so young as then I was, and_ochanie_, what availed my teens, if the one woman that ever understoodme were no more but a dust in Glogoe!"
"Come, come, man," I cried; "it's a world full of very choice women."
"Is it indeed?" asked he, turning on me a pitiful eye; "I'm wrong if youever met but one that was quite so fine as you must have them---- Tuts,tuts, here I'm on the key of old man's history. I cheat myself at timesof leisure into the notion that once I loved a foreign girl who died aspotless maiden. You'll notice, Master Gordon, I have something of thesentiment you Low-landers make such show of, or I play-act the thingvery well. Believe me, I'll hope to get a wife out of your parish someday yet; but I warn you she must have a tocher in her stocking as wellas on her father's hill."
The minister surveyed him through half-shut eyes, leaning back on therungs of his chair. I think he saw the truth as clearly as I did myself,for he spoke with more than common softness when he answered.
"I like your tale," he said, "which had a different conclusion and amore noble one than what I looked for at the opening." Then he leanedout and put a hand on John Splendid's sleeve. "Human nature," saidhe, "is the most baffling of mysteries. I said I knew you from boot tobonnet, but there's a corner here I have still to learn the secret of."
"Well, well," cried M'Iver, lifting a glass confusedly, and seatinghimself again at the board, "here's a night-cap--MacCailein Mor and theCampbell cause!"
"And a thought for the lady of Regenwalde," I whispered, pressing hisfoot with my toe beneath the table, and clinking my glass with his.
We drank, the two of us, in a silence, and threw the glasses on thehearth.
The windows, that now were shuttered, rattled to gowsty airs, andthe rain drummed on. All about the house, with its numerous corners,turrets, gussets, and corbie-stepped gables, the fury of the world roseand wandered, the fury that never rests but is ever somewhere round theancient universe, jibing night and morning at man's most valiant effort.It might spit and blow till our shell shook and creaked, and the staunchwalls wept, and the garden footways ran with bubbling waters, but wewere still to conquer. Our lanthorn gleamed defiance to that brag ofnight eternal, that pattern-piece of the last triumph of the oldestenemy of man--Blackness the Rider, who is older than the hoary star.
Fresh wood hissed on the fire, but the candles burned low in theirsockets. Sonachan and the baron-bailie slept with their heads on thetable, and the man with the want, still sodden at the eyes, turned hiswet hose upon his feet with a madman's notion of comfort.
"I hope," said M'Iver, "there's no ambuscade here, as in the houseof the cousin of his Grace of Pomerania. At least we can but bideon, whatever comes, and take the night's rest that offers, keeping aman-about watch against intrusion."
"There's a watch more pressing still," said Master Gordon, shaking theslumber off him and jogging the sleeping men upon the shoulders. "Mysoul watcheth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. Wehave been wet with the showers of the mountain, like Job, and embracingthe rock for want of a shelter. We are lone-haunted men in a wild landencompassed by enemies; let us thank God for our safety thus far, andask. His continued shield upon our flight."
And in the silence of that great house, dripping and rocking in thetempest of the night, the minister poured out his heart in prayer. Ithad humility and courage too; it was imbued with a spirit strong andcalm. For the first time my heart warmed to the man who in years afterwas my friend and mentor--Alexander Gordon, Master of the Arts, the manwho wedded me and gave my children Christian baptism, and brought solacein the train of those little ones lost for a space to me among thegrasses and flowers of Kilmalieu.