CHAPTER VI.--MY LADY OF MOODS.
On the 27th of July in this same year 1644 we saw his lordship and hisclan march from Inneraora to the dreary north. By all accounts (broughtin to the Marquis by foot-runners from the frontier of Lorn), theIrishry of Colkitto numbered no more than 1200, badly armed with oldmatchlocks and hampered by two or three dozen camp-women bearing thebairns of this dirty regiment at their breasts. Add to this as manyHighlanders under Montrose and his cousin Para Dubh of Inchbrackie, andthere was but a force of 3500 men for the good government of Argile toface. But what were they? If the Irish were poorly set up in weapons theGaels were worse. On the spring before, Gillesbeg had harried Athole,and was cunning enough to leave its armouries as bare as the fields heburned, so now its clans had but home-made claymores, bows, and arrows,Lochaber _tuaghs_ and cudgels, with no heavy pieces. The cavalry of thisunholy gang was but three garrons, string and bone. Worse than theirill-arming, as any soldier of experience will allow, were the jealousiesbetween the two bodies of the scratched-up army. Did ever one see a Gaelthat nestled to an Irishman? Here's one who will swear it impossible,though it is said the blood is the same in both races, and we nowadaysread the same Gaelic Bible. Colkitto MacDonald was Gael by birthand young breeding, but Erinach by career, and repugnant to the mostmalignant of the west clans before they got to learn, as they didlater, his quality as a leader. He bore down on Athole, he and his towsyrabble, hoping to get the clans there to join him greedily for the sakeof the old feud against MacCailein Mor, but the Stewarts would havenothing to say to him, and blows were not far off when Montrose and hiscousin Black Pate came on the scene with his king's licence.
To meet this array now playing havoc on the edge of Campbell country,rumour said two armies were moving from the north and east: if Argileknew of them he kept his own counsel on the point, but he gave colourto the tale by moving from Inneraora with no more than 2000 foot and atroop of horse. These regimentals had mustered three days previously,camping on the usual camping-ground at the Maltland, where I spentthe last day and night with them. They were, for the main part, theCampbells of the shire: of them alone the chief could muster 5000half-merkland men at a first levy, all capable swordsmen, well drilledand disciplined _soldadoes_, who had, in addition to the usual schoolingin arms of every Gael, been taught many of the niceties of new-fashionedwar, countermarch, wheeling, and pike-drill. To hear the orders,"Pouldron to pouldron; keep your files; and middlemen come forth!" waslike an echo from my old days in Germanie. These manoeuvres they wereinstructed in by hired veterans of the Munro and Mackay battalions whofought with Adolphus. Four or five companies of Lowland soldiers fromDunbarton and Stirling eked out the strength; much was expected from thelatter, for they were, unlike our clansmen, never off the parade-ground,and were in receipt of pay for their militant service; but as eventsproved, they were MacCailein's poor reed.
I spent, as I have said, a day and a night in the camp between Aorariver and the deep wood of Tarradubh. The plain hummed with our littlearmy, where now are but the nettle and the ivied tower, and the yellowbee booming through the solitude; morning and night the shrill of the_piob-mhor_ rang cheerily to the ear of Dun-chuach; the sharp call ofthe chieftains and sergeants, the tramp of the brogued feet in theirsimple evolutions, the clatter of arms, the contention and the laughing,the song, the reprimand, the challenge, the jest,--all these werepleasant to me.
One morning I got up from a bed of gall or bog-myrtle I shared with JohnSplendid after a late game of chess, and fared out on a little eminencelooking over the scene. Not a soldier stirred in his plaid; the army wasdrugged by the heavy fir-winds from the forest behind. The light of themorning flowed up wider and whiter from the Cowal hills, the birds woketo a rain of twittering prayer among the bushes ere ever a man stirredmore than from side to side to change his dream. It was the mostmelancholy hour I ever experienced, and I have seen fields in the wanmorning before many a throng and bloody day. I felt "fey," as we say athome--a premonition that here was no conquering force, a sorrow for theglens raped of their manhood, and hearths to be desolate. By-and-by thecamp moved into life, Dun-barton's drums beat the reveille, the pipersarose, doffed their bonnets to the sun, and played a rouse; my gloompassed like a mist from the mountains.
They went north by the Aora passes into the country of Bredalbane, andmy story need not follow them beyond.
Inneraora burghers went back to their commercial affairs, and I wentto Glen Shira to spend calm days on the river and the hill. My fatherseemed to age perceptibly, reflecting on his companion gone, and heclung to me like the _crotal_ to the stone. Then it was (I think) thatsome of the sobriety of life first came to me, a more often cogitationand balancing of affairs. I began to see some of the tanglement ofnature, and appreciate the solemn mystery of our travel across thisvexed and care-warped world. Before, I was full of the wine of youth,giving doubt of nothing a lodgment in my mind, acting ever on theimpulse, sucking the lemon, seeds and all, and finding it unco sappy andpiquant to the palate. To be face to face day after day with this oldman's grief, burdened with his most apparent double love, conscious thatI was his singular bond to the world he would otherwise be keen to beleaving, set me to chasten my dalliance with fate. Still and on, ouraffection and its working on my prentice mind is nothing to dwell onpublicly. I've seen bearded men kiss each other in the France, a mostscandalous exhibition surely, one at any rate that I never gazed onwithout some natural Highland shame, and I would as soon kiss my fatherat high noon on the open street as dwell with paper and ink upon myfeeling to him.
We settled down to a few quiet weeks after the troops had gone. Rumourscame of skirmishes at Tippermuir and elsewhere. I am aware that thefabulous Wishart makes out that our lads were defeated by Montrose atevery turning, claiming even Dundee, Crief, Strathbogie, Methven Wood,Philiphaugh, Inverness, and Dunbeath. Let any one coldly calculate theold rogue's narrative, and it will honestly appear that the winner wasmore often Argile, though his lordship never followed up his advantagewith slaughter and massacre as did his foes at Aberdeen. All thesedoings we heard of but vaguely, for few came back except an odd ladwounded and cut off in the wilds of Athole from the main body.
Constant sentinels watched the land from the fort of Dunchuach, thatdominates every pass into our country, and outer guards took day andnight about on the remoter alleys of Aora and Shira Glens. South, east,and west, we had friendly frontiers; only to the north were menaceand danger, and from the north came our scaith--the savage north andjealous.
These considerations seemed, on the surface, little to affect Inneraoraand its adjacent parts. We slept soundly at night, knowing the warderswere alert; the women with absent husbands tempered their anxiety withthe philosophy that comes to a race ever bound to defend its own doors.
The common folks had _ceilidhs_ at night--gossip parties in each other'shouses, and in our own hall the herds and shepherds often convocat tochange stories, the tales of the Fingalians, Ossian and the Firme. Theburgh was a great place for suppers too, and never _ceilidh_ nor supperwent I to but the daughter of Provost Brown was there before me. Shetook a dislike to me, I guessed at last, perhaps thinking I appeared toooften; and I was never fully convinced of this till I met her once withsome companions walking in the garden of the castle, that always stoodopen for the world.
I was passing up the Dame's Pad, as it was called, a little turfed road,overhung by walnut trees brought by the old Earl from England. I had ona Lowland costume with a velvet coat and buckled shoes, and one ortwo vanities a young fellow would naturally be set up about, and theconsciousness of my trim clothing put me in a very complacent mood as Istopped and spoke with the damsels.
They were pretty girls all, and I remember particularly that Betty had aspray of bog-myrtle and heather fastened at a brooch at her neck.
She was the only one who received me coldly, seemed indeed impatient tobe off, leaving the conversation to her friends while she toyed with afew late flowers on the bushes beside her.
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br /> "You should never put heather and gall together," I said to her,rallyingly.
"Indeed!" she said, flushing. "Here's one who wears what she chooses,regardless of custom or freit."
"But you know," I said, "the badge of the Campbell goes badly with thatof so bitter a foe as the MacDonald. You might as well add the oak-stalkof Montrose, and make the emblem tell the story of those troubles."
It was meant in good-humour, but for some reason it seemed to sting herto the quick. I could see it in the flash of her eyes and the renewedflush at her temples.
There was a little mischievous girl in the company, who giggled andsaid, "Betty's in a bad key to-day; her sweetheart has vexed hersurely."
It was a trivial remark, but I went off with it in my mind.
A strange interest in the moods of this old school-friend had begun tostir me. Meeting her on my daily walks to town by the back way throughthe new avenue, I found her seemingly anxious to avoid me, and difficultto warm to any interest but in the most remote and abstract affairs.Herself she would never speak of, her plans, cares, ambitions,preferences, or aversions; she seemed dour set on aloofness. And thoughshe appeared to listen to my modestly phrased exploits with attentionand respect, and some trepidation at the dangerous portions, she hadnotably more interest in my talk of others. Ours was the only bighouse in the glen she never came calling to, though her father was anattentive visitor and supped his curds-and-cream of a Saturday withfriendly gusto, apologising for her finding something to amuse anddetain her at Roderick's over the way, or the widow's at Gearran Bridge.
I would go out on these occasions and walk in the open air with a heartuneasy.
And now it was I came to conclude, after all, that much as a man maylearn of many women studied indifferently, there is something magicalabout his personal regard for one, that sets up a barrier of mysterybetween them. So long as I in former years went on the gay assumptionthat every girl's character was on the surface, and I made no effortto probe deeper, I was the confidant, the friend, of many a fine woman.They all smiled at my douce sobriety, but in the end they preferred itto the gaudy recklessness of more handsome men.
But here was the conclusion of my complacent belief in my knowledge ofthe sex. The oftener I met her the worse my friendship progressed. Shebecame a problem behind a pretty mask, and I would sit down, as it were,dumb before it and guess at the real woman within. Her step on the roadas we would come to an unexpected meeting, her handling of a flower Imight give her in a courtesy, her most indifferent word as we met orparted, became a precious clue I must ponder on for hours. And the moreI weighed these things, the more confused thereafter I became in herpresence. "If I were in love with the girl," I had to say to myself atlast, "I could not be more engrossed on her mind."
The hill itself, with days of eager hunting after the red-deer, broughtnot enough distraction, and to stand by the mountain tarns and fish thedark trout was to hold a lonely carnival with discontent.
It happened sometimes that on the street of Inneraora I would meet Bettyconvoying her cousin young Mac-Lachlan to his wherry (he now took careto leave for home betimes), or with his sister going about the shops. Itwould be but a bow in the bye-going, she passing on with equanimity andI with a maddening sense of awkwardness, that was not much betteredby the tattle of the plainstanes, where merchant lads and others madeaudible comment on the cousinly ardour of young Lachie.
On Sundays, perhaps worst of all, I found my mind's torment. Our kirkto-day is a building of substantiality and even grace; then it wasa somewhat squalid place of worship, in whose rafters the pigeontrespassed and the swallow built her home. We sat in torturoushigh-backed benches so narrow that our knees rasped the boards beforeus, and sleep in Master Gordon's most dreary discourse was impossible.Each good family in the neighbourhood had its own pew, and Elrigmore's,as it is to this day, lay well in the rear among the shadows of theloft, while the Provost's was a little to the left and at right angles,so that its occupants and ours were in a manner face to face.
Gordon would be into many deeps of doctrine no doubt while I was in thedeeper depths of speculation upon my lady's mind. I think I found nogreat edification from the worship of those days--shame to tell it!--forthe psalms we chanted had inevitably some relevance to an earthlyaffection, and my eyes were for ever roaming from the book or from thepreacher's sombre face.
They might rove far and long, but the end of each journey round thatdull interior was ever in the Provost's pew, and, as if by some hint ofthe spirit, though Betty might be gazing steadfastly where she ought,I knew that she knew I was looking on her. It needed but my glance tobring a flush to her averted face. Was it the flush of annoyance orof the conscious heart? I asked myself, and remembering her coldnesselsewhere, I was fain to think my interest was considered animpertinence. And there I would be in a cold perspiration of sorryapprehension.