Morning was beginning to brighten the sky behind the sharp peaks of the eastern hills as we slowly descended from the lofty summit of the Craig-na-tuirc. We had got our English visitors up to that altitude very well; but getting themdownfrom it proved a very different and more arduous affair: Callum at last lost all patience, and saying that he wished he 'had a keallach to carry the dainty bodach in,' hoisted Mr. Snobleigh,bongré malgré, on his shoulders, and sturdily carried him to the foot of the mountain leaving to Captain Clavering and me the task of laughing, and supporting the crest-fallen baronet.
The sun had risen above the mountains when we reached the narrow path that traversed my native and old hereditary glen; the morning wind was lifting the light leaves of the silver birches, and rustling the wiry foliage of the Scottish pines that clothed the steep sides of the lovely valley. At times a roebuck started up from among the green and waving bracken, to vanish with a wild bound into the gloomy thickets; and the pale mist was wreathing the dun summit of Ben Ora.
A flood of amber glory rolled along the hills, lighting up in quick succession each rocky peak and heath-clad cone, and filling all the glens with warmth as the sun arose; and Callum Dhu, whose mind was full of the ancient usages and superstitions of the Gael, raised his bonnet with reverence to the god of day.
''Pon my soul, you are a rum one!' exclaimed Mr. Snobleigh, as he was set on the ground again; 'but—aw—aw—fine fellow after all; we owe you I don't know how much for your bravery, and I for this canter down hill,' he added, unclasping his porte-monnaie.
'I am neither a horse nor a servant,' said Callum, with a dark expression in his eye.
Now that Sir Horace was free from danger, and felt somewhat mollified towards mankind in the Highlands generally, every bitter thought which the teachings of my Celtic mother, the precepts of my nurse, and the example of Callum could inspire, returned with renewed vigour to my breast; and on reaching the rugged bridle-road, with a haughty, hostile, and distant aspect, I touched my bonnet, and on seeing the baronet's carriage approaching (together with Mr. Snaggs on a trotting mountain garron), was about to withdraw, when Clavering politely requested me to stay.
On the patrimonial estate of my forefathers, I found myself regarded as little better than a shepherd, and treated by these pampered strangers as a mere gilly, trapper, or bush-beater; and my fiery spirit revolted within me, on reflecting that the poor attire Callum and myself wore, declared us to be little better. But find, if you may, a Birmingham baronet, or a cotton lord, whose titles came with the Reform Bill, who will acknowledge that a Scottish chief whose name and lineage may be coeval with Old King Cole, or the Wars of Fingal, can be equal to his own.
The carriage halted; a liveried lacquey sprang from the rumble, banged down the steps, and opened the door, on which Laura Everingham and Fanny Clavering alighted to welcome and embrace Sir Horace, who received this demonstration with the proper and well-bred frigidity of one who abhorred 'a scene;' but his daughter hung upon his neck, calling him her 'dear papa—her own papa,' while observing with alarm that he trembled excessively, his whole nervous system being seriously shaken, as well it might.
'You are ill, dear papa!' said Laura, regarding him anxiously.
'A draught from St. Colme's well might do him good,' said Callum Dhu; 'but perhaps he has water enough in him already—and so, a good sup of whisky—'
'Right,' said Captain Clavering, searching in the pocket of the carriage, and producing a flask of brandy, a 'nip' from which greatly revived the old gentleman, who, in a few words, made his daughter and her friend acquainted with the danger he had run, and the courage by which he had been rescued.
'So you see, Mr. Snaggs,' said the baronet, 'our Celt here, with the beard like a French sapeur, has been to me a real friend.'
'Glad to hear it, Sir Horace,' mumbled Snaggs with one of his detestable smiles; 'but how seldom do we find one—what is it the divine Blair saith, Mr. Snobleigh?'
'Eh—aw—don't know, really.'
'It isthis, my dear sir; "there is a friend that loveth at all times and a brother that is born for adversity. Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not."'
'Aw—vewy good—devilish good, indeed!'
Miss Everingham, while her pale cheek glowed, and then grew pale again, fixed her bright eyes, full of tears, and gratitude upon Callum and me, and while touching our hands, timidly, exclaimed,
'Oh, how shall we ever thank you—how repay this!'
'Aw—aw—'pon my soul, that is just what I have been thinking of,' said Snobleigh, who 'mouthed' his words as if he had been reared in the Scottish law courts, where we may daily hear the most astounding and miraculous English that tongue can utter.
My heart throbbed; a new and undefinable emotion thrilled through me, at the touch of Laura's soft and pretty hands, and the truthful, thankful, and earnest glance of her soft blue English eyes.
'Ah, that devil of a pony!' sighed Sir Horace; 'I hope its neck was broken at the cascade. Egad! it started off with me as if it had been running for the Ascot Cup!'
'So did all our cattle. How lucky that we were dismounted!' observed Miss Clavering.
'It was like the Start for the Derby,' laughed her brother.
'Or the Doncaster Cup and Saucer,' added Snobleigh, 'Sir Horace leading the way.'
'But it is time we were moving,' said that personage. 'Come—you, sir, to whom I owe so much—what is your name?'
'Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'
'Ah, well; get into the rumble, and come with us to Glen Ora House, and you shall have lunch and a good bottle of wine with the butler.'
'I do not lunch, neither do I dine with lacqueys,' replied Callum, proudly.
'Whew! aw—I see—these Highland fellows are all alike. Clavering, have you any money about you?'
The captain handed his purse to the baronet, who took from it, and from his own, the gold they contained, and turning to Callum, said—
'My good fellow, here are fifteen sovereigns; but you will call on me at Glen Ora House, and bring your friend with you; new coats and shoes, &c., are at your service; but what the devil is the matter with you?'
'Monna, mon dioul! is it money you would offer me?' asked Callum, as he drew himself up with the air of an Indian king; 'so you value your life at fifteen dirty guineas?'
'How, fellow; do you really wish more?'
'More!' reiterated Callum, fiercely; 'I am a poor man, who, when I lie down at night, thank God that one other day is passed, though I know not where the food of to-morrow may come from. The hills teem with game, and the rivers are alive with fish; yet I dare neither shoot one nor net the other. But keep your gold, Sir Horace. Every coin of it is accursed, for it has come to you through the filthy hands of your factor, and every groat of it is stained by the sweat—the tears—the blood of the Highlanders of Glen Ora, from whom it has been extorted and torn by Ephraim Snaggs, that merciless and rapacious oppressor of the poor!'
Sir Horace stared at this outburst, which Callum Mac Ian, notwithstanding his sharp Celtic accent, and Gaelic being his native language, spoke in good English, and with all the purity and fluency of an educated Highlander. The factor, who was close by muttered something about 'an insolent idle poacher;' but Captain Clavering patted Callum on the shoulder, and exclaimed, in his jolly off-hand way,
'You are a trump! ha, ha, ha—'pon my soul, I like this!'
'You are the most puzzling fellow imaginable!' said Sir Horace, who had now recovered his self-possession, and with it his usual bearing, which was cold, pompous, selfish, and aristocratic (I am sorry to add, ungrateful); he added, 'would your friend take the money?'
The expression of my eye, I presume, startled him, for he asked,
'Who are you, sir, may I ask?'
'Alan Mac Innon,' I replied briefly.
'The idle, roving son of a poor widow,' suggested the amiable Mr. Snaggs, with a dark look.
'Widow of the last Glen Ora, Captain of Grenadiers in the Black Watch,' said Callum, sharply; 'Co-dhalta,' he added to me, in Gaelic—'be not offended—they are strangers, and know no better.'
'Well, well, I must leave to our sermon-quoting friend, Mr. Snaggs, the task of rewarding you, for, egad, I know not how to treat you,' said Sir Horace, turning towards the carriage and handing in Miss Clavering and his daughter Laura; 'but give them a dram, Clavering—it will be acceptable all round, I have no doubt.'
Callum Dhu produced from his jacket pocket a silver-rimmed quaigh, which had belonged to the ill-fated Mac Ian of the '45, and from which it was averredPrionse Tearlachhimself had drunk. The captain filled it with brandy for me, and I drank and bowed to all. It was refilled for my foster-brother, who, while lifting his bonnet, bowed politely to the strangers, and then turning to me, added,
'Mo Cheann Chinnidh-sa! Beannachd Dhe' oirbh!' (i.e., My own chief—God bless you!')
My heart swelled;his chief!and I had no right to the soil, beyond the dust that adhered to my shoes; yet Callum's respect for me was as great as if I possessed all the lands of the Siol nan Alpin.
'Egad, this is like some of the things I have read of in the Scotch novels,' said Sir Horace, with a supercilious smile; 'is it not, Laura?'
'Exactly, papa.'
'If I had only my sketch-book here,' added her friend.
'Aw—yaas—vewy good,' drawled Mr. Snobleigh, as he applied a vesta to his meerschaum; 'here we have a couple of bare-legged Sawney Beans, and all we want is a witch with a caldron—
"Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake:Eye of newt and toe of frawg,Wool of bat and tongue of dawg,"
and all that sort of thing—a brownie—aw-aw—a black dwarf, and so forth; eh, Miss Everingham?'
'Anything you please, Mr. Snobleigh, now that dear papa is safe.'
'Safe,' added the frank Tom Clavering; 'but for our brave and sturdy friends, he had now perhaps been at the bottom of yonder lock—orloch, as they call it.'
'It is a bit of romance, Laura, love,' said Miss Clavering, with one of her brightest smiles; 'do not the place, the costume, and the whole affair, remind you of—what is it—you remember the book, Mr. Snobleigh?'
'Eh—aw, yaas,' was the languid reply; 'but do you admire the costume, eh? I was once nearly dispensing with the superfluous luxury of pantaloons myself, and, aw-aw, exchanging from the Grenadier Gawds into an 'Ighland corps, which threw us into the shade in the Phoenix Pawk.'
'The deuce you were,' said Clavering; 'that would be to commence the sliding-scale, Snob, my boy; from the Guards to the line, and from thence'—
'Eh—aw—to the dawgs.'
'You are a noble fellow,' said Laura Everingham to Callum; 'and I shall never, never forget you!'
Callum bowed.
'Give my dearest love to Mrs. Mac Innon—the kind old lady your mother,' she added to me; 'and say that I shall ever remember her kindness—poor dear old thing—and she so ill too!'
'Aw—Snaggs, old fellow—do you think she has any knowledge of the aw—aw—second sight?'
'Why?' inquired Snaggs, with a furtive glance at me.
'I have made up a devilish heavy book on the Derby, and wondaw rathaw which horse will win,' said Snobleigh.
Snaggs smiled faintly, and reined back his pony.
Although at that time only the half of what this fine gentleman said was understood by me, I gave him a glance so furious, that after attempting to survey me coolly through his glass for a second, he grew pale, smiled, and looked another way.
At last, the baronet grew weary of all this; he pocketed his purse, and stepped into the carriage; his friends found seats also—the steps were shut up—the door closed, and with its varnished wheels flashing in the morning sun, away it bowled, the horses, two fine bays, at a rapid trot, and Snaggs spurring furiously behind. Callum and I were left on the narrow mountain-path with saddened, humbled, and irritated hearts, that smarted and rebelled under the loftiness of tone which the possession of 'a little filthy lucre,' enabled theseblasévoluptuaries to assume towards us, who were the old hereditary sons of the soil.
'I would ask you to my hut,' said Callum, 'but for three days no food has been there.'
'Come, Callum—come with me, and though I have but little to offer, that little shall be shared with you and a thousand welcomes to it,' said I, and we turned our steps together homeward.
I have said that Laura Everingham was pretty rather than beautiful, and graceful rather than dignified. I may add, that she was winning rather than witty; but her friend Miss Clavering was both beautiful and brilliant; and frequently as I had seen both these attractive English girls, it was Laura, whose gentleness, voice, and face, made the most vivid impression on me; and thus, with my mind full of her image, I returned slowly and thoughtfully towards the old jointure-house of Glen Ora.
Three weeks passed away.
The great service we, or Callum, rather, had rendered to Sir Horace, was forgotten, for the adventures of that night had given the baronet a violent and all-absorbing fit of the gout, and a fever which confined him to bed; and amid his friends, the luxuries which surrounded him, and the frivolities of fashionable life, he forgot that save for the fearless heart and strong arm of Mac Ian he must have perished by the waters of the Uisc Dhu, without leaving, perhaps, a trace of his fate behind. And poor Callum—he whose Spartan virtue had declined the proffered reward—was often almost starving; for his little crop had failed; his patches of wheat and potatoes were blighted, though carefully reared on the sunny side of Ben Ora; and, like others in the glen, he anticipated with sorrow and anxiety the usual visit of the pious and uncompromising Snaggs when the term-time arrived.
My poor mother's health was failing fast, and as it failed, her spirit sank. She lacked many comforts which I was without the means of procuring; and though old Mhari and her niece Minnie were unwearying and unremitting in their kindness and ministry, she seemed to be dying literally by inches, yet without any visible ailment—a painful and a terrible contemplation for me, who, except the people in the glen, and the ties of blood old Highland custom and tradition gave between us, had not another relative in the world; for all my kindred—ay more than thirty of them—had died, as I have said, in the service of their country.
She was passing away from among us, and now, for her sake, I regretted that my foster-brother had not stooped to avail himself of the reward proffered by Sir Horace; for even that small sum would have been at her service, as honest Callum Mac Ian loved and revered her as if she had been his own mother.
With such sad, bitter, and humiliating reflections, the memory of the winning smile, the thankful glance, and soft pretty manner of Laura Everingham, struggled hard for mastery; but as weeks rolled on, these pleasing recollections gave place to a just emotion of anger, at what I deemed her cold and haughty neglect of my mother, whom she had neither visited nor invited to the new house of Glen Ora. Vague suspicions floated in my mind that Snaggs the factor was in some degree to blame for this apparent discourtesy, and these surmises afterwards proved to be correct. Moreover, the moustached Captain Clavering, and his perfumed friend, Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh, whom we saw shooting and deer-stalking on the hill sides, usually passed me with a nod or glance of recognition, because I was coarsely clad, and to them seemed but a mountain gilly, though every bonnet in Glen Ora was veiled at my approach in reverence to the name I inherited. But this was the result of old Celtic sympathies—the ties of clanship and kindred, the historical, traditionary, and poetic veneration of the Highland peasant for the head of his house, humbled and poor though that house may be; sympathies deep, bitter, fiery and enthusiastic, and beyond the comprehension of a devil-may-care guardsman like Clavering, or an effeminateblasé parvenu, and man-about-town, like Snobleigh.
Once a liveried lacquey with a well-powdered head brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers 'with Miss Everingham's love to Mrs. Captain Mac Innon;' but as this knock-knee'd gentleman in the red plush inexpressibles was over-attentive to our pretty Minnie, her lover Callum flung him out of the front door, and tore his livery; and such was the report made by Mr. Jeames Toodles of his reception at the old jointure-house, that no more messages came from the family of Sir Horace.
Now came the crisis in the fortunes of the cottars of Glen Ora. The postman who travelled once weekly over the mountains, and bore the letters for the district, in a leathern bag strapped across his back, brought for each resident, myself included, a notice that Mr. Ephraim Snaggs would be in the glen on a certain day, to hold a rent-court, and collect the arrears; with a brief intimation, that if all demands were not satisfied in full, the houses would be destroyed, and the people driven off. That night, there went a wail of lamentation through the glen; the women wept, and the men gazed about them with the sullen apathy in which a despairing mariner may see his ship going down into the ocean, for there were neither remedy nor mercy to be expected. Our people were able to live comfortably in the glen, as for ages their forefathers had done, marrying and giving in marriage—increasing and multiplying, till their corn patches and little green cottages dotted all the mountain slopes; but curbed by the game-laws, and thence deprived of those substitutes by which nature replaced the sterility of the soil—ruined by the wanton destruction of the kelp manufacture, and by having their rents doubled, tripled, and quadrupled with the deliberate intention that they should be unable to pay them, and hence afford to the feudal lord of the land a LEGAL EXCUSE for sweeping them to the sea-shore, that the glens may be made a wilderness for game, and their hearths a lair for the deer, the fox, and the wild cat—the peasantry found themselves helpless! And thus it is, that in virtue of a fragment of sheepskin, we find men in Scotland, exerting over their fellow-men a murderous and inhuman tyranny; such as was never wielded by the worst feudal despots in the middle ages of Germany, or in the present days of Russia. But to resume my story:
In addition to our little household, we had now to support Callum Dhu, who had been afflicted by a sickness—I verily believe, the result of mere want and privation, for he was too proud to acknowledge, that occasionally days elapsed without his fast being broken. He was entitled to four hundred merks Scots, and a good dram for every fox's head; but as he was weak and ailing, the foxes got into places beyond his reach, and rabbits became scarce. We could not see Callum starve; for never did brother love brother more sincerely than my fosterer loved me; and but for this sentiment, and his ardent regard for Minnie and his native glen, the poor fellow had long since abandoned his hut, and joined one of our eight Highland regiments.
Now came 'the day—the great, the eventful day,' when Snaggs the factor, accompanied by his clerk (the latter custodier of a wooden box and a green-baize bag), both on trotting Highland garrons, appeared at the lower entrance of the glen, their advance into which was witnessed by the cottars with greater excitement, and certainly far more terror than their forefathers, when beholding theSliochd Dhiarmed an Tuirc, numbering a thousand swordsmen under Black Colin of Rhodez, march through the same pass against the Mac Innons of Glen Ora, and the Mac Intyres of Glen O.
And now, with the reader's permission, I will devote a short paragraph to Mr. Snaggs.
He was externally a very religious man, and grave in his deportment, being an elder of a dissenting kirk. Having been bred to the law in Edinburgh, he spoke with an extremely English accent, as nothing Scottish is much in vogue about 'the Parliament House;' for unfortunately, the language which our Lowlanders received from their brave ancestors who came from the Cimbric Chersonese—a language in which the sweetest of our poets have sung—the language spoken by Mary Queen of Scots, in which Knox preached, and all our laws are written, is voted vulgar by the growing 'snobbishness' of the Scottish people themselves—excuse the term pray, but I know of none more suitable—hence Mr. Snaggs spoke with a marvellous accent, and it would have been quite in vain to quote to such as he the words of honest Ninian Wingate, when he warned John Knox—'Gif ye throw curiositie of novationis hes forgot our auld plane Scottis qwhilk your mither lernit you, in tymes coming I sall wryt to yow my mynd in Latin, for I am nocht acquynt with your Southeron.' Mr. Snaggs went to kirk thrice on Sunday; he was a member of various tract-distributing societies, and always wore a white neckcloth, and scrupulously accurate suit of black; he was a great believer in whisky-toddy and the patriotism of the Lord Advocate. Honesty and charity were ever in his mouth, but never in his heart or hand; he never swore by aught save his honour, which was a somewhat tattered article. He never was known to do good by stealth 'and blush to find it fame;' but he subscribed largely to allprintedlists, especially such as were headed by philanthropic and noble depopulators. His keen grey eyes were expressive alternately of cunning and malevolence, while his mouth wore a perpetual smile or grin. Cringing and mean to the rich, Snaggs was a tyrant and oppressor of the poor, and led the van of that all-but-organized system of extermination pursued by certain infamous dukes, marquises, and lairds towards the poor Highland peasantry; and he was a vehement advocate for the substitution of bare sheep-walks and useless game-preserves, instead of glens studded by little cottages, and teeming with life and rural health, and peopled by a brave and hardy race, who in the ranks of war gave place to none, and who, although they have no feudal charters, are by right of inheritance the true lords of the soil.
Such was the smooth, pious, fawning but terrible Ephraim Snaggs, who made his appearance in Glen Ora punctually at eleven o'clock on the appointed day. Now we had no longer any hope of remaining in the old jointure-house, for I do not believe that anything save a miracle would have raised fifty pounds among us, and the age of miracles is past.
I shall never forget the emotion of shame that glowed within me on finding myself compelled to avoid this miserable worm.
'He is coming! he is coming!' exclaimed Minnie, wringing her hands, as we perceived from the dining-room window two mounted figures appear in the gorge of the glen.
'Oclion! ochon! ochon!' chorused old Mhari, lifting up her hands, 'the sorrows that have fallen upon us would sink the blessed ship of Clanronald.'
Callum uttered a hearty oath in Gaelic, and pulled his bonnet over his knitted brow.
Mr. Snaggs dismounted at the door and gave his green bag to Minnie, on whom he smiled familiarly, and then perceiving that she was pretty, he pinched her rosy cheek, and eyed her with a glance that had more of a leer than benignity in it; but he was always singularlysuaveto Minnie. Being too indisposed to receive him, my mother remained in her own room, and I—knowing that we had not the cash to meet his demands, took my rod and went to the Loch nan Spiordan for our supper; as there thetarr-dhiargan, or red-bellied char, were in great plenty, and the banks were a favourite ride of Laura Everingham. For Snaggs I left a note, filled with the old excuses, of wet weather, bad crops, corn destroyed by the south-west wind, sheep with the rot, cattle with the murrain, hard times, and so forth. He read it over—smiled faintly, and after carefully folding and docketing it, he seated himself at a table which was placed in front of the house under an ancient lime, on the branches of which many a cateran from the isles had swung in the wind. There his clerk arranged his papers, and while the poor dejected defaulters came slowly down the glen communing sorrowfully together, Mr. Snaggs regaled himself on bread, cheese, and a dram which Callum Dhu placed before him, with more of old Highland hospitality than the factor merited.
The excitement was general; thirty-two families the remnant of our once powerful tribe, all linked and connected together by ties of blood, descent, and misfortune, hovered on the brink of ruin.
One by one, the tenants approached bonnet in hand, and before this man of power and parchment bent their heads that under braver auspices would not have stooped to the whistle of a cannon-ball. Poor people! their tremulous but earnest excuses for the lack of money, though their small rents varied only from fifteen to twenty pounds or so, and the half-uttered prayers for mercy, from those who could no more pay this, than liquidate the National Debt, were all the same.
One named Ian Mac Raonuil had been ten years a soldier, and though thrice wounded, was unpensioned, as there was a break in his service, having enlisted twice. Latterly he had earned a scanty subsistence by fishing in the salt lochs beyond Ben Ora; he was now sixty years of age, and had seven children. He could pay the old rent, but was totally unable to pay the new, which was exactly triple what had ever been paid for his poor cottage within the memory of man. The factor shook his legal head—-made an entry in his black-book—handed to the haggard-eyed Mac Raonuil (as he did to all) a pious tract, and summoned the next on his fatal roll.
'Alisdair Mac Gouran.'
A fine-looking old Highlander, upwards of seventy years of age stepped forward. His tall and erect figure was clad in coarse blue cloth, and his long locks, which were white as snow, glittered in the sun, when he politely removed his bonnet before the grand vizier of the new proprietor, with the usual greeting, as he knew no language but Gaelic,
'Failte na maiduin duibh'—(Hail—good morning to you).
'Youhave your rent at least, I hope, Alisdair?' said Snaggs, with a grin on his thin lips.
'I have the old rent,' replied the cotter with a sickly smile.
'But thenew?'
'A chial! what would you be asking of me? I have the old rent, and by the sweat of my brow and the toil of my children's tender hands have I earned it. It is here. Have mercy on us, Ephraim Snaggs, and do not double the rent. You stand between us and Sir Horace—between us and starvation. He will be advised by you for good or for evil—he is an Englishman, and like a Lowlander, can know no better. You are aware that my croft is small, and that my eight children have to support themselves by fishing; but the famine was sore three years ago; our potatoes failed, and as you know well our little crop of wheat was literally thrashed on the mountain by the wind. All that remained was devoured by the game of the Duchess. I then fell into arrears. I, like my fathers before me, for more generations than I can number, have regularly paid rent and kain to the uttermost farthing—for God and Mary's sake, take pity on us now, Mr. Snaggs. Accept the old rental, but spare us the new—for a little time at least, or eleven human beings, including my old and bedridden mother, now past her ninetieth year, will be homeless and houseless!'
'Mac Gouran,' said Mr. Snaggs, with mock impressiveness, while his malevolent eye belied his bland voice; 'the divine Walton says, "canyouor any man charge God that he hath not given enough to make life happy?"'
'God gave, but the duke, the lord, and the earl, have taken away,' answered the Highlander, sharply.
Snaggs grinned again—took the money, gave a receipt, and with it a printed tract. Then he made another entry in his fatal book, and a groan escaped the breast of Mac Gouran, for too well did he know what that entry meant. His cot was in a picturesque place where Sir Horace wished to plant some coppice; so the humble roof, where twenty generations of brave and hardy peasants had reared their sturdy broods, was doomed to be swept away.
All who came forward had the same, or nearly the same, excuses to make.
Gillespie Ruadh—or Red Archibald—Minnie's uncle, was also in default; but Snaggs, who had cast favourable eyes on his pretty niece, spoke to him with such excessive suavity that old Archy was quite puzzled.
Many professed their readiness and ability to pay the old rent, but their total incapacity to meet the new and exorbitant one, which they knew too well was but the plea, the pretence, on which they were to be driven from the glen, that it might be well stocked with deer and black cock. The last summoned by the factor was Callum Dhu Mac Ian.
My fosterer, who was viewed as a kind of champion by the people, pressed the hand of Minnie to reassure her, and with one stride appeared before Snaggs in his tattered Highland dress. He carried a gun in his hand, and had a couple of red foxes, hanging dead over his left shoulder. A dark cloud was hovering on Callum's brow and a lurid spark was gleaming in his eye, both indicative of the fire he was smothering in his heart—a fire fanned by the lamentations of the people, who were now collected in little family groups and communing together.
'How are you, Callum?' asked Snaggs, with a sardonic grin, holding out his left hand, as his right held a pen: but Callum drew back, saying proudly,
'Thank you—but I would not take thelefthand of a king.'
'Well then, neer-do-weel,' said Snaggs, surveying the tall and handsome hunter with an eye of ill-disguised antipathy, 'what have you to say?'
'I am no neer-do-weel, Mr. Snaggs,' replied Callum loftily, and disdaining to touch his bonnet or bend his head.
'Pay up then,' was the pithy rejoinder.
'I never was asked for rent before. I and mine have dwelt rent-free under the Mac Innons of Glen Ora since these hills had a name. We were hunters, father and son in succession, as you know well, and paid neither rent nor kain; we owed nothing to the chief but an armed man's service in time of war and feud; so I see no reason why it should be otherwise now.'
'I am afraid, my fine fellow, that the sheriff and the law will tell you another story.'
'D—n both, with all my heart!'
'What—dare you say so of the law?'
'Yes—and it must learn, that instead of me paying to Sir Horace, he must, as his betters did of old, pay to me a sum for every fox's head I bring to his hall.'
'You are three years in arrear, Callum.'
'Three hundred and more, perhaps, by your way of reckoning; but the last proprietor is dead—our debts died with him.'
'Your idea is a very common one among these ignorant people,' rejoined Snaggs, with a smile on his mouth and a glare in his wolfish eye; 'but I must condescend to inform you, that the law of Scotland says, when a landlord or overlord dies, the rents past due belong to his executors. Sir Horace took the estate with all its debts, and the half-year's rent then current, with all arrears, are his due; and this rule applies especially to grass-farms, as you will find in the case of ElliotversusElliot, before the Lords of Council and Session in 1792; and the landlord has a hypothec for his rent over the crop and stocking; hence your furniture and plenishing are the property of Sir Horace Everingham.'
'Ha-ha-ha! A broken table, two creepies, a kail-pot and crocan; an old cashcroim, some mouldy potatoes, and a milk bowie!'
'And remember,' added Snaggs, impressively, 'when a tenant who is bankrupt, remains, notwithstanding a notice to remove, the landlord may forcibly eject him in six days, as you will find in a case before the Lords of Council and Session in 1756. This is the wisdom, not the cunning of the law, my dear friend, for, as the learned Johnson says, "cunning differs from wisdom as much as twilight from open day."'
'A nis! a nis!' cried Callum, in fierce irony, as he stamped his right foot passionately on the ground, and struck the butt of his gun on the turf; 'Snake! by the Black Stone of Scone you come to it now!'
Minnie clung in terror to her fiery lover.
'Laoighe mo chri,' she whispered, 'be calm and tempt him not!'
'Mr. Snaggs, I am but a half-lettered Highlandman, and know not what you mean; but this I know—and here I speak for my chief Glen Ora, as well as for his people—the sun shines as bright, and the woods are as green, as ever they were twenty centuries ago, and yet we starve where our fathers lived in plenty! Why is this?'
'Because you are a pack of lazy and idle fellows.'
'We are not,' retorted Callum, fiercely; 'the dun hills swarm with fatted deer; the green woods are alive with game, and the blue rivers teem with fish; but who among us dares to use a net or gun? For now the land, with all that is in its waters, its woods, and in the air, belong to the stranger. God was kind to the poor Celts, Mr. Snaggs, in the days before you were born,' he continued, with unintentional irony. 'He gave us all those things, because He saw that the land, though beautiful, was very barren; but you, and such as you, have robbed us of them, and one day God will call you to an account for this. Listen: in the days of the kelp manufacture, we made twenty thousand tons of it annually, here on the western coast alone—ay, welazy Highlandmen, raisingtwo hundred thousand pounds sterling every year. This work, with a cow's milk, butter, and cheese, a few potatoes, and a few sheep, for food and clothes, kept many a large family in happiness, in health, and comfort; rents were paid strictly and regularly in rent and kain, and arrears were never heard of. But the Parliament, influenced by the English manufacturers, DESTROYED us by taking the duty off barilla; and when Lord Binning said, that a hundred thousand clansmen in the West would starve, the English Chancellor of the Exchequer replied—"Let them starve—I care not!" may God and St. Colme forgive his soul the sin. There were only forty-five Scotsmen—time-serving and tongue-tied Scotsmen—in that House, opposed to six hundred wordy Englishmen, so how could our case be otherwise? Now, this was only thirty years ago, and since then arrears, ruin, misery, and famine have fallen upon the people of the glens; the castles of their chiefs have become English grouse-lodges, and the West Highlands are well nigh a voiceless wilderness, from the Mull of Cantyre to the Kyle of Duirness—two hundred and fifty good miles, Mr. Snaggs.'
'Where the deuce didyoupick up all this stuff—this Lay of the Last Outlaw?' sneered Snaggs, with unfeigned surprise, while a murmur of assent from the poor tenantry followed Callum's words.
'I could tell you more, Snaggs, esquire and factor,' replied Callum, still maintaining his fire; 'esquire means nothing now in this world, thoughfactormay have a terrible signification in the next; I can tell you, that these poor people whom you are about to evict—for I know their doom is sealed—have a right in the soil superior to that claimed by any landlord or overlord either. The Lowlanders, like the English, were feudal serfs, while we—the Celts—were freemen, and our land belonged not to the chiefs, but tothe people; it was ours; but lawyers came with their feu-charters and damnable legalities, and then the patriarchal clansman became what you find him now, something between a slave and an outcast—a wretch to be retained or expelled at the will of his landlord. The chief was a thing of our breath, whom we could make or unmake; but the land, with its mountains, woods, and waters, was the unalienable birthright of the people; it was their home—their dwelling-place—their grave! The King of Scotland could neither give it nor take it away, for it was the patrimony of the tribes of the Gael; and it was for this patriarchal right in the land that John of Moidart and Ranald Galda died at the battle of Blairleine!'
'And so the land belonged to the Gael,' continued Snaggs, with his calm sneer; 'but who gave it to them?'
'God!' replied Callum, lifting his bonnet with reverence; 'but no doubt, Mr. Snaggs, a lawyer like you will have more faith in feu-charters, and bonds, and bank-notes, than in Him; it is only to be expected of one of your dirty trade; and now I have only a few words more.'
'I am glad to hear it.'
'It would be a blessing for Scotland if you, and every man such as you, were groping among the weeds at the bottom of Loch Ora, each with a good-sized stone at his neck; and it would be a greater blessing if the unwieldy estates of her absentee proprietors were held by residents who would spend their rents—not in London and in Paris—but among the people from whom they are drawn, and on the soil from whence they are raised; and for this reason, Mr. Snaggs, and many others, the sooner Scotland is rid of her fustian chiefs and so-called nobility the better for herself. So much, Mr. Snaggs, for the Lay of the Last Outlaw!'
With these words Callum gave the table a kick, that sent it flying right over the head of Snaggs, whose religious tracts, rent-books, papers, and luncheon, were scattered in every direction by this champion of Celtic rights, who shouldered his fowling-piece, and hastened up the glen to meet me; and relate all that had passed.
Though few men in their senses ever think of consulting Hansard, I may mention, that the debates in 1823 will be found to corroborate much of what Callum advanced in his own peculiar way.
Minnie, who was an amiable and good-natured girl, became alarmed by the sudden violence of her lover, and its probable effect upon the temper of Mr. Snaggs; she busied herself in collecting all that worthy's papers, dockets, and religious tracts, which had been spilled and scattered abroad by the unexpected capsize of the table, at which he had been seated with much legal dignity and assumed benignity of aspect.
'Thank you, my good girl,' said Snaggs, on recovering his breath and lawyer-like composure; 'thank you—I shall not forget this.'
'Thank you, sir, a thousand times,' replied Minnie, curtsying very low, as she thought of her old uncle's unpaid arrears.
Minnie Mac Omish was a very pretty girl; under a little lace cap, her silky brown hair was braided in two thick masses over her temples and little ears, and enough remained to form a heavy knot behind, where two very bewildering little curls, that were the joy of Callum's heart, played upon her plump white neck. Her eyes were large, blue, and expressive; her bust full and perfect; her figure firm and graceful, and a healthy bloom, that came with the free mountain air, tinged her rounded cheeks with red.
'You are a good girl,' continued the factor, slipping a half-crown into her hand, 'and this will buy a ribbon for your pretty neck,' he added, kissing her cheek, much to Minnie's surprise.
'Oh, Mr. Snaggs,' said she, anxiously, and with tears, as the worthy elder still lingered near her, after mounting his pony, 'I hope you will forget Callum's fury, and show some mercy to my poor old uncle, Gillespie Ruadh—he is old—his wife is sick, and they have seven children.'
'The mystical number seems to be the established one in Glen Ora, my dear,' said Snaggs, retaining the girl's hand in his, despite her timid efforts to withdraw it; 'by-the-by, lass, can you tell me how many cattle are in the glen?'
'No.'
'You do not know?'
'We never count them, sir.'
'Why?'
'It is so unlucky.'
'Whew!—how?'
'Some would be sure to die after we had reckoned them; and St. Colme knows we have few enough for the poor people.'
This was said, of course, in Gaelic, but Snaggs understood it, for, pressing her hand, he added, more kindly,—
'My good girl, I wish I had you in my own house at Inverness (I am a quiet old bachelor), that I might teach you the folly of believing in such personages as St. Colme, and in these old remnants of popery and superstition, which warp the ideas of the people, and prevent the diffusion of a purer religion into these barbarous districts. Be assured, my dear girl, "that when religion is neglected," as the divine Blair says, "there can be no regular or steady practice of the duties of morality."'
'But how about my poor old uncle, sir?' she urged again, with tears in her eyes.
'Gillespie Ruadh is long—very long in arrear,' said Snaggs, pretending to consult his note-book, while squinting over it, at the pretty face that was so anxiously upturned to his; 'let me see—let me see—'
'In arrears?'
'Ay, heavily—not a payment has he made since Whitsunday was two years.'
'Alas! I know that,' said Minnie, beginning to weep.
'Now, don't spoil those pretty eyes of yours, Minnie—'
'What shall I tell my uncle?'
'Oho,' whispered Snaggs, over whose eyes there shot a strange and baleful gleam; 'he asked you to intercede with me?'
'Yes, sir,' replied Minnie, with hesitation.
'Meet me to-night at dusk—'
'Where?'
'At the Clach-na-greiné,' said Snaggs, sinking his voice lower still.
'But why at dusk, and why at such a lonely place?'
'Is not one place the same as another—when the spirit of God is everywhere? But tell no one of this; and when there, I will give you a message—ay, it may be a receipt in full for Gillespie.'
'Heaven will reward you, sir.'
'It rewards all who have faith, even as a grain of mustard-seed, Minnie,' said the factor, touching his garron with his riding-switch. 'Can you read English, Minnie?'
'A little, sir.'
'Then take these tracts, "The Sinner's Deathbed"—"The Pious Policeman"—"The God-fearing Footman"—read them to your friends, and say they were given by Snaggs the factor, whom they hate so much—and see that you have all the contents by rote to-night, when we meet at moonrise near the Clach-na-greiné. But say not a word to any human being on the subject, or the sequel may prove the worse for your uncle Gillespie Ruadh—do not forget Minnie—at moonrise;' and with these words and an impressive gleam in his glassy deceitful eyes, Mr. Snaggs trotted down the glen to join the minister in prayer at the bedside of a dying cotter, and thereafter to dine with Sir Horace at the new manor-house of Glen Ora.
I heard, with the utmost alarm, the relation of all that had passed, and felt assured that my doom and the doom of our people were sealed. To Mr. Snaggs, Callum had said nothing more than I would have said, but the chances are that, had I encountered him, my bearing might have been more violent.
'The glen will be swept like Glentuirc,' said Callum, as we descended the hill slowly and thoughtfully; 'swept bare as my hand, devil a doubt of it.'
'And the old jointure-house, Callum—our last home on earth—sick and ailing as my poor mother is, how is she ever to be got out of it?'
'Never alive, I fear me.'
I shuddered at his answer, for he as well as I knew the strange old tradition connected with it.
Lachlan Mohr Mac Innon, about twenty years before his fall at Worcester, had been seized by a covenanting and reformatory spirit, and while the fervour lasted, had demolished an ancient chapel of St. Colme, and with the stones thereof, built the said jointure-house. This was considered an act of sacrilege so deep, that the Mac Donalds of Keppoch, and other Catholic tribes, were on the point of marching in hostile array to Glen Ora, when the influence of a wandering monk of the Scottish mission restrained them. This personage, whose adventures have been given to the world as the Capuchino Scozzese, and who is still remembered in Ross-shire as the Red Priest of Applecross, cursed the deed in Latin and Gaelic, and predicted, that as Lachlan Mohr had built a house for the dowagers of his family to live in, not one should everdiethere; and strange enough, though it had been inhabited for about two hundred years, no member of our family was ever known to pay the debt of nature within it; though many who were sick, ailing, or longing for death, after dwelling long there, perished by violent ends or sudden diseases elsewhere.
Angus Mac Innon, who fought at Culloden, left a widow, a daughter of Barcaldine, who attained a vast age, and lived beyond a century, attenuated, bed-ridden, sickly, and querulous, in the last stages of emaciation and second childhood. Longing for a crisis to her sufferings, in the same year in which her present Majesty ascended the throne, she insisted on being conveyed on a pallet into the open air, and, like the Lady May, of Cadboll, to defy fate, and test the truth of the terrible prediction. Four of our people, Alisdair Mac Gouran, Ian Mac Raonuil, Red Gillespie, and Mac Ian, the father of my fosterer, bore her slowly and carefully on a palliasse; and whether it might be the result of fancy acting on a highly-nervous temperament, or the weakness of a system worn away with age, I know not; but to the no small horror of her bearers, the aged widow of Angus expired at the instant she was passing the threshold.
Now, my mother had long been sickly and almost bedridden, and thus though I could scarcely put much faith in the prediction of the Red Priest of Applecross, which had been impressed upon me in childhood by my nurse, the mother of Callum Dhu, as something to be spoken of in whispers, and thought of with awe, yet I looked forward with vague apprehension to our expulsion from the house; as she was wont to affirm that she was so feeble and worn by time, that the life in her was not natural, and that if once she passedthe doorof the fated mansion, her doom would be similar to that of Angus' widow. A strange terror seized me with this thought, for my mother was my only tie to the glen, to my country—to existence itself!
Weary of dark conjectures, and with a heart full of dim forebodings, while Callum and Minnie were in another part of the house, I entered my mother's little parlour. She was again seated at a little tripod table, with her bible and her knitting before her.
'You know all, Allan,' said she, anxiously.
'Yes, mother,' said I, and flinging myself into a chair, I pressed my hands upon my temples, and then we relapsed into moody silence.
My mother sighed deeply.
What need was there for words to express our anxious thoughts? From time to time I gazed earnestly at my only parent—my only living relative. Age had traced deep lines upon her pale sad face; but care had planted furrows deeper still. We sat long silent; at last she said in a trembling voice—
'The evil day is coming, Allan, when the fire on this hearth—so long boasted as the highest in Scotland—will be quenched at last.'
I bit my lips till the blood came. Poverty had made me as powerless as if a wall of adamant enclosed me, and I could see no means of extrication from our present difficulties.
'Even money if we had it would not satisfy them, mother,' said I.
'Why?'
'Because Sir Horace is resolved on having this house pulled down, and a new shooting-box built in its stead.'
'A little time, Allan—dear Allan—would have mademeleast independent of this poor dwelling, unless indeed the curse that was laid on Lachlan Mhor——'
'Oh, mother, do not speak or think of that!' I exclaimed, hastily, while half kneeling and half embracing her, 'there is to be a gathering on the Braes, and a shooting-match. Miss Everingham gives a hundred sovereigns—think of that, mother, a hundred sovereigns to the best rifle-shot. I may win them, or Callum, and that prize would pay a portion of our debts; hear me, mother, dear mother! and if I lose, there is still hope for us in Callum. We have done this man, Sir Horace, a service—Callum Dhu saved him from a dreadful death at the Black Water—might we not ask a little time, a little mercy at least, for your sake, mother?'
'No! I would rather perish than stoop to sue from such as he, for mercy or for grace. No, no; if it is written in the book of fate that the stranger shall rule here, then let our glen be swept bare as the Braes of Lochaber. But oh,mo mhac! mo mhac!(my son! my son!) your home and grave will lie in a land that is distant far from mine.'
'Mo mhathair! mo mhathair!' I exclaimed in a wild burst of grief at her words, which I vainly endeavour to give here literally in English; 'even when you are gone, I cannot go to that distant land beyond the Atlantic. There is no heather there, nor aught that speaks of home; the broad salt sea shall never roll between your resting-place and mine. I will trust to the honesty, the manliness, and the sympathy of Sir Horace; he will never be so cruel as to unhouse the widow of a brave Highland officer, who carried the colours of the Black Watch at the Battle of the Pyramids, and led three assaults at Burgos and Badajoz.'
My mother was a Scottish matron of the old school—a genuine Highlander, with all a Highlander's impulsive spirit, warmth of heart and temper—their pride and their prejudices if you will; but honest prejudices withal, of that bluff olden time which scorned and spurned the cold-blooded conventionality of the new. My suggestions or hopes of temporizing with Sir Horace, whom she could never be brought to view otherwise than as a sorner in the land, and usurper of our patrimony, though the poor man had bought it legally, honestly, and fairly at its then market-price, brought on such a paroxysm of irritation, sorrow, and weakness, that I became seriously alarmed for her life, and committed her to the care of Minnie and old Mhari, whosefion-na-uisc a batha, or wine distilled from the birch, was considered in Glen Ora a sovereign remedy 'for all the ills that flesh is heir to;' and was deemed moreover very conducive to strength and longevity.
I was now summoned by Callum, who earnestly begged my company, if I could spare an hour with him.
I have now arrived at a point in the history of that acute factor, pious elder, and severe moralist, Mr. Snaggs, which I would willingly, but cannot omit, without leaving in my narrative a hiatus which every dramatist, novelist, historian, and biographer would unanimously condemn. With the suspicion natural to a Celt, Minnie mistrusted Ephraim Snaggs, and informed Callum of the proposed meeting.
Callum's eyes flashed fire! he grasped his skene, and bit his lips, with a dark expression on his brow; for it was well known in the district that two handsome girls had already been wiled by Snaggs to distant towns, where, after a time, all trace of them was lost; and when questioned by their friends (he had taken care to evict and expatriate their relations), he had only groaned, turned up his eyes, twiddled his thumbs, and quoted Blair.
The peculiarity of his request, the solitude of the place, and its traditionary character, excited the keenest suspicion in the mind of Callum Dhu, and he begged of me to accompany him to the trysting-place, to which we accordingly proceeded, and there ensconced ourselves among the thick broom, juniper-bushes, and long wavy bracken, about an hour or so after sunset.
In a wild and solitary rift or ravine, that opened at the back of Ben Ora, and the rugged sides of which were covered by the light feathery mountain-ash, the silver birch, the hazel, and the alder, amid which the roe and the fallow-deer made their lair, stood the Clach-na-greiné, orstone of the sun. A huge misshapen block, on which some quaint figures and runes or words in an ancient and barbarous language were discernible; it was a relic of the Druids, whose religion, a corruption of the older faith of the Magi, had inspired them to worship the God of Day as the essence of fire. Here had the spirit of Loda descended on their souls, and here in latter times the posterity of Mac Ionhuin (or the Son of Love) were wont to meet in arms, to hail and inaugurate their young chiefs; here justice was administered, and the guilty were flung into the Poul-a-baidh, or drowning-pool; here the Red Priest of Applecross anathematized the sacrilege of Lachlan Mohr; and here in 'the glimpses of the moon,' the famous white stag of Loch Ora, which was believed to be bullet-proof, and to have a miraculous longevity, was seen at times.
In the centre of this obelisk was a round hole, through which the lovers of the district had been wont for ages to join hands in testimony of their mutual betrothal: this formed a strong and sacred tie of mutual fidelity, which none had been known to break without suffering a violent death.
It happened as old Mhari had told me a hundred times, and as Callum Dhu was ready to affirm on oath, that among the men who followed my father into the ranks of the Black Watch, there was one who had betrothed himself solemnly to a girl of the glen, through the hole of the Clach-na-greiné. Forgetting both him and her trothplight, this girl fell in love with a handsome stranger whom she met at a harvest-home in Glentuirc. He danced with her repeatedly, and whispered of her beauty and of his passion until her head was turned, and her heart so far won, that he persuaded her to cross the mountain of Ben Ora with him; but her confidence being mingled with fear, she begged of a companion to follow them a little way. The moon was bright, and as they proceeded, she observed with growing alarm that he carefully avoided every stream and rill of running water, and that his face, though manly and beautiful, was deathly pale in the white moonlight. They descended into the ravine, and anon were seen in the full blaze of the moon, near the great rough column of the Clach-na-greiné. A shadowy cloud obscured it for a time. When it passed away, the maiden and her pale lover had disappeared. The Druid obelisk stood on its grassy mound in silence and loneliness. The damsel was never seen again. Her earthly lover also proved false; he married a Spanish wife, and after escaping the whole Peninsular war, was killed at the side of old Ian Mac Raonuil by thelastshot that was fired from the hill of Toulouse.
A hundred such traditions combined to make the place wild and unearthly. The path to it from Glen Ora lay through a skeleton forest of old fir-trees, which, being entirely denuded of bark and foliage, were white, bleached, and ghastly in aspect; while the stone was generally covered by numbers of the hideous reptile which is known in some pails of the Highlands as thebratag, and is spotted black and white, and when eaten by cattle, causes them to swell and die.
But enough of the Clach-na-greiné.
Minnie had not been many minutes seated on a fragment of rock near it, and had barely exchanged the appointed signal with Callum—a verse of a song, to which he replied by a low whistle—when Mr. Snaggs, who had left his pony among the blasted pines, was seen hastening to the rendezvous with a cat-like step and stealthy eye.
'I am punctual, you will perceive, my dear girl,' said he, taking her hand kindly in his; 'the broad white moon seems just to touch the huge black shoulder of Ben Ora, and throws the shadow of that grim obelisk along this horrid ravine. If one were to shout here, would the sound be heard in Glen Ora, think you?'
'No, sir,' replied Minnie, with a shudder.
'You are very confident or courageous, my dear Minnie, to venture so far to meetme,' said he, in his most winning tone. We were close by and heard everything.
'Courage is nothing new in Glen Ora,' said Minnie.
'But your people belonged to Glentuirc?'
'Yes, of old,' answered Minnie, proudly; 'the Mac Omishes of Chaistal Omish.'
'A most euphonious name—are you sure?'
'Do you doubt it?'
'Yes—for so beautiful a face as yours, Minnie never came of the race of Glentuirc.'
'They were braver than they were bonnie, perhaps, Mr. Snaggs,' said Minnie, with reserve.
'But now about your uncle's farm, Minnie—it lies with yourself to keep Gillespie Fatadh in the glen and it lies with you to level his cottage to the earth and drive him into a Lowland workhouse, or to the distant shores of America.'
'Withme?' was the breathless query.
'Sit down on this green bank and listen to me. We must be wary, my dear girl, in treating with the denizens of this glen, for they are sinful ones—sloth is sin, and they are slothful,' said Mr. Snaggs, drawing close to her side, and patting one of her pretty hands with his right hand, while it was firmly clutched by his left; 'we must be wary—religion is the life of the world, and wickedness is always its own punishment.'
'Sir?' was the perplexed interjection of Minnie.
'I was about to remark, my dear,' resumed the moralist, putting an arm round the waist of the girl, who became flushed, and who trembled violently, 'that we should take care of the beginnings of sin; but as the divine Wilson remarks, "nobody is exceedingly nicked all at once;" thus I might kiss you, as I do now—so might a young man; but I do so, with all the emotions of a father stirred within me—yes Minnie, the emotions of a father, an elder, and a factor; yet were a young man to do this, as the divine Blair remarks——'
'But about my uncle's farm?' urged poor Minnie, in great perplexity; 'we have long expected a rich cousin from India, where, as his letters said, his fortune and his liver were growing larger every day; but he has never appeared—and then my uncle omitted to sow his corn last year in such a way as to save it from the birds and fairies.'
It was now Mr. Snaggs' turn to look perplexed.
'From the fairies?' said he.
'Yes—for after a field is sown, our farmers mix some grain and sand together, and scatter it broadcast, saying at every handful, "the sand for the fairies, and the corn for the birds;" and those mixed grains become all that the birds and fairies take. But the minister told him that this was a sinful superstition—so the crop rotted in the ground, or was destroyed between the Marquis's grouse and the mildew.'
'Hush—did you not hear something stir among these bushes?' said Snaggs, with alarm, as Callum raised, and ducked down his head suddenly; 'pooh! a polecat or a blackcock—listen to me, Minnie; I am always kind toyou, whatever the glensmen may say of me.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Seldom is there a time, that I come over the hills from Inverness, without bringing something for you—a ribbon, a rosette, a gaud or a gown-piece—eh.'
'True, sir—and many, many thanks for your kindness to a poor girl like me.'
'Not at all—not at all, when she is so sweet and pretty, Minnie.'
'Sir!'
'Do you not understand me?'
'No.'
'Then give me another kiss to begin with.'
Minnie innocently enough tendered her soft cheek, to which the fatherly Snaggs applied his lips like a leech, and his eyes began to sparkle, as he surveyed the fine slope of her shoulders and contour of her bust. He became excited, and retaining one of her hands in his, clasped her tightly by the waist.
'I have ever been kind to your uncle, Minnie.'
She was about to break away, but these words restrained her, and she gazed anxiously into the eyes of Snaggs, who, therefore, kissed her so tenderly, that I had much ado to retain Callum in his lair among the long bracken. Poor Minnie, in her distress, looked beautiful—her face was so full of expression.
'I have kept Gillespie Ruadh in his farm without raising its rent, which would have been rather futile, as he has not paid a sixpence to me for these past two years.'
'God will reward you, sir,' said Minnie, weeping.
'Cannot you reward me too, Minnie?'
'I, sir—a poor girl without a halfpenny in the world!'
'You. Would you not like to leave the glen and enter into the service of a lady in the Lowlands. I know one, a fine and motherly old dame, whose strict, moral, and religious principles——'
'No—no, I could not leave Glen Ora and the Mac Innons.'
'The Mac Innons,' laughed Snaggs, 'will soon be but a memory here: long ere this day twelve months, the grass will grow is green on their hearths, as it waves on the hearths of Glentuirc.'
'Then I will still have Callum Dhu,' murmured Minnie, in a voice that trembled.
'Callum Dhu,' reiterated Snaggs, with scornful impatience; 'what is he that you should regret him?'
'My betrothed husband,' said Minnie, with honest pride; 'and none can reap in harvest or handle the cashcroimh like he; but he preferred to be a hunter like his fathers before him; and at shinty, wrestling, racing, tossing the stone, the hammer, or the caber, there is no one on the Braes of Loch Ora like Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'
'Stuff! These qualities, lassie, only fit him for the trade of a housebreaker. Better would it be for him if he read his prayers; for as the divine Blair sayeth, "every prayer sent up from a secret retirement is listened to." See, here is money, dear Minnie,' continued the wily Snaggs, holding before her a handful of bank-notes; 'those wretched pieces of paper which cause so much misery and crime, will be yours if——'
'If—what?'
The tempter whispered in her ear, and his eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
She uttered a half-stifled scream.
'For Heaven's sake let me go, Mr. Snaggs, or I shall scream for help,' said Minnie, as a rosy crimson replaced the paleness of her cheek.
'None can hear you.'
'Be not so sure of that,' she retorted, with a scornful smile.
'Remember your uncle, his sick wife and family! Why are you so afraid?' he whispered; 'I will be your protector for life, Minnie, and will open up a thousand new scenes and pleasures to you. Let me teach you that you were not born to live always in this dull and hideous glen. Oh, Minnie, have my eyes not told you the secret of my heart?'
'I am getting quite faint,' said Minnie, overcome by excitement and alarm.
'Apply my handkerchief to your nostrils—this strange perfume may revive you.'
He placed his voluminous silk handkerchief close to her face. In a moment a tremor passed over the form of Minnie, and she sank senseless on the grassy mound of the Clach-na-greiné. With a triumphant chuckle the pious moralist knelt down and threw his arms around her; but in the next moment a fierce shout rang in his startled ears, and the strong hand of Callum Dhu was on his throat, while the blade of a bare skene glittered before his eyes.
For a moment these two men glared at each other like a snake and a tiger. In the next, the frail moralist was dashed upon the turf, and the iron fingers of Callum compressed his throat like a vice, until his eyeballs were starting from their sockets.
'Mac Innon,' cried my fosterer, 'what shall I do with him? we are near the old Hill of Justice—his life in your hands—say but the word, and the last breath is in the nostrils of our tormentor!'
'Let us drag him to prison,' said I.
'Prison—ha—but there is none nearer than the Castle of Inverness.'
'Then let us fling him into the Poul-a-baidh, where the bones of many a better man are whitening among the weeds.'
'Right—mona mon dioul! but few stones will be on your cairn, dog!'
And snatching by the throat and heels the terrified wretch, who could scarcely gasp for mercy, we rushed to the edge of the pool, where justice was executed of old, and flung him headlong in.
'The curse of the Red Priest be on him!' cried Callum, as Snaggs disappeared with a scream of terror. Anon, he rose to the surface, floundering, dashing, and bellowing for aid, until he laid hold of the long weeds and broad-bladed water-docks, that fringed the margin, and after being nearly suffocated by the floating watercresses (of which, I suppose, he would in future share the horror of the learned Scaliger), he scrambled out in a woful plight, and ran towards his pony, which was cropping the scanty herbage that grew among the blasted pines. The moment he was mounted, he turned towards us a face that was ghastly and white with fear and fury; he was minus a hat, and his grizzled hair hung lank and dripping about his ears.
'Scoundrels!' he cried, 'for this outrage you shall both rot in the Castle of Inverness.'
'I will not be the only one of my race who has been within its towers,' said I; 'but they suffered for fighting brave battles on the mountain side—not for ducking a yelping hound like you.'
In token of vengeance, he shook his clenched hand at us, and galloped away. Long before this, the situation of Minnie attracted all our attention, and excited our wonder and alarm.
'Laoighe mo chri—speak to me—hear me!' implored Callum, kneeling beside her on the grass and taking her tenderly in his arms. But she remained quite insensible and unconscious of all he said to her.
'By what witchcraft did she faint thus?' said Callum—'she, a strong and healthy girl—so full of life and spirit too!'
'Snaggs spoke of a perfume in his handkerchief.'
'A perfume,' responded the black-browed Celt, grinding his teeth; 'what could it be?'
'Oh—this phial may tell,' said I, picking up a little bottle which lay on the turf beside Minnie. It was labelled 'Chloroform.'
'Dioul! what is that?' asked Callum.
'An essence invented by a Lowland physician. It makes even the strongest man so insensible for a time, that you might cut off his leg and draw all his teeth without having the slightest resistance offered.'
'Insensible!'
'Ay, as a stone; look at our poor Minnie.'
'The unhanged villain!' exclaimed Callum, swelling with new wrath; 'dioul! why did I not gash his throat with my skene as I would have scored a stag? He had some dark and sinister end in view; he deemed Minnie but a poor, ignorant, and unprotected Highland girl, who knew no language but her native Gaelic, and had no idea of aught beyond the sides of the glen; but as far as grass grows and wind blows will I follow and have vengeance on him!'
Minnie recovered slowly and with difficulty: she was sick and had an overwhelming headache, with such a weakness in all her limbs, that we were compelled to support, and almost carry her between us to Glen Ora. Callum mingled his endearments with muttered threats of vengeance on Snaggs, and as I knew that he would keep them too, I was not without anxiety as to the mode in which his wrath might develop itself.
Two days after this affair, on the application of Mr. Snaggs, the sheriff of the county granted warrants of removal against every family in the glen; and these long-dreaded notices of eviction were duly served in form of law by a messenger-at-arms, in the name of 'Fungus Mac Fee, Esquire, Advocate and Sheriff,' a position that worthy had gained, after the usual lapse of time spent in sweeping the Scottish Parliament House with the tail of his gown.
Six days now would seal our doom!
Such was the result of poor Minnie's intercession for her old uncle, with the admirer of the 'divine Blair.'