My mother was now so frail, weakened by long illness and by being almost constantly confined to bed, that I dared not communicate to her the fatal 'notice,' which had been served on us, in common with all the people in the glen; but I never hoped that she would remain long ignorant of the ruin that hovered over all, while the garrulous old Mhari was daily about her sick-bed.
The moanings and mutterings of that aged crone, together with her occasional remarks whispered in Gaelic, of course to Minnie, soon acquainted the poor patient that every door in the glen, including her own, had been chalked with a mark of terrible significance; and that the crushed remnant of a brave old race which had dwelt by the Ora for ages—yea, before the Roman eagles cowered upon the Scottish frontier—was at last to be swept away.
It gave her a dreadful shock—our fate she knew was fixed: and while Mhari, Minnie, and the older people of the glen, croaked incessantly among themselves of the old legend of the Red Priest and 'the curse he had laid on the stones of the jointure-house,' my mind was a chaos; for I knew not on what hand to turn, or where to seek a shelter for my mother's head. She had her little pension as a captain's widow—true; but we had so many dependants who clung to us in the good old Celtic fashion, and for whom our little farm had furnished subsistence, that to be driven from it was to tear asunder a hundred tender and long-cherished ties, which few but a Highlander can comprehend.
A little hope was kindled in my breast, by my foster-brother reminding me of that which (in the hurry of other thoughts I had forgotten)—the great annual gathering on the Braes of Loch Ora being now almost at hand; and that he or I—it mattered not which—might win one of the handsome prizes which the generosity of Cluny Mac Pherson, the Laird of Invercauld, and other true Highland gentlemen, offered to the men of the mountains on such occasions, to foster their ancient spirit, to develop their hardihood, and excite their emulation in feats of strength and skill.
'Mother,' I whispered, and stooped over her bed, 'the gathering takes place in three days—the daughter of the Englishman——'
'Sir Horace—well,' she muttered with a sigh of anger.
'Yes, dear mother—Laura Everingham and her friend, Miss Clavering, have made up a purse of guineas (some say fifty, others a hundred) with a silver brooch, for the best rifle-shot, and Callum and I have sworn to win it if we can.'
'How many better marksmen than either of you have, ere this, sworn the same thing?'
'But God will aid me, mother. I will shoot neither with pride nor with a desire to emulate any one; but to find bread for our starving household—to satisfy the cravings of the villain Snaggs, and to keep this roof a little—a very little—longer over your head.'
'And this prize you say——'
'Will, at least, be fifty guineas, mother—think of that.'
'Scorn alike the prize and the donor.'
'The prize I may—but the donor—ah, mother, you know her not; but think of this money and all it may do, if fairly and honestly won; how long is it since we saw fifty guineas at once, mother? It will pay part of our arrears, and win us a little time, if it cannot win us mercy from Snaggs and his master.'
I dared not add that I had also in my breast a desire to appear to advantage before the winning daughter of Sir Horace, and the lingering hope of eclipsing the holiday Captain Clavering and that mustachioed popinjay Mr. Snobleigh, who had been rifle-practising incessantly to gain the ladies' prize. Yielding to the pressure of our affairs, and, perhaps, to her inability to argue the point with me, my mother gave her reluctant consent that Imight compete.
She was very weak and faint, and before I left her, beckoned me to kiss her cheek. Then she burst into tears, and this sorely startled me—for it was long since I had seen her weep. Her great lassitude required composure, and more than all, it required many comforts, which, in that sequestered district, and with straitened means, she was compelled to relinquish: thus, when I addressed her now, a time always elapsed before she could collect her scattered energies to understand or reply to me. This prostration of a spirit once so proud, so fiery and energetic—this emaciation of a form once so stately and so beautiful, with those gentle hands now so tremulous—those kind eyes now so sad and sunken, and those weak, querulous whisperings of affection, with the pallor of that beloved face, smote heavily on my heart, which was traversed by more than one sharp pang, as the terrible conviction came upon me, that she could not be long with us now. Yet Mhari, Minnie, and Callum Dhu, all strong in the belief of the legend of the Red Priest of Applecross, believed that she was perfectly safe while enclosed by the four charmed walls of the old jointure-house.
'The lamp may flicker,' said Mhari, with a solemn shake of her old grey head; 'but, please God, it can never go out while we keep it here.'
Accompanied by Alisdair Mac Gouran, Ian Mac Raonuil, Gillespie Ruadh, the three patriarchs of the glen, and all the other male inhabitants, among whom were five-and-twenty sturdy fellows, a few being clad in tartan, but by far the greater number wearing the coarse dark-blue homespun coats, ungainly trousers, and broad bonnets of the peasantry, with four pipers in front (in the Highlands everything partakes of the warlike), we marched from Glen Ora, and crossing the shoulder of the great Ben, descended towards the Braes, where the gathering was to be held, about ten miles distant. Callum carried my rifle as well as his own, and his confidence that we would win Laura Everingham's prize was somewhat amusing; but it arose less from his certainty of our skill than from the fact of our bullets being cast in a famous mould orcalme, of unknown metal, which had belonged to the father of old Mhari, who was never known to miss his aim. In short, it was universally believed in the glen to be enchanted. All the glensmen had in their bonnets a tuft of heather and the badge of Mac Innon, a twig of the mountain pine; and most of them wore the clan tartan plaid, which is of bright red striped with green. We brought with us our own provisions, cheese, bannocks, and whisky, which last never paid duty to Her Majesty, as the reader may be assured.
Though my suit of tartans was far from rich or handsome—nay, I might almost say that it was very plain—it was correct, and with three feathers of the iolair in my bonnet, and my father's old 42nd's claymore, havingBiodh treun—be valiant—inscribed on its blade, my pistols, horn, skene-dhu and biodag, I marched over the crest of the hill which shaded our Highland glen with as much pride in my heart as if all the well-armed Mac Innons that over followed my fathers of old were behind me; for this native pride, and a glow of old romance, as a poor Highland gentleman, were all that remained to me now.
The summer morning was bright and beautiful; the air was fresh and keen, and we drank it in at every pore; the unclouded sun was in all his brilliance; the pipes rang loud and clear; and Callum, with three or four others, sang one of the warlike songs of Ian Lom. The gallant coileach-dhu (or black cock) rose before us at times; the useag sang merrily among the black whin-bushes, and the mountain-bee and the butterfly skimmed over the purple heatherbells. My heart grew light; I forgot for a time that my mother was sick and dying—that ruin hovered over us; and, boylike, I thought only of the sports of the day, and the glory of our people carrying off the prizes on the same green braes where Lachlan Mohr had routed Clan Dhiarmid an Tuirc in the days of the great Cavalier.
The spirit of those who accompanied me rose also. Even Ephraim Snaggs, his notices of eviction, and his legal terrors, were forgotten. The veteran Mac Raonuil marched with his head up and his war-medal glittering, as he told old yarns of the brave Black Watch, and Callum urged that we, this day, should give place to none; but remember, that the Mac Innons were theheadof the five tribes—the Mac Gregors, Grants, Mac Nabs and Mac Alpines, who have ever been linked together in Celtic tradition, as the descendants of five royal brothers, and are hence known as the Siòl Alpin. The Highlander broods over these old memories, and treasures them up as his only inheritance, and they are his best and highest incentive to noble daring in the hour of battle, and to kindly emotions of clanship in the day of peace.
'Blessed,' says Andrew Picken, 'be that spirit of nationality or clanship, or by whatever name the principle may be called, which opens up the heart of man to his brother man; and in spite of the trained selfishness to which he is educated in artificial life, bids the warm and glorious feeling of sympathy gush forth in circumstances of sorrow and of trouble, to cheer the drooping heart of the unfortunate, and prevent his swearing hatred to his own species.'[*]
[*] The Black Watch.
The day was clear and beautiful; the unclouded sun, I have said, shone in all his splendour through a summer sky. The vast amphitheatre of hills which surround the braes of Loch Ora were mellowed in the sunny haze, or the silver vapour exhaled from the little pools of water that dotted all the heath-clad plain. At the base of Ben Ora, which towered above the braes, the monarch of all the adjacent mountains, the gathering took place. The lower part of the hill was dotted by a line of snow-white tents and marquees, over which waved various flags and streamers. Amid these tents were a number of carriages; but the horses had been untraced, unbitted, and were quietly cropping the herbage, or enjoying their feeds of corn in the background. A great oval space was formed by the spectators who had crowded hither from all quarters to witness the games; the tall ruins of an ancient tower, once the stronghold of the Thanes of Loch Ora, enclosed one end of this oval; the waters of the dark-blue loch, rolling up to the base of the mighty mountain, enclosed the other; and here the red-funnelled steamers from Glasgow, Oban, and Inverness, were disgorging their passengers in hundreds at every trip. The slope of Ben Ora resembled a parterre of flowers, so varied were the dresses of the ladies. Fringed parasols of the most brilliant colours were fluttering on the soft wind; and the blue sunshades and broad bloomer-hats of the fairer portion of the assembly, mingled with the wide-awakes, Glengarry bonnets, and those peculiar tartan caps or crush-hats, which, with the checked coat and 'fast' waistcoat, generally indicate Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson—the thorough Cockney when touring in the Highlands. Appetized by the long ride, drive, or march to the Braes, or by the morning's sail up the sunlit loch, already the merrymakers had begun to uncork their bottles and unpack their hampers, amid a fund of laughter, frolics, and nonsense; and white cloths were spread on the grass, on the roofs of carriages, or any other available place; while champagne cooled in the mountain stream, and pale Bass, Guinness XX Dublin stout,uiskey, cold grouse, veal and venison pies, tongue, fowl, milk-punch, ices, hock, and seltzer-water, with all other accessories for pic-nicking were in requisition. In other places were knots or groups of Highlanders, talking in guttural Gaelic, laughing or croaking over their ills, or drinking toasts—'up with horn, and down with corn'—'the mountains and valleys,' &c., while troops of children, bare-headed and bare-legged, swarmed and gambolled about them, filling the air with shrill and strange cries of delight.
Among theéliteof the company was a stately duchess, whose family have long been notorious in the annals of cruelty and eviction; and whose glens have been swept of thousands of brave men, after the artifices of an infamous factor, the oppression of the game-laws, the destruction of the kelp manufacture, the slaughter of the flower of the clans in the Peninsular war, and other Highland evils, had driven the people to starvation and despair! There were present also a couple of chattering countesses, and many old ladies, whose pedigrees were considerably longer than their purses; but who, nevertheless, deemed themselves the prime patronesses of the gathering, as they usually were of the Northern Meeting. Flounced, feathered, and jewelled, with clan tartan scarfs, they regarded with just and due condescension the crowds of richly-dressed and handsome South-country women, many of whom were attiredà outrance, complete in elegance and fashion from bonnet and bracelet to their kid shoes. These, our decayed Highland tabbies regarded with the good-nature which generally falls to the lot of such wallflowers, who may, as Swift has it—
"Convey a libel in a frown,Or wink a reputation down;Or by the tossing of a fan,Describe the lady and the man."
Among theéliteof the male sex were various holiday warriors attired in gorgeous clan tartans. Some were distinguished by one eagle's feather in the bonnet, marking the gentleman; others by two, indicating the chieftain; but very few bythree, the badge of achief. The principal of the latter, was the Most Noble the Marquis of Drumalbane, Admiral of the Western Isles and Western Coast of Scotland—one whose forefathers had led their thousands to the field, and from whose glens our most splendid Highland regiments had marched to many a torrid clime and bloody victory; but whose vast territories were now a deathlike waste, where nothing was heard but the bleat of the sheep and the whistle of the curlew. In Glenarchai alone, this enterprising exterminator had converted thirty thousand acres into a hunting-forest. He was attended—notby a thousand brave men in arms—but by a few puny footmen and Lowland gamekeepers attired as Highlanders, and a few gentlemen who wore in their bonnets the eagle's wing, and carried at their necks each a silver key, as captains of certain ruined fortresses among the mountains of the West Highlands.
The varied tartans and magnificent appointments of these holiday Highlanders had a barbaric and picturesque effect. Their belts and buckles, jewelled daggers and pistols, snow-white sporrans, tasselled with silver or gold, their brooches studded by Scottish topazes and amethysts, and all their paraphernalia of mountain chivalry, flashed and sparkled in the noonday sun; while long bright ribbons and little banneroles of every colour streamed from the ebony drones of more than a hundred war-pipes.
Beside these gay duinewassals, the poor men of Glen Ora seemed but a troop of reapers or fishermen; but we stepped not the less proudly, because to the same march with which our pipers woke the echoes of the hills, our fathers had thrice left Glentuirc to sweep the Campbells of Breadalbane from Rannoch and Lochaber to the gates of Kilchurn.
In this epoch of civilization and ridicule, when even patriotism, religion, and love are made a jest, the reader may smile at these references to a past, and what weconventionallydeem a barbarous age; but a mountaineer never forgets that the brave traditions of other times are ever his best incentive to heroic enterprise and purity of thought.
In the centre of the vast oval formed by the spectators, tents, and carriages, lay the sledge-hammers, the uprooted cabers, the putting-stones, cannon-balls, broad-swords, targets, and other appurtenances of the games.
On halting and dispersing my followers, my first impulse was to scan the crowd for Miss Everingham, now that I could appear before her in my proper character, and to better advantage than I had hitherto done; and just as the sports were beginning, I saw the baronet's four-in-hand drag, the team of which, the showy Captain Clavering handled in first-rate style, come sweeping round the base of the hill, with its varnished wheels and embossed harness flashing in the sun; the captain, whose costume was most accurate, from his well-fitting white kid gloves to his glazed boots, adroitly halted it in the most central and conspicuous place. I was standing close by where he reined up, and then thesenseof Laura's presence made my heart beat violently, while my colour came and went again. No notice was taken of me for some time by the party of well-dressed fashionables who crowded the drag, till the studied respect shown to me by the peasantry, not one of whom passed or approached me without vailing his bonnet, attracted the attention of Sir Horace, who was quietly surveying thecanaillethrough a double-barrelled lorgnette. He then gave me a formal bow and conventional smile, but barely condescended to notice, even by a glance, my foster-brother Callum Dhu; but for whom (as Callum himself said,) 'the red tarr-dhiargan had been then perhaps nestling among his hair at the bottom of Loch Ora.'
Near the carriage-steps stood Mr. Jeames Toodles in all the splendour of red plush investments for his nether-man, and spotless white stockings on his curved but ample calves. He bore a gold-headed cane and an enormous bouquet, and from time to time cast furtive glances at Callum Dhu, who, being armed to the teeth, he deemed little better than a cannibal or Tchernemoski Cossack.
Snobleigh—we beg pardon—Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh—who cantered up on a dashing bay mare, languidly gave me the tips of his fingers, with a dreamy 'aw—how aw you—glad to see you old fellow—any noos to-day?' But Clavering, who had more of the soldier about him, shook me heartily by the hand, examined the lock and barrel of my rifle, and praised the piece; then he turned to his sister and Miss Everingham, both of whom greeted me in a manner so winning and gay, that even the heart of my mother, encrusted as it was by old Highland prejudices, would have been won.
I still remember how my heart throbbed when Laura's soft and velvet hand touched mine; for her glove was off, and then the little white fingers on which the diamonds were flashing, rested on the window of the carriage.
'Andyoumean to shoot for my prize to-day!' said she, while her sunny eyes danced with youth and pleasure; 'how kind of you to honour us so far as to compete for the purse which Fanny and I have made up. We hope you will prove victorious—indeed, we are quite certain that you will, Mr. Mac Innon.'
'Mr.to the head of the Siol Alpine!' growled Callum, under his thick black beard.
I pardoned her that prefix, which always jars on a Celtic ear, for her good wishes were so warmly and so prettily expressed.
Alas! how little she knew the agony that was gnawing my heart, under an exterior so calm. How little could she conceive the breathless eagerness with which Callum and I longed to win this wretched prize—an eagerness fired by no spirit of rivalry; but by an honest desire to keep a crumbling roof above the head of my dying mother—for a very little longer. And away over the dun mountains, far from this gay scene of mirth and sunshine, my heart wandered to that little darkened room where she was lying in a half-torpid state, with pretty Minnie reading or knitting beside her, and old Mhari creeping and creaking about her bed on tiptoe.
Laura Everingham knew nothing of all this, and she looked so pretty in her white crape bonnet, with her sunny English smile, her blooming cheek reddened by our healthy Scottish breeze, that I deemed her all the happier in her ignorance of the misery her presence—or, at least, the presence and the projects of her father, were about to work among the old race of Glen Ora. Young, ardent, and enthusiastic, could I fail to be flattered by her notice, pleased by the preference which her good wishes inferred, and dazzled by her beauty?—for I will uphold that her mere prettiness became absolutebeauty, when one knew more of Laura, and learned to appreciate her goodness and worth.
'When will the games begin, Fanny? I am so impatient,' said Laura; 'look at that love of a horse—he eats corn from the groom's hand; and see, Clavering, such a pet of a bonnet on that old thing's head. Who is she—does anybody know? Of course they will, for every one in the Highlands knows every one else. But who would expect to find such bonnets in Scotland? Who is that handsome fellow in the green uniform, with the enormous gold epaulettes—a Russian officer?'
'No,' answered Fanny, with a droll smile, 'he is only an archer of the Queen's Scotch body-guard, who is to shoot for a prize to-day. From the care with which his whiskers are curled, I will take heavy odds thathedon't win.'
'And that tall handsome fellow with the black beard—oh such a love of a beard it is! Heavens, it is the man who saved my dear papa's life!'
'He is my foster-brother, Miss Everingham; he, too, means to compete for your prize.'
'Aw—the fellow seems so strong that he might squeeze the wataw out of a whinstone; and aw—aw, as for tossing that fwightful cabaw—goodness gwacious!' yawned the languid A. F. Snobleigh, surveying the six feet and odd inches of Callum through his eyeglass.
'He is quite a model of a man, Laura,' said Fanny Clavering; 'I would marry him in a moment if he would have me. He looks so like——'
'What we read of in romances.'
'A bandit—a wild mountain robber—and I have always thought it would be so exciting, so delightful to marry a real robber, and be the bride of a real bandit or corsair—oh, I should love a corsair of all things, especially if his bark were a fine steam yacht, we should have such delightful pic-nics among the Greek Isles, and trips to the garrison balls at Corfu!'
'You perceive, Miss Everingham,' said Captain Clavering, laughing, while he smoothed his unparalleled white kid gloves, 'our noisy Fanny has a strong love for the charms of nature in an unsophisticated state. Hence her rapture at the long whiskers and bare legs of these Highlandmen.'
The cold, artificial, and aristocratic Sir Horace, whom the gold of his father, who died a wealthy Manchester millionaire and docile ministerialist, had made a baronet and king of our Highland glen, received all who approached his carriage with the same bow, the same smile, the same welcome, and nearly the same set of stereotyped phrases, good wishes and warm inquiries; and thus he graciously received his facile and obnoxious factor and factotum, Mr. Snaggs, who had been delayed by the ceremony of founding a new dissenting chapel, and who now galloped up on his barrel-bellied and knock-kneed pony, which he rode with a huge crupper and creaking saddle. A dark, almost savage scowl flitted for a moment across the usually placid and affectedly benign visage of 'the moralist,' and admirer of Blair, as our piper Ewen Oig passed and repassed him, playing the march of Black Donald; and then he smiled with malicious triumph, as if anticipating that day now so near at hand, when the war-pipe of Mac Innon would be hushed for ever by the shores of the Western Sea.
I exchanged a glance full of deep and bitter import, with the calm, stern, and stately Callum Dhu; then we withdrew a little way, for the vicinity of this man's presence was hateful to us, and now, amid a buzz of tongues began the great business of the gathering—a gathering summoned to foster the nationality of a people, whom the grasping aristocracy are leaving nothing undone to exterminate and destroy.
Having many of my own adventures to relate, I will confine my narrative chiefly to the achievements of those in whom I am most interested—the men of Glen Ora; and even in that I must be brief. In all those athletic sports, which in time of peace were of old, and are still the principal amusements of the Gael, there were many stout and hardy competitors; but Callum's known fame for strength and agility, together with his cool and confident air and graceful bearing, made them all dubious of victory, yet there were on the ground the flower of that poor remnant, who now represent the once powerful clans of the West.
Young Ewen Oig, the most handsome lad in our glen, elicited a burst of applause, and won the first prize for the sword dance, a species of Pyrrhic measure, performed over the crossed blades of two claymores; and he was also the victor of the dangerous Geal-ruith or race up hill, when nearly twenty strong and active Celts, hardy and swift as mountain deer, flung their belts, bonnets, and plaids on the ground, and with their kilts girdled tightly about them, started in a line at full speed up the steep slope of the Craig-na-tuirc, for the goal, a rough misshapen block that marked the scene of some forgotten conflict.
In the broadsword and target exercise the old men bore away the palm, for these warlike accomplishments are disused by the young; but, for the dangerous feat of swinging the sledge-hammer and tossing a long iron bar fairly over-end-long, by one turn of the foot, the silver medals were bestowed on Gillespie Ruadh; while the victor of the Clach-neart, orstone of strength,—one of which in the days of old usually lay at the door of every chief, that he might test the muscle of his followers, was Callum Dhu, who flung it a full yard and more, beyond the most powerful champions of the adjacent glens and clans.
Then came the play with the Clach-cuid-fir, a more serious test of strength.
In the centre of that great arena, formed by the circle of wondering and excited spectators, lay two stones, one of which was a square block about four feet high; the other was smaller and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. This was theclach. In the Highlands, he who could lift the lesser and place it on the larger block was esteemeda man, and entitled from thenceforward to wear a bonnet. Though much disused in general, this severe Celtic feat had still been remembered and practised by the men who dwelt in our remote districts; but as most of those who came with me were youths whose energies were scarcely developed, or old men whose strength was beginning to fail, Callum Dhu alone advanced to the clach-cuid-fir, and, taking off his bonnet, bowed to the people, in token that he challenged all men present to the essay.
His air, his garb, his bare muscular limbs, his stately port, erected head and ample chest, gave him the aspect of one of the athletæ of the Roman games. Thrice he waved his bonnet in token of challenge to the people, and though a murmur of admiration greeted him, there was no other response. At his neck hung a brass miraculous medal and little crucifix, for Callum had been reared a Catholic, and these he carefully adjusted before he began. Every eye and opera-glass were fixed upon him, while grasping the ponderous clach, and with a simple, but scarcely perceptible effort, he raised and placed it gently on the summit of the greater block.
For a moment the people paused as if they had each and all held in their breath, and then a loud, long and hearty plaudit made the sunny welkin ring: and my breast expanded with honest pride in Callum's strength and prowess.
'Heavens—such a love of a man!' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, with astonishment and delight sparkling in her beautiful eyes.
'Regulaw brick—aw!' added her cavalier, Mr. Snobleigh, whose glass was wedged in his right eye.
'Egad!' exclaimed Captain Clavering, with honest English warmth and admiration; 'this is the mettle of which the Scots make their Highland regiments.'
'Such were our men, sir,' said I, bowing; 'but there are few now between Lochness and Lochaber, who could perform a feat like this.'
'The greater is the cause of regret.'
'Now, Callum,' said I, 'let us have no more of this. You have tasked your strength enough for one day—and remember you have long been weak and ailing.'
'I have been struggling to give pride and pleasure to Minnie, and if I conquer, 'tis as much for her sake as for yours, Mac Innon. She pinned this cockade on my bonnet when I left her, and reminding me of the former prizes I had won, smiled on me, as she alone can smile; for Minnie is the fairest flower on the banks of the Ora. But what seeks this red-legged partridge here?' he continued, in Gaelic.
This was applied to the valet of Sir Horace, Mr. Jeames Toodles, who, notwithstanding the splendour of his livery, his red plush nether habiliments, laced hat and heraldic buttons, approached timidly to say, that 'Sir 'Orace vished that ere thingumbob lifted again, if the gentlemen had no objections.'
Callum gave the liveryman a withering glance, and touching his bonnet to the ladies, pushed the clach off the lower block with one hand.
'Oh, papa,' exclaimed Miss Everingham, 'how can you be so cruel as to ask this? Don't you see that the poor man looks quite faint, after all he has done already?'
'Never mind,' said the baronet, from his well-stuffed carriage; 'up with it again, my man, and here is a sovereign for you!'
While something like an emotion of rage and humiliation made the eyes of my fosterer flash fire, he snatched up the ponderous clach, and after poising it aloft for a moment, while he trembled in every limb, while every muscle and fibre strained and stood like cords and wires of iron, and while the perspiration oozed from every opening pore, he dashed it down upon the lower block, and shivered it into fifty fragments.
I saw that he was deathly pale, when Mr. Jeames Toodles approached him with the sovereign, but whether in anger, or that his strength had been wantonly overtasked, I know not—probably both. Disdaining to touch the coin, the poor half-starved fox-hunter said to the valet, with a glance of quiet contempt—
'Put that in your pocket, my friend, and thank your master for me. Dioul!' he added, in Gaelic, 'does this man think to pay us like English rope-dancers, or the fellow who squeaks in Punch's box at the fair? Air Dhia! we have not yet come to that!'
'You are a noble fellow,' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, patting his brawny shoulder with her pretty hand, while her fine eyes sparkled; 'I shall never—never forget you.'
'Miss Clavering,' said Sir Horace, coldly; 'you forget yourself.'
Then came the tossing of the caber—a tree which is cut short off by the roots, and must be balanced by a man in the palms of his hands, and which he must toss completely round in the air, so that it may fall endlong in a direct line from him. In this feat, none ever excelled a little tribe named the Mac Ellars, who for more than a thousand years had resided in Glen-tuirc; but about twelve months before this time, they had been expelled with great cruelty by Snaggs. Their huts were burned down, and several persons who were old and bedridden, were wounded—three mortally—by the soldiers from Fort Augustus. These had been ordered to fire through the thatched roofs to force the people out, after which the whole were driven at the bayonet's point to the sea-shore, where they were ironed and embarked on board the famous evicting ship, theDuchess, which awaited them at Isle Ornsay, to convey the whole tribe to the nearest port of the American coast; so, when the caber was carried to-day, the strong hands that were wont to toss it high aloft, amid the honest shouts that woke the rocky echoes of Ben Ora, were now assisting to clear the vast forests of that Far West, where the sun of the clans is sinking.
Now came the rifle-shooting, which deserves an entire chapter to itself. The first prize was no less than a hundred sovereigns; the second was fifty.
Laura Everingham and Fanny Clavering had constituted themselves the patronesses of this feat of skill; but though the purses, on the acquisition of which the whole energies of Callum and myself were devoted—in no spirit of vain-glory, as I have said, but goaded on by the spur of sheer adversity—was made up by them and their female friends; yet Fanny by her air and bearing, her energy, in short by the very noise she made, assumed the supreme direction of affairs; thus the gentler Laura, in her little white crape bonnet and lace shawl, seemed a mere appendage to her beautiful, brilliant, and 'Di Vernon' looking friend.
Fanny was a free and dashing girl, with whomyoumust have fallen in love, my bachelor friend, for she was one who made herself everywhere as much at home as the fly in your sugar-basin. She wore a broad hat and feather, which gave a piquancy to her fine eyes and expressive features. She had on a dark green riding-habit, with yellow gauntlets, and carried a gold-headed switch. She was a showy girl—the pet of the Household Brigade, and the counterpart of her brother the Guardsman, only a little more merry, and much more wilful. She was a good horsewoman, and rode hurdle-races and steeple-chases; a good hand at whist, rather a sharp stroke at billiards, and would deliberately sweep up the pool with the prettiest white hands in the world. She waltzed divinely, was considered glorious in a two-handed flirtation, or private theatricals, where she shone to admiration as 'Di Vernon,' or the 'Rough Diamond.' Fanny could make up a good book on the Oaks, and had always a shrewd guess as to the winner of the Derby; she had the Army List and the Peerage at her taper finger-ends, and knew all the last novels and music as if they had been her own composition. Once upon a time she was nearly riding herself for the Chester Cup; and those who peddled and punted at mere county races, she despised as heartily as if she belonged to the Hussars or the Oxford Blues. In short, Fanny knew everything from the Deluge to the deux-temps, and from the misfortunes in the Crimea to the mystery of crochet—moreover, a word in your ear, my dear reader, our charming friend had some thousand pounds per annum in her own right, and 'expectations' without end.
She had urged the more timid and retiring Laura to club their prize for the rifle-shooting; and now she appeared on the ground with a smart grooved rifle in her hands, to compete with all comers, on the part of herself and of the shrinking Laura, who had never laid her little hand upon a fire-arm in her life, and begged to be excused doing so now.
About thirty Highlanders, armed with rifles, crowded near her, but respectfully waited until Mr. Snaggs, whom she had requested to assist her, called over their names as they stood on the list, and to each as he stepped forward, the factor somewhat ostentatiously handed a—religious tract.
Meanwhile, Captain Clavering, Mr. Snobleigh (who wore a green sporting-coat with bronze buttons, on each of which was a fox's head), Callum Dhu, Ewen Oig, a few more privileged persons, and I, remained by her side, and now all the spectators pressed forward with interest to witness the shooting.
Callum and I were wont to shoot deer running, at four hundred yards, and to pierce a potato when tossed into the air, using spherical rifle-balls; thus we had little doubt of our success; but we meant to challenge the holiday huntsmen of the Lowlands to a trial of skill they little thought of.
The shooting proceeded with great spirit and rapidity, and it was admirable, for all the competitors were expert sportsmen. The targets were of iron, placed against the wall of the ruined tower, in a place which was sheltered from the wind, and afforded a long and level range. We shot at five hundred yards, and though the average was six balls out of twelve, put into a six-foot target, Callum, whose hands shook after tossing the caber, struck the nail on the head at two hundred yards; and Ewen Oig, I, and other Highlanders, easily put each, eight consecutive sphero-conical balls into the target, at an average of four inches from the bull's-eye; and at one hundred and eighty yards broke every quart-bottle that was placed before us.
There was a deliberation in the air of Callum Dhu that confounded the competitors. After squibbing his rifle, he carefully measured the charge of powder, poured it slowly down the barrel which he held straight and upright; then he moistened the wadding, poised the bullet thereon, setting it fairly in with his forefinger and thumb, and then he drove it firmly home. Then he capped, cocked, and placing the butt-plate square against the top-arm muscle, levelled surely and firmly to prevent the rifle from 'kicking.' A moment his keen bright hazel eye glanced along the sites, and while, impressed by these grave preparations, all held their breath, he fired with a deadly precision that none could surpass.
Clavering struck the bull's-eye thrice in succession at two hundred yards: but his shooting was not to be compared to ours; and we were greeted by bursts of applause in which he joined loudly, for he was a fine, frank and honest-hearted fellow.
'This beats everything I have met with, Miss Everingham,' said he, with great delight; 'I have seen the Cockneys shooting at Chalk Farm—the Chasseurs at Vincennes and the Jagers at Frankfort, where ten targets were shot as fast as the markers could work; but these Highland marksmen beat them hollow, and this is in a land where the game-laws say the tenant shall not have a gun. Old Leather-stocking, with his boasted Killdeer, could do nothing like this.'
'All skill and practice, my dear sir,' suggested Mr. Snaggs, who had repeatedly been solacing himself by quiet sneers at Highlanders in general, and myself in particular; 'to allow tenants the use of guns would only lead to poaching and vice, "which," sayeth the trite Quarles, "is its own punishment."'
It was unanimously agreed that Callum and I were the victors of that day's shooting. Elated by the prospect of winning the prize, and feeling happy that I would thereby be honestly enabled to relieve, to a certain extent, the troubles of a sick and aged parent, after a moment's conference with Callum, I turned to Captain Clavering, saying,
'We have shot at your targets placed at five hundred yards, and were ready to have done so, had they been placed at a thousand yards, if our rifles had been furnished with telescope sights. We will now challengeyouto a trial of skill, which may be new to you—with seven solid sugar-loaf balls shot from thirty-six inch rifled barrels.'
'Agreed,' said the Captain: 'I have shot a deer running at nearly five hundred yards, and have no fear.'
'Ewen Oig, bring our targets and hang one over the battlement of the tower,' said I to the young piper, who was the son of Gillespie Ruadh, and was lithe, nimble, and active. He took one of the small white targets we had brought with us from Glen Ora, and which measured about three feet square, and bore, in black line upon it, the figure of a cross. With this he scrambled to the summit of the ruined tower, a daring feat, as it was more than seventy feet in height, and there he fixed it firmly by means of a hammer, nails, and holdfasts. We now approached within two hundred yards, and challenged the competitors two and two, to putsevenbullets successively into the lines of the cross which measured two feet one way by one the other.
The impatient Mr. Snobleigh fired and missed. 'You keep your head too high, sir,' said Callum; 'thus, in firing, your line of vision does not follow the line of the barrel, and yours is rather more than thirty-six inches in length.'
Clavering fired twice, and twice splintered the edge of the target. All their other bullets were flattened like lichens on the castle wall, and he and Snobleigh drew back, muttering something about the unusual height and range.
Fanny now came forward with her smart rifle, which was decorated by ribbons, and which Snobleigh had loaded for her; she, and some one else, fired seven bullets between them, and one only struck the lower verge of the little target.
'Now, sirs,' said she to Callum and me; 'it is your turn'—but Callum lowered his rifle and drew back, 'What is the matter, sir?'
'I cannot contend with a lady,' said he, doffing his bonnet, 'and more than all, with one who is among the fairest in the land.'
'Shoot, shoot, I command you!' said Fanny, while her dark eyes flashed with girlish triumph at Callum's honest admiration of her great beauty.
'Your will is a law to me, madam. My chief and I will fire by turn—he, four balls, and I, three; and here I must give place to him. Had your hand been as powerful as your eye, Miss Clavering, we had but little chance of victory to-day.'
'I told you he was a love of a man, Laura,' whispered Fanny to her friend, the charm of whose presence was for ever in my mind, and I was fired by an ambition to outshine the perfumed Snobleigh—he who owned a park and hall in Yorkshire, a house "in town," another in Paris; a stud at Tattersall's, a yacht at Cowes, a shooting-box on the Grampians, and a commission in the Foot Guards—while I—what did I own? only my father's name, with the poor inheritance of Highland pride, and the dreams of other days.
'We shall see if these boasting Celts can perform this fine feat themselves,' sneered Mr. Snaggs, as he adjusted his spectacles and came fussily forward.
'Factor,' whispered Callum in his deep voice, 'the breast of the villain who thought to outrage my Minnie is smaller than that target, yet my ball may reach it some day,on the lone hillside, at a thousand yards!'
Snaggs grew pale, as if the death-shot was ringing in his ears. As I levelled my rifle, the betting began. I fired and placed the ball in the black line at the very head of the cross. Then Callum stepped forward.
'Fifty to one, he hits the black line,' said Clavering.
'Aw—done—I take you—cool hundred if you like,' drawled Snobleigh, betting-book in hand!
'It is done, by Jove; right through the target!'
'Lend me the telescope.'
'I could hit the medal on your breast at half the distance, Captain Clavering,' said Callum, as he fired again.
'Thank you, my fine fellow; I would rather you found another mark. Bravo! in the very centre of the cross!' continued Clavering, who was looking at the target through his telescope.
Then I fired again, and lodged my bullet in the black line, a little lower down, and so we discharged our seven bullets, planting them all fairly until the cruciform arrangement was complete, thus—
** * ****
Then Ewen Oig, wild with excitement, sprang again to the summit of the tower, wrenched away the target, and it was carried round the field, with the pipes playing before it, while we, by three hearty bursts of applause, were hailed the victors of the shooting-butts.
'By Jove,' exclaimed Clavering, 'I wish I could do this!'
'So you might, Captain, easily, if your bullets had been cast in the same mould.'
'How—what do you mean?'
'In the mould of old Mhari's father, the forester of Coille-tor.'
'The deuce! you don't mean to say they are charmed,' said the Captain, laughing; 'enchanted—bewitched?'
'Perhaps they are, and perhaps they are not. I say nothing; but I wounded the white stag with one.'
'Ha, ha, ha! capital—I like this!' exclaimed Clavering.
'Der Freischutz in the North—a second Hans Rudner,' said Laura Everingham; 'but the prizes are undoubtedly theirs.'
'By Jove, how a few such fellows would have picked off the Russians from the rifle-pits!'
'And this victor is our quiet-looking Allan Mac Innon,' said Laura, her eyes beaming with a pleasure that intoxicated me.
'He is a regular trump!' added the Captain, with manly honesty, although he had been beaten.
'He looks so calm and demure,' continued Miss Everingham, 'no one would have thought it was—it was——'
'It was in him,' suggested Clavering, squibbing off his rifle; 'why don't you become a soldier, Mac Innon—there is good stuff in you—'pon my soul, I like you immensely! don'tyou, Miss Everingham?'
At this absurd question, Laura coloured to her temples, and grew pale again.
'Well—aw,' began Mr. Snobleigh, who looked irritated and discomfited; 'I aw—nevaw saw such shooting certainly—beats Jerningham of ours, and he as the world knows, was matched—aw—aw—twenty-five pigeons—aw—against you, Clavering, for fifty sovereigns a-side; but I'll back these 'Ighland fellows against all England—aw.'
Now came the most exciting and, to me, humiliating part of the proceedings—the distribution of the first and second prizes for shooting.
Though poor, crushed and bruised by biting poverty, I could not, without an emotion of shame, accept the hundred sovereigns from the hand of Laura Everingham, and decline the more suitable gift of a silver cup, which was the alternative, in the case of a gentleman being the victorious competitor! Now in my inmost heart I felt that a poor and proud gentleman was the most miserable of all God's creatures. Clavering's words, 'why don't you become a soldier?' were ever in my ears; but the thought of my old and dying parent, of whom I was the only prop and stay, stifled the more fiery energy that rose within me; and as we drew near the little covered platform, where theéliteof the spectators were grouped around that beautiful but stony-hearted Duchess, the canting Marquis, the two Countesses, Sir Horace and others of their privileged order, I felt my spirit sink as if I was a very slave.
Here also stood Mr. Ephraim Snaggs, bearing on a silver salver two purses beautifully embroidered. One was by the hands of Miss Everingham, and contained the hundred sovereigns; the other was by her friend, and contained the fifty.
While crimsoned by mortification, I heard my name pronounced, and found myself before Sir Horace, who, as the newspapers said, "in a choice, neat, and appropriate speech," duly emphasised in the true Oxford fashion, announced that I wasthevictor oftheshooting-match, and entitled tothefirst prize—my companion tothesecond.
To accept this money seemed to me, educated as I had been by my proud and haughty mother, the very acme of shame and humiliation; but, at that bitter moment, I saw her in fancy stretched on her bed of sickness, wan with illness and with age, and about to be forcibly evicted at the stern behest of the very donor of this wretched coin—the curse of men, and cause of all their crime and misery. But for her sake I would gladly have scattered the money among the poor Celts who crowded round us, with exultation in their eyes, "that Mac Innon himself and no Sassenagh," was the victor; but I mastered my emotion; the Lowlander's proverb,he yat tholis overcomes, flashed upon my memory, and while my cheek burned with a fever heat, I received the purse from the hand of Laura Everingham, and again her soft touch gave me a thrill that went straight to my swollen heart.
With all a woman's quickness she divined the source of my emotion, and said tremulously,
'Mr. Mac Innon, you have, I think, some reluctance in accepting this prize; if you would prefer the silver cup, I am sure that dear papa——'
'No, no, madam; a thousand thanks for your generous delicacy; but—but the money——'
'Will be more acceptable,' added Mr. Snaggs, spitefully. 'We have a proverb among us in Scotland, my dear Miss Everingham, anent "leaving a legacy to Mac Gregor." Mr. Mac Innon is a Highlander, and possesses, I have no doubt, an accurate idea of the value of the current coin of these kingdoms.'
'Aw—aw,' drawled the vacant Snobleigh, taking his cue from the factor, and whom I heard though he spoke in a whisper, for my sense of hearing was painfully acute, 'I always thought this young fellow wondawfully well behaved for a Scotsman, but aw—aw—with all his cussed pwide and politeness he has taken your tin, Laura.'
My breast heaved—I felt the fire flashing in my eyes, and I glared at Snaggs with fury, while the impulse to dirk or shoot him rose within me.
'Ephraim Snaggs—liar, coward, and hypocrite, utter but another taunt or jeer, and I will strangle you like the dog you are!' I exclaimed in a voice so hoarse with passion, that Laura shrunk from me in terror, while I emptied the hundred sovereigns from the purse into my right hand, and flung them in a golden shower among the crowd, a startling and unexpected manoeuvre, which was immediately imitated by Callum, who tossed his fifty into the air; and thus in a moment we were as poor and as desperate as when the shooting began.
While the crowd scrambled for the money among the grass, a murmur—a cry of astonishment had risen, on all sides, and then silence succeeded.
'What the devil do you mean, fellow, by refusing the money?' asked Sir Horace, who seemed highly irritated that Callum should presume to imitate his master.
'Because I did not come here for money.'
'For what then?'
'Honour—like my chief and fosterer Mac Innon.'
'Honour?' reiterated the incredulous baronet, coolly surveying through his glass the erect figure of the tattered huntsman, from his bonnet to his brogues. 'Oho, of course you have a pedigree like a Welshman, beginning with Adam and ending with yourself.'
'In that case it might be no better than your own; but I am come of a long line of brave men, whose shoes, the son of a Manchester baronet, rich though he be, is not worthy to tie.'
The claret-reddened cheeks of Sir Horace grew pale at this fierce hit, while the stately duchess, the twopassécountesses, and all the Highland tabbies of 'good family,' exchanged significant and self-satisfied smiles. The baronet was about to make an impetuous rejoinder, when Clavering said,—
'Sir Horace do, I beg of you, respect the feelings of these people, whose peculiar temper and ideas you cannot understand.'
'Papa, papa!' urged his startled daughter.
'You speak English well—devilish well, indeed, for a Highlander,' said Sir Horace loftily, gulping down his anger; 'how is this?'
'I am all unused to answer questions that are asked in such tones, yet I will satisfy you.'
'Do, for never did I meet an ignorant gilly who spoke so proudly to me.'
'A gilly I am, butnotan ignorant one, Sir Horace. Thanks be to God, and to good Father Hamish Cameron, who now sleeps in his grave in the Scottish church at Valladolid, I can read and write, and do a little more. I am thus unlike the poor people round me, who are oppressed and destroyed, without knowing why and wherefore the land of their fathers, so dear to their hearts, is made a hunting-field for the dissipated and the idle of the south country, while they are driven from starvation to exile—we, the Gael, who since the Union have led the van of Britain's bloodiest battles. But I know that our enthusiasm, our traditions, and our ties of clanship seem mere trash and absurdity to such as you, Sir Horace—a cold-blooded conventionalist and man of the world. I have learned to be aware that the game-laws, the loss of the kelp trade, misgovernment, and centralization are the curses of the Highlands—all this I know, though I am but a half-lettered gilly! I know a black-hearted villain when I see one, Mr. Snaggs, and I know a pampered tyrant when I speak to one, Sir Horace, and sofailte air an duinnewassal!let us go Mac Innon.'
Sir Horace gave us a glance full of spite and anger; he felt that a peasant had dared to lecture him before a multitude; but now we marched off with our pipes playing, leaving the crowd of fashionables staring after us in astonishment, while the more ignoble mob still hunted for the scattered gold among the grass.
'We have done right and well, Callum Dhu,' said I; 'but think of my poor mother and of the eviction notices?'
'Your mother—ay, poor lady—there the dirk enters my heart.'
'If moved, she dies.'
'Nothing but the prediction of the Red Priest can save her now,' said Callum, lowering his voice, 'unless we defend the house by musket-shot, for if she passes its walls, she will die like the wife of Angus and your great-grandmother, the wife of Lachlan Mohr.'
We marched bravely and with pipes playing, while we were within sight of the crowds assembled on the green braes at the foot of the stupendous Ben; but as soon as we had crossed the shoulder of the mountain, and begun to descend into that beautiful valley from which we were all about to be expelled, our spirit sank and the wild notes of Ewen'sPiob Mohrdied away, while dejected and silent, or communing only in low and foreboding whispers, the men of our fated tribe approached their humble homes.
The aged, the women, and the little ones came forth to meet and to welcome with acclamations, and outstretched arms the victors of the different games. The crest-fallen bearing of Black Callum and myself led them at first to suppose what they had hitherto believed to be impossible and incredible, that we hail been beaten at rifle-shooting 'by the strangers.'
When I left the glen that morning, all my thoughts were bent on victory, and I saw only one thing in the world—a black spot on a white target; butnowthe blue eyes of Laura Everingham were ever before me, in all their variety and beauty of expression.
My mother's feeble voice fell sadly and reproachfully on my ear as I entered her chamber, and Minnie, drawing back the curtains, revealed the thin and aged form that seemed to be passing like a shadow from among us.
'You have won the prize, my dear boy, Allan?'
'Yes, mother.'
Her eyes were bent in love and sorrow on me. Oh, how full my heart was at that moment!
'A hundred guineas, Allan—think of that!'
'And Callum won the second prize,' said Minnie, with a timid blush of pleasure.
'Fifty more—one hundred and fifty! Oh, Allan, my poor boy. God's blessed hand was in this, to save us from the grasp of ruin!'
I wrung my hands, and throwing the empty purses before my mother, covered my face and sat down.
'What means this, Allan?' asked the poor woman, in a voice of tenderness and alarm; but I made no reply. 'An empty purse, you have not—oh, you cannot have spent or lost the money?'
'Neither, dear mother—but pity me and bear with the weakness you have taught me?'
'What have you done?'
'Listen and you shall hear.'
I detailed to her the shooting, and told how Callum and I were the victors at any distance from one to five hundred yards, and how we showered our bullets into the bull's-eye, as fast as the markers could count them; how we challenged all to shoot seven consecutive balls into the black cross on the tower of the Thanes; how none save Callum and I could touch it at two hundred yards—a feat such as the Highlands had seldom seen before, and how we won the prizes.
I related how the hateful Snaggs had been there with musty morality on his oily tongue, and a hateful smile in his deep grey eye; how he had uttered sneers to which (without seeming to commit an outrage) I could not reply. I told her of the shame I endured when competing with shepherds and foresters for a prize, even from a lady's hand. I the heir of an old and respected line, and with all the pride in whichshehad reared me, swelling in my heart; I told her of the wily factor's taunts, and how Callum and I had flung the gold with scorn among the people, and departed from that great and long wished-for gathering on the Braes as poor as when this morning, so full of hope and spirit, we had marched over the mountains to attend it.
My mother heard me quietly to the end, and then applauded me as warmly as her feeble strength would permit. But I failed to feel this approval in my own heart, when beholding the emptiness of our household—the lack of comforts—yea almost of common food; and I cursed the pride that made me scorn a prize, which though less than a bagatelle to some—to you, my good reader, I hope—would have been a Godsend to our half-famished family at Glen Ora.
Then Laura's face and eyes, her voice and accents came before me, and I fell, I knew not why, into a dreamy reverie over all I did.
My mother's illness and our penury pressed heavily on my soul. A lofty barrier seemed to surround me; a girdle of evils—a boundary beyond which I saw no outlet, from which there was no escape, and which I dared not and knew not how to surmount. Too proud to beg, and ashamed to dig, I became bewildered as the evil hour approached, when the authorities would arrive to evict the people of the glen. For the whole of the previous day no food passed my lips; I found eating impossible, I felt as one over whom hung a sentence of death; a dark, inevitable, and unavertible fate; and with the apathy of despair I saw the morning of the sixth day dawn, when the messengers and constables, or perhaps the soldiery from Fort William, would arrive to extinguish the fires, unroof the houses, and drive the people away.
Thoughts of armed, manly, and determined resistance floated darkly and fiercely through my mind; and I am certain that the same ideas were hovering before Callum, as he sat by his humble but untasted breakfast, sharpening his skene dhu, cleaning, oiling and examining his favourite rifle, the crack of which might never more wake the echoes of the mountains; and our pretty Minnie watched him the while with loving and anxious eyes. There were weapons enough in the cottages to arm the men of the glen, and their number was sufficient to have held against three thousand red coats, the gorge that led to the valley, for there our grandfathers had made a long and desperate defence against the ruffianly Huskes Brigade in 1746, andwewere able to do as much again; but the steamers had opened up the lochs in our rear; and though we might have repelled the authorities for a few days, we were sure of being overcome and severely chastised in the end; thus the rash and dangerous idea to taking arms to defend our old hereditary hearths and homes was no sooner formed than it was dismissed.
At night I could scarcely sleep, and if for a moment my eyes closed, distressing visions of flaming houses, and of women and children dragged forth by rural police and soldiers, came before me. I heard my mother crying for succour—but invisible powers seemed to chain my feet to the earth, and breathlessly I writhed and strove to aid her. Perspiration bedewed my forehead, when hands were roughly laid upon her bed to bear her forth, for the hour of eviction had come, and I remembered the widow of Lachlan Mohr. Then I was free—I sprang to my father's sword; but our tormentors flung themselves upon me! My mother was borne forth—now—now, she was at the threshold. I heard a faint cry, and all was over—she had expired! Then I would start up, with my heart full of horror, grief, and vengeance, to find that it was all a dream; but, alas, a dark and foreboding one!
The sixth day dawned. It drew slowly and heavily on—it passed away, and night darkened without Ewen Oig, who was posted as a scout on the lofty brow of the Craig-na-tuirc, seeing any sign of the dreaded authorities approaching by the road which, like a slender thread between the giant hills, wound away in the distance towards the capital of the Highlands.
A little hope began to gather in my heart.
But they might come on the morrow.
My mother had caught the feverish excitement that reigned in our little household, and from the crooning and croaking of old Mhari, soon learned the doom that hung over us, and it had a most fatal effect upon her frail and delicate constitution. She became dangerously ill; in her face I read that sad and terrible expression which comes but once, and my soul sickened with alarm!
After a late and hasty meal of broiled venison (poached by Callum), and shared with a staghound and the sheep collies, I despatched my fosterer with all speed for the doctor of the district, while I buckled on my dirk, and departed for the new manor-house of Glen Ora, to seek an interview with Sir Horace, and crave for my mother a little delay—that mercy which I disdained to seek for myself.
'The moonis full,' said Callum, as we separated; 'it is a lucky time to undertake anything.'
I soon reached the large and handsome modern villa, which crowned the plateau, where the square tower of the Mac Innons had been, for seven hundred years, the landmark of the glens. The hour was eight; but the baronet and his friends were still at the dinner-table, and the brilliance of the wax-lights in the four tall windows of the magnificent dining-room, seemed to straggle with the bright flush of evening that reddened the sky above the darkening mountains of the west.
Through a spacious marble vestibule, adorned by gilded cornices, marble statues, and deer's horns, I was ushered by the plushed and powdered Mr. Jeames Toodles, into an illuminated billiard-room, and here he asked me for my card.
'Card!' reiterated I, reddening, for I had never discovered a use for such a thing before; 'no card is required; say that Allan Mac Innon wishes to speak with Sir Horace, without a moment's delay.'
The valet gave a supercilious smile; but, on perceiving me throw a hasty glance towards a rack of billiard-cues, he made a hasty retreat. After remaining for some time alone, and with no other company than my own bitter and galling reflections, I found the valet before me again; Sir Horace was just finishing dinner, and afterwards had to confer with a gentleman on business.
'And cannot see me?' I exclaimed, making a stride towards the speaker—a gesture which caused him to shuffle backward in terror; my heather-coloured kilt and fierce free mountaineer bearing had in them something new and appalling to him.
Mr. Toodles did not mean to say that exactly; Sir Horace would see me in the course of a few minutes; meantime, would I join Captain Clavering and Mr. Snobleigh, who were lingering over their wine, before ascending to the drawing-room? I bowed, and followed the valet mechanically, with a breast that swelled with many strange emotions. If I committed, in thought, the double sin of covetousness and envy on that occasion, when contrasting the humility, plainness, and penury of my dilapidated home with the splendour and luxury I beheld, it was not for myself, but for the sake of one whom I felt assured would not be long spared to me now; and whom not even the prediction of the Red Priest could protect from the hand of the Spoiler.
From the walnut sideboard the liveried servants were removing the dinner, the rich and overpowering odour of which filled that loftily ceiled, heavily curtained and gorgeous dining-room. To me it seemed a scene from a romance. The vases were richly gilt and mounted with precious stones; the dessert,entreedishes, the soup-tureens, ashets, &c., with which the powdered lacqueys were trotting to and fro, were all of silver exquisitely chased; so were the classic wine-coolers, with the champagne in ice, and the ponderous branches of six wax-lights each. The wassail-bowl of silver had already made its tour; and at a side-table was the coffee simmering, and served in antique china and silver.
But the coffee was neglected, for Clavering, Snobleigh, and two or three other sporting visitors, with Sheriff Mac Fee, were loitering over their wine, fruit, and nuts; and the long polished table was resplendent with tall crystal decanters of the baronet's rare old port, vintage '34, sherry pure as amber, amontillado, first-growth claret, and straw-coloured champagne, foaming in goblet-shaped glasses, while old Hock, Stienberger, Malaga, and Moselle, stood in battalion under the sideboard, or in a cluster under the gigantic epergne.
'Welcome Mac Innon—delighted to see you, old fellow!' exclaimed Clavering, assuming the part of host.
'Aw—aw—how aw you?' added Snobleigh.
'Toodles, a chair for Mr. Mac Innon—wish you had come sooner—Sir Horace would have been happy to have seen you at dinner I am assured—hope you have dined, though? Ah—well, fill your glass—Toodles, champagne here, and pass the claret-jug.'
Sad, anxious, and most unhappy, I was silent, and drained the crystal goblet of champagne. Then my spirit warmed a little, and I joined in the conversation which naturally rose on local subjects, such as deer-stalking, grouse-shooting, and the famous white stag of Loch Ora, which many persons believed to be a myth, as no one could wound or kill it.
Even Mr. Fungus Mac Fee, the sheriff, could speak on these matters; but to me, always rather superciliously, because he knew but too well that my family was fallen and poor; while he always deferred to Mr. Snobleigh, who knew as much about deer-stalking as of squaring the circle, or adjusting the longitude. This sheriff knew intuitively that I hated him.
After toadying to his party, spinning out a subsistence by scribbling in magazines and papers in defence of it; after writing, with the same laudable view, a history of Scotland, in which the clans were handled with such severity, and one might suppose the soul of Cumberland had been in his ink-bottle, Mr. Mac Fee found himself sheriff of a county; and after denouncing on the hustings, and through the medium of a journal (long notorious in Scotland for its anti-nationality, its hatred of the Celtic race, and for being the special utensil of the Government,) the waste of one administration, he had no objection to accept of numerous sinecures for himself and his connections, under their successors; hence, he scraped a sufficient sum to purchase the small estate of Druckendubh. He was naturally coarse, argumentative, and full of vapour and authority; but here, among men of undisputed wealth and position—at least, the position which wealth insures to every blockhead in this conventional age—Fungus Mac Fee was the most bland and suave of mankind.
'Any news to-day, Mr. Mac Innon?' asked the sheriff, raising his impudent eyebrows.
'None, sir,' said I, sharply, for our Scottish placeman knew enough of Highland courtesy to be aware that the prefix was offensive to me.
'Have you not heard that the Russians have crossed the Pruth in two places, and mean to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia?'
'Yes; but I have other things to think of, Mr. Mac Fee, and I wish, in my soul, that they were crossing the Braes of Loch Ora.'
'A deuced odd wish that!' said Captain Clavering, 'but perhaps you don't like that straw-coloured champagne—try the pink.'
'Aw—try the claret-jug—you'll aw—find it rathaw the thing, said the languid Snobleigh, smoothing his bandolined moustache; 'Sir Horace is engaged in the library—aw—just now, with Mr. Snaggs—such a howibble name!—on business. Dem business—wish there was no such thing in the world; Snaggs is always annoying Sir Horace about something or other.'
My heart sank lower on hearing this; for even in this visit to the baronet, fate seemed to have conspired against me; but I should have remembered that naturally Sir Horace was frequently engaged in consultations with Snaggs, for being of a proud and tyrannical disposition, he was ever squabbling about rights and points of etiquette; taking offence where none was intended, and waging a legal—and to Snaggs most profitable—war, with the neighbouring proprietors, farmers, shepherds, and poachers.
'Fine girl that was, whom we met at the gathering the other day,' said the captain.
'Aw—vewy, for a Scots girl—but, aw—a little metaphysical,' responded Snobleigh, sleepily cracking a nut.
'Magnificent hand and arm, though!'
'Aw—rathaw—but she was so dooced pwoud.'
'She will have something handsome, gentlemen,' said Mac Fee, draining a glass of champagne at one vulgar gulp; 'when the people give place to fine fat sheep on her land. She is an heiress, and when six or eight of the small farms are formed intoone—and you are pleased with her, captain?'
'f thought her the prettiest of all pretty girls—but flirting with her—pass the claret, thanks—would be mere waste of powder. I must keep my ammunition for better game.'
'Aw—Laura Everingham, I presume,' said Snobleigh, with a little spite in his eye and tone.
The Captain coloured slightly; a shade of annoyance crossed his brow, and regardless that I and others were present, Snobleigh continued to chatter away; and even this exasperated me, for misfortune had rendered me unduly sensitive.
'I assure you, Clavering, that girl Everingham will come in for a jolly good thing or two, when Sir Horace departs to a better world. I—aw—fished it all out of old Snaggs the other night by quoting Blair, and passing the bottle, so I'm a devilish good mind to—'
'What—pop the question, eh?'
'Aw—yes.'
'Then you may save yourself trouble, Snob, my boy, for she has refused me already, and other two of the Household Brigade: but I don't despair yet—for I have the governor's interest.'
'And you proposed—aw—the devil! this was rathaw an extensive proceeding. I thought that I knew how to manage horses and women too. For that, one requires considerable—aw—.'
'What?'
'Study—aw perseverance and care.'
'The ladies are infinitely obliged to you,' said Mac Fee.
'The future Mrs. Snobleigh particularly so,' laughed Clavering; 'Toodles, fill that devil of a claret jug—what the deuce is Sir Horace about?'
'Snaggs and he must have arranged some pretty extensive clearances by this time,' suggested the sheriff, with a furtive glance at me.
'In truth, Clavering,' said Snobleigh, who had been pondering a little; 'I aw—would feel restless with a wife so simple and handsome among the gay fellows of the Household Brigade.'
'Yes—you would be like the husband some one writes about, who,
"While Suspicion robs him of his ease,Peculiar danger in ared coatsees;Envies each handsome fellow whom he spies.And feels hishornsat everycornetrise."