Now the dewy sounds begin to dwindle,Dimmer grow the burnished rills,Breezes creep and halt,Soon the guardian night shall kindleIn the violet vault,All the twinkling tapersTouched with steady goldBurning through the lawny vapoursWhere they float and fold.—DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT.
The sound of a tinkling bell, crossing the pasture in tuneful harmony with the music of the summer evening, had come to a pause in the barnyard, and the boys had gone out with their pails to the milking.
Scotty came capering up the path from the barn, making mischievous snatches at Granny's rosebushes, which surrounded the house all abloom in their June dresses. He seldom returned from his evening task of bringing home the cows in such good time. Generally he lingered in the woods until he had almost worn out even Granny's patience, and caused Callum to threaten all kinds of dire punishments, which were never inflicted. But to-night he had been very expeditious, and with good reason; for hadn't Granny warned him that Isabel might arrive at any moment? She had come to Kirsty's a few days before, and Weaver Jimmie had promised that, if the lady who ruled his heart was in a sufficiently propitious mood to admit of his leaving her door intact, he would, without fail, bring the little visitor over that evening.
She and Scotty had become quite intimate since the first summer of their acquaintance. Miss Isabel was possessed of a vitality and high spirits that sometimes became unbearable to her invalid aunt; so every summer, to her own delight and Miss Herbert's relief, she was packed off to the home of her old nurse. For Kirsty John's mother had been a servant in the Herbert family in her youth; and when the little Isabel had been left an orphan in the Captain's family, Kirsty herself had been nurse-maid to both her and Captain Herbert's little son. Sometimes, too, during the winter, when her cousin was away at school, the child came for a lengthy visit to her Highland home, for Miss Herbert had often to go to the city for medical attendance, and her brother always accompanied her, glad of an opportunity to be with his son. Indeed, the family at Lake Oro had what Kirsty called a bad habit of "stravogin'." She declared they were always "jist here-away there-away," and never settled down like decent folk in one place. But then there was no accounting for the ways of the gentry, and these people were half English and half Irish, anyway, and what could a body expect? She was thankful herself that the wee bit lassock had some good Scotch blood in her, anyway. Kirsty often shook her head over her little charge, declaring that if the father or mother had lived, or even the Captain's wife, who was a smart, tidy body, even if she was a lady, the wee one would have had better care. Not but that the Captain's folk were fond of the lamb; Kirsty declared it was clean impossible not to love her; but what with a poor girnin', sick body for an aunt, and an uncle who was such a gentleman he didn't know whether the roof was falling in on him or not, was it any wonder the bit thing was wild?
Whatever neglect Miss Isabel may have suffered troubled her not a whit. For neglect spelled liberty and always contributed to the general joyousness of her existence. Her poor aunt's illnesses, even, were associated in her childish mind with the keenest delight, for they brought her what she enjoyed most in the world, many days spent in the Oa. Nominally her home was with her old nurse, but she really spent the greater part of her time at Scotty's home. And here Weaver Jimmie became indirectly a partaker in the joy of the little one's presence; for Kirsty entrusted her girl to him in her journeys between the clearings; an honour of which Jimmie boasted from one end of the Oa to the other, and fulfilled his commission with a vigilance that kept his lively young charge in a state of indignant rebellion.
In the meantime Scotty had grown to like this new comrade and to respect her. Of course she was only a girl, but she was immeasurably superior to Betty, for she rarely cried, was always merry, had a marvellous inventive genius and never failed of some new and wonderful scheme for enjoying life and escaping work. His big, generous heart experienced no jealousy, but only a great pride in her, when she usurped his place and became the centre of interest and admiration in his home. One visit had been sufficient to establish her as the ruler of Big Malcolm's household. Everyone came at her beck and call; Rory fiddled, Callum danced, Old Farquhar sang, and Hamish spun impossible yarns at her command. And Granny, who was the most abject subject of all, would fondle her golden curls, calling her Margaret, the name of her own little girl whom she had lost, and would let her help make the johnny cake for supper, apparently not a whit disturbed by the fact that everything in the room was strewn with flour. Big Malcolm himself seemed to forget that she belonged to the man against whom he had sworn lifelong enmity, and like the rest, opened his heart to her unreservedly. And she returned his affection with all the might of her warm happy nature. She called him "Grandaddy," as Scotty did, and would climb upon his knee and coax and tease him into doing things that even his grandson would not have dared to ask.
The little visitor always came at a time that Scotty found very convenient, just when the closing of school had deprived him of Danny Murphy's companionship; and to-night he looked forward to her coming with more than usual pleasure, for he needed her help and advice. Of late the boy's tender heart had been worried by signs of discord at home. Something he could not fathom was wrong with Callum. That old trouble that had arisen between him and Grandaddy the first winter of the prayer meetings had been suddenly aggravated. Scotty had heard rumours at school, and was vaguely conscious of the cause of the dissension. Isabel was so quick, perhaps she could help him to find out just what was wrong and suggest a remedy.
"Yon's a queer-lookin' thing comin' over the bars, Scotty," said his grandfather, smilingly, from his place at the doorway.
Scotty turned eagerly; yes, there was a little blue figure scrambling hastily over the fence into the pasture-field, followed by Weaver Jimmie, as anxious and flustered as a hen with a wayward duckling. A joyous scream announced that she had really come.
"It's her!" shouted the boy. "It's wee Isabel!"
He darted down the hill to meet her, but Callum was there first. Callum was on his way up from the barn, and the little blue figure flew to him and made the rest of the journey to the house perched triumphantly upon his broad shoulder, screaming with delight, and calling upon Scotty, her own dear Scotty, to come and meet her.
But for all his joy, as she approached Scotty drew back shyly behind the rosebushes. The first meeting with Isabel was something of an embarrassment, for she always pitched herself upon him and insisted upon kissing him, more than once sometimes, if he wasn't watchful, and it was certainly an unseemly thing for a boy of his size to be kissed by anybody. But the ordeal was soon over, and when they had all rejoiced over her and measured her height against the door-frame, where two niches showed how she and Scotty had stood last summer, and admired her growth, and warned Scotty to take care or she would soon be as tall as he was, the elder folk gave their attention to Weaver Jimmie and left the children to their own devices.
As usual the Weaver was the bearer of important tidings.
"It's a fine job Tom Caldwell thinks he's got this time!" he declared with an embarrassed hitch of one big foot over the other, and a rather nervous glance towards Callum.
"What's that?" inquired Rory, coming up to the door with his two pails of foaming milk. "We always like to know what our relations will be doing," he added with a sly chuckle.
Weaver Jimmie looked more embarrassed than ever. He attacked his whiskers and became so absorbed in their subduing that his audience grew impatient.
"Out with it, man!" cried Callum, and thus adjured, the Weaver told his story. When he had finished, it appeared that a much graver danger than a Fenian raid threatened the Glen, for what should Tom Caldwell and all those Irish louts from the Flats be up to now but an Orangemen's raid!
Big Malcolm removed his pipe and glared at the speaker.
"What is it ye will be saying, man?" he demanded harshly. Weaver Jimmie looked encouraged, and avoiding Callum's eye, he gave further details. Tom Caldwell had lately been the means of organising an Orange lodge in the Flats, and at their last meeting the brethren had decreed that, upon the coming 12th of July, they must have a celebration. It was to be no ordinary affair either, Pete Nash himself told him; but such a magnificent spectacle as the pioneers had never yet witnessed. Pete had received orders to prepare dinner for fifty guests and whiskey for twice as many. There was to be a grand rally early in the morning at the home of Tom Caldwell, who was to personate the great Protestant monarch, and at high noon a triumphal march up over the hills and down into the Glen to the feast,—with fifes and drums and a greater display in crossing the Oro than King William himself had had in crossing the historic Boyne.
Big Malcolm sat silent, his fists clenched. He was a Glencoe MacDonald, and, like all his clan, had an abhorrence of the name of Orange running fiercely in his veins. But he was saying to himself over and over that he who had repented of all his strife, who had set his face firmly against the evils of the day and become a leader of the new movement that was bringing the community into a higher and better life, he certainly must not be the one to stir up dissension. And yet, to have a celebration in their own glen in honour of the MacDonalds' betrayer!
"It will be a low, scandalous, Irish trick!" he vehemently burst forth.
Weaver Jimmie's eyes brightened. "They would be needing to learn a lesson, whatever," he suggested tentatively.
"Malcolm," Mrs. MacDonald's voice came in gently, "we will surely not be forgetting that Tom Caldwell would be joining us at the meetings these last winters, and indeed we would jist all be praying together that the Father would be putting away all strife from our hearts."
Callum cast his mother a look of gratitude; for, though generally the first to scent the battle from afar and hasten its approach, for very good reasons of his own he was on this occasion strongly inclined for peace. Big Malcolm looked at the gentle face of his wife and the fire died out of his eyes.
"Hoh!" he exclaimed disdainfully, "I will not be caring; let them have their childish foolishness if it will be doing them any good, whatever!"
Weaver Jimmie looked disappointed, but, seeing no encouragement in the faces about him, he reluctantly dropped the subject. The conversation soon turned from war to a topic even nearer Jimmie's heart, for Rory had brought out his fiddle and now struck up gaily the song of the cruel Jinny and the hapless weaver.
Before the departure of the guests Scotty found an opportunity to confide his troubles to Isabel. He could not tell her exactly what was wrong, for that meant confessing that Callum and Grandaddy were capable of mistakes. But he vaguely hinted that he was worried over their hero. Callum was going to do something, something strange and new, but just what he could not discover. Isabel was equally perturbed. Why not ask Granny? she suggested. She would tell them. But no, Scotty explained, that was just what they must not do, for it was something that made Granny sad. But Peter Lauchie knew; Peter had told him that the shanty at the north clearing was to be fixed up for Callum to live there, after harvest; and then he laughed and would tell him no more.
As usual Isabel was quick to suggest a way out of the difficulty. Why should they not go over to Peter's place some day andmakehim tell all about it? She wanted to see Betty again, anyway, and perhaps Hughie would put up a swing for them in the barn again.
This was a fine plan, and the next week they proceeded to put it into execution, and with Kirsty's permission set off early one morning for a day's visit at Long Lauchie's. Isabel was almost as well known there as Scotty himself, so he soon managed to leave her in Betty's company and go off to the fields to seek Peter.
By judicious and persistent questioning he learned the confirmation of his fears. Yes, Peter and all the boys knew what the trouble was. Callum was to be married, and to an Irish girl at that, and of course all the MacDonalds were highly disgusted.
Scotty listened in dismay. Callum to be married! That itself was bad enough, people were always laughed at and chaffed when they got married, and he writhed at the thought of his hero being in such an ignominious position. But to be married to an Irish girl! Surely the MacDonalds would be disgraced forever.
And yet Scotty's heart forbade his taking sides against Nancy. She was Irish, certainly a deplorable fact, but still she was Nancy; and though she had not been at school for some time, the boy had not forgotten her. He sighed deeply over the complexity of human affairs. This, then, was the cause of their unhappiness at home, of Grandaddy's muttered threats and Granny's distressed looks.
He did not understand that there were stronger objections to Nancy in Granny's mind than the girl's nationality. Big Malcolm's wife was growing old, and the work of the farmhouse weighed heavily upon her. Ever since Callum had grown up she had cherished the hope that one day she would have sweet, trim Mary Lauchie, the finest girl in the Oa, and a MacDonald at that, to take the reins of government in her household. The loss of Mary would have been disappointment enough, but Callum's new choice was a great trial to his patient, gentle mother. The thought of Nancy Caldwell as a daughter-in-law, even though she was to live at the north clearing, instead of with her, filled her with fear. For Nancy had a reputation that had spread beyond the Flats. Since the day she left school, where she had defied McAllister at his best, she had ruled supreme in her own home from sheer dauntlessness of spirit. Many were the tales told in the Oa of her wild outlandish doings; how she would dress up in her brother's clothes and drive madly all over the country; how she could ride an unbroken colt bareback, and shoot like a man, things which everyone in the Oa knew no right-minded young woman could ever learn. And hadn't Store Thompson's wife been, as she declared, clean scandalised by seeing the hussy cross the Oro at the spring floods, standing erect in a canoe and spreading out her skirts to the gale, "Makin' a sail o' mesilf!" as she had laughingly declared when she leaped ashore.
Scotty could not force himself to tell Isabel the disgraceful truth; he was very quiet and gloomy as they walked homeward through the golden-lighted forest. But Isabel had had a grand day with Betty and had forgotten all about the original purport of their visit. She danced along at his side full of busy chatter. Didn't he love all Long Lauchie's folks? She did; for Betty was a dear and Mrs. Lauchie was 'most as nice as Scotty's Granny. But she loved Mary most of all, because she was so kind and so good. And did Mary have the heartbreak too, like her auntie? No; Scotty did not see how that was possible; for Mary had never had a dress ready for a wedding; nor a fine soldier man who did not come. But Isabel was sure he was mistaken. Yes, that was certainly what Mary had, for her face was so pale, and she had the same look in her eyes that her auntie had when her wedding day came round, only Mary's eyes were kinder. But Scotty was not interested in Mary. Callum absorbed all his thoughts, and he left Isabel at Kirsty's and hurried home.
He found the boys all gone and his grandfather sitting alone by the door. Big Malcolm was not smoking, which was a bad sign, and his grandson saw by the look in his eye that he was not at peace. In his perturbation over Callum's difficult case the boy had not noticed that a new undercurrent of excitement was running through life's everyday affairs.
For, though Big Malcolm had, with wonderful self-control, put aside his indignation at the Orangemen, all the MacDonalds had not done so. Weaver Jimmie had gone up over the hills of the Oa like a bearer of the fiery cross, and wherever he appeared the beacon-fire of anger had blazed forth. The Orangemen celebrating! The MacDonalds arose as one man, and in all the inherited fury of generations, combined with as much more produced for the occasion, banded together and swore that before the soil of this, their new home, should be polluted by a celebration in honour of the MacDonalds' betrayer, it should first be soaked with the MacDonalds' blood!
To do Tom Caldwell justice, he did not at all comprehend the enormity of the offence he was about to commit. Of course the Orangemen anticipated some trouble among their Catholic brethren, but rather looked forward to it as part of their entertainment. For though Pat Murphy and his friends prophesied death and destruction to the procession and all that had part or lot in it, what matter? The country had been growing far too quiet since the fighting MacDonalds had taken to praying instead of pugilism, and a little row at the corner would just stir things up a bit and make it seem like old times. But while they gleefully looked for tempests in the Flats, they were innocently oblivious to the fact that the formerly peaceful hills of the Oa had been converted into raging volcanoes. Occasionally vague rumours of an eruption in the MacDonald settlement did float down to King William and his men, drilling in the long June evenings, but they drowned them in the tooting of fifes and the banging of drums and went gaily on to their doom.
But while the MacDonalds raged, Big Malcolm remained at home alone or in company with Long Lauchie, and fought with himself the fiercest battle in which he had ever engaged. Not since the day he had seen Rory go down under Pat Murphy's feet had he been so sorely tried. And the MacDonalds would say he had failed them because his son was about to unite with one of the Caldwell crew. That was the sting of it! Callum had always been the first in any aggressive enterprise of the Oa, and Callum was now conspicuous by his absence. Sometimes Big Malcolm was fiercely resolved to plunge headlong into the commotion and compel his son to join him. And then calmer moments ensued; he could not forget those winter prayer meetings and the wonderful leavening effect they had had upon the community; nor could he forget Praying Donald's prophetic warnings that all strife and enmity must certainly bring retribution. No; he had forever put all feuds behind him, he finally decided, and if the MacDonalds were about to engage in strife with the Orangemen they must learn that he, Big Malcolm, was far above and beyond any such unseemly brawlings.
But upon this evening when Scotty found him alone at the doorway, his grandfather was experiencing none of the settled calm that might be expected to follow such a laudable decision. For to-night the MacDonalds were holding another mass-meeting at the house of Roarin' Sandy to decide finally what punishment should be meted out to the reckless Orangemen, and his very soul was crying out to be with them.
Scotty could elicit no answer to his remarks, and sat upon the doorstep, a small, disconsolate heap, wondering sadly how his hero could have made such a mistake, and finding in his own forlorn heart an echo of the sweet, melancholy evening music. Around him the mosquitoes wailed out their dreary little song; away down by the edge of the wet, low pastures, where the fireflies wandered, each with his weird little torch, the frogs were piping mournfully. The whitethroat was sending out his "silver arrows of song" clearly and pensively from the depths of the velvet dusk. The discordant twang of the swooping night-hawks came down from the pale clear sky where one silver star had come out above the black jagged line of forest.
Granny was moving about indoors; the boy could smell the sweet fragrance of the new warm milk she was straining into the pans. The air was heavy with the scent of clover, the world was very peaceful, but very sad.
And then, out of the soft murmurs of the summer night, there grew a strange new sound. At first it seemed merely a movement of the air, a peculiar thrilling vibration. But gradually it grew into a note, a high, weird musical note, alluring, electrifying. Scotty raised his head from the grass. "What's that, Grandaddy?" he asked sharply. Big Malcolm did not answer; he was sitting bolt upright, alert, tense, listening as if for his life. For a moment the sound faded away, there was a wondering silence. And then, suddenly, a little pine-scented breeze came sweeping up from Lake Oro; and on it, high, clear, entrancing, commanding, came again that wild penetrating call—the bagpipes! playing up gloriously the MacDonalds' pibroch!
Big Malcolm leaped to his feet. It was the first time he had heard that sound since it came ringing to him over the heather moors of his native land. The pipes! The pipes on the hills of Oro! There was neither prophecy nor precept, no, nor iron bands that could have held him at that moment. With a wild outpouring of Gaelic, he sprang forward, overturning the bench and the water-bucket by the doorstep; and, coatless and hatless, went tearing across the fields and down the road in obedience to that imperative call.
"Granny, Granny!" cried Scotty, running indoors in alarm, "what's gone wrong with Grandaddy, will he be gone daft?"
Granny raised her hands in amazement and stood listening.
"Eh, eh!" she cried, "it will be the pipes! Och, och, lad, things will be going wrong with Grandaddy now!"
The great day, the 12th of July, dawned radiant in sunshine like any other Canadian summer day. Mr. Nash had made tremendous preparations for his guests. He had his family up long before dawn and by dint of much fluency of language, for which he was famous, managed by eleven o'clock to have the banquet in readiness. Tables were set in the dining-room and barroom, which two chambers constituted the ground floor of the hotel proper. The lean-to kitchen at the back was steaming with all the good things Mrs. Nash and her daughters and the assisting neighbours had prepared; and by half-past eleven the host, in a clean shirt and his Sunday trousers, stood on the front step ready to receive with due ceremony the expected company.
Store Thompson's place across the way was surrounded by a crowd of eager spectators, for such a spectacle as a procession had not been witnessed in the Glen within the memory of the earliest settler. Then there were rumours of trouble too; Pat Murphy and his friends were there ready to produce it; and besides, everyone suspected that the MacDonalds had some scheme afoot. Store Thompson himself was excited. He had not seen Big Malcolm for more than a fortnight, and he was anxious about his war-like friend. Surely, he told himself a dozen times, Malcolm would never break forth into strife again after the stand he had been taking during the past few winters for the bettering of the community. And yet, as the kindly old gentleman confided to Sandy Hamilton, who had stopped the mill and come up to see what was transpiring, he could not help feeling "a wee thing apprehensive-like."
A few minutes before twelve, the appointed hour for the procession to appear, the patience of the crowd was rewarded. Pat Murphy had just assembled his satellites in the middle of the road and was haranguing them and, incidentally, all the township of Oro upon their duties, when a loud, shrill yell from the hilltops rent the air; there was a dull thud, thud of marching feet. The procession was coming! For a moment nationalities and creeds were both forgotten in a common desire to witness the spectacle. English, Irish, and Scotch crowded eagerly into the road; every eye was turned towards the south hill. Yes, the procession was certainly coming, but what was this unearthly noise it was making? And where were the fifes and the drums? And why, in the name of all the cardinal points, was it coming down the north hill from the Oa, instead of from the Flats?
And then there were no more questions, but just a sea of silent faces held upwards in gaping amazement, for out from the pine grove of the northern river-bank, with a shriek of pipes and a flutter of plaids, whirled Fiddlin' Archie MacDonald in full Highland costume; and behind him, armed and menacing, tramped every available male of the clan MacDonald, from Long Lauchie's seventeen-year-old Peter, up to—yes, alas, for the new era and its reforms!—Big Malcolm himself, all in perfect time to the wild yell of the MacDonald pibroch!
Down they swept like a Highland charge, the pipes screaming out a fierce challenge to anyone reckless enough to stand in their path, and awakening such warlike echoes in the Oro hills as they had not given back since the days when they rang to the war-whoop of Huron and Iroquois braves.
And, indeed, had an army of redskins in war paint and feathers appeared upon the hill, it is doubtful if it would have created any more excitement. For, though the Oa was a Highland settlement, the bagpipes had hitherto been an unknown instrument in the township of Oro. Hard work and hard times had precluded the indulgence in any such luxury, so the startled population of the valley witnessed for the first time that magnificent combination of sight and sound known as a Highland Piper.
Upon Pete Nash the effect was almost disastrous. The expectant host had been fortifying himself rather copiously against the duties and trials of the day, and his brain was in no condition to bear any such strain as the appearance of Fiddlin' Archie put upon it.
At the first sound he rushed into the road, his eyes bulging with horror, his hands held up as if to ward off a blow. For Peter had once been a good Catholic and knew he was committing a deadly sin in harbouring these Orange heretics; and here, surely, were the hosts of the Evil One, coming with shrieks of wrath to snatch away his guilty soul in the midst of his iniquity. His distracted wife bounded after him, a half-washed frying pan in one hand, a dishcloth in the other; and seeing what was descending upon them she dropped both utensils and wailed, "Och, the Powers come down, Pater! is it Gabriel's trump, then?"
No one noticed the stricken pair, for all eyes were fixed upon the advancing column. Right up to the tavern door it marched, and when the pipes ceased with a final defiant yelp, Big Malcolm, his eyes blazing, his head erect, stepped forward and addressed the still trembling, but much relieved, proprietor.
"We will be needing our dinner, Peter," he said very mildly, "for we would be having a long walk, and mebby some work ahead of us, whatever, so I hope you will jist be bringin' it on queek."
There was something in the intense politeness of Big Malcolm's tone that aroused Mr. Nash's worst fears; a MacDonald was never so dangerous as when he was courteous.
"And is it dinner for all this raft ye'll be after wantin', Malcolm MacDonald?" he cried in alarm. "Sure, ye know I can't give ye a bite nor sup the day, man; the byes from the Flats——"
"Whisht yer tongue, Pete Nash!" Big Malcolm's suavity vanished like a wisp of straw in a flame. "Bring on yer grub, man, or"—he brought down his big fist upon the nearest table with a crash that made both the crockery and its owner leap—"we'll be eating your old carcass on the doorstep!"
Mr. Nash gave a prompt and obsequious obedience. The Fighting MacDonalds individually must ever be treated with respect, but the Fighting MacDonalds in a body! Surely not the most vivid Orangeman could blame him in his extremity. Perhaps the distracted landlord felt that, after all, here was a providential means of escape from the crime he had been about to commit, for very soon he had all Glencoe seated about the well-spread tables, devouring the banquet prepared for William of Orange.
The MacDonalds attacked the unholy viands with a zest that not even a long tramp and a pioneer appetite could quite explain. Mrs. Nash flew back and forth hospitably, explaining to her satellites, to cover up any apparent irregularity in her husband's sudden change of patronage, that indeed they were always pleased to have the MacDonalds with them, and that she, for one, was very glad to see a Scotchman dressed the right way.
"Sure Oi've got a sister in the owld country, married to a Scotchman, thin," she explained quite proudly to Judy Connors. "He's in a Kiltie rig'ment, an' his name's Pat O'Nale, an' aw now, it was him that had the foine way o' swishin' his kilt whin he walked, indade!"
Meantime the feast was progressing; the great roasts of pork, the pies, the cakes, and the puddings were vanishing like the snow on a March noonday, when once more the assembly outside the tavern was electrified, this time from the proper source. For from the summit of the north hill there arose such a mighty banging and tooting as might have been heard had the new sawmill, lately built on the shore of Lake Simcoe, taken legs and gone on a mad excursion up over the Oro hills.
Down the slope with waving banners and thumping drums rode King William himself in brave array, mounted on a white steed which bore a strong resemblance to Tom Caldwell's old grey mare, and followed by a troop of loyal subjects, all to the stirring squeak of "The Protestant Boys."
At the sight of this magnificent army marching straight into the jaws of disaster, Pat Murphy uttered a yell of triumph that put the fifes and drums to shame. Reckless with joy, he flew into the middle of the road, and standing there facing the oncoming multitude, his wild eyes blazing, his red beard and hair flaring out in all directions, he shook his huge fist at the unoffending skies and called upon the sun and the moon and all things created to witness the downfall of his enemies.
Fortunately for the usurpers, the steed of state which King William bestrode, though old and decrepit, still adhered to a youthful habit of shying, or the procession might never have reached the MacDonalds. But, as the old grey mare approached the raving obstacle in her path, she swerved coquettishly and King William curvetted round his enemy with royal indifference. His subjects wisely followed his example; the procession divided and streamed noisily on both sides of the profane wedge which had cloven it, and which gallantly held its position waving its arms and howling forth derision until the last Orangemen had swept past.
But as the revellers tooted their victorious way down the street towards the tavern, a strange sensation of impending disaster made itself felt. The unwelcome fact began to dawn upon the Orangemen that the clamour about them was neither composed of acclamation, nor yet of the expected tumult of the outraged Murphys.
The suspicion grew to a horrible certainty by the time their destination was reached, and the instant the procession halted, King William, forgetting his royal dignity, scrambled from his horse and led a hasty charge against the doors and windows of the tavern. Their apprehension had been too correct. There, sitting at the Orangemen's feast, were forty-nine armed MacDonalds, while the fiftieth swept round the tables, his plaid flying, his kilt waving, his ribbons streaming, and his pipes shrieking as if they would fain split the roof!
It was a crucial moment for the Glen; and, looking from his vantage point on the verandah, Store Thompson held his breath. That the Orangemen even hesitated to pitch themselves headlong upon the usurpers showed that in the past two years the forces that make for law and order had been steadily working. However it might be, they hesitated. Perhaps they were assisted to a pacific decision by the sight before them. There is nothing so disastrous to a man's fighting qualities as an empty stomach. King William and his followers looked at their dinner rapidly disappearing into the capacious interiors of Glencoe; they looked at the stout clubs beneath the table; they glanced over their shoulders at Pat Murphy and his men, waiting eagerly for the MacDonalds to strike; they gazed at the terrible spectacle of Fiddlin' Archie, whirling round the room in an eddy of defiant yells; and the sights counselled discretion, rather than valour.
Slowly and sullenly they began to fall back from the doors and windows. Even King William was about to join the retreat when, in glaring fiercely round the tables, his eye chanced to fall upon the man whose family was so soon to be connected with his own. At the sight, the royal rage, already at boiling point, burst all bounds. Sticking his crowned head far in through the window, and forgetting that he had made a league with the MacDonalds to bring about a season of peace and good-will in the community, Mr. Caldwell burst into wild and profane vituperation. Commencing with Big Malcolm at the head of the table, and, taking each in turn, he roundly and lengthily denounced the MacDonalds and all their generation; and ended his mad tirade by vowing by all things in heaven and on earth that before a daughter of his should unite with any such scum of savagery as was produced in the Oa, her father would strike her dead!
Such snatches of the royal ultimatum as managed to penetrate the scream of the pipes the MacDonalds heard in silence. Occasionally a pair of fierce eyes would dart a look of inquiry towards the leader, and once or twice Weaver Jimmie half rose from the table; but, with wonderful endurance, Big Malcolm held his men and himself down. He had broken his great resolution, but even in his abandonment he could not quite get away from the strong influence at home. No, he would not fight, not unless Tom Caldwell pressed him too hard, and this refusal to accept Callum into his family was nothing short of a blessing.
At last, through sheer dearth of remaining epithets, the royal address came to a termination. With much brandishing of fists and shouting of threats, the chagrined and hungry would-be revellers melted away before the sound of the MacDonalds' jig and the Murphys' jeers.
And when the last atom of the banquet had been demolished and the landlord paid to the utmost farthing the MacDonalds arose, and, headed by their piper, went roaring up to their native hills, fired with the triumphant assurance that they had that day performed a great and glorious deed, and that at last Glencoe had been avenged.
There was a time I learned to hate,As weaker mortals learn to love;The passion held me fixed as fate,Burned in my veins early and late,But now a wind falls from above—The wind of death, that silentlyEnshroudeth friend and enemy.—ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
To Scotty the days following upon the Orangemen's defeat were filled with misery. Even when he spent the time at Kirsty's, fishing in the streams or racing in the woods with Isabel, he could never quite forget that there was trouble in the lately happy home beneath the Silver Maple. For Granny's face was full of pain and anxiety, though she was so brave and patient; and Grandaddy walked the floor at nights or tramped up and down beneath the stars, and Callum was silent and gloomy.
Scotty did not understand just how much reason Callum had for gloom. That young man had to contend with foes both at home and abroad. Tom Caldwell had lost no time, upon his return home the never-to-be-forgotten night of the Orangemen's downfall, in making very clear to his daughter his views upon the burning MacDonald question. Nancy had responded, with her usual spirit, by declaring that, when the day arrived, she would marry Callum Fiach if the heavens fell. The father understood his daughter's spirit and took no risk; the Caldwell homestead was guarded by armed men in quite a mediaeval fashion; Nancy was kept in strict seclusion and a cordial invitation was sent to Callum to come on the wedding day with all the MacDonalds he could muster and take his bride.
Callum would have gladly accepted the challenge had there been any hope of assistance. But when Big Malcolm returned from the glorious defeat of the Orangemen, his spirit still aflame, the sight of his son, who had taken no part in their triumph, stirred him to fierce resentment.
"Callum!" he cried sternly, "I will be hearing no more about you and any o' yon low Eerish crew. It is not for my son to be disgracing the MacDonalds after this day's work!"
Callum's face went suddenly white and he rose from the table. "If you mean Nancy Caldwell," he cried, "let me be telling you that I'll marry her if she was the daughter o' the Deil, himself!"
Big Malcolm rose to his feet also, and the two men faced each other fiercely. "The day ye marry any kin to that son o' Belial, Callum MacDonald," he roared, shaking his fist in his son's face, "you will be no more a son of mine!"
Callum laughed harshly, and flung out of doors. Scotty's big heart swelled to bursting. Grandaddy and Callum quarrelling! It was too awful to be believed. He dared not look at Granny's face, for he dreaded what he would see there, but he crept up close to where she sat by the bare table, her face in her hands, her breath coming in long sobs. Granny's heart was breaking, he was sure, and his own heart was breaking, too, for her, and for Callum, and for everyone.
The days that followed did not lighten the misery. Big Malcolm's repentance came over him like a flood of many waters. He left the farm to the care of the boys, and sat in the house, or wandered in the fields, plunged in the deepest humiliation and despair. One look at his wife's sad face would drive him to the barn or the woods, where he would sit, Job-like, and curse the day he was born. Like Job, too, he had three comforters who, though well-meaning and kind, served only to deepen his spiritual gloom. Neither Store Thompson's solemn admonitions nor Praying Donald's hints of stern retribution were calculated to relieve his mind; and when Long Lauchie came across the fields on a Sabbath afternoon to mourn over him and see dire fulfilment of prophecy in his woeful case, he was driven to the verge of desperation.
There was no pleasure at home, and whenever Scotty had an opportunity he went visiting in the direction of Kirsty's. Isabel's companionship afforded him much solace, and through her wonderful ingenuity came at last a way out of his despair.
At first he had been reluctant to confide his troubles even to her; he knew that Granny would speak of them to no one except the one great Comforter, no, not even to Kirsty's mother; so he nursed his mournful secret through one long miserable day. But Isabel's eyes were very bright and soon spied the trouble in Scotty's face. So one day, as they sat on the edge of the old log bridge and swung their feet in the cool, brown water, he opened his heart fully.
To the boy's relief she seemed to think none the less of Callum for wanting to marry an Irish girl. Some Irish people weren't bad, she declared. For her Uncle Walter and Aunt Eleanor were half Irish. Maybe she was some Irish herself, she generously conceded, but, at Scotty's look of incredulous dismay, she hastily concluded that she must be entirely and exclusively Scotch. But there was Danny Murphy, that nice boy who brought her the maple sugar and the butternuts, he was Irish; yes, and old Brian, their coachman, was Irish and said "begorra," and Brian was a dear. And very likely Nancy must be one of the nice Irish, or Callum would not want to marry her. And if they did not let him marry her, then that would be an awful thing, for if Callum failed to appear on the wedding day Nancy would certainly take the heartbreak, like Aunt Eleanor, and be sick forever and ever, and have to lie for days in a dark room and have headaches and nasty medicine.
Scotty's heart was wrung at the awful prospect. Was Isabel sure? Why, of course, she knew all about heartbreak and disappointments and such things. Scotty declared desperately that something must be done. And without an instant's meditation Isabel burst forth with the brilliant suggestion—why could they not take their pirate ship, sail down the Oro to the Flats and carry Nancy off bodily?
Scotty was dazzled. This was a thrilling project, entailing, as it did, an adventure in their wonderful vessel. For some time before the close of school he and Danny Murphy had been copartners in a tremendous secret enterprise. Down in the green tunnel made by the "Birch Crick," where it foamed along through a tangle of timber and underbrush, until it found its way into the Oro, they had discovered, early that spring, a derelict punt. This craft had come like an answer to prayer; they had patched it up, launched it, and, before the holidays, had spent aboard its rotten timbers days of perfectly abandoned joy. Several times, indeed, they had made adventurous voyages out upon the Oro itself, and had had hairbreadth escapes, for the vessel leaked and accidents were frequent. But every boy of Number Nine school was an amphibious animal, and such small things as shipwrecks mattered little. With the close of school these happy excursions had to be given up. Only once had the boys been on a voyage since, and then Isabel had accompanied them, and they had not gone far. But here was a chance to go on a wonderful tour. They would sail down to the Flats and steal Nancy; perhaps they would even take a voyage down to Lake Simcoe and away out upon the Atlantic Ocean and have fights with pirates and Fenians. Scotty's ambition was fired to be away at once, but there was one trouble—Isabel herself. She was all right at home, but her habit of hanging on to his coat with both hands when danger threatened would be embarrassing in public, and he did not even dare to think what Danny would say if he saw him in such a disgraceful plight. And then he conceived the rest of the brilliant plan himself. They would not steal Nancy away this time, but they would go to the Birch Crick, and if Danny was there they would send a message by him to Nancy, asking her if she would not like to be kidnapped, and he mentally resolved that Isabel could be put off while he and Danny performed the glorious deed.
Isabel, quite innocent of his traitorous plot, agreed to this modification of her plan; and the next morning, having obtained Kirsty's reluctant permission to go on an indefinite fishing expedition, they set off down the Scotch Line, bursting with excitement.
The Birch Creek crossed the road, flowing cool and brown beneath the old log bridge; a fine place for paddling with bare feet, but the two adventurers had no time for any such trivial pastime. They plunged into the undergrowth and followed the stream through a riotous confusion of long grasses and shrubs, where the yellow touch-me-not, the pink willow weed, the tall white turtle-head, and the blazing golden-rod grew in a tangle of wild beauty. They scrambled along with joyous shouts, sometimes on land, more often in the water. Frequently they had to stoop and crawl beneath the green canopy of birch and elm and willow that covered the stream and through which the golden sunbeams scarcely struggled to the cool, brown surface. Out in the open spaces the dragon fly darted here and there like a little blue spear. The shy trout fled dismayed before the two noisy intruders; the waxen blossoms of the arrowhead, the broad shining leaves and golden-hearted blossoms of the water lily and the stately blue spikes of the pickerel weed bent before their ruthless tramping. A kingfisher, startled from his day's work by the uproarious pair, shot down the stream, his derisive laugh echoing far through the leafy avenue. The two almost forgot the great import of their journey in its delight. Scotty splashed ahead, capering from fallen log to sunken stump; and after him came his faithful follower, bespattered with mud, dripping wet, even to the crown of her golden curls, and filling the air with her joyous shrieks of laughter over Scotty's wild antics.
And to crown their happy excursion, as they came round a sudden bend in the stream, there came a splashing sound ahead; a welcoming shout greeted them, and here was Danny sailing down upon them, his red head shining like a beacon in the stern of the pirate ship! They wasted very little time in making known the grave reason for their visit, and to their surprise they found that Danny knew much more about the Caldwell-MacDonald trouble than they did.
Sure, wasn't his brother Mike telling them only last night that Nancy wasn't allowed to go outside the gate, though she fought like a tiger about it; and Tom Caldwell had said he'd kill Callum Fiach if he came near the place; and Nancy had said she'd murder anybody that laid a finger on him. Nancy was good stuff, and if there was any scheme for outwitting the Caldwells, Danny was their man.
But this was grave news, and somewhat dampening to the ardour of the adventurous spirits.
So they pulled the old punt up under the birches and sat in it with their three heads, black, gold and red, very close together, and concocted a new plan. The line of procedure finally settled upon was not quite so romantic as Scotty had intended, but it answered. Danny had access to the Caldwell home; no one would suspect him; he must see Nancy, and offer their services as well as those of their vessel, and meanwhile Scotty was to interview Callum, and if he had any message to send to Nancy, then Danny would carry it.
They all went home bursting with their prodigious secret; and Scotty, whose forest breeding had made reticence easy, never ceased all the way home to warn Isabel of the fearful consequences of disclosure.
He could scarcely wait for an opportunity to speak to Callum alone, but at last supper was over and the chores all done; and he crept out to the barn where he had seen the young man disappear. He found him in the loft, lying gloomily upon the hay; and, hesitating and fearful lest Callum would ridicule or blame him for his interference, he made his confession. Callum suddenly sat up and gazed into the bright eager face with its big sparkling eyes. He sprang to his feet.
"Horo!" he shouted, and catching the boy up flung him over his head into the hay; and when Scotty came laughing and breathless to his feet he was filled with amazement and concern to see that there were tears in Callum's eyes.
And so a letter was carried, but not without difficulties encountered. Kirsty proved the first obstacle. She declared she was just going to put a stop to such stravogin', and would not let the lass go near that dirty crick again, for she always came home wringing wet. Isabel swept away this barrier in a flood of tears, and all other difficulties were met and dealt with in an equally summary manner. Danny's dangerous part of the task was executed with wonderful skill and an answer was piloted safely back.
They were all three somewhat disappointed when Callum announced that the proceedings must stop there. Danny was inclined to rebel, and Isabel failed to explain such conduct. But Scotty found ample compensation for their restriction in the happy change in Callum. His old gaiety came back, his eyes sparkled, and he would snatch up Isabel and go leaping about the house with her perched shrieking upon his shoulder, just as he used to do in the happy days before the Orangemen came to blight their home.
Matters were improving in other places too. Big Malcolm's second stage of repentance, a period of prayer and fasting, had passed; he had come once more into his old contented state, sure of the forgiveness of his Heavenly Father for the wrong done, and determined by His grace never again to fall. News reached the Oa, too, that Nancy Caldwell had suddenly given up her rebellious outbursts and had settled down meekly to her fate, and Tom Caldwell boasted all over the Flats that she wouldn't take Callum Fiach if all the MacDonalds in the Oa came to back him up.
And so Scotty found life happy again, and he and Isabel once more settled down contentedly to housekeeping beneath the Silver Maple. But the summer passed and old Brian came and took his comrade away, and Scotty wept secretly in the haymow all the evening after her departure.
The next morning he arose with a distinct consciousness of loss sustained. Isabel was not the only one who had left apparently. When they sat down to breakfast Callum had not yet appeared. No one marked his absence until Big Malcolm came in from the barn.
"Where will Callum be?" he inquired as he helped himself to his porridge. Rory kept his eyes upon his plate, but Hamish answered in a troubled tone, "I'll not know, father. Mebby he would be at the north clearing, whatever. He would not be coming home last night."
Big Malcolm continued his meal with knitted brows. Suddenly he looked up and caught a startled expression in his wife's eyes.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
Mrs. MacDonald's fingers were working tremulously with the hem of her apron. "I would be thinking," she faltered, "it will be the day—the day that was set!"
"Hoots!" cried Big Malcolm, "that will be nothing, whatever."
But a sudden ominous silence fell over the breakfast table; this was to have been Callum's wedding day, and Callum had not appeared. The stillness was broken by Bruce, who rose up from underneath the table with the short bark that announced a well-known visitor. A shadow fell over the threshold, still pink in the glow of the rising sun. Big Malcolm looked up in surprise.
"You will be early, Jimmie!" he called heartily as the Weaver stood in the doorway, "come away, man, and be having a bite!"
But Weaver Jimmie shook his head; he stood at the door struggling with feet and whiskers, and apparently more than usually overcome by embarrassment.
"I would like to be speakin' to you, Malcolm," he said. There was a look in his face that brought the three men instantly to the doorway. Scotty, straining his ears to catch their low remarks, could hear only, "Run-away—Lake Simcoe." Granny arose, her face white.
"Malcolm," she whispered, "Malcolm, what is this about our son Callum?"
Big Malcolm turned. There was a look in his eyes that had not been there since the day the Orangemen were defeated; but it suddenly faded at the sight of her white, pained face.
"It will jist be nothing, whatever," he said gently. "They would be saying the girl was off this morning, but Jimmie will not be sure. Come, lads."
The four men went away without another word, passing quickly through the barnyard and up the path that led into the woods. The mother arose and knelt by the bedside in the corner so long that Scotty could bear his burden of guilt no longer. He crept up to her, and when she put her arms about him he sobbed out his dreadful secret; how he and Isabel and Danny had carried a letter to Nancy, and another one back to Callum; and perhaps that was what made Callum run away. And oh, oh, he didn't know it was wicked or he wouldn't have done it; only she must not blame Isabel; it wasn't her fault.
But Granny blamed no one. She listened gravely to his story, and to Scotty's supreme relief seemed a little comforted by it. And she comforted him, too, patting his head lovingly and declaring that he was Granny's own boy with the big heart, indeed, and together they watched and waited through the long dreary day for the men's return.
But Scotty was tired out and gone to bed long before they came. He was half-awakened in the night by the sound of voices; strange voices, too; not angry or clamorous, but hushed and solemn. Once he distinguished Grandaddy's voice, broken as though with weeping, and Granny's, too, speaking as though she were comforting him, but with a sound in it that made the child's tender heart contract with pain. There seemed an awesomeness about the strange, soft movements below that sent a chill over him. None of the boys had come to bed yet; the light from below shone up through the cracks in the floor, and he crept to the hatchway and listened. And then he distinguished Praying Donald's low, deep voice raised in supplication; then Grandaddy had been fighting again and they had come to pray for him. The boy crept miserably back to his bed and, childlike, soon fell asleep.
He awoke in the rosy dawn, when the shadows of the forest still stretched up to the doorstep, and found to his surprise that Hamish was sitting by his bedside. He remembered with a chill the anxiety of the day and the awesomeness of the night before, and asked suddenly, "Where's Callum?"
But Hamish did not answer directly; only said that he must be good and quiet and not ask Granny any questions, and added after a second question that Callum was gone away. And when would he be back? He would not be back, Hamish whispered, with his eyes upon the floor. Would not be back? Scotty stared uncomprehending. And where was Nancy? Nancy was with him. Had they gone to the old country? he asked in a whisper, but Hamish shook his head and turned away. The boy's heart seemed held by an awful dread. He wanted to ask another question, and yet he dared not. But as the young man turned to go down the stairs something in his white face opened a flood of awful intelligence upon the boy's mind.
"Hamish," he cried in a sharp whisper, "is—is—Callum—dead?"
But Hamish made no reply, only gave him a glance as though he had been smitten with a mortal wound, and went hurriedly down the stairs.
But Weaver Jimmie told him all about it as soon as he descended. For, to his surprise, Scotty found not only Jimmie there, but many others of the neighbours. Store Thompson's wife sat by the bed in the corner, and Granny lay upon it white and silent. Something lay in another corner, stretched upon boards, a figure so muffled and still that, without knowing why, Scotty glanced at it with a feeling of terror. Grandaddy was nowhere to be seen; but Praying Donald was there, reading by the window. His deep voice, hushed to a solemn, low rumble, filled the room; "Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses," he was saying, but Scotty did not listen; he followed Weaver Jimmie out to the barn full of awe-stricken questionings. And Jimmie, his kindly face quivering with sympathy, told him all. Yes, that still, dark form he had seen in the corner was Callum; they had brought him home last night, and had taken Nancy to her home. But Hamish had said Callum was gone, Scotty argued, and Nancy with him; had they come back then? No, they had not come back. They had run away and tried to cross Lake Simcoe in a canoe. A storm had come up suddenly, and though the Caldwells and the MacDonalds, who had tracked them to the shore, tried to rescue them, they were too late. And Callum was gone, gone never to come back, and Nancy was with him; and if Store Thompson could get the great preacher who had lately come to Barbay, they would bury them both in the Glen to-morrow. Scotty did not hear any more; Callum to be buried, and Nancy, too, to be put away in the ground as they had put Kirsty's father! He crept off into a corner of the haymow as soon as Jimmie had left him, and lay there, his curly head hidden deep in the hay, his small body shaken with long convulsive sobs. Callum, his Callum, Granny's hero, as well as his own, gone never to come back!
Voices reached him once, and lest he should be discovered, he pressed his small hands over his quivering face and manfully strove to hold down his grief. Praying Donald and Long Lauchie were walking slowly with bent heads past the open barn door.
"It will be the will of the Almighty to be visiting us through this calamity," Praying Donald was saying, "but the Father will never be leaving His children comfortless, for the man of God himself will be coming to the funeral."
"McAlpine?" asked Long Lauchie in an eager whisper.
"Aye, John McAlpine himself; the Lord will be very merciful to us. But, eh, eh, that the man that poor Malcolm would be praying for all these years should be coming to us over his dead! Eh, it will be a mystery, a mystery!"