Читать книгу The Short Stories of John Buchan (Complete Collection) - Buchan John - Страница 15

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My host accompanied me to the foot of the fine avenue which looks from Portnacroish to the steely sea-loch. The smoke of the clachan was clear in the air, and the morn was sweet with young leaves and fresh salt breezes. For all about us were woods, till the moor dipped to the water, and then came the great shining spaces straight to the edge of Morven and the stony Ardgower Hills.

“You will understand, Mr. Townshend,” said my entertainer, “that I do not fall in with your errand. It is meet that youth should be wild, but you had been better playing your pranks about Oxford than risking your neck on our Hieland hills, and this but two year come Whitsuntide since the late grievous troubles. It had been better to forget your mother and give your Cameron kin the go-by, than run your craig into the same tow as Ewan’s by seeking him on Brae Mamore. Stewart though I be, and proud of my name, I would think twice before I set out on such a ploy. It’s likely that Ewan will be blithe to see you and no less to get your guineas, but there are easier ways of helping a friend than just to go to his hidy-hole.”

But I would have none of Mr. Stewart’s arguments, for my heart was hot on this fool’s journey. My cousin Ewan was in the heather, with his head well-priced by his enemies and his friends dead or broken. I was little more than a boy let loose from college, and it seemed paradise itself to thus adventure my person among the wilds.

“Then if you will no take an old man’s telling, here’s a word for you to keep mind of on the road. There are more that have a grudge against the Cameron than King George’s soldiers. Be sure there will be pickings going up Lochaber-ways, and all the Glasgow packmen and low-country trading-bodies that have ever had their knife in Lochiel will be down on the broken house like a pack of kites. It’s not impossible that ye may meet a wheen on the road, for I heard news of some going north from the Campbell country, and it bodes ill for any honest gentleman who may foregather with the black clan. Forbye, there ‘ll be them that will come from Glenurchy-side and Breadalbin, so see you keep a quiet tongue and a watchful eye if ye happen on strangers.”

And with this last word I had shaken his hand, turned my horse to the north, and ridden out among the trees.

The sound of sea-water was ever in my ears, for the road twined in the links of coast and crooks of hill, now dipping to the tide’s edge, and now rising to a great altitude amid the heather. The morn was so fresh and shining that I fell in love with myself and my errand, and when I turned a corner and saw a wall of blue hill rise gleaming to the heavens with snow-filled corries, I cried out for the fair land I had come to, and my fine adventure.

By the time I came to Duror it was midday, and I stopped for refreshment. There is an inn in Duror, where cheese and bread and usquebagh were to be had,— fare enough for a hungry traveller. But when I was on the road again, as I turned the crook of hill by the Heugh of Ardsheal, lo! I was in the thick of a party of men.

They were five in all, dressed soberly in black and brown and grey, and riding the soberest of beasts. Mr. Stewart’s word rose in my memory, and I shut my mouth and composed my face to secrecy. They would not trouble me long, this covey of merchantfolk, for they would get the ferry at Ballachulish, which was not my road to Brae Mamore.

So I gave them a civil greeting, and would have ridden by, had not Fate stepped in my way. My horse shied at a stick by the roadside, and ere I knew I was jostling and scattering them, trying to curb the accursed tricks of my beast.

After this there was nothing for it but to apologise, and what with my hurry and chagrin I was profuse enough. They looked at me with startled eyes, and one had drawn a pistol from his holster, but when they found I was no reiver they took the thing in decent part.

“It’s a sma’ maitter,” said one with a thick burr in his voice. “The hert o’ a man and the hoofs o’ a horse are controlled by nane but our Makker, as my faither aye said. Ye ‘re no to blame, young sir.”

I fell into line with the odd man—for they rode in pairs, and in common civility I could not push on through them. As I rode behind I had leisure to look at my company. All were elderly men, their ages lying perhaps between five and thirty and two-score, and all rode with the air of townsmen out on a holiday. They talked gravely among themselves, now looking at the sky (which was clouding over, as is the fashion in a Highland April), and now casting inquiring glances towards my place at the back. The man with whom I rode was A little fellow, younger than the rest and more ruddy and frank of face. He was willing to talk, which he did in a very vile Scots accent which I had hard work to follow. His name he said was Macneil, but he knew nothing of the Highlands, for his abode was Paisley. He questioned me of myself with some curiosity.

“Oh, my name is Townshend,” said I, speaking the truth at random, “and I have come up from England to see if the report of your mountains be true. It is a better way of seeing the world, say I, than to philander through Italy and France. I am a quiet man of modest means with a taste for the picturesque.”

“So, so,” said the little man. “But I could show you corn-rigs by the Cart side which are better and bonnier than a wheen muckle stony hills. But every man to his taste, and doubtless, since ye ‘re an Englander, ye ‘ll no hae seen mony brae-faces?”

Then he fell to giving me biographies of each of the travellers, and as we were some way behind the others he could speak without fear. “The lang man in the grey coat is the Deacon o’ the Glesca Fleshers, a man o’ great substance and good repute. He’s lang had trouble wi’ thae Hieland bodies, for when he bocht nowt frae them they wad seek a loan of maybe mair than the price, and he wad get caution on some o’ their lands and cot-houses. ‘Deed, we ‘re a’ in that line, as ye micht say;” and he raked the horizon with his hand.

“Then ye go north to recover monies?” said I, inadvertently.

He looked cunningly into my face, and’ for a second, suspicion was large in his eyes. “Ye ‘re a gleg yin, Mr. Townds, and maybe our errand is just no that far frae what ye mean. But, speaking o’ the Deacon, he has a grandgaun business in the Trongate, and he has been elder this sax year in the Barony, and him no forty year auld. Laidly’s his name, and nane mair respeckit among the merchants o’ the city. Yon ither man wi’ him is a Maister Graham, whae comes frae the Menteith way, a kind o’ Hielander by bluid, but wi’ nae Hieland tricks in his heid. He’s a sober wud-merchant at the Broomielaw, and he has come up here on a job about some fir-wuds. Losh, there’s a walth o’ timmer in this bit,” and he scanned greedily the shady hills.

“The twae lang red-heided men are Campbells, brithers, whae deal in yairn and wabs o’ a’ kind in the Saltmarket. Gin ye were wantin’ the guid hamespun or the fine tartan in a’ the clan colours ye wad be wise to gang there. But I’m forgetting ye dinna belang to thae pairts ava’.”

By this time the heavens had darkened to a storm and the great rain-drops were already plashing on my face. We were now round the ribs of the hill they call Sgordhonuill and close to the edge of the Levin loch. It was a desolate, wild place, and yet on the very brink of the shore amid the birk-woods we came on the inn and the ferry.

I must needs go in with the others, and if the place was better than certain hostels I had lodged in on my road—notably in the accursed land of Lome—it was far short of the South. And yet I dare not deny the comfort, for there was a peat-fire glowing on the hearth and the odour of cooking meat was rich for hungry nostrils. Forbye, the out-of-doors was now one pour of hail-water, which darkened the evening to a murky twilight.

The men sat round the glow after supper and there was no more talk of going further. The loch was a chaos of white billows, so the ferry was out of the question; and as for me, who should have been that night on Glen Levin-side, there was never a thought of stirring in my head, but I fell into a deep contentment with the warmth and a full meal, and never cast a look to the blurred window. I had not yet spoken to the others, but comfort loosened their tongues, and soon we were all on terms of gossip. They set themselves to find out every point in my career and my intentions, and I, mindful of Mr. Stewart’s warning, grew as austere in manner as the Deacon himself.

“And ye say ye traivel to see the world?” said one of the Campbells. “Man, ye’ve little to dae. Ye maunna be thrang at hame. If I had a son who was a drone like you, he wad never finger siller o’ mine.”

“But I will shortly have a trade,” said I, “for I shall be cutting French throats in a year, Mr. Campbell, if luck favours me.”

“Hear to him,” said the grave Campbell. “He talks of war, bloody war, as a man wad talk of a penny-wedding. Know well, young man, that I value a sodger’s trade lower than a flesher-lad’s, and have no respect for a bright sword and a red coat. I am for peace, but when I speak, for battle they are strong,” said he, finishing with a line from one of his Psalms.

I sat rebuked, wishing myself well rid of this company. But I was not to be let alone, for the Deacon would play the inquisitor on the matter of my family.

“What brought ye here of a’ places? There are mony pairts in the Hielands better worth seeing. Ye ‘ll hae some freends, belike, hereaways?”

I told him, “No,” that I had few friends above the Border; but the persistent man would not be pacified. He took upon himself, as the elder, to admonish me on the faults of youth.

“Ye are but a lad,” said he with unction, “and I wad see no ill come to ye. But the Hielands are an unsafe bit, given up to malignants and papists and black cattle. Tak your ways back, and tell your freends to thank the Lord that they see ye again.” And then he broke into a most violent abuse of the whole place, notably the parts of Appin and Lochaber. It was, he said, the last refuge of all that was vicious and wasteful in the land.

“It is at least a place of some beauty,” I broke in with.

“Beauty,” he cried scornfully, “d’ ye see beauty in black rocks and a grummly sea? Gie me the lown fields about Lanerick, and a’ the kind canty south country, and I wad let your bens and corries alane.”

And then Graham launched forth in a denunciation of the people. It was strange to hear one who bore his race writ large in his name talk of the inhabitants of these parts as liars and thieves and good-for-nothings. “What have your Hielands done,” he cried, “for the wellbeing of this land? They stir up rebellions wi’ papists and the French, and harry the lands o’ the god-fearing. They look down on us merchants, and turn up their hungry noses at decent men, as if cheatry were mair gentrice than honest wark. God, I wad have the lot o’ them shipped to the Indies and set to learn a decent living.”

I sat still during the torrent, raging at the dull company I had fallen in with, for I was hot with youth and had little admiration for the decencies. Then the Deacon, taking a Bible from his valise, declared his intention of conducting private worship ere we retired to rest. It was a ceremony I had never dreamed of before, and in truth I cannot fancy a stranger. First the company sang a psalm with vast unction and no melody. Then the Deacon read from some prophet or other, and finally we were all on our knees while a Campbell offered up a prayer.

After that there was no thought of sitting longer, for it seemed that it was the rule of these people to make their prayers the last article in the day. They lay and snored in their comfortless beds, while I, who preferred the safety of a chair to the unknown dangers of such bedding, dozed uneasily before the peats till the grey April morning.

Dawn came in with a tempest, and when the household was stirring and we had broken our fast, a storm from the northwest was all but tearing the roof from above our heads. Without, the loch was a chasm of mist and white foam, and waves broke hoarsely over the shoreroad. The landlord, who was also the ferryman, ran about, crying the impossibility of travel. No boat could live a moment in that water, and unless our honours would go round the loch-head into Mamore there was nothing for it but to kick our heels in the public.

The merchants conferred darkly among themselves, and there was much shaking of heads. Then the Deacon came up to me with a long face.

“There’s nothing for’t,” said he, “but to risk the loch-head and try Wade’s road to Fort William. I dinna mind if that was to be your way, Mr. Townds, but it maun be ours, for our business winna wait; so if you ‘re so inclined, we ‘ll be glad o’ your company.”

Heaven knows I had no further desire for theirs, but I dared not evade. Once in the heart of Brae Mamore I would find means to give them the slip and find the herd’s shieling I had been apprised of, where I might get shelter and news of Ewan. I accepted with as cordial a tone as I could muster, and we set out into the blinding weather.

The road runs up the loch by the clachan of Ballachulish, fords the small stream of Coe which runs down from monstrous precipices, and then, winding round the base of the hill they call Pap of Glencoe, comes fairly into Glen Levin. A more desert place I have not seen. On all sides rose scarred and ragged hills; below, the loch gleamed dully like lead; and the howling storm shook the lone fir-trees and dazed our eyes with wrack. The merchants pulled their cloak-capes over their heads and set themselves manfully to the toil, but it was clearly not to their stomach, for they said scarcely a word to themselves or me. Only Macneil kept a good temper, but his words were whistled away into the wind.

All the way along that dreary brae-face we were slipping and stumbling cruelly. The men had poor skill in guiding a horse, for though they were all well-grown fellows they had the look of those who are better used to bare-leg, rough-foot walking than to stirrup and saddle. Once I had to catch the Deacon’s rein and pull him up on the path, or without doubt he would soon have been feeding the ravens at the foot of Corrynakeigh. He thanked me with a grumble, and I saw how tight-drawn were his lips and eyebrows. The mist seemed to get into my brain, and I wandered befogged and foolish in this unknown land. It was the most fantastic misery: underfoot wet rock and heather, on all sides grey dripping veils of rain, and no sound to cheer save a hawk’s scream or the crying of an old blackcock from the height, while down in the glen-bottom there was the hoarse roaring of torrents.

And then all of a sudden from the darkness there sprang out a gleam of scarlet, and we had stumbled on a party of soldiers. Some twenty in all, they were marching slowly down the valley, and at the sight of us they grew at once alert. We were seized and questioned till they had assured themselves of our credentials. The merchants they let go at once, but I seemed to stick in their throat.

“What are you after, sir, wandering at such a season north of the Highland line?” the captain of them kept asking.

When I told him my tale of seeking the picturesque he would not believe it, till I lost all patience under the treatment.

“Confound it, sir,” I cried, “is my speech like that of a renegade Scots Jacobite? I thought my English tongue sufficient surety. And if you ask for a better you have but to find some decent military headquarters where they will tell you that Arthur Townshend is gazetted ensign in the King’s own regiment and will proceed within six months to service abroad.”

When I had talked him over, the man made an apology of a sort, but he still looked dissatisfied. Then he turned roundly on us. “Do you know young Fassiefern?” he asked.

My companions disclaimed any knowledge save by repute, and even I had the grace to lie stoutly.

“If I thought you were friends of Ewan Cameron,” said he, “you should go no further. It’s well known that he lies in hiding in these hills, and this day he is to be routed out and sent to the place he deserves. If you meet a dark man of the middle size with two-three ragged Highlanders at his back, you will know that you have foregathered with Ewan Cameron and that King George’s men will not be far behind him.”

Then the Deacon unloosed the bands of his tongue and spoke a homily. “What have I to dae,” he cried, “with the graceless breed of the Camerons? If I saw this Ewan of Fassiefern on the bent then I wad be as hot to pursue him as any redcoat. Have I no suffered from him and his clan, and wad I no gladly see every yin o’ them clapped in the Tolbooth?” And with the word he turned to a Campbell for approval and received a fierce nod of his red head.

“I must let you pass, sirs,” said the captain, “but if you would keep out of harm’s way you will go back to the Levin shore. Ewan’s days of freedom are past, and he will be hemmed in by my men here and a like party from Fort William in front, and outflanked on both sides by other companies. I speak to you as honest gentlemen, and I bid you keep a good watch for the Cameron, if you would be in good grace with the King.” And without more ado he bade his men march.

Our company after this meeting was very glum for a mile or two. The Deacon’s ire had been roused by the hint of suspicion, and he grumbled to himself till his anger found vent in a free cursing of the whole neighbourhood and its people. “Deil take them,” he cried, “and shame that I should say it, but it’s a queer bit where an honest man canna gang his ways without a red-coated sodger casting een at him.” And Graham joined his plaint, till the whole gang lamented like a tinker’s funeral.

It was now about mid-day, and the weather, if aught, had grown fiercer. The mist was clearing, but blasts of chill snow drove down on our ears, and the strait pass before us was grey with the fall. In front lay the sheer mountains, the tangle of loch and broken rocks where Ewan lay hid, and into the wilderness ran our bridle-path. Somewhere on the hillsides were sentries, somewhere on the road before us was a troop of soldiers, and between them my poor cousin was fairly inclosed. I felt a sort of madness in my brain, as I thought of his fate. Here was I in the company of Whig traders, with no power to warn him, but going forward to see his capture.

A desperate thought struck me, and I slipped from my horse and made to rush into the bowels of the glen. Once there I might climb unseen up the pass, and get far enough in advance to warn him of his danger. My seeing him would be the wildest chance, yet I might take it. But as I left the path I caught a tree- root and felt my heels dangle in the void. That way lay sheer precipice. With a quaking heart I pulled myself up, and made my excuse of an accident as best I could to my staring companions.

Yet the whole pass was traversed without a sight of a human being. I watched every moment to see the troop of redcoats with Ewan in their grip. But no redcoats came; only fresh gusts of snow and the same dreary ribs of hill. Soon we had left the pass and were out on a windy neck of mountain where hags and lochans gloomed among the heather.

And then suddenly as if from the earth there sprang up three men. Even in the mist I saw the red Cameron tartan, and my heart leapt to my mouth. Two were great stalwart men, their clothes drenched and ragged, and the rust on their weapons. But the third was clearly the gentleman—of the middle size, slim, dressed well though also in some raggedness. At the sight the six of us stopped short and gazed dumbly at the three on the path.

I rushed forward and gripped my cousin’s hand. “Ewan,” I cried, “I am your cousin Townshend come north to put his back to yours. Thank God you are still unharmed;” and what with weariness and anxiety I had almost wept on his neck.

At my first step my cousin had raised his pistol, but when he saw my friendliness he put it back in his belt. When he heard of my cousinship his eyes shone with kindliness, and he bade me welcome to his own sorry country. “My dear cousin,” he said, “you have found me in a perilous case and ill-fitted to play the host. But I bid you welcome for a most honest gentleman and kinsman to these few acres of heather that are all now left to me.”

And then before the gaping faces of my comrades I stammered out my story. “Oh, Ewan, there’s death before and behind you and on all sides. There’s a troop waiting down the road and there are dragoons coming at your back. You cannot escape, and these men with me are Whigs and Glasgow traders, and no friends to the Cameron name.”

The three men straightened themselves like startled deer.

“How many passed you?” cried Ewan.

“May be a score,” said I.

He stopped for a while in deep thought.

“Then there’s not above a dozen behind me. There are four of us here, true men, and five who are no. We must go back or forward, for a goat could not climb these craigs. Well-a-day, my cousin, if we had your five whiggishly-inclined gentlemen with us we might yet make a fight for it.” And he bit his lip and looked doubtfully at the company.

“We will fight nane,” said the Deacon. “We are men o’ peace, traivelling to further our lawful calling. Are we to dip our hands in bluid to please a Hieland Jaicobite?” The two Campbells groaned in acquiescence, but I thought I saw a glint of something not peaceful in Graham’s eye.

“But ye are Scots folk,” said Ewan, with a soft, wheedling note in his voice. “Ye will never see a countryman fall into the hands of redcoat English soldiers?”

“It’s the law o’ the land,” said a Campbell, “and what for should we resist it to pleesure you? Besides, we are merchants and no fechtin’ tinklers.”

I saw Ewan turn his head and look down the road. Far off in the stillness of the grey weather one could hear the sound of feet on the hill-gravel.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, turning to them with a last appeal ,“you see I have no way of escape. You are all proper men, and I beseech you in God’s name to help a poor gentleman in his last extremity. If I could win past the gentry in front, there would be the seacoast straight before, where even now there lies a vessel to take me to a kinder country. I cannot think that loyalty to my clan and kin should be counted an offence in the eyes of honest men. I do not know whether you are Highland or Lowland, but you are at least men, and may God do to you as you do to me this day. Who will stand with me?”

I sprang to his side, and the four of us stood looking down the road, where afar off came into sight the moving shapes of the foe.

Then he turned again to the others, crying out a word in Gaelic. I do not know what it was, but it must have gone to their hearts’ core, for the little man Macneil with a sob came running toward us, and Graham took one step forward and then stopped.

I whispered their names in Ewan’s ear and he smiled. Again he spoke in Gaelic, and this time Graham could forbear no more, but with an answering word in the same tongue he flung himself from his horse and came to our side. The two red- headed Campbells stared in some perplexity, their eyes bright with emotion and their hands twitching towards their belts.

Meantime the sound of men came nearer and the game grew desperate. Again Ewan cried in Gaelic, and this time it was low entreaty, which to my ignorant ears sounded with great pathos. The men looked at the Deacon and at us, and then with scarlet faces they too dropped to the ground and stepped to our backs.

Out of the mist came a line of dark weather-browned faces and the gleam of bright coats. “Will you not come?” Ewan cried to the Deacon.

“I will see no blood shed,” said the man, with set lips.

And then there was the sharp word of command, and ere ever I knew, the rattle of shots; and the next moment we were rushing madly down on the enemy.

I have no clear mind of what happened. I know that the first bullet passed through my coat-collar and a second grazed my boot. I heard one of the Highlanders cry out and clap his hand to his ear, and then we were at death-grips. I used my sword as I could, but I had better have had a dirk, for we were wrestling for dear life, and there was no room for fine play. I saw dimly the steel of Ewan and the Highlanders gleam in the rain; I heard Graham roaring like a bull as he caught at the throat of an opponent. And then all was mist and madness and a great horror. I fell over a little brink of rock with a man a-top of me, and there we struggled till I choked the life out of him. After that I remember nothing till I saw the air clear and the road vacant before us.

Two bodies lay on the heath, besides the one I had accounted for in the hollow. The rest of the soldiers had fled down the pass, and Ewan had his way of escape plain to see. But never have I seen such a change in men. My cousin’s coat was red and torn, his shoes all but cut from his feet. A little line of blood trickled over his flushed brow, but he never heeded it, for his eyes burned with the glory of battle. So, too, with his followers, save that one had a hole in his ear and the other a broken arm, which they minded as little as midge-bites. But how shall I tell of my companions? The two Campbells sat on the ground nursing wounds, with wild red hair dishevelled and hoarse blasphemy on their lips. Every now and then one would raise his head and cry some fierce word of triumph. Graham had a gash on his cheek, but he was bending his sword- point on the ground and calling Ewan his blood-brother. The little man Macneil, who had fought like a Trojan, was whimpering with excitement, rubbing his eyes, and staring doubtfully at the heavens. But the Deacon, that man of peace—what shall I say of him? He stood some fifty yards down the pass, peering through the mist at the routed fugitives, his naked sword red in his hand, his whole apparel a ruin of blood and mire, his neatly-dressed hair flying like a beldame’s. There he stood hurling the maddest oaths.

“Hell!” he cried. “Come back and I’ll learn ye, my lads. Wait on, and I ‘ll thraw every neck and give the gleds a feed this day.”

Ewan came up and embraced me. “Your Whigamores are the very devil, cousin, and have been the saving of me. But now we are all in the same boat, so we had better improve our time. Come, lads!” he cried, “is it for the seashore and a kinder land?”

And all except the Deacon cried out in Gaelic the word of consent, which, being interpreted, is “Lead, and we follow.”