Kidnapped
and sup cold drammach; the rain driving sharp in my face or running
down my back in icy trickles; the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy
chamber--or, perhaps, if the wind blew, falling suddenly apart and
showing us the gulf of some dark valley where the streams were crying
aloud.
The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all round. In
this steady rain the springs of the mountain were broken up; every glen
gushed water like a cistern; every stream was in high spate, and had
filled and overflowed its channel. During our night tramps, it was
solemn to hear the voice of them below in the valleys, now booming like
thunder, now with an angry cry. I could well understand the story of the
Water Kelpie, that demon of the streams, who is fabled to keep wailing
and roaring at the ford until the coming of the doomed traveller. Alan I
saw believed it, or half believed it; and when the cry of the river rose
more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, of course, I
would still be shocked) to see him cross himself in the manner of the
Catholics.
During all these horrid wanderings we had no familiarity, scarcely even
that of speech. The truth is that I was sickening for my grave, which
is my best excuse. But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition
from my birth, slow to take offence, slower to forget it, and now
incensed both against my companion and myself. For the best part of two
days he was unweariedly kind; silent, indeed, but always ready to help,
and always hoping (as I could very well see) that my displeasure would
blow by. For the same length of time I stayed in myself, nursing my
anger, roughly refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes
as if he had been a bush or a stone.
The second night, or rather the peep of the third day, found us upon a
very open hill, so that we could not follow our usual plan and lie down
immediately to eat and sleep. Before we had reached a place of shelter,
the grey had come pretty clear, for though it still rained, the clouds
ran higher; and Alan, looking in my face, showed some marks of concern.
“Ye had better let me take your pack,” said he, for perhaps the ninth
time since we had parted from the scout beside Loch Rannoch.
“I do very well, I thank you,” said I, as cold as ice.
Alan flushed darkly. “I’ll not offer it again,” he said. “I’m not a
patient man, David.”
“I never said you were,” said I, which was exactly the rude, silly
speech of a boy of ten.
Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for him.
Henceforth, it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself for the affair
at Cluny’s; cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled airs, and
looked at me upon one side with a provoking smile.
The third night we were to pass through the western end of the country
of Balquhidder. It came clear and cold, with a touch in the air like
frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars
bright. The streams were full, of course, and still made a great noise
among the hills; but I observed that Alan thought no more upon the
Kelpie, and was in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather
came too late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as the Bible has it)
my very clothes “abhorred me.” I was dead weary, deadly sick and full
of pains and shiverings; the chill of the wind went through me, and the
sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I had to bear from
my companion something in the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good
deal, and never without a taunt. “Whig” was the best name he had to give
me. “Here,” he would say, “here’s a dub for ye to jump, my Whiggie! I
ken you’re a fine jumper!” And so on; all the time with a gibing voice
and face.
I knew it was my own doing, and no one else’s; but I was too miserable
to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther; pretty soon, I
must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and
my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light
perhaps; but I began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the
thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles
besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought; he would
remember, when I was dead, how much he owed me, and the remembrance
would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted
schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, when I would have
been better on my knees, crying on God for mercy. And at each of Alan’s
taunts, I hugged myself. “Ah!” thinks I to myself, “I have a better
taunt in readiness; when I lie down and die, you will feel it like a
buffet in your face; ah, what a revenge! ah, how you will regret your
ingratitude and cruelty!”
All the while, I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen, my leg
simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the moment; but I
was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner,
that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then
spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last
I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther: and with that,
there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my
anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had
just called me “Whig.” I stopped.
“Mr. Stewart,” said I, in a voice that quivered like a fiddle-string,
“you are older than I am, and should know your manners. Do you think
it either very wise or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth? I
thought, where folk differed, it was the part of gentlemen to differ
civilly; and if I did not, I may tell you I could find a better taunt
than some of yours.”
Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his
breeches pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened, smiling
evilly, as I could see by the starlight; and when I had done he began to
whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of General Cope’s
defeat at Preston Pans:
“Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet?
And are your drums a-beatin’ yet?”
And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had been
engaged upon the royal side.
“Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?” said I. “Is that to remind me
you have been beaten on both sides?”
The air stopped on Alan’s lips. “David!” said he.
“But it’s time these manners ceased,” I continued; “and I mean you shall
henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends the Campbells.”
“I am a Stewart--” began Alan.
“O!” says I, “I ken ye bear a king’s name. But you are to remember,
since I have been in the Highlands, I have seen a good many of those
that bear it; and the best I can say of them is this, that they would be
none the worse of washing.”
“Do you know that you insult me?” said Alan, very low.
“I am sorry for that,” said I, “for I am not done; and if you distaste
the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue[29] will please you as little. You have
been chased in the field by the grown men of my party; it seems a poor
kind of pleasure to out-face a boy. Both the Campbells and the Whigs
have beaten you; you have run before them like a hare. It behoves you to
speak of them as of your betters.”
[29] A second sermon.
Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clapping behind him
in the wind.
“This is a pity,” he said at last. “There are things said that cannot be
passed over.”
“I never asked you to,” said I. “I am as ready as yourself.”
“Ready?” said he.
“Ready,” I repeated. “I am no blower and boaster like some that I could
name. Come on!” And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself
had taught me.
“David!” he cried. “Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It’s
fair murder.”
“That was your look-out when you insulted me,” said I.
“It’s the truth!” cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his
mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. “It’s the bare truth,”
he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with
mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. “Na, na,” he
kept saying, “na, na--I cannae, I cannae.”
At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself
only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have
given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken,
who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan’s kindness and courage in
the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil
days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever
that doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon
me seemed to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for
sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood.
This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out what I had
said; it was needless to think of one, none could cover the offence; but
where an apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan back to
my side. I put my pride away from me. “Alan!” I said; “if ye cannae help
me, I must just die here.”
He started up sitting, and looked at me.
“It’s true,” said I. “I’m by with it. O, let me get into the bield of a
house--I’ll can die there easier.” I had no need to pretend; whether I
chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a heart
of stone.
“Can ye walk?” asked Alan.
“No,” said I, “not without help. This last hour my legs have been
fainting under me; I’ve a stitch in my side like a red-hot iron; I
cannae breathe right. If I die, ye’ll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart,
I liked ye fine--even when I was the angriest.”
“Wheesht, wheesht!” cried Alan. “Dinna say that! David man, ye ken--” He
shut his mouth upon a sob. “Let me get my arm about ye,” he continued;
“that’s the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens where there’s a house!
We’re in Balwhidder, too; there should be no want of houses, no, nor
friends’ houses here. Do ye gang easier so, Davie?”
“Ay,” said I, “I can be doing this way;” and I pressed his arm with my
hand.
Again he came near sobbing. “Davie,” said he, “I’m no a right man at
all; I have neither sense nor kindness; I could nae remember ye were
just a bairn, I couldnae see ye were dying on your feet; Davie, ye’ll
have to try and forgive me.”
“O man, let’s say no more about it!” said I. “We’re neither one of us
to mend the other--that’s the truth! We must just bear and forbear, man
Alan. O, but my stitch is sore! Is there nae house?”
“I’ll find a house to ye, David,” he said, stoutly. “We’ll follow down
the burn, where there’s bound to be houses. My poor man, will ye no be
better on my back?”
“O, Alan,” says I, “and me a good twelve inches taller?”
“Ye’re no such a thing,” cried Alan, with a start. “There may be a
trifling matter of an inch or two; I’m no saying I’m just exactly what
ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say,” he added, his voice
tailing off in a laughable manner, “now when I come to think of it, I
dare say ye’ll be just about right. Ay, it’ll be a foot, or near hand;
or may be even mair!”
It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words up in the fear of
some fresh quarrel. I could have laughed, had not my stitch caught me so
hard; but if I had laughed, I think I must have wept too.
“Alan,” cried I, “what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for
such a thankless fellow?”
“‘Deed, and I don’t know” said Alan. “For just precisely what I thought
I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled:--and now I like ye
better!”
CHAPTER XXV
IN BALQUHIDDER
At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of
no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of