Part 6

"Well," Malcolm went on, "on a stormy winter evening, when the walls of Dunvegan were wet with the rain of the cloud and the spray of the sea, Macleod, before he sat down to dinner, went out to have a look at the weather. 'A giant's night is coming on, my men,' he said when he came in, 'and if Macdonald of Sleat were at the foot of my rock seeking a night's shelter, I don't think I could refuse it.' He then sat down in the torch-light at the top of the long table, with his gentlemen around him. When they were half through with their meal a man came in with the news that the barge of Macdonald of Sleat--which had been driven back by stress of weather on its way to Harris--was at the foot of the rock, and that Macdonald asked shelter for the night for himself and his men. 'They are welcome,' said Macleod; 'tell them to come in.' The man went away, and in a short time Macdonald, his piper, and his body guard of twelve, came in wet with the spray and rain, and weary with rowing. Now on the table there was a boar's head--which is always an omen of evil to a Macdonald--and noticing the dish, Donald Gorm with his men about him sat at the foot of the long table, beneath the salt, and away from Macleod and the gentlemen. Seeing this, Macleod made a place beside himself, and called out, 'Macdonald of Sleat, come and sit up here!' 'Thank you,' said Donald Gorm, 'I'll remain where I am; but remember that wherever Macdonald of Sleat sits that's the head of the table.' [Sidenote: Donald Gorm's dirk.] So when dinner was over the gentlemen began to talk about their exploits in hunting, and their deeds in battle, and to show each other their dirks. Macleod showed his, which was very handsome, and it was passed down the long table from gentleman to gentleman, each one admiring it and handing it to the next, till at last it came to Macdonald, who passed it on, saying nothing. Macleod noticed this, and called out, 'Why don't you show your dirk, Donald; I hear it's very fine?' Macdonald then drew his dirk, and holding it up in his right hand, called out, 'Here it is, Macleod of Dunvegan, and in the best hand for pushing it home in the four and twenty islands of the Hebrides.' Now Macleod was a strong man, but Macdonald was a stronger, and so Macleod could not call him a liar; but thinking he would be mentioned next, he said, 'And where is the next best hand for pushing a dirk home in the four and twenty islands?' '_Here_,', cried Donald Gorm, holding up his dirk in his left hand, and brandishing it in Macleod's face, who sat amongst his gentlemen biting his lips with vexation. So when it came to bed-time, Macleod told Macdonald that he had prepared a chamber for him near his own, and that he had placed fresh heather in a barn for the piper and the body guard of twelve. Macdonald thanked Macleod, but remembering the boar's head on the table, said he would go with his men, and that he preferred for his couch the fresh heather to the down of the swan. 'Please yourself, Macdonald of Sleat,' said Macleod, as he turned on his heel.

[Sidenote: Donald Gorm's threat.]

"Now it so happened that one of the body guard of twelve had a sweetheart in the castle, but he had no opportunity of speaking to her. But once when she was passing the table with a dish she put her mouth to the man's ear and whispered, 'Bid your master beware of Macleod. The barn you sleep in will be red flame at midnight and ashes before the morning.' The words of the sweetheart passed the man's ear like a little breeze, but he kept the colour of his face, and looked as if he had heard nothing. So when Macdonald and his men got into the barn where the fresh heather had been spread for them to sleep on, he told the words which had been whispered in his ear. Donald Gorm then saw the trick that was being played, and led his men quietly out by the back door of the barn, down to a hollow rock which stood up against the wind, and there they sheltered themselves. By midnight the sea was red with the reflection of the burning barn, and morning broke on gray ashes and smouldering embers. The Macleods thought they had killed their enemies; but fancy their astonishment when Donald Gorm with his body guard of twelve marched past the castle down to the foot of the rock, where his barge was moored, with his piper playing in front--'Macleod, Macleod, Macleod of Dunvegan, I drove my dirk into your father's heart, and in payment of last night's hospitality I'll drive it to the hilt in his son's yet.'"

"Macleod of Dunvegan must have been a great rascal," said I; "and I hope he got his deserts."

"I don't know, indeed," said Malcolm; "but if Donald Gorm caught him he could hardly miss." He then added, as if in deprecation of the idea that any portion of ignominy was attachable to him, "I am not one of the Dunvegan Macleods; I come from the Macleods of Raasay."

_DUNTULM._

[Sidenote: A rainy day.]

The Landlord's house had been enveloped for several days in misty rain. It did not pour straight down, it did not patter on door and window, it had no action as it has in the south,--which made it all the more tormenting, for in action there is always some sort of exhilaration; in any case you have the notion that it will wear itself out soon, that "it is too hot work to last long, Hardy." An immense quantity of moisture was held in the atmosphere, and it descended in a soft, silent, imperceptible drizzle. It did not seem so very bad when you looked out on it from the window, but if you ventured on the gravel you were wet to the skin in a trice. White damp vapours lay low on the hills across the Loch; white damp vapours lay on the rising grounds where the sheep fed; white damp vapours hid the tops of the larches which sheltered the house from the south-west winds. Heaven was a wet blanket, and everything felt its influence. During the whole day Maida lay dreaming on the rug before the fire. The melancholy parrot moped in its cage, and at intervals--for the sake of variety merely--attacked the lump of white sugar between the wires, or suspended itself, head downwards, and eyed you askance. The horses stamped and pawed in their stables. The drenched peacock, which but a few days before was never weary displaying his starry tail, read one a lesson on the instability of human glory. The desolate sea lapping the weedy piers of Tyre; Napoleon at St Helena, his innumerable armies, the thunders of his cannon that made capitals pale, faded away, perished utterly like a last year's dream, could not have been more impressive. It sat on the garden seat, a mere lump of draggled feathers, and as gray as a hedge-sparrow. The Landlord shut himself up in his own room, writing letters against the departure of the Indian mail. We read novels, and yawned, and made each other miserable with attempts at conversation--and still the clouds hung low on hill, and rising ground, and large plantation, like surcharged sponges; and still the drizzle came down mercilessly, noiselessly, until the world was sodden, and was rapidly becoming sponge-like too. On the fourth day we went upstairs, threw ourselves on our beds dead beat, and fell asleep, till we were roused by the gong for dinner. Thrusting my face hurriedly into a basin of cold water, tidying dishevelled locks, I got down when the soup was being taken away, and was a good deal laughed at. Somehow the spirits of the party seemed lighter; the despotism of rain did not weigh so heavily on them; I felt almost sportively inclined myself; and just at the conclusion of dessert, when wine had circulated once or twice, there was a flush of rosy light on the panes. I went at once to the window, and there was the sun raying out great lances of splendour, and armies of fiery mists lifting from the hills and streaming upwards, glorious as seraph bands, or the transfigured spirits of martyrdom. The westward-ebbing loch was sleek gold, the wet trees twinkled, every puddle was sun-gilt. I looked at the barometer and saw the mercury rising like hope in a man's breast when fortune smiles on him. The curtains were drawn back to let the red light fully into the room. "I like to see that fiery smoke on the hills," said the Landlord, "it's always a sign of fine weather setting in. Now it won't do for you fellows to lie up here like beached boats doing nothing. You must be off after tiffin to-morrow. I'll give you letters of introduction, a dog-cart and a man, and in a week or so come back and tell me what you think of Duntulm and Quirang. You must rough it you know. You mustn't be afraid of a shower, or of getting your feet wetted in a bog."

[Sidenote: Departure from the Landlord's.]

And so next day after tiffin the Landlord sent us off into the wilds, as a falconer might toss his hawk into the air.

The day was fine, the heat was tempered by a pleasant breeze, great white clouds swam in the blue void, and every now and again a shower came racing across our path with a sunbeam at its heel. We drove past the village, past the huts that ran along the top of the cultivated hill-side, dropped down on Skeabost, and the stream with the island of graves, and in due time reached the solitary school-house at the junction of the roads. Turning to the left here, we drove along the east shore of Loch Snizort, up stages of easy ascent, and then, some four or five miles on, left the Parliamentary Road and descended on Kingsburgh. I pointed out to Fellowes the ruins of the old house, spoke to him of the Prince, Flora Macdonald, Dr Johnson, and Boswell. After sauntering about there for a quarter of an hour, we walked down to the present house with its gables draped with ivies, and its pleasant doors and windows scented with roses and honey-suckles. To the gentleman who then occupied the farm we bore a letter from the Landlord, but, on inquiring, found that he had gone south on business a couple of days previously. [Sidenote: Kingsburgh.] This gentleman was a bachelor, the house was tenanted by servants only, and of course at Kingsburgh we could not remain. This was a disappointment; and as we walked back to the dog-cart, I told my companion of a pleasant ten days I had wasted there three or four summers since. I spoke to him of the Kingsburgh of that time--the kindly generous Christian Highland gentleman; of his open door and frank greeting, warm and hospitable; of his Christianity, as open and hospitable as his door; of the plenteous meats and drinks, and the household pieties which ever seemed to ask a blessing. I spoke of the pleasant family, so numerous, so varied; the grandmother, made prisoner to an easy-chair, yet never fretful, never morose; who, on the lip of ninety, wore the smile of twenty-five; who could look up from her Bible--with which she was familiar as with the way to her bedroom--to listen to the news of the moment, and to feel interested in it; who, with the light of the golden city in her eyes, could listen and enter into a girl's trouble about her white frock and her first dance. There is nothing keeps so well as a good heart; nothing which time sweetens so to the core. I spoke of Kingsburgh himself, guileless, chivalrous, hospitable; of his sisters, one a widow, one a spinster; of his brave soldier nephew from India; of his pretty nieces, with their English voices and their English wild-rose bloom--who loved the heather and the mist, and the blue Loch with the gulls sweeping over it, but him most of all; of his sons, deep in the Gorilla Book, and to whose stories, and the history of whose adventures and exploits grandmamma's ears were ever open. I spoke too of the guests that came and went during my stay--the soldier, the artist, the mysterious man, who, so far as any of us knew, had neither name, occupation, nor country, who was without parents and antecedents--who was himself alone; of the games of croquet on the sunny lawn, of the pic-nics and excursions, of the books read in the cool twilight of the moss-house, of the smoking parliament held in the stables on rainy days, of the quiet cigar in the open air before going to bed. 'Twas the pleasantest fortnight I ever remember to have spent; and before I had finished telling my companion all about it we had taken our seats in the dog-cart, and were pretty well advanced on the way to Uig.

[Sidenote: On the way to Uig.]

Uig is distant from Kingsburgh about five miles; the road is high above the sea, and as you drive along you behold the northern headlands of Skye, the wide blue Minch, and Harris, rising like a cloud on the horizon; and if the day is fine, you will enjoy the commerce of sea and sky, the innumerable tints thrown by the clouds on the watery mirror, the mat of glittering light spread beneath the sun, the gray lines of showers on the distant promontories, the tracks of air currents on the mobile element between. The clouds pass from shape to shape--what resembles a dragon one moment resembles something else the next; the promontory which was obscure ten minutes ago is now yellow-green in sunlight; the watery pavement is tesselated with hues, but with hues that continually shift and change. In the vast outlook there is utter silence, but no rest. What with swimming vapour, passing Proteus-like from form to form--obscure showers that run--vagrant impulses of wind--sunbeams that gild and die in gilding--the vast impressionable mimetic floor outspread,--the sight you behold when you toil up the steep road from Kingsburgh to Uig is full of motion. There is no rest in nature, they say; and the clouds are changing like opinions and kingdoms, and the bodies and souls of men. Matter is a stream that flows, a fire that burns. By a cunninger chemistry than ours, the atoms that composed the body of Adam could be arrested somewhere yet.

[Sidenote: The inn at Uig.]

Just when you have reached the highest part of the road you come in view of the Bay of Uig. You are high above it as you drive or walk along, the ground is equally high on the other side, and about the distance of a mile inland, on a great sandy beach, the tide is rolling in long white lines that chase each other. On the deep water outside the tidal lines a yacht is rocking; there is a mansion-house with a flag-staff on the shore, and at the top of the bay are several houses, a church, and a school-house, built of comfortable stone and lime. When the Minch is angry outside, washing the headlands with spray, Uig is the refuge which the fisherman and the coaster seek. When once they have entered its rocky portals they are safe. The road now descends towards the shore; there is an inn midway, low-roofed, dimly-lighted, covered with thatch--on the whole perhaps the most unpromising edifice in the neighbourhood. Here we pulled up. Already we had driven some twenty-five miles, and as we wished to push on to Duntulm that evening, we were anxious to procure a fresh horse. The keen air had whetted our appetites, and we were eager for dinner, or what substitute for dinner could be provided. Our driver unharnessed the horse, and we entered a little room, spotlessly clean, however, and knocked with our knuckles on the deal table. When the red-haired handmaiden entered, we discovered that the Uig bill of fare consisted of bread and butter, cheese, whisky, milk, and hard-boiled eggs--and a very satisfactory bill of fare we considered it too. There is no such condiment as hunger honourably earned by exercise in the open air. When the viands were placed before us we attacked them manfully. The bread and butter disappeared, the hard-boiled eggs disappeared, we flinched not before the slices of goats'-milk cheese; then we made equal division of the whisky, poured it into bowls of milk, and drank with relish. While in the middle of the feast the landlord entered--he wore the kilt, the only person almost whom I had seen wearing it in my sojourn in the island--to make arrangements relative to the fresh horse. He admitted that he possessed an animal, but as he possessed a gig and eke a driver, it was his opinion that the three should go together. To this we objected, stating that as we already had a vehicle and a driver, and as they were in no wise tired, such a change as he suggested would be needless. We told him also that we meant to remain at Duntulm for one night only, and that by noon of the following day we would be back at his hostelry with his horse. The landlord seemed somewhat moved by our representations, and just when victory was hanging in the balance the brilliant idea struck my companion that he should be bribed with his own whisky. At the rap on the deal table the red-haired wench appeared, the order was given, and in a trice a jorum of mountain dew was produced. This decided matters, the landlord laid down the arms of argument, and after we had solemnly drunk each other's health he went out for the fresh horse, and in a quarter of an hour we were all right, and slowly descending the steep hill-road to Uig.

[Sidenote: The road to Duntulm.]

We drove through the village, where a good deal of building seemed going on, and then began to climb the hill-road that rose beyond it. Along the hill-side this road zig-zagged in such a curious manner, ran in such terraces and parallel lines, that the dog-cart immediately beneath you, and into which you could almost chuck a biscuit--the one machine heading east the other west--would take ten minutes before it reached the point to which you had obtained. At last we reached the top of the wavy ascent, passed through a mile or two of moory wilderness, in which we met a long string of women bringing home creels of peats, and then in the early sunset descended the long hill-side which led to Kilmuir. Driving along we had Mugstot pointed out to us--a plain white dwelling on our left in which Macdonald lived after he had vacated Duntulm, and while Armadale was yet building. About this place, too, the Parliamentary Road stopped. No longer could we drive along smoothly as on an English turnpike. The pathway now was narrow and stony, and the dog-cart bumped and jolted in a most distressing manner. During the last hour, too, the scenery had changed its character. We were no longer descending a hill-side on which the afternoon sun shone pleasantly. Our path still lay along the sea, but above us were high cliffs with great boulders lying at their feet; beneath us, and sloping down to the sea level, boulders lay piled on each other, and against these the making tide seethed and fretted. The sun was setting on the Minch, and the irregular purple outline of Harris was distinctly visible on the horizon. For some time back we had seen no house, nor had our path been crossed by a single human being. The solitariness and desolation of the scenery affected one. Everything around was unfamiliar and portentous. The road on which we drove was like a road in the "Faery Queen," along which a knight, the sunset dancing on his armour, might prick in search of perilous adventure. The chin of the sun now rested on the Minch, the overhanging cliffs were rosy, and the rocky road began to seem interminable. At last there was a sudden turn, and there, on a little promontory, with shattered wall and loophole against the red light, stood Duntulm--the castle of all others that I most wished to see.

[Sidenote: A hospitable reception.]

Going down the rocky road, the uncomfortable idea crept into our minds that Duntulm, to whom we bore a letter of introduction from the Landlord, might--like the owner of Kingsburgh--have gone to the south on business. We could hardly have returned to Uig that night, and this thought made yet more rigid the wall of rosy cliff above us, and yet more dreary the seethe of the Minch amongst the broken boulders beneath. As suspense was worse than certainty, we urged on the Uig horse, and in a short time, with the broken castle behind us, drew up at the house. Duntulm had seen us coming, and when we alighted he was at the door, his face hospitable as a fire in winter time, and his outstretched hand the best evidence of good wishes. In a moment the bald red cliffs and the homeless seething of the Minch among the broken stones faded out of my memory. We mentioned our names, and proffered the letter of introduction. "There is no need," said he, as he thrust the epistle into his pocket, "civility before ceremony. Having come you are of course my guests. Come in. The letter will tell me who you are soon enough." And so we were carried into the little parlour till our bedrooms were got ready, and then we went up-stairs, washed our hands and faces, changed our clothes, and came down for tea. When we entered the parlour, the tea-urn was hissing on the table, and with our host sat a photographer--bearded as all artists at the present day are--who had been engaged during the afternoon on Flora Macdonald's grave.

When tea was over we were carried into another room where were materials placed for the brewing of punch. Through the window I beheld spectral castle, the sea on which the light was dying, the purple fringe of Harris on the horizon. And seated there, in the remotest corner of Skye, amongst people whom I had never before seen, girt by walls of cliffs and the sounding sea, in a region, too, in which there was no proper night, I confess to have been conscious of a pleasant feeling of strangeness, of removal from all customary conditions of thought and locality, which I like at times to recall and enjoy over again. Into this feeling the strange country through which I had that day driven, the strange room in which I sat, the strange faces surrounding me, the strange talk, all entered; yet I am almost certain that it was heightened to no inconsiderable extent by the peculiar spirit bottle on the table. This bottle was pale green in colour, was composed of two hollow hemispheres like a sand-glass, the mouthpiece surmounting the upper hemisphere of course; and from the upper hemisphere to the lower sprang four hollow arms, through which the liquor coursed, giving the bottle a curiously square appearance. I had never seen such a bottle before, and I suppose till I go back to Duntulm I am not likely to see its like. Its shape was peculiar, and that peculiarity dove-tailed into the peculiarity of everything else. We sat there till the light had died out on the sea, and the cloud had come down on Harris, and then the candles were brought in.

[Sidenote: Donald Gorm.]