Part 30

"Then look ye here," said Archy, plucking from his bosom the letter of which he was the bearer, and straightway showing the address, which was--To the honourable and gallant knight. Sir John Grant of Freuchie, these, with speed.

"That is all well," said Corrie. "But methinks, mannikin, that this is anything but the road to Freuchie, if I know aught of this country side."

"My master is up in the forest, a little bit above this, waiting for my tidings," said Archy.

"Aha!" cried Corrie, relaxing his features into a smile, "some love adventure, I warrant me. Awell! I am the last man to put hindrance in the way of any such matter, especially where Sir John Grant is concerned. Nay, I would willingly go a good way out of my road to help him on."

"Sayest thou so, Corrie MacDonald!" cried the urchin. "Then could I tell thee how thou mightest lend my master thy most effectual aid, and yet keep thine own road still, and that to thine own most abundant profit."

"How may that be, my small man?" demanded Corrie. "If thou canst make thy plans clear to my conviction, thou shalt find me ready, zealous, prompt, and decisive."

"Thou knowest Gibbon More Cumin, lord of these broad lands of Glenchearnich," said Archy.

"Know him?" said Corrie with a grin. "Well do I that."

"He is living here hard by at Delnahaitnich," continued the page. "He keeps home so close, that no one can even have a sight of his daughter, far less have speech of her. Couldst thou not carry away his cattle from the forest here, so as to furnish him with a reasonably rational object for travelling for a season?"

"By Saint Comb, but thou hast a wit larger than the tiny proportions of thy body might teach one to look for!" said Corrie. "The notion is excellent. I have long wished to work that lump of dough into a ferment. And, by Saint Mary, as the creach will be carried off from under his very nose, I shall stir up his temper now, if it is to be stirred up at all by mortal man. So speed to thy master, and keep him advised to watch his time; and if I don't by and by clear the way for him, by giving Gibbon More and his people a chase of a day or two through the hills after me and my men, I shall wonder of it."

"Master, master," cried Gibbon More's man Hector, as he came running in to him next morning quite out of breath, "Corrie MacDonald has been in the forest last night, and he has carried away every stot he could find on this part of your lands."

"Has the rascal taken the cows too?" demanded Gibbon coolly.

"No--sure enough--he has not taken a single cow," replied Hector, "I counted the cow-beasts myself, and they are all safe."

"There was some civility in that, however," said Gibbon laughing. "The fellow is a thief of some consideration; for if he hath left us the cows, thou knowest, Hector, that we shall have plenty of stot beasts by and by."

"Ou aye, surely, sir," said Hector as he retired, very much disappointed by the manner in which his intelligence had been received.

Corrie was not without his spies; and the oxen were hardly well so far over the hill, on their way to Lochaber, as to be fairly considered beyond all reach of recovery, when he returned with some of his people to prowl about Delnahaitnich. There he soon learned from Archy Abhach the manner and speech with which Gibbon More had received the news of his loss.

"I'll try him again," said Corrie. "The fellow must be the dullest stirk that ever was calved."

"The cows are all gone now, master!" cried the same ill-omened messenger, as he entered Gibbon More's apartment next morning before he was out of bed.

"A plague upon the plundering thief," cried Gibbon More, "has he taken the young beasts too?"

"No!" said the man, who was much disappointed to find that this, his second piece of bad news, was just as unsuccessful in rousing his master's ire as his first had been. "He has not ta'en a single young beast, but, on my conscience, I'm thinking he has ta'en enough."

"The villain robs by rule, I see," said Gibbon; "but since the young beasts are safe, Hector, we shall have plenty of both cows and stots again, anon, you know."

Corrie MacDonald, who was curious to find out how this second loss was to affect Gibbon, was absolutely piqued beyond endurance when he heard of the quiet manner in which he had taken it. Withdrawing a handful of his people from the large body of them who were then in charge of the second prey he had taken, he lay in ambush for a third night.

"We're altogether harried now then!" cried Hector, as he appeared the third morning with a face like a ghost. "Every young beast upon the place is gone."

"What!" cried Gibbon More, starting up to hurry on his clothes in a state of the fiercest excitement, "does the caitiff make a butt of me? I can bear to lose my bestial, but to be played on thus by a thieving scoundrel is more than man's patience can suffer. I'll teach these ruffians to crack their jokes upon me! Where is my two-handed sword?"

"Father, father! dear father, where are ye running to?" cried his daughter Bigla, as she met him raging out at the door like a roaring lion. "Where are you running without your bonnet?"

"I have no time to speak now," replied the infuriated Gibbon. "I'll tell you all about it when I come back."

"I fear he has gone on some rash and dangerous enterprise," said Bigla, "run, run, Hector, and gather the people, and be after him with help as fast as you may."

Hector was not slow; but he must have been active indeed, if he could have caught Gibbon More at the pace he was going. He rushed up the steep hill in front of his dwelling, and was soon out of sight.

Gibbon had no sooner reached the summit, than, throwing his eyes abroad, he espied his young cattle feeding on the south side of the hill called the Geal-charn, or the Hoary Hill; and from the smoke which he observed curling up from a ravine at a short distance from the spot where the animals were scattered about, he at once conjectured that the robbers had chosen that concealment as a fit place for cooking their morning meal. He was right in this supposition; for, judging from his former apathy, Corrie MacDonald had not quite calculated that this third act of depredation would lead to so speedy a pursuit.

"What a pity it is that Gibbon More Cumin has no more beasts left in Delnahaitnich," said Corrie MacDonald to his people, with an ironical laugh, as they sat in a circle round the fire, devouring one of the young beasts they had killed.

"We need not come back here for a while, till he sends up some more stock from Kincherdie," said one of his men.

"We have done not that much amiss in these three turns," said another. "I'm thinking we may be content to free him of blackmail for a season."

"By the beard of St. Barnabas, but we'll come back again and again, until we drive away every beast the cowardly loon has between this and Spey," said Corrie. "What should we do with such a lump of butter, but keep melting at it as long as it will run."

"Surely, surely," replied several of them.

"It will make our broth all the fatter," said Corrie, laughing again.

"Villains, do ye dare to laugh at me at the very moment when you are feeding at my cost?" cried Gibbon More, rushing suddenly and unexpectedly among them, like a raging wolf into a flock of penned sheep. "I'll teach you to make a fool of me."

The immense blade of his two-handed sword gleamed like a meteor in the air, flashed in the sun, and shed lightnings into their terrified eyes. Each of them tried to scramble to his feet as he best could; and one or two were shorn of their heads ere they could rise from the ground. Bonnets with heads in them fell to right and left, as I have seen ripe apples scattered from their parent bough by a violent gust of wind, or by the inroad of some thieving schoolboy. No one thought of anything else but flight; and the actions of all were as quick as their thoughts. But Gibbon More's enormous double-edged weapon was quicker in the repetition of its sweeping cuts than even thought itself. On he went, slashing right and left after them as they fled, till he had strewed the ravine and the hill-side with about a dozen of their carcases, and then, breathless and overcome with rage, haste, and toil, he sat himself down to rest on the heather. The remainder of the robbers were thus allowed to escape; and as he did not know the boasting Corrie MacDonald personally, that hero contrived to get safe away among the rest, and went home to Lochaber, somewhat less disposed to try experiments on the temper of Gibbon More Cumin, than he had declared himself to be before this his terrible and unlooked for onslaught.

Gibbon More's people, with Hector at their head, arrived too late to share with him in the glory of his victory. But they were useful in burying the slain. A few tumuli, which are still to be seen raising their green heads among the heather on the southern declivity of the Geal-charn, were thrown up by them over the dead bodies; and they then had the satisfaction of driving home their master's young cattle in safety to their native pasture, where the animals afterwards grew to be cows and oxen, entirely free from any further alarm from Corrie MacDonald.

I need not say that the sharp-witted page took good care that his master should profit by the temporary absence of Gibbon More. Sir John Grant was at the cottage immediately after the Lord of Glenchearnich had left it. But the knight had little advantage after all from an adventure which had cost Corrie MacDonald so dear. He had indeed the satisfaction of again beholding and conversing with Bigla; but, filled as she was at the time with alarm and anxiety about her father's safety, she could talk about or listen to no other subject. The time of the Lord of Glenchearnich's absence fled like a short dream. His anticipated travel of a few days had, by his own extraordinary activity and courage, been reduced to a few short hours, and the wary and watchful page had barely time to warn his master away, ere Gibbon More's voice was heard calling to his people, as he returned to the house begrimed with the blood and soil of his recent conflict.

But Sir John's more frequent opportunities of meeting with Bigla were soon afterwards again happily renewed by the return of Gibbon More to Kincherdie; and, by the ingenuity of the page, these stolen interviews passed over undiscovered even by the lynx-eyed Hector, whose energies were by this time somewhat diverted from their wonted watchfulness, by a certain newborn affection which had recently possessed his bosom for the fair maid Agnes.

It happened on one occasion that Gibbon More chanced to go to a fair or market at Inverness. The streets were crowded with people, as well as with horses, cows, and oxen of all sorts. There might have been observed the eagle-winged bonnet of the chief, followed by his tail of clansmen and dependants; and chieftains were seen promiscuously mingled with cattle-boys, gillies, and serfs of every degree and denomination, thronging the public way. Many were the friendly salutations, and many the flashes of hostile defiance that passed among the various personages who, coming from distant parts of the country, chanced on that day to meet each other. Often was the authority of the provost, the bailies, the sheriff, and other officials called into operation to quell embryo quarrels, and sometimes it was all that the united forces of these public functionaries could do to keep the restless and bloodthirsty dirks and claymores in their sheaths. Rarely did the mantled and well-wimpled damsels venture forth amidst the complication of dangers that were to be encountered at every step from the prevalence of those quarrels, as well as from the horns of the cattle and the heels of the horses. They contented themselves with saluting their friends from their open lattices; and many were the warm though distant acknowledgments that took place between the young and the fair ladies, who, whilst they were ostensibly occupied in gazing at the marvels in the street,--at the jesters and mummers who jingled their bells, or grinned with their painted faces, and trolled their rude and threadbare rhymes to ditties as unpolished, the pretty creatures were in reality altogether overlooking these vulgar absurdities, and were holding interesting conversations by signals, only known to themselves, with their handsome Highland lovers in the street.

Bigla Cumin was an heiress of consequence, but she was moreover very beautiful, so that many were the eyes that sought her as she sat at a lofty balcony in the house of a burgher friend of her father's, and not a few were those who endeavoured, and endeavoured in vain, to obtain one glance of recognition from her. I do not mean to say, however, that the lass was haughty, but she bore herself with the modesty befitting her years and her sex. There was but one on whom she did vouchsafe to look with an eye of yespecial favour, and that was Sir John Grant. Her heart beat in double time when he and his father, Sir Patrick the Lord of Stratherrock, passed by in their gay red and green tartan, which, except in its broad blue lysts and in its want of those pure white sprainges which enliven that of the Cumin, had so general a resemblance to it, that at a little distance they might have been easily mistaken for each other. When the rays from her bright eyes shot across the street in a condescending smile in return for the more than merely courteous reverence which he made to her, their sunshine was concentrated, if I may so express myself, as if it had been met by the burning glasses of that most wonderful man Archimedes, and it was returned to her in one melting focus of adoration.

"Angel that she is!" said Sir John to his father.

"She is an angel, indeed, boy!" replied the elder knight; "and, moreover, there be angels enow in her father's coffers, not to mention those broad acres of his which would give to the Grants so pretty a little principality in Strathspey. Stick to her, boy! She is well worth the winning."

"Would I could but have an interview with her, freed from all chance of interruption from her old father!" said Sir John in a tone of vexation.

"Trust to me, dear master," said Archy Abhach in a whisper, as at that moment he plucked the knight's sleeve. "Watch well thy time! I have seen some one in the town here to-day who will be right willing to lend thee a helping hand."

Gibbon More was not wont to go without the following of a chieftain on such occasions as this; and he generally bore his portly person over the crown of the causeway with a dignity which, when at home, he laid aside with his best bonnet, doublet, and plaid. The recognition between him and his new neighbour, as he called him, was remarkably warm and friendly on the part of Sir Patrick Grant, and very stately and condescending on his own side. His eyes were offended at the sight of the two Grants and their followers, and he sought relief from them in looking at a beautiful black palfrey which a West Highland gilly was leading down the street. The prancing, the caracoling, and the menage of the animal showed that it had been bred of the gentlest Arabian blood in some far away English pasture.

"Ho!" cried Gibbon, stopping the man. "Who is the owner of that beautiful creature?"

"I am the owner, sir," replied a sharp-eyed little man, right well accoutred both as to his arms and garb, but having no remarkable signs of any great rank about him.

"Are you for parting with the pretty creature?" inquired Gibbon More.

"I should not care much to part with him to a good customer," replied the other.

"Is he young, gentle, sound, and sure-footed?" demanded Gibbon.

"I'll answer all your questions by and by," replied the West Highlander, "if you will only do me the favour to satisfy me as to one point."

"What is that?" asked Gibbon More.

"Will you tell me what part of the country you come from?"

"From Strathspey, to be sure," replied Gibbon.

"I guessed as much," said the other. "I see, moreover, from the set of your tartan that you are a Cumin, and by your attire, bearing, and following, I can guess that you are a gentleman of some note. Do you happen to know Gibbon More Cumin of your country?"

"Know Gibbon More Cumin!" cried he, laughing good humouredly; "if I know anyone, I should know him, seeing that he always lives in the house with me, and that we never eat a meal asunder. I love him better than a brother. But not to keep you any longer in doubt--I am Gibbon More Cumin!"

"I am truly glad to see you," said the West Highlander, seizing his hand and shaking it heartily. "You are the man, of all others alive, to whom I am most obliged."

"Ha, friend!" replied Gibbon, looking hard and seriously at him, "I cannot say that I recollect having ever seen you before; how then have I happened so to have obliged you?"

"Well!" said the other, "if you cannot remember that you ever saw me before, the greater was your kindness to me--unsight unseen, as we say. It is not every man that keeps such an easy reckoning as you do of the benefits for which his friends are indebted to him."

"But what benefit have you had from me?" demanded Gibbon.

"I'll tell you that," said the West Highlander. "I'll tell you that in a moment. You see, I have no less than three strapping lasses of daughters. I have married all the three, and to each one of them I gave a tocher which you provided."

"Tut!" cried Gibbon laughing, "the man is demented. When did I ever give a tocher to daughter of yours? By St. Mungo, I have a strapping lass of a daughter of my own to portion. I have little ado therefore to portion those of other people."

"What I say is nevertheless true," replied the other. "And so sensible am I of the obligations I owe to you, that by way of a small return, and to show my gratitude, I must ask of you, as a favour, to accept of this horse of mine as a present for your daughter; and if you will go to the inn with me, I shall be happy to give you a pint of French Claret, if such be to be had in the town, to drink good luck to the young lady and her new palfrey."

"As I am a Cumin you are an honest fellow!" cried Gibbon More, shaking him again heartily by the hand. "But I prythee explain--I cannot accept either your present or your wine till you tell me who you are, and until you expound your riddle to me."

"I am not sure how far I am safe to do that," said the other archly, "especially here, on the High Street of Inverness; and you standing there with so many pretty men at your back."

"If I have done you kindnesses heretofore," said Gibbon, "what fear can you have of me now, stand where I will, or let me be backed as I may?"

"Why, then, you see," said the other, with a certain degree of comical hesitation, "I must confess that I did, on one occasion, presume somewhat too far on your liberality, and in your anger you gave me such a fright, that I am not sure that I have just altogether got the better of it yet."

"Ha! ha! ha! why, you give me more riddles every time you open your mouth," replied Gibbon. "When did I ever give you a fright?"

"Ou! troth sudden and terrible was the fright you gave me!" said the man, "and surely after tochering of three daughters, each of them with twelve beautiful milch cows and a bull, all of which came from your pastures, I should have been contented. But I'm thinking that if I was a small thing over greedy, the fright I got from Gibbon More's two-handed sword, as it flashed behind me on the Geal Charn, was enough to put all greed out of my head, so far at least as he was concerned."

"Hoo!" exclaimed Gibbon with a long whistle, "ha! ha! ha! Corrie MacDonald! as I am a Cumin, you are a most merry conditioned rogue as ever I met with! Your hand again! I accept your handsome present, and I will go drink your pot of wine with you, with all my heart, to my daughter's health, and to a better acquaintance between you and me. Ha! ha! ha! By St. Mary, but I am sorry now that I killed your men and so grievously frightened yourself. But, though the poor fellows are past all hope of recovery now, I am resolved that your dread of me shall be drowned in your own flagon. Lead on then, my brave fellow, to your hostel."

Gibbon More had too much enjoyment in this unexpected meeting and merry-making to allow it to terminate very soon; but Bigla Cumin was in some degree recompensed for the tedious time she had to tarry for her father by the long interview which she enjoyed with Sir John Grant, as well as by the sight of the beautiful prancing palfrey, which was led out for her to ride home upon.

It was not very long after this occurrence that poor Gibbon More Cumin was seized with a sudden malady, of which he died after a few days' illness, and he was carried by his friends and dependants to be laid to sleep in the tomb of his fathers. Jealous of the Grants even in his dying moments, he left Bigla, his orphan daughter and heiress, under the guardianship of some of the chieftains of his own clan, with earnest injunctions above all things to "keep her out of the fremyt [6] hands of Freuchie."

There was no one more anxious to fulfil this dying order of Gibbon's than one of the Cumins, who at that time possessed Logie, which, in later times, became the patrimonial property of that more recent branch whence proceeded the worthy family which is now so designated. This gentleman had been for some time one of Bigla's suitors; and his pretensions had been always favourably looked upon by her father. The days of mourning for the old man were not yet expired, when Logie came to Kincherdie, gaily apparelled, and well appointed and attended, and urging the authority of a father's dying wish, he signified to Bigla his desire of taking her with him on the ensuing day to his residence on the banks of the river Findhorn, where, as his guest, and under the protection of his aged mother, she should find a safe and comfortable asylum. Though satisfied that there was more of the warmth of the lover in the language in which this invitation was conveyed, than altogether befitted the character of a guardian, yet the young maiden, in her present lonely state, could not well find any reasonable excuse for refusal, and accordingly she was compelled, however unwillingly, to accept his offer, and she issued orders to her people to prepare for the journey.

The prospect of so soon leaving that home where she had spent her whole life under the fostering care of her doting father, filled her heart with a double portion of sorrow; and after artlessly communicating her feelings to Logie and his friends, she craved their pardon, entreated them to entertain one another, and to make themselves at home, and then she sought the retirement of her chamber, where she spent the remainder of the day, and the greater part of the evening, in giving way to that affliction which had more than one exciting cause.

"My dear mistress," said her faithful maid Agnes Cumin, breaking in upon her as she sat in silent abstraction, with her moist cheek resting upon her hand, "why should you cry your eyes out thus? The night is soft and balmy, a little fresh air would do you good. Do let me throw this plaid over you, and be persuaded to step out a little, were it only as far beyond the walls as the bourtree bower at the lower end of the garden."

"I cannot, my good Aggy," replied Bigla, with a fresh flood of tears; "in sooth I have no heart."

"Come! be persuaded to try the air," said Agnes. "Who knows what sighs and tears may be at this moment idly fanning the leaves and watering the rosebuds of your own bonny bower."

"What say you?" cried Bigla, starting up with a suddenly acquired energy. "What say you, Aggy? is he in the arbour?"

"Hush, my lady!" said the cautious girl, "he is there; and from his tears and sighs I should judge that his heart is well attuned to thine at this moment."