Part 7

Clifford.--No, I promise you you don't get my stories at so very easy a rate; and for this simple reason, that they are by no means so plenty as yours. Besides, I have just been thinking that with this warm breeze, that so gently ripples the surface of the lake, I could kill a handsome dish of trouts this afternoon, if trouts there be within its watery world. Why might we not loiter off the remainder of the day about this lake?

Grant.--I like the idea much. I perceive a nice looking cottage on the other side, where I dare to say we may find lodging for the night.

Author.--That cottage is a shooting-lodge belonging to the proprietor; and were he there in person, we should not lack a kind and hospitable reception. But at present its doors are locked, and its rooms void.

Clifford.--There is a house, then, here on the nearer shore, immediately below us; why should we not go there?

Author.--'Tis but a smoky uncomfortable place; but it may do well enough for a shelter for one night, and if you are content to abide there, so am I.

Clifford.--Pho! as to comfort, I am a soldier, and can rough it. I have lain out all night to kill the enemies of my country, and would do no less at any time for a good day's shooting or fishing.

Author, addressing gilly, who was leading a pony with panniers,--Go down thither, then, and see our quarters made as comfortable as may be.

Clifford.--Aye, that will do. Come along, let us to work without more hesitation or talk. I am all impatience.

Having sent round to borrow the proprietor's boat, we embarked on the lake, and were soon intensely occupied in all the exciting anxieties of the angle. Our success was various and unequal, like that of man in the great lottery of human life. It was not always when basking in the sunshine that we were most successful. Sometimes a warm shadow would cross the lake, and the trouts would rise and hook themselves three at a time on our lines. The bottom of the boat became alive, and shone and glittered with the growing numbers of our golden and silver captives. Anon, every cast we made was in vain; and then, when the foolish fish began again to bite, our eagerness was such, that we forgot each other's lines; and the loss of hooks, the destruction of the finer parts of our tackle, and the fracture of delicate top pieces, became the result of our numerous and grievous entanglements. Poor Clifford could not account for a sudden cessation of his luck at the very time that ours appeared to be doubled, and he went on in no very good humour, flogging the water unsuccessfully, whilst Grant and I were catching two and three at each cast; till at last, to his great chagrin, he found that he had been all the while fishing without flies, which were uselessly and most provokingly sticking in the rough coat and around the neck and head of my great Newfoundland dog Bronte, to the poor brute's great inconvenience. He did not fail to make up very quickly for this bad luck, however. Our evening was altogether most delightfully spent; for when we grew tired of the angle, we landed on the island, and wandered among the extensive ruins which cover it. We then sat on the mouldering walls of the castle till we saw the sun sink behind the western hill; after which we returned to the shore, and sought our place of retreat.

It was a small old-fashioned house, once used as a sort of hunting lodge. It consisted of two stories, with little else than one ruinous room in each, the whole being filled with the great smoke that arose from the kitchen fire. But the exercise we had had, added to our hunger, prepared us for being pleased with any accommodation; and after a supper well eked out by a fritto of the delicious trouts we had taken, we drew our stools around the fire, to enjoy a temperate cup of pure Highland whisky, diluted with water from a neighbouring spring.

Grant.--Now for your story, Clifford.

Clifford.--'Tis of a famous Highlander, called John Mackay, of Ross-shire. I got the narrative, with all its nationalities, from an old Scottish brother officer of mine, a certain major of the name of Macmillan, who knew the hero of it well.

Grant.--I should have hardly looked for such a story from a Sassenach like you.

Clifford.--Tut. You know very well that my mother was a Highlandwoman, and that I have moreover always had a strong feeling for Scotland, and especially for the Highlands, as well as for everything connected with these romantic regions, where, let me tell you, I have had some wanderings as well as you.

Author.--We admit your right to tell your story. So now, come away with it without further preface.

Clifford.--If I tell you anything, I must very nearly tell you all honest John's life. Have you patience for so long a narrative?

Grant.--We shall give you the full duration of the burning of these moss-fir faggots. Will that serve you?

Clifford.--I think my story will have expired before them. And by that time we shall all be nearly ready for our blankets and heather; for such, I presume, will be our fate to-night.

LEGEND OF JOHN MACKAY OF ROSS-SHIRE, CALLED IAN MORE ARRACH, OR BIG JOHN THE RENTER OF THE MILK OF THE COWS.

My old Highland major told me, what perhaps you know better than I do, I mean, that some half century or more ago, before sheep were quite so much in fashion in the Highlands as I believe they now are, and when cattle were the only great staple of the country, the proprietors of the glens had them always well filled with cows. In those times it was the custom in Ross-shire to allow one calf only to be reared for each two cows of the herd. Each calf with its pair of cows was called a Cauret; and these caurets were let to renters, who, as they might find it most advisable, took one or more of them in lease, as it were, according as their circumstances might dictate; and the renter being obliged to rear one calf for the landlord for each cauret he held, he was allowed the remainder of the milk for his own share of the profit. These milk-renters were called arrachs; and John Mackay, the hero of my story, was called Ian More Arrach, from his lofty stature, and from his being one of these milk-renters. According to my informant the major, who personally knew him, Ian well merited the addition of More; for he declared that he was the most powerful man he had ever beheld.

It so happened that Ian went down on one occasion into Strath-Connan, to attend a great market or fair that was held there, probably to dispose of his cheese; and as he was wandering about after his business was over, his eye was caught, exactly like those of some of our simple trouts of the lake here, by the red and tinsel, and silk and wool, and feather glories of a recruiting sergeant and his party. He had never seen anything of the kind before, and he stood staring at them in wonderment as they passed. Nor did his solid and substantial form fail to fill the sergeant's eye in its turn; but if I am to give you a simile illustrative of the manner in which it did so, I must say that it was in the same way that the plump form of a well-fed trout might fill the greedy eye of a gaunt pike. He resolved to have him as a recruit. The party was accordingly halted immediately opposite to the spot where Ian was standing; and after one or two shrill shrieks of the fife, and a long roll of the drum, the martial orator began an oration, which lasted a good half-hour, in which he largely expatiated on the glories of a soldier's life, and the riches and honours it was certain one day or other to shower on the heads of all those who embraced it. The greater part of this harangue was lost upon Ian More Arrach, partly because he but very imperfectly understood English, and partly because his senses were too much lost in admiration. But when the grand scarlet-coated gentleman approached him with a smiling air, and gaily slapping him on the back, exclaimed,--

"Come along with us, my brave fellow, and taste the good beef and mustard, and other provender, that King George so liberally provides for us gentlemen of his army, and drink his Majesty's health with us in his own liquor. Come, and see how jollily we soldiers live!"

His wits returned to him at once, and he quickly understood enough of what was said to him, to make him grin from ear to ear, till every tooth in his head was seen to manifest its own particular unmingled satisfaction, and his morning's walk from his distant mountain residence having wonderfully sharpened his appetite, he followed the sergeant into a booth with all manner of alacrity, and quietly took his seat at a table that groaned beneath an enormous round of beef, flanked by other eatables, on which the hungry recruits fell pell-mell, and in demolishing which Ian rendered them his best assistance. The booth or tent was constructed, as such things usually are, of some old blankets stitched together, and hung over a cross-stick, that was tied horizontally to the tops of two poles fixed upright in the ground. It was the ambulatory tavern of one of those travelling ale and spirit sellers who journey from one fair or market to another, for the charitable purpose of vending their victuals and drink to the hungry and thirsty who can afford to pay for them. The space around the interior of the worsted walls of this confined place was occupied with boxes, vessels, and barrels of various kinds; and whilst the landlord, a knock-kneed cheeseparing of a man, who had once been a tailor, sat at his ease in one corner reckoning his gains, his wife, a fat, bustling, red-nosed little woman, was continually running to and fro to serve the table with liquor. Many were the loyal toasts given, and they were readily drank by Ian, more, perhaps, from relish of the good stuff that washed them down, than from any great perception he had of their intrinsic merit. His head was by no means a weak one. But the sergeant and his assistants were too well acquainted with all the tricks of their trade not to take such measures as made him unwittingly swallow three or four times as much liquor as they did.

"Now, my gallant Highlander," exclaimed the sergeant, when he thought him sufficiently wound up for his purpose, "see how nobly his Majesty uses us. Starve who may, we never want for plenty. But this is not all. Hold out your hand, my brave fellow. See, here is a shilling with King George's glorious countenance upon it. He sends you this in his own name, as a mark of his especial favour and regard for you."

"Fod, but she wonders tat sae big an' braw a man as ta King wad be thinkin' on Ian Arrach at a', at a'," said the Highlander, surveying the shilling as it lay in the palm of his hand; "but troth, she wonders a hantel mair, tat sin King Shorge was sendin' ony sing till her ava, she didna send her a guinea fan her hand was in her sporran at ony rate. But sic as it be, she taks it kind o' ta man," and saying so, he quietly transferred into his own sporran that which he believed to have come from the King's.

"That shilling is but an arnest of all the golden guineas he will by and bye give you," said the sergeant; "not to mention all those bags of gold, and jewels, and watches which he will give you his gracious leave to take from his enemies, after you shall have cut their throats."

"Tut, tut, but she no be fond o' cuttin' trotts," replied Ian; "she no be good at tat trade at a', at a'."

"Ha! no fears but you will learn that trade fast enough," said the sergeant. "You mountaineers generally do. You are raw yet; but wait till you have beheld my glorious example--wait till you have seen me sheer off half a dozen heads or so, as I have often done, of a morning before breakfast, and you will see that there is nothing more simple."

"Och, och," exclaimed Ian, with a shrug of his shoulders that spoke volumes.

"Aye, aye," continued the sergeant, "'tis true you cannot expect that at the very first offer you are to be able to take off your heads quite so clean at a blow as I can do. Indeed, I am rather considered a rare one at taking off heads. For example, I remember that I once happened to take a French grenadier company in flank, when, with the very first slash of my sword, I cut clean through the necks of the three first file of men, front rank and rear rank, making no less than six heads off at the first sweep. And it was well for the company that they happened only to be formed two deep at the time, for if they had been three deep, no less than nine heads must have gone."

"Keep us a'!" cried some of the wondering recruits.

"Nay," continued the sergeant; "had it not been for the unlucky accident that by some mistake the fourth front rank man was a leetle shorter than the other, so that the sword encountered his chin-bone, the fourth file would have been beheaded like the rest."

"Och, och!" cried Ian again.

"But," continued the sergeant, "as I said before, though you cannot expect to take up this matter by nattral instinck, as it were, yet I'll be bail that a big stout souple fellow like you will not see a month's sarvice before you will shave off a head as easily as I shave this here piece of cheese, and----confound it, I have cut my thumb half through."

"Her nanesell wunna be meddlin' wi' ony siccan bluidy wark," said Ian, shaking his head, and shrugging his shoulders. "She no be wantan' to be a boutcher. But, noo," added he, lifting up a huge can of ale, "she be biddin' ye a' gude evenin', shentilmans, and gude hells, and King Shorge gude hells, an' mony sanks to ye a'; and tell King Shorge she sall keep her bit shullin' on a string tied round her neck for a bonny die." And so rising up, Ian put the ale can to his head, and drained it slowly to the bottom.

"But, my good fellow," said the sergeant, who had been occupied, whilst Ian's draught lasted, in tying up his thumb in a handkerchief and giving private signals to his party, "you are joking about bidding us good evening--we cannot part with you so soon."

"Troth she maun be goin' her ways home," said Ian, "she has a far gate to traivil."

"Stuff!" cried the sergeant; "surely you cannot have forgotten that you have taken King George's money, and that you have now the great privilege of holding the honourable and lucrative situation of a gentleman private in his Majesty's infantry, having been duly and volunteerly enlisted before all these here witnesses."

"Ou, na," said Ian gravely and seriously; "she didna list--na, na, she didna list; troth na. So wussin' ta gude company's gude hells wanss more, an' King Shorge's hells, she maun just be goin' for she has a lang gate o' hill afore her."

"Nay, master, we can't exactly part with you so easily," said the sergeant, rising up. "You are my recruit, and you must go nowhere without my leave."

"Hoot, toots," replied Ian, making one step towards the door of the booth; "an' she has her nane leave, troth, she'll no be axan' ony ither."

"I arrest you in the King's name!" said the sergeant, laying hold of Ian by the breast.

"Troth, she wudna be wussin' to hort her," said Ian, lifting up the sergeant like a child before he knew where he was; "but sit her doon tere, oot o' ta way, till her nanesell redds hersell of ta lave, and wuns awa'."

Making two strides with his burden towards a large cask of ale that stood on end in one corner of the place, he set the gallant hero down so forcibly on the top of it, that the crazy rotten boards gave way, and he was crammed backwards, in a doubled up position, into the yawning mouth of the profound, whilst surges of beer boiled and frothed up around him. Ian would have charitably relieved the man from so disagreeable a situation, which was by no means that which he had intended him to occupy; but, ere he wist, he was assailed by the whole party like a swarm of bees. The place of strife was sufficiently narrow, a circumstance much in favour of the light troops who now made a simultaneous movement on him, with the intention of prostrating him on the ground, but he stood like a colossus, and nothing could budge him; whilst, at the same time, he never dealt a single blow as if at all in anger, but ever and anon, as his hands became so far liberated as to enable him to seize on one of his assailants, he wrenched him away from his own person, and tossed him from him, either forth of the tent door, or as far at least as its bounds would allow, some falling among the hampers and boxes--some falling like a shower upon the poor owners of the booth--and some falling upon the unfortunate sergeant. The red-nosed priestess of this fragile temple of Bacchus shrieked in sweet harmony with the groans of the knock-kneed and broken-down tailor, and in the midst of the melee, one unhappy recruit, who was winging his way through the air from the powerful projectile force of Ian More, came like a chain-shot against the upright poles of the tent--the equilibrium of its whole system was destroyed--down came the cross-beam--the covering blankets collapsed and sank,--and, in a moment, nothing appeared to the eyes of those without but a mighty heap, that heaved and groaned underneath like some volcanic mountain in labour previous to an eruption. And an eruption to be sure there was; for, to the great astonishment of the whole market people, Ian More Arrach's head suddenly appeared through a rent that took place in the rotten blanket, with his face in a red hot state of perspiration, and his mouth gasping for breath. After panting like a porpoise for a few seconds, he made a violent effort, reared himself upon his legs, and thrusting his feet out at the aperture which had served as a door to the tent, he fled away with all the effect of a fellucca under a press of sail, buffeting his way through the multitude of people and cattle, as a vessel would toss aside the opposing billows; and then shooting like a meteor up the side of the mountain that flanked the strath, he left his flowing drapery behind him in fragments and shreds adhering to every bush he passed by, bounded like a stag over its sky line, and disappeared from the astonished eyes of the beholders.

It were vain to attempt to describe the re-organisation of the discomfited troops, who, when their strange covering was thus miraculously removed, arose singly from the ground utterly confounded, and began to move about limping and cursing amidst the bitter wailings of the unhappy people whose frail dwelling had so marvellously fled from them. The attention of the party was first called to their gallant commander, who, with some difficulty, was extracted from the mouth of the beer barrel, dripping like a toast from a tankard. His rage may be conceived better than told. His honour had been tarnished, and his interest put in jeopardy. He, whose stirring tales of desperate deeds of arms and fearful carnage had so often extended the jaws of the Highland rustics whom he had kidnapped, and raised their very bonnets on the points of their bristling hair with wonder,--who could devour fire as it issued from the mouth of a cannon,--and who could contend single-handed against a dozen of foes, to be so unceremoniously crammed, by the arm of one man, into a beer barrel, in the presence of those very recruits, and to be afterwards basely extracted from it before the eyes of the many who had listened to his boastful harangues. And then, moreover, to be choused out of the anticipated fruits of his wily hospitality, as well as of a silver shilling, by the flight of the broad-shouldered Celt, whom he thought he had secured, and of whom he expected to have made so handsome a profit. All this was not to be borne, and, accordingly, wide as was Ross-shire, he determined most indefatigably to search every inch of it until he should again lay hands on him. From the inquiries made on the spot, it was considered as certain that Ian More had gone directly home to his lonely bothy, in a high and solitary valley some dozen of miles or so from the place where they then were; and as one of the recruits knew the mountain tracks well enough to act as guide, he collected the whole of his forces, amounting to nearly double the number of those who had been engaged in the battle of the booth, and after having refreshed and fortified them and himself with all manner of available stimuli, he put himself at their head, and set forward on his expedition at such an hour of the night as might enable them to reach the dwelling of Ian More Arrach before he was likely to leave it in the morning in pursuit of his daily occupation.

Ian More was but little acquainted with the tricks of this world; and no wonder, for the habitation in which he lived, and from which he rarely migrated, was situated in one of those desert glens which are to be found far up in the mountains, where they nurse and perhaps give birth to the minuter branches of those streams, which, running together in numbers, and accumulating as they roll onwards through wider and larger valleys, go on expanding with the opening country until they unite to water the extended and fertile plains in some broad and important river. The ascent to the little territory of which Ian More was the solitary sovereign was by a steep and narrow ravine among rocks, down which the burn raged against the opposing angles, like a wayward child that frets and fumes against every little obstacle that occurs to the indulgence of its wishes. Higher up its course was cheerful and placid, like the countenance of the same child, perhaps, when in the best humour and in the full enjoyment for the time being of all its desires, laughing as it went its way among water-lilies, ranunculuses, and yellow marigolds, meandering quietly through a deep and well-swarded soil that arose from either side of it in a gently curving slope to the base of two precipitous walls of rock, within the shelter of which the caurets of Ian More had ample pasture for a stretch of about a quarter of a mile upwards to the spot where the cliffs, rising in altitude, and apparently unscalable, shut in the glen in a natural amphitheatre. There the burn issued from a small circular lochan; and it was on the farther margin of this piece of water, and immediately at the foot of the crags behind it, that the small sod hovel of Ian More Arrach was placed, so insignificant a speck amid the vastness of the surrounding features of nature as to be hardly distinguished from the rock itself, especially when approached, as it now was, in the grey light of the morning, until the sergeant and his party had come very near to it.

The leader of the enterprise felt that no time was to be lost in a survey, lest, whilst they were hesitating, Ian might perceive them, and again make his escape. A simultaneous rush, therefore, was made for the door; but, albeit that Ian generally left it unfastened, he had somehow or other been led to secure it on this occasion, by lifting a stone of no ordinary size, which usually served him as a seat, and placing it as a barricade against it on the inside. Their first attempt to force it being thus rendered altogether unavailing,--

"John Mackay, otherwise Ian More Arrach, open to us in the name of King George," cried the sergeant, standing at the full length of his pike from the door, and poking against it with the point of the weapon.

"Fat wud King Shorge hae wi' Ian More," demanded the Highlander.