Part 8

"Come, open the door and surrender peaceably," cried the sergeant; "you are the King's lawful recruit. You have been guilty of mutiny and desartion; but if you will surrender at discretion, and come quietly along with us, it is not unlikely that, in consideration of your being as yet untaught, and still half a savage, you may not be exactly shot this bout, though it is but little marcy you desarve, considering how confoundedly my back aches with the rough treatment I had from you. Keep close to the door, my lads," continued he, sinking his voice, "and be ready to spring on him the moment he comes out."

Whilst the sergeant yet spoke, the whole hovel began to heave like some vast animal agonised with internal throes. The men of the party stood aghast for one moment, and in the next the back wall of the sod edifice was hurled outwards, and the roof, losing its support, fell inwards, raising a cloud of dust so dense as utterly to conceal for a time the individual who was the cause and instrument of its destruction.

"Ha! look sharp, my lads!" cried the sergeant; "be on your mettle!"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the herculean form of Ian More arose before his eyes from amidst the debris and dust, as did the figure of the Genii from the jar before those of the fisherman in the Eastern fable.

"There he is, by Jupiter!" cried the sergeant, involuntarily retreating a step or two. "On him--on him, and seize him, my brave boys!"

The nature of the spot seemed to forbid all hope of escape. The party blocked up the space in front of the bothy, and the narrow stripe of ground that stretched along between the lake on the one hand, and the cliffs on the other, grew more and more confined as it ran backwards, until it disappeared altogether at a point about an hundred yards distant, where the crags rose sheer up out of the water. In this direction Ian More moved slowly off, after throwing on the throng of his assailants a grim smile, which, however, had more of pity than of anger in it. Before he had taken a dozen steps the most forward of the party were at his skirts. He turned smartly round, and suddenly catching up the first man in his arms, he sent him spinning through the air into the lake as if he had been a puppy dog. The next in succession was seized with astonishment, but before he could shake himself free of it, he was seized by something more formidable, I mean by the iron hands of Ian More, who flung him also far amid the waters after his fellow. A whole knot of those who followed them sprang upon him at once, but he patted them off, one after another, as if they had been so many flies, and that he had been afraid to hurt them; but, as it was impossible for him to accommodate his hits with mathematical precision to the gentleness of his intentions, some of the individuals who received them bore the marks of them for many a day afterwards. The ardour of the attack became infinitely cooled down. But still there were certain fiery spirits who coveted glory. These, as they came boldly up, successively shared the fate of those who had gone before them. Some were stretched out, as chance threw them, to measure their dimensions on the terra firma, whilst others were hurled hissing hot into the lake, where they were left at leisure to form some estimate of their own specific gravity in a depth of water which was just shallow enough to save them from drowning. Meanwhile, the object of their attack continued to stalk slowly onwards at intervals, smiling on them from time to time, as he turned to survey the shattered remains of the attacking army that now followed him at a respectful distance, and halted every time he faced them. The sergeant, like an able general, kept poking them on in the rear with his pike, and upbraiding them for their cowardice. Meanwhile Ian gradually gained ground on them, and having produced an interval of some twenty or thirty yards between himself and them, just as they thought that he had arrived at a point where farther retreat was impossible, he suddenly disappeared into a crack in the face of the cliff, hitherto unobserved, and on reaching the place they found that the fearless mountaineer had made his slippery way up the chimney-like cleft, amidst the white foam of a descending rill that was one of the main feeders of the lochan, into which it poured.

"The feller has vanished into the clouds," said the sergeant, shuddering with horror as he looked up the perilous rocky funnel, and, at the same time, secretly congratulating himself that Ian had not stood to bay. "He has vanished into the clouds, just out of our very hands, as I may say. Who was to think of there being any such ape's ladder as this here?"

The party returned, sullen and discomfited, to the strath, and their leader now gave up all hopes of capturing Ian More Arrach either by stratagem or force. But his thirst for the large sum which he expected to realise by producing such a man at headquarters rendered him quite restless and unremitting in his inquiries, the result of which was, that he found out that Lord Seaforth, then, I believe, Lord Lieutenant of the County, might do something towards apprehending the runaway. He accordingly waited on his lordship to request his interference for procuring the seizure of John Mackay, surnamed Ian More Arrach, a deserter from His Majesty's service. Lord Seaforth inquired into the case, and believing that the man had been fairly enlisted, he procured his immediate appearance at Brahan Castle, by going the right way to work with him. There, it so happened, that Lord Rae was at that time a visitor, and Lord Seaforth called in his aid to work upon Ian More, who bowed to the ground in submission to the wishes of his chief.

"This is an unlucky business, Ian More," said Lord Rae, "it seems that you have deserted from the King's service, after having accepted his money, and that, moreover, you have twice deforced the officer and party. Your case, I fear, is a bad one. Depend upon it, they will have you if it should cost them the sending of a whole regiment after you; and then, if you give them so much trouble, no one can say what may be the consequence. Take my advice and give yourself up quietly. I shall write to your commanding officer in such terms as will save you from any very bad consequences; and with the recommendations which you shall have, there is no saying but you may be an officer ere long. All the Mackays are brave fellows; and if all I have heard be true, it appears that you are no disgrace to the name."

Ian was too proud of the interest taken in him by his noble chief, to dispute his advice or wishes for one moment. He would have sacrificed his life for him. And accordingly, abandoning his mountain-glen and his caurets, he surrendered himself to the sergeant, who implicitly obeyed the instructions he received from Lord Rae to treat him kindly, particularly as they were backed up with a handsome douceur; and Ian was soon afterwards embarked to join his regiment, then quartered in Guernsey.

The regiment that Ian More was attached to was almost entirely a new levy, and the recruits were speedily put on garrison duty, frivolous perhaps in itself, but probably given to them more as a lesson, in order that they might become familiar with it, than from any absolute necessity for it. It so happened, that the first guard that Ian mounted, he was planted as a night sentinel on the Queen's Battery. The instructions given to his particular post were to take especial care that no injury should happen to a certain six-pounder, which there rested on its carriage; and when the corporal of the guard marched Ian up as a relief, he laughed heartily to hear the earnest assurances which he gave, in answer to the instructions he received from the man he was relieving, "Tat not a bonn o' ta body o' ta wee gunnie sould be hurt, at a', at a', while he had ta care o' her."

And Ian kept his word; for he watched over the beautiful little piece of ordnance with the greatest solicitude. It so happened, however, that whilst he was walking his lonely round, a heavy shower of rain began to fall, and a bitter freezing blast soon converted every particle of it into a separate cake of ice, which cut against his nose and eyes, and nearly scarified his face, so that much as he had been accustomed to the snarling climate of the higher regions of the interior of Scotland, he felt as if he would lose his eyesight from the inclemency of the weather; and then he began to reason that if he should lose his eyesight, how could he take care of the gun? His anxiety for the safety of his charge, united to a certain desire for his own comfort, induced him gravely to consider what was best to be done. He surveyed the gun, and as he did so, he began to think that it was extremely absurd that he should be standing by its side for two long hours, whilst he might so easily provide for its security in some place of shelter; and accordingly he quickly removed it from its carriage, and poising it very adroitly on his shoulder, he carried it deliberately away.

Strong as Ian was, the position and the weight of the six-pounder, considerably more than half a ton, compelled him to walk with a stiff mien and a solemn, measured, and heavy tread. He had to pass by two or three sentinels. These were all raw unformed recruits like himself, and full of Highland superstitions. Each of them challenged him in succession as his footstep approached; but Ian was too much intent on keeping his burden properly balanced to be able to reply. He moved on steadily and silently therefore, with his eyeballs protruded and fixed, from the exertion he was making, and with his whole countenance wearing a strange and portentous expression of anxiety, which was heightened by a certain pale blue light that fell upon it from one part of the stormy sky. Instead of attempting to oppose or to arrest such a phantom, which came upon them in the midst of the tempest like some unearthly being which had been busied in the very creation of it, each sentry fled before it, and the whole rampart was speedily cleared.

It was not many minutes after this that the visiting sergeant went his rounds. To his great surprise, he was not challenged by the sentry upon Ian More's post; and to his still greater astonishment, he was permitted to advance with impunity till he discovered that Ian More was not there. But what was yet most wonderful of all the gun of which he was the especial guardian was gone.

"Lord ha' mercy on us!" exclaimed the corporal, "I see'd the man planted here myself alongside the piece of ordnance; what can have become of them both?"

"Tis mortal strange," said the sergeant. "Do you stand fast here, corporal, till we go down the rampart a bit, to see if we can see anything."

"Nay, with your leave, sergeant," said the corporal, "I see no use in leaving me here to face the devil. Had we not better go and report this strange matter to the officer of the guard?"

"Nonsense,--obey my orders; and if you do see the devil, be sure you make him give you the countersign," said the sergeant, who had had all such fears rubbed off by a long life of hard service.

On walked the sergeant along the rampart. The other sentries were gone also. One man only he at last found, and him he dragged forth from under a gun-carriage.

"Why have you deserted your post, you trembling wretch?" demanded the sergeant.

"Did you not see it, then?" said the man, with a terrified look.

"See what?" asked the sergeant.

"The devil, in the shape of Ian More Arrach, with his face like a flaming furnace, shouldering a four-and-twenty pounder," replied the man; "och, it was a terrible sight."

"By jingo, my boy, your back will be made a worse spectacle of before long, if I don't mistake," said the sergeant.

By this time a buzz of voices was heard. The guard had been alarmed by the fugitive sentries, whose fright had carried them with ghastly looks to the guard-room. The guard had alarmed the garrison, and the whole place was thrown into confusion. Soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and officers, were seen running and heard vociferating in all directions, lanterns and flambeaux were everywhere flitting about like fire-flies, and soldiers' wives and children were heard screaming and crying. The cause of the tumult was reported in a thousand different ways. Some of the least rational of the women and juveniles even believed and asserted that an enemy had landed on the island; whilst those who really were aware that the true cause of the uproar was Ian More's mysterious disappearance, were employed in searching everywhere for him and the six-pounder; but he was nowhere to be found, and wonder and astonishment multiplied at every step.

At length the tumult rose to such a height that the commanding officer was roused, and hurrying on his clothes, he came running to the Queen's Battery to know what all the hubbub was about. The place was filled with a crowd of all ranks, each individual of which was ready to hazard his own conjecture in explanation of this most unaccountable event. All gave way at the colonel's approach. After hearing what had happened, he inquired into the circumstances so far as they were known; he listened calmly and attentively to the various accounts of those who had been making ineffectual search, and having heard all of them patiently to an end--

"This is very strange," said he; "but well as you have searched, it appears to me that none of you seem to have ever thought of looking for him in his barrack-room. Let us go there."

Off went the colonel accordingly to the barrack-room, followed by as many curious officers and soldiers as could well crowd after him; and there, to be sure, snug in bed, and sound asleep, lay Ian More Arrach, with the piece of artillery in his arms, and his cheek close to the muzzle of it, which was sticking out from under the blanket that covered both of them. The spectacle was too ridiculous even for the colonel's gravity. He and all around him gave way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter, that speedily awaked Ian from the deep sleep in which he was plunged. He stared around him with astonishment.

"What made you leave your post, you rascal?" demanded the sergeant of the guard, so much provoked as to forget himself before his commanding officer.

"Nay, nay," said the colonel, who already knew something of Ian, from the letter which he had received from his chief, "you cannot say that he has left his post; for you see he has taken his post along with him."

"Is na ta wee bit gunnie as weil aside her nanesell here?" said Ian, with an innocent smile. "Is she na mockell better here aside her nanesell, nor wi' her nanesell stannin' cauld an' weet aside her yonder on ta Pattry?"

"Well, well," said the colonel, after a hearty laugh. "But how did you manage to bring the gun here?"

"Ou troth her nanesell carried her," replied Ian.

"Come, then," said the colonel, "if you will instantly carry it back again to the place whence you took it, nothing more shall be said about it."

"Toots! but she'll soon do tat," said Ian, starting out of bed, and immediately raising the gun to his shoulder, he set out with it, followed by the colonel and every one within reach; and, to the great astonishment of all of them, he marched slowly and steadily towards the battery with it, and replaced it on its carriage, amidst the loud cheers of all who beheld him.

As Ian was naturally a quiet, sober, peaceable, and well-behaved man, a thorough knowledge of his duty soon converted him into a most invaluable soldier; and nature having made him a perfect model, both as to mould and symmetry of form, the colonel, who took a peculiar fancy to him, soon saw that he was altogether too tall and fine looking a man to be kept in the ranks. Accordingly he had him struck off from the ordinary routine of domestic duty, and drilled as a fugleman, in which distinguished situation Ian continued to figure until his services were terminated by an unlucky accident.

It happened one evening that the colonel of an English regiment dined at the mess of the Highland corps. In the course of conversation this gentleman offered a bet that he had a man who would beat any individual who could be picked from among the Highlanders. One of the Highland officers immediately took him up, and engaged to produce a man to meet the English champion next morning. By break of day, therefore, he sent for Ian More Arrach, and told him what had occurred, and then added--"You are to be my man, Ian; and I think it will be no hard thing for you who shouldered the six-pounder to pound this boasting pock-pudding."

"Troth na," said Ian, shaking his head, "ta pock-pudden no done her nae ill,--fat for wad she be fighten her? Troth her honour may e'en fight ta man hersell, for her nanesell wull no be doin' nae siccan a thing."

"Tut! nonsense, man," said the officer, "you must fight him, aye and lick him too; and you shall not only carry off the honour, but you shall have a handsome purse of money for doing so."

"Na, na," said Ian, "ta man no dune her nae ill ava, an she'll no be fighten for ony bodey's siller but King Shorge's."

"Surely you're not afraid of him," said the officer, trying to rouse his pride.

"Hout na!" replied Ian More, with a calm good humoured smile; "she no be feart for no man livin'."

"So you won't fight," said the officer.

"Troth na," said Ian, "she canna be fighten wissout nae raison."

"Surely your own honour, the honour of the regiment, the honour of Scotland, the purse of gold, and my wishes thus earnestly expressed, ought to be reasons enough with you. But since you refuse, I must go to Alister Mackay; he will have no such scruples, I'll warrant me."

This last observation was a master-stroke of policy on the part of the officer. Alister Mackay was a stout athletic young man; but he was by no means a match for the English prize-fighter. Nor did the officer mean that he should be opposed to him; for he only named him, knowing that he was a cousin of Ian More's, and one for whom he had the affection of a brother; and he was quite sure that his apprehension for Alister's safety would be too great to allow him to be absent from the field, if it did not induce him to take his place in the combat. And it turned out as he had anticipated. Ian came, eagerly pressing forward into the throng; and no sooner did he appear than the officer pointed him out to the Englishman as the man that was to be pitted against him; and as the Highlanders naturally took it for granted that the big fugleman was to be their man, they quickly made a ring for him amidst loud cheering.

"Come away, Goliah! come on!" cried the Englishman, tossing his hat into the air, and his coat to one side. Ian minded him not. But the growing and intolerable insolence of the bully did the rest; for, presuming on Ian's apparent backwardness, he strode up to him with his arms akimbo, and spat in his face.

"Fat is she do tat for?" asked Ian simply of those around him.

"He has done it to make people believe that you are a coward, and afraid to fight him," said the Highland officer who backed him.

"Tell her no to do tat again," said Ian seriously.

"There!" said the boxer, repeating the insult.

Without showing the smallest loss of temper, Ian made an effort to lay hold of his opponent, but the Englishman squared at him, and hit him several smart blows in succession, not one of which the unpractised Highlander had the least idea of guarding.

"Ha!" exclaimed the Highland officer, "I fear you will be beaten, Ian."

"Foo!" cried Ian coolly, "she be strikin' her to be sure, but she be na hurtin' her. But an she disna gie ower an her nanesell gets one stroak at her, she'll swarrants she'll no seek nae mair."

The Englishman gave him two or three more hard hits that went against his breast as if they had gone against an oaken door; but at last Ian raised his arm, and swept it round horizontally with a force that broke through all his antagonist's guards; and the blow striking his left cheek as if it had come from a sledge hammer, it actually drove the bones of the jaw on that side quite through the opposite skin, and, at the same time, smashed the whole skull to fragments. The man fell like a log, dead on the spot, and horror and astonishment seized the spectators.

"Och hone! och hone!" cried Ian More, running to lift him from the ground, in an agony of distress, "She's dootin' she kilt ta poor man."

Ian was thrown into a fit of the deepest despair and sorrow by this sad catastrophe, sufficiently proving to every one around him that his heart was made of the most generous stuff; and, indeed, the effect of the horrible spectacle they had witnessed was such as to throw a gloom on all who were present, and especially on those who were more immediately concerned with the wager. The case was decidedly considered as one of justifiable homicide. It was hushed up by general consent, and a pass was granted to Ian to return to Scotland.

As he was slowly journeying homeward, Ian happened to spend a night at Stonehaven, and, as he was inquiring of his landlord as to the way he was to take in the morning, the man told him that he might save some distance by taking a short cut through the park of Ury, the residence of Mr. Barclay of Ury, who, as you probably know, was even more remarkable for feats of bodily strength than his son, Captain Barclay, the celebrated pedestrian.

"Ye may try the fut-road through the park," said Ian's host; "but oddsake, man, tak' care an' no meet the laird, for he's an awfu' chiel, though he be a Quaker, and gif ye do meet him I rauken that ye'll just hae to come yere ways back again."

"Fat for she do tat?" demanded Ian.

"Ou, he's a terrible man the laird," continued the landlord. "What think ye? there was ae night that a poor tinker body had putten his bit pauney into ane of the laird's inclosures, that it might get a sly rug o' the grass. Aweel, the laird comes oot in the mornin', and the moment he spied the beast, he ga'ed tilt like anither Samson, and he lifted it up in his airms and flang it clean oot ower the dyke. As sure as ought, gif he meets you, an' he disna throw you owre the dyke, he'll gar ye gang ilka fit o' the road back again."

"Tuts! she'll try," replied Ian.

Soon after sunrise, Ian took the forbidden path, and he had pursued it without molestation for a considerable way, when he heard some one hallooing after him; and turning his head to look back, he beheld a gentleman, whom he at once guessed to be the laird, hurrying up to him.

"Soldier!" cried Mr. Barclay, "I allow no one to go this way, so thou must turn thee back."

"She be sorry tat she has anghered her honour," said Ian bowing submissively, "but troth it be ower far a gate to gang back noo."

"Far gate or short gate, friend, back thou must go," said Mr. Barclay.

"Hoot na! she canna gang back," said Ian.

"But thou must go back, friend," said the laird.

"Troth, she wunna gang back," replied Ian.

"But thou must go back, I tell thee," said the laird, "and if thou wilt not go back peaceably, I'll turn thee back whether with thy will or not."

"Hoot, toot, she no be fit to turn her back," said Ian with one of his broad good-humoured grins.

"I'll try," said the laird, laying his hands on Ian's shoulders to carry his threat into immediate execution.

"An she be for tat," said Ian, "let her lay doon her wallet, an' she'll see whuther she can gar her turn or no."

"By all means, good friend," said the laird, who enjoyed a thing of the kind beyond all measure. "Off with thy wallet, then. Far be it from me to take any unseemly advantage of thee."

The wallet being quietly deposited on the ground, to it they went; but ere they had well buckled together, Ian put down the laird beside the wallet with the same ease that he had put down the wallet itself.