Chapter 8

Scotty listened in dismay. Callum to be married! That itself was bad enough, people were always laughed at and chaffed when they got married, and he writhed at the thought of his hero being in such an ignominious position. But to be married to an Irish girl! Surely the MacDonalds would be disgraced forever.

And yet Scotty's heart forbade his taking sides against Nancy. She was Irish, certainly a deplorable fact, but still she was Nancy; and though she had not been at school for some time, the boy had not forgotten her. He sighed deeply over the complexity of human affairs. This, then, was the cause of their unhappiness at home, of Grandaddy's muttered threats and Granny's distressed looks.

He did not understand that there were stronger objections to Nancy in Granny's mind than the girl's nationality. Big Malcolm's wife was growing old, and the work of the farmhouse weighed heavily upon her. Ever since Callum had grown up she had cherished the hope that one day she would have sweet, trim Mary Lauchie, the finest girl in the Oa, and a MacDonald at that, to take the reins of government in her household. The loss of Mary would have been disappointment enough, but Callum's new choice was a great trial to his patient, gentle mother. The thought of Nancy Caldwell as a daughter-in-law, even though she was to live at the north clearing, instead of with her, filled her with fear. For Nancy had a reputation that had spread beyond the Flats. Since the day she left school, where she had defied McAllister at his best, she had ruled supreme in her own home from sheer dauntlessness of spirit. Many were the tales told in the Oa of her wild outlandish doings; how she would dress up in her brother's clothes and drive madly all over the country; how she could ride an unbroken colt bareback, and shoot like a man, things which everyone in the Oa knew no right-minded young woman could ever learn. And hadn't Store Thompson's wife been, as she declared, clean scandalised by seeing the hussy cross the Oro at the spring floods, standing erect in a canoe and spreading out her skirts to the gale, "Makin' a sail o' mesilf!" as she had laughingly declared when she leaped ashore.

Scotty could not force himself to tell Isabel the disgraceful truth; he was very quiet and gloomy as they walked homeward through the golden-lighted forest. But Isabel had had a grand day with Betty and had forgotten all about the original purport of their visit. She danced along at his side full of busy chatter. Didn't he love all Long Lauchie's folks? She did; for Betty was a dear and Mrs. Lauchie was 'most as nice as Scotty's Granny. But she loved Mary most of all, because she was so kind and so good. And did Mary have the heartbreak too, like her auntie? No; Scotty did not see how that was possible; for Mary had never had a dress ready for a wedding; nor a fine soldier man who did not come. But Isabel was sure he was mistaken. Yes, that was certainly what Mary had, for her face was so pale, and she had the same look in her eyes that her auntie had when her wedding day came round, only Mary's eyes were kinder. But Scotty was not interested in Mary. Callum absorbed all his thoughts, and he left Isabel at Kirsty's and hurried home.

He found the boys all gone and his grandfather sitting alone by the door. Big Malcolm was not smoking, which was a bad sign, and his grandson saw by the look in his eye that he was not at peace. In his perturbation over Callum's difficult case the boy had not noticed that a new undercurrent of excitement was running through life's everyday affairs.

For, though Big Malcolm had, with wonderful self-control, put aside his indignation at the Orangemen, all the MacDonalds had not done so. Weaver Jimmie had gone up over the hills of the Oa like a bearer of the fiery cross, and wherever he appeared the beacon-fire of anger had blazed forth. The Orangemen celebrating! The MacDonalds arose as one man, and in all the inherited fury of generations, combined with as much more produced for the occasion, banded together and swore that before the soil of this, their new home, should be polluted by a celebration in honour of the MacDonalds' betrayer, it should first be soaked with the MacDonalds' blood!

To do Tom Caldwell justice, he did not at all comprehend the enormity of the offence he was about to commit. Of course the Orangemen anticipated some trouble among their Catholic brethren, but rather looked forward to it as part of their entertainment. For though Pat Murphy and his friends prophesied death and destruction to the procession and all that had part or lot in it, what matter? The country had been growing far too quiet since the fighting MacDonalds had taken to praying instead of pugilism, and a little row at the corner would just stir things up a bit and make it seem like old times. But while they gleefully looked for tempests in the Flats, they were innocently oblivious to the fact that the formerly peaceful hills of the Oa had been converted into raging volcanoes. Occasionally vague rumours of an eruption in the MacDonald settlement did float down to King William and his men, drilling in the long June evenings, but they drowned them in the tooting of fifes and the banging of drums and went gaily on to their doom.

But while the MacDonalds raged, Big Malcolm remained at home alone or in company with Long Lauchie, and fought with himself the fiercest battle in which he had ever engaged. Not since the day he had seen Rory go down under Pat Murphy's feet had he been so sorely tried. And the MacDonalds would say he had failed them because his son was about to unite with one of the Caldwell crew. That was the sting of it! Callum had always been the first in any aggressive enterprise of the Oa, and Callum was now conspicuous by his absence. Sometimes Big Malcolm was fiercely resolved to plunge headlong into the commotion and compel his son to join him. And then calmer moments ensued; he could not forget those winter prayer meetings and the wonderful leavening effect they had had upon the community; nor could he forget Praying Donald's prophetic warnings that all strife and enmity must certainly bring retribution. No; he had forever put all feuds behind him, he finally decided, and if the MacDonalds were about to engage in strife with the Orangemen they must learn that he, Big Malcolm, was far above and beyond any such unseemly brawlings.

But upon this evening when Scotty found him alone at the doorway, his grandfather was experiencing none of the settled calm that might be expected to follow such a laudable decision. For to-night the MacDonalds were holding another mass-meeting at the house of Roarin' Sandy to decide finally what punishment should be meted out to the reckless Orangemen, and his very soul was crying out to be with them.

Scotty could elicit no answer to his remarks, and sat upon the doorstep, a small, disconsolate heap, wondering sadly how his hero could have made such a mistake, and finding in his own forlorn heart an echo of the sweet, melancholy evening music. Around him the mosquitoes wailed out their dreary little song; away down by the edge of the wet, low pastures, where the fireflies wandered, each with his weird little torch, the frogs were piping mournfully. The whitethroat was sending out his "silver arrows of song" clearly and pensively from the depths of the velvet dusk. The discordant twang of the swooping night-hawks came down from the pale clear sky where one silver star had come out above the black jagged line of forest.

Granny was moving about indoors; the boy could smell the sweet fragrance of the new warm milk she was straining into the pans. The air was heavy with the scent of clover, the world was very peaceful, but very sad.

And then, out of the soft murmurs of the summer night, there grew a strange new sound. At first it seemed merely a movement of the air, a peculiar thrilling vibration. But gradually it grew into a note, a high, weird musical note, alluring, electrifying. Scotty raised his head from the grass. "What's that, Grandaddy?" he asked sharply. Big Malcolm did not answer; he was sitting bolt upright, alert, tense, listening as if for his life. For a moment the sound faded away, there was a wondering silence. And then, suddenly, a little pine-scented breeze came sweeping up from Lake Oro; and on it, high, clear, entrancing, commanding, came again that wild penetrating call--the bagpipes! playing up gloriously the MacDonalds' pibroch!

Big Malcolm leaped to his feet. It was the first time he had heard that sound since it came ringing to him over the heather moors of his native land. The pipes! The pipes on the hills of Oro! There was neither prophecy nor precept, no, nor iron bands that could have held him at that moment. With a wild outpouring of Gaelic, he sprang forward, overturning the bench and the water-bucket by the doorstep; and, coatless and hatless, went tearing across the fields and down the road in obedience to that imperative call.

"Granny, Granny!" cried Scotty, running indoors in alarm, "what's gone wrong with Grandaddy, will he be gone daft?"

Granny raised her hands in amazement and stood listening.

"Eh, eh!" she cried, "it will be the pipes! Och, och, lad, things will be going wrong with Grandaddy now!"

The great day, the 12th of July, dawned radiant in sunshine like any other Canadian summer day. Mr. Nash had made tremendous preparations for his guests. He had his family up long before dawn and by dint of much fluency of language, for which he was famous, managed by eleven o'clock to have the banquet in readiness. Tables were set in the dining-room and barroom, which two chambers constituted the ground floor of the hotel proper. The lean-to kitchen at the back was steaming with all the good things Mrs. Nash and her daughters and the assisting neighbours had prepared; and by half-past eleven the host, in a clean shirt and his Sunday trousers, stood on the front step ready to receive with due ceremony the expected company.

Store Thompson's place across the way was surrounded by a crowd of eager spectators, for such a spectacle as a procession had not been witnessed in the Glen within the memory of the earliest settler. Then there were rumours of trouble too; Pat Murphy and his friends were there ready to produce it; and besides, everyone suspected that the MacDonalds had some scheme afoot. Store Thompson himself was excited. He had not seen Big Malcolm for more than a fortnight, and he was anxious about his war-like friend. Surely, he told himself a dozen times, Malcolm would never break forth into strife again after the stand he had been taking during the past few winters for the bettering of the community. And yet, as the kindly old gentleman confided to Sandy Hamilton, who had stopped the mill and come up to see what was transpiring, he could not help feeling "a wee thing apprehensive-like."

A few minutes before twelve, the appointed hour for the procession to appear, the patience of the crowd was rewarded. Pat Murphy had just assembled his satellites in the middle of the road and was haranguing them and, incidentally, all the township of Oro upon their duties, when a loud, shrill yell from the hilltops rent the air; there was a dull thud, thud of marching feet. The procession was coming! For a moment nationalities and creeds were both forgotten in a common desire to witness the spectacle. English, Irish, and Scotch crowded eagerly into the road; every eye was turned towards the south hill. Yes, the procession was certainly coming, but what was this unearthly noise it was making? And where were the fifes and the drums? And why, in the name of all the cardinal points, was it coming down the north hill from the Oa, instead of from the Flats?

And then there were no more questions, but just a sea of silent faces held upwards in gaping amazement, for out from the pine grove of the northern river-bank, with a shriek of pipes and a flutter of plaids, whirled Fiddlin' Archie MacDonald in full Highland costume; and behind him, armed and menacing, tramped every available male of the clan MacDonald, from Long Lauchie's seventeen-year-old Peter, up to--yes, alas, for the new era and its reforms!--Big Malcolm himself, all in perfect time to the wild yell of the MacDonald pibroch!

Down they swept like a Highland charge, the pipes screaming out a fierce challenge to anyone reckless enough to stand in their path, and awakening such warlike echoes in the Oro hills as they had not given back since the days when they rang to the war-whoop of Huron and Iroquois braves.

And, indeed, had an army of redskins in war paint and feathers appeared upon the hill, it is doubtful if it would have created any more excitement. For, though the Oa was a Highland settlement, the bagpipes had hitherto been an unknown instrument in the township of Oro. Hard work and hard times had precluded the indulgence in any such luxury, so the startled population of the valley witnessed for the first time that magnificent combination of sight and sound known as a Highland Piper.

Upon Pete Nash the effect was almost disastrous. The expectant host had been fortifying himself rather copiously against the duties and trials of the day, and his brain was in no condition to bear any such strain as the appearance of Fiddlin' Archie put upon it.

At the first sound he rushed into the road, his eyes bulging with horror, his hands held up as if to ward off a blow. For Peter had once been a good Catholic and knew he was committing a deadly sin in harbouring these Orange heretics; and here, surely, were the hosts of the Evil One, coming with shrieks of wrath to snatch away his guilty soul in the midst of his iniquity. His distracted wife bounded after him, a half-washed frying pan in one hand, a dishcloth in the other; and seeing what was descending upon them she dropped both utensils and wailed, "Och, the Powers come down, Pater! is it Gabriel's trump, then?"

No one noticed the stricken pair, for all eyes were fixed upon the advancing column. Right up to the tavern door it marched, and when the pipes ceased with a final defiant yelp, Big Malcolm, his eyes blazing, his head erect, stepped forward and addressed the still trembling, but much relieved, proprietor.

"We will be needing our dinner, Peter," he said very mildly, "for we would be having a long walk, and mebby some work ahead of us, whatever, so I hope you will jist be bringin' it on queek."

There was something in the intense politeness of Big Malcolm's tone that aroused Mr. Nash's worst fears; a MacDonald was never so dangerous as when he was courteous.

"And is it dinner for all this raft ye'll be after wantin', Malcolm MacDonald?" he cried in alarm. "Sure, ye know I can't give ye a bite nor sup the day, man; the byes from the Flats----"

"Whisht yer tongue, Pete Nash!" Big Malcolm's suavity vanished like a wisp of straw in a flame. "Bring on yer grub, man, or"--he brought down his big fist upon the nearest table with a crash that made both the crockery and its owner leap--"we'll be eating your old carcass on the doorstep!"

Mr. Nash gave a prompt and obsequious obedience. The Fighting MacDonalds individually must ever be treated with respect, but the Fighting MacDonalds in a body! Surely not the most vivid Orangeman could blame him in his extremity. Perhaps the distracted landlord felt that, after all, here was a providential means of escape from the crime he had been about to commit, for very soon he had all Glencoe seated about the well-spread tables, devouring the banquet prepared for William of Orange.

The MacDonalds attacked the unholy viands with a zest that not even a long tramp and a pioneer appetite could quite explain. Mrs. Nash flew back and forth hospitably, explaining to her satellites, to cover up any apparent irregularity in her husband's sudden change of patronage, that indeed they were always pleased to have the MacDonalds with them, and that she, for one, was very glad to see a Scotchman dressed the right way.

"Sure Oi've got a sister in the owld country, married to a Scotchman, thin," she explained quite proudly to Judy Connors. "He's in a Kiltie rig'ment, an' his name's Pat O'Nale, an' aw now, it was him that had the foine way o' swishin' his kilt whin he walked, indade!"

Meantime the feast was progressing; the great roasts of pork, the pies, the cakes, and the puddings were vanishing like the snow on a March noonday, when once more the assembly outside the tavern was electrified, this time from the proper source. For from the summit of the north hill there arose such a mighty banging and tooting as might have been heard had the new sawmill, lately built on the shore of Lake Simcoe, taken legs and gone on a mad excursion up over the Oro hills.

Down the slope with waving banners and thumping drums rode King William himself in brave array, mounted on a white steed which bore a strong resemblance to Tom Caldwell's old grey mare, and followed by a troop of loyal subjects, all to the stirring squeak of "The Protestant Boys."

At the sight of this magnificent army marching straight into the jaws of disaster, Pat Murphy uttered a yell of triumph that put the fifes and drums to shame. Reckless with joy, he flew into the middle of the road, and standing there facing the oncoming multitude, his wild eyes blazing, his red beard and hair flaring out in all directions, he shook his huge fist at the unoffending skies and called upon the sun and the moon and all things created to witness the downfall of his enemies.

Fortunately for the usurpers, the steed of state which King William bestrode, though old and decrepit, still adhered to a youthful habit of shying, or the procession might never have reached the MacDonalds. But, as the old grey mare approached the raving obstacle in her path, she swerved coquettishly and King William curvetted round his enemy with royal indifference. His subjects wisely followed his example; the procession divided and streamed noisily on both sides of the profane wedge which had cloven it, and which gallantly held its position waving its arms and howling forth derision until the last Orangemen had swept past.

But as the revellers tooted their victorious way down the street towards the tavern, a strange sensation of impending disaster made itself felt. The unwelcome fact began to dawn upon the Orangemen that the clamour about them was neither composed of acclamation, nor yet of the expected tumult of the outraged Murphys.

The suspicion grew to a horrible certainty by the time their destination was reached, and the instant the procession halted, King William, forgetting his royal dignity, scrambled from his horse and led a hasty charge against the doors and windows of the tavern. Their apprehension had been too correct. There, sitting at the Orangemen's feast, were forty-nine armed MacDonalds, while the fiftieth swept round the tables, his plaid flying, his kilt waving, his ribbons streaming, and his pipes shrieking as if they would fain split the roof!

It was a crucial moment for the Glen; and, looking from his vantage point on the verandah, Store Thompson held his breath. That the Orangemen even hesitated to pitch themselves headlong upon the usurpers showed that in the past two years the forces that make for law and order had been steadily working. However it might be, they hesitated. Perhaps they were assisted to a pacific decision by the sight before them. There is nothing so disastrous to a man's fighting qualities as an empty stomach. King William and his followers looked at their dinner rapidly disappearing into the capacious interiors of Glencoe; they looked at the stout clubs beneath the table; they glanced over their shoulders at Pat Murphy and his men, waiting eagerly for the MacDonalds to strike; they gazed at the terrible spectacle of Fiddlin' Archie, whirling round the room in an eddy of defiant yells; and the sights counselled discretion, rather than valour.

Slowly and sullenly they began to fall back from the doors and windows. Even King William was about to join the retreat when, in glaring fiercely round the tables, his eye chanced to fall upon the man whose family was so soon to be connected with his own. At the sight, the royal rage, already at boiling point, burst all bounds. Sticking his crowned head far in through the window, and forgetting that he had made a league with the MacDonalds to bring about a season of peace and good-will in the community, Mr. Caldwell burst into wild and profane vituperation. Commencing with Big Malcolm at the head of the table, and, taking each in turn, he roundly and lengthily denounced the MacDonalds and all their generation; and ended his mad tirade by vowing by all things in heaven and on earth that before a daughter of his should unite with any such scum of savagery as was produced in the Oa, her father would strike her dead!

Such snatches of the royal ultimatum as managed to penetrate the scream of the pipes the MacDonalds heard in silence. Occasionally a pair of fierce eyes would dart a look of inquiry towards the leader, and once or twice Weaver Jimmie half rose from the table; but, with wonderful endurance, Big Malcolm held his men and himself down. He had broken his great resolution, but even in his abandonment he could not quite get away from the strong influence at home. No, he would not fight, not unless Tom Caldwell pressed him too hard, and this refusal to accept Callum into his family was nothing short of a blessing.

At last, through sheer dearth of remaining epithets, the royal address came to a termination. With much brandishing of fists and shouting of threats, the chagrined and hungry would-be revellers melted away before the sound of the MacDonalds' jig and the Murphys' jeers.

And when the last atom of the banquet had been demolished and the landlord paid to the utmost farthing the MacDonalds arose, and, headed by their piper, went roaring up to their native hills, fired with the triumphant assurance that they had that day performed a great and glorious deed, and that at last Glencoe had been avenged.

VIII

THE END OF THE FEUD

There was a time I learned to hate, As weaker mortals learn to love; The passion held me fixed as fate, Burned in my veins early and late, But now a wind falls from above-- The wind of death, that silently Enshroudeth friend and enemy. --ETHELWYN WETHERALD.

To Scotty the days following upon the Orangemen's defeat were filled with misery. Even when he spent the time at Kirsty's, fishing in the streams or racing in the woods with Isabel, he could never quite forget that there was trouble in the lately happy home beneath the Silver Maple. For Granny's face was full of pain and anxiety, though she was so brave and patient; and Grandaddy walked the floor at nights or tramped up and down beneath the stars, and Callum was silent and gloomy.

Scotty did not understand just how much reason Callum had for gloom. That young man had to contend with foes both at home and abroad. Tom Caldwell had lost no time, upon his return home the never-to-be-forgotten night of the Orangemen's downfall, in making very clear to his daughter his views upon the burning MacDonald question. Nancy had responded, with her usual spirit, by declaring that, when the day arrived, she would marry Callum Fiach if the heavens fell. The father understood his daughter's spirit and took no risk; the Caldwell homestead was guarded by armed men in quite a mediaeval fashion; Nancy was kept in strict seclusion and a cordial invitation was sent to Callum to come on the wedding day with all the MacDonalds he could muster and take his bride.