There was no such thing possible for me. You have heard grasshoppers
whirring in the grass in the summer time? Well, I had no sooner closed
my eyes, than my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists, seemed
to be filled with whirring grasshoppers; and I must open my eyes again
at once, and tumble and toss, and sit up and lie down; and look at the
sky which dazzled me, or at Cluny's wild and dirty sentries, peering out
over the top of the brae and chattering to each other in the Gaelic.

That was all the rest I had, until the messenger returned; when, as it
appeared that Cluny would be glad to receive us, we must get once more
upon our feet and set forward. Alan was in excellent good spirits, much
refreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking pleasantly forward to
a dram and a dish of hot collops, of which, it seems, the messenger had
brought him word. For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I had
been dead-heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness,
which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer; the ground
seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a
current, like a running burn, which carried me to and fro. With all
that, a sort of horror of despair sat on my mind, so that I could have
wept at my own helplessness.

I saw Alan knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in anger; and
that gave me a pang of light-headed fear, like what a child may have. I
remember, too, that I was smiling, and could not stop smiling, hard as
I tried; for I thought it was out of place at such a time. But my good
companion had nothing in his mind but kindness; and the next moment,
two of the gillies had me by the arms, and I began to be carried forward
with great swiftness (or so it appeared to me, although I dare say it
was slowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary glens and
hollows and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben Alder.




CHAPTER XXIII

CLUNY'S CAGE

We came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep wood, which scrambled
up a craggy hillside, and was crowned by a naked precipice.

"It's here," said one of the guides, and we struck up hill.

The trees clung upon the slope, like sailors on the shrouds of a ship,
and their trunks were like the rounds of a ladder, by which we mounted.

Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of the cliff sprang
above the foliage, we found that strange house which was known in the
country as "Cluny's Cage." The trunks of several trees had been wattled
across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind
this barricade levelled up with earth to make the floor. A tree, which
grew out from the hillside, was the living centre-beam of the roof.
The walls were of wattle and covered with moss. The whole house had
something of an egg shape; and it half hung, half stood in that steep,
hillside thicket, like a wasp's nest in a green hawthorn.

Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six persons with some
comfort. A projection of the cliff had been cunningly employed to be the
fireplace; and the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being
not dissimilar in colour, readily escaped notice from below.

This was but one of Cluny's hiding-places; he had caves, besides, and
underground chambers in several parts of his country; and following the
reports of his scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers
drew near or moved away. By this manner of living, and thanks to the
affection of his clan, he had not only stayed all this time in safety,
while so many others had fled or been taken and slain: but stayed four
or five years longer, and only went to France at last by the express
command of his master. There he soon died; and it is strange to reflect
that he may have regretted his Cage upon Ben Alder.

When we came to the door he was seated by his rock chimney, watching a
gillie about some cookery. He was mighty plainly habited, with a knitted
nightcap drawn over his ears, and smoked a foul cutty pipe. For all that
he had the manners of a king, and it was quite a sight to see him rise
out of his place to welcome us.

"Well, Mr. Stewart, come awa', sir!" said he, "and bring in your friend
that as yet I dinna ken the name of."

"And how is yourself, Cluny?" said Alan. "I hope ye do brawly, sir. And
I am proud to see ye, and to present to ye my friend the Laird of Shaws,
Mr. David Balfour."

Alan never referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer, when we
were alone; but with strangers, he rang the words out like a herald.

"Step in by, the both of ye, gentlemen," says Cluny. "I make ye welcome
to my house, which is a queer, rude place for certain, but one where I
have entertained a royal personage, Mr. Stewart--ye doubtless ken the
personage I have in my eye. We'll take a dram for luck, and as soon as
this handless man of mine has the collops ready, we'll dine and take a
hand at the cartes as gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh," says
he, pouring out the brandy; "I see little company, and sit and twirl my
thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another
great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's a toast
to ye: The Restoration!"

Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished no ill
to King George; and if he had been there himself in proper person, it's
like he would have done as I did. No sooner had I taken out the drain
than I felt hugely better, and could look on and listen, still a little
mistily perhaps, but no longer with the same groundless horror and
distress of mind.

It was certainly a strange place, and we had a strange host. In his long
hiding, Cluny had grown to have all manner of precise habits, like those
of an old maid. He had a particular place, where no one else must sit;
the Cage was arranged in a particular way, which none must disturb;
cookery was one of his chief fancies, and even while he was greeting us
in, he kept an eye to the collops.

It appears, he sometimes visited or received visits from his wife and
one or two of his nearest friends, under the cover of night; but for the
more part lived quite alone, and communicated only with his sentinels
and the gillies that waited on him in the Cage. The first thing in the
morning, one of them, who was a barber, came and shaved him, and gave
him the news of the country, of which he was immoderately greedy. There
was no end to his questions; he put them as earnestly as a child; and
at some of the answers, laughed out of all bounds of reason, and would
break out again laughing at the mere memory, hours after the barber was
gone.

To be sure, there might have been a purpose in his questions; for
though he was thus sequestered, and like the other landed gentlemen of
Scotland, stripped by the late Act of Parliament of legal powers, he
still exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan. Disputes were brought
to him in his hiding-hole to be decided; and the men of his country,
who would have snapped their fingers at the Court of Session, laid
aside revenge and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited and
hunted outlaw. When he was angered, which was often enough, he gave
his commands and breathed threats of punishment like any, king; and his
gillies trembled and crouched away from him like children before a hasty
father. With each of them, as he entered, he ceremoniously shook hands,
both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military
manner. Altogether, I had a fair chance to see some of the inner
workings of a Highland clan; and this with a proscribed, fugitive chief;
his country conquered; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of
him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay; and when the least of the
ragged fellows whom he rated and threatened, could have made a fortune
by betraying him.

On that first day, as soon as the collops were ready, Cluny gave them
with his own hand a squeeze of a lemon (for he was well supplied with
luxuries) and bade us draw in to our meal.

"They," said he, meaning the collops, "are such as I gave his Royal
Highness in this very house; bating the lemon juice, for at that time we
were glad to get the meat and never fashed for kitchen.* Indeed, there
were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the year forty-six."

     * Condiment.

I do not know if the collops were truly very good, but my heart rose
against the sight of them, and I could eat but little. All the while
Cluny entertained us with stories of Prince Charlie's stay in the Cage,
giving us the very words of the speakers, and rising from his place
to show us where they stood. By these, I gathered the Prince was a
gracious, spirited boy, like the son of a race of polite kings, but not
so wise as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in the Cage, he
was often drunk; so the fault that has since, by all accounts, made such
a wreck of him, had even then begun to show itself.

We were no sooner done eating than Cluny brought out an old, thumbed,
greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean inn; and his eyes
brightened in his face as he proposed that we should fall to playing.

Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to eschew like
disgrace; it being held by my father neither the part of a Christian
nor yet of a gentleman to set his own livelihood and fish for that of
others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To be sure, I might have
pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough; but I thought it behoved
that I should bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the face,
but I spoke steadily, and told them I had no call to be a judge
of others, but for my own part, it was a matter in which I had no
clearness.

Cluny stopped mingling the cards. "What in deil's name is this?" says
he. "What kind of Whiggish, canting talk is this, for the house of Cluny
Macpherson?"

"I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour," says Alan. "He is an
honest and a mettle gentleman, and I would have ye bear in mind who says
it. I bear a king's name," says he, cocking his hat; "and I and any that
I call friend are company for the best. But the gentleman is tired, and
should sleep; if he has no mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you
and me. And I'm fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that ye can
name."

"Sir," says Cluny, "in this poor house of mine I would have you to ken
that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. If your friend would like to
stand on his head, he is welcome. And if either he, or you, or any other
man, is not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with
him."

I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my
sake.

"Sir," said I, "I am very wearied, as Alan says; and what's more, as
you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you it was a
promise to my father."

"Say nae mair, say nae mair," said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of
heather in a corner of the Cage. For all that he was displeased enough,
looked at me askance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed it must
be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them,
smacked somewhat of the Covenanter, and were little in their place among
wild Highland Jacobites.

What with the brandy and the venison, a strange heaviness had come over
me; and I had scarce lain down upon the bed before I fell into a kind
of trance, in which I continued almost the whole time of our stay in the
Cage. Sometimes I was broad awake and understood what passed; sometimes
I only heard voices, or men snoring, like the voice of a silly river;
and the plaids upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out again, like
firelight shadows on the roof. I must sometimes have spoken or cried
out, for I remember I was now and then amazed at being answered; yet
I was conscious of no particular nightmare, only of a general, black,
abiding horror--a horror of the place I was in, and the bed I lay in,
and the plaids on the wall, and the voices, and the fire, and myself.

The barber-gillie, who was a doctor too, was called in to prescribe
for me; but as he spoke in the Gaelic, I understood not a word of his
opinion, and was too sick even to ask for a translation. I knew well
enough I was ill, and that was all I cared about.

I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass. But Alan and Cluny
were most of the time at the cards, and I am clear that Alan must have
begun by winning; for I remember sitting up, and seeing them hard at it,
and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a hundred guineas on
the table. It looked strange enough, to see all this wealth in a nest
upon a cliff-side, wattled about growing trees. And even then, I
thought it seemed deep water for Alan to be riding, who had no better
battle-horse than a green purse and a matter of five pounds.

The luck, it seems, changed on the second day. About noon I was wakened
as usual for dinner, and as usual refused to eat, and was given a dram
with some bitter infusion which the barber had prescribed. The sun was
shining in at the open door of the Cage, and this dazzled and offended
me. Cluny sat at the table, biting the pack of cards. Alan had stooped
over the bed, and had his face close to my eyes; to which, troubled as
they were with the fever, it seemed of the most shocking bigness.

He asked me for a loan of my money.

"What for?" said I.

"O, just for a loan," said he.

"But why?" I repeated. "I don't see."

"Hut, David!" said Alan, "ye wouldnae grudge me a loan?"

I would, though, if I had had my senses! But all I thought of then was
to get his face away, and I handed him my money.

On the morning of the third day, when we had been forty-eight hours in
the Cage, I awoke with a great relief of spirits, very weak and weary
indeed, but seeing things of the right size and with their honest,
everyday appearance. I had a mind to eat, moreover, rose from bed of my
own movement, and as soon as we had breakfasted, stepped to the entry of
the Cage and sat down outside in the top of the wood. It was a grey day
with a cool, mild air: and I sat in a dream all morning, only disturbed
by the passing by of Cluny's scouts and servants coming with provisions
and reports; for as the coast was at that time clear, you might almost
say he held court openly.

When I returned, he and Alan had laid the cards aside, and were
questioning a gillie; and the chief turned about and spoke to me in the
Gaelic.

"I have no Gaelic, sir," said I.

Now since the card question, everything I said or did had the power of
annoying Cluny. "Your name has more sense than yourself, then," said he
angrily, "for it's good Gaelic. But the point is this. My scout reports
all clear in the south, and the question is, have ye the strength to
go?"

I saw cards on the table, but no gold; only a heap of little written
papers, and these all on Cluny's side. Alan, besides, had an odd
look, like a man not very well content; and I began to have a strong
misgiving.

"I do not know if I am as well as I should be," said I, looking at Alan;
"but the little money we have has a long way to carry us."

Alan took his under-lip into his mouth, and looked upon the ground.

"David," says he at last, "I've lost it; there's the naked truth."

"My money too?" said I.

"Your money too," says Alan, with a groan. "Ye shouldnae have given it
me. I'm daft when I get to the cartes."

"Hoot-toot! hoot-toot!" said Cluny. "It was all daffing; it's all
nonsense. Of course you'll have your money back again, and the double of
it, if ye'll make so free with me. It would be a singular thing for me
to keep it. It's not to be supposed that I would be any hindrance to
gentlemen in your situation; that would be a singular thing!" cries he,
and began to pull gold out of his pocket with a mighty red face.

Alan said nothing, only looked on the ground.

"Will you step to the door with me, sir?" said I.

Cluny said he would be very glad, and followed me readily enough, but he
looked flustered and put out.

"And now, sir," says I, "I must first acknowledge your generosity."

"Nonsensical nonsense!" cries Cluny. "Where's the generosity? This is
just a most unfortunate affair; but what would ye have me do--boxed
up in this bee-skep of a cage of mine--but just set my friends to the
cartes, when I can get them? And if they lose, of course, it's not to be
supposed----" And here he came to a pause.

"Yes," said I, "if they lose, you give them back their money; and if
they win, they carry away yours in their pouches! I have said before
that I grant your generosity; but to me, sir, it's a very painful thing
to be placed in this position."

There was a little silence, in which Cluny seemed always as if he was
about to speak, but said nothing. All the time he grew redder and redder
in the face.

"I am a young man," said I, "and I ask your advice. Advise me as you
would your son. My friend fairly lost his money, after having fairly
gained a far greater sum of yours; can I accept it back again? Would
that be the right part for me to play? Whatever I do, you can see for
yourself it must be hard upon a man of any pride."

"It's rather hard on me, too, Mr. Balfour," said Cluny, "and ye give
me very much the look of a man that has entrapped poor people to their
hurt. I wouldnae have my friends come to any house of mine to accept
affronts; no," he cried, with a sudden heat of anger, "nor yet to give
them!"

"And so you see, sir," said I, "there is something to be said upon my
side; and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentlefolks. But I am
still waiting your opinion."

I am sure if ever Cluny hated any man it was David Balfour. He looked
me all over with a warlike eye, and I saw the challenge at his lips.
But either my youth disarmed him, or perhaps his own sense of justice.
Certainly it was a mortifying matter for all concerned, and not least
Cluny; the more credit that he took it as he did.

"Mr. Balfour," said he, "I think you are too nice and covenanting, but
for all that you have the spirit of a very pretty gentleman. Upon my
honest word, ye may take this money--it's what I would tell my son--and
here's my hand along with it!"




CHAPTER XXIV

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE QUARREL

Alan and I were put across Loch Errocht under cloud of night, and went
down its eastern shore to another hiding-place near the head of Loch
Rannoch, whither we were led by one of the gillies from the Cage. This
fellow carried all our luggage and Alan's great-coat in the bargain,
trotting along under the burthen, far less than the half of which used
to weigh me to the ground, like a stout hill pony with a feather; yet he
was a man that, in plain contest, I could have broken on my knee.

Doubtless it was a great relief to walk disencumbered; and perhaps
without that relief, and the consequent sense of liberty and lightness,
I could not have walked at all. I was but new risen from a bed of
sickness; and there was nothing in the state of our affairs to hearten
me for much exertion; travelling, as we did, over the most dismal
deserts in Scotland, under a cloudy heaven, and with divided hearts
among the travellers.

For long, we said nothing; marching alongside or one behind the other,
each with a set countenance: I, angry and proud, and drawing what
strength I had from these two violent and sinful feelings; Alan angry
and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry that I should take
it so ill.

The thought of a separation ran always the stronger in my mind; and the
more I approved of it, the more ashamed I grew of my approval. It would
be a fine, handsome, generous thing, indeed, for Alan to turn round and
say to me: "Go, I am in the most danger, and my company only increases
yours." But for me to turn to the friend who certainly loved me, and say
to him: "You are in great danger, I am in but little; your friendship
is a burden; go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone----" no,
that was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself, made my
cheeks to burn.

And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and (what is worse) a treacherous
child. Wheedling my money from me while I lay half-conscious was scarce
better than theft; and yet here he was trudging by my side, without a
penny to his name, and by what I could see, quite blithe to sponge upon
the money he had driven me to beg. True, I was ready to share it with
him; but it made me rage to see him count upon my readiness.

These were the two things uppermost in my mind; and I could open my
mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the next worst,
and said nothing, nor so much as looked once at my companion, save with
the tail of my eye.

At last, upon the other side of Loch Errocht, going over a smooth, rushy
place, where the walking was easy, he could bear it no longer, and came
close to me.

"David," says he, "this is no way for two friends to take a small
accident. I have to say that I'm sorry; and so that's said. And now if
you have anything, ye'd better say it."

"O," says I, "I have nothing."

He seemed disconcerted; at which I was meanly pleased.

"No," said he, with rather a trembling voice, "but when I say I was to
blame?"

"Why, of course, ye were to blame," said I, coolly; "and you will bear
me out that I have never reproached you."

"Never," says he; "but ye ken very well that ye've done worse. Are we to
part? Ye said so once before. Are ye to say it again? There's hills and
heather enough between here and the two seas, David; and I will own I'm
no very keen to stay where I'm no wanted."

This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay bare my private
disloyalty.

"Alan Breck!" I cried; and then: "Do you think I am one to turn my
back on you in your chief need? You dursn't say it to my face. My whole
conduct's there to give the lie to it. It's true, I fell asleep upon
the muir; but that was from weariness, and you do wrong to cast it up to
me----"

"Which is what I never did," said Alan.

"But aside from that," I continued, "what have I done that you should
even me to dogs by such a supposition? I never yet failed a friend, and
it's not likely I'll begin with you. There are things between us that I
can never forget, even if you can."

"I will only say this to ye, David," said Alan, very quietly, "that I
have long been owing ye my life, and now I owe ye money. Ye should try
to make that burden light for me."

This ought to have touched me, and in a manner it did, but the wrong
manner. I felt I was behaving, badly; and was now not only angry with
Alan, but angry with myself in the bargain; and it made me the more
cruel.

"You asked me to speak," said I. "Well, then, I will. You own yourself
that you have done me a disservice; I have had to swallow an affront: I
have never reproached you, I never named the thing till you did. And
now you blame me," cried I, "because I cannae laugh and sing as if I was
glad to be affronted. The next thing will be that I'm to go down upon my
knees and thank you for it! Ye should think more of others, Alan
Breck. If ye thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about
yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an
offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of
making it a stick to break his back with. By your own way of it, it was
you that was to blame; then it shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel."

"Aweel," said Alan, "say nae mair."

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey's end,
and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next day, and
gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to get us up at once
into the tops of the mountains: to go round by a circuit, turning the
heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart, and come down upon
the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth. Alan was
little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his
blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells. He objected that by turning to the
east, we should come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of
his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come
besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were
bound. But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of Cluny's scouts,
had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops
in every district, and alleging finally (as well as I could understand)
that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the
Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. "It's one of the
dowiest countries in Scotland," said he. "There's naething there that I
ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see that ye're a man of
some penetration; and be it as ye please!"

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part of
three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of
wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained
upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine. By day, we lay
and slept in the drenching heather; by night, incessantly clambered upon
break-neck hills and among rude crags. We often wandered; we were often
so involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it lightened. A fire was
never to be thought of. Our only food was drammach and a portion of cold
meat that we had carried from the Cage; and as for drink, Heaven knows
we had no want of water.

This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the gloom of
the weather and the country. I was never warm; my teeth chattered in my
head; I was troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the isle;
I had a painful stitch in my side, which never left me; and when I slept
in my wet bed, with the rain beating above and the mud oozing below me,
it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures--to
see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the
men's backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell
grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers, I would be
aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept,
and sup cold drammach; the rain driving sharp in my face or running
down my back in icy trickles; the mist enfolding us like as in a gloomy
chamber--or, perhaps, if the wind blew, falling suddenly apart and
showing us the gulf of some dark valley where the streams were crying
aloud.

The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up from all round. In
this steady rain the springs of the mountain were broken up; every glen
gushed water like a cistern; every stream was in high spate, and had
filled and overflowed its channel. During our night tramps, it was
solemn to hear the voice of them below in the valleys, now booming like
thunder, now with an angry cry. I could well understand the story of the
Water Kelpie, that demon of the streams, who is fabled to keep wailing
and roaring at the ford until the coming of the doomed traveller. Alan I
saw believed it, or half believed it; and when the cry of the river rose
more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, of course, I
would still be shocked) to see him cross himself in the manner of the
Catholics.

During all these horrid wanderings we had no familiarity, scarcely even
that of speech. The truth is that I was sickening for my grave, which
is my best excuse. But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition
from my birth, slow to take offence, slower to forget it, and now
incensed both against my companion and myself. For the best part of two
days he was unweariedly kind; silent, indeed, but always ready to help,
and always hoping (as I could very well see) that my displeasure would
blow by. For the same length of time I stayed in myself, nursing my
anger, roughly refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes
as if he had been a bush or a stone.

The second night, or rather the peep of the third day, found us upon a
very open hill, so that we could not follow our usual plan and lie down
immediately to eat and sleep. Before we had reached a place of shelter,
the grey had come pretty clear, for though it still rained, the clouds
ran higher; and Alan, looking in my face, showed some marks of concern.

"Ye had better let me take your pack," said he, for perhaps the ninth
time since we had parted from the scout beside Loch Rannoch.

"I do very well, I thank you," said I, as cold as ice.

Alan flushed darkly. "I'll not offer it again," he said. "I'm not a
patient man, David."

"I never said you were," said I, which was exactly the rude, silly
speech of a boy of ten.

Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for him.
Henceforth, it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself for the affair
at Cluny's; cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled airs, and
looked at me upon one side with a provoking smile.

The third night we were to pass through the western end of the country
of Balquhidder. It came clear and cold, with a touch in the air like
frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars
bright. The streams were full, of course, and still made a great noise
among the hills; but I observed that Alan thought no more upon the
Kelpie, and was in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather
came too late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as the Bible has it)
my very clothes "abhorred me." I was dead weary, deadly sick and full
of pains and shiverings; the chill of the wind went through me, and the
sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I had to bear from
my companion something in the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good
deal, and never without a taunt. "Whig" was the best name he had to give
me. "Here," he would say, "here's a dub for ye to jump, my Whiggie! I
ken you're a fine jumper!" And so on; all the time with a gibing voice
and face.

I knew it was my own doing, and no one else's; but I was too miserable
to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther; pretty soon, I
must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and
my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light
perhaps; but I began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the
thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles
besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought; he would
remember, when I was dead, how much he owed me, and the remembrance
would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted
schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, when I would have
been better on my knees, crying on God for mercy. And at each of Alan's
taunts, I hugged myself. "Ah!" thinks I to myself, "I have a better
taunt in readiness; when I lie down and die, you will feel it like a
buffet in your face; ah, what a revenge! ah, how you will regret your
ingratitude and cruelty!"

All the while, I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen, my leg
simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the moment; but I
was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner,
that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then
spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last
I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther: and with that,
there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my
anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had
just called me "Whig." I stopped.

"Mr. Stewart," said I, in a voice that quivered like a fiddle-string,
"you are older than I am, and should know your manners. Do you think
it either very wise or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth? I
thought, where folk differed, it was the part of gentlemen to differ
civilly; and if I did not, I may tell you I could find a better taunt
than some of yours."

Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his
breeches pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened, smiling
evilly, as I could see by the starlight; and when I had done he began to
whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of General Cope's
defeat at Preston Pans:

     "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?
     And are your drums a-beatin' yet?"

And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had been
engaged upon the royal side.

"Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?" said I. "Is that to remind me
you have been beaten on both sides?"

The air stopped on Alan's lips. "David!" said he.

"But it's time these manners ceased," I continued; "and I mean you shall
henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends the Campbells."

"I am a Stewart--" began Alan.

"O!" says I, "I ken ye bear a king's name. But you are to remember,
since I have been in the Highlands, I have seen a good many of those
that bear it; and the best I can say of them is this, that they would be
none the worse of washing."

"Do you know that you insult me?" said Alan, very low.

"I am sorry for that," said I, "for I am not done; and if you distaste
the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue* will please you as little. You have
been chased in the field by the grown men of my party; it seems a poor
kind of pleasure to out-face a boy. Both the Campbells and the Whigs
have beaten you; you have run before them like a hare. It behoves you to
speak of them as of your betters."

     * A second sermon.

Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clapping behind him
in the wind.

"This is a pity" he said at last. "There are things said that cannot be
passed over."

"I never asked you to," said I. "I am as ready as yourself."

"Ready?" said he.

"Ready," I repeated. "I am no blower and boaster like some that I could
name. Come on!" And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself
had taught me.

"David!" he cried. "Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It's
fair murder."

"That was your look-out when you insulted me," said I.

"It's the truth!" cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his
mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. "It's the bare truth,"
he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with
mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. "Na, na," he
kept saying, "na, na--I cannae, I cannae."

At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself
only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have
given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken,
who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan's kindness and courage in
the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil
days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever
that doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon
me seemed to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for
sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood.

This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out what I had
said; it was needless to think of one, none could cover the offence; but
where an apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan back to
my side. I put my pride away from me. "Alan!" I said; "if ye cannae help
me, I must just die here."

He started up sitting, and looked at me.

"It's true," said I. "I'm by with it. O, let me get into the bield of a
house--I'll can die there easier." I had no need to pretend; whether I
chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a heart
of stone.

"Can ye walk?" asked Alan.

"No," said I, "not without help. This last hour my legs have been
fainting under me; I've a stitch in my side like a red-hot iron; I
cannae breathe right. If I die, ye'll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart,
I liked ye fine--even when I was the angriest."

"Wheesht, wheesht!" cried Alan. "Dinna say that! David man, ye ken--" He
shut his mouth upon a sob. "Let me get my arm about ye," he continued;
"that's the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens where there's a house!
We're in Balwhidder, too; there should be no want of houses, no, nor
friends' houses here. Do ye gang easier so, Davie?"

"Ay" said I, "I can be doing this way;" and I pressed his arm with my
hand.

Again he came near sobbing. "Davie," said he, "I'm no a right man at
all; I have neither sense nor kindness; I could nae remember ye were
just a bairn, I couldnae see ye were dying on your feet; Davie, ye'll
have to try and forgive me."

"O man, let's say no more about it!" said I. "We're neither one of us
to mend the other--that's the truth! We must just bear and forbear, man
Alan. O, but my stitch is sore! Is there nae house?"

"I'll find a house to ye, David," he said, stoutly. "We'll follow down
the burn, where there's bound to be houses. My poor man, will ye no be
better on my back?"

"O, Alan," says I, "and me a good twelve inches taller?"

"Ye're no such a thing," cried Alan, with a start. "There may be a
trifling matter of an inch or two; I'm no saying I'm just exactly what
ye would call a tall man, whatever; and I dare say," he added, his voice
tailing off in a laughable manner, "now when I come to think of it, I
dare say ye'll be just about right. Ay, it'll be a foot, or near hand;
or may be even mair!"

It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words up in the fear of
some fresh quarrel. I could have laughed, had not my stitch caught me so
hard; but if I had laughed, I think I must have wept too.

"Alan," cried I, "what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for
such a thankless fellow?"

"'Deed, and I don't, know" said Alan. "For just precisely what I thought
I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled:--and now I like ye
better!"




CHAPTER XXV

IN BALQUHIDDER

At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of
no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of
Balquhidder. No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed
by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call "chiefless
folk," driven into the wild country about the springs of Forth and Teith
by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which
came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan's chief in war,
and made but one clan with Appin. Here, too, were many of that old,
proscribed, nameless, red-handed clan of the Macgregors. They had always
been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side
or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of
Macgregor, was in exile; the more immediate leader of that part of them
about Balquhidder, James More, Rob Roy's eldest son, lay waiting his
trial in Edinburgh Castle; they were in ill-blood with Highlander and
Lowlander, with the Grahames, the Maclarens, and the Stewarts; and Alan,
who took up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was extremely
wishful to avoid them.

Chance served us very well; for it was a household of Maclarens that we
found, where Alan was not only welcome for his name's sake but known
by reputation. Here then I was got to bed without delay, and a doctor
fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But whether because he was a
very good doctor, or I a very young, strong man, I lay bedridden for no
more than a week, and before a month I was able to take the road again
with a good heart.

All this time Alan would not leave me though I often pressed him, and
indeed his foolhardiness in staying was a common subject of outcry with
the two or three friends that were let into the secret. He hid by day
in a hole of the braes under a little wood; and at night, when the coast
was clear, would come into the house to visit me. I need not say if I
was pleased to see him; Mrs. Maclaren, our hostess, thought nothing good
enough for such a guest; and as Duncan Dhu (which was the name of our
host) had a pair of pipes in his house, and was much of a lover of
music, this time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we commonly
turned night into day.

The soldiers let us be; although once a party of two companies and some
dragoons went by in the bottom of the valley, where I could see them
through the window as I lay in bed. What was much more astonishing, no
magistrate came near me, and there was no question put of whence I came
or whither I was going; and in that time of excitement, I was as free of
all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was known
before I left to all the people in Balquhidder and the adjacent parts;
many coming about the house on visits and these (after the custom of the
country) spreading the news among their neighbours. The bills, too, had
now been printed. There was one pinned near the foot of my bed, where
I could read my own not very flattering portrait and, in larger
characters, the amount of the blood money that had been set upon my
life. Duncan Dhu and the rest that knew that I had come there in Alan's
company, could have entertained no doubt of who I was; and many others
must have had their guess. For though I had changed my clothes, I could
not change my age or person; and Lowland boys of eighteen were not so
rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time, that
they could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the
bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three
near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these clansmen, it is
told to a whole countryside, and they will keep it for a century.

There was but one thing happened worth narrating; and that is the visit
I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was
sought upon all sides on a charge of carrying a young woman from
Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by force; yet he stepped about
Balquhidder like a gentleman in his own walled policy. It was he who had
shot James Maclaren at the plough stilts, a quarrel never satisfied; yet
he walked into the house of his blood enemies as a rider* might into a
     public inn.* Commercial traveller.

Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was; and we looked at one
another in concern. You should understand, it was then close upon the
time of Alan's coming; the two were little likely to agree; and yet if
we sent word or sought to make a signal, it was sure to arouse suspicion
in a man under so dark a cloud as the Macgregor.

He came in with a great show of civility, but like a man among
inferiors; took off his bonnet to Mrs. Maclaren, but clapped it on his
head again to speak to Duncan; and leaving thus set himself (as he would
have thought) in a proper light, came to my bedside and bowed.

"I am given to know, sir," says he, "that your name is Balfour."

"They call me David Balfour," said I, "at your service."

"I would give ye my name in return, sir" he replied, "but it's one
somewhat blown upon of late days; and it'll perhaps suffice if I tell
ye that I am own brother to James More Drummond or Macgregor, of whom ye
will scarce have failed to hear."

"No, sir," said I, a little alarmed; "nor yet of your father,
Macgregor-Campbell." And I sat up and bowed in bed; for I thought best
to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his
father.

He bowed in return. "But what I am come to say, sir," he went on, "is
this. In the year '45, my brother raised a part of the 'Gregara' and
marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the
surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother's leg when it
was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same
name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if
you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman's
kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command."

You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger's
dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections,
but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but
that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.

Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his
back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the
door, I could hear him telling Duncan that I was "only some kinless loon
that didn't know his own father." Angry as I was at these words, and
ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a
man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three
years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances.

Just in the door, he met Alan coming in; and the two drew back and
looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big
men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword,
and by a movement of his haunch, thrust clear the hilt of it, so that it
might be the more readily grasped and the blade drawn.

"Mr. Stewart, I am thinking," says Robin.

"Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it's not a name to be ashamed of," answered Alan.

"I did not know ye were in my country, sir," says Robin.

"It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the
Maclarens," says Alan.

"That's a kittle point," returned the other. "There may be two words to
say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your
sword?"

"Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal
more than that," says Alan. "I am not the only man that can draw steel
in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a
gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that
the Macgregor had the best of it."

"Do ye mean my father, sir?" says Robin.

"Well, I wouldnae wonder," said Alan. "The gentleman I have in my mind
had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name."

"My father was an old man," returned Robin.

"The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir."

"I was thinking that," said Alan.

I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these
fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when
that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with
something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I will have been thinking of a very different
matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who
are baith acclaimed pipers. It's an auld dispute which one of ye's the
best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it."

"Why, sir," said Alan, still addressing Robin, from whom indeed he had
not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, "why, sir,"
says Alan, "I think I will have heard some sough* of the sort. Have ye
music, as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?"

     * Rumour.

"I can pipe like a Macrimmon!" cries Robin.

"And that is a very bold word," quoth Alan.

"I have made bolder words good before now," returned Robin, "and that
against better adversaries."

"It is easy to try that," says Alan.

Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of pipes that was his
principal possession, and to set before his guests a mutton-ham and a
bottle of that drink which they call Athole brose, and which is made of
old whiskey, strained honey and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in
the right order and proportion. The two enemies were still on the very
breach of a quarrel; but down they sat, one upon each side of the peat
fire, with a mighty show of politeness. Maclaren pressed them to taste
his mutton-ham and "the wife's brose," reminding them the wife was out
of Athole and had a name far and wide for her skill in that confection.
But Robin put aside these hospitalities as bad for the breath.

"I would have ye to remark, sir," said Alan, "that I havenae broken
bread for near upon ten hours, which will be worse for the breath than
any brose in Scotland."

"I will take no advantages, Mr. Stewart," replied Robin. "Eat and drink;
I'll follow you."

Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to
Mrs. Maclaren; and then after a great number of civilities, Robin took
the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.

"Ay, ye can, blow" said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival,
he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin's; and
then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with
a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the
"warblers."

I had been pleased with Robin's playing, Alan's ravished me.

"That's no very bad, Mr. Stewart," said the rival, "but ye show a poor
device in your warblers."

"Me!" cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. "I give ye the lie."

"Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then," said Robin, "that ye
seek to change them for the sword?"

"And that's very well said, Mr. Macgregor," returned Alan; "and in the
meantime" (laying a strong accent on the word) "I take back the lie. I
appeal to Duncan."

"Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody," said Robin. "Ye're a far better
judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it's a God's truth that
you're a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes." Alan
did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of
Alan's variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.

"Ay, ye have music," said Alan, gloomily.

"And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart," said Robin; and taking up
the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a
purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and
so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his
fingers, like a man under some deep affront. "Enough!" he cried. "Ye can
blow the pipes--make the most of that." And he made as if to rise.

But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck
into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in
itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar
to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes
were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time
quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that
piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he
had no thought but for the music.