Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Lochinvar: A Novel

CHAPTER XLIV
GREAT DUNDEE

At Keppoch the months passed slowly enough for our two exiles. They heard no news from the south – of Barra nothing, no word of Kate McGhie. The country about them was in a constant ferment – gatherings here and there on behalf of King James; false reports about the doings of the Hamiltonians and Conventiclers in Edinburgh; reports that the Westland Whigs were marching to exterminate the lads of the glens, in revenge for the doings of the Highland Host. They had sworn (so the tale ran) to take back to Ayrshire and Galloway the booty of the "Seventy-nine," which still constituted the best part of the plenishings of most Highland cottages to the north of the lands of Breadalbane and McCallum More.

It was hard to wait in blank ignorance; but Wat knew that his best hope of coming to his own again, and so to the winning of his love, was to abide the chances of war, and by good service to the king to deserve the restoration of his fiefs and heritages.

Luckily for the two outlaws, no French officers came to Keppoch, nor any, indeed, who knew either Scarlett or Wat, otherwise their lives had not been worth an hour's purchase. But as week after week went by, they became great favorites with McDonald, and were taken on several occasions to see Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiell – a wise, silent, benignant man, who at first said little, but contented himself with watching them silently and subtly from under his eyebrows.

"I remember your father," he said, suddenly flashing a look on Wat.

"You remember my father?" repeated Wat, eagerly; "I did not know he had ever been in the Highlands."

"Nor was he," said Lochiell; "it was in Edinburgh, when his head was cocked up on the Nether Bow, that I mind him – and a fine, wiselike; honest-seeming head it was."

The young man straightened himself fiercely, suspecting an intention to insult him.

"Na, na," said Lochiell, smilingly; "that's where every honest man's head ought to land at the last. James Graham's was there afore your father's, and mine, I doubt not, will follow one day. But they will send Keppoch's black puddock-stool tied up in a poke to fricht the bairns of Inverness."

"Ye are acquaint with my Lord Dundee, they tell me?" was Lochiell's next question.

"Aye," said Wat, "and well acquaint – though I know not how he would receive me now. Yet many a time have I ridden blithely enough at his side when I was a lad, until I had the misfortune to be outlawed and attainted by the Privy Council – "

"What was that for – not ony maitter o' religion and godliness, I hope? Nae sic Whiggery about a brisk lad like you, surely?" said Keppoch.

"It was for the small matter of sticking a sword into a man or two belonging to my Lord Duke of Wellwood," interrupted Scarlett, "and maybe for helping his Grace himself to an ounce of lead – "

"Hoot!" cried Keppoch, "John Graham will never steer ye for ony sic cause. He is great on the drill and discipline, but as to the richtin' o' a bit private misunderstanding, that surely is every gentleman's ain business."

"That was not the view the Council took of the matter," said Wat, smiling.

"Oh, they wad doubtless be o' the ither man's clan, or his connections and well-wishers in some shape – ye couldna blame them. They wad do the best they could for their side, nae doot," answered Keppoch.

And Lochiell listened to all with a gravely smiling face, like a man well pleased.

At Keppoch there was one day a muster and a show of weapons, after which came sword-play and fighting with the Lochaber axe, assault with targe and without targe – all of which Wat and Scarlett watched with infinite zest and unwearied amusement.

When it was well over, and all the champions from the glens had performed before the chief and Lochiell (who were then in great amity), Keppoch invited Wat to try a bout with him. Wat professed his inexperience with the heavier blade of the claymore, but asked to be permitted to retain his own lighter and finer "Andrea" – which, indeed, had scarcely ever left his side since he recovered it in the locker of the boat from which he had been cast ashore on the isle of Fiara.

So before long, weapon in hand, the huge black chieftain faced Lochinvar, towering over him like a son of Anak, his very sword casting a shadow like a weaver's beam.

They saluted in form and fell-to.

Clash! The blades met, and almost immediately Keppoch swept his sword in a full cut at Wat's shoulder. The young man measured his distance, stepped aside, and the next moment his Andrea pricked Keppoch's side below the arm. It was a mere touch with the point, but had the blade stood a handbreadth in the giant's body, as it might have done, the sons of Ian would have needed another chief.

Coll o' the Cows was more than a little astonished; but thinking the matter some accidental chance which could not be repeated, he professed his readiness to proceed.

"Man," cried Lochiell, who had been attentively watching the combat, "not Coll o' the Cows, but Coll o' the Corbies ye would have been if that laddie had liked. For oh, man, ye would hae been deid as Dugald More, and the clan looking for a tree to hang the young man on by this time."

With this most disabling thought in his mind to warn him from a too complete victory, Wat once more guarded, and for a long time contented himself with keeping off the furious strokes of the chief's assault, as easily, to all appearance, as a roof turns aside the pelting of a summer shower. Then, as Keppoch took breath a moment, his first fury having worn itself out, Wat attacked in his turn, and, puzzling his opponent, as was his wont, with the lightning swiftness of his thrust and recovery, caught his claymore deftly near the hilt, and in a moment it was flying out of his fingers.

Keppoch gazed after his weapon with as much surprise as if a hand had been reached out of the blue sky to snatch it from his grasp.

"God!" he cried, "but ye are a most mighty sworder – ne'er a one like ye within the Highland line. Who was your master at the play?"

Wat pointed to where old Jack Scarlett sat smiling complacently beside Lochiell.

"There is my teacher," he said, "and at my best I am but a bairn with a windlestraw in my master's hands."

Scarlett wagged his beard at Keppoch's evident consternation.

"No, no," he said, "I am old and stiff. Do not believe him. Why, lad, ye beat me the last time I tried ye with that same trick, though indeed I myself had taught it ye at the first."

"But I was vexed for the lad," he added under his breath, "and maybe I did not just try my best."

Of course after this nothing would serve the chiefs but that Wat and Scarlett must fight a long bout with the blunted point, which presently they did amid tremendous excitement.

"Oich! Oich!" shouted the clansmen, jumping in the air and yelling at every good stroke and lightning parry.

"Bone o' Dugald More – what heevenly fechtin'!" cried Keppoch. "I declare I am like to greet – me that hasna grat since the year sixty, when Ian Mackintosh of Auchnacarra died afore I could kill him. Oh, for the like o' you twa to lead a foray intil the country of the Lochiell Camerons —I mean the Appin Stewarts, foul fa' them! We wad gang in the daytime. For oh! it wad be a peety that sic bonny sword-play should be wasted in killing folk in the nicht season."

And the tears actually streamed from the eye of Black Colin as he watched the swords clash and click, meeting each other sweetly and willingly like trysted lovers.

"This is worth a' the kye frae Achnasheen to Glen Urquhart," he cried. "Ah, that was a stroke! 'Tis better than ganging to a kirk!"

More than once Wat nearly got home. But old Jack, standing a little stiffly on his legs and biting at a bit of sour-grass, always turned the point an inch aside at the critical moment. At last came the opening, and the master's return flew like lightning. Wat's blade was forced upward in spite of his lowered wrist, and lo! Scarlett's point stood against the third button of his coat as steadily as a master in a school points at the blackboard with his ferule.

A great shout went up from the throng. The hands of both combatants were shaken. Keppoch's defeat was avenged. Such swordsmanship had never before been seen by any son of Ian. The reputation of both master and pupil was made on the spot. Lochiell and Keppoch vied with each other in civilities, and the event became a daily one – but after this with a pair of foils, which the master-at-arms deftly manufactured.

In many such ways the months passed, and the spring came again with delicate green kindling along the watercourses, as the birch began to cast her tresses to the winds, and the grass tufts fought hard with the conquering heather.

But upon a day late in the month of May the party at Keppoch was broken by a sudden definite call. Three horsemen rode up to the door one blazing noontide. Scarlett and Keppoch were playing cards, the chief eagerly and noisily, Scarlett with the dogged use-and-wont of a hundred camps. Wat Gordon was cleaning his arms and accoutrements in the hall; for though they two had landed with little save the swords by their sides – now, thanks to their quality as swordsmen, and also somewhat to the weight of the gold in Wat's belt (which had so nearly been the death of him in the Suck of Suliscanna), they had been equipped with all the necessities of war.

The first of the three riders who entered into the hall of Keppoch was no other than my Lord Dundee. He looked thirty years older than when Wat had seen him last riding by in the gloaming to the house of Balmaghie – grayer, more wearied, sadder, too, with his face drawn and pale in spite of the sun and the wind.

He greeted Keppoch courteously but without great cordiality, glanced his eye once over Jack Scarlett, and seemed to take his quality in a moment – gravely saluting the good soldier of any rank and all ranks. Then he looked about him slowly.

"Why, Lochinvar!" he cried, astonished, "what wind hath blown you here – not recruiting for the Prince of Orange, I hope, nor yet trying to cut my favor with Keppoch?"

"Nay," said Wat, "but, if an outlaw and an exile may, ready as ever to fight to the death for King James."

"Why, well said," answered my Lord Dundee, smiling, "yet, if I remember rightly, I think you owed his Majesty not so much favor."

"In the matter of the Privy Council and my Lord Wellwood?" said Wat, shrugging his shoulders. "As to that, I took my risks like another. And if I had to pay the piper – why, it was at least no one but myself who called the tune."

"Not my lady – my late Lady Wellwood, I mean?" said Dundee, glancing at him with the pale ghost of mirthfulness on his face.

Wat shook his head.

"Of my own choice I took the barred road, and wherefore should I complain that I had to settle the lawing when I came to the toll-gates? But at least I am glad that you bear me no grudge, my lord," said Wat, "for doubtless, after all, it was a matter of the king's justice."

"Grudge!" cried one of those who were with the viscount, "it had been a God's blessing if you had stood your weapon a hand-breadth out on the other side of his Grace of Wellwood when you were about it."

Whereupon, with no further word, Dundee and Keppoch retired to confer apart; and that night, when the viscount rode away from the house, his three followers had become four. For Wat Gordon rode by his side as in old days on the braes of Garryhorn before any of these things befell. But Jack Scarlett abode still with Keppoch and Lochiell to help them to bring their clansmen into the field.

CHAPTER XLV
KILLIEKRANKIE

The July morning wakened broad and fair. The swifts circled in widening sweeps about the castle of Blair. Wat Gordon slept in the hall, wrapped in his plaid – a gift from Keppoch. The McDonald lay that night with his own men out on the lea, but many of the younger chiefs of Dundee's levy, McLean of Duart and Donald of Sleat, were also encamped round the hall.

It was after four of the clock when a hand touched Wat's shoulder. He looked up alert on the instant with the trained wakefulness of the soldier. His eyes met those of the Lord Dundee, who, without a word, strode slowly up the stairs.

Wat rose and followed his general, making his toilet with a single shake of the plaid over his shoulder. Presently they stood together on the battlements, where Dundee leaned his elbow on the highest part of the wall and looked to the east. The sun was just rising between Ben-y-Gloe and Ben-y-Vrackie.

Dundee stood a long time looking round him before he spoke. Wat kept in the background, standing modestly by the edge of the tiles, where they went crow-stepping up to the rigging. He dared not intrude upon the thoughts or plans of his commander.

At last Dundee pointed with his hand, sweeping it over the sward beneath, which was black with Highlanders, all squadded according to their clans. Most of them still lay in their plaids, scattered broadcast as if they had been slain on the field of battle, with their claymores held in their arms as a mother holds a favorite child. But here and there a few early foragers were already busy gathering birch and dwarf oak to build the morning camp-fires, while down by the river, where the lowland cavalry were picketed, many blue columns of smoke arose.

"A bonny sight!" said the general, slowly. "Aye, a bonny sight! Three thousand men that are men, and not a feared heart nor an unwilling blade among them. And yet," he added, a little sadly, "if I were away, all that would break and vanish like yon white cloud crawling on the shoulder of Ben Vrackie."

He pointed to where the morning mist was trailing itself in quickly dissolving wreaths and vanishing wisps over the mountain.

"Aye, like the mist they came, and like the mist they will go – if I be not here the morrow's morn to lead them. Lochiell is wise indeed. He would command us all with skill and fortitude. But then, how Glen Garry and Keppoch would cock their bonnets at that! Sandy McLean there might hold the clansmen and take them to Edinburgh, yet Sandy is not chief even of his own clan, but an apple-cheeked lad, who thinks only of taking the eyes of maidens. Grown babes all of them – yet men whom I have welded into a weapon of strength to fight the king's warfare."

"Think you the enemy will attack us this day?" said Wat, with the deference of a young soldier to an elder, whose favor, though great, may not be presumed upon.

"They will come, indeed," said the general, "but it is we that shall attack. I would it had been a day or two later. For the Western men are not come in, and Lochiell hath not yet half his tail behind him. Nevertheless, 'twill serve. Mackay I mind of old – in the Dutch provinces – a good drill-sergeant that fights by the book; but a brave man – yes, a very brave man."

For as an unquestioned beauty is the first to acknowledge beauty in others, so John Graham could readily allow courage to his opponents.

Yet this morning a constant melancholy seemed to overspread the beautiful countenance that had been the desire of women, the fear or adoration of men. In his converse with Lochinvar not a trace remained of that haughtiness which had so often distinguished his dealings with other men, nor yet of that relentlessness which he himself had so often mistaken for the firmness of military necessity.

Wat's bosom swelled within him as he looked on that host of plaided men. He seemed to see Scotland swept to the Solway, and the king coming home in triumph to his own again. The old tower of Lochinvar rose up before him. He thought proudly of building up again the broken-down walls, and for his love's sake setting the lordship of Lochinvar once more among its peers. It would be passing sweet to walk with her by the hill-side and look down upon their home, with the banner once again floating at the staff, and the hum of serving-men about it.

"It is indeed a most noble sight!" he cried, in rapture.

Dundee glanced at him, and marked the heightened color of the lad with kindly, tolerant favor. He thought he spoke of the mustered clans.

"Aye, glorious – truly," said he. "But build not on sand. Ere ten days be past, if these lads of the mist find not plunder, Clan Ronald will be off to spoil Clan Cameron, and Keppoch, the Wild Cat, will be at the throat of Clan Mackintosh. I have welded me a weapon which, tempered to the turning of a steel blade this morning, may be but a handful of sand when the wind blows off the sea by to-morrow at this time."

He stood silent a while, and his face grew fixed and stern as when he gave orders in battle.

"To-day I draw sword for a king that dared not draw sword for himself – for a house that has ever used its mistresses well and its soldiers ill. Let us make no mistake. You and I, Wat, go out this day on a great venture, and on our heads it is. We have a true soldier to fight. For you and I have seen William of Orange, and in this the day of our distress we shall have no help from our friends, save these three hundred Irish kerns with their bent pikes and their bows and arrows, no better than bairns that shoot crows among the corn."

He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his graceful body erect.

"So be it! After all, it is not my business. Enough for me that I do the king's will and walk straightly among so many that go crookedly. To-night I will end it if I can, and drive the Dutchman to his own place. But if not – why, then, it shall end me. I know, I know," he went on, quickly, as if Walter had reminded him of something, "I have a wife and a bairn down there. I am a man as other men. I would fain see Jean Cochrane, clad in white, passing here and there among the walks of the garden, gathering flowers, and the youngling toddling about her feet – were it but for once, before this night I bid the war-pipes blow at the setting of the sun."

He turned towards the lands of the south where he had earned much hatred and deadly fear.

"It may be, as they say, that I have ridden overharshly on the king's service, and trodden on some whom I might have lifted with my hand. But, God wot, it was ever the king's service and not mine own! I ever judged it better that there should be a little timeous bloodletting than that a whole people should perish. But now I see that the king and I were not wise. For a war that stirs up folk's religion never comes to an end. And, for all the good I did, I might just as well never have set foot in Galloway or the south. But enough; 'tis over now, and there remains – three thousand claymores and an empty title! Well, we shall find out to-day whether kings are indeed anointed, as they say. Ah, Wat, the sun is high, the light broad and fair on Athol braes. But ere it fades, you and I may find out many things that priest and presbyter could not unriddle to us."

He made as if to descend from the castle wall, but took a second thought.

"Bid the bugle sound!" he ordered, quickly changing his tone. "Invite the chiefs to a council. Send Dunfermline to me – and go yourself and get some breakfast."

* * * * *

It was almost at the way-going of the day. The sons of the mist crouched low among the heather and watched the Saxon soldiers struggling up through the dark and narrow glen. King William's men were weary and sore driven, for they had been there under the sun's fierce assault since noon that day.

So near were the clansmen to their foes that they could distinguish the uniform and accoutrement of each regiment as it straggled slowly out under the eyes of the general and formed on the little green shelf overhanging the deep cleft of the Garry.

Wat stood with Dundee upon the crest of the hill above. The general had fallen silent, but a look of eager expectancy lit his face.

"I have them," he said, low, to himself; "it is coming right. We shall balance accounts with the Dutchman ere it be dark."

To him came Keppoch, pale to the lips with rage.

"This is no war, my lord-general," he said, "they are through the pass and you hold us here in check! Why, with the rocks of the hill-side my single clan could have annihilated them – swept them in heaps into the black pools of the Garry."

My Lord Dundee smiled a tolerant smile, as a mother might at the ignorance of a wayward, fretful child.

"Bide ye, Keppoch," he said, kindly, "ye shall have your fill of that work – but we must not make two mouthfuls of this Orange. Our advantage is great enough. We shall meet them on plain field, and, ere we be done with them, ye shall walk across the Garry upon their dead bodies, bootless and in dry socks, if it please you."

Presently the Lowland army had dribbled itself completely out of the pass and stood ranked, regiment by regiment, awaiting the onset. Mackay had done all that skill and silence could do in such a desperate case, for the men of the mountains had all the choice of the ground and of the time for attack.

Clan by clan Dundee set his men on the hill crests, solidly phalanxed, but with wide gaps between the divisions – a noble array of great names and mighty chiefs – McLean, Clan Ranald, Clan Cameron, Glengarry, Stewarts of Athol and Appin, men of the king's name from east and west. Well might Dundee have forgotten his melancholy mood of the morning.

The sun touched the western hills, halved itself, and sank like a swiftly dying flame. The blue shadows strode eastward with a rush. The gray mist began to fill the deep glen of the Garry.

"Ready!" cried the general.

The war-pipes blared. The plaided men gave a shout that drowned the pibrochs, and the clans were ready for the charge.

From beneath arose a response, a faint, wavering cry, without faith or cohesion.

"Ah," cried Lochiell, "have at them now! That is not the cry of men who are going to conquer!"

Dundee raised his hand and the chiefs watched for it to fall. It fell.

"Claymore!" shouted Lochiell, who had been standing like a pillar at the head of his clan.

Keppoch, wild with the joy of battle, instantly fired his gun from where he stood, and throwing his brand into the air, he caught it by the hilt as he too gave the order to charge.

Slowly at first, but quickening their pace as they neared the foe, the clans came down. They held their fire till they were within a hundred yards of the enemy, grimly enduring without reply three separate volleys from the disciplined ranks of the Lowland army. They paused a moment and fired a wild, irregular volley. Then, with the unanimous flash of drawn swords in the air, the whole wild array charged down with a yell upon the triple line of the enemy.

Wat rode by the side of the general; for Dundee charged with the van, exposing himself in the very front of danger. Half way down the slope the old colonel of horse noticed that the Lowland cavalry were not following. He turned in his saddle, lifted his sword, and waved the squadrons on.

"For the king! Charge!" he cried, pointing with the blade to the serried line of Mackay's regiments below.

But at that moment there came another withering volley from the English line, threshing the hill-side like hail. A bullet struck Dundee under the uplifted arm. Instinctively he shifted his bridle hand, and set himself grimly to the charge again; but the quickly growing pallor of his face and the slackness of his grasp told the tale of a terrible wound.

Lochinvar had scarce time to dismount and receive his general in his arms before Dundee fainted and his head fell on Wat's shoulder. His charger galloped on, leading the regiment into action, as though he felt that his master's part had devolved on him.

In an instant the assault swept past them, and Wat and the wounded soldier were left as it had been alone on the field. Here and there a clansman, stricken by a bullet, strove to rise and follow the onset of his clan. He would stumble a few yards, and then throw up his hands and fall headlong. But up from the river edge there came a hell of fiercely mingled sounds. At the first glance at the wound Wat saw there was no hope. Looking over the pale set features of the general, as he lay reclined in his arms, he could see the thin English lines fairly swept away. One or two regiments seemed to have been missed, standing idly at their arms, like forgotten wheat in a corner of an ill-reaped field; but for the rest, clansmen and red soldiers alike had passed out of sight.

Presently the dying commander opened his eyes.

"My lord," said Wat, softly, "how is it with you?"

"Nay, rather, how goes the day?" said Dundee, with an eager look.

"Well for the king," answered Wat.

"Then," replied John Graham, "if it be well with him it is the less the matter for me."

With that he laid his head back on Wat's breast contentedly. He seemed to wander somewhat in his thoughts, speaking fast and disorderly.

"Maybe I was in the wrong – in the wrong. Yet I did it for the king's good. But I was sore vexed for the wife and bairns. And yet the carrier suffered it very unconcernedly, and said he was glad to die – which I can well believe. Maybe he, too, had done well for his king."

His mind dwelt much upon far-off, unhappy things. Anon he seemed to see some terrible tragedy, for he put his hand before his face as if to shut out a painful sight.

"Enough of that, Westerha'," he said, in a grieved tone, "this serves no good end."

Then at the last there came a smile breaking over his face, and he lifted his hand lightly and gently like one who dandles something tender and easily broken.

"'Tis a fine bairn, Jean," he said, pleasantly, "ye may well be proud o' the babe. I wish I could bide wi' you. They might have left me alone this ae nicht. But I must mount and ride. Fare ye weel, Jean, my lass – braw lass and bonny wife ye ever were to me. I must e'en bit and saddle, for I hae a far gate and a gloomy road to travel this night!"

So with no more than this farewell to his wife and young bairn, the hope of the Stuarts, the scourge of the Covenant, the glory of the Grahams, lay dead on the clean-reaped field of victory.