Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 703», sayfa 4

THE DUKE'S PIPER:
A STORY OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER I

It was an unfortunate business – most unfortunate; for the Duke's piper and the Duke's game-keeper were the best of friends; they never met at the Glengolly clachan but they had their 'glass' together; nay, when friends met, such as they – and it was astonishing how often accident led the steps of both men to the smoky chimney-cheek of Betty MacDonald's clachan – the glass had to pass to and fro pretty often before the men parted. And as Betty knew full well that John Cameron the piper, and Donald MacTavish the game-keeper, her best customers all the year round, were critics upon whom no adulterated or diluted fluid could impose, Betty was careful that to them at least nothing but the best of whisky and stoup-measures – erring, if they erred at all, on the roomy side – should be served. The natural result of such companionship and mutual consumption of frequent gills was that John loved Donald 'like a vera brither;' while Donald frequently assured John, as they stumbled over the moor together in the gloaming, or more often when the horned moon was high, that not one of his own eight brothers was to be mentioned in the same breath with John – as regarded his, the game-keeper's, emotions towards him.

What then were Betty's feelings, late one unlucky autumn evening on her return from the byre, where she had gone to milk her solitary cow, to find the two friends in the midst of a hot argument, loud-mouthed both, and looking at each other across the table, on which stood the almost empty measure and glasses, with expressions on their honest gnarled faces that could hardly by any interpretation be termed mild? And this before a third guest too, a hairy-visaged gentleman whom Betty reckoned half-daft, seeing that he had spent the last three weeks 'splashin' a bit o' auld canvas wi' paint, and ca'ed it Ben Sluaigh,' but to whom it nevertheless behoved her to be polite, taking into account the liberal rent he paid for her best room. The gentleman sat in his chair with a tumbler of whisky-and-water before him, taking little part in the discussion, but smoking diligently with a broad grin, as Betty noted indignantly as she went 'ben' with her knitting, sorry to hear the voices of the disputants waxing louder and louder. Betty had a feminine dislike of argument; arguments in the clachan were generally the prelude to blows. Her idea of a 'good crack' admitted only of varying shades, not differences of opinion, softened by frequent application to the bottle – a good story being not one whit the less welcome because oft-told. But here were John and Donald glaring at each other with knit brows, and John, who could never brook contradiction, bringing his massive fist down on the table so that the stoup-measure and glasses swayed.

'Ye're wrang, Tonald, I tell ye again ye're wrang – it wass biled!'

The game-keeper thus addressed, only shook his bald head slowly from side to side, remarking after a pause, with a smile of superior knowledge that seemed to fan the flame of his friend's anger: 'Na, John, na: it iss nefer biled.'

'But it iss biled, and iss aye biled, I'm telling ye, and biled in sweet milk too. – I'm not like some folk, sir,' said the piper, turning to address the stranger in the arm-chair, 'that talk a lot o' nonsense apoot what they ken naething apoot.'

'Whether his oil-cake was boiled or not boiled,' said the stranger, 'the bull is as fine an animal as I have seen in the Highlands; though I was not sorry, as I sketched him, to have the stream and a good steep bank between us.'

'Noo, John, you are trying to impose on the ignorance o' the shentleman; that iss what ye are trying to do, John, and that iss no like ye. It iss verra pad to let the English shentleman go away, and it iss savages that he'll pe thinkin' we are in the Hielants, to pe feeding oor young bulls' (pronounced bills) 'wi biled oil-cake, as if oor young bulls needet oil-cake when they hef cood green grass and plenty; or allooin' they do need it, to hef it biled, and them wi' teeth that if they wanted wad crack whinstanes. Oh, but it iss a fine joke to hear ye talk o' biled oil-cake, John Cameron!'

'I'm telling ye, ye're wrang,' said the piper hotly; 'and it iss nonsense ye're talking apoot, Tonald MacTavish! – Though, sir,' again appealing to the stranger's intelligence, 'it iss not muckle that a game-keeper can ken apoot the rearing o' young bulls; they can tell a grouse from a partridge in a stubble-field on a dark nicht, I'll alloo that,' in a tone implying that he conceded the utmost; 'but the rearing o' young bulls iss oot o' their line; and for a man that has nefer peen oot o' his ain county from the tay he wass born till the tay o' his death, to teach anither man wha has peen roond the whole world moreofer wi' his Grace the Teuk – to tell him apoot savages' —

'I alloo,' interrupted Donald with a friendly wave of the hand, having filled and emptied a glass while John was speaking – 'I alloo that there iss no petter piper in the county – no, nor in the whole Hielants moreofer, than yoursel', John Cameron; and it iss the Teuk himself I hef heard say as muckle many's the time that; and prood I hef peen to hear it; and I hope it iss to this shentleman and me that ye will pe giving a tune afore we pairt the nicht; but I canna alloo that ye are petter acquaint wi' the subject on hand. And ye can ask Sandy the Deuk's grieve yoursel' apoot it, and he wass in the byre when the bull was calfed, and he will' —

'Teffle a tune ye'll get from me this nicht; and it iss a obstinate mule ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and always wass; and as for Sandy MacIntyre, the Teuk's grieve, it iss all the parish that kens him for a foolish ignorant liar!'

The two men pushed their respective chairs a foot or so farther apart, and looked at each other in no amiable mood. John the piper was a tall thin Celt with fiery eyes, that flamed out from a mass of tangled hair as brown as heather, covering a low square brow; he was of a much more inflammable temperament than his friend, whose high cheek-bones, wide surly mouth, and cheeks that seemed to have gathered black forests of hair at the expense of his crown, which was of the shiny bald order, indicated a vein of Saxon blood in some progenitor, although his accent and fluency in Gaelic proved that he was a native of the west. Under the chair of the piper, Fingal the piper's collie, almost as excitable as his master, lay asleep; and in a corner by the game-keeper's gun, Jet, Donald's placid pointer, lay stretched at full length. Betty laid down her knitting in some trepidation when the argument reached this point, and came in to see if she could not pour oil on the troubled waters. She found the piper on his feet with his bagpipes under his arm, evidently much offended, looking about in the dark for his bonnet.

'It iss anither gless o' whusky ye'll pe taking now, Mr Cameron, pefore ye tak' the road this cauld nicht?'

'And it iss verra pad whusky ye hef peen giving us the nicht, Mrs MacTonald, eneuch to tak' the temper away from any man,' said the piper in his severest tones.

'And ye are quite richt there, Mr Cameron,' said Betty timidly, willing to appease her guest at the expense of her own reputation; 'and it iss myself that iss glad ye mentioned it, for I had to offer ye some o' the Cawm'lton-still the nicht, cass the gentry when they wass on the moor yesterday shooting took every drop o' the rale heather-watter away in their flasks, and left no a drop wi' me. But I'm sure, Mr Cameron, ye'll no pe so angry wi' me as that comes to as to go away angry like that.'

'The whusky iss cood eneuch, if taken wi' a thankful spirit, Mrs MacTonald,' said Mr MacTavish. 'But when a man iss prood and stuck-up cass he has travellet at the heels o' his betters – but the Teuk's dog has done as muckle – while his own neibors have bided at home, he thinks maype that naepody kens the tifference atween a reel and a hornpipe but himself! Gif me another gless, Mrs MacTonald. – Cood-nicht, John; I drink to your petter manners.'

John was at the door, having found his bonnet, but came back to say, shaking his fist in Donald's face: 'It iss an ignorant prute ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and I scorn to pit my fingers upon ye; but nae doot ye'll want me to bring my pipes to the clachan anither nicht; and nae doot your son Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to play the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he will look to have his crack wi' Maggie! Ye will live, Tonald, my man, to ken it wass an ill nicht when ye thocht fit to drink to my petter manners!'

With which flourish, wound up by an emphatic and defiant snap of the piper's fore-finger and thumb in close proximity to the nose of the calmer game-keeper, the piper marched with what dignity he could muster, seeing that he carried half a pint of fierce whisky beneath his belt, from the clachan to the pathway across the moor, homewards; and so absorbed was he in cherishing his anger, that he would not indulge himself on his solitary way with one of his favourite Jacobite lilts, lest the sound of the pipes might charm away his wrath. And his collie Fingal followed sadly at his heels.

The game-keeper sat for only a short time after his friend was gone; he gave utterance to a low hard laugh as the piper disappeared, and then relapsed into sulky silence. Presently he said, rising to leave: 'I'd petter pay ye for my share o' the whusky, Mrs MacTonald.'

'Na; that can remain. Ye will pe here the day after to-morrow or so, I daresay, to make it up.'

'Take the money,' said Mr MacTavish firmly; 'he will peg my pardon pefore I drink another drop in his company.'

'A bad job!' said poor Betty, with tears in her eyes, as she slowly counted out to him the change.

On the afternoon of the same day, Maggie Cameron the piper's daughter was in her father's dairy busily at work. The piper's cottage and small farm-steading stood white and solitary at the mouth of Glen Heath, barely half a mile from Inversnow. The score of sheep that strayed about the glen with the red mark J. C. branded on their woolly sides belonged to the piper; so also did the three or four cows that stood cooling their feet in the heat of the day, in the peat-brown burn that coursed through the heart of the glen past the piper's fields and garden, to the loch. He was in a moderate way a prosperous man, and after the manner of men conscious of a bigger balance than their neighbours at the local bank, he thought he had a right to dogmatise on occasions. Folks who knew the piper knew that whoever ultimately was lucky enough to win the hand of his only daughter Maggie, would not take her dowerless; and that the dower would be something by no means to be sneezed at, was evident when the Inversnow intellect began to reckon on its finger-ends the various sources of the piper's income. There was first and foremost the farm; the piper's crops were ever the earliest and the heaviest; his mutton was always prime, and the piper knew well when and to what market to send. Nor on the Duke's whole estate were better turnips grown. Then what milk was to be compared to that which came from the piper's byre; and as for the piper's butter – churned by Maggie's own pretty hands – why, better butter was not to be had in or out of the parish for love or money. Besides which, the piper's white cottage, built on the slope facing the loch on one side and looking towards the glen on the other, within a few minutes' walk of the best scenery, the best shooting, and the best fishing in South-western Scotland, fetched – well, Inversnow did not know how much per month. Let to the 'gentry' during spring, summer, and autumn of every year, it was in itself another tap of gold flowing into the piper's pockets.

For several months in each year the Duke entertained guests at Inversnow Castle; and it was the piper's duty, as it was his pleasure, to march daily (Sundays excepted, and he grudged Sundays) for two hours to and fro in the hall of the castle while the Duke and his guests dined, the sonorous bagpipes discoursing appetising and digestatory music; and he was indeed a mean or thoughtless guest who departed without remembering the piper in some shape tangible to the piper. Dearly he loved his money. Nor was he a man likely to let money readily slip from his grasp when he once fingered it, and no man in Inversnow was more fertile in resources for adding to his store. But dearly as he loved gold, dearly as he loved his sheep, his cattle, and horses, his dram and his bagpipes, his one primary treasure was his winsome daughter Maggie. Rough he might be, but beneath the hard shell was a true human heart that beat warmly and tenderly towards her.

Maggie stood, as has been said, busily at work on the clean paved floor of the dairy, her burnished milk-pans full of creamy richness, arranged on shelves along the walls. The dairy was cool and shady, and the sweet fragrance of the fresh milk mingled sweetly with odour of late honeysuckles and fuchsias clambering in at the window. Between the leaves of honeysuckle there was to be seen from the window, far off across the sloping fields, a peep of the loch, the blue sky, and the heather-clad hills in the distance. The door was open, and the afternoon light fell upon no more pleasant sight than the bright shapely Highland lassie, whose sleeves were tucked up to the elbow, her dress pinned behind, while her hands were deftly shaping butter with the aid of a pair of wooden 'clatters' into tempting rounded pats, each pat being dropped, by a quick graceful turn of her skilful hands, into a dish of clear spring-water beside her. Maggie hummed in a sweet low treble as she worked, an old Gaelic air that had a touch of melancholy in it, her sole audience the piper's monstrous bull-dog, that lay all her length in the sunshine asleep on the threshold. Presently the formidable-looking animal raised her head, pricked her ears and growled; then, at the sound of footsteps, rose and bounded down the path; and Maggie, as she paused in singing, heard a well-known voice cry: 'Down, Diana; down, I tell ye; keep down!' The Highland girl went on with her work, with perhaps a tinge of crimson shewing through the sun-browned face, while a man's voice rang out 'Maggie!' from the kitchen door, and then the steps turned to the open dairy door.

'Well, Angus,' Maggie said in a tone of surprise that was hardly meant to be taken as real; 'and iss it you again? I thought you said yesterday that the yacht was going to meet some of the castle-folks at Sheepfell?'

'The Teuk changed his mind, or had a telegram or something. But are ye not glad to see me, Maggie, that ye won't shake hands wi' a body?'

'Deed and I am fery glad to see yourself, Angus, and well ye ken that; but my hands are wet wi' the watter and the butter; and indeed ye must excuse me.'

'But it iss a cold greeting to gif a body, that iss what it iss, no to shake a hand, Maggie,' said Angus; 'or maybe,' plucking up courage from the laughter in Maggie's eyes and the pose of Maggie's cheek, 'maybe that iss what you wanted!' And Angus boldly bestowed a kiss upon the girl's cheek.

'Oh, Angus MacTavish, and how could ye do the like o' that, when ye see I could not protect myself wi' my hands among the butter?'

'Then gif it to me back again, as the song says,' said Angus, taking his own again, before Maggie could make any show of resistance.

'But it iss a wild fellow ye are, and no deserving this drink o' new-drawn warm milk I am going to give ye!'

Maggie wiped her hands in the long white apron she wore, and turned to fill a tumbler full of milk from one of the pans.

'Well, Maggie Cameron, it iss maybe more than I deserve,' said Angus, as he took the tumbler from her hand and raised it to his mouth; 'but here iss to your ferry good-health, Maggie!'

'I believe ye would rather it had been a dram,' said the girl, as she watched the milk swiftly disappear down the young sailor's throat. But Angus declared that in saying so she libelled him.

'And now, Maggie, ye must put on your hat and come with me,' said Angus seriously, when he had emptied the tumbler.

'Go with you, Angus! You're joking. Wass it not for your lesson on the pipes ye came? But dad iss not at home this afternoon – he went the clachan-way with your father – but he will be disappointed to hef missed you.'

'I want you to come to the shore with me, Maggie; I have something to shew you, and I will take no denial for this once.'

'To shew me, Angus? But dad might not be pleased, if he came home when I wass out, to find I wass away trifling with you on the shore.'

'I will answer for that, Maggie Cameron.'

'Well, it iss true my churning is over, and the baking o' the scones can be done when I get back, but' – The maiden hesitated.

'But there' – and Angus lifted the dish of butter-pats and marched off with them, followed by Maggie, to the kitchen. 'Now put on your hat and come with me.'

While Maggie went to her room, Angus turned the key in the dairy-door, and hung it on a nail in the kitchen; and leaving Janet the maid to bring in the cattle and milk them, the couple started on their expedition with light hearts.

They were a winsome couple, and Janet – a goodly lass herself – stood admiring them from the door-step, not without certain longings on her own account, as they walked along the pathway that skirted the meadow, to the bridge at the gate; and from thence over the stile and across a field, towards the loch. Margaret Cameron was a tall well-built girl, yet her head was just on a level with her companion's shoulder. Her face was fresh and sunny, light and shadow playing on it in quick responsive movement to the mental mood that happened to rule her. She was young, not yet out of her teens, full of youthful impulse, that expressed itself in frequent peals of merry laughter easily roused; with a tender heart too, as the sweet blue eyes told, by the quick rush of tears when she was moved by any tale of woe, or touched by the chill finger of disappointment. Angus was a broad-shouldered six-foot sailor, stooping slightly as he walked, with a bronzed cheery face, and the kindest of honest eyes, that looked you straight in the face fearlessly. He had been for many years one of the most trustworthy 'hands' on board the Duke's yacht, The Curlew, and was looked up to by the fishing-folks of Inversnow with all the respect due to a favourite of the Chief's, and to one whose ideas had been expanded by frequent visits to the Mediterranean.