II.
The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. The Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; but the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from rags and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like the child of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody enough work forby, for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came pouring down Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the cattle before them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand on Black Murdo, for now he was taibhsear indeed, and the taibhsear has magic against dub or steel. How he became taibhsear who can be telling? When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, gloom seized him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his brain that spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more in sport, he carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that it cost him so dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of his Gift, and the cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure.
Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty head of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, and the use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman.
But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel.
“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell to ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his mother.
Folks—far-wandered ones—brought him news of the man with the halt that was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on Tom-an-dearc cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he filled him with old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs of Inneraora, for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he made them—what there may well be doubts of—cowards and weak.
“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken of gets his pay for it.”
Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is strong and the biodag still untried. He lay awake at night, thinking of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have been on the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by lifting the clach-cuid-fear, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You are young yet, and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding for.”
At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he said, “Now let us to this affair.”
He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow was no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six valleys and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got their bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took their best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went out without a word and marched with that high race.
But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster for raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs round the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready enough off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough on his heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they were any nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger.
Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his back and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid was bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for three days against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over the way; but nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to come to the challenge, and the man with the halt was home again.
Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his father's fancy he was losing the good times—many a fine exploit among the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went down to Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would give gold to be with them.
One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what we want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man after dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.”
Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the old times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not be named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the boar's snout; but mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh! the black bed of Macartair is in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land as a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and MacCailein had the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of a long-backed heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. There is day about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora then went Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen old sword. 'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it was on the misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he met by the way said, “'Tis the Lochow taibhsear and his tail,” and let them by without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly Dame's house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and crowdie, marag-dkubh and ale. But she asked them not their business, for that is the way of the churl. She made them soft-scented beds of white hay in a dirty black corner, where they slept till cockcrow with sweet weariness in their bones.
The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing the saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good sgian-dubh a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far out from Ard Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown wrack, and then there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a bird went stalking. The old man and the young one stood at the gable and looked at it all.
It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, if the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo, softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall not heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the whin-bush and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to the swimming for it.”
Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled hot against his ruddy neck.
“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last.
“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad.
“Let him pass.”
Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?”
“A bodach frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory.
“Let him pass.”
The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of his kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went up from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow.
“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo.
“The man with the halt,” answered the lad.
“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and pith on your arm!”
Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of shelisters, his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across the wrack and below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But the coming man thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man at any rate, and one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. Rory stepped on the edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his brow, while the man limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped out briskly and said, “Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and with, as it were, no heart in the business; for though the lame man was strong, deepbreasted, supple, and all sound above the belt, there was a look about him that made the young fellow have little keenness for the work.
“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under his heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for me?”
“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?”
“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my way.” And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at the lad, who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass.
But up-by at the house the taibhsear watched the meeting. The quiet turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was coming in.
“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.”
Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” he roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off like a child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade.
“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted. But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck. He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying, “Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——”
“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the taibhsear, all shaking, and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry.
“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's there dripping?”
“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and we forgot to ask his name.”
“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid rag, and it was not for nothing.”
Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face!