CHAPTER III.
The castle of Ben-na-Groich was an old square building, situated in a wild ravine of the North Highlands. It consisted of little more than a high tower, of the rough stone of the country, at one corner of a low mass of building, in many parts fallen into decay, and presenting an appearance of strength and massiveness, on which any attempt at beauty would have been thrown away. One side of the square had something more of a habitable look than the remaining portions, from the circumstance of its chimneys being newly rebuilt and tastefully whitewashed; the roof also was repaired, and the windows fitted with glass—a luxury which was considered useless by the inhabitants of the remaining three sides—the said inhabitants consisting of two or three cows, half a score of dogs, and one or two old representatives of Fingal, who clung to their ancient habitation with a local attachment that would have done honour to a cat.
On the evening of the 10th of August, the parlour (for it was nothing more, though bearing the nobler designation of the hall) was occupied by a solitary gentleman of somewhat solid dimensions, who cheered his loneliness by an occasional stir of the fire, and a frequent sip at a tumbler of whisky-toddy. From time to time he went to the window and listened. The cataract that rushed down the ravine would have drowned any other external sound, even if such had existed; and with an expression of increased ill humour after every visit to the window, the gentleman renewed his former occupation of sipping the toddy and stirring the fire.
“Some folly or other of sister Alice,” at last he grunted, “putting off her time in Edinburgh. They ought to have been here by two o’clock, and here it is eight, and not a sound of their wheels. That cursed rivulet, to be sure, drowns everything else; ’tis worse than our hundred-horse engine. I wish they were here, for being a Highland chieftain is lonely work after all—no coffee-house—no club—no newspaper. Hobbins was right enough in saying, ‘I should soon tire;’ but tire or not, I am too proud to go back—no! Young Charles Hobbins shall marry Jane Somers. I will settle them here for three or four months in the summer, and we can all go back to his house for the rest of the year. A real chieftain will be something to look at there, though, in this cursed country, it does not seem to create much admiration. What can be keeping sister Alice?”
The gentleman walked to the window once more, and, opening it a little way, shouted “Angus Mohr! Angus Mohr!” A feeble voice in a short time answered from the dilapidated end of the building.
“Her’s comin’—fat ta teil does ta fat havril want?” Uncertain steps not long after sounded along the creaking passage; the door was opened, and presented to the impatient glance of the new proprietor the visage of the grumbling Gael. He was an old decrepit man, with bright ferocious eyes gleaming through his elf-locks. If he had succeeded in making a “swap” of his habiliments with any scarecrow south of the Tay, he would have had by far the best of the bargain, for his whole toilet consisted in a coarse blue kilt or petticoat (for it had none of the checkers that give a showy appearance to the kilt); his stocking—for he only rejoiced in one—was wrinkled down almost over his shoe; his coat was tattered and torn in every variety of raggedness; and the filth, which was almost thick enough to cover the glaring redness of his fortnight’s beard, showed that Angus Mohr took very little interest in the great question about the soap duties. “Fat d’ye want, auld man?” inquired the visitor—“bringin’ a poddy a’ this way to hear yer havers.”
“I merely wish to know, Angus, if there is any lad here you can send to the side of the hill to see if a carriage is coming this way.”
“Tere’s a laud oot in the byre,” replied Angus; “but he’s four score year auld, an’ has been teaf and blind since they took him to Inferness jail for dirking the packman—teil tak their sowls for pittin an honest man in ony such places—ye can pid him gang, if ye like.”
“Why, if he’s deaf and blind, Angus, he will be no great help.”
“Ten gang yersell; petter that than sitting filling yer pig wame wi’ whisky.”
“You shall have a glass, Angus, when I have tea brought in.”
“An’ little thanks for it too. It’s a small reward for comin’ a’ this way through the cauld.”
“You may go now,” said our fat friend, who was now more anxious to get quit of his visitor than he had been for his appearance.
“Teil a pit, teil a pit; no without the glass ye promised.”
“Be off, sir—be more respectful to your superiors. I am chief of this clan.”
“He’s ta chief!” cried old Angus, with a laugh that shot a chill into the gallant chieftain’s heart—“he’s ta chief, is he? Hu! hu! hu!”
“For goodness’ sake, old man, go back to your own room. You shall have a whole bottle; I’ll send it to you directly.”
“Mak it a gallon, an’ I’ll gang. Mak it a gallon—it will do for twa days.”
“Well, well, you shall have a gallon—only go,” urged the now alarmed proprietor; for Angus, perceiving his advantage, went on increasing in his demands, and the self-elected chief began to perceive that his subjects were not so obedient as he had expected; and vague ideas of dirks and drownings occurred hurriedly to his mind.
Angus, however, seemed for this time satisfied with his prize, and resumed his way to the lower regions, muttering and growling as he went, as if he had been a highly injured individual, and leaving the fat gentleman in a very uncomfortable frame of mind.
“Savages!” he murmured to himself; “by dad, we shall all be murdered to a certainty. However, when all my own servants arrive, we shall turn Angus and the blind old man out of the castle, and have things a little better managed than this. But it certainly is very strange my sister does not come! Our new man, Copus, is a stout fellow, and would keep this old rascal Angus in order.”
“Fat, in the teil’s name, are ye skirlin’ there for?” said the sharp voice of that uncourteous seneschal, as he put his shaggy head out of the glassless orifice that served as a window; “are we a’ teaf, think ye?”
“Hallo, old feller!” shouted the voice of Copus in reply, “leave off your hinfernal jabber, and open the door, will ye?”
“Open’t yersell, and be t—d till ye,” screamed the old man; “her’s no servant o’ your’s, I’m thinking.”
“William, isn’t there never a bell?” inquired Miss Alice.
“Bell!” re-echoed Mr Copus; “no, nor nothing else that a gentleman is acquainted with; so here I thinks, ma’am, we must stay all night, for that ’ere waterfall wont let nobody hear, and the old lunatic, as peeps out of the hole in the wall, don’t seem inclined to be civil.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, William, try again—shout as loud as you are able.”
“Hillo! hillo! hillo!”
“What’s the matter?” exclaimed the voice of the new proprietor himself, at the same moment that his head appeared at the window.
“Here we are, sir,” replied Copus, “half-dead with fear and hunger, and yet can’t get into our own house for love or money.”
“I’ll open the door myself,” said the chieftain, and putting for the nonce his newly acquired dignity into his pocket, he waddled through the blustering passages, and turned the key with his own hand.
“And this, then, is Ben-na-Groich Castle,” sighed Miss Alice, as at length she entered the parlour, leaning on the arm of her niece, and looking round with a dolorous expression that would have furnished a study for a picture of despair.
“Even so,” replied her brother, with an attempt at a joyous chuckle that died off into a groan.
“Oh, brother Ben—since Ben-na-Groich you insist on being called—oh, brother Ben, what tempted you to buy such a place as this?—in such a country?—among such hideous people?”
“Partly a bad debt that the late owner was on our books—partly a desire to be a regular chief, and astonish the Huxtables; but cheer up, sister, things will be better in a day or two. We shall all put on our tartans—cheer up you too, niece Jane, Charles Hobbins will be here ere long; I’ve got some clothes ready for him too, and intend to give him a black feather, and make him as good a downy-whistle as you can desire.”
“Ah, brother!” interposed Miss Alice, “that would have been all very well a short time ago, and it would have been delightful to see you with your henchman, and jellies, and downy-whistles—but ’tis too late now. Oh, brother! we are doomed to destruction. Copus will tell you what he has seen this very day.”
“Why, what has he seen?—a ghost? they are wery superstitious, and believe in the second sight.”
“Oh, first sight is quite enough for us. I saw them myself, though they were at such a distance, I confess, I took them for a flock of sheep.”
“Who?—what was it you saw?—speak, Copus.” Thus adjured, our travelled friend, with a face from which the expression of alarm had not yet entirely subsided, commenced his narrative.
“This morning, sir, when we first changed ’osses, I gets off the rumble, sir, and leaves Mariar by herself. I goes into the small house while the cattle was a-coming—a lonely place, sir, in the midst of a moor, sir—and says I to the landlady, says I, ‘here’s a fine day,’ says I.’
“‘Make the most of it,’ says she, ‘you bid fair never to see another.’
“‘You’re wery purlite,’ says I; ‘I don’t think I’m in a dying condition.’
“‘You carry your death-sentence at your breast,’ says she, in a hollow voice, like a drum with a hoarseness.
“‘What do you elude to,’ says I?—and looking at my breast, sir, I seed nothing in life but this here watch-ribbon as you gived me, of your own tartan, you know, sir.
“‘Why wear ye the badge of the doomed Ben-na-Groich?’ says she; ‘know you not that his web is spun?’
“‘There you’re misinformed,’ says I, ‘ma’am; they’re all done by machinery.’
“‘Fool,’ says she, quite in a passion, ‘you’ve put yourself under a ruined wall, and will be crushed to the dust by the tumble.’
“‘Wrong again,’ says I, ‘for master has had the whole building repaired.’
“‘Blind mole, you will take no warning; perhaps because you don’t believe—see there!’ And when I looked in to where she pointed, sure enough I sees ten or a dozen stout chaps all a-sharping of their swords upon great grinding-stones, at the other end of the house.
“‘What’s all them fellows arter?’ says I.
“‘Blood,’ says she.
“‘Blood and wounds!’ says I, ‘I never heared such a woman. ’Clect, at Oxford, hearing of an old Roman Catholic lady they called the Civil, as spoke in that ’ere fashion, and was a dealer in books and stationery, but, cuss me, if you doesn’t beat her hollow. Whose blood do you mean, ma’am?’
“‘His who calls himself Ben-na-Groich.’”
“Oh, brother Thomas, did you ever hear of the like?” shuddered Miss Alice.
“A witch,” said the gentleman thus appealed to, with a very unsuccessful effort to appear disdainful. “What more, Copus?—did she say anything else?”
“Lots more, but I’ve nearly forgotten it.”
“How long did this detain you?”
“Oh, he kept us waiting three or four hours,” interposed Miss Alice; “and when he came out, he couldn’t have been more unsteady if he had been a-drinking.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” added Maria, “his manners has been wery extraordinary ever since; he has been either singing songs or sleeping the whole way here.”
“The interview was a very strange one. Did any one else see the ten or twelve men?” inquired the chief.
“I seed one of them, sir,” replied Maria—“a tall, handsome gentleman, in a green frock coat. He went towards a horse that was tied near a stack of fuel, just at the moment Copus came out.”
“Indeed? Did you see him, Copus?”
“Oh yes. I saw a figure something as she describes it. He is the surest sign, the wild woman said, of something awful; they calls him Kickan-drubb.”
“How strange!” repeated the chieftain, for the hundredth time—“a regular conspiracy, and nobody here to defend us. The old tiger down-stairs, Angus Mohr, would be the first to kill us if he could, and what is to become of us, Heaven only knows.”
“Better let the horses stay at the door, sir; the carriage may be useful,” suggested Copus.
“There’s no time to be lost, indeed,” replied the master; “but yet what would be the use of flying? We are safer here than on the road.”
“No, no; let us go, brother Ben—brother Thomas, I mean—for do you know that Fash-na-Cairn has vowed he’ll have your life?”
“Who the devil is Fash-na-Cairn? I never did him any harm.”
“But his clan has been opposed to Ben-na-Groich for hundreds of years. He’ll murder you—and me!—oh dear! oh dear! he’ll force me to be Mrs Fash-na-Cairn!” Here Miss Alice, overcome by her horrible imaginings, covered her face with her hands; but whether she wept or not history does not record.
“Will ye no let a poddy sleep, and be d—d till ye?” again screamed the shrill voice of Angus Mohr; “hoo mony mair o’ ye southron prutes is coming yammering to the door?”
No answer, apparently, was given to this inquiry, for it was renewed with bitterer tones than before.
“Fat’s a’ this o’t?—wi’ swords and targets, an’ the Stuart stripe in yer plaids. Are ye come to harry ta auld fat man? huigh! hurra! Cot, an Angus had a dirk himsell, he’d pit it up to the handle in ta fat cairl’s wame.”
While these words of encouragement or inquiry were issuing from the wrathful native, a hurry of steps was heard upon the stairs—the clank of steel, as if of the crossing of swords, sounded in the passage, and with a shout, Fash-na-Cairn! Fash-na-Cairn! the parlour door was burst open, and six wild figures in the full Highland costume rushed in upon the deliberations of the new chieftain and his household. One of the party seized the arm of Aunt Alice; another, with a flat-sided blow of his claymore, laid our heroic friend Copus quietly on the floor; a third took Jane Somers by the hand as she sat retired in a corner of the room, and kept guard over her during the whole of the scene; while the others placed themselves opposite the astonished Ben-na-Groich himself, and pointed their weapons at his throat without saying a word.
“What do you want, gentlemen?” said that individual, with a tremor in his voice that revealed the conflict within. “I’ll give you a cheque for as much as you require—fix your own price! What shall it be?”
“Revenge!” said a hollow voice, proceeding from the chief of the party. “I have you now in my power—the first time after a search of eight hundred years.”
“What have I done? I never did you a mischief; if I did, I’m willing to pay damages, assessed by your own surveyor.”
“Your ancestor, Fin of the crooked finger, stabbed my ancestor, Kenneth of the flat nose, as he dined with him in this hall in the reign of Fergus the First—give me back his blood.”
“Can’t, indeed—haven’t a drop of it, or any one else’s blood; but I will pay the worth of it—only spare my life.”
“Fash-na-Cairn may spare, but on one condition—you have a sister.”
“Oh no, indeed he hasn’t, sir,” said Miss Alice, “she died when she was quite a baby.”
“Speak, dog,” said the ruthless Fash-na-Cairn, kicking Copus as he lay on the carpet; “who is the sister of Ben-na-Groich?”
“That ’ere middle-aged lady with the red nose. That’s our Miss Alice.”
“She must be Fash-na-Cairn’s bride, or the wolf’s skin must cover Ben-na-Groich.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” sighed the disconsolate lady, “will nothing do but that?”
“Even that won’t save him—I see another maiden.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are quite welcome to Jane Somers,” said Miss Alice; “my brother will give his consent directly—won’t you, Thomas?”
“Say the word, and I give you the hand of friendship.”
“What word?” asked the sorely puzzled Ben-na-Groich; “I will say whatever is needful.”
“Does the maiden herself consent?—Bring hither the fair one of the hill.”
Jane Somers was brought forward by her guard.
“Now, Jane,” began the Chieftain, “this here gentleman, Mr Fash-na-Cairn, is anxious to marry some one of my family—are you disposed to save me from murder and robbery by giving him your hand?”
“To save you, my dear uncle, from anything unpleasant, there is no sacrifice I would not make.”
“There’s a dear, good girl,” cried the Chieftain, delighted. “Take her; you are very welcome; and when I get home, which will be in three days from this time, I will send you some marriage presents. If you have any fancy for this estate, you shall have it a bargain; in the mean time let the rest of us get into the carriage, and be off as fast as we can. Come, Copus, get up, you lazy hound—we must be off.”
“Off or not off, sir, I doesn’t budge a foot. I stays with my young missus.”
“Very well, only let us out of the house.” While preparations were making for a rapid retreat, one of the brigands went up to Jane Somers and whispered, “my carriage is waiting on the bridge. Lady Teysham, and the other ladies at my shooting-box, expect us every moment; so be under no alarm.”
Jane bowed her head and yielded to her destiny, and since that time has been as happy a specimen of the married life as is often to be met with. Ben-na-Groich, on finding out the hoax, was too much afraid of the ridicule of his friends to make it public; and to this hour, Aunt Alice tells the most wondrous tales of the lawlessness of the Highlands, and the blood-thirstiness and revenge characteristic of a Scottish Chieftain. “Only to think of people cherishing a resentment for nearly a thousand years, and only satisfying it at last by marriage or murder. Oh, Mrs Hobbins, never believe what people says when they talk to you about the foodle system—the starvation system would be a much better name for it, for the whole country is made of nothing but heath, and the gentlemen’s clothes is no covering from the cold; and besides all that, they are indelicate to a degree!”——
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.