But, as the changes took place within what I may call the ring-fence of the clan system, they really only mattered to those who were directly concerned. Corgarff Castle, however, had been held by the same Forbes family in direct, unbroken line, partly because its successive chiefs had strong right arms, partly because the domain had little to make anybody else covetous. The Sabine women whom the old Romans took, would have been the beautiful ones, and it is the same with the face of Mother Earth. What appears best is taken first!
There was no great personal bitterness in the Aberdeenshire Highlands as between clans or families who were on different sides in the "Forty-Five." The ambition, or the greed of chiefs, often determined the sides, and a consciousness of that made lesser men tolerant with each other. Thus, an acquaintanceship between Marget and her mother and myself, although begun under a certain stress of circumstance, passed naturally into friendship, and, on my part, into something warmer. We were of the same Celtic strain, and, in the heart and mind of upbringing, blood tells all the time. But I had not seen much of them, and nothing at all since the tale of the Black Colonel's escape in the Pass had set the countryside talking and, doubtless, secretly rejoicing.
It was a fine thing, a very fine thing, that he should have escaped from the red-coats so perfectly, so dramatically. They were the living tokens of a government which, on every ground of sentiment, was alien to the Highland people, a government, moreover, that had been tactless in its plans and its acts. The Black Colonel stood for a native royal cause which had colour and flair, even if its genius for government had been exhausted.
We soldiers were only disliked for what we represented, for the dry Hanoverian salt we ate, not for ourselves, because most of us were Highland by bone and heart. The Black Colonel was liked for what he represented, rather than for himself. He had, indeed, a way of commandeering other men's goods, when he needed them, that was inconvenient to those others. But there was a strong local pride in his name and achievements, as the name and achievements of a first-rate fighting man, whose sword-handle held in its silver-work the letter "S," standing for Stuart, an allegiance and a challenge never hidden by him.
Naturally, like every other Forbes, Farquharson, or Gordon—I omit none with those names—Marget would be quietly rejoicing over the Black Colonel's success in out-manoeuvring us. I say "us," although I was not in the pursuit, a fact, I reflected, which might relieve me a little of Marget's scorn if she knew. Did she know? Had gossip carried her that news also? It could not tell her that I was out of the chase after the Black Colonel, because I was meeting him privately, and that her affairs were the occasion of the meeting.
Of the dangers wrapped in all this, I was to have an inkling when I did meet Marget, and that came about as if it did not matter, as if nothing matters! I had been up the Don valley with a patrol, was returning, and scarce a mile from Corgarff Castle, when I saw a woman's figure ahead, going my road, a very soft and gracious sight, believe me, against the hill-side. Soon, thanks either to my eyes which could then see far, or to a man's feeling of instinct for the presence of a woman who interests him, I discovered that it was Marget Forbes. She turned round, perhaps at the approaching sound of our steady tramp, or perhaps moved by some unconscious woman's sense, and, as my men passed on and I fell behind them, she said, "Ah, Captain Gordon, where have you been these many days? Chasing the Black Colonel, eh?"
It was said easily, with a half-smile, as if she were alluding to something which had happened since we last met, as, indeed, it had. It was good, however, that the light was failing, because I could feel my face burn, not with shame, but with a confusion in which there was more than the Black Colonel.
"Oh no, Mistress Marget," I answered, "one cannot always be in the company of the Black Colonel, however interesting some of us may find him." This, observe, was intended as a delicate touch for her, but it probably struck her as clumsy, so much finer is a woman's feeling than a man's.
"You found him interesting then," she merely replied. "I'm glad to hear that, because, as a distant relative of ours, he is really one of the men-folk of the family. Perhaps he has some of the nature which, so they say, characterizes our women? His Forbes grandmother or great-grandmother, whichever she was, would have passed it on to him."
She stopped when she noticed the sweet conceit into which she had fallen, for certainly what she had claimed in name of the Forbes women, was richly present in herself. She had sparkle, bloom, charm, that witching, elusive, mixed something in a woman which nobody can describe but which every true man feels, and she looked it all in the gloamin' of that perfect Highland evening.