Highland Legends

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

But Sir John’s more frequent opportunities of meeting with Bigla were soon afterwards again happily renewed by the return of Gibbon More to Kincherdie; and, by the ingenuity of the page, these stolen interviews passed over undiscovered even by the lynx-eyed Hector, whose energies were by this time somewhat diverted from their wonted watchfulness, by a certain newborn affection which had recently possessed his bosom for the fair maid Agnes.

It happened on one occasion that Gibbon More chanced to go to a fair or market at Inverness. The streets were crowded with people, as well as with horses, cows, and oxen of all sorts. There might have been observed the eagle-winged bonnet of the chief, followed by his tail of clansmen and dependants; and chieftains were seen promiscuously mingled with cattle-boys, gillies, and serfs of every degree and denomination, thronging the public way. Many were the friendly salutations, and many the flashes of hostile defiance that passed among the various personages who, coming from distant parts of the country, chanced on that day to meet each other. Often was the authority of the provost, the bailies, the sheriff, and other officials called into operation to quell embryo quarrels, and sometimes it was all that the united forces of these public functionaries could do to keep the restless and bloodthirsty dirks and claymores in their sheaths. Rarely did the mantled and well-wimpled damsels venture forth amidst the complication of dangers that were to be encountered at every step from the prevalence of those quarrels, as well as from the horns of the cattle and the heels of the horses. They contented themselves with saluting their friends from their open lattices; and many were the warm though distant acknowledgments that took place between the young and the fair ladies, who, whilst they were ostensibly occupied in gazing at the marvels in the street,—at the jesters and mummers who jingled their bells, or grinned with their painted faces, and trolled their rude and threadbare rhymes to ditties as unpolished, the pretty creatures were in reality altogether overlooking these vulgar absurdities, and were holding interesting conversations by signals, only known to themselves, with their handsome Highland lovers in the street.

Bigla Cumin was an heiress of consequence, but she was moreover very beautiful, so that many were the eyes that sought her as she sat at a lofty balcony in the house of a burgher friend of her father’s, and not a few were those who endeavoured, and endeavoured in vain, to obtain one glance of recognition from her. I do not mean to say, however, that the lass was haughty, but she bore herself with the modesty befitting her years and her sex. There was but one on whom she did vouchsafe to look with an eye of yespecial favour, and that was Sir John Grant. Her heart beat in double time when he and his father, Sir Patrick the Lord of Stratherrock, passed by in their gay red and green tartan, which, except in its broad blue lysts and in its want of those pure white sprainges which enliven that of the Cumin, had so general a resemblance to it, that at a little distance they might have been easily mistaken for each other. When the rays from her bright eyes shot across the street in a condescending smile in return for the more than merely courteous reverence which he made to her, their sunshine was concentrated, if I may so express myself, as if it had been met by the burning glasses of that most wonderful man Archimedes, and it was returned to her in one melting focus of adoration.

“Angel that she is!” said Sir John to his father.

“She is an angel, indeed, boy!” replied the elder knight; “and, moreover, there be angels enow in her father’s coffers, not to mention those broad acres of his which would give to the Grants so pretty a little principality in Strathspey. Stick to her, boy! She is well worth the winning.”

“Would I could but have an interview with her, freed from all chance of interruption from her old father!” said Sir John in a tone of vexation.

“Trust to me, dear master,” said Archy Abhach in a whisper, as at that moment he plucked the knight’s sleeve. “Watch well thy time! I have seen some one in the town here to-day who will be right willing to lend thee a helping hand.”

Gibbon More was not wont to go without the following of a chieftain on such occasions as this; and he generally bore his portly person over the crown of the causeway with a dignity which, when at home, he laid aside with his best bonnet, doublet, and plaid. The recognition between him and his new neighbour, as he called him, was remarkably warm and friendly on the part of Sir Patrick Grant, and very stately and condescending on his own side. His eyes were offended at the sight of the two Grants and their followers, and he sought relief from them in looking at a beautiful black palfrey which a West Highland gilly was leading down the street. The prancing, the caracoling, and the menage of the animal showed that it had been bred of the gentlest Arabian blood in some far away English pasture.

“Ho!” cried Gibbon, stopping the man. “Who is the owner of that beautiful creature?”

“I am the owner, sir,” replied a sharp-eyed little man, right well accoutred both as to his arms and garb, but having no remarkable signs of any great rank about him.