Cluny Macpherson. A tale of brotherly love, etc

Chapter II. Chapter Iil

CHAPTER IX.

Under the Cloud ......... 204

CHAPTER X.

A New Departure ....... 228

CHAPTER XI.

The Communion Service 245

CHAPTER XII.

Victory Assured 274

CHAPTER XIII.

A Noble Work

CHAPTER I. CASTLE TOR AND ITS INMATES.

'The land ofthe flood and the ben and the glen, And the strong rocky home ofthe brave Highland men." Cluny MacPherson of Tor and Laggan stood upon one of those mighty hills which shoul der each other back from the west coast of Ross shire. Everything around him was two thousand feet high, and MacPherson was only six; but the contrast did not enter his mind. He was "The MacPherson," the head of clan Chattan, and the mountains, and the cattle and sheep upon them were his own. He stood thoughtfully a few minutes, and looked far away over the innumerable peaks of the Highland hills — some of them sublime walls of granite gleamed over with purple and green, and some of them pale with inconceivable dis tance. Then he turned to the great calm ocean in the west, dim with heat and vapor, aud full of small islands rising mysteriously out of it.

A gleam of crimson light from the setting sun threw his figure into bold relief. It was a noble figure, clothed in the many-colored tartans of clan Chat tan, and in its solitary beauty and thoughtfulness it seemed to add some kind of sentient life to the silent, steadfast hills around it. Two fine deer hounds lay at his feet, yet watching him with such attention that the moment he made a movement homeward they bounded before him. He walked with the long springing step which showed him at home upon the heather; but he was very soon arrested by the plaintive cry of a lost lamb. Without a moment's hesitation he looked for the forlorn little creature, lifted it in his arms, and turning aside from his path soon reached a rough stone cottage so completely in a covert of the hills that they formed two sides of it.

An old man sat in the door reading. A ray of light from the dropping sun fell right across the page. It was the book of Joshua, and he lifted a face all aglow to gaze at MacPherson and his burden. "Ye mind me o' the Gude Shepherd, laird; ye are aye findin' some bit stray lammie. " "And I'll tell you what it is, Adam, if you did your duty, you would aye be findin' them yoursel'." "Laird, laird, I'm wrang again. I'll own to that. But what shall I say then? I'm just like an auld war-horse, and when I set out wi' Joshua, and heard the trumpets blowing, and the shouts o' the men o' Israel, I forgot a' ither things but the downfa' o' Jericho. It is hard to hear a bit lammie crying, wi' the noise o' battle in your vera ears." MacPherson smiled. "It's my ain fault, Adam, not yours. You hae cried ' Claymore P in too many battlefields to tak up wi' sheep in your auld age.

But the lads will be hame the morn, and then you can teach them the broadsword exercise. ' ' "Ye ken how it is yoursel', MacPherson." "'Deed do I, Adam;" and the laird drew himself proudly up, and said in a voice full of emotion, " I was at Quatre Bras too ! I carried the colors, and I kept them flying." "That did ye, MacPherson, and through the fiercest pairt o' the fight; for when the tide o' battle was at the full, and the danger was the sorest, it was then we heard the order, ' The Mac- Phersons are wanted now P They kent weel that we were at hame when the cry was Claymore! and the broadswords flashing through the smoke." The old man had risen in his enthusiasm, and the laird put out his hand. For a moment the two men were not only MacPhersons, they were comrades. Then again the laird took the home ward way, and his heart was very tender and much inclined to reflection.

He had had a stormy wandering youth, but it had been followed by a life of happy love and calm retirement. Gener ally he had been content with it, but sometimes, if an old companion dropped a pebble into the pool of memory, it troubled him for an hour, and he grew sorrowful over the successes and honors that might have been. The thought had less power to move him now than in bygone years. All that he had missed his sons Donald and Cluny might attain, for there is nothing more beautiful and pathetic in life than the unselfishness with which parents endow their children with their own hopes. ' ' I hae maybe missed much," he whispered to his heart, "but if the twa lads win at it, that will please me best of all. They hae been well schooled, and will guide gude fortune better than I could hae done."

Thus thinking, he approached Castle Tor. Its most ancient part was a thousand years old and was all lichened over; the modern part had been built within a century. It stood upon the broad plateau or spur of a great mountain, and to look over the western wall of the courtyard was to look down a sheer precipice of four hundred feet, whose base was washed by every tide which flowed. Northward and eastward the wall di vided this court from a belt of pine wood and from the wild mountains, which rose and rose until they were lost in mist and clouds; but to the southward the mountain sloped gently down until it touched the grassy strath and the little fishing village of Tor. This court was of ample proportions, and in deed, before the rebellion of the "'45" had been the gathering-place of the clan in peace and in war.

What wild scenes it had witnessed during the stormy days of the Scotch monarchy ! Here the young chevalier had reviewed the men whom the martial influence of MacPherson had drawn from every mountain glen and misty island. Here with shouts of enthusiastic devotion they had pinned on the white cockade for Prince Char lie; and here in solemn silence they had kissed their bare dirks in sworn loyalty to the Kirk of Scotland and the house of Hanover. But these things were only memories now. Where the wild thanes of the bygone centuries had clashed sword and buckler, the goldfinches were hopping about, twittering upon the pink and purple thistles, and the magpies garrulously chattering under their roof of pine. The sod that had been beaten hard by the tramp of armed men was now little green lawns, bordered by musk car nations, and gold-dusted snapdragons, and stocks in fragrant blow.

Roses were everywhere, and the warm spikes of lavender, and the sweet-william's homely smell; while under the low lattices the delicate and peculiar incense of the white odorous everlastings seemed to breathe a perpetual prayer. At one of these lattices, open to the evening breeze, sat a beautiful woman reading. Beauti ful, though her hair was gray and her form had lost the slender grace of youth; for on her face there was the light of that peace which passeth understanding, and her heart had been for long years at rest. She looked up as MacPherson entered with a smile, and putting a ribbon into her book to keep the place, laid it gently, almost lovingly aside. "Margaret, I have good news for you. The lads will be hame to-morrow. Eh ! but we '11 hae some happy days. There are plenty o' deer and birds on the hills, and I hae spoken to Adam to gie them the broadsword exercise.

Sae they can take a bit leisure, and consider weel what they will do wi' a' the fine schooling they hae got." All the mother-love in her heart leaped into her face, but she was not the woman to say many words about her happiness. MacPherson had drawn his chair towards the few logs burning on the hearth, and she stood opposite him with a letter in her hand. When the conversation about the boys' return was over, she said, "Rory brought me a letter an hour ago from my brother; his daughter Katherine isna just weel, and he wishes her to come to us for a few weeks. ' ' " I 'm not weel pleased at that, Margaret." "And what for are you not pleased, laird?" ' ' Touts ! Women see nae farther than to-day. There's talk o' the French and the pope, but it 's my ain folk that gie me the maist trouble." "It isna like you, laird, to speak sae ill willy."

"There is naething ill said, Margaret, if it isna ill taen. I was thinking o' us having such a happy time, and then comes a young lassie; and there's naething on earth harder to guide, and the lads will be quarrelling about her, and you ' 11 see how it will a' end. ' ' "But how do you know they will quarrel?" "I dinna think we hae any right to expect a special providence to prevent it; and the proba bilities hae run that way for about six thousand years. ' ' "Speak the even-down truth, laird. If Katherine was likely to hae a big fortune, you would na mind the risk o' the quarrel?" "For a big fortune some risks may be lawfully taen. But how can Katherine Maxwell hae any fortune ? Your brother David lives up to his last shilling, and you'll allow that is a vera impru dent thing to do — no to call it by a harder name. ' ' "My brother David has always enough, though he may not hae a superfluity." ' ' And, Margaret, let me tell you that it is the superfluity in money matters that is sae comfor table and convenient.

I 'm no for either o' my lads marrying a tocherless lass. ' ' " That is just the thing you did yoursel', dear laird." "Ah, but, wifie, there isna likely to be twa Margaret Maxwells in the same century. If Don ald or Cluny will bring me as good an excuse for a tocherless wife as their mother, I '11 gie them my blessing." And in the pleasant speech and in mutual smiles the little hearth-cloud passed away. Lady MacPherson went with a happy face into the kitchen to tell Janet — Cluny's foster-mother — that "the boys were coming," and the laird fol lowed her retreating form with a thoughtful ad miration, saying softly to himself, "After a' is said and done, the Maxwells are a gude Border family; and if David Maxwell isna a rich man, he's a very gude man and a deacon in the auld High Kirk o' Edinburgh, and that is an honor that few men can win at. ' ' Janet was baking a batch of oatmeal cakes, and it was evident from the energy with which she rolled and beat them that she was trying in the hard, hot work to relieve herself of some an noyance.

She was a tall, handsome Highland woman of about forty years of age, with bright black eyes and very black hair. She wore a snowy linen cap that was elaborately fluted and ruffled, and a kilted skirt of striped linsey with a white bodice, over this bodice being carefully pinned a kerchief of the clan tartan. Her arms were bare above the elbows — strong brown arms, mighty for labor, and loving, caressing arms that had carried the dying and cradled heroes. She had a temper and a sharp tongue, but her heart was rich as gold and true as steel, and there was not a village lass that served under her to whom Mistress Janet was not for the rest of life the best of friends and the wisest of earthly counsellors. When Lady MacPherson entered, she stopped with the cake in her hand and dropped her a courtesy; then turning to the lasses sitting knit ting silently at the end of the kitchen farthest from herself, she said, "Go awa to your sleep now, and dinna let me find ye in bed when ye should be in the byre to-morrow morn."

When they had folded their knitting and de parted quietly like chidden bairns, my lady said, ' ' Janet, I have some good news for you. ' ' Janet shook her head doubtfully. "I'm no expecting anything good to-day, my lady. The butter wouldna come this morning, and nae ither thing has come right a' day long. As for thae idle lassies, I think they were a' born on a Sun day, and like their wark ready done for them." "Perhaps you expect too much, Janet; they are always busy when I see them. ' ' ' ' Dootless ; there are nane sae busy as them that hae little to do. When I was a lass — " "There was good and bad then, just as there is now; but what think you? The young laird and Laird Cluny are coming home to-morrow !" Janet turned round with an eager face. ' ' The young laird is vera welcome; but oh, my lady, are ye sure Laird Cluny is coming wi' him?"

" Indeed he says so, Janet." "Then the butter can tak its ain way, and the house can gae tapsalterie if it wants to. I'm that glad I dinna ken what to say. Oh, my lady, why did ye not tell me ere this ?' ' " I have just heard myself, Janet; and there is more company coming next week." ' ' The mair the merrier. There is naething mair cheerfu' than a house fu' o' young men, whistlin' here and laughin' there, and off to the hills in the morning and hame to their dinner at night, and the whole village to come and go after them. And there is nane happier than Janet when she can wark night and day to mak them happy. ' ' " I know that, Janet ; but it is not company of that kind we are expecting. It is just my ain niece, Miss Katherine Maxwell; she is fresh hame from the boarding-school, and no feeling very well.

We must make her bright and happy." " Yes, my lady." "She will be a great comfort to me, I ex pect. ' ' " The Lord grant it, my lady !" but somehow Janet's request was not made in a cheerful tone. It was obvious that she had little hope that it would be attended to. "But," she added, more cheerfully, "Laird Cluny is coming, and I'll no bespeak sorrow by thinking o' it. Oh, but I'm the happy woman this night !" and as Lady Mac- Pherson left her she began to lilt at her work, " An' I shall see his face again, And I shall hear him speak ; I 'm downright dizzy at the thought, Indeed, I 'm like to greet." The house was early astir in the morning. While yet the lark was singing at heaven's gates the clear, loud tones of MacPherson's voice were heard in the "morning portion," and the music of the morning Psalm followed it.

Then the mo ther and Janet went together about their pleasant household cares. How happy they were in opening up the lads' rooms and spreading the snowy sheets, and filling the posy-pots with the sweetest flowers ! What consultations they had about game and fish, and Laird Cluny's favorite puddings and cakes ! MacPherson also had his own cares of wel come to attend to. It had struck him in the night that all the clan had a right to share in the joy of the home-coming, and at dawn he had sent messengers to Laggan to gather the men before they went to the hills, and to Tor to prevent the fishermen leaving the harbor. At six o'clock in the evening eight hundred MacPhersons were fol lowing their chief to the little village of Tor to meet the young men. The pipers played cheerfully, and the eight hundred in their showy tar tans quite crowded the little place; while the wo men and children, with their laughter and bright looks, gave a holiday air to a gathering which otherwise might have suggested a different feel ing.

MacPherson was what is called in Scotland "a close man;" but it was evident that he had loosened his purse-strings on this occasion. And when the two young men leaped from their carriage to their native heath, they seemed to well justify the glad preparations made for their recep tion. Two nobler-looking youths never made a father's heart beat with happy love. Young Don ald was tall and dark and stately, and had the free, proud carriage of a mountain deer. As soon as his feet touched the ground he took the laird's hands in his own, and bending low, kissed them. Then eight hundred bonnets were lifted to him, and he raised his own and stood a moment facing his kinsmen, with some light on his brow which in an instant kindled a response to it. Laird Cluny just flung his arms around his father's neck, and every father and son present felt the thrill of that embrace, and answered it with a ringing shout that Lady MacPherson heard clearly as she stood trembling, almost weeping for joy, in the flowery courtyard of the castle.

After passing through the village they came to a little stone cottage standing at the very base of the mountain close upon the highway. The door opened slowly, and MacPherson instantly stopped. A tall, thin man, dressed in black broadcloth, and wearing a black silk skull-cap, and a spotless band of white linen round his neck, came tottering forward. He had a singularly out-of-the-world air about him, and his long hair, falling upon his shoulders, was white as wool, though scarcely whiter than the thin, trembling hands whose momentary uplifting had so instantly stayed the happy marching men. The interruption had not been expected, but it was evidently a source of great satisfaction; for every head was bared as he touched MacPherson's hand and then blessed the two young men. It was a strange and solemn ceremonial, but it gave the whole company a momentary taste of a bliss deeper than the joy of laughter.

There was not a man who did not feel better and nobler for the light of that serene face and the blessing of those frail uplifted hands. And when all the feasting and rejoicing were over, and father and mother and sons sat together in that repose of joy which best satisfies the heart, this little incident was the one on which all dwelt with the greatest pleas ure. Life is not so hard on our expectations as we are apt to imagine. After this meeting MacPher son had many days of the very kind he had anticipated; and in them he first really learned to know something of his sons. They had not been much together for many years, for he had thought it most necessary of all to give them a fine educa tion; and Edinburgh had been selected as afford ing the finest teachers as well as opportunities for the best social intercourse.

Laird Donald MacPherson was twenty-four years old, and Laird Cluny twenty-two ; and Mac- Pherson was rather amazed at the richness and variety of the manhood whicii modern culture and modern travel produce. Not that he felt his own individuality in any respect inferior; he was only aware of the difference, and curious, and half doubtful as to its superiority. But he was in no special hurry to abridge the pleasant holiday they were having together. When the autumn shooting and fishing were over, and the long, dark winter days came, they could talk about the future and its prospects. Indeed, to MacPherson there seemed little to discuss. He was satisfied with the way in which the land was being gradually improved, and the clansmen were also satisfied. The MacPhersons, with very few exceptions, had always taken to the army as naturally as ducks do to the water; Donald and Cluny, he thought, were not likely to diverge far from the family traditions.

It had pleased him greatly to observe how readily both had followed old Adam in his broadsword exercises. The handling of a claymore seemed to come as naturally to both young men as the building of a nest comes to a bird. For both of them had very strongly marked the martial instinct which was their birthright; though in other respects they were very dissimi lar. Donald was girt about with pride and cau tion. His sense of honor was abnormally acute. He valued as dear as his life the privileges of his birth and ancestry. He was quite aware of the value of money and rather inclined to be careful in its use. He loved his father both as his chief and his father; he loved his mother with all the fervor of a deep and undemonstrative nature. Towards his brother Cluny he had an attachment which was the peculiarity of his disposition.

Something of both a father's care and a mother's indulgence was in it. Cluny had a power over him that was a marvel to all who knew the proud, self-contained young chief. In both col lege halls and ladies' parlors men and women soon discovered that Donald MacPherson's heart could be best and easiest reached through his bro ther Cluny. Cluny MacPherson was one of those exceptions that are found in most families. He had none of the MacPherson physical peculiarities. He was bright and fair, with curling nut-brown hair, and blue eyes which flashed and scintillated when he was excited, but were dark and tender when he was swayed by a softer mood. He was a brilliant scholar, but not a profound one; a ready debater, an eloquent speaker, an apt versifier of classical odes. To these accomplishments were added a frank, cheerful, confiding air and a manner of great natural fascination. Women hardly ad mired him more than men did; but nobody loved the gay, handsome fellow as his brother Donald did.

CHAPTER II. CHOICE OE

A PROFESSION. " We know what we are, but know not what we may be." IT is better for a man to be brought up at a good mother's knee than at the feet of a Gama liel. Brilliant scholarship was not the best bal last for a mind so many-sided and impressionable as Cluny MacPherson's ; and the society of the "young Edinburgh Reviewers" had not been fa vorable for the highest growth of his character. Still the lad was morally healthy, and the simple honesty and sweet purity of his father's and mo ther's lives was to him like a breath of clear, caller mountain air after the glare and heat of a crowded room. In those bright autumn days he became very dear to every heart in Castle Tor, for the lad's very presence in the home was a holiday, and his smile had all the effect of sunshine. One day the laird and Cluny went to the hills alone.

Don ald had some letters to write and remained at home. It was a hot day at the end of August, and while resting together under the pines at the 'WHILE RESTING TOGETHER THE LAIRD BEGAN A CONVERSATION WITH CLUNY ABOUT HIS FUTURE." s Pan noon hour the laird began a conversation with Cluny about his future. ' ' The MacPhersons are a' soldiers, Cluny. I carried the colors of the clan in Spain, in India, and at Waterloo. Then the death of my dear fa ther, the Laird Angus, made it necessary for me to take his place. Donald will dootless do as I did; and as for you, my ain lad, what can be bet ter for you than to buckle on your broadsword and stand for the honor and glory of auld Scot land?" "Her honor runs with my heart's blood, father. If a man said a word against her, or did her the smallest wrong, I would lift her quarrel with both hands.

But I dinna care to play at sol diering. A life in barracks is just a weariness. I know more than one o' the officers in Edinburgh Castle, and I would rather sail to the Arctic seas and harpoon whales than go to a drill every day, and perhaps fight in an unjust cause !" MacPherson looked in the glowing, positive face, and somehow felt it wise to drop the subject. Cluny was the Joseph of his heart; he could not bear to mar the happiness of the day by any un profitable dispute. "Besides," he said to him self, "wherever Donald goes there Cluny will go too ; and the sons of the MacPherson have aye been soldiers." The possibility of any other career for them was a suggestion that was full of ir ritation to him. That very day Katherine Maxwell unexpected ly arrived. Her coming had been put off from time to time, and there had been such difficulty in find ing an escort for her that her visit had ceased to be regarded as very probable.

But an old friend of her father's, on his way for a month's shooting at a point fifty miles north, had taken charge of the young lady; and about the middle of the afternoon Donald, coming in from a ramble in the pine wood, found her drinking a cup of tea with his mother. Although Katherine's home was in Edinburgh, the cousins had never met. Kather ine had been motherless from her birth, and dur ing the years devoted to her education she had mainly resided with an aunt living near Glasgow. In fact, there had always been a kind of cross fate in any attempt of the cousins to meet each other; and the hope deferred from time to time had lost all its warmth and charm. But Donald had been accustomed to the soci ety of ladies and was not at all embarrassed by the unexpected meeting. Many a beautiful wo man had looked kindly on the young chief, and it is but just to say that his stainless honor and high character had won their favor quite as much as his handsome person or his high lineage.

For good women do love good men best, whatever modern novelists may say. Donald, however, had never been in love, and he was far too honest to affect the passion. Cluny was of a different tem per. Already he had sought his brother's sympathy in two or three such "affairs," which he really felt at the time to be heart-breaking. And Donald had guided and borne him safely through these dangerous impulses, telling him always that they were but the preluding notes — often very discordant ones — which would eventually introduce the grand symphony of a true and per fect affection. How it came to pass that Donald felt himself in the first moment of his meeting with Kather ine Maxwell irresistibly attracted to her, is one of those mysteries whose solution may have de pendencies beyond our mortal ken, for no man yet has ever been able to give the why and the wherefore of love.

Katherine was indeed a rarely beautiful girl, but Donald had seen many beau tiful women before. It was not her hair, though it was yellow as dawn ; nor her eyes of deep blue, though they were clear and full of a sweet seren ity; nor her face, though it was like a fresh rose; nor her figure, though it was slight and tall and full of grace. Far less was it her dress, which was peculiarly simple and quiet. But her influence was soon felt to be a power that few could resist. The laird had forgotten in a day that she would have no fortune, Cluny was visibly in love with her, and Lady MacPher son frequently found herself trying to determine which of her boys Katherine would suit best. Only Adam and Janet resolutely resolved not to be pleased with her. Adam had now been pro moted to the charge of Lady MacPherson's flower beds, a position which gave him great delight and which he filled with a wonderful skill, for he seemed to have a kind of instinctive knowledge of the needs and peculiarities of flowers.

But he also gave the young lairds daily lessons, and he had come to look upon them as under his charge, and to be jealous of any undue influence which he considered antagonistic to his own. Janet intimated her opinions about Miss Max well in a dour, dissenting silence; Adam was no way averse to express his, even to Lady MacPher son. "It is sorrow and trouble enough ane honest man o' the gardening trade got wi' fashing him sel' wi' a woman; and I 'se never looked in her fair, fause face, for they are a' fair and fause the warld over." "You are a prudent man, Adam," said my lady, smiling. " I come o' prudent folk, my lady." ' ' And were you never married ?' ' " I 'm no the man to go seeking sorrow." "But suppose, Adam, you could have had just such a wife as you desire, what would she have been like?" ' ' I never asked o' Providence a charge I couldna keep; but an I was asking for some ither body — say for Laird Cluny's sel' — I would want her first to be truthful in a' her ways, having the fear o' God and her husband always before her e'en.