The Last of the Macallisters

Front matter

THE Last of the Macallisters r.v AMELIA E. BARR, Author of " Jan Vedder's Wist," " The Bow of Orange Kil'lion," " Woven 0/ Lose and Glory," &c. ILcn&ort : JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14- FLEET STREET. LONDON : "W. SPEAIGHT AND SONS, PRINTERS, FETTER LANE. CONTENTS. I. CHIEF AND LAW'/JU J II. THE CHIEF'S TRIUMPH 25 III. ASSYNT AND GRACE CAMERON 42 IV. LAIRD ANGUS AND A HORSE-TRADE 69 V. TWO QUARRELS AND TWO PROPOSALS. . . . 90 VI. THE FIRST CLOUD OF THE STORM 1 1 7 VII. THE RUBICON PASSED I42 VIII. THE GYPSY'S REVENGE 169 IX. A PRINCE'S SUCCESS AND A GYPSY'S DEATH. I95 X. THE DEATH OF THE MACALLISTER 223 XI. A FAREWELL 248 XII. AFTER LONG YEARS MACALLISTERS

Chapter I. Chief And Lawyer

" Oh, where are the pretty men of yore ? Oh, where are the brave men gone ? Oh, where are the heroes of the north ? Each under his own gray stone. The chiefs that were foremost of old, Macdonald, and brave Lochiel, The Gordon, the Murray, and the Graham, With their clansmen true as steel." " MacAllister, it is the height of nonsense for you to fret and fume at this rate. Two things you need never be angry at— what you can help and what you cannot help ; and it's plain you cannot help Cameron buying Assynt and Balkerry. Do you know him at all ? " " Know him ! know a trading body who has dared to offer siller for an auld estate, sir ; an estate as auld as the flood, sir ; a deal aulder, sir ; siller scrapit together by some kind o' handi- 3IACALLISTERS. work ! Who was his grandfather ? A puir Glasgo' wabster !

That's a bonnie origin for a Highland chief! Ugh! And what's to come of the MacLeods ? " " They have shaken hands wi' Cameron, and are goin' to turn herring-fishers." " The MacLeods and the Camerons ! Certie ! There's a bonnie pair o' them." " Come, come, Laird ; it is ill sitting in Rome and striving wi' the pope, as the saying is. A man can live without his kin, but he canna live without his neighbors, and I am free to tell you that the wood in the Reay forest wants to be let alone now, and there's that bill due the Perth Bank. It's been noted and protested already, MacAllister, and I'm thinking there is a writ o' horning and caption on the road to Strathleven. I heard of it at Tain." "It is a far cry from Tain to Strathleven, Fraser ; and what does MacAllister care for a wheen lawyer's papers ?

I'll just send a dozen o' my gillies to meet them, and convoy them back o'er the hills again." " That's aboon your thumb, Laird. The law is ower strong for any Highland chief now, and CHIEF AND LA WYER. 7 it's folly to show your teeth — unless you can bite." " It is na twenty years since I went wi' five hundred wild MacAllisters into Moray's land, and every man o' them took his prey." " Ah weel, Laird ! Then was then, but now's the now. The MacAllisters were never saints, nor did they ever get the name o' it." " They were never lawyers, anyway, nor fac tors, nor counting bodies, and you'll never speak against the MacAllisters again, Fraser." " My tongue isna under your belt, Laird." " It's weel you say that under my roof, Fraser. Gude manners you may hae, sir, but you dinna carry them about wi' you."

" If a' things were true, Laird, that would be nae lie. But there's no folly like falling out, and I'm lawyer enough, if I keep my tongue, to keep my siller likewise." " How dare you anger me thus, Fraser ? " Dare is a hard word to crack, Laird." "Umff! Umff!! Umff!!! Better be going, sir. The gate is wide open afore you." But Fraser filled his glass, and tied up care fully some accounts and papers, and then, with his hat in his hand, said, MACALLISTERS. " I shall stay a' night at Donald Du MacAl lister's, and maybe by the morn you'll cool and come to yourself, Laird." Then he went slowly down the mountain path, muttering at intervals : " A man should haud his tongue in an ill time ; and as for MacAllister's anger, I'll never fash my head about it. I ken him as weel as if I had gane through him wi' a lighted candle, and his ill words ate only frae the teeth forward: his heart is a' right.

Maybe I should hae keepit a stiller tongue in my head, but as gude gie the insult as tak' it. And I needna do it again ; once is no custom." Just at this point in his soliloquy he turned a sharp corner in the rocky descent, and for a moment forgot everything but the scene before him. He had been among mountains shouldering one another up to the sky, and there ! another step, and a world of valleys was at his feet ! Valleys like emeralds, and hills like amethyst, and streams of silver tumbling down deep ravines, overgrown with bracken and bell-heather. " It's a bonnie land ! " he cried ; " a bonnie land ! and it would be a sair pity for young Hec tor to lose it. If the auld laird wasna so con trairie, sae aggravating, I would, yes, I would — " CHIEF AND LAWYER. 9 And he turned around in an irresolute fashion and faced Strathleven again.

But he did not return, for clear and cheerily a strong young voice began chanting just below Lim, " Little wat ye wha's coming ! Duncan's coming, Donald's coming, Colin' s coming, Ronald's coming, Dougald's coming, Lauchlan's coming, MacAllister and a's coming, Borland and his men's coming Cameron and McLean's coming, Gordon and McGregor's coming, Ilka dunywastle's coming." " Hector, fair-fa' you, lad ! Why are ye singing these auld-warld rhymes ? Let byganes be byganes, lad. Thae Stuarts are unlucky folk, and ill-luck is catching. Let them alone, Hec tor, your father had trouble enough, in the '15, my lad." •' That may be so, Fraser ; but when my men are tired, or hungry, a lilt about — ye ken wha' — makes the hardest hill as easy as dancing. But you are turning your face the wrong way ; Strathleven is up, not down."

" I know that, but the laird and I hae been •calling each ither ill names ; and I am not going 3IACALLISTERS. 10 back to Strathleven to-night— the morn's the morn — but I am not going back to-night. Yet there are counts to cast, and MacAllister will neither see, nor hear, nor meddle with them." " Where are you going, then? " " To Donald Du's — and you had better come along with me." " If it is needful, yes ; but I must send the lads home, they are tired and hungry." The lads were about a score in number — a score men such as could hardly be found, except in Caithness and Sutherland, giants in stature, in strength, and in heart; "pretty men, every ane o' them," as Fraser admiringly allowed,, though they were all distinctly inferior to the young laird. He said a few words to the gilly nearest to him, and, lifting his bonnet to his companions, motioned to them to proceed with out him.

In this interval Hector's bright face had gathered a slight shadow. He knew that only some event of importance had brought Fraser to Strathleven out of his usual order of coming, and he had lived long enough in Edinburgh to be aware that the lawyer's bills and papers which his father treated with such sublime scorn were capable of holding their own, even in the wilds of Sutherland. But down the narrow mountain path it was impossible to converse, and the two men walked on in silence until they came to Donald Du's cottage. It was a little stone hut of three rooms, very much superior to the ordinary shielings of the MacAllisters ; for Donald Du was the laird's foster-brother, and on him rested the actual di rection of all the chief's orders. He was eating his supper when they entered, and though it was July, the table was drawn close to the peat fire.

" Fa's tat ? Maister Fraser and ta young laird? Come in, shentlemans, her nainsel is glad to see ye baith. Ta porridge is shust ready, and ta fresh feesh, and ta goot whiskey — ta real, right thing, shentlemen." In a few moments the visitors had laid aside their bonnets, and their porridge was before them. " Is it ta whiskey or ta cow's milk ye'll be wanting wi' your meal ? " asked Donald of the lawyer. "I'll just tak' them baith, Donald," said Fraser. Donald was not regarded as any hinderance to a confidential conversation, and when the por ridge had taken the edge off their hunger, and while they sat waiting for the trout broiling on the embers at their feet, Fraser said, " I hae sure information that thae Perth bodies hae sent ass the writ and constables, anent that bill the laird gave, and willna talk about paying."

Hector laughed, but not very pleasantly. "Well," he said, "what can they do?" " They can take the laird away bodily, and clap him within four stone walls, that's what they can do — if they are not hindered." " How can we hinder them, then ? " " No ways but by paying the money. Four hundred pounds sterling ! Hector, lad, it is a big sum." "Her nainsel wadna pay a penny o' it. Turn ta craters free in ta Reay forest, and let them fint their ways hame to Perth again. It will pe a lang time ere they win there — yes, inteet! " " Hout, Donald ! That's fair nonsense." " Gie them ta whole Reay forest. That wad pe vera ceevil." " Senselessly ceevil. The money is due, and the money must be paid. Folk canna eat their cake and hae it too ; Hector kens that as weel as I do." " How can we raise the money ?

" "That is warld-like talk. It is raised, I brought it wi' me. But MacAllister gat into a raging temper every time I spoke of paying it. Donald must get him awa to the Reay forest — there are reasons enough besides the timber, and cattle ; and Hector, you must go off somewhere with that red-hot brother o' yours, or he'll be sure to put a quarrelsome finger in the pie. Then if I am left myself to manage thae limbs of the law, we'll neither kill each ither nor burn the house about our heads." Hector's foot was patting the floor in a very irritable manner, and the frown on his handsome face was a dark one. "It is a just debt, Hector, and a just debt ought to be paid." " I know that ; it is the making of these debts. Don't you see they are ruining the estate? How can they be prevented? " " I have thought o' that, and we'll speak o' the matter anon.

To-night you had better go to Strathleven and do what you may do to get the laird out o' harm's way. It is true that if we pay the debt they canna touch him, but the Laird o' MacAllister isna always laird o' him sel', and his dirk is whiles far too near his hand." There seemed to be no better thing to do, and after some further reasoning with Donald Du — who refused to see any claim superior to Mac- Allister's in the MacAllister's country — Hector went thoughtfully home. Every year he was becoming more painfully conscious that they were living out of time and tune with the great world outside them. Travel and a liberal education had convinced him long ago that a noble estate was being recklessly wasted in an endeavor to avoid dangers that sooner or later were inevitable. To-night he blamed himself severely, perhaps more so than he deserved, for it was no light task that presented itself to him as a duty.

Indeed, it was a task from which an affectionate son might well shrink, since any plan of his for economizing or improving the MacAllister lands must necessarily seem selfish to those in the present enjoyment of them. His father might suspect that he was looking towards the time when he himself would be chief of the Mac- Allisters, and he knew that his brother Angus would keenly resent any curtailment of the ancient glories or privileges of the clan. And Angus was very dear to Hector. In his great love for the lad he threw a heroic glamour over all the wild deeds rumor ascribed to him. It was easy also to make excuses for Angus ; he had never been beyond his native mountains ; his world was Caithness and Sutherland. Out side their boundaries London to Labrador seemed equally remote from his interests and sympa thies.

Of course his education had been faulty, but Hector was not to blame for that. He had often tried to persuade Angus to go southward and enter some famous school, but from childhood the lad had loved a sword better than a book. His mother dying at his birth under very sor rowful circumstances, he had been wholly left to the unreasoning affection of men and women who had taught him mainly two things — the use of weapons and the superiority of the MacAllis ters. So, to Angus, the world revolved in the Mac- Allister country, and the laird of the clan saw in this son his own wild, heroic youth, and loved him for the backward vision. How then was Hector to make clear to them the necessity for turning their swords into ploughshares without laying himself open to suspicions he could not bear to contemplate ?

Busy with such thoughts as these — thoughts in which Angus was somehow always first and last — he lifted his eyes as he felt the soft lawn of the castle court beneath his feet, and saw Angus coming to meet him. Angus was a tall, dark youth in kilt and philibeg, with a face more serious than Hector's, and a stature that in the evening dusk looked almost gigantic. Nor did his appearance belie his real strength ; the dirk in his belt had been won in fair and open contest from Grant of Grant, and the feather in his bonnet plucked by his own hand from the wing of an eagle in the dark fastnesses of Ben More. Yet, unreasonable as Angus frequently was with all others, to Hector he always listened with loving patience ; and now, as he joined him in the court, he said, eagerly, " Hector, I have waited from my bed to; see thee.

Two things have -gone wrong with me to-day, I have quar reled with Ewen, and our father is sair troubled about something. The world is turning wither shins, I think." "Our father has good reasons for trouble, Angus. Come here ;" and the two young men leaned together over the wall which guarded the court, and from which the hill went down on three sides in a sheer precipice of five hundred feet. " To-morrow there will be men here who unless he pays them four hundred pounds, will carry him to Perth and put him in prison." " You are talking foolishness, Hector ; they dare do no such thing " Angus, dear lad, get quickly rid of such dreams. Outside our own land the world cares no more for the chief of MacAllister than it does for the chief of the gypsy camp down at Du chally." " What is to be done ?"

" The money is to be paid." " Where is it to be got ? " " It is got. Fraser has it, but our father will not hear of paying it. Now it must be done, and it may as well be done quietly. So I trust to you and Donald ; you must take the laird away on some pretext to the Reay forest." " When will these men be here ? " " I think to-morrow. Fraser heard of them at Tain, and came on as quickly as possible ; but it is a bad road for those strange to it." " Perhaps they will take the northern pass." " They are sure to do that ; indeed, Fraser had certain tidings of them at Strathdonan yester day You will give your word with mine, Ancms, and keep our father beyond trouble for a few days." " Surely, Hector. A man can only walk as his shoes will let him ; and if we cannot fight a wrong, why I suppose we must bear it."

" Come inside now, Angus, it is getting late." " No, no, there is more for me to do yet. I must see Ewen before I go in ; it is ill sleeping with a drawn dirk between us." " Oh, Angus, you are the noblest lad ! and now I am free to say that you owe it to Ewen. He is your foster-father, and' three times your age, and he loves you almost as well as I do." " All that may be, and yet Ewen may be wrong and I right ; but I must needs see him, so good-night, Hector, and trouble not yourself about the day and the folks you never saw, for all the men in Scotland can do no more than they may do." So Hector went into the castle to talk over affairs with his father, and Angus took the road down the mountain. There was no moon, but daylight lingers long in that latitude, and the solemn gray stillness was only intensified by the whispering of the pines and the soft plashing of the. linn down the rocky defile at his right hand.

Ewen sat at the door of his cottage, and he must have been deeply hurt by their dispute, for he never noticed his favorite's approach. For a moment Angus stood silently over him, then he touched him gently and said, " Ewen, Ewen, there is nothing for misdeeds but amends ; I did you wrong, my father ! I am sorry." In an instant the old man was pouring out in a torrent of Gaelic his love, his sorrow, and his utter devotion to his young chief, and the quarrel ended, as many a quarrel between them had done before, in their weeping upon each other's necks. " And now we shall drink the peace-cup, Ewen, for I have something particular to tell you." They talked earnestly, and yet cheerfully, until after midnight, and then Angus did not return MACALLISTERS. to Strathleven, but lay down in Ewen's cottage upon a pallet of fresh brackens.

Ewen stood some time afterwards in the open door, holding an argument with himself. But at last he seemed to be perfectly satisfied, for, as he lay down, he muttered: " It is petter ta keep ta deil out than to hae to put him out ; aye, is it." In the meantime Fraser was sleeplessly watching out the night in Donald Du's cottage. He missed sorely the comfort of his own feather bed, and the little bachelor luxuries with which he had surrounded himself. " It's a born fool I am to be putting mysel' in danger 'o the rheumatics for a man bound to go to ruin ony way ; and here's a mist thick enou' to wet a hielandman to the skin, no' to speak o' their hot tempers and their hasty hands. I'll e'en win my way hame again as cannily as I can, and let what will be will be." But as soon as the sun rose and filled the val ley with sunshine Fraser felt more like himself.

" Oh, how sweet and fresh is this caller air," he said joyfully, " and the mavis singing on every tree, and the lark awa' up in the lift, and the gowans and bluebells glinting all over the strath. It wad be baith a sin and a shame no' to try and CHIEF AND LAWYER 21 keep the land thegither for that braw lad, Hec tor, for he is warld-like and sensible, so I'll e'en awa up to Strathleven Castle, and see which way the wind sits in MacAllister's temper this morning." He found Donald Du already dressed, and eating his porridge and whiskey in something of a hurry. " Ta laird was going to Strathoikel to see and hear tell o' ta Ross men, and she'll na move a step at a' without her nainsel," he explained. Hearing this, Fraser at once began the ascent to the castle, for he well knew that even giving himself half the distance as a start, Donald's mighty steps would be likely to leave him behind.

He found the hall of the castle in the greatest confusion. Gillies were running hither and thither, buckling garters and belts, packing baskets with oatcakes and Farintosh, or attempt ing to execute a score of orders which the chief thought of at the last moment. There was a strange and perplexing hubbub, made up of Gaelic and English cries, of shrill calls and whistles, of laughter and angry disput ing, and Fraser, seeing how impossible any 3IACALLISTERS. reasonable conversation was, determined to ig nore the quarrel of the preceding night. Of course he expected the laird to be equally conciliating, but that was a step quite beyond the MacAllister's nature. " Come in, Fraser," he said with a lofty condescension, " come in ; you are welcome, though you did set yoursel' up in a blaze yes treen."

" What's in the wind this morning, Laird ? " " As if ye didna ken weel enough, Andrew Fraser ! There's some o' your ain craft coming o'er the hills to tak' me — me mind ye ! — awa' to prison. Heard ye ever the like ? And a' for a miserable screed of a goose-feather! " " Weel, Laird, I'll do a' that may be to settle the matter." " But ye'll pay no siller, Andrew Fraser, not a bawbee. Why should I ? I never saw the color o' their Perth money, not I." " But, Laird, it was paid on your ain hand write to Dalraid & Dounachy for the linsey and tartans I sent you last November." " I tell ye I never saw a bawbee o' it. I ken not if there be such bodies as Dalraid & Doun- CHIEF AND LAWYER. 23 achy. Now what for should I pay back siller I never saw ? " " But the tartans, Laird? " " Umff ! Thae Perth craters ought to be thankfu' that a few yards o' tartan is all their loss.

My father, the gude laird Alexander, would hae gane wi' five hundred men, and just taen a' the tartan he needed, maybe other little matters besides." " Then if I am not to pay the siller, Laird what am I to do ? " "One lawyer ought to ken how to fleece another. It would ill become me, Laird Hector MacAllister, to hae any hobble-shaw anent such matters as wabster's and tailor's bills. Lawyer against lawyer, it will be a proper wrastle, that it will, and dinna you be the one to gie in first." " And where are you going, Laird ? " " It isna quite determined on yet; but I'll be somewhere in the Edderkyles deer forest. They will be brave men that follow me there without a guide, and they will be rich men that can hire a guide in the MacAllister's land. Ane o' them bonnie-looking bogs, not twenty feet wide, wouldna mak a moutfu* o' the Court o" Session and the London Parliament, wi' all the lawyers MACALLISTERS. on King Geordie's rolls thrown into the bargain.

Gude-morning to you, Fraser, there's Hector to stand beside ye, and whatever Hector puts his hand to, I'll say yes to it. There's my thumb on that promise." So at the last Fraser had got what he desired, for he understood that this was simply the laird's way of accepting the thing he knew to be inevit able. "And he must just hae his little bluster if it soothes his pride a bit," said Fraser, apologeti cally, as he watched the laird and his following disappear among the dark woods of Loch Mora. " Paying debts is a hard lesson to learn, if ye dinna start it till ye are mair than saxty years auld "

Chapter II. The Chiefs Triumph

" Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events. And in to-day already walks to-morrow." " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egpyt." " Come in now, Fraser, and have your break last ; my father has gone away as happy as a child on a holiday." Fraser turned in gladly enough ; a breakfast -with Hector meant an orderly, if not a luxurious meal, and when they entered the little parlor where it was laid he could not help a sigh of content and pleasant anticipation. " Ham and corned beef and pies, and kippered salmon and tongue and eggs, and fresh butter and thick cream and marmalade ! Certes, Hector, a good breakfast, and a good appetite, the cause is ex cellent, lad, and the word is ' fall to.' " The order was heartily obeyed, so heartily that it was not until Fraser pushed aside the dish of lordly salmon that he found time to say : " I 3IACALLISTERS. have not seen Angus this morning ; I hope he has taken the same road as the laird."

"I think he has. He slept at Ewen's last night, and Ewen and he were here at dawning. I heard them say they would meet the laird at the hunting-lodge in the Edderkyle." " That is well. I was mair feared for Angus than for his father ; the lad has a double portion o' the MacAllister's temper." " I wonder what is best to do for him ? " " There is nae remedy for temper but in cut ting aff the head — -unless, maybe, marriage. I hae heard that a wife wad tame the sea, and ye could find one for it." And the old bachelor laughed queerly as he added : " For mysel' I waid rather thole the disease than the cure for it. But isa wife wad sort Angus's temper, then I ken the very lassie he should wed." "Helen MacDonald? " " Na, na, it is just bonnie Grace Cameron. Why Hector, she is a kind o' Providence for the MacAllister.

Look here, my lad " — and Fraser bent eagerly forward — "Assynt and Balkerry touch the Edderkyle on the north, and lay easy all along the MacAllister country on the east. They hae bonnie lochs and bays for herring-fishing, and they hae rich marble quarries, and wealth o' garnets and pebble-stanes. It is a natural bit o' your estate, and the lassie is gude and bonnie. Why should we not mak' a wedding o' it?" " But Angus might not love her, and I would never advise him to marry any woman unless he did love her." " That is a' clavers, Hector MacAllister, as it is said, '"There's plenty good love in bands and bags, And siller and gold is a sweet complexion.' Ah ! I mind auld Bailie MacPherson, that was a song o' his, and he heeded it too, for he married wi' a rich widow — Jessie, relict o' Gavin Fraser; she was my ain cousin by marriage sax times removed — all of which is neither here nor there, for I was speaking o' a marriage atween the lands o' MacAllister and Cameron."

"Well, speak no more on such a matter, Fraser ; I would rather lose every acre I am to have than see Angus sell himself for more." " It's no' a bad price for any lad — Assynt and Balkerry." MACALLISTERS. " It is too little for Angus— I believe I saw this Miss Cameron in Edinburgh." " That did you not, sir ! It is four years syne you were in Edinburgh, and Grace Cameron is just seventeen last April, the saxteenth day. I ken that, for she spent her birthday in my poor bit home." " Oh, oh ! your poor bit home ! You know it is the prettiest place in Dornoch. But what was Miss Cameron doing in your poor bit home ? " " Gude reason for her visit, Hector. I did the conveyancing and writing wark for the selling and buying of Assynt, and the inn was dirty and noisy, and so I e'en asked John Cameron and his daughter to stop at my house.

It was an nnca' pleasant thing to see her makin' out the tea in my parlor morn and night ; and when she went awa' I missed her sairly for a while." " Then you know Miss Cameron ? " " Yes. When you ha' lived three weeks in the same house wi' a lassie you may kind o' say you know her — not but what a fifteenth-century deed is easier reading than maist o' them." " Is she beautiful ? " " Bonnie as flowers in May ; dainty-like and high-bred. She ay minded me o' sweet dewy roses and caller air." " What color is her hair ? " " I canna rightly say, but it is ay snooded prettily ; and she has eyes like blue forget-me nots — clear, open eyes, laddie, that look you straight in the face." " She might be a proper wife for Angus. It often grieves me to think I shall have all this es tate, and Angus nothing at all.