The Macdonald Lass. A study from last century

Front matter

I I I THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. Library Editions, many Illustrated. Crown Svo. , cloth extra, y. 6d. eoxh. By F. M. ALLEN.— Green as Grass. DUTTON COOK.-Paul Foster's Daughter. E. H. COOPER.— Geofiory Hamilton. By V. CECIL COTES. Two Girls on a Barge. By MATT CRIM. Adventures of a Fair RebeL By GRANT ALLEN. Strange Stories. The Devil's Die. Philistia. i Babylon. This Mortal Coil. The Beckoning Hand The Tents of Shem. In all Shades, [ter. The Great Taboo. Dumaresq s Daugh- Blood Royal. i The Duchess of Ivan Greet's Master- By B. M. CROKER. Pretty Miss Neville. Proper Pride. A Bird of Passage. " To Let." Diana Barrington. A Family Likeness. By WILLIAM CYPLES. Hearts of Gold. Powysland. piece. For Maimie's Sake. The Scallywag. By EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD. Phra the Phœnician. I The Constable o: The Constable of St. Nicholas By ALPHONSE DAUDET.

The Evangelist ; or, Port Salvation. By ERASMUS DAWSON. The Fountain of Youth. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. | A Fellow of Trinity. \ The Junior Dean. The Master of St. Benedict's. By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. By JAMES DE MILLE. A Castle in Spain. By J. LEITH DERWENT. Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers. By DICK DONOVAN. Tracked to Doom. | Man from Manchester By A. CONAN DOYLE. The Firm of Girdlestone. i Red Spider. I Eve. \ By ROBERT B." By ROBERT BARR. In Steamer Chair. | From Whose Bourne. By WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. My Little Girl. The Seamy Side. Case of Mr. Lucraft. Ten Tears' Tenant. This Son of Vulcan. Ready-Money Mort. TheGoldenButterfly. With Harp & Crown. By Celia's Arbour. In Trafalgar's Bay. Monks of Thelema. Chaplain of the Fleet By WALTER BESANT. All Sorts and Condi- , Uncle Jack. By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES.

Archie Lovell. By G. MANVILLE FENN. The New Mistress. ] Witness to the Deed. PERCY FITZGERALD.— Fatal Zero. tions of Men. | Children of Gibeon. I The Captains 'Room. Herr Paulus. All in a Garden Fair. The Bell of St. Paul's By R. E. FRANCILLON. Queen Cophetua. One by One. A Real Queen. King or Knave ? Dog and his Shadow. Ropes of Sand. Prefaced by SIR H. BARTLE FRERE. Pandurang Hari. By EDWARD GARRETT. The Capel Girls. Ey PAUL GAULOT.— The Red Shirts. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray. | Of High Degree. The Golden Shaft. | Loving a Dream. The Flower of the Forest. The Bell of St. Paul's Tho World Went To Call Her Mine. Very Well Then. The Holy Rose. For Faith & Freedom St. Katherine s by Dorothy Forster. the Tower. Verbena Camellia Armorel of Lyonesse Stephanotis. The Ivory Gate. By ROBERT BUCHANAN.

Preface

. VI Gaelic, which is not " understanded " by the many, what else could they have spoken save Lowland Scotch, since they heard no other form of the Saxon tongue — shall we say? Those of them who could read might study English pure and undefiled in books, but as a spoken language it was all but unknown to them. This was true even of the higher classes accustomed* to visit Inverary, Inverness, Perth, Edinburgh, and Glasgow — even London itself on occasions. The visitors' intercourse was still almost entirely confined to the Scotch gentry and upper middle classes, speaking the modified Scotch in common use among educated Scotch men and women, a hundred years ago. In the few letters written by Flora Macdonald which have been pre served, she expresses herself as any Lowland Scotch gentlewoman would have written : she tells us that she is "fond" yet frightened to hear news of the absent members of her family ; she calls two of her sons "Johnnie" and "Sandy," not " Ian " and " Alaister," as some modern critics would have had her do.

I may mention, by the way, that she names her house "Kingsbarrow," not " Kingsburgh." S. T. CONTENTS. CHAFTEK PAGE T. i " If you had been where I have been You ivadna be sae cantie." Old Scotch Song. ii. IS " The women are a* gane zvud." Old Scotch Song. in. 33 44 / see a hand you cannot see.'' Old Ballad. IV. 44 44 And wliere was't that your Prince lay doon, Whose hame should been a palace f " Glen. V. 59 ' Far ha'e I ridden, and muckle ha'e I seen. But o' lang-bearded itiilk-maidens saw I iiever a?ie." Old Song. VI. 70 44 Row weel, my boatie, row weel: Row zoeel, my merry men a' ! " Old Song. VII. 79 "But when the bird saw some red-coats It s/wok its wings wf anger." Glen. CONTENTS. FACE

CHAPTER VIII.

... 9S " Blythe, blythe and merry was site, Blythe was she, but and ben." Burns. II I IX. .. " Wat, wat, zvat and zveary.' Old Song. 124 X. .. " This morn is merry June, I trow. The rose is budding fain ; But it shall bloom in winter's snow Ere we two meet again, my love, Ere zve two meet a?ain." Old Song. 138 XL .. Farewell, my young hero, Vu gallant, t/u young ; The crown 0/ thy fathers is torn from thy brow." James Hogg. XII. 151 44 For here not langer maun I stay'' Old Song. XIII. .. 166 " A nd coning events cast their shadozvs before." Campbell XIV, 1S0 The ship rides by the Berwick Laze." Burns. XV, IS7 " T/w cup which c/teers, but not inebriates," Ccniper. XVI. .. •95 " Thou'rt gane azva', tliourt gane azt-a*, Thou'rt gane azva'frae me, Mary." Old Song. xvn. . 203 "Oh, siccan quarters / was in last nicht ' The Gaberl/oizie Man COjVTENTS.

IX CHAPTER PAGE XVIII 214 w Give her of the fruit of her stands ; and let her own works praise her in the gates." — Proverbs. XIX 225 '* TJiefire thafs blown on Beltane e'en May weel grow cauld gin Yule7' Old SoJig. XX 232 " Wot ye wha's in yon toon ? " Old Song. XXI 245 '* Fye ! let us a' to the bridal " Old Song. XXII. ... ... ... ... ••• 252 " And aye the owercome d his sang Was ' Woes me for Prince Charlie* " Glen.

Epilogue

. I. ... ... -.. ... ••• ••• ••• 266 " The grimly ghost of Samuel Johnson." Johnson. 11 r 274 " Ower the hills and far awa'." Old Song. Ill 2S4 " Hame, /tame, hame, Oh, hame fain wnd I be .' " Allan Cunningham,

Chapter I

'■' If you had been where I have been You wouldna be sae cantie." Old Scotch Song. On a June afternoon, a Highland girl was walking along a rough sheep-track on the east coast of one of the smaller islands of the Hebrides. Summer does not come early in these Northern latitudes. Neither the red ling nor even the purple bell heather was making any show, and the patches of oats and barley were not in the ear. Yet the vivid and varied colouring was the most striking attribute of the treeless landscape. The intense green of the narrow strip of cultivated land over which the moist west wind blew, was one element in the scheme of colour. Other elements were the browns, olives and grays of the moors, the pearly whites, peacock blues, shell lilacs, orange or rose reds, daffodil yellows of sky, sea, and mountain range, altering as the hours of the day altered and the clouds came and went.

These were not content with sailing across the wide stretch of sky and sea, they sailed also, in substance or in shadow, over the beetling breasts and hunched backs of the mountains. And there were eyes of light hiding and B revealing themselves, in the shape of innumerable tarns, which, like so many gleaming cairngorms ornamenting the handle of a dirk, were thickly set in every peat bog and mossy hollow of the hills. The girl, who was walking along with the firm, elastic step of one well accustomed to a hill-road, had not much attention to spare for the scenery. She went on with a preoccupied air. If she looked at anything, it was to cast an occasional quick inquiring glance at the Little Minch, the wide channel separating the Long Island from Skye. The Minch, having an unusual number of boats, smacks, cruisers whose build was discernible to sharp, practised eyes on the islands, became visible at intervals to the wayfarer.

Always when she came to these favour able points of view, with which she must have been familiar beforehand, her preoccupation did not hinder her from carefully scanning the sea and its burden. Her age could have been little over twenty. Her dress was the plain neutral-tinted homespun of the country, which few summer days in the locality rendered too warm for the season. Her feathered hat and the stockings and shoes she wore were the chief marks of distinction between her dress and that of the girl who went bare-headed and bare footed, with only her plaid to shelter her from sun or rain. This better-born, better-bred country-woman might have been a daughter of one of the smaller lairds, or bigger " tacksmen " or tenants of the great land holders on the islands. Socially, it did not signify much to which division she belonged.

The tacksmen were as "good" gentlemen as the lairds, to whom they were generally near of kin. The tacksmen's sons had tutors like the lairds' sons, not seldom in company with them, and went into the army or the navy when their education was completed, in a similar fashion. The tacksmen's and smaller lairds' wives and daughters visited on terms of equality with the ladies of the great houses. Some of the poorer ladies, as in the case referred to, had also seen a little of the world. They had journeyed south as far as Glasgow or Edinburgh, had mixed in the best society of the capitals of the west and east of Scotland, and could not only play their Highland pibrochs and laments on the spinet, embroider ruffles and read a little French, they could comport themselves with all the ease and grace of the most cultivated women in the three kingdoms.

It would have been impossible to mistake this girl, however simple in her dress and practical and independent in her habits, for anything else than a gentlewoman. The path she followed led round a rocky corner to a steep descent which brought her to the side of one of the brawling burns — as plentiful as the little lochs. The burn was not too deep — unless in the frequent floods — to render anything more than the row of slippery, unsteady stepping-stones necessary for crossing it. When a flood was in force the resource was about as primitive as the original means of com munication. The pedestrian either swam, took another road over the hills, or waited till the water fell. There was no one on the stepping-stones when the girl, half running, half sliding by the momentum of even her light weight and the steepness of the decline, reached the edge of the water, at which she stopped short without making any movement to cross.

There was not a living creature in sight, except a kite wheeling overhead, the tail of a flock of ragged sheep looking up from their nibbling in blank surprise and alarm at the intruder on their territory, and a group of long-maned, long-horned Highland cattle, which contented themselves with tossing the hair from their red-brown eyes and philosophically contemplating the new-comer. She, on her part, regarded them with corresponding philosophy. Among her town-bred acquirements she had not picked up an inconvenient dread of the " stots " and " stirks " which represented a great deal of the animated nature around her. She had not long to wait. Although there were no alders or saughs to serve as a lurking-place, and the only long, big blue stone was not high enough to afford a suitable shelter, yet a man, who must have been lying flat on the ground behind it, got up and came towards her.

He did not take her by surprise, for her " Good morning to you, Captain O'Neal," did not sound more agitated than his " Good morning to you, Miss Macdonald." Yet if ever man had the air of a vagrant and vagabond who might have seen better days, but must have sunk to +he lowest depths of degradation, it was this strange specimen of a gentle man. His short coat was bleached to an indescribable colour, and worn to a thread-bare texture. Morsels of the withered grass, and flakes of the sheep's wool among which he had been lying, were sticking to it, and he had not taken the trouble to shake them off. His trews were ragged at the foot and stained at the knee. His boots were the common brogues of the country — filthy for want of cleaning, and having leather thongs in place of buckles. He had a battered cap on the head — the very hair of which was matted and unkempt, and looked as if it had not seen powder or riband for many weeks.

He wore his coat buttoned up to his neck, awaken ing the suspicion that his cravat and linen, if he retained such accessories, were beyond appearing in public. He had not been shaven for several days. His skin was tanned and hardened till it might have been leather. He was as thin as a greyhound, and his eyes looked out beneath his brows with the expression of a hunted and famished animal. He was in the act of undergoing the penalty from which the warlike King of Israel shrank — choosing by preference three days of the noisome pestilence — he was fleeing for three months before his enemies. Withal, he took off his cap, and made his bow like a finished gentleman. Deplorable as his condition was, it was possible to conceive that not so very long ago, for he was still a young man, he might have been " a pretty fellow."

The girl who had come to meet him stepped up to him without any sign of repugnance, or apprehension, and asked with interest, in a low tone which could not be heard beyond the small area the couple occupied, " Is all right ? What of his Royal High ness to-day?" " Oh, he has nothing in particular to complain of," answered the man, with the easy manner of a mercurial person who has come through the worst, and is therefore disposed to make the best of a lull in the misfortunes which are too general to have a special application. " He has been diverting him self — he is not ill to divert — with the Courant and the Mercury Lady Clanranald sent him last night. His toothache has been less troublesome." " Poor fellow ! " said the girl, with a depth of single-hearted pity untinged by any other sentiment, remarkable, under the circumstances, in a woman and a young woman.

" You see I'm doing my best to furnish him with soft eating," said O'Neal. And with a grin which exaggerated the boniness of his lantern jaws, he half pulled a couple of eggs out of his soiled and torn pocket. "You must not ask too closely how they were come by, more by token that I was not far from your own brother's hen-roosts this morning. But matters cannot continue as they are." He suddenly lapsed into seriousness. "I hope you understand that, Miss Flora Macdonald,"— drawing nearer to her in his turn, and peering wistfully into the face shaded by her hat and the droop of her head. "I have twice had to give the go-by to the soldiers — not your militia men, but the cutters' men, since morning. I hear there are more sloops of war lying off the entrances to the Minch, and that their boats are guarding every sound and loch on the coast.

We're fair hemmed in, and they'll close in upon us before many more days are past. You'll do what you promised, you will not go back from your word ? You would not bring the Prince's head to the block, with ruin to the cause, and undying shame to the country, rather than risk a little venture of exposure and danger on your part ? " "I am not one to go back," she answered a little proudly. " I will be doing what I promised. You have no reason to doubt me, Captain O'Neal. And as to its being a prince I'm seeking to save, I hope I would not be behind in trying my best for the poorest creature alive, in such mortal peril." " True for you," replied the Irishman, adding, with native smartness of repartee, "but while poor wretches are as plentiful as blackberries, princes in adversity, to whom mighty crowns belong by right, are less often to be met with."

" I never questioned it," she answered with grave simplicity, "and I trust I do not fail in what is due to such high claims as he has, for, if he is not the son of our lawful king, as some say, none can dispute that he is the grandson of our king, the last James Stuart, who reigned over this kingdom. But I would have you know, sir, that though I feel for the Prince, from the bottom of my heart, and would do anything in my power to serve him, it is quite as much to help my good old friends, Clanranald and his lady, that I'll move in this matter. They are in misery about their son, who is in jeopardy. They are likewise in sore concern for the plight of the Prince, who has thrown himself on their protection. It is to do them a kindness, and to spare them a farther weight of trouble, which is driving them doited and breaking their hearts, that I am willing to anger my brother, to bring scathe to my nearest friends, and maybe to endanger my own life and liberty, by taking the step which you profess to hold of so little account."

He saw instantly that he had made a mistake in seeming to under-value the task required of her. "I know," he said hesitatingly, and at the same time with a little gesture of despair, a quick sigh, and an impulsive throwing out of a weary arm and a sunburnt hand. "It is a great deal, a very great deal for me and the Clanranalds to ask of any young lady, however brave and discreet. If there was any other way we could turn " " There is no other way," she said decisively, "and you have not asked in vain. Only I would have you know that it is not a light ferlie that has been proposed to me. You spoke, moreover, Captain O'Neal, of black shame to the country if the Prince were taken. I do not deny it, but I would have you and him remember — though I am not saying it out of a greater grudge than I can help — that he has cost the country a deal already.

I do not speak of those who have fallen fighting for his rights on the field of battle, or even of those who have suffered in the shootings and headings and hangings at Carlisle and Preston, Inverness and London. I will be thinking of the helpless women and poor men and lost bairns found dead of cold and starvation among the heather. What of the great houses that stood up for them and sheltered them — the houses of Glengarry and Kep poch and Lochiel and many another ? Burnt, stripped, and cast to the four winds." " It was a great enterprise," said O'Neal, looking down, and crushing the pebbles with the nails in his shoes ; " if it misgave for a time — I say for a time — there could not fail to be suffering, but it will all be made up when King James comes into his own." " He means that, and he meant it all the time, no doubt," she admitted frankly; "but can he bring back the dead, or build again the roof-trees that are fallen?

It was from first to last no more than a bare peradventure, how bare I leave you to reckon, when he landed, not with an army or a navy at his back, but with seven gentlemen, who, though they had been the seven champions of Christendom, could have done little in their own persons to win back three kingdoms." Considering that O'Neal himself was one of the seven who had, with a single exception, all to gain and nothing to lose by plunging an unfortunate country, at that time in comparative peace and prosperity, into the horrors of civil war, she could not be accused of lack of plain speaking in conducting her share of the conversation. As for the singular amount of common sense and humanity in her speech, she had spent weeks in the company of such a Whig as Duncan Forbes of Culloden, the intimate friend of her chief, Sir Alexander Macdonald, the lineal representative of the Lords of the Isles.

O'Neal flushed hotly through his shrunken and weather-beaten skin. " The Prince cast himself on the loyalty of his father's subjects ; he trusted to them entirely," he said stiffly. " He did," said Flora, " and they rose at his bidding, many of them. Then, when fortune failed him at Culloden, he was ready to leave them to pay the piper, and to get back to France at any price." "Miss Macdonald," said O'Neal, passionately, "if any man spoke to me as you are speaking, I would let him see that I had still a sword and pistols under this coat. The Prince, poor royal lad, was foremost in every march and in every encounter with the enemy. He was ready and willing to endure the greatest hardships with the poorest man in the ranks. It was not his fault, I can bear my testimony — he begged and implored, ay, he wept like a woman to those who had the ordering of the army that they should go on to London, and not beat a retreat at Derby, which was the beginning of our misfortunes.

But now our back is at the wall, and even those on whose old fidelity and gentleness of heart we counted to come to our aid, are ready to turn against us." " What have I said ? " cried Flora, half bewildered, half indignant. " I have spoken no words that should draw down a reproach like that you are casting at me and my friends. I did not lichtly the Prince's gallantry, though I blamed his recklessness. Nor do I go with them who are ready to enter on a game and play it with spirit, so long as the sun shines and the wind is fair or moderate fair, but when the gale blows in their teeth, and the thunder and lightning and hail and the strong tide itself are all against them, will fling it up and leave who will to bear the wight, while they make their escape to wait for better times. They say, Captain O'Neal, that after Culloden the Prince had word there were as many as two thousand Highland men mustering at Ruthven, and biding his pleasure, and that instead of joining them aud playing out the game he had begun of his free will, till he compelled fortune to turn, or till he shed the last drops of his and their blood, or at least till he made terms for his followers, he sent to them to disperse, well knowing the reprisals they would have to suffer, while he took his way to the coast to hail the first French ship that might be dispatched for his rescue."

" I cannot tell," said O'Neal, with a shade of sullenness in his face and voice. " I suppose he saw that the chance was gone, and would spare the clans from worse befalling them. It was for my Prince to judge and command ; it was for me, and the like of me, to submit and obey. But you have never seen him ; you cannot tell what a charm he has to win and keep hearts." The speaker's face grew eager, and his tone almost buoyant again. " I have heard he is very bonnie, and has a pleasant tongue in his head," said Flora, composedly. "I'll not deny that, woman-like, I've been fain enough to see and hear what has turned so many heads, if I had not gotten too good reasons to keep out of the stir." "Ah!" burst out O'Neal impulsively, speaking his thoughts aloud, " if he had but come himself and spoken with Sir Alexander and Dunvegan, in place of contenting himself with winning over young Clanranald and old Raasay, and sending messages to the others " "Then," Flora interrupted him, "he would have been short of a refuge.

It would not have mattered much, so far as I can see, to the poor gentlemen, who protested against his expedition and refused to take part in it, to whom he has come, after all, to get him out of the scrape, at their own proper peril. But, if both the Long Island and Skye had been given up to blood and fire, like the mainland, as he would have had them if he had gotten his will, where could he have found the poorest bield, or how could you or any body else have bespoken help, from a young woman like me, for a Prince like him ? " "You are hard upon us, Miss Macdonald," said O'Neal, gloomily. " Hard words, if they be true — and the truth does not often reach the ears of princes, whether they be seated on a throne or reduced like a beggar to a midden — break no bones. Neither does it follow that they will hinder merciful deeds.

I am ready to take your Prince over to Skye, sir, this very night." He looked up, and his face grew bright on the instant. He had not the smallest fear of her sincerity, he did not even trouble her with the effusive thanks and flattering praise, for which he had a perception that she would not care a straw. Yet, as his glance took in the figure and face before him, a sudden sense of the desperate insufficiency of the remedy for a desperate situation took possession of him, and almost tempted him to laugh aloud, in the midst of his gravity and anxiety, after his many days of destitution and distress. Who was this deliverer on whom he and the Clanranalds were building their hopes ? He looked at her fully. She was but a slip of a girl not far advanced in her twenties. Her stature hardly reached the middle height, and she was slightly made.

She was no more a dauntless Amazon with strength and skill to wield arms, than she was a powerful chieftainess with hordes of devoted clansmen at her command. She was well-born and well-bred — that went without saying — but she was of mediocre rank. She was the sister of Angus Mac donald, owning the small lairdship of Milton, the step-daughter of Hugh Macdonald, the militia captain and tacksman of Armadale, and the grand-daughter of the parish minister of South Uist — a respectable, but not an illustrious descent. Her face was not even that of an enthusiast. The complexion might be called fair, so far as the brown hair, combed back and falling in long curls on the neck and shoulders, in the fashion of the time, and the well-opened blue eyes were concerned ; but the girl's perfect health of body and mind, together with the sun and wind to which the face was freely exposed, had served to redden and embrown it well-nigh to the rich tints of a brunette.

The forehead was round and prominent, so were the cheek bones, as became her nationality. The mouth was large, but with fine curves at once firm and full, and the white sound teeth were in keeping with all the other signs of youth and vigour. The chin and lower part of the face were slightly peaked, indicating the absence of any tendency to sensuousness and self-indulgence, and lending, in combination with the full forehead, the high cheek bones and the straighter lines of the mouth, a slight hardness as well as fearlessness to the comely face. The touch of hardness was counter-balanced by the candour of the steel-blue eyes and the kindliness, nay the tenderness of the mouth when its lines were relaxed. It was the face of a modest, upright girl of rare intelligence, sense, and discretion, in the middle of her simplicity — a girl who had profited by the unusual advantages she had enjoyed of coming in contact with the biggest brains, the shrewdest wits, and the most honest consciences belonging to the men with the weightiest responsibilities in the country.

But it was only the face of a young countrywoman after all. As O'Neal's eyes rested upon it, and as he considered the tremendous nature of the stake — the Prince, the cause, the three kingdoms — all hanging in the balance, he cried out in an agony — "But can you, dare you, Miss Macdonald? Are you not frightened? Better own it and draw back in time, however forlorn we are, than undertake an office that is beyond your ability, which, if you were to make a wreck of it, would be clean perdition." "I am not feared," said Flora with an unwavering colour and unblenching eyes; "I can try my best, and if we come to grief, I have good hopes it will not be my wyte. I have gotten my passport from my step-father, Captain Hugh, to take me and my maid, ' Betty Burke,' over to my mother's in Skye ; a good boat is sought out and six stout boatmen are bespoken, forby my cousin Niel MacEachan, the cleverest creature in these parts.