Chapter XII: The Gathering

The day was clear and beautiful; the unclouded sun, I have said, shone in all his splendour through a summer sky. The vast amphitheatre of hills which surround the braes of Loch Ora were mellowed in the sunny haze, or the silver vapour exhaled from the little pools of water that dotted all the heath-clad plain. At the base of Ben Ora, which towered above the braes, the monarch of all the adjacent mountains, the gathering took place. The lower part of the hill was dotted by a line of snow-white tents and marquees, over which waved various flags and streamers. Amid these tents were a number of carriages; but the horses had been untraced, unbitted, and were quietly cropping the herbage, or enjoying their feeds of corn in the background. A great oval space was formed by the spectators who had crowded hither from all quarters to witness the games; the tall ruins of an ancient tower, once the stronghold of the Thanes of Loch Ora, enclosed one end of this oval; the waters of the dark-blue loch, rolling up to the base of the mighty mountain, enclosed the other; and here the red-funnelled steamers from Glasgow, Oban, and Inverness, were disgorging their passengers in hundreds at every trip. The slope of Ben Ora resembled a parterre of flowers, so varied were the dresses of the ladies. Fringed parasols of the most brilliant colours were fluttering on the soft wind; and the blue sunshades and broad bloomer-hats of the fairer portion of the assembly, mingled with the wide-awakes, Glengarry bonnets, and those peculiar tartan caps or crush-hats, which, with the checked coat and 'fast' waistcoat, generally indicate Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson--the thorough Cockney when touring in the Highlands. Appetized by the long ride, drive, or march to the Braes, or by the morning's sail up the sunlit loch, already the merrymakers had begun to uncork their bottles and unpack their hampers, amid a fund of laughter, frolics, and nonsense; and white cloths were spread on the grass, on the roofs of carriages, or any other available place; while champagne cooled in the mountain stream, and pale Bass, Guinness XX Dublin stout, _uiskey_, cold grouse, veal and venison pies, tongue, fowl, milk-punch, ices, hock, and seltzer-water, with all other accessories for pic-nicking were in requisition. In other places were knots or groups of Highlanders, talking in guttural Gaelic, laughing or croaking over their ills, or drinking toasts--'up with horn, and down with corn'--'the mountains and valleys,' &c., while troops of children, bare-headed and bare-legged, swarmed and gambolled about them, filling the air with shrill and strange cries of delight.

Among the _élite_ of the company was a stately duchess, whose family have long been notorious in the annals of cruelty and eviction; and whose glens have been swept of thousands of brave men, after the artifices of an infamous factor, the oppression of the game-laws, the destruction of the kelp manufacture, the slaughter of the flower of the clans in the Peninsular war, and other Highland evils, had driven the people to starvation and despair! There were present also a couple of chattering countesses, and many old ladies, whose pedigrees were considerably longer than their purses; but who, nevertheless, deemed themselves the prime patronesses of the gathering, as they usually were of the Northern Meeting. Flounced, feathered, and jewelled, with clan tartan scarfs, they regarded with just and due condescension the crowds of richly-dressed and handsome South-country women, many of whom were attired _à outrance_, complete in elegance and fashion from bonnet and bracelet to their kid shoes. These, our decayed Highland tabbies regarded with the good-nature which generally falls to the lot of such wallflowers, who may, as Swift has it--

"Convey a libel in a frown,
Or wink a reputation down;
Or by the tossing of a fan,
Describe the lady and the man."

Among the _élite_ of the male sex were various holiday warriors attired in gorgeous clan tartans. Some were distinguished by one eagle's feather in the bonnet, marking the gentleman; others by two, indicating the chieftain; but very few by _three_, the badge of a _chief_. The principal of the latter, was the Most Noble the Marquis of Drumalbane, Admiral of the Western Isles and Western Coast of Scotland--one whose forefathers had led their thousands to the field, and from whose glens our most splendid Highland regiments had marched to many a torrid clime and bloody victory; but whose vast territories were now a deathlike waste, where nothing was heard but the bleat of the sheep and the whistle of the curlew. In Glenarchai alone, this enterprising exterminator had converted thirty thousand acres into a hunting-forest. He was attended--_not_ by a thousand brave men in arms--but by a few puny footmen and Lowland gamekeepers attired as Highlanders, and a few gentlemen who wore in their bonnets the eagle's wing, and carried at their necks each a silver key, as captains of certain ruined fortresses among the mountains of the West Highlands.

The varied tartans and magnificent appointments of these holiday Highlanders had a barbaric and picturesque effect. Their belts and buckles, jewelled daggers and pistols, snow-white sporrans, tasselled with silver or gold, their brooches studded by Scottish topazes and amethysts, and all their paraphernalia of mountain chivalry, flashed and sparkled in the noonday sun; while long bright ribbons and little banneroles of every colour streamed from the ebony drones of more than a hundred war-pipes.

Beside these gay duinewassals, the poor men of Glen Ora seemed but a troop of reapers or fishermen; but we stepped not the less proudly, because to the same march with which our pipers woke the echoes of the hills, our fathers had thrice left Glentuirc to sweep the Campbells of Breadalbane from Rannoch and Lochaber to the gates of Kilchurn.

In this epoch of civilization and ridicule, when even patriotism, religion, and love are made a jest, the reader may smile at these references to a past, and what we _conventionally_ deem a barbarous age; but a mountaineer never forgets that the brave traditions of other times are ever his best incentive to heroic enterprise and purity of thought.

In the centre of the vast oval formed by the spectators, tents, and carriages, lay the sledge-hammers, the uprooted cabers, the putting-stones, cannon-balls, broad-swords, targets, and other appurtenances of the games.

On halting and dispersing my followers, my first impulse was to scan the crowd for Miss Everingham, now that I could appear before her in my proper character, and to better advantage than I had hitherto done; and just as the sports were beginning, I saw the baronet's four-in-hand drag, the team of which, the showy Captain Clavering handled in first-rate style, come sweeping round the base of the hill, with its varnished wheels and embossed harness flashing in the sun; the captain, whose costume was most accurate, from his well-fitting white kid gloves to his glazed boots, adroitly halted it in the most central and conspicuous place. I was standing close by where he reined up, and then the _sense_ of Laura's presence made my heart beat violently, while my colour came and went again. No notice was taken of me for some time by the party of well-dressed fashionables who crowded the drag, till the studied respect shown to me by the peasantry, not one of whom passed or approached me without vailing his bonnet, attracted the attention of Sir Horace, who was quietly surveying the _canaille_ through a double-barrelled lorgnette. He then gave me a formal bow and conventional smile, but barely condescended to notice, even by a glance, my foster-brother Callum Dhu; but for whom (as Callum himself said,) 'the red tarr-dhiargan had been then perhaps nestling among his hair at the bottom of Loch Ora.'

Near the carriage-steps stood Mr. Jeames Toodles in all the splendour of red plush investments for his nether-man, and spotless white stockings on his curved but ample calves. He bore a gold-headed cane and an enormous bouquet, and from time to time cast furtive glances at Callum Dhu, who, being armed to the teeth, he deemed little better than a cannibal or Tchernemoski Cossack.

Snobleigh--we beg pardon--Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh--who cantered up on a dashing bay mare, languidly gave me the tips of his fingers, with a dreamy 'aw--how aw you--glad to see you old fellow--any noos to-day?' But Clavering, who had more of the soldier about him, shook me heartily by the hand, examined the lock and barrel of my rifle, and praised the piece; then he turned to his sister and Miss Everingham, both of whom greeted me in a manner so winning and gay, that even the heart of my mother, encrusted as it was by old Highland prejudices, would have been won.

I still remember how my heart throbbed when Laura's soft and velvet hand touched mine; for her glove was off, and then the little white fingers on which the diamonds were flashing, rested on the window of the carriage.

'And _you_ mean to shoot for my prize to-day!' said she, while her sunny eyes danced with youth and pleasure; 'how kind of you to honour us so far as to compete for the purse which Fanny and I have made up. We hope you will prove victorious--indeed, we are quite certain that you will, Mr. Mac Innon.'

'_Mr._ to the head of the Siol Alpine!' growled Callum, under his thick black beard.

I pardoned her that prefix, which always jars on a Celtic ear, for her good wishes were so warmly and so prettily expressed.

Alas! how little she knew the agony that was gnawing my heart, under an exterior so calm. How little could she conceive the breathless eagerness with which Callum and I longed to win this wretched prize--an eagerness fired by no spirit of rivalry; but by an honest desire to keep a crumbling roof above the head of my dying mother--for a very little longer. And away over the dun mountains, far from this gay scene of mirth and sunshine, my heart wandered to that little darkened room where she was lying in a half-torpid state, with pretty Minnie reading or knitting beside her, and old Mhari creeping and creaking about her bed on tiptoe.

Laura Everingham knew nothing of all this, and she looked so pretty in her white crape bonnet, with her sunny English smile, her blooming cheek reddened by our healthy Scottish breeze, that I deemed her all the happier in her ignorance of the misery her presence--or, at least, the presence and the projects of her father, were about to work among the old race of Glen Ora. Young, ardent, and enthusiastic, could I fail to be flattered by her notice, pleased by the preference which her good wishes inferred, and dazzled by her beauty?--for I will uphold that her mere prettiness became absolute _beauty_, when one knew more of Laura, and learned to appreciate her goodness and worth.

'When will the games begin, Fanny? I am so impatient,' said Laura; 'look at that love of a horse--he eats corn from the groom's hand; and see, Clavering, such a pet of a bonnet on that old thing's head. Who is she--does anybody know? Of course they will, for every one in the Highlands knows every one else. But who would expect to find such bonnets in Scotland? Who is that handsome fellow in the green uniform, with the enormous gold epaulettes--a Russian officer?'

'No,' answered Fanny, with a droll smile, 'he is only an archer of the Queen's Scotch body-guard, who is to shoot for a prize to-day. From the care with which his whiskers are curled, I will take heavy odds that _he_ don't win.'

'And that tall handsome fellow with the black beard--oh such a love of a beard it is! Heavens, it is the man who saved my dear papa's life!'

'He is my foster-brother, Miss Everingham; he, too, means to compete for your prize.'

'Aw--the fellow seems so strong that he might squeeze the wataw out of a whinstone; and aw--aw, as for tossing that fwightful cabaw--goodness gwacious!' yawned the languid A. F. Snobleigh, surveying the six feet and odd inches of Callum through his eyeglass.

'He is quite a model of a man, Laura,' said Fanny Clavering; 'I would marry him in a moment if he would have me. He looks so like----'

'What we read of in romances.'

'A bandit--a wild mountain robber--and I have always thought it would be so exciting, so delightful to marry a real robber, and be the bride of a real bandit or corsair--oh, I should love a corsair of all things, especially if his bark were a fine steam yacht, we should have such delightful pic-nics among the Greek Isles, and trips to the garrison balls at Corfu!'

'You perceive, Miss Everingham,' said Captain Clavering, laughing, while he smoothed his unparalleled white kid gloves, 'our noisy Fanny has a strong love for the charms of nature in an unsophisticated state. Hence her rapture at the long whiskers and bare legs of these Highlandmen.'

The cold, artificial, and aristocratic Sir Horace, whom the gold of his father, who died a wealthy Manchester millionaire and docile ministerialist, had made a baronet and king of our Highland glen, received all who approached his carriage with the same bow, the same smile, the same welcome, and nearly the same set of stereotyped phrases, good wishes and warm inquiries; and thus he graciously received his facile and obnoxious factor and factotum, Mr. Snaggs, who had been delayed by the ceremony of founding a new dissenting chapel, and who now galloped up on his barrel-bellied and knock-kneed pony, which he rode with a huge crupper and creaking saddle. A dark, almost savage scowl flitted for a moment across the usually placid and affectedly benign visage of 'the moralist,' and admirer of Blair, as our piper Ewen Oig passed and repassed him, playing the march of Black Donald; and then he smiled with malicious triumph, as if anticipating that day now so near at hand, when the war-pipe of Mac Innon would be hushed for ever by the shores of the Western Sea.

I exchanged a glance full of deep and bitter import, with the calm, stern, and stately Callum Dhu; then we withdrew a little way, for the vicinity of this man's presence was hateful to us, and now, amid a buzz of tongues began the great business of the gathering--a gathering summoned to foster the nationality of a people, whom the grasping aristocracy are leaving nothing undone to exterminate and destroy.