Chapter II: The Coming of Muckle John

The muffled tramp of feet went beating past along the road. That such an army should have caused such utter panic to the English throne and sent London into a condition of wild terror, was amazing, and must ever remain so. Ill clad, poorly armed, ragged, gaunt, undisciplined, it presented a spectacle more like an assemblage of starved vagrants than conquering soldiery.

Many were quite old men, many were stunted, sickly creatures, coughing terribly as they limped along. Boys, many without shoes or stockings, some not more than sixteen, made up a goodly part of that desperate force. Many of those who owned swords had them tied about their waists with ropes of straw. Perhaps a third of the entire force were capably equipped with targe, claymore and dirk, while a number had firelocks slung across their backs.

They may have been dusty, ragged, footsore, but to Rob they were heroes of romance. He looked beyond their haggard faces and their bleeding feet and shabby clothes. They were a veteran army as yet unbeaten. They carried themselves with the confidence of victory, accepting the cheers of Inverness with the air of men receiving their due.

Through a sort of mist Rob saw the tartans swinging, looked into unknown bearded faces, caught the glint of sunlight upon the cold whiteness of steel. The crowd about him began to thin; the last of the troops had passed. Already the road was a swaying, excited tumult of people.

Now at the back of Rob there stood a tavern owned by Major Fraser of Castleleathers, a former friend of Lord Lovat, but fallen into adversity. He was a great rubicund man some sixty-six years of age, and with no particular interest in either Jacobite or Whig. Rob knew him well. Many a happy evening had he spent listening to his stories of the great days of long ago.

Major Fraser thought things had come to a pretty pass when English troops were hounding good folk about the country side. Rob heard him say so from the tavern door. He was standing on the top step staring with half-closed eyes after the disappearing Highlanders. Above his broad red forehead, his white hair was fluttering in the quirky February wind.

"That you, Rob," he cried, "come your ways in lad," and he shivered and stamped within, Rob at his heels.

Inside the taproom there was a solitary occupant. He had evidently never stirred for the tumult outside, for his legs were upon the mantel-shelf, and his head was sunk upon his chest. All Rob could see was a very broad back and a great red neck. He took him to be an exceedingly powerful individual, and one more used to the saddle or the hills than taverns.

"Have they passed?" growled the man at the fire, in a deep contemptuous voice.

"They have," replied Castleleathers, shutting the door, "and Frasers amongst them."

"Like enough, and the Master but a boy, James, fresh from college. His father has muckle to answer for."

"I ken fine, but who knows how this will end? I'd no break my heart if old Sim had his neck thrawn...."

The man at the fire brought down his feet with a bang and swerved about on his chair. To Rob there was something strangely familiar about him.

"Leave your bad debts to me," he said, "I have a bone to pick with Lovat, and..." then seeing Rob, his eyes narrowed and he fell into a sudden silence.

"Whist!" said Castleleathers, "it's only Rob."

But the other said nothing further, only frowning at them both, and then of a sudden he uttered a low whistle, staring over their shoulders.

Now the window was some four feet above the ground--one single pane--and peering through it was Ephraim Macaulay, the school-master. For a single instant Rob saw him, then with a bound the stranger was at the door. He stood gazing up and down the street for a moment, then returned.

"James," he said, "I knew I was right, and when I see yon face I scent trouble brewing just as surely as when the corbies come sailing over the brae."

"It's the schoolmaster," said Rob.

But neither heeded him, and without a word the Major took him by the shoulders and pushed him out into the street, securely locking the door behind him. With the strangeness of it all fresh upon him Rob clutched his claymore and began to make his way homewards. He wondered where he had seen the great man in Fraser's tavern before, or whether he had dreamed of him. The memory of him though baffling, was curiously vivid in its way.

Rob lodged with his aunt, his mother's sister, and was not ashamed to admit that he had a wholesome terror for Miss Margaret Macpherson. What would she say to his plans? What, indeed?

Miss Macpherson was very tall and exceedingly gaunt. Her countenance was as bleak as a wind-swept hillside, and there was a stony glare in her grey eyes which seemed to turn the very atmosphere to frost. Her figure was all points and angles--jutting out where her shoulders rose towards her neck, and seeming to extend indefinitely into her arms. Rob knew those long, sinewy arms with their thin, gnarled hands ever ready to swoop. Miss Macpherson's customary attitude was like that of a great bird of prey, mightily beaked and clawed, pouncing swiftly, and rising again to sit and watch upon a crag.

She was sitting before the fire as he entered, and when she saw the sword in his hand there came over her grim countenance a quick change--a swift tightening, as though she had received a shock but would not own to it.

"Aunt Margaret," said Rob, with a rush to get it over, "I'm marching with Prince Charlie's men to-morrow."

She made as though to rise, then sat where she was, only her hands trembled as she held them to the fire.

"So schooling's over," she said, quietly, "and now we're off to the wars, are we? A fine spectacle that will be for your father's son. It's the gallows now, is it, along with a rag-tag and a bonny Prince? Ye'll want a polish to this sword, I'm thinking, and some bannocks for your travels. Oh, I'll cook ye bannocks, my mannie--fine, hot bannocks."

She watched him narrowly, all the time, wishing to frighten him, and finding that he remained unshaken she shrugged her shoulders and set about laying the table, her long, thin arms clutching the dishes. Rob noted with dejected eyes, that she was setting the things for one.

"How old are ye?" she asked at last, her back still turned.

"Sixteen past," he answered, slowly.

"Aye," said she, "I suppose ye are."

She stared at him then with a queer look in her face--as though she would have beaten him had she been able. Then, placing another platter upon the table, she jerked her head at him to sit beside her.

"Rob," she said, after a long silence, "to me you have always been undergrown for your years. It seems but yesterday since ye came."

"It was eight years ago," he answered, still upon his guard.

"So long?" said she, and took up her knife, but eating nothing.

The meal proceeded in utter silence. Rob would have given a world to be away. What was in his aunt's mind he did not know, he could not guess. Her face expressed nothing, only her eyes stared at him unblinkingly, like the unfathomable eyes of an eagle.

"Rob," said she, at last, "when do you get your marching orders?"

"To-morrow, Aunt Margaret," he replied. "You must not be grieved at my going; I cannot bide here when my people are out. Of course, we may not leave Inverness for a while."

"Yon old fox, Lovat, is safe at home," she retorted. "When the chief bides it is not good for the clansmen to stir."

"But the Master is out," he hastened to add, referring to Lord Lovat's son, who was in command of the clan Fraser.

"It is the sly pussie sits on the top of the wall. Well, well," she concluded, "what's done's done, and so off to bed wi' ye, and get your sleep."

Rob, concealing his delight at his aunt's apparent complacency, rose to his feet, and wishing her a very good night--for which she thanked him grimly--betook himself to the adjoining room, and flinging himself down on his bed was soon fast asleep.

It was pitch dark when he awoke some two hours later, and he awakened so suddenly that he started up in bed listening intently. Surely somebody had spoken in the room! But there was no sound, only the crying of the night wind in the street outside. And then there fell on his ears a muffled murmur of voices in the kitchen, and a faint noise like the falling of shoes upon the stone floor. Stealing across the room, he knelt before the door and listened with a sudden dread in his heart.

For a moment he heard nothing at all, then to his horror he caught the whisper of a voice he knew too well--the shrill, nasal accents of Mr. Macaulay, the schoolmaster, in close conversation with his aunt.

So near were they both to the door that he could hear every word they said.

"I tell you I saw him," said the schoolmaster.

"But what of that? Every one knows that old Castleleathers is safe as Mr. Hossack himself."

"Who cares two pins for Castleleathers--it is the other I want..."

"Ye mean the big man..."

"That I do. If I can lay hands on him I'll fling a net over more rebels than if we had Lovat himsel'."

"But Rob knows nothing of this. He's only a laddie gone daft over soldiers. He'll have forgotten all about it in the morning."

"Not he--but if he can tell me where one whose name I'll no breathe to you nor to any one else, can be found, I'll see his neck is safe."

"Then on wi' ye," whispered Miss Macpherson, "for I doubt we must save Rob if we can. Ye hae the rope."

"That have I," returned the master.

Then followed complete silence, and a second later the faint creaking of the door behind which he crouched. Rob sprang to his feet, and paused irresolutely. He was unarmed and helpless.

Very slowly the door began to open. He knew it by the draught of air upon his face. In the pitch darkness he leaned close to the wall waiting for them to pass him towards the bed.

But at that moment there sounded very faintly, like the sighing of the wind--the far-off catch of a tune--a little twisted coil of melody such as the fairies dance to.

"Hold!" whispered Macaulay, in a low tense voice.

"It is but a laddie's whistle," snapped Miss Macpherson, "haste ye."

But he appeared to have a dread of something in his mind.

"That is no boy's whistle," he replied sullenly, "but the pipe o' Muckle John."

Then Rob could have shouted for joy, for he knew in a trice who the great man in Fraser's tavern had been, who but the stranger on the moor who had lured the weasel from his lair. Nearer came the ripple of music, and then sounded a lusty banging at the street door and a man's voice shouting for entry.

"Whist!" said his aunt, and again came the knocking.

"Wha's there?" she cried.

"Open!" returned the voice--a deep bass voice like the noise of a bull. "Open in the name of the King!"

"Better open, Mistress Macpherson," counselled the master; "though I would I were out of here. If I had a sword, but who ever saw a dominie with such a thing?" and he laughed ruefully, while a furious knocking beat upon the door. Presently Rob saw the yellow light of a candle, and heard the falling back of the bolts.

A cold burst of night air rushed into the place, and with it there entered a great, formidable looking man, so tall that he must needs bend nearly double to enter, dressed in riding clothes, and with his hat rammed down upon his face.

Rob slid into the room. Beside him stood Mr. Macaulay, the rope still dangling in his hands. His aunt was facing the stranger, holding the candle high so that its rays fell upon his face.

So they stood for a moment, and then the stranger closed the door behind him, swung off his hat, and made a sweeping bow.

"Madam," said he, "I crave your pardon for this seeming incivility; but I am new come to Inverness, and am quartered here until to-morrow."

(Not so new-come thought Rob, mindful of Fraser's tavern.)

All the time the stranger's alert blue eyes were speeding hither and thither about the room. They paused for a moment on the rope in the master's hands, took in Rob at a glance (but with no appearance of recognition which grieved him), and then returned to Miss Macpherson, who had never acknowledged his presence by word or nod.

"Sir," said Rob to the stranger, "Mr. Macaulay was even now enquiring for you."

"Thank ye," he replied, "but I have already seen the rope in his hands. Maybe it could be used for a better purpose..."

Mr. Macaulay was as near to the door as the stranger. With a bound he reached it, and flung it back. And then with another swirl of air he was gone into the night.

The stranger watched his departure with upraised brows and a smile upon his lips, then he stepped to the door and closed it, bolting it with careful hands.

"For the present," said he, turning to Rob, "he's gone: You are not afraid of my company, are you?"

He grasped him gently by each shoulder as he spoke, and looked into his eyes.

Rob shook his head. Afraid of the man of the moor! He was suddenly overtaken by a curious shyness of this mysterious man with his shrewd, inscrutable blue eyes, his great Highland nose, the whimsical twist that lurked at the corners of his mouth, and his massive head far up near the rafters through the vast height of him.

His clothes had a foreign cut, and he betrayed the inflection of a strange accent underlying his words accompanied by occasional gestures of the hands that strike a northerner as affected and womanly. His voice was very deep and soft and so persuasive that few could withstand him. Even in anger it was never harsh--but some said he never permitted himself to grow angry and for that very reason always won his own way. Even Miss Macpherson only angered him once.

Meanwhile the stranger was eyeing them both with droll intentness. If only the honest can meet another's gaze without flinching then he must have been a very honest man indeed, for there were few he could not stare down, and what is more take a relish in so doing.

"How are you named?" he asked, still grasping the boy by the shoulder.

"My name is Rob Fraser," he replied, "and this is my aunt, Miss Macpherson."

"Then I am in good company," he said, and letting go of Rob began to warm his hands at the fire, turning them backwards and forwards to the blaze. "It is good," he mused after a while, "to have peat reek in one's nostrils once again. What a bonny room this is. There are few pans like those in Inverness I'll warrant. I would like fine to taste a bannock of your cooking, Miss Macpherson. I know a good bannock when I see it, and it's long since I've had a taste of old Scotland..." at which he sighed and stared upon the ground.

Somewhat mollified, despite herself, Miss Macpherson set the table again, and busied herself amongst her household utensils. Over the peat fire a pot was swinging on a chain from a cross beam above. The place was full of the rare smell of it. But the stranger said nothing, though he must have been eying out for a basinful. Instead he drew Rob to the fire, and spoke to him in his low musical voice, sitting upon a stool with his great coat hung up upon a peg beside him and the steam rising from it and losing itself in the blueness of the peat reek.

"I saw ye the day," he said. "It was just after our forces, heaven help them, had passed. I canna bear to look at them. I feel like a man watching a procession of bairns and dying men..."

"Have you been in another war?" asked Rob.

"War," said he, "this is not war. Man Rob, I've served all over Europe and seen the armies of Frederick advance like the thunder of surf on a western isle. I have seen service in Poland, Austria, and the Netherlands. I have fought under Saxe."

He paused and seemed to draw some pleasure from Rob's flushed face and eager eyes.

"Last year I lay before Tournay under a starlit sky while all around me breathed thousands of men who lay before many hours on the field of Fontenoy. That is war, Rob, not skirling up and down the country with a few hundred puir Hielan' bodies."

"But I am enlisting," he said, considerably chilled by such words.

The stranger sniffed over the pot most audibly. The savour was more than a hungry man could tolerate.

"You would make a rare campaigner, Miss Macpherson," he said, "Rob is surely daft to think of losing such a stew for all the thrones of Europe."

"It is only an ordinary stew," she said, with a faint flush on her cheeks.

"It may be for you, Miss Macpherson--I'll no deny it--but as a man not strange to stews I'd call it by another name..." and he smacked his lips and drew in another draught of it with relish.

"Weel, weel," murmured Miss Macpherson, and taking off the lid she set a knife into a piece of meat and with a spoon she emptied the gravy upon a plate.

"Draw in your stool," she said, and laid the bannocks beside him. Then after a momentary hesitation she laid a round black bottle upon the table. "It is from Laggan way," she said.

"A bonny country," he replied, and without delay set to with the greatest zest.

Meanwhile Rob drew near the fire, and laid a peat or two upon the dying glow. He suddenly remembered how near he had been to falling the prey to his aunt's schemes, and yet to look at her face one would have said she suffered no disappointment or resentment. There was a strong vein of fatalism in Miss Macpherson.

When the stranger had finished eating he pushed back his stool, and wiped his mouth very genteelly with a kerchief.

"And now, sir," said he, addressing Rob, "what is this talk of the wars?"

"Aye," re-echoed Miss Macpherson, brightening, "ye may well ask that, Mister..." she hesitated.

"No matter," he replied quickly, "my name will keep."

"I want to fight for the Prince," said Rob, sturdily; "I have this claymore." And he brought it from the corner where it lay.

One look was sufficient for the stranger.

"Ye are a hundred years too late, my man," he said, regarding the rusty sword with a critical eye.

"It is all I have," said Rob.

"And all ye are good for," retorted his aunt.

The stranger meanwhile sat with his chin resting on one hand, a frown upon his face. Of a sudden he stirred fretfully.

"What sort of talk is this?" he cried. "To-morrow or the next day will see us scattered like muir fowl; but we've had a run for our money, whereas, you, poor lad, will have a sair run for your life. Bide a wee--there will be other risings," at which he stopped, and won a smile from Miss Macpherson for his brave advice.

"Thank ye, sir," she said, cordially; "and listen to the gentleman, Rob, for he speaks true words."

Rob was about to break in when the stranger motioned him to silence.

"Tak' your time," said he, "and choose your ain gait, for there's a kind of empty satisfaction in that at a time--and I will play a bit tune, if I may." At which he bowed to Miss Macpherson, and she bowed back, and that none so stiffly.

Then drawing the selfsame reed from his greatcoat pocket that Rob had heard two years before, he began to play, and the manner of his playing was like the singing of a mavis at twilight. He played tunes both Scottish and foreign, strange, melancholy snatches of music very haunting to hear, and then, quite suddenly, he broke into a Jacobite melody, and Rob sat with eyes glued upon him, while a great stillness crept over the place.

The fire had died down, and the room fallen into darkness when he ceased, and it was only to lay the pipe upon the table. For out of the silence came the most wonderful voice; and the strange gentleman, rising to his feet, was singing an old Highland lament as though his heart would break. Rob stole a look at his aunt, and saw her lip--that iron, resolute lip--was trembling. Even the stranger's voice broke through the utter sadness of it all, at which he coughed and smiled, and then before Rob could raise his eyes (it seemed to him to have no beginning at all, so quickly was it done) the stranger was upon his feet, and even while Miss Macpherson was secretively concealing a tear he had snatched up his whistle and was in the very middle of a Highland reel. With his fingers rippling up and down the holes of the thing, and the rakish tilt of his head, and the manner in which he kept time with his feet, and his shoulders and his whole body--with all of this and the dancing firelight and the wind shut out upon the street--the thing was like the work of a bogie. Had he been a little man with silver buttons and silver-buckle shoes and a velvet jacket, then there is no saying but that he might have played himself up the chimney and over the heather, with Rob and Miss Macpherson at his coat-tails.

The music grew faster. It grew wilder. It brought Rob to his feet and sent him skipping and snapping his fingers in a frenzy. The stranger was here and there, missing notes because he could not do everything at once, and turn at the same time. And then just when the rant was at its height Miss Macpherson was at it too, first skirts held daintily from the ground, then arms akimbo, bowing, twirling, spinning. The stranger threw aside his pipe. He sang the lilt of it instead, and so facing Miss Macpherson they capered and linked arms and clapped their hands and hooched until the stools were jumping all over the floor and the bannocks after them, and the table rocked upon its legs in the corner.

"Well, my lad," panted the gentleman after it was over, wiping his face, "have ye settled the matter?"

"Sir," cried Rob, "it's the Prince for me."

"Well, well," said he, seating himself again, as though he had guessed as much.

"I believe ye sang so on purpose," snapped Mistress Macpherson, now thoroughly awakened to the danger, and considerably ashamed of herself.

"On my oath, madam," he replied, "I advised the lad against it--ye heard me with your ain ears."

"But thae songs?"

"Tuts," he said, "what are songs?"

The dawn was already in the east, and a faint grey light shone beneath the door.

With a start, the stranger rose to his feet.

"The day is near," he said, sombrely, "I must be stepping"; and for a breath or two he looked Rob in the eyes.

"And I, too, if I may go with you," said Rob, casting a glance at his aunt.

For a moment she struggled with her anger, then, taking him roughly by the shoulder, she shook him.

"Go then," she cried, "but dinna say it was with my leave. And you, sir, do what you can for him."

"Madam," said the stranger, wrapping his greatcoat about him, "I promise you that."

"What name do ye go by?" asked Mistress Macpherson, of a sudden.

He appeared for an instant slightly put about.

"The name I go by," repeated he, "is Muckle John."

"That's no sort of name," she snapped.

"It's sufficient for me," he replied, and touching Rob on the shoulder, they passed into the street.

From far away came the shrill notes of many bagpipes, and the faint stirring of assembling men.

"Rob," said Muckle John, slyly, "I thought you had forgotten."

"I knew you at once," said Rob, "but you never looked at me."

"Did I no," said Muckle John, "maybe there were reasons, Rob--there are folk would do the world for a friend of mine, but there are others, Rob--there are others."