CHAPTER XXV

IN BALQUHIDDER

At the door of the first house we came to, Alan knocked, which was of
no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of
Balquhidder. No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed
by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call “chiefless
folk,” driven into the wild country about the springs of Forth and Teith
by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which
came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan’s chief in war,
and made but one clan with Appin. Here, too, were many of that old,
proscribed, nameless, red-handed clan of the Macgregors. They had always
been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side
or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of
Macgregor, was in exile; the more immediate leader of that part of them
about Balquhidder, James More, Rob Roy’s eldest son, lay waiting his
trial in Edinburgh Castle; they were in ill-blood with Highlander and
Lowlander, with the Grahames, the Maclarens, and the Stewarts; and Alan,
who took up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was extremely
wishful to avoid them.

Chance served us very well; for it was a household of Maclarens that we
found, where Alan was not only welcome for his name’s sake but known
by reputation. Here then I was got to bed without delay, and a doctor
fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But whether because he was a
very good doctor, or I a very young, strong man, I lay bedridden for no
more than a week, and before a month I was able to take the road again
with a good heart.

All this time Alan would not leave me though I often pressed him, and
indeed his foolhardiness in staying was a common subject of outcry with
the two or three friends that were let into the secret. He hid by day
in a hole of the braes under a little wood; and at night, when the coast
was clear, would come into the house to visit me. I need not say if I
was pleased to see him; Mrs. Maclaren, our hostess, thought nothing good
enough for such a guest; and as Duncan Dhu (which was the name of our
host) had a pair of pipes in his house, and was much of a lover of
music, this time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we commonly
turned night into day.

The soldiers let us be; although once a party of two companies and some
dragoons went by in the bottom of the valley, where I could see them
through the window as I lay in bed. What was much more astonishing, no
magistrate came near me, and there was no question put of whence I came
or whither I was going; and in that time of excitement, I was as free of
all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was known
before I left to all the people in Balquhidder and the adjacent parts;
many coming about the house on visits and these (after the custom of the
country) spreading the news among their neighbours. The bills, too, had
now been printed. There was one pinned near the foot of my bed, where
I could read my own not very flattering portrait and, in larger
characters, the amount of the blood money that had been set upon my
life. Duncan Dhu and the rest that knew that I had come there in Alan’s
company, could have entertained no doubt of who I was; and many others
must have had their guess. For though I had changed my clothes, I could
not change my age or person; and Lowland boys of eighteen were not so
rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time, that
they could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the
bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three
near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these clansmen, it is
told to a whole countryside, and they will keep it for a century.

There was but one thing happened worth narrating; and that is the visit
I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was
sought upon all sides on a charge of carrying a young woman from
Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by force; yet he stepped about
Balquhidder like a gentleman in his own walled policy. It was he who had
shot James Maclaren at the plough stilts, a quarrel never satisfied; yet
he walked into the house of his blood enemies as a rider[30] might into a
public inn.

[30] Commercial traveller.

Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was; and we looked at one
another in concern. You should understand, it was then close upon the
time of Alan’s coming; the two were little likely to agree; and yet if
we sent word or sought to make a signal, it was sure to arouse suspicion
in a man under so dark a cloud as the Macgregor.

He came in with a great show of civility, but like a man among
inferiors; took off his bonnet to Mrs. Maclaren, but clapped it on his
head again to speak to Duncan; and having thus set himself (as he would
have thought) in a proper light, came to my bedside and bowed.

“I am given to know, sir,” says he, “that your name is Balfour.”

“They call me David Balfour,” said I, “at your service.”

“I would give ye my name in return, sir,” he replied, “but it’s one
somewhat blown upon of late days; and it’ll perhaps suffice if I tell
ye that I am own brother to James More Drummond or Macgregor, of whom ye
will scarce have failed to hear.”

“No, sir,” said I, a little alarmed; “nor yet of your father,
Macgregor-Campbell.” And I sat up and bowed in bed; for I thought best
to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his
father.

He bowed in return. “But what I am come to say, sir,” he went on, “is
this. In the year ‘45, my brother raised a part of the ‘Gregara’ and
marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the
surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother’s leg when it
was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same
name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if
you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman’s
kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command.”

You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger’s
dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections,
but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but
that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.

Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his
back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the
door, I could hear him telling Duncan that I was “only some kinless loon
that didn’t know his own father.” Angry as I was at these words, and
ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a
man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three
years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances.

Just in the door, he met Alan coming in; and the two drew back and
looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big
men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword,
and by a movement of his haunch, thrust clear the hilt of it, so that it
might be the more readily grasped and the blade drawn.

“Mr. Stewart, I am thinking,” says Robin.

“Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it’s not a name to be ashamed of,” answered Alan.

“I did not know ye were in my country, sir,” says Robin.

“It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the
Maclarens,” says Alan.

“That’s a kittle point,” returned the other. “There may be two words to
say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your
sword?”

“Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal
more than that,” says Alan. “I am not the only man that can draw steel
in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a
gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that
the Macgregor had the best of it.”

“Do ye mean my father, sir?” says Robin.

“Well, I wouldnae wonder,” said Alan. “The gentleman I have in my mind
had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name.”

“My father was an old man,” returned Robin.

“The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir.”

“I was thinking that,” said Alan.

I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these
fighting cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when
that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with
something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I will have been thinking of a very different
matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who
are baith acclaimed pipers. It’s an auld dispute which one of ye’s the
best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it.”

“Why, sir,” said Alan, still addressing Robin, from whom indeed he had
not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, “why, sir,”
says Alan, “I think I will have heard some sough[31] of the sort. Have ye
music, as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?”

[31] Rumour.

“I can pipe like a Macrimmon!” cries Robin.

“And that is a very bold word,” quoth Alan.

“I have made bolder words good before now,” returned Robin, “and that
against better adversaries.”

“It is easy to try that,” says Alan.

Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of pipes that was his
principal possession, and to set before his guests a mutton-ham and a
bottle of that drink which they call Athole brose, and which is made of
old whiskey, strained honey and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in
the right order and proportion. The two enemies were still on the very
breach of a quarrel; but down they sat, one upon each side of the peat
fire, with a mighty show of politeness. Maclaren pressed them to taste
his mutton-ham and “the wife’s brose,” reminding them the wife was out
of Athole and had a name far and wide for her skill in that confection.
But Robin put aside these hospitalities as bad for the breath.

“I would have ye to remark, sir,” said Alan, “that I havenae broken
bread for near upon ten hours, which will be worse for the breath than
any brose in Scotland.”

“I will take no advantages, Mr. Stewart,” replied Robin. “Eat and drink;
I’ll follow you.”

Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to
Mrs. Maclaren; and then after a great number of civilities, Robin took
the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.

“Ay, ye can blow” said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival,
he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin’s; and
then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with
a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the
“warblers.”

I had been pleased with Robin’s playing, Alan’s ravished me.

“That’s no very bad, Mr. Stewart,” said the rival, “but ye show a poor
device in your warblers.”

“Me!” cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. “I give ye the lie.”

“Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then,” said Robin, “that ye
seek to change them for the sword?”

“And that’s very well said, Mr. Macgregor,” returned Alan; “and in the
meantime” (laying a strong accent on the word) “I take back the lie. I
appeal to Duncan.”

“Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody,” said Robin. “Ye’re a far better
judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it’s a God’s truth that
you’re a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes.” Alan
did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of
Alan’s variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.

“Ay, ye have music,” said Alan, gloomily.

“And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart,” said Robin; and taking up
the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a
purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and
so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his
fingers, like a man under some deep affront. “Enough!” he cried. “Ye can
blow the pipes--make the most of that.” And he made as if to rise.

But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck
into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in
itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar
to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes
were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time
quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that
piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he
had no thought but for the music.

“Robin Oig,” he said, when it was done, “ye are a great piper. I am not
fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye have mair music
in your sporran than I have in my head! And though it still sticks in
my mind that I could maybe show ye another of it with the cold steel,
I warn ye beforehand--it’ll no be fair! It would go against my heart to
haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can!”

Thereupon that quarrel was made up; all night long the brose was going
and the pipes changing hands; and the day had come pretty bright, and
the three men were none the better for what they had been taking, before
Robin as much as thought upon the road.