Chapter XIV: The Seven Bullets

Now came the rifle-shooting, which deserves an entire chapter to itself. The first prize was no less than a hundred sovereigns; the second was fifty.

Laura Everingham and Fanny Clavering had constituted themselves the patronesses of this feat of skill; but though the purses, on the acquisition of which the whole energies of Callum and myself were devoted--in no spirit of vain-glory, as I have said, but goaded on by the spur of sheer adversity--was made up by them and their female friends; yet Fanny by her air and bearing, her energy, in short by the very noise she made, assumed the supreme direction of affairs; thus the gentler Laura, in her little white crape bonnet and lace shawl, seemed a mere appendage to her beautiful, brilliant, and 'Di Vernon' looking friend.

Fanny was a free and dashing girl, with whom _you_ must have fallen in love, my bachelor friend, for she was one who made herself everywhere as much at home as the fly in your sugar-basin. She wore a broad hat and feather, which gave a piquancy to her fine eyes and expressive features. She had on a dark green riding-habit, with yellow gauntlets, and carried a gold-headed switch. She was a showy girl--the pet of the Household Brigade, and the counterpart of her brother the Guardsman, only a little more merry, and much more wilful. She was a good horsewoman, and rode hurdle-races and steeple-chases; a good hand at whist, rather a sharp stroke at billiards, and would deliberately sweep up the pool with the prettiest white hands in the world. She waltzed divinely, was considered glorious in a two-handed flirtation, or private theatricals, where she shone to admiration as 'Di Vernon,' or the 'Rough Diamond.' Fanny could make up a good book on the Oaks, and had always a shrewd guess as to the winner of the Derby; she had the Army List and the Peerage at her taper finger-ends, and knew all the last novels and music as if they had been her own composition. Once upon a time she was nearly riding herself for the Chester Cup; and those who peddled and punted at mere county races, she despised as heartily as if she belonged to the Hussars or the Oxford Blues. In short, Fanny knew everything from the Deluge to the deux-temps, and from the misfortunes in the Crimea to the mystery of crochet--moreover, a word in your ear, my dear reader, our charming friend had some thousand pounds per annum in her own right, and 'expectations' without end.

She had urged the more timid and retiring Laura to club their prize for the rifle-shooting; and now she appeared on the ground with a smart grooved rifle in her hands, to compete with all comers, on the part of herself and of the shrinking Laura, who had never laid her little hand upon a fire-arm in her life, and begged to be excused doing so now.

About thirty Highlanders, armed with rifles, crowded near her, but respectfully waited until Mr. Snaggs, whom she had requested to assist her, called over their names as they stood on the list, and to each as he stepped forward, the factor somewhat ostentatiously handed a--religious tract.

Meanwhile, Captain Clavering, Mr. Snobleigh (who wore a green sporting-coat with bronze buttons, on each of which was a fox's head), Callum Dhu, Ewen Oig, a few more privileged persons, and I, remained by her side, and now all the spectators pressed forward with interest to witness the shooting.

Callum and I were wont to shoot deer running, at four hundred yards, and to pierce a potato when tossed into the air, using spherical rifle-balls; thus we had little doubt of our success; but we meant to challenge the holiday huntsmen of the Lowlands to a trial of skill they little thought of.

The shooting proceeded with great spirit and rapidity, and it was admirable, for all the competitors were expert sportsmen. The targets were of iron, placed against the wall of the ruined tower, in a place which was sheltered from the wind, and afforded a long and level range. We shot at five hundred yards, and though the average was six balls out of twelve, put into a six-foot target, Callum, whose hands shook after tossing the caber, struck the nail on the head at two hundred yards; and Ewen Oig, I, and other Highlanders, easily put each, eight consecutive sphero-conical balls into the target, at an average of four inches from the bull's-eye; and at one hundred and eighty yards broke every quart-bottle that was placed before us.

There was a deliberation in the air of Callum Dhu that confounded the competitors. After squibbing his rifle, he carefully measured the charge of powder, poured it slowly down the barrel which he held straight and upright; then he moistened the wadding, poised the bullet thereon, setting it fairly in with his forefinger and thumb, and then he drove it firmly home. Then he capped, cocked, and placing the butt-plate square against the top-arm muscle, levelled surely and firmly to prevent the rifle from 'kicking.' A moment his keen bright hazel eye glanced along the sites, and while, impressed by these grave preparations, all held their breath, he fired with a deadly precision that none could surpass.

Clavering struck the bull's-eye thrice in succession at two hundred yards: but his shooting was not to be compared to ours; and we were greeted by bursts of applause in which he joined loudly, for he was a fine, frank and honest-hearted fellow.

'This beats everything I have met with, Miss Everingham,' said he, with great delight; 'I have seen the Cockneys shooting at Chalk Farm--the Chasseurs at Vincennes and the Jagers at Frankfort, where ten targets were shot as fast as the markers could work; but these Highland marksmen beat them hollow, and this is in a land where the game-laws say the tenant shall not have a gun. Old Leather-stocking, with his boasted Killdeer, could do nothing like this.'

'All skill and practice, my dear sir,' suggested Mr. Snaggs, who had repeatedly been solacing himself by quiet sneers at Highlanders in general, and myself in particular; 'to allow tenants the use of guns would only lead to poaching and vice, "which," sayeth the trite Quarles, "is its own punishment."'

It was unanimously agreed that Callum and I were the victors of that day's shooting. Elated by the prospect of winning the prize, and feeling happy that I would thereby be honestly enabled to relieve, to a certain extent, the troubles of a sick and aged parent, after a moment's conference with Callum, I turned to Captain Clavering, saying,

'We have shot at your targets placed at five hundred yards, and were ready to have done so, had they been placed at a thousand yards, if our rifles had been furnished with telescope sights. We will now challenge _you_ to a trial of skill, which may be new to you--with seven solid sugar-loaf balls shot from thirty-six inch rifled barrels.'

'Agreed,' said the Captain: 'I have shot a deer running at nearly five hundred yards, and have no fear.'

'Ewen Oig, bring our targets and hang one over the battlement of the tower,' said I to the young piper, who was the son of Gillespie Ruadh, and was lithe, nimble, and active. He took one of the small white targets we had brought with us from Glen Ora, and which measured about three feet square, and bore, in black line upon it, the figure of a cross. With this he scrambled to the summit of the ruined tower, a daring feat, as it was more than seventy feet in height, and there he fixed it firmly by means of a hammer, nails, and holdfasts. We now approached within two hundred yards, and challenged the competitors two and two, to put _seven_ bullets successively into the lines of the cross which measured two feet one way by one the other.

The impatient Mr. Snobleigh fired and missed. 'You keep your head too high, sir,' said Callum; 'thus, in firing, your line of vision does not follow the line of the barrel, and yours is rather more than thirty-six inches in length.'

Clavering fired twice, and twice splintered the edge of the target. All their other bullets were flattened like lichens on the castle wall, and he and Snobleigh drew back, muttering something about the unusual height and range.

Fanny now came forward with her smart rifle, which was decorated by ribbons, and which Snobleigh had loaded for her; she, and some one else, fired seven bullets between them, and one only struck the lower verge of the little target.

'Now, sirs,' said she to Callum and me; 'it is your turn'--but Callum lowered his rifle and drew back, 'What is the matter, sir?'

'I cannot contend with a lady,' said he, doffing his bonnet, 'and more than all, with one who is among the fairest in the land.'

'Shoot, shoot, I command you!' said Fanny, while her dark eyes flashed with girlish triumph at Callum's honest admiration of her great beauty.

'Your will is a law to me, madam. My chief and I will fire by turn--he, four balls, and I, three; and here I must give place to him. Had your hand been as powerful as your eye, Miss Clavering, we had but little chance of victory to-day.'

'I told you he was a love of a man, Laura,' whispered Fanny to her friend, the charm of whose presence was for ever in my mind, and I was fired by an ambition to outshine the perfumed Snobleigh--he who owned a park and hall in Yorkshire, a house "in town," another in Paris; a stud at Tattersall's, a yacht at Cowes, a shooting-box on the Grampians, and a commission in the Foot Guards--while I--what did I own? only my father's name, with the poor inheritance of Highland pride, and the dreams of other days.

'We shall see if these boasting Celts can perform this fine feat themselves,' sneered Mr. Snaggs, as he adjusted his spectacles and came fussily forward.

'Factor,' whispered Callum in his deep voice, 'the breast of the villain who thought to outrage my Minnie is smaller than that target, yet my ball may reach it some day, _on the lone hillside, at a thousand yards_!'

Snaggs grew pale, as if the death-shot was ringing in his ears. As I levelled my rifle, the betting began. I fired and placed the ball in the black line at the very head of the cross. Then Callum stepped forward.

'Fifty to one, he hits the black line,' said Clavering.

'Aw--done--I take you--cool hundred if you like,' drawled Snobleigh, betting-book in hand!

'It is done, by Jove; right through the target!'

'Lend me the telescope.'

'I could hit the medal on your breast at half the distance, Captain Clavering,' said Callum, as he fired again.

'Thank you, my fine fellow; I would rather you found another mark. Bravo! in the very centre of the cross!' continued Clavering, who was looking at the target through his telescope.

Then I fired again, and lodged my bullet in the black line, a little lower down, and so we discharged our seven bullets, planting them all fairly until the cruciform arrangement was complete, thus--

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Then Ewen Oig, wild with excitement, sprang again to the summit of the tower, wrenched away the target, and it was carried round the field, with the pipes playing before it, while we, by three hearty bursts of applause, were hailed the victors of the shooting-butts.

'By Jove,' exclaimed Clavering, 'I wish I could do this!'

'So you might, Captain, easily, if your bullets had been cast in the same mould.'

'How--what do you mean?'

'In the mould of old Mhari's father, the forester of Coille-tor.'

'The deuce! you don't mean to say they are charmed,' said the Captain, laughing; 'enchanted--bewitched?'

'Perhaps they are, and perhaps they are not. I say nothing; but I wounded the white stag with one.'

'Ha, ha, ha! capital--I like this!' exclaimed Clavering.

'Der Freischutz in the North--a second Hans Rudner,' said Laura Everingham; 'but the prizes are undoubtedly theirs.'

'By Jove, how a few such fellows would have picked off the Russians from the rifle-pits!'

'And this victor is our quiet-looking Allan Mac Innon,' said Laura, her eyes beaming with a pleasure that intoxicated me.

'He is a regular trump!' added the Captain, with manly honesty, although he had been beaten.

'He looks so calm and demure,' continued Miss Everingham, 'no one would have thought it was--it was----'

'It was in him,' suggested Clavering, squibbing off his rifle; 'why don't you become a soldier, Mac Innon--there is good stuff in you--'pon my soul, I like you immensely! don't _you_, Miss Everingham?'

At this absurd question, Laura coloured to her temples, and grew pale again.

'Well--aw,' began Mr. Snobleigh, who looked irritated and discomfited; 'I aw--nevaw saw such shooting certainly--beats Jerningham of ours, and he as the world knows, was matched--aw--aw--twenty-five pigeons--aw--against you, Clavering, for fifty sovereigns a-side; but I'll back these 'Ighland fellows against all England--aw.'

Now came the most exciting and, to me, humiliating part of the proceedings--the distribution of the first and second prizes for shooting.

Though poor, crushed and bruised by biting poverty, I could not, without an emotion of shame, accept the hundred sovereigns from the hand of Laura Everingham, and decline the more suitable gift of a silver cup, which was the alternative, in the case of a gentleman being the victorious competitor! Now in my inmost heart I felt that a poor and proud gentleman was the most miserable of all God's creatures. Clavering's words, 'why don't you become a soldier?' were ever in my ears; but the thought of my old and dying parent, of whom I was the only prop and stay, stifled the more fiery energy that rose within me; and as we drew near the little covered platform, where the _élite_ of the spectators were grouped around that beautiful but stony-hearted Duchess, the canting Marquis, the two Countesses, Sir Horace and others of their privileged order, I felt my spirit sink as if I was a very slave.

Here also stood Mr. Ephraim Snaggs, bearing on a silver salver two purses beautifully embroidered. One was by the hands of Miss Everingham, and contained the hundred sovereigns; the other was by her friend, and contained the fifty.

While crimsoned by mortification, I heard my name pronounced, and found myself before Sir Horace, who, as the newspapers said, "in a choice, neat, and appropriate speech," duly emphasised in the true Oxford fashion, announced that I was _the_ victor of _the_ shooting-match, and entitled to _the_ first prize--my companion to _the_ second.

To accept this money seemed to me, educated as I had been by my proud and haughty mother, the very acme of shame and humiliation; but, at that bitter moment, I saw her in fancy stretched on her bed of sickness, wan with illness and with age, and about to be forcibly evicted at the stern behest of the very donor of this wretched coin--the curse of men, and cause of all their crime and misery. But for her sake I would gladly have scattered the money among the poor Celts who crowded round us, with exultation in their eyes, "that Mac Innon himself and no Sassenagh," was the victor; but I mastered my emotion; the Lowlander's proverb, _he yat tholis overcomes_, flashed upon my memory, and while my cheek burned with a fever heat, I received the purse from the hand of Laura Everingham, and again her soft touch gave me a thrill that went straight to my swollen heart.

With all a woman's quickness she divined the source of my emotion, and said tremulously,

'Mr. Mac Innon, you have, I think, some reluctance in accepting this prize; if you would prefer the silver cup, I am sure that dear papa----'

'No, no, madam; a thousand thanks for your generous delicacy; but--but the money----'

'Will be more acceptable,' added Mr. Snaggs, spitefully. 'We have a proverb among us in Scotland, my dear Miss Everingham, anent "leaving a legacy to Mac Gregor." Mr. Mac Innon is a Highlander, and possesses, I have no doubt, an accurate idea of the value of the current coin of these kingdoms.'

'Aw--aw,' drawled the vacant Snobleigh, taking his cue from the factor, and whom I heard though he spoke in a whisper, for my sense of hearing was painfully acute, 'I always thought this young fellow wondawfully well behaved for a Scotsman, but aw--aw--with all his cussed pwide and politeness he has taken your tin, Laura.'

My breast heaved--I felt the fire flashing in my eyes, and I glared at Snaggs with fury, while the impulse to dirk or shoot him rose within me.

'Ephraim Snaggs--liar, coward, and hypocrite, utter but another taunt or jeer, and I will strangle you like the dog you are!' I exclaimed in a voice so hoarse with passion, that Laura shrunk from me in terror, while I emptied the hundred sovereigns from the purse into my right hand, and flung them in a golden shower among the crowd, a startling and unexpected manoeuvre, which was immediately imitated by Callum, who tossed his fifty into the air; and thus in a moment we were as poor and as desperate as when the shooting began.

While the crowd scrambled for the money among the grass, a murmur--a cry of astonishment had risen, on all sides, and then silence succeeded.

'What the devil do you mean, fellow, by refusing the money?' asked Sir Horace, who seemed highly irritated that Callum should presume to imitate his master.

'Because I did not come here for money.'

'For what then?'

'Honour--like my chief and fosterer Mac Innon.'

'Honour?' reiterated the incredulous baronet, coolly surveying through his glass the erect figure of the tattered huntsman, from his bonnet to his brogues. 'Oho, of course you have a pedigree like a Welshman, beginning with Adam and ending with yourself.'

'In that case it might be no better than your own; but I am come of a long line of brave men, whose shoes, the son of a Manchester baronet, rich though he be, is not worthy to tie.'

The claret-reddened cheeks of Sir Horace grew pale at this fierce hit, while the stately duchess, the two _passé_ countesses, and all the Highland tabbies of 'good family,' exchanged significant and self-satisfied smiles. The baronet was about to make an impetuous rejoinder, when Clavering said,--

'Sir Horace do, I beg of you, respect the feelings of these people, whose peculiar temper and ideas you cannot understand.'

'Papa, papa!' urged his startled daughter.

'You speak English well--devilish well, indeed, for a Highlander,' said Sir Horace loftily, gulping down his anger; 'how is this?'

'I am all unused to answer questions that are asked in such tones, yet I will satisfy you.'

'Do, for never did I meet an ignorant gilly who spoke so proudly to me.'

'A gilly I am, but _not_ an ignorant one, Sir Horace. Thanks be to God, and to good Father Hamish Cameron, who now sleeps in his grave in the Scottish church at Valladolid, I can read and write, and do a little more. I am thus unlike the poor people round me, who are oppressed and destroyed, without knowing why and wherefore the land of their fathers, so dear to their hearts, is made a hunting-field for the dissipated and the idle of the south country, while they are driven from starvation to exile--we, the Gael, who since the Union have led the van of Britain's bloodiest battles. But I know that our enthusiasm, our traditions, and our ties of clanship seem mere trash and absurdity to such as you, Sir Horace--a cold-blooded conventionalist and man of the world. I have learned to be aware that the game-laws, the loss of the kelp trade, misgovernment, and centralization are the curses of the Highlands--all this I know, though I am but a half-lettered gilly! I know a black-hearted villain when I see one, Mr. Snaggs, and I know a pampered tyrant when I speak to one, Sir Horace, and so _failte air an duinnewassal!_ let us go Mac Innon.'

Sir Horace gave us a glance full of spite and anger; he felt that a peasant had dared to lecture him before a multitude; but now we marched off with our pipes playing, leaving the crowd of fashionables staring after us in astonishment, while the more ignoble mob still hunted for the scattered gold among the grass.

'We have done right and well, Callum Dhu,' said I; 'but think of my poor mother and of the eviction notices?'

'Your mother--ay, poor lady--there the dirk enters my heart.'

'If moved, she dies.'

'Nothing but the prediction of the Red Priest can save her now,' said Callum, lowering his voice, 'unless we defend the house by musket-shot, for if she passes its walls, she will die like the wife of Angus and your great-grandmother, the wife of Lachlan Mohr.'