Chapter XV: The Sixth Day

We marched bravely and with pipes playing, while we were within sight of the crowds assembled on the green braes at the foot of the stupendous Ben; but as soon as we had crossed the shoulder of the mountain, and begun to descend into that beautiful valley from which we were all about to be expelled, our spirit sank and the wild notes of Ewen's _Piob Mohr_ died away, while dejected and silent, or communing only in low and foreboding whispers, the men of our fated tribe approached their humble homes.

The aged, the women, and the little ones came forth to meet and to welcome with acclamations, and outstretched arms the victors of the different games. The crest-fallen bearing of Black Callum and myself led them at first to suppose what they had hitherto believed to be impossible and incredible, that we hail been beaten at rifle-shooting 'by the strangers.'

When I left the glen that morning, all my thoughts were bent on victory, and I saw only one thing in the world--a black spot on a white target; but _now_ the blue eyes of Laura Everingham were ever before me, in all their variety and beauty of expression.

My mother's feeble voice fell sadly and reproachfully on my ear as I entered her chamber, and Minnie, drawing back the curtains, revealed the thin and aged form that seemed to be passing like a shadow from among us.

'You have won the prize, my dear boy, Allan?'

'Yes, mother.'

Her eyes were bent in love and sorrow on me. Oh, how full my heart was at that moment!

'A hundred guineas, Allan--think of that!'

'And Callum won the second prize,' said Minnie, with a timid blush of pleasure.

'Fifty more--one hundred and fifty! Oh, Allan, my poor boy. God's blessed hand was in this, to save us from the grasp of ruin!'

I wrung my hands, and throwing the empty purses before my mother, covered my face and sat down.

'What means this, Allan?' asked the poor woman, in a voice of tenderness and alarm; but I made no reply. 'An empty purse, you have not--oh, you cannot have spent or lost the money?'

'Neither, dear mother--but pity me and bear with the weakness you have taught me?'

'What have you done?'

'Listen and you shall hear.'

I detailed to her the shooting, and told how Callum and I were the victors at any distance from one to five hundred yards, and how we showered our bullets into the bull's-eye, as fast as the markers could count them; how we challenged all to shoot seven consecutive balls into the black cross on the tower of the Thanes; how none save Callum and I could touch it at two hundred yards--a feat such as the Highlands had seldom seen before, and how we won the prizes.

I related how the hateful Snaggs had been there with musty morality on his oily tongue, and a hateful smile in his deep grey eye; how he had uttered sneers to which (without seeming to commit an outrage) I could not reply. I told her of the shame I endured when competing with shepherds and foresters for a prize, even from a lady's hand. I the heir of an old and respected line, and with all the pride in which _she_ had reared me, swelling in my heart; I told her of the wily factor's taunts, and how Callum and I had flung the gold with scorn among the people, and departed from that great and long wished-for gathering on the Braes as poor as when this morning, so full of hope and spirit, we had marched over the mountains to attend it.

My mother heard me quietly to the end, and then applauded me as warmly as her feeble strength would permit. But I failed to feel this approval in my own heart, when beholding the emptiness of our household--the lack of comforts--yea almost of common food; and I cursed the pride that made me scorn a prize, which though less than a bagatelle to some--to you, my good reader, I hope--would have been a Godsend to our half-famished family at Glen Ora.

Then Laura's face and eyes, her voice and accents came before me, and I fell, I knew not why, into a dreamy reverie over all I did.

My mother's illness and our penury pressed heavily on my soul. A lofty barrier seemed to surround me; a girdle of evils--a boundary beyond which I saw no outlet, from which there was no escape, and which I dared not and knew not how to surmount. Too proud to beg, and ashamed to dig, I became bewildered as the evil hour approached, when the authorities would arrive to evict the people of the glen. For the whole of the previous day no food passed my lips; I found eating impossible, I felt as one over whom hung a sentence of death; a dark, inevitable, and unavertible fate; and with the apathy of despair I saw the morning of the sixth day dawn, when the messengers and constables, or perhaps the soldiery from Fort William, would arrive to extinguish the fires, unroof the houses, and drive the people away.

Thoughts of armed, manly, and determined resistance floated darkly and fiercely through my mind; and I am certain that the same ideas were hovering before Callum, as he sat by his humble but untasted breakfast, sharpening his skene dhu, cleaning, oiling and examining his favourite rifle, the crack of which might never more wake the echoes of the mountains; and our pretty Minnie watched him the while with loving and anxious eyes. There were weapons enough in the cottages to arm the men of the glen, and their number was sufficient to have held against three thousand red coats, the gorge that led to the valley, for there our grandfathers had made a long and desperate defence against the ruffianly Huskes Brigade in 1746, and _we_ were able to do as much again; but the steamers had opened up the lochs in our rear; and though we might have repelled the authorities for a few days, we were sure of being overcome and severely chastised in the end; thus the rash and dangerous idea to taking arms to defend our old hereditary hearths and homes was no sooner formed than it was dismissed.

At night I could scarcely sleep, and if for a moment my eyes closed, distressing visions of flaming houses, and of women and children dragged forth by rural police and soldiers, came before me. I heard my mother crying for succour--but invisible powers seemed to chain my feet to the earth, and breathlessly I writhed and strove to aid her. Perspiration bedewed my forehead, when hands were roughly laid upon her bed to bear her forth, for the hour of eviction had come, and I remembered the widow of Lachlan Mohr. Then I was free--I sprang to my father's sword; but our tormentors flung themselves upon me! My mother was borne forth--now--_now_, she was at the threshold. I heard a faint cry, and all was over--she had expired! Then I would start up, with my heart full of horror, grief, and vengeance, to find that it was all a dream; but, alas, a dark and foreboding one!

The sixth day dawned. It drew slowly and heavily on--it passed away, and night darkened without Ewen Oig, who was posted as a scout on the lofty brow of the Craig-na-tuirc, seeing any sign of the dreaded authorities approaching by the road which, like a slender thread between the giant hills, wound away in the distance towards the capital of the Highlands.

A little hope began to gather in my heart.

But they might come on the morrow.

My mother had caught the feverish excitement that reigned in our little household, and from the crooning and croaking of old Mhari, soon learned the doom that hung over us, and it had a most fatal effect upon her frail and delicate constitution. She became dangerously ill; in her face I read that sad and terrible expression which comes but once, and my soul sickened with alarm!

After a late and hasty meal of broiled venison (poached by Callum), and shared with a staghound and the sheep collies, I despatched my fosterer with all speed for the doctor of the district, while I buckled on my dirk, and departed for the new manor-house of Glen Ora, to seek an interview with Sir Horace, and crave for my mother a little delay--that mercy which I disdained to seek for myself.

'The moon _is full_,' said Callum, as we separated; 'it is a lucky time to undertake anything.'