The Goose Girl and Other Stories (20 page)

The old Colonel had been too long in the service to remain unaware of such transgressions of routine. From Livingstone, his Commander-in-Chief in Inverness, he had heard of the King's command that the tribe of Glencoe, ‘that sept of thieves', should be extirpated. By the Master of Stair he had been told that Argyll, Breadalbane, and Menzies of Weem would guard all routes of escape from Glencoe, and a detachment of Argyll's Regiment must ‘cut off' Maclan and his
clan. The Master had written again to say, ‘When anything concerning Glencoe is resolved, let it be secret and sudden.'

But to Livingstone the Master had written, with open hatred leaping from the paper, ‘I am glad that Glencoe did not come in within the time prescribed.' And Livingstone had written to Hamilton repeating the Master's pleasure that Maclan had been too late, ‘so that the thieving nest might be entirely rooted out;' and warning Hamilton that he and all under him would be judged by the efficiency with which they dealt out death.

February lay black and wet on the western lowlands. No snow about the ferry-landings on Loch Leven—snow never lies there long—but deep snow on Ben Nevis, its pallor half-seen through grey, snow-filled clouds, and snow on the high Shepherds of Etive, and on the heights of Morven across Loch Linnhe. An arctic cold on the mountain tops, a frozen wind shrilling round the walls of the wet, black fort, and the old Colonel in his cold quarters listened to a clerk as old as himself who told him of the latest letter delivered to Hamilton, his Lieutenant-Colonel, from his Commander-in-Chief—from Livingstone, who was younger than himself, and had succeeded that ill-tempered but honest man, General Hugh Mackay—and with a sick acceptance Hill swallowed the insult to his private dignity, the affront to the discipline of his profession.

A Major Forbes, in Argyll's Regiment but properly loyal to his Colonel, came in to report his return from Edinburgh. He had travelled by the shore-road round Appin, and said he had seen, at the ferry-landings on Loch Leven, a detachment of his regiment on their way to take up quarters in Glencoe; and all in the detachment—all but a few Lowlanders—were men from Breadalbane's country. That was on February 1st.

It was Hamilton, not Hill, who had ordered the move; and a day or two later the old clerk who was still faithful brought Hill a copy of Hamilton's instructions to a Major Duncanson who commanded four hundred men lying in an advanced position on the north shore of the loch. It was Hill, in obedience to his Commander-in-Chief, who had ordered the advance; but Hamilton had underlined the order with savage detail. Yet Hill made no complaint. Hill said nothing, but brooded in cold impotence over the insult to his dignity and the impending brutality in Glencoe.

A week went by, and more than a week. Ten or eleven days. Then the old clerk gave him a copy of an order that Duncanson had sent to Glenlyon—Glenlyon, who had now been living with Maclan and his people for nearly a fortnight—and while he was reading it, Major
Forbes came in again. Duncanson's order began: ‘You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels of Glencoe, and put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons do upon no account escape your hands. . . .'

He looked up and asked, ‘What do you want now?'

‘Major Duncanson's detachment, sir, is already on the move.'

‘I have given no orders!'

‘No, sir. That I knew. But they have begun to march round the head of the loch.'

With a trembling hand he picked up Duncanson's order again, and read further in it: ‘You are to secure all the avenues, that no man escape. This you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I'll strive to be with you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. . . .' It was now February 12th.

‘He had no order from me!' he said again, and rose from his chair, his old body quivering with rage. He began to shout and storm in feverish ineffectual fury. ‘But what can I do?' he demanded. ‘Resign my commission? And what good would that bring?'

No good at all. The punitive column would still march in, and he would lose his long-promised knighthood, all his back-pay, and the pension that was due to him after forty-five years of service. And he had four unmarried daughters.

He sat down in his chair again, and put his head in his hands. ‘God damn it, Forbes,' he said, ‘this is all the thanks we get! We who are soldiers make peace, and the politicians make war again. But say nothing of the anger I have shown, for I am an old man and anger is natural to me. Go to your quarters—you are wet through—and put on dry clothes, and take a dram for the safety of your health.'

When Forbes had gone he opened a cupboard and took from it a bottle of whisky: the wine of the country. From a pocket he pulled a great silk handkerchief, and wiped his face, for his eyes and cheeks were wet with tears; and after he had wiped it his face looked different, as if he had pulled on a thin, transparent mask of tired and cynical indifference. His features were the same, but, as it seemed, stiffened by artifice in an expression of forlorn but unfeeling detachment from the gross and squalid world in which he lived. For a long time he had known what was intended, and could foresee what would happen; but with an old man's folly he had maintained a pretence that it would not happen, and could not happen, without his command. But now he admitted recognition of the deed, and disowned it.

He drank, from a horn cup, the whisky he had found for his
comfort; and the mask fell into a tighter, more natural fit on his old and flabby face.

Five

There were a hundred and twenty soldiers, in red coats and grey trews, in the column that came marching into Glencoe on February 1st; and though, like their unsuspecting hosts, they were, for the most part, Highland-born and bred, there were those among them who looked from side to side, with the wary, calculating eyes of men in a strange, unfriendly country, at the steep white hills that so narrowly confined their path, and threatened to close about them like a trap.

Leading the column was a short, square-shouldered man, with quick and restless eyes, whose commonplace, ill-tempered features had been disciplined by twenty years' service to a harsh, professional severity. He, Sergeant Barber, was indifferent to the menace and grandeur of the hills, but observant of all he saw that might be of military significance: a cleft in the hills where men might climb, a house that covered a field of fire, a chattering ripple where the river could be forded. He was a good soldier, in a regimental way, but little more. A stentorian word of command, a seeing eye, a retentive memory; a native bravery fortified by long habit, a sense of rough justice; but nothing else of human sort except an uncertain geniality in drink and a singing voice, wholly unlike his drill-yard bellowing, in which, when gently drunk, he sang bawdy London songs.

Behind the column, walking easily and seeming to pay no heed to it, were its commanding officer, Campbell of Glenlyon, and a couple of dull-looking, sturdy, junior officers, both called Lindsay, and neither memorable for physical attraction or gifts of the mind: young men who, if need be, might die with propriety, but could not hope to live with distinction.

Their commander, Captain Robert Campbell, had, as it seemed, a different constitution, and certainly a different spirit. Despite his humble rank he was a man of nearly sixty, and notwithstanding his years and a dissolute life he was a man of comely and dignified presence. Race maintained him, race held at bay his sins, excesses, weaknesses, and stark incompetence. He was a gambler who had always lost, a drunkard who had never felt shame or remorse for the squalid misdeeds of drunkenness, and a man of good birth who had never caught sight of the obligations of birth. In his youth he had had a strange and sinister beauty: a long straight nose above girlish, pouting lips, bright cheeks and cold dark eyes, a long, narrow, piercing chin,
and a look of remoteness from the jostling crowd. Now, at sixty, his fair hair was only lightly brushed with grey, his eyes were still bright though bloodshot, and his features looked like a varnished replica of his youth's appeal; with a multitude of little cracks in the varnish, as on some old picture. But his chin was lean, unsoftened by fat, and his long nose had kept its pallid dignity, though his nostrils were dark with snuff.

To his subalterns he talked, of trivial subjects, with the careless ease of a man who neither sought nor found in company anything but his own amusement; and though his breath met the air with a strong scent of brandy, he walked as well and nimbly as his young companions.

When they had marched a couple of miles, Sergeant Barber halted the column, as he had been told to do, and waited for his commanding officer. Glenlyon, with one of the young Lindsays, came forward, walking leisurely, and acknowledged the Sergeant's salute with a friendly smile.

‘Tell the men,' he said, ‘that we shall now march at attention, and if Maclan himself comes to meet us they will be halted—Mr Lindsay will give the order—and remain at attention. I want all drill-movements to be carried out as smartly as if General Livingstone were inspecting us. Some of our rearward files are marching like cows heavy in calf, so you had better stay with the other Mr Lindsay and use your voice to maintain the pace. Is that understood?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Then let us go on.'

Now Glenlyon, stiffening his shoulders and affecting a little pomp in his carriage, set himself at the head of the column, and the advance was continued. The news of their approach had meanwhile spread throughout the glen, and John, Maclan's elder son, with a score of men hastily armed—little time was needed to buckle on a sword-belt and take a leather targe from the wall—waited for them near John's own house. He knew Glenlyon—Alastair, his brother, was married to a cousin of the man—and when they recognised each other Glenlyon halted the soldiers and came forward alone. John went to meet him, and from a distance asked loudly, ‘What have you come here for? There is no quarrel now between us and the King.'

‘No quarrel at all,' said Glenlyon, ‘and I was about to greet you civilly and wish you good day.—Good day to you, cousin, and how are the kindly folk of Glencoe?'

‘No more comfortable for seeing a company of red-coats in the glen.'

‘It's little comfort we have had in Fort William, where there are soldiers packed together like herring in a barrel. And that is why we have come to you, to beg shelter for a week or two.'

‘What is the need for so many soldiers in the fort?'

‘It is no secret, cousin, that Glengarry still refuses the King's peace, and sooner or later we shall have to try persuasion with him. But not, I hope, before the weather mends—and in the meantime the poor soldiers must have roofs to sleep under.'

‘There are not many roofs here.'

‘You have one of the richest glens in Lochaber, cousin. Rich by nature, and richer still by acquisition.'

For a long minute John stood silent, pondering Glenlyon's meaning and the intention of his words.—Three years before, Coll Macdonald of Keppoch, with some of the Glencoe people in his train, had harried and despoiled the lands of Glenlyon—stripping them of horses, sheep, and cattle to the value, it was said, of more than £8,000, Scots money—and the herds and the flocks had been driven to Glencoe, and there divided between the partners of the raid. Glenlyon himself had lost six heavy mares of English breed, more than two hundred cattle, and as many sheep. If he had come for revenge or reprisal, under cover of the King's name, he had some reason for revenge.

Having considered this, John said slowly, ‘There is no memory of unfriendship between us except for a small matter, some years ago, that was done openly, as an act of war in time of war. And no blame can hang on that.'

‘No blame at all,' said Glenlyon heartily. ‘I was never a man that brooded on misfortune in the past, nor do I worry over what may fall out in the future. The present is enough for me, it covers me like a tent—and within its tent, at this moment, I have a flask of French brandy. Let us sit and talk awhile.'

There was a grey boulder beside them that lay like a dead and frozen stag on the moor, and sitting down Glenlyon pulled a flask from his pocket. John, with grave politeness, drank his health, and Glenlyon, taking a deeper and more casual swig, handed him the flask again. For courtesy John put it to his lips, but did not drink.

‘Tam Lindsay, my subaltern, has a billeting-order, signed by old Hill at Inverlochy—'

‘Colonel Hill is our good friend,' said John.

‘That I know well, and with Hill's authority behind us, you need have no fear. None at all. Give us house-room for a week or two, and that's all your burden; for which you'll be paid: or, to be blunt about it, you'll get a promise of payment—for God damn all governments,
they're the same, whatever the colour, in their reluctance to hand out good money.'

‘My father,' said John, ‘has not been living in the big house of Carnoch for some time past. Will you be wanting to go there?'

‘No, not there. But there's a house called Inverrigan, a mile this side of it, that belongs to your tacksman; and the house over there—'

‘Achnacon.'

‘They'll do for me and my two subalterns, and the soldiers you can billet as you please. They'll go four or five to a house, there's none of them a giant and very few as big as you, cousin.'

‘I am glad you do not want my father's house. He is living down there in the small glen. You can see the roof.'

‘We shall interfere neither with Maclan nor with you and Alastair, except for asking you to join us in a hand of cards now and then, or the sharing of a bottle. Tell your clan that we have come as friends, cousin—we are Highlanders all, speaking the same tongue—and now that we owe the same allegiance, there need be no doubt or discontent between us. God knows I am the last man on earth to start a quarrel, and the first to forget it.'