The Earlier Affection
My host accompanied me to the foot of the fine avenue which looks from Portnacroish to the steely sea-loch. The smoke of the clachan was clear in the air, and the morn was sweet with young leaves and fresh salt breezes. For all about us were woods, till the moor dipped to the water, and then came the great shining spaces straight to the edge of Morven and the stony Ardgower Hills.
“You will understand, Mr. Townshend,” said my entertainer, “that I do not fall in with your errand. It is meet that youth should be wild, but you had been better playing your pranks about Oxford than risking your neck on our Hieland hills, and this but two year come Whitsuntide since the late grievous troubles. It had been better to forget your mother and give your Cameron kin the go-by, than run your craig into the same tow as Ewan’s by seeking him on Brae Mamore. Stewart though I be, and proud of my name, I would think twice before I set out on such a ploy. It’s likely that Ewan will be blithe to see you and no less to get your guineas, but there are easier ways of helping a friend than just to go to his hidy-hole.”
But I would have none of Mr. Stewart’s arguments, for my heart was hot on this fool’s journey. My cousin Ewan was in the heather, with his head well-priced by his enemies and his friends dead or broken. I was little more than a boy let loose from college, and it seemed paradise itself to thus adventure my person among the wilds.
“Then if you will no take an old man’s telling, here’s a word for you to keep mind of on the road. There are more that have a grudge against the Cameron than King George’s soldiers. Be sure there will be pickings going up Lochaber-ways, and all the Glasgow packmen and low-country trading-bodies that have ever had their knife in Lochiel will be down on the broken house like a pack of kites. It’s not impossible that ye may meet a wheen on the road, for I heard news of some going north from the Campbell country, and it bodes ill for any honest gentleman who may foregather with the black clan. Forbye, there’ll be them that will come from Glenurchy-side and Breadalbin, so see you keep a quiet tongue and a watchful eye if ye happen on strangers.”
And with this last word I had shaken his hand, turned my horse to the north, and ridden out among the trees.
The sound of seawater was ever in my ears, for the road twined in the links of coast and crooks of hill, now dipping to the tide’s edge, and now rising to a great altitude amid the heather. The morn was so fresh and shining that I fell in love with myself and my errand, and when I turned a corner and saw a wall of blue hill rise gleaming to the heavens with snow-filled corries, I cried out for the fair land I had come to, and my fine adventure.
By the time I came to Duror it was midday, and I stopped for refreshment. There is an inn in Duror, where cheese and bread and usquebagh were to be had—fare enough for a hungry traveller. But when I was on the road again, as I turned the crook of hill by the Heugh of Ardsheal, lo! I was in the thick of a party of men.
They were five in all, dressed soberly in black and brown and grey, and riding the soberest of beasts. Mr. Stewart’s word rose in my memory, and I shut my mouth and composed my face to secrecy. They would not trouble me long, this covey of merchantfolk, for they would get the ferry at Ballachulish, which was not my road to Brae Mamore.
So I gave them a civil greeting, and would have ridden by, had not Fate stepped in my way. My horse shied at a stick by the roadside, and ere I knew I was jostling and scattering them, trying to curb the accursed tricks of my beast.
After this there was nothing for it but to apologise, and what with my hurry and chagrin I was profuse enough. They looked at me with startled eyes, and one had drawn a pistol from his holster, but when they found I was no reiver they took the thing in decent part.
“It’s a sma’ maitter,” said one with a thick burr in his voice. “The hert o’ a man and the hoofs o’ a horse are controlled by nane but our Makker, as my faither aye said. Ye’re no to blame, young sir.”
I fell into line with the odd man—for they rode in pairs, and in common civility I could not push on through them. As I rode behind I had leisure to look at my company. All were elderly men, their ages lying perhaps between five and thirty and twoscore, and all rode with the air of townsmen out on a holiday. They talked gravely among themselves, now looking at the sky (which was clouding over, as is the fashion in a Highland April), and now casting inquiring glances towards my place at the back. The man with whom I rode was A little fellow, younger than the rest and more ruddy and frank of face. He was willing to talk, which he did in a very vile Scots accent which I had hard work to follow. His name he said was Macneil, but
