“It is at least a place of some beauty,” I broke in with.
“Beauty,” he cried scornfully, “d’ye see beauty in black rocks and a grummly sea? Gie me the lown fields about Lanerick, and a’ the kind canty south country, and I wad let your bens and corries alane.”
And then Graham launched forth in a denunciation of the people. It was strange to hear one who bore his race writ large in his name talk of the inhabitants of these parts as liars and thieves and good-for-nothings. “What have your Hielands done,” he cried, “for the wellbeing of this land? They stir up rebellions wi’ papists and the French, and harry the lands o’ the god-fearing. They look down on us merchants, and turn up their hungry noses at decent men, as if cheatry were mair gentrice than honest wark. God, I wad have the lot o’ them shipped to the Indies and set to learn a decent living.”
I sat still during the torrent, raging at the dull company I had fallen in with, for I was hot with youth and had little admiration for the decencies. Then the Deacon, taking a Bible from his valise, declared his intention of conducting private worship ere we retired to rest. It was a ceremony I had never dreamed of before, and in truth I cannot fancy a stranger. First the company sang a psalm with vast unction and no melody. Then the Deacon read from some prophet or other, and finally we were all on our knees while a Campbell offered up a prayer.
After that there was no thought of sitting longer, for it seemed that it was the rule of these people to make their prayers the last article in the day. They lay and snored in their comfortless beds, while I, who preferred the safety of a chair to the unknown dangers of such bedding, dozed uneasily before the peats till the grey April morning.
Dawn came in with a tempest, and when the household was stirring and we had broken our fast, a storm from the northwest was all but tearing the roof from above our heads. Without, the loch was a chasm of mist and white foam, and waves broke hoarsely over the shoreroad. The landlord, who was also the ferryman, ran about, crying the impossibility of travel. No boat could live a moment in that water, and unless our honours would go round the loch-head into Mamore there was nothing for it but to kick our heels in the public.
The merchants conferred darkly among themselves, and there was much shaking of heads. Then the Deacon came up to me with a long face.
“There’s nothing for’t,” said he, “but to risk the loch-head and try Wade’s road to Fort William. I dinna mind if that was to be your way, Mr. Townds, but it maun be ours, for our business winna wait; so if you’re so inclined, we’ll be glad o’ your company.”
Heaven knows I had no further desire for theirs, but I dared not evade. Once in the heart of Brae Mamore I would find means to give them the slip and find the herd’s shieling I had been apprised of, where I might get shelter and news of Ewan. I accepted with as cordial a tone as I could muster, and we set out into the blinding weather.
The road runs up the loch by the clachan of Ballachulish, fords the small stream of Coe which runs down from monstrous precipices, and then, winding round the base of the hill they call Pap of Glencoe, comes fairly into Glen Levin. A more desert place I have not seen. On all sides rose scarred and ragged hills; below, the loch gleamed dully like lead; and the howling storm shook the lone fir-trees and dazed our eyes with wrack. The merchants pulled their cloak-capes over their heads and set themselves manfully to the toil, but it was clearly not to their stomach, for they said scarcely a word to themselves or me. Only Macneil kept a good temper, but his words were whistled away into the wind.
All the way along that dreary braeface we were slipping and stumbling cruelly. The men had poor skill in guiding a horse, for though they were all well-grown fellows they had the look of those who are better used to bare-leg, rough-foot walking than to stirrup and saddle. Once I had to catch the Deacon’s rein and pull him up on the path, or without doubt he would soon have been feeding the ravens at the foot of Corrynakeigh. He thanked me with a grumble, and I saw how tight-drawn were his lips and eyebrows. The mist seemed to get into my brain, and I wandered befogged and foolish in this unknown land. It was the most fantastic misery: underfoot wet rock and heather, on all sides grey dripping veils of rain, and no sound to cheer save a hawk’s scream or the crying of an old blackcock from the height, while down in the glen-bottom there was the hoarse roaring of torrents.
And then all of a sudden from the darkness there sprang out a gleam of scarlet, and we had stumbled on a party of soldiers. Some twenty in all, they were marching slowly down the valley, and at the sight of us they grew at once alert. We were seized and questioned till they had assured themselves of our credentials. The merchants they let go at once, but I seemed to stick in their throat.
“What are you after, sir, wandering at such a season north of the Highland line?” the captain of them kept asking.
When I told him my tale of seeking the picturesque he would not believe it, till I lost all patience under the treatment.
“Confound it, sir,” I cried, “is my speech like that of a renegade Scots Jacobite? I thought my English tongue sufficient surety. And if
