The Standard Bearer

To which Hob responded nothing, but rose and went obediently, smothering his belated laughter in his broad bonnet of blue.

He was waiting for me after by the sheep-buchts, when I went out with a bicker of porridge under my coat.

“I am sore vexed to have made our father angry,” he said, “but the answer came upon me suddenly, and in truth it was a proper jest – for, of course, a leopard could not play back-sword.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE MUSTER OF THE HILL FOLK

Men who know the strange history of the later life of me, Quintin MacClellan, may wonder that the present narrative discovers so little concerning my changes of opinion and stresses of spiritual conflict. But of these things I have written in extension elsewhere, and those who desire more than a personal narrative know well where to find the recital of my difficulties, covenantings, and combatings for the cause.

For myself, the memory of the day on the Bennan top was more than enough, and made me a high Covenant man for life. So that when I heard how King James was fled and his son-in-law, William of Orange, landed I could not contain myself, but bade Hob and David to come with me and light a beacon-fire on the top of the Millyea, that fair and shapely mountain. This after severe labour we did, and they say that the light was seen over a dozen parishes.

Then there came word to the Glenkens that there was to be a Convention in Edinburgh of men chosen out of every shire and county, called and presided over by Duke Hamilton. But it was the bruit of the countryside that this parliament would turn out even as the others, and be ground under the heel of the old kingsmen and malignants.[4 - I.e., those who by the Covenanters were supposed to have malignantly pursued and opposed their cause in the council or in the field.]

So about this time there came to see my father two men grave and grey, their beards blanched with dripping hill-caves and with sleeping out in the snell winds and biting frosts of many a winter, without better shelter than some cold moss-hag or the bieldy side of a snow wreath.

“There is to be a great rising of the Seven Thousand. The whole West is marching to Edinburgh!” cried in at the door the elder of the two – one Steel, a noted Covenanter from Lesmahago.

But the other, when his dark cloak blew back, showed a man of slender figure, but with a face of calm resolve and indomitable courage – the proven face of a soldier. He was in a fair uniform – that, as I afterwards found, of one of the Prince of Orange’s Scots-Dutch regiments.

“This,” said Steel to my father, “is Colonel William Gordon, brother of Earlstoun, who is come directly from the Prince of Orange to represent his cause in his own country of the West.”

In a moment a spark lighted in my heart, blazed up and leaped to my tongue.

“What,” I cried, “William Gordon – who carried the banner at Sanquhar and fought shoulder to shoulder with Cameron at Ayrsmoss.”

For it was my mother’s favourite tale.

The slender man with the calm soldier-like face smiled quietly and made me a little bow, the like of which for grace I had never seen in our land. It had so much of foreign habitude in it, mixed with a simple and personal kindliness native to the man.

“Ah,” he said, “I am ten years older since then – I fear me not ten years wiser.”

His voice sounded clear and pleasant, yet it was indubitably the voice of a man to be obeyed.

“How many sons and limber house-carles can you spare, Ardarroch,” said he, watching my father’s face, “to march with me to keep the Convention out of the clutches of my Lord Dundee?”

“Of the devil’s hound, Clavers, mean ye?” corrected my father suddenly, the fierce, rooted light of hatred gleaming keen and sharp, like the blade of a dagger which is drawn just an inch from its sheath and then returned. “There are three of us on the farm, besides the boy Quintin, my youngest son. And every one of them shall ride to Edinburgh with you on their own horses.”

“Four shall ride, father,” said I, stepping forward. “I am the youngest, but let me also strike a blow. I am as fit of my body as either Hob or David there, and have a better desire and goodwill than either of them.”

“But, lad,” said my father, not ill pleased, “there are your mother and sister to look after. Bide you here and take care of the house.”

“There needs none to take care of the house while ye leave us here with a musket or two and plenty of powder and lead,” cried my mother. “Anna and I shall be safer, aye, and the fuller of gladness that ye are all in Edinburgh doing the Lord’s work. Ride ye, therefore, all the four of you!”

“Yes,” added Anna, with the sweet stillness of her eye on the ground, “let Quintin go, father. None would harm us in all the countryside.”

“Indeed, I think so,” growled my father, “having John MacClellan to reckon with on our return.”

Whereat for very thankfulness I took the two women’s hands, and Colonel Gordon said, “Aye, Ardarroch, give the lad his will. In time past I had my share of biding by the house while my elders rode to battle, and I love the boy’s eagerness. He has in him the stuff of good soldiers.”

And for these words I could have kissed the feet of Colonel William Gordon. The muster was appointed to be at Earlstoun on the morrow, and immediately there befell at Ardarroch a great polishing of accoutrement and grinding of swords, for during the late troubles the arms had been searched for over and over again. So it befel that they were hidden in the thatch of outhouse roofs, wrapped in cloths and carried to distant sandhills to be buried, or laid away in the damp caves of the linns.

Yet by the time all was brought in we were armed none so ill. My father had first choice, and then we three lads drew lots for the other weapons. To me came the longest straw, and I took the musket and a broad-bladed dagger, because I knew that our madcap David had set his heart on the basket-hilted sword to swing by his side, and I saw Hob’s eyes fixed on the pair of excellent horse-pistols which my father had bought when the effects of Patrick Verner (called “the Traitor”) were sold in Dumfries.

At Earlstoun, then, we assembled, but not immediately at the great house – for that was presently under repair after its occupation by troops in the troubles – but at a farmhouse near by, where at the time were abiding Mistress Alexander Gordon and her children, waiting for the final release of her husband from Blackness Castle.

When it came to the point of our setting out, there came word from Colonel Gordon that no more than two of us were to go to Edinburgh on horseback, owing to the scarcity of forage in the city and the difficulty of stabling horses.

“Let us again draw lots!” said my father.

But we told him that there was no question of that, for that he and David must ride while Hob and I would march afoot.

“And if I cannot keep up with the best that our David can ride on Kittle Kate, I will drown myself in the first six-inch duck-pond upon the road to Edinburgh!” cried Hob MacClellan.

So we went down the green loaning of Ardarroch with the women’s tears yet wet upon our cheeks, and a great opening of larger hopes dominating the little hollow qualms of parting in our hearts. Wider horizons beckoned us on. Intents and resolves, new and strange, thrilled us. I for one felt for the first time altogether a man, and I said within my heart as I looked at the musket which my father carried for me across his saddle-bow in order that I might run light, “Gladly will I die for the sake of the lad whom I saw murdered on the Bennan top!”

CHAPTER IX

I MEET MARY GORDON FOR THE SECOND TIME

And when we arrived, lo! before the little white farm there was a great muster. My Lord Kenmure himself rode over to review us. For the Committee of Estates drawn together by the Duke Hamilton had named him as responsible for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.

But that which was of greater interest to me than any commission or enrollment was the appearing of two women upon the doorstep of the cottage – the Lady of Earlstoun and her daughter Mary.

Now it is to be remembered that Alexander Gordon’s wife was a sister of Sir Robert Hamilton, the commander at Bothwell Brig – a man whose ungovernable temper, and genius for setting one man at variance with his fellow, had lost us Bothwell Brig and the life of many a brave lad of the hills. And Mary’s mother, Jean Hamilton, was like her brother in that somewhat pretentious piety which is of all things the most souring and embittering.

So that even my father said – good, honest man, that would speak ill of none all the days of his life: “If I had a wife like yon woman, I declare I would e’en turn Malignant and shoot her without warrant of law or benefit of clergy.”

Jean Gordon came down off the doorstep and stood in front of us four MacClellans, looking out upon us with her keen, black eyes, and seeming as it had been, ready to peck at us with her long nose, which was hooked like a parrot’s in the middle.

“Have any of you paid the King’s cess,[5 - I. e., the taxes for the support of the military establishments.] or had any dealings with the malignants?” she said, speaking to us as to children taken in a fault.

“Not save along the barrel of a musket, my lady of Earlstoun!” quoth my father, drily.

The stern-visaged woman smiled at the ready answer.

“E’en stick to that, goodman of Ardarroch – it is the safest commerce with such ill-favoured cattle!” she said.

And with that she stepped further on to interrogate some newcomers who had arrived after us in the yard of the farm.

But indeed I minded her nothing. For there was a sweeter and fairer thing to see standing by the cheek of the door – even young Mary Gordon, the very maid I had once carried so far in my arms, now grown a great lass and a tall, albeit still slender as a year-old wand of willow by the water’s edges. Her hair, which had been lint white when I brought her down the side of Bennan after the shooting of the poor lad, was now darkening into a golden brown, with thick streaks of a warmer hue, ruddy as copper, running through it.

This girl leaned against the doorstep, her shapely head inclined a little sideways, and her profile clear and cold as the graving on a seal ring, turned away from me.

For my life I could not take my eyes off her.

“I, even I, Quintin MacClellan, have carried that girl in my arms and thought nothing of it!” I said the words over and over to myself, and somehow they were exceedingly pleasing to me.