The Men of the Moss-Hags

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  IN COVE MACATERICK.

  Wat and I took our way immediately towards those wilds where, as we hadbeen advised, Auld Anton Lennox was hidden. He was (so we were informed)stricken with great sickness and needed our ministrations. But in thewild country into which we were going was no provision for theup-putting of young and delicate maids, specially such as wereaccustomed to the luxuries of the house of Balmaghie.

  The days, however, were fine and dry, and a fanning wind from the northblew in our faces as we went. It was near to the road-end of theDuchrae, up which I had so often helped the cars (or sledges of woodwith birch twigs for wheels) to drag the hay crop, that we met RoderickMacPherson, a Highland man-servant of the Laird of Balmaghie, riding onepony and leading other two. We knew them at once as those which forcommon were ridden by Kate McGhie and Maisie Lennox.

  "Hey, where away, Roderick?" cried Wat, as soon as he set eyes on thecavalcade.

  The fellow looked through his lowering thatch of eyebrows and grunted,but whether with stupidity or cunning it had been hard to say.

  "Speak!" said Wat, threateningly; "you can understand well enough, whenthey cry from the kitchen door that it is porridge time."

  "The leddies was tak' a ride," MacPherson answered, with a cock in hiseye that angered Wat, whose temper, indeed, in these days was not of themost enduring.

  "Where did you leave them?" cried he of Lochinvar.

  "It was on a muir, no far frae a burnside; I was fair forget where!"said Roderick, with a look of the most dense stupidity.

  Then I saw the fellow had been commanded not to tell, so I said to Wat,

  "Come on, Wat. Kate has ordered him not to tell us."

  "This is a bonny like thing," said Wat, angrily, "that I canna truss himup and make him tell, only because I am riding with the hill-folk. Oh,that I were a King's man of any sort for half an hour."

  For, indeed, it is the glory of the field-folk, who have been blamed formany extremes and wild opinions, that though tortured and tormentedthemselves by the King's party, they used not torture upon theirenemies--as in later times even the Whigs did, when after theEighty-eight it came to be their time to govern.

  So we permitted the Highland tyke to go on his way. There is no need togo into the place and manner of our journeyings, in such a pleasant andwell-kenned country as the strath of the Kells. But, suffice it to say,after a time we betook ourselves to the broad of the moors, and so helddirectly for the fastnesses of the central hills, where the poor huntedfolk kept sanctuary.

  We kept wide of the rough and tumbled country about the lochs ofNeldricken and Enoch; because, to our cost and detriment, we knew thatplace was already much frequented by the ill-contriving gipsy peoplethereabouts--rascals who thought no more of taking the life of a godlyperson, than of killing one of the long-woolled mountain sheep which arethe staple of these parts. So there was no need to run into more danger.We were in plenty already without that.

  After a long while we found ourselves under the front of the DungeonHill, which is the wildest and most precipitous in all that country.They say that when it thunders there, all the lightnings of heaven jointogether to play upon the rocks of the Dungeon. And, indeed, it lookslike it; for most of the rocks there are rent and shattered, as though agiant had broken them and thrown them about in his play.

  Beneath this wild and rocky place we kept our way, till, across therounded head of the Hill of the Star, we caught a glimpse of the dimcountry of hag and heather that lay beyond.

  Then we held up the brae that is called the Gadlach, where is the bestroad over the burn of Palscaig, and so up into the great wide valleythrough which runs the Eglin Lane.

  Wat and I had our precise information as to the cave in which lay theCovenanter, Anton Lennox. So that, guiding ourselves by our marks, weheld a straight course for the corner of the Back Hill of the Star inwhich the hiding place was.

  I give no nearer direction to the famous Cove Macaterick for theplainest reasons, though it is there to this day, and the herds ken itwell. But who knows how soon the times may grow troubleous again, andthe Cove reassert its ancient safety. But all that I will say is, thatif you want to find Cove Macaterick, William Howatson, the herd of theMerrick, or douce, John Macmillan that dwells at Bongill in the Howe ofTrool, can take you there--that is, if your legs be able to carry you,and you can prove yourself neither outlaw nor King's soldier. And thisword also, I say, that in the process of your long journeying you willfind out this, that though any bairn may write a history book, it takesa man to herd the Merrick.

  So in all good time we came to the place. It is half-way up a clint ofhigh rocks overlooking Loch Macaterick, and the hillside is bosky allabout with bushes, both birk and self-sown mountain ash. The mouth ofthe cavern is quite hidden in the summer by the leaves, and in thewinter by the mat of interlacing branches and ferns. Above, there is adiamond-shaped rock, which ever threatens to come down and block theentrance to the cave. Which indeed it is bound to do some day.

  Wat and I put aside the tangle and crawled within the black mouth of thecavern one at a time, till we came to a wider part, for the whole placeis narrow and constricted. And there, on a pallet bed, very pale and farthrough, we found Auld Anton--who, when he saw us, turned his head andraised his hand by the wrist in greeting. His lips moved, but what hesaid we could not tell. So I crept back and made shift to get him adraught of water from a well upon the hillside, which flowed near by themouth of the cave. The spring water somewhat revived him, and he sat up,leaning heavily against me as he did so.

  Nevertheless, it was some time before he could speak. Wat and I lookedat one another, and as we saw the condition of things in the cave, itbecame very evident to us that the lassies Kate and Maisie had eitherwandered from the road, or had been detained in some manner that wasunknown to us. So Wat, being ever for instant action, proposed that heshould go off and seek the lassies, and that I should bide and do mybest to succour Auld Anton in his extremity.

  To this I consented, and Wat instantly took his way with his sword, hispistols, and his gaily set bonnet--walking with that carriage which hadbeen little else than a swagger in the old days, but which now was nomore than the air of well-set distinction which marks the man of ancientfamily and life-long training in arms.

  So I was left alone with the father of the lassie I loved. I have saidit. There is no use of denying it any longer. Indeed, the times were notsuch as to encourage much dallying with love's dainty misunderstandings.We were among days too dark for that. But I owned as I sat there, withher father's head on my lap, that it was for Maisie Lennox's sake, andnot altogether for the sake of human kindness, that I was left here inthe wilderness to nurse Anton Lennox of the Duchrae.

  As soon as he could speak, Anton began to tell me of his illness.

  "I fell," he said, "from my pride of strength in one hour. The spirit ofthe Lord departed from me, and I became even as the mown grass, thatto-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven."

  He lay back and breathed quickly for a moment. I entreated him not tospeak, but he put my words aside impatiently with his hand.

  "Thus it was. I was fleeing with a few of the people from before thepersecutors, and as we came over the hip of the Meaull of Garryhorn, thehorsemen rode hotly behind us. Then suddenly there came upon me a dwamand a turning in my head, so that I cried to them to run on and leave meto the pursuers. But to this the godly lads would in no wise consent.'We will carry you,' they said, 'and put you in some hole in the mossand cover you with heather.' So they designed, but the enemy being veryclose upon us, they got me no further than a little peat brow at thelane-side down there. They laid me on a shelf where the bank came overme. Then I heard our people scattering and running in differentdirections, in order that they might draw the enemy away from me. So Ilay still and waited for them to come and take me, if so it should bethe will of the Lord. And over me I heard the horses of the soldiersplunging. One beast, as it gathered way for the spring over
the burn,sent its hoof down through the black peat and the stead of its hoof wason my bonnet's brim. Yet, according to the mercies of the Lord, me itharmed not. But the soldier fell off and hurt his head in his steel capupon the further bank, whereat he swore--which was a manifest judgmentupon him, to tangle him yet deeper in the wrath of God."

  So here I abode in the cave with Anton, and we spoke of many things, butspecially of the lassie that was near to my heart and the pearl of hissoul. He told me sweet simple things of her childhood that warmed melike well-matured wine.

  As how that there was a day when, her mother being alive, Maisie came inand said, "When I am a great girl and have bairns of my own, I shall letthem stay all day in the gardens where the grosarts are, and never say,'You shall not touch!'"

  This Anton thought to be a thing wondrously sound and orthodox, and hesaw in the child's word the stumbling stone of our mother Eve.