Chapter XXIII Cluny’s Cage

We came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep wood, which scrambled up a craggy hillside, and was crowned by a naked precipice.

Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of the cliff sprang above the foliage, we found that strange house which was known in the country as ‘Cluny’s Cage.’ The trunks of several trees had been wattled across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind this barricade levelled up with earth to make the floor. A tree, which grew out from the hillside, was the living centre-beam of the roof. The walls were of wattle and covered with moss. The whole house had something of an egg shape; and it half-hung, half-stood in that steep, hill-side thicket, like a wasp’s nest in a green hawthorn.

Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six persons with some comfort. A projection of the cliff had been cunningly employed to be the fireplace; and the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being not dissimilar in colour, readily escaped notice from below.

This was but one of Cluny’s hiding-places; he had caves, besides, and underground chambers in several parts of his country; and following the reports of his scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers drew near or moved away.

When we came to the door he was seated by his rock chimney, watching a gillie about some cookery. He was mighty plainly habited, with a knitted nightcap drawn over his ears, and smoked a foul cutty pipe. For all that he had the manners of a king, and it was quite a sight to see him rise out of his place to welcome us.

‘Well, Mr. Stewart, come awa’, sir!’ said he, ‘and bring in your friend that as yet I dinna ken the name of.’

‘And how is yourself, Cluny?’ said Alan. ‘I hope ye do brawly, sir. And I am proud to see ye, and to present to ye my friend the Laird of Shaws, Mr. David Balfour.’

‘Step in by, the both of ye, gentlemen,’ says Cluny. ‘I make ye welcome to my house. We’ll take a dram for luck, and as soon as this handless man of mine has the collops ready, we’ll dine and take a hand at the cartes as gentlemen should. And so here’s a toast to ye: The Restoration!’

Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. No sooner had I taken out the drain than I felt hugely better, and could look on and listen, still a little mistily perhaps, but no longer with the same groundless horror and distress of mind.

On that first day, as soon as the collops were ready, Cluny gave them with his own hand a squeeze of a lemon (for he was well supplied with luxuries) and bade us draw in to our meal.

I do not know if the collops were truly very good, but my heart rose against the sight of them, and I could eat but little. All the while Cluny entertained us with stories of Prince Charlie’s stay in the Cage, giving us the very words of the speakers, and rising from his place to show us where they stood.

We were no sooner done eating than Cluny brought out an old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean inn; and his eyes brightened in his face as he proposed that we should fall to playing.

Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to eschew like disgrace; it being held by my father neither the part of a Christian nor yet of a gentleman to set his own livelihood and fish for that of others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To be sure, I might have pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough; but I thought it behoved that I should bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the face, but I spoke steadily, and told them I had no call to be a judge of others, but for my own part, it was a matter in which I had no clearness.

Cluny stopped mingling the cards. ‘What in deil’s name is this?’ says he. ‘What kind of Whiggish, canting talk is this, for the house of Cluny Macpherson?’

‘I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour,’ says Alan. ‘He is an honest and a mettle gentleman. But the gentleman is tired, and should sleep; if he has no mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you and me. And I’m fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that ye can name.’

‘Sir,’ says Cluny, ‘in this poor house of mine I would have you to ken that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. And if either he, or you, or any other man, is not preceesely satisfied, I will be proud to step outside with him.’

I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for my sake.

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘I am very wearied, as Alan says; and what’s more, as you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you it was a promise to my father.’

‘Say nae mair, say nae mair,’ said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the Cage. For all that he was displeased enough, looked at me askance, and grumbled when he looked.

What with the brandy and the venison, a strange heaviness had come over me; and I had scarce lain down upon the bed before I fell into a kind of trance, in which I continued almost the whole time of our stay in the Cage. Sometimes I was broad awake and understood what passed; sometimes I only heard voices, or men snoring, like the voice of a silly river; I was conscious of no particular nightmare, only of a general, black, abiding horror – a horror of the place I was in, and the bed I lay in, and the plaids on the wall, and the voices, and the fire, and myself.

The barber-gillie, who was a doctor too, was called in to prescribe for me; but as he spoke in the Gaelic, I understood not a word of his opinion, and was too sick even to ask for a translation. I knew well enough I was ill, and that was all I cared about.

I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass. But Alan and Cluny were most of the time at the cards, and I am clear that Alan must have begun by winning; for I remember sitting up, and seeing them hard at it, and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a hundred guineas on the table.

The luck, it seems, changed on the second day. About noon I was wakened as usual for dinner, and as usual refused to eat, and was given a dram with some bitter infusion which the barber had prescribed. Cluny sat at the table, biting the pack of cards. Alan had stooped over the bed, and had his face close to my eyes; to which, troubled as they were with the fever, it seemed of the most shocking bigness.

He asked me for a loan of my money.

‘What for?’ said I.

‘O, just for a loan,’ said he.

‘But why?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t see.’

‘Hut, David!’ said Alan, ‘ye wouldnae grudge me a loan?’

All I thought of then was to get his face away, and I handed him my money.

On the morning of the third day, I awoke with a great relief of spirits, very weak and weary indeed, but seeing things of the right size and with their honest, everyday appearance. I had a mind to eat, moreover, rose from bed of my own movement, and as soon as we had breakfasted, stepped to the entry of the Cage and sat down outside in the top of the wood. It was a grey day with a cool, mild air: and I sat in a dream all morning, only disturbed by the passing by of Cluny’s scouts and servants.

When I returned, he and Alan had laid the cards aside, and were questioning a gillie; and the chief turned about and spoke to me.

‘My scout reports all clear in the south, and the question is, have ye the strength to go?’

I saw cards on the table, but no gold; only a heap of little written papers, and these all on Cluny’s side. Alan, besides, had an odd look, like a man not very well content; and I began to have a strong misgiving.

‘I do not know if I am as well as I should be,’ said I, looking at Alan; ‘but the little money we have has a long way to carry us.’

Alan took his under-lip into his mouth, and looked upon the ground.

‘David,’ says he at last, ‘I’ve lost it; there’s the naked truth.’

‘My money too?’ said I.

‘Your money too,’ says Alan, with a groan. ‘Ye shouldnae have given it me. I’m daft when I get to the cartes.’

‘Hoot-toot! hoot-toot!’ said Cluny. ‘It was all dafing; it’s all nonsense. Of course you’ll have your money back again, and the double of it, if ye’ll make so free with me!’ cries he, and began to pull gold out of his pocket with a mighty red face.

Alan said nothing, only looked on the ground.

‘Will you step to the door with me, sir?’ said I.

Cluny said he would be very glad, and followed me readily enough, but he looked flustered and put out.

‘And now, sir,’ says I, ‘I must first acknowledge your generosity.’

‘Where’s the generosity? This is just a most unfortunate affair; but what would ye have me do – boxed up in this beeskep of a cage of mine – but just set my friends to the cartes, when I can get them? And if they lose, of course, it’s not to be supposed —’

And here he came to a pause.

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘if they lose, you give them back their money; and if they win, they carry away yours in their pouches! I have said before that I grant your generosity; but to me, sir, it’s a very painful thing to be placed in this position.’

‘I am a young man,’ said I, ‘and I ask your advice. Advise me as you would your son. My friend fairly lost his money, after having fairly gained a far greater sum of yours; can I accept it back again? Would that be the right part for me to play?’

‘It’s rather hard on me, too, Mr. Balfour,’ said Cluny, ‘and ye give me very much the look of a man that has entrapped poor people to their hurt. I wouldnae have my friends come to any house of mine to accept aff ronts; no,’ he cried, with a sudden heat of anger, ‘nor yet to give them!’

‘And so you see, sir,’ said I, ‘there is something to be said upon my side; and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentlefolks. But I am still waiting your opinion.’

I am sure if ever Cluny hated any man it was David Balfour. But either my youth disarmed him, or perhaps his own sense of justice. Certainly it was a mortifying matter for all concerned, and not least Cluny; the more credit that he took it as he did.

‘Mr. Balfour,’ said he, ‘I think you are too nice and covenanting, but for all that you have the spirit of a very pretty gentleman. Upon my honest word, ye may take this money – it’s what I would tell my son – and here’s my hand along with it!’