Chapter XII

I Hear of the Red Fox

Before we had done cleaning out the round-house, a breeze sprang up from a little to the east of north. This blew off the rain and brought out the sun.

Meanwhile, the early part of the day, before the swell came up, was very pleasant. Alan and I sat in the round-house with the doors open on each side, and smoked a pipe or two of the captain’s fine tobacco. It was at this time we heard each other’s stories, which was the more important to me, as I gained some knowledge of that wild Highland country on which I was so soon to land.

It was I that showed the example, telling him all my misfortune; which he heard with great good-nature. Only, when I came to mention that good friend of mine, Mr. Campbell the minister, Alan fired up and cried out that he hated all that were of that name.

‘I know nothing I would help a Campbell to,’ says he, ‘unless it was a leaden bullet.’

‘Why, Alan,’ I cried, ‘what ails ye at the Camp-bells?’

‘Well,’ says he, ‘ye ken very well that I am an Appin Stewart, and the Campbells have long harried and wasted those of my name; ay, and got lands of us by treachery – but never with the sword.’

‘You that are so wasteful of your buttons,’ said I, ‘I can hardly think you would be a good judge of business.’

‘Ah!’ says he, falling again to smiling, ‘I got my wastefulness from the same man I got the buttons from; and that was my poor father, Duncan Stewart, grace be to him! He was the prettiest man of his kindred; and the best swordsman in the Hielands, David, and that is the same as to say, in all the world, I should ken, for it was him that taught me. He was not the man to leave you rich, that’s true, he left me my breeks to cover me, and little besides. And that was how I came to enlist, which was a black spot upon my character. But I deserted to the right side at Preston Pans – and that’s some comfort.’

‘Dear, dear,’ says I, ‘the punishment is death. You that are a condemned rebel, and a deserter, and a man of the French King’s – what tempts ye back into this country? It’s a braving of Providence.’

‘Well, ye see, I weary for my friends and country,’ said he. ‘But the heart of the matter is the business of my chief, Ardshiel.’

‘I thought they called your chief Appin,’ said I.

‘Ay, but Ardshiel is the captain of the clan,’ said he, which scarcely cleared my mind. ‘Ye see, David, he that was all his life so great a man, and come of the blood and bearing the name of kings, is now brought down to live in a French town like a poor and private person. This is not only a pain but a disgrace to us of his family and clan. Now, the tenants of Appin have to pay a rent to King George; but their hearts are staunch, they are true to their chief; and what with love and a bit of pressure, and maybe a threat or two, the poor folk scrape up a second rent for Ardshiel. I’m the hand that carries it.’ And he struck the belt about his body, so that the guineas rang.

‘Do they pay both?’ cried I.

‘Ay, David, both,’ says he.

‘I call it noble,’ I cried. ‘I’m a Whig, or little better; but I call it noble.’

‘Ay,’ said he, ‘ye’re a Whig, but ye’re a gentleman; and that’s what does it. If ye were the Red Fox…’ And at that name, his teeth shut together, and he ceased speaking. I have seen many a grim face, but never a grimmer than Alan’s when he had named the Red Fox.

‘And who is the Red Fox?’ I asked, daunted, but still curious.

‘Well, and I’ll tell you that. When the men of the clans were broken at Culloden, Ardshiel had to flee like a poor deer upon the mountains. They stripped him of his powers; they stripped him of his lands; they plucked the weapons from the hands of his clansmen, that had borne arms for thirty centuries; ay, and the very clothes off their backs – so that it’s now a sin to wear a tartan plaid, and a man may be cast into a gaol if he has but a kilt about his legs. One thing they couldnae kill. That was the love the clansmen bore their chief. These guineas are the proof of it. And now, in there steps a man, a Campbell, red-headed Colin of Glenure —’

‘Is that him you call the Red Fox?’ said I.

‘Ay, that’s the man. In he steps, and gets papers from King George, to be so-called King’s factor on the lands of Appin. That came to his ears that I have just told you; how the poor commons of Appin, the farmers and the crofters and the boumen, were wringing their very plaids to get a second rent, and send it over-seas for Ardshiel and his poor bairns. The black Campbell blood in Colin Roy ran wild. He sat gnashing his teeth at the wine table. What! should a Stewart get a bite of bread, and him not be able to prevent it?’ (Alan stopped to swallow down his anger.) ‘Well, David, what does he do? He declares all the farms to let. “And”, thinks he, in his black heart, “I’ll soon get other tenants and then,” thinks he, “Ardshiel will have to hold his bonnet on a French roadside.’’’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘what followed?’

‘Ye’ll never guess that! For these same Stewarts, and Maccolls, and Macrobs (that had two rents to pay) offered him a better price than any Campbell in all broad Scotland’

‘Well, Alan,’ said I, ‘that is a strange story, and a fine one, too. And Whig as I may be, I am glad the man was beaten.’

‘Him beaten?’ echoed Alan. ‘It’s little ye ken of Campbells, and less of the Red Fox. Since he couldnae be rid of the loyal commons by fair means, he swore he would be rid of them by foul. Therefore he sent for lawyers, and papers, and red-coats to stand at his back. And the kindly folk of that country must all pack and tramp. And who are to succeed them? Bareleggit beggars! King George is to whistle for his rents; he maun dow with less; he can spread his butter thinner: what cares Red Colin? If he can hurt Ardshiel, he has his wish!’

‘Let me have a word,’ said I. ‘Be sure, if they take less rents, be sure Government has a finger in the pie. It’s not this Campbell’s fault, man – it’s his orders. And if ye killed this Colin tomorrow, what better would ye be? There would be another factor in his shoes, as fast as spur can drive.’

‘Ye’re a good lad in a fight,’ said Alan; ‘but, man! ye have Whig blood in ye!’

He spoke kindly enough, but there was so much anger under his contempt that I thought it was wise to change the conversation. I expressed my wonder how, with the Highlands covered with troops, and guarded like a city in a siege, a man in his situation could come and go without arrest.

‘It’s easier than ye would think,’ said Alan. ‘A bare hillside (ye see) is like all one road; if there’s a sentry at one place, ye just go by another. And everywhere there are friends’ houses and friends’ byres and haystacks. And besides, a soldier covers nae mair of it than his boot-soles’.

‘It’s no sae bad now as it was in forty-six,’ he continued ‘the Hielands are what they call pacified. Small wonder, with never a gun or a sword left from Cantyre to Cape Wrath, but what tenty folk have hidden in their thatch! What I would like to ken, David, is just how long? Not long, ye would think, with men like Ardshiel in exile and men like the Red Fox sitting birling the wine and oppressing the poor at home. Or why would Red Colin be riding his horse all over my poor country of Appin, and never a pretty lad to put a bullet in him?’

And with this Alan fell into a muse, and for a long time sate very sad and silent.

I will add the rest of what I have to say about my friend, that he was skilled in all kinds of music, but principally pipe-music; was a well-considered poet in his own tongue; had read several books both in French and English; was a dead shot, a good angler, and an excellent fencer with the small sword as well as with his own particular weapon. For his faults, they were on his face, and I now knew them all. But the worst of them, his childish propensity to take offence and to pick quarrels, he greatly laid aside in my case, out of regard for the battle of the roundhouse. But whether it was because I had done well myself, or because I had been a witness of his own much greater prowess, is more than I can tell. For though he had a great taste for courage in other men, yet he admired it most in Alan Breck.

Chapter XIII

The Loss of the Brig

It was already late at night, and as dark as it ever would be at that season of the year when Hoseason clapped his head into the round-house door.

‘Here,’ said he, ‘come out and see if ye can pilot.’

‘Is this one of your tricks?’ asked Alan.

‘Do I look like tricks?’ cries the captain. ‘I have other things to think of – my brig’s in danger!’

The sky was clear; it blew hard, and was bitter cold; a great deal of daylight lingered; and the moon, which was nearly full, shone brightly. Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in; and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain, when the brig rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the lee bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring.

‘What do ye call that?’ asked the captain, gloomily.

‘The sea breaking on a reef,’ said Alan. ‘And now ye ken where it is; and what better would ye have?’

‘Ay,’ said Hoseason, ‘if it was the only one.’

And sure enough, just as he spoke there came a second fountain farther to the south.

‘There!’ said Hoseason. ‘Ye see for yourself. If I had kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart, or if Shuan had been spared, it’s not sixty guineas, no, nor six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in sic a stoneyard! But you, sir, that was to pilot us, have ye never a word?’

‘I’m thinking,’ said Alan, ‘these’ll be what they call the Torran Rocks.’

Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other.

‘There’s a way through them, I suppose?’ said the captain.

‘Doubtless,’ said Alan, ‘but where? But it somehow runs in my mind once more that it is clearer under the land.’

‘So?’ said Hoseason. ‘We’ll have to haul our wind then, Mr. Riach; we’ll have to come as near in about the end of Mull as we can take her, sir; and even then we’ll have the land to kep the wind off us, and that stoneyard on our lee. Well, we’re in for it now, and may as well crack on.’

With that he gave an order to the steersman, and sent Riach to the foretop.

‘The sea to the south is thick,’ he cried; and then, after a while, ‘it does seem clearer in by the land.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Hoseason to Alan, ‘we’ll try your way of it. Pray God you’re right.’

‘Pray God I am!’ says Alan to me. ‘But where did I hear it? Well, well, it will be as it must.’

As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs began to be sown here and there on our very path; the brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day, which was, perhaps, the more alarming. It showed me, too, the face of the captain as he stood by the steersman, listening and looking and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. Riach had shown well in the fighting; but I saw they were brave in their own trade, and admired them all the more because I found Alan very white.

‘What, Alan!’ I cried, ‘you’re not afraid?’

‘No,’ said he, wetting his lips, ‘but you’ll allow, yourself, it’s a cold ending.’

By this time, now and then sheering to one side or the other to avoid a reef, we had got round Iona and begun to come alongside Mull. Mr. Riach, announced from the top that he saw clear water ahead.

‘Ye were right,’ said Hoseason to Alan. ‘Ye have saved the brig, sir. I’ll mind that when we come to clear accounts.’ And I believe he not only meant what he said, but would have done it; so high a place did the Covenant hold in his affections.

But this is matter only for conjecture, things having gone otherwise than he forecast.

‘Keep her away a point,’ sings out Mr. Riach. ‘Reef to windward!’ And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, and threw the wind out of her sails. She came round into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck the reef with such a dunch as threw us all flat upon the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his place upon the mast.

I was on my feet in a minute. I think my head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understand the things I saw.

Presently I observed Mr. Riach and the seamen busy round the skiff, and, still in the same blank, ran over to assist them; and as soon as I set my hand to work, my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task, for the skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on; but we all wrought like horses while we could.

The captain took no part. His brig was like wife and child to him; he seemed to suffer along with her.

I asked Alan, looking across at the shore, what country it was; and he answered, it was the worst possible for him, for it was a land of the Campbells.

Well, we had the boat about ready to be launched, when a man sang out pretty shrill: ‘For God’s sake, hold on!’ We knew by his tone that it was something more than ordinary; and sure enough, there followed a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and canted her over on her beam. Whether the cry came too late, or my hold was too weak, I know not; but at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the sea.

I went down, and drank my fill, and then came up, and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. They say a man sinks a third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk, then; for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. Presently, I found I was holding to a spar, which helped me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself.

I was amazed to see how far I had travelled from the brig, it was plain she was already out of cry. She was still holding together; but whether or not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off and too low down to see. I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well as of drowning.

The shores of Earraid were close in. In about an hour of kicking and splashing, I had got well in between the points of a sandy bay surrounded by low hills. I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate. But it was dry land; I was tired as I never was before that night; and grateful to God as I trust I have been often, though never with more cause.