Chapter Chapter 15 · THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL

. THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL

The Ross of Mull, which I had now got upon, was rugged and trackless,

like the isle I had just left; being all bog, and brier, and big stone.

There may be roads for them that know that country well; but for my part

I had no better guide than my own nose, and no other landmark than Ben

More.

I aimed as well as I could for the smoke I had seen so often from the

island; and with all my great weariness and the difficulty of the way

came upon the house in the bottom of a little hollow about five or

six at night. It was low and longish, roofed with turf and built of

unmortared stones; and on a mound in front of it, an old gentleman sat

smoking his pipe in the sun.

With what little English he had, he gave me to understand that my

shipmates had got safe ashore, and had broken bread in that very house

on the day after.

“Was there one,” I asked, “dressed like a gentleman?”

He said they all wore rough great-coats; but to be sure, the first of

them, the one that came alone, wore breeches and stockings, while the

rest had sailors’ trousers.

“Ah,” said I, “and he would have a feathered hat?”

He told me, no, that he was bareheaded like myself.

At first I thought Alan might have lost his hat; and then the rain came

in my mind, and I judged it more likely he had it out of harm’s way

under his great-coat. This set me smiling, partly because my friend was

safe, partly to think of his vanity in dress.

And then the old gentleman clapped his hand to his brow, and cried out

that I must be the lad with the silver button.

“Why, yes!” said I, in some wonder.

“Well, then,” said the old gentleman, “I have a word for you, that you

are to follow your friend to his country, by Torosay.”

He then asked me how I had fared, and I told him my tale. A

south-country man would certainly have laughed; but this old gentleman

(I call him so because of his manners, for his clothes were dropping off

his back) heard me all through with nothing but gravity and pity. When I

had done, he took me by the hand, led me into his hut (it was no better)

and presented me before his wife, as if she had been the Queen and I a

duke.

The good woman set oat-bread before me and a cold grouse, patting my

shoulder and smiling to me all the time, for she had no English; and the

old gentleman (not to be behind) brewed me a strong punch out of their

country spirit. All the while I was eating, and after that when I was

drinking the punch, I could scarce come to believe in my good fortune;

and the house, though it was thick with the peat-smoke and as full of

holes as a colander, seemed like a palace.

The punch threw me in a strong sweat and a deep slumber; the good people

let me lie; and it was near noon of the next day before I took the road,

my throat already easier and my spirits quite restored by good fare and

good news. The old gentleman, although I pressed him hard, would take no

money, and gave me an old bonnet for my head; though I am free to own I

was no sooner out of view of the house than I very jealously washed this

gift of his in a wayside fountain.

Thought I to myself: “If these are the wild Highlanders, I could wish my

own folk wilder.”

I not only started late, but I must have wandered nearly half the time.

True, I met plenty of people, grubbing in little miserable fields that

would not keep a cat, or herding little kine about the bigness of asses.

The Highland dress being forbidden by law since the rebellion, and the

people condemned to the Lowland habit, which they much disliked, it was

strange to see the variety of their array. Some went bare, only for a

hanging cloak or great-coat, and carried their trousers on their backs

like a useless burthen: some had made an imitation of the tartan with

little parti-coloured stripes patched together like an old wife’s quilt;

others, again, still wore the Highland philabeg, but by putting a few

stitches between the legs transformed it into a pair of trousers like

a Dutchman’s. All those makeshifts were condemned and punished, for the

law was harshly applied, in hopes to break up the clan spirit; but in

that out-of-the-way, sea-bound isle, there were few to make remarks and

fewer to tell tales.

They seemed in great poverty; which was no doubt natural, now that

rapine was put down, and the chiefs kept no longer an open house;

and the roads (even such a wandering, country by-track as the one

I followed) were infested with beggars. And here again I marked

a difference from my own part of the country. For our Lowland

beggars--even the gownsmen themselves, who beg by patent--had a louting,

flattering way with them, and if you gave them a plaek and asked change,

would very civilly return you a boddle. But these Highland beggars stood

on their dignity, asked alms only to buy snuff (by their account) and

would give no change.

To be sure, this was no concern of mine, except in so far as it

entertained me by the way. What was much more to the purpose, few had

any English, and these few (unless they were of the brotherhood of

beggars) not very anxious to place it at my service. I knew Torosay

to be my destination, and repeated the name to them and pointed; but

instead of simply pointing in reply, they would give me a screed of the

Gaelic that set me foolish; so it was small wonder if I went out of my

road as often as I stayed in it.

At last, about eight at night, and already very weary, I came to a lone

house, where I asked admittance, and was refused, until I bethought

me of the power of money in so poor a country, and held up one of my

guineas in my finger and thumb. Thereupon, the man of the house, who had

hitherto pretended to have no English, and driven me from his door by

signals, suddenly began to speak as clearly as was needful, and agreed

for five shillings to give me a night’s lodging and guide me the next

day to Torosay.

I slept uneasily that night, fearing I should be robbed; but I might

have spared myself the pain; for my host was no robber, only miserably

poor and a great cheat. He was not alone in his poverty; for the next

morning, we must go five miles about to the house of what he called a

rich man to have one of my guineas changed. This was perhaps a rich man

for Mull; he would have scarce been thought so in the south; for it

took all he had--the whole house was turned upside down, and a neighbour

brought under contribution, before he could scrape together twenty

shillings in silver. The odd shilling he kept for himself, protesting he

could ill afford to have so great a sum of money lying “locked up.” For

all that he was very courteous and well spoken, made us both sit down

with his family to dinner, and brewed punch in a fine china bowl, over

which my rascal guide grew so merry that he refused to start.

I was for getting angry, and appealed to the rich man (Hector Maclean

was his name), who had been a witness to our bargain and to my payment

of the five shillings. But Maclean had taken his share of the punch,

and vowed that no gentleman should leave his table after the bowl was

brewed; so there was nothing for it but to sit and hear Jacobite toasts

and Gaelic songs, till all were tipsy and staggered off to the bed or

the barn for their night’s rest.

Next day (the fourth of my travels) we were up before five upon the

clock; but my rascal guide got to the bottle at once, and it was three

hours before I had him clear of the house, and then (as you shall hear)

only for a worse disappointment.

As long as we went down a heathery valley that lay before Mr. Maclean’s

house, all went well; only my guide looked constantly over his shoulder,

and when I asked him the cause, only grinned at me. No sooner, however,

had we crossed the back of a hill, and got out of sight of the house

windows, than he told me Torosay lay right in front, and that a hill-top

(which he pointed out) was my best landmark.

“I care very little for that,” said I, “since you are going with me.”

The impudent cheat answered me in the Gaelic that he had no English.

“My fine fellow,” I said, “I know very well your English comes and goes.

Tell me what will bring it back? Is it more money you wish?”

“Five shillings mair,” said he, “and hersel’ will bring ye there.”

I reflected awhile and then offered him two, which he accepted greedily,

and insisted on having in his hands at once “for luck,” as he said, but

I think it was rather for my misfortune.

The two shillings carried him not quite as many miles; at the end of

which distance, he sat down upon the wayside and took off his brogues

from his feet, like a man about to rest.

I was now red-hot. “Ha!” said I, “have you no more English?”

He said impudently, “No.”

At that I boiled over, and lifted my hand to strike him; and he, drawing

a knife from his rags, squatted back and grinned at me like a wildcat.

At that, forgetting everything but my anger, I ran in upon him, put

aside his knife with my left, and struck him in the mouth with the

right. I was a strong lad and very angry, and he but a little man; and

he went down before me heavily. By good luck, his knife flew out of his

hand as he fell.

I picked up both that and his brogues, wished him a good morning, and

set off upon my way, leaving him barefoot and disarmed. I chuckled to

myself as I went, being sure I was done with that rogue, for a variety

of reasons. First, he knew he could have no more of my money; next, the

brogues were worth in that country only a few pence; and, lastly, the

knife, which was really a dagger, it was against the law for him to

carry.

In about half an hour of walk, I overtook a great, ragged man, moving

pretty fast but feeling before him with a staff. He was quite blind, and

told me he was a catechist, which should have put me at my ease. But

his face went against me; it seemed dark and dangerous and secret; and

presently, as we began to go on alongside, I saw the steel butt of a

pistol sticking from under the flap of his coat-pocket. To carry such a

thing meant a fine of fifteen pounds sterling upon a first offence, and

transportation to the colonies upon a second. Nor could I quite see why

a religious teacher should go armed, or what a blind man could be doing

with a pistol.

I told him about my guide, for I was proud of what I had done, and my

vanity for once got the heels of my prudence. At the mention of the

five shillings he cried out so loud that I made up my mind I should say

nothing of the other two, and was glad he could not see my blushes.

“Was it too much?” I asked, a little faltering.

“Too much!” cries he. “Why, I will guide you to Torosay myself for a

dram of brandy. And give you the great pleasure of my company (me that

is a man of some learning) in the bargain.”

I said I did not see how a blind man could be a guide; but at that he

laughed aloud, and said his stick was eyes enough for an eagle.

“In the Isle of Mull, at least,” says he, “where I know every stone and

heather-bush by mark of head. See, now,” he said, striking right and

left, as if to make sure, “down there a burn is running; and at the head

of it there stands a bit of a small hill with a stone cocked upon the

top of that; and it’s hard at the foot of the hill, that the way runs by

to Torosay; and the way here, being for droves, is plainly trodden, and

will show grassy through the heather.”

I had to own he was right in every feature, and told my wonder.

“Ha!” says he, “that’s nothing. Would ye believe me now, that before

the Act came out, and when there were weepons in this country, I could

shoot? Ay, could I!” cries he, and then with a leer: “If ye had such a

thing as a pistol here to try with, I would show ye how it’s done.”

I told him I had nothing of the sort, and gave him a wider berth. If

he had known, his pistol stuck at that time quite plainly out of his

pocket, and I could see the sun twinkle on the steel of the butt. But

by the better luck for me, he knew nothing, thought all was covered, and

lied on in the dark.

He then began to question me cunningly, where I came from, whether I

was rich, whether I could change a five-shilling piece for him (which

he declared he had that moment in his sporran), and all the time he kept

edging up to me and I avoiding him. We were now upon a sort of green

cattle-track which crossed the hills towards Torosay, and we kept

changing sides upon that like dancers in a reel. I had so plainly the

upper-hand that my spirits rose, and indeed I took a pleasure in this

game of blindman’s buff; but the catechist grew angrier and angrier,

and at last began to swear in Gaelic and to strike for my legs with his

staff.

Then I told him that, sure enough, I had a pistol in my pocket as well

as he, and if he did not strike across the hill due south I would even

blow his brains out.

He became at once very polite, and after trying to soften me for some

time, but quite in vain, he cursed me once more in Gaelic and took

himself off. I watched him striding along, through bog and brier,

tapping with his stick, until he turned the end of a hill and

disappeared in the next hollow. Then I struck on again for Torosay, much

better pleased to be alone than to travel with that man of learning.

This was an unlucky day; and these two, of whom I had just rid myself,

one after the other, were the two worst men I met with in the Highlands.

At Torosay, on the Sound of Mull and looking over to the mainland

of Morven, there was an inn with an innkeeper, who was a Maclean, it

appeared, of a very high family; for to keep an inn is thought even more

genteel in the Highlands than it is with us, perhaps as partaking of

hospitality, or perhaps because the trade is idle and drunken. He spoke

good English, and finding me to be something of a scholar, tried me

first in French, where he easily beat me, and then in the Latin, in

which I don’t know which of us did best. This pleasant rivalry put us at

once upon friendly terms; and I sat up and drank punch with him (or to

be more correct, sat up and watched him drink it), until he was so tipsy

that he wept upon my shoulder.

I tried him, as if by accident, with a sight of Alan’s button; but it

was plain he had never seen or heard of it. Indeed, he bore some grudge

against the family and friends of Ardshiel, and before he was drunk

he read me a lampoon, in very good Latin, but with a very ill meaning,

which he had made in elegiac verses upon a person of that house.

When I told him of my catechist, he shook his head, and said I was lucky

to have got clear off. “That is a very dangerous man,” he said; “Duncan

Mackiegh is his name; he can shoot by the ear at several yards, and has

been often accused of highway robberies, and once of murder.”

“The cream of it is,” says I, “that he called himself a catechist.”

“And why should he not?” says he, “when that is what he is. It was

Maclean of Duart gave it to him because he was blind. But perhaps it was

a peety,” says my host, “for he is always on the road, going from

one place to another to hear the young folk say their religion; and,

doubtless, that is a great temptation to the poor man.”

At last, when my landlord could drink no more, he showed me to a bed,

and I lay down in very good spirits; having travelled the greater part

of that big and crooked Island of Mull, from Earraid to Torosay, fifty

miles as the crow flies, and (with my wanderings) much nearer a hundred,

in four days and with little fatigue. Indeed I was by far in better

heart and health of body at the end of that long tramp than I had been

at the beginning.