Chương Chương 23 · CLUNY’S CAGE

. 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.

“It’s here,” said one of the guides, and we struck up hill.

The trees clung upon the slope, like sailors on the shrouds of a ship,

and their trunks were like the rounds of a ladder, by which we mounted.

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,

hillside 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. By this manner of living, and thanks to the

affection of his clan, he had not only stayed all this time in safety,

while so many others had fled or been taken and slain: but stayed four

or five years longer, and only went to France at last by the express

command of his master. There he soon died; and it is strange to reflect

that he may have regretted his Cage upon Ben Alder.

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.”

Alan never referred to my estate without a touch of a sneer, when we

were alone; but with strangers, he rang the words out like a herald.

“Step in by, the both of ye, gentlemen,” says Cluny. “I make ye welcome

to my house, which is a queer, rude place for certain, but one where I

have entertained a royal personage, Mr. Stewart--ye doubtless ken the

personage I have in my eye. 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. My life is a bit driegh,” says

he, pouring out the brandy; “I see little company, and sit and twirl my

thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another

great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here’s a toast

to ye: The Restoration!”

Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am sure I wished no ill

to King George; and if he had been there himself in proper person, it’s

like he would have done as I did. 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.

It was certainly a strange place, and we had a strange host. In his long

hiding, Cluny had grown to have all manner of precise habits, like those

of an old maid. He had a particular place, where no one else must sit;

the Cage was arranged in a particular way, which none must disturb;

cookery was one of his chief fancies, and even while he was greeting us

in, he kept an eye to the collops.

It appears, he sometimes visited or received visits from his wife and

one or two of his nearest friends, under the cover of night; but for the

more part lived quite alone, and communicated only with his sentinels

and the gillies that waited on him in the Cage. The first thing in the

morning, one of them, who was a barber, came and shaved him, and gave

him the news of the country, of which he was immoderately greedy. There

was no end to his questions; he put them as earnestly as a child; and

at some of the answers, laughed out of all bounds of reason, and would

break out again laughing at the mere memory, hours after the barber was

gone.

To be sure, there might have been a purpose in his questions; for

though he was thus sequestered, and like the other landed gentlemen of

Scotland, stripped by the late Act of Parliament of legal powers, he

still exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan. Disputes were brought

to him in his hiding-hole to be decided; and the men of his country,

who would have snapped their fingers at the Court of Session, laid

aside revenge and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited and

hunted outlaw. When he was angered, which was often enough, he gave

his commands and breathed threats of punishment like any king; and his

gillies trembled and crouched away from him like children before a hasty

father. With each of them, as he entered, he ceremoniously shook hands,

both parties touching their bonnets at the same time in a military

manner. Altogether, I had a fair chance to see some of the inner

workings of a Highland clan; and this with a proscribed, fugitive chief;

his country conquered; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of

him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay; and when the least of the

ragged fellows whom he rated and threatened, could have made a fortune

by betraying him.

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.

“They,” said he, meaning the collops, “are such as I gave his Royal

Highness in this very house; bating the lemon juice, for at that time we

were glad to get the meat and never fashed for kitchen.[28] Indeed, there

were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the year forty-six.”

[28] Condiment.

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. By these, I gathered the Prince was a

gracious, spirited boy, like the son of a race of polite kings, but not

so wise as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in the Cage, he

was often drunk; so the fault that has since, by all accounts, made such

a wreck of him, had even then begun to show itself.

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, and I would have ye bear in mind who says

it. I bear a king’s name,” says he, cocking his hat; “and I and any that

I call friend are company for the best. 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. If your friend would like to

stand on his head, he is welcome. 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. And indeed it must

be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them,

smacked somewhat of the Covenanter, and were little in their place among

wild Highland Jacobites.

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;

and the plaids upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out again, like

firelight shadows on the roof. I must sometimes have spoken or cried

out, for I remember I was now and then amazed at being answered; yet

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. It looked strange enough, to see all this wealth in a nest

upon a cliff-side, wattled about growing trees. And even then, I

thought it seemed deep water for Alan to be riding, who had no better

battle-horse than a green purse and a matter of five pounds.

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. The sun was

shining in at the open door of the Cage, and this dazzled and offended

me. 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?”

I would, though, if I had had my senses! But all I thought of then was

to get his face away, and I handed him my money.

On the morning of the third day, when we had been forty-eight hours in

the Cage, 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 coming with provisions

and reports; for as the coast was at that time clear, you might almost

say he held court openly.

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 in the

Gaelic.

“I have no Gaelic, sir,” said I.

Now since the card question, everything I said or did had the power of

annoying Cluny. “Your name has more sense than yourself, then,” said he

angrily, “for it’s good Gaelic. But the point is this. 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 daffing; 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. It would be a singular thing for me

to keep it. It’s not to be supposed that I would be any hindrance to

gentlemen in your situation; that would be a singular thing!” 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.”

“Nonsensical nonsense!” cries Cluny. “Where’s the generosity? This is

just a most unfortunate affair; but what would ye have me do--boxed

up in this bee-skep 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.”

There was a little silence, in which Cluny seemed always as if he was

about to speak, but said nothing. All the time he grew redder and redder

in the face.

“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? Whatever I do, you can see for

yourself it must be hard upon a man of any pride.”

“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

affronts; 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. He looked

me all over with a warlike eye, and I saw the challenge at his lips.

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!”