Thus to her children Luisa speaks—she cries,
With you, my sons, my fate, my vengeance lies!
Live for that cause alone, with it to fall,
A bleeding mother's is a holy call.
Portugal: a Poem.
It was a year of danger, wounds, and rapine; still the MacNeishes, in their wave-surrounded fortress, defied all, and escaped every attempt to capture or destroy them; for still their boat was the only one whose keel ploughed the waters of Lochearn. And now approached St. Fillan's Day, 1523, the first anniversary of their disastrous defeat in Glenboultachan. In honour of this returning day of victory, Lady Aileen MacNab invited all the principal duine-wassals of her tribe to a great feast or festival; and to procure various accessories for the banquet and carousal MacIndoir, the standard-bearer, with other adherents of trust, were sent to the town of Grieff, which is situated on the slope of the Grampians. Having made all their purchases of provisions, wine and fruit, &c., they were returning with four laden sumpter-horses; but when crossing the Ruchil; at a place where it flowed through a thicket of pines, a shrill whistle was heard. Then followed shouts of wild fury and exultation, and MacIndoir found himself surrounded by Finlay MacNeish and his desperate followers, who by some means had obtained intelligence of his journey to Crieff. They were armed with rusty swords and battered targets, and were clad in little else than skins of the wolf and deer. Gaunt men they were; hollow-eyed, fierce and savage in aspect. Their long unshaven beards flowed over their breasts, and their matted hair, without covering or other dressing than a thong or fillet of deerskin, waved in the breeze or streamed over their naked shoulders like the manes of wild horses.
"The Neishes, by the arm of St. Fillan!" exclaimed MacIndoir, drawing his sword in anger and dismay.
"Yes, the Neishes, by the mass, the pope, and St. Fillan to boot!" replied the aged chief, with gloomy ferocity expressed in every lineament of his face, as he turned up the sleeves of his tattered doublet and grasped his two-handed sword; "we have long been supping the poorest of bruith,[*] but now we shall have the good cheer of those sons of the devil who oppress us. Come on, my children—come on!"
[*] Gaelic—hence the word broth.
A brief struggle ensued; and while defending himself bravely, MacIndoir vainly threatened the caterans with the "kindly gallows of Crieff," the power of William Earl of Monteith, who was then steward of Strathearn; and, more more than all, with the dreadful retribution which Lady MacNab and her sons would assuredly demand if their goods were plundered or spoiled.
Shouts of derisive laughter were his sole reply, and they mingled strangely with the cries of the wounded, the imprecations of the victors, and the clash of blades, which at every stroke scattered sparks of fire and blood-drops through the sunny air. In a few minutes MacIndoir was compelled to seek safety in flight; while his followers were all cut down, and the four sumpter-horses, with their burdens, captured. Using their swords and dirks as goads, the MacNeishes drove them at a furious pace down the hills towards Lochearn, in a solitary creek of which, under a shroud of ivy, willow, and waterdocks, they had concealed their boat, on board of which they rapidly stowed their plunder. The four horses were then denuded of their trappings, hamstrung, and left to limp away or die in the pine forest; while the MacNeishes, with a shout of defiance, shipped their oars, and as their long fleet birlinn cleft the clear waters of the lake and shot towards the little wooded isle, on the summit of which pale Muriel, with a beating heart, awaited them, the song of exultation raised by MacCallum Glas, as he sat harp in hand in the prow, and the chorus of twenty voices that joined his at intervals, reached the ears of the panting MacIndoir, when he paused on the brow of a neighbouring rock, and pressing the blade of his dirk to his trembling lips, swore to have a terrible revenge for the affront they had put upon him and the stern wife of his late chief, an affront which, to a Celt, seemed an outrage upon all laws divine as well as human.
On reaching Kennil House he related to Lady MacNab the events of his journey from Crieff, stating that the sumpter-horses with their burdens were gone, and that his whole party, consisting of six men, had been cut to pieces by caterans.
"By the Neishes?" she exclaimed in accents of rage.
"By the old wolf in the isle of Lochearn; and the blood of six of our people has soaked the heather."
"Yet thou returnest alive to tell the shameful story!" was her fierce exclamation, as she smote him on the beard with her clenched hand, and her twelve tall sons gathered round her, muttering threats and growls of anger, all the deeper that they knew them to be futile, as the deep lake rendered the isle impregnable. They formed a hundred fierce schemes of wholesale slaughter, and for the total destruction of the wasps' nest—for so they termed the retreat of the Neishes; but as the waters of the lake were too broad for armed men to swim them, and no boat could be procured, their projects ended in nothing but a settled wrath, all the deeper that it was without resource or vent; so night closed in, and they sat in moody silence in their mother's hall. Its windows overlooked Loch Tay, the waters of which were flushed in one place by the light that lingered in the ruddy west; and in others its deep blue was studded by the tremulous reflection of the stars. From the margin of the loch the beautiful and evergreen pines spread their solemn cones darkly over mountain and valley, as far as the eye could reach. Virgil praises their beauty in gardens; but the Mantuan bard never saw the wiry-foliaged and red-stemmed pine, that twists its knotty and tenacious roots round the basaltic rocks of the Scottish mountains, or he had found a fitter subject for his muse.
Aileen MacNab surveyed the darkening landscape with a gleam in her stern grey eyes, and turned from time to time to observe her surly and athletic sons, who were grouped near the large fire that blazed on the hearth, and which cast from its deep archway, a lurid glow on their bare muscular limbs, and floating red tartans; and then the idea that an insult had been offered to her on the first anniversary of their great victory,—that she had been obliged to despatch messengers to her friends announcing that the banquet had been put off,—and that at that very time too, probably, the wild caterans on the islet were feasting on the good cheer which MacIndoir had procured in Crieff, and were pouring her rare French and Flemish wines down their brawny throats, made her tremble with wrath.
Repeatedly she addressed Ian Mion, her eldest son; but on this night, John the Smooth, was unusually gloomy and abstracted, and made no response.
It was averred that once, when hunting near the well of St. Fillan, he had met and loved a beautiful fairy woman, who presented him with a ruby ring, the rich colour of which would always remain deep and bright while his love lasted, but would fade as his love faded, and death come nigh the donor. The well where he received this strange gift, is still considered alike weird and holy in Strathfillan; and there, even at this late age of the world, rags and ribbands are tied to the twigs near it, and small propitiatory oblations in the form of coin, are dropped into its limpid waters by the superstitious Celts of the district. Ian Mion had long ceased to visit the well, for the love he had vowed was a passing one, and the ring had been growing paler and more pale. On this night, as he surveyed it by the red glow of the bog-wood fire, the ruby had become white as snow,—a token that the fairy was dead, and that danger was near himself. He shuddered, and then the sharp, stern, voice of his mother roused him, as she clenched her trembling and uplifted hands above her grey head, and exclaimed bitterly,—
"A Dhia! oh that my husband was here, instead of lying in the place of sleep at Innis Bui, for this night is the night for vengeance, if his lads were but the lads!"
This significant mode of communicating a sentiment,—a mode strongly characteristic of the genuine Celt, was immediately understood by the twelve sturdy warriors at the fire.
"Taunt us not, mother," said Ian Mion, starting as if stung by a serpent, "the night is the night for a terrible deed, and your sons are the lads to achieve it, or may their bones never lie by their father's side under the dark pines of Innis Bui."
He took his long claymore from the wall, and placed it in his broad leather belt; he slung his target on his left shoulder, and grimly felt the point of his sharp biodag, or Highland dagger; and his eleven brothers followed his example, arming themselves with gloomy alacrity, while Ian, with a smile of fierce exultation, surveyed their stature and equipment.
"Now mother," said he, "we go to Lochearn."
"Achial! achial, am bata!" muttered his brother Gillespie. (Alas—alas, a boat!)
"Why not take our birlinn from Loch Tay?" exclaimed Lady Aileen.
"And sail it over the hills to Lochearn!" added her son Malcolm, who was somewhat of a jester.
"No—but carry it on your shoulders, my sons. There are twelve of you; and for what did I bear—for what did I suckle you, but to rear you to act as your father expected, like men!"
"Our mother speaks wisely," said Gillespie.
"'Tis well and bravely thought of," added Ian Mion; "so, now for vengeance on the Neishes, the accursed ceathearne coille!" (i.e., woodmen, or outlaws.)
"Then go," exclaimed Lady Aileen, with uplifted hands; "and remember, the Neish's head, or let me never see ye more, and may the curse of your dead father dog ye to your graves!"
In a minute more the twelve brethren had left the castle, and rushed to a little jetty in Loch Tay, where their birlinn or painted and gilded pleasure-boat was moored.
It was soon beached, or drawn ashore, and raising it on their shoulders they proceeded (six brothers relieving the other six at every mile of the way) to ascend the steep, rocky, shelves of a mountain, and descended from thence into a narrow and gloomy gorge, that forms the avenue of Glentarkin. Unwearied and resolute, the twelve brothers bore thus the birlinn on their shoulders, over this rough and rugged tract of mountain, and down the stony bed of a steep and brawling torrent, which tore its way through a rift of marl and clay, and serving as a guide for miles, poured its waters into Lochearn.
"Quick, lads—quick," urged Ian Mion, pausing in a song by which he had sought to cheer the way.
"Hurry no man's cattle, Ian," said Gillespie, as he panted under his share of the burden.
"But hurry your lazy legs, for a storm is coming."
"How know you that?"
"This morning I came over Bendoran——"
"Aire Dhia!" exclaimed Malcolm; "an enchanted place, where storms are foretold."
"So was I foretold it," replied Ian; "for I heard the hollow voice of the wind sighing through the valley; the shepherds also heard it, and were collecting all their flocks in bught and pen. So, on, lads, on! And now by St. Fillan, I can see Lochearn gleaming in the starlight far down below us."
The moon, which had lighted them for some portion of the way, imparting by her pale radiance a ghastly aspect to everything, now waned behind the summit of Benvoirlich, and all became sombre, dark, and solemn, amid the pine-woods, and on the water of Lochearn, when, about one hour after midnight, the twelve MacNabs launched their birlinn, stepped on board, and without waiting a moment to rest or refresh, so resolute were they, and so determined to elude their mother's malison and to fulfil their vows of vengeance, they slipped their oars, and in silence shot their sharp-prowed vessel across the calm and lonely lake, and soon reached the Neishes' islet, which resembled a dense thicket or copsewood, as the stems of the trees seemed to start sheer from the water.
With muffled oars they pulled around it, and all seemed still in its woody recesses. No sound was heard—not even the barking of a dog, and so intense was the silence, that Ian Mion began to doubt whether the foes he had taken so much trouble to reach, were now in the isle or on the mainland, until he found their boat moored in a little creek. Driving his biodag again and again through its planks, he soon scuttled it, and shoved it into the loch, where it filled and sank, thus cutting off, for ever, all chance of flight for the foe, if defeated, and of communication with the mainland, if victorious. All this was performed in nervous haste, for, from this secluded islet, the diabolical water-horse had been frequently seen to dash into the lake; and it was long the abode of a uirisk, a being half demon, half mortal, whose piercing shriek before a storm could make all Lochearn echo. Mooring their birlinn under the lower branches of a large pine, the twelve brothers landed, braced on their arms their targets, which were formed of coiled straw-rope, covered by thrice-barkened bull-hide, and studded with round brass nails. Then, unsheathing their long and sharp claymores, they began warily to approach a red light, which they now detected in the centre of the isle, where it glimmered with wavering radiance between the stems of the trees. Advancing cautiously, they discovered it to proceed from the window—if an open unglazed aperture can be so termed—of the long and low-roofed creel-house or cottage built by the MacNeishes on the isle, and the turf walls of which they had carefully loop-holed for defence by arrows; but now, overcome by fatigue, very probably by the unusual quantity of good food and rich foreign wines they had imbibed, lulled too by the sense of perfect security, they kept no watch or ward; and thus, on peeping in, Ian Mion and his brethren beheld their enemies all asleep (save one) on the clay floor of the wattled wigwam (the hovel was little better), rolled in skins of deer, or coarse smoke-blackened plaids, the dull checks of which were the simple dyes of wild herbs and of the mountain heather.
Ian Mion ground his teeth, and his fingers tightened on the hilt of his claymore, when finding his hated enemies within arm's length at last, and, to all appearance, a prey so easy.
The fire from which the light proceeded, was formed of guisse-monaye, or bog oak from the morasses. It burned cheerily in the centre of the clay floor, from whence, in the old Highland fashion, the smoke was permitted—after curling among the bronze-like cabers—to find its way through an aperture in the roof. Seated by this fire, upon a block of wood, was the venerable Finlay MacNeish, of all that wearied band the only one awake. He was enveloped in a tattered plaid of bright colours. His white hair fell in curly masses around his bronzed visage, and mingled with his noble beard; his chin rested on his left hand, and his elbow was placed on his bare left knee. He was buried in thought; but a stern smile from time to time lit up his hollow eye; for, warmed by the generous wine of France and of the Flemings of the Dam, which his good sword had that day won from the followers of his mortal enemy and oppressor, he was full of brilliant waking dreams; though his thoughts chiefly wandered to the little couch of furs and heath, whereon slept the pale child, Muriel, the last of all his race, the flower of that wild islet, and the hope and joy of all his desperate band. For her, he planned out future triumphs, and the memory of all he had lost in that one fatal battle, the wild pass of Strathearn, the green Dundurn, the lone hill of St. Fillan, and beautiful Glenartney; his ruined home; his plundered flocks and herds; his wasted fields and ravaged farms,—all now, even to the time-honoured burial-place of his fathers, the prey of the MacNabs,—filled his soul with rage; and he saw before him the things such stern dreamers only see, in the red, glowing and changing embers of the fire, on which his gaze was fixed.
His thoughts were suddenly and roughly arrested by a shout of triumph at the opening which served for a window. He turned sharply, and on beholding the face of a stranger, threw aside his plaid, and drew the sword which was never for a moment from his side.
"Who are you?" he demanded, in astonishment and alarm; "speak, and speak quickly!"
"Ian Mion Mac an Abba," replied the eldest son of Aileen, with a smile of scorn and triumph.
"Smooth John of the accursed race, in the island of the Neishes! What seek you, caitiff?"
"A just vengeance; so come on thou false cateran, or yield."
"MacNeish yields to the hand of the blessed God only; but never to a MacNab of woman born!" replied the aged Finlay, with that air of supreme grandeur which the old Celtic warriors could at times assume. "Up, up to arms!" he added to his people; but wine, weariness, and slumber heavily sealed their eyes, and he found neither response nor succour, while he and Ian met hand to hand.
Their swords crossed, and by the light of the bog-wood fire, their wild eyes glared into each other's faces; and while blade pressed and rasped against blade, ere they struck or thrust, MacNeish said,—
"I am old, and thou, John MacNab, art lithe and young. If I fall, for the sake of our blessed Lady of Pity have mercy on my child—my little Muriel; other boon than this have I none to ask."
"She shall have such mercy as brave men ever accord to women and children," replied MacNab.
"I thank you, Ian Mion——"
"But for thee, there is——"
"Only death. I know it—so come on! It may be that I shall die, yet I care not, if I can redeem my old life by having the best life among ye—ye sons of a misbegotten cur!"
A thrust which he made full at the broad breast of Ian Mion, was parried with such force, that his arm tingled to the shoulder; and now the poor old man felt the weakness of his many years, and the hopelessness of resistance.
"MacNeish, you fight without hope—a man foredoomed to evil," said Ian mockingly.
"True; to evil and vengeance!" exclaimed the other gloomily, for his mother had borne him on Childermas Day, 1467 (the 28th December) the anniversary of Herod's slaughter of the innocents; a day of especial ill omen in Scotland, for which it was deemed unlucky for a man to put on a new doublet, to clip his beard, or attempt anything in this world—then how much less to have the effrontery to come into it!
It was vain for the old man to contend with an antagonist so formidable as Ian Mion, who soon beat him to the earth by a mortal wound, trod upon his sword and broke it. Then, twisting his fingers through the silver locks of Mac Neish's ample beard, he dragged him to the block of wood on which he had been so recently seated, and there ruthlessly severed his head from his body by one slash of the claymore.
Ere the combat had ended, by a catastrophe so sudden and terrible, his eleven brothers had pierced and cut to pieces the whole band as they lay in their drunken slumber, and incapable of resistance. Of all the tribe of MacNeish none escaped, but Muriel, his child, and a little boy (the son of Grey Callum, the bard) who concealed himself under a creel, and lay there in deadly fear, and drenched by the warm blood which flowed more than an inch deep over the clay floor of this frightful hut.
The summits of Benvoirlich, and of the wooded hills that look down on lovely Lochearn, were tinged with gold and purple by the rising sun, as, with panting hearts and bloody hands, the twelve brothers rowed their birlinn from that isle of death towards the wooded shore, bearing with them the white head of MacNeish; nor did they rest for a moment until they reached the hall of Kennil House, where their pale, grim mother, who had never once closed her blood-shot eyes in sleep, awaited them.
"Mo mather—na biodh fromgh, oirbh!" ("My mother, fear nothing now!") exclaimed Ian Mion, as he held aloft the ghastly head by its silver locks; and from that hour the MacNabs took as their crest, "the Neish's head," affrontée, with the motto Dreid Nocht. Aileen embraced her twelve savage sons, with stern exultation, and ordered the head to be spiked on the summit of her mansion; while a banquet was spread, and the piper marched before the door, making every chamber ring to the notes of the clan salute, Failte Mhic an Abba.
Lady Aileen would not permit the slaughtered caterans to receive the rights of sepulture.
"There, on the Neish's isle, let them lie unburied," she exclaimed, "without aid from priest or prayer, torch or taper, mass-bell or mourner,—that their bones may whiten as a terrible memorial to all that would dare to withstand us!"
So said this fierce woman; but gentle Father Alpin Maol, the good old monk of Inchaffray, had them interred in one grave, over which he placed a cairn of stones, and one of those Celtic crosses of a fashion which is only to be found in Scotland and Ireland. On the island the ruins of the Neishes' dwelling may still be traced, and on Innis Bui there still stands a monument erected by the MacNabs in commemoration of their savage triumph.
The son of Grey Callum, the bard, when he grew to manhood, settled in Strathallan; and from him are descended all who at the present day bear the names of Neish or MacIldiu.
Little Muriel, who was almost inanimate with grief and terror, Father Alpin bore with him to Inchaffray, in Strathearn, where she chanced to meet the eye of James V., when on a hunting expedition; so she became the protégée of that good king, and when she grew to woman's estate, he bestowed her, with a portion in marriage, upon one of his esquires—the laird of the Torwood—and she was the pale, sad widow who, with her three children nestling about her skirts, related to Florence, to Shelly, and their companions, this barbarous tale of a Highland feud.
Florence listened to it with deep interest, and the narrative filled his mind with melancholy reflections; for in the character of Lady Aileen MacNab he too easily recognized a resemblance to his own mother,—stern, implacable, and revengeful.
Shelly looked at Master Patten as Lady Muriel concluded, and shrugged his shoulders, with an expression in his eye which seemed so much as to say that he cared not how soon the waters of the Tweed, and the Tyne and the Tees to boot, were between him and the land were such events were matters of not uncommon occurrence.