Highland Legends. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
Ian generally left it unfastened, he had somehow or other been led to secure it on this occasion, by lifting a stone of no ordinary size, which usually served him as a seat, and placing it as a barricade against it on the inside. Their first attempt to force it being thus rendered altogether unavailing—
“John Mackay, otherwise Ian More Arrach, open to us in the name of King George,” cried the sergeant, standing at the full length of his pike from the door, and poking against it with the point of the weapon.
“Fat wud King Shorge hae wi’ Ian More,” demanded the Highlander.
“Come, open the door and surrender peaceably,” cried the sergeant; “you are the King’s lawful recruit. You have been guilty of mutiny and desartion; but if you will surrender at discretion, and come quietly along with us, it is not unlikely that, in consideration of your being as yet untaught, and still half a savage, you may not be exactly shot this bout, though it is but little marcy you desarve, considering how confoundedly my back aches with the rough treatment I had from you. Keep close to the door, my lads,” continued he, sinking his voice, “and be ready to spring on him the moment he comes out.”
Whilst the sergeant yet spoke, the whole hovel began to heave like some vast animal agonised with internal throes. The men of the party stood aghast for one moment, and in the next the back wall of the sod edifice was hurled outwards, and the roof, losing its support, fell inwards, raising a cloud of dust so dense as utterly to conceal for a time the individual who was the cause and instrument of its destruction.
“Ha! look sharp, my lads!” cried the sergeant; “be on your mettle!”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the herculean form of Ian More arose before his eyes from amidst the debris and dust, as did the figure of the Genii from the jar before those of the fisherman in the Eastern fable.
“There he is, by Jupiter!” cried the sergeant, involuntarily retreating a step or two. “On him—on him, and seize him, my brave boys!”
The nature of the spot seemed to forbid all hope of escape. The party blocked up the space in front of the bothy, and the narrow stripe of ground that stretched along between the lake on the one hand, and the cliffs on the other, grew more and more confined as it ran backwards, until it disappeared altogether at a point about an hundred yards distant, where the crags rose sheer up out of the water. In this direction Ian More moved slowly off, after throwing on the throng of his assailants a grim smile, which, however, had more of pity than of anger in it. Before he had taken a dozen steps the most forward of the party were at his skirts. He turned smartly round, and suddenly catching up the first man in his arms, he sent him spinning through the air into the lake as if he had been a puppy dog. The next in succession was seized with astonishment, but before he could shake himself free of it, he was seized by something more formidable, I mean by the iron hands of Ian More, who flung him also far amid the waters after his fellow. A whole knot of those who followed them sprang upon him at once, but he patted them off, one after another, as if they had been so many flies, and that he had been afraid to hurt them; but, as it was impossible for him to accommodate his hits with mathematical precision to the gentleness of his intentions, some of the individuals who received them bore the marks of them for many a day afterwards. The ardour of the attack became infinitely cooled down. But still there were certain fiery spirits who coveted glory. These, as they came boldly up, successively shared the fate of those who had gone before them. Some were stretched out, as chance threw them, to measure their dimensions on the terra firma, whilst others were hurled hissing hot into the lake, where they were left at leisure to form some estimate of their own specific gravity in a depth of water which was just shallow enough to save them from drowning. Meanwhile, the object of their attack continued to stalk slowly onwards at intervals, smiling on them from time to time, as he turned to survey the shattered remains of the attacking army that now followed him at a respectful distance, and halted every time he faced them. The sergeant, like an able general, kept poking them on in the rear with his pike, and upbraiding them for their cowardice. Meanwhile Ian gradually gained ground on them, and having produced an interval of some twenty or thirty yards between himself and them, just as they thought that he had arrived at a point where farther retreat was impossible, he suddenly disappeared into a crack in the face of the cliff, hitherto unobserved, and on reaching the place they found that the fearless mountaineer had made his slippery way up the chimney-like cleft, amidst the white foam of a descending rill that was one of the main feeders of the lochan, into which it poured.
“The feller has vanished into the clouds,” said the sergeant, shuddering with horror as he looked up the perilous rocky funnel, and, at the same time, secretly congratulating himself that Ian had not stood to bay. “He has vanished into the clouds, just out of our very hands, as I may say. Who was to think of there being any such ape’s ladder as this here?”
The party returned, sullen and discomfited, to the strath, and their leader now gave up all hopes of capturing Ian More Arrach either by stratagem or force. But his thirst for the large sum which he expected to realise by producing such a man at headquarters rendered him quite restless and unremitting in his inquiries, the result of which was, that he found out that Lord Seaforth, then, I believe, Lord Lieutenant of the County, might do something towards apprehending the runaway. He accordingly waited on his lordship to request his interference for procuring the seizure of John Mackay, surnamed Ian More Arrach, a deserter from His Majesty’s service. Lord Seaforth inquired into the case, and believing that the man had been fairly enlisted, he procured his immediate appearance at Brahan Castle, by going the right way to work with him. There, it so happened, that Lord Rae was at that time a visitor, and Lord Seaforth called in his aid to work upon Ian More, who bowed to the ground in submission to the wishes of his chief.
“This is an unlucky business, Ian More,” said Lord Rae, “it seems that you have deserted from the King’s service, after having accepted his money, and that, moreover, you have twice deforced the officer and party. Your case, I fear, is a bad one. Depend upon it, they will have you if it should cost them the sending of a whole regiment after you; and then, if you give them so much trouble, no one can say what may be the consequence. Take my advice and give yourself up quietly. I shall write to your commanding officer in such terms as will save you from any very bad consequences; and with the recommendations which you shall have, there is no saying but you may be an officer ere long. All the Mackays are brave fellows; and if all I have heard be true, it appears that you are no disgrace to the name.”
Ian was too proud of the interest taken in him by his noble chief, to dispute his advice or wishes for one moment. He would have sacrificed his life for him. And accordingly, abandoning his mountain-glen and his caurets, he surrendered himself to the sergeant, who implicitly obeyed the instructions he received from Lord Rae to treat him kindly, particularly as they were backed up with a handsome douceur; and Ian was soon afterwards embarked to join his regiment, then quartered in Guernsey.
The regiment that Ian More was attached to was almost entirely a new levy, and the recruits were speedily put on garrison duty, frivolous perhaps in itself, but probably given to them more as a lesson, in order that they might become familiar with it, than from any absolute necessity for it. It so happened, that the first guard that Ian mounted, he was planted as a night sentinel on the Queen’s Battery. The instructions given to his particular post were to take especial care that no injury should happen to a certain six-pounder, which there rested on its carriage; and when the corporal of the guard marched Ian up as a relief, he laughed heartily to hear the earnest assurances which he gave, in answer to the instructions he received from the man he was relieving, “Tat not a bonn o’ ta body o’ ta wee gunnie sould be hurt, at a’, at a’, while he had ta care o’ her.”
And Ian kept his word; for he watched over the beautiful little piece of ordnance with the greatest solicitude. It so happened, however, that whilst he was walking his lonely round, a heavy shower of rain began to fall, and a bitter freezing blast soon converted every particle of it into a separate cake of ice, which cut against his nose and eyes, and nearly scarified his face, so that much as he had been accustomed to the snarling climate of the higher regions of the interior of Scotland, he felt as if he would lose his eyesight from the inclemency of the weather; and then he began to reason that if he should lose his eyesight, how could he take care