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THE BLACK COLONEL

JAMES MILNE

THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL THE EPISTLES OF ATKINS JOHN JONATHAN AND COMPANY NEWS FROM SOMEWHERE MY SUMMER IN LONDON THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED

LONDON

TO J. T. M., WHO KNOWS THE

STORY OF THE BLACK COLONEL

The strangest thing about this tale is that it happened, though not, may be, as I here relate it; which is merely to seek, in a humble spirit, the great company of George Washington, who could not tell--a story!

That of the Black Colonel came to me in scraps of talk from my mother when, as Byron grandly sang of himself, "I roved, a Young Highlander, o'er Dark Lochnagar," a wild landscape beloved of Queen Victoria, at Balmoral, for, you see, the eminences will come in. My mother had it from her people, a Forbes family long planted in the brave uplands of Deeside, and I was taken a generation nearer to it in the conversation of my grandfather, whose folk were on the no less brave uplands of Donside. Nay, he could remember, what my own father, born like him, and myself, in the Forbes Country, first stirred me by saying, when the Red Coats still garrisoned the Castle of Braemar and the Castle of Corgarff, old Grampian strongholds where they had been installed to overawe the Jacobites of the Aberdeenshire Highlands.

The "Seventeen-Forty-Five," with the "Standard on the Braes o' Mar . . . up and streamin' rarely" for Bonnie Prince Charlie, saw fiery times in those remote parts, and knew times of dule afterwards, and the difficulty about any authentic tale of events, is that, in its passage down time, from mouth to mouth, it necessarily loses immediacy of phrase, even of fable, and that rude frame of living and loving, fighting and dying, in which it was originally set. But human nature does not change, we only think it does in changed circumstances, and if Jock Farquharson, of Inverey, could return from the Hills of Beyond and read our chronicle of himself and others, why, he might recognize it, which would mean, perhaps, that some of the romantic colour, the dancing atmosphere, and the high spirit of adventure of those ancient years, has been saved from them. It was little he did not know about the gallantries and the intrigues of war-making and love-making, holding them the natural occupations of a Highland gentleman, even when he had become a "broken man" and an "outlaw"; as you may now, if you please, go on to learn, with many other things of surprise, diversion and quality.

J. M.

THE BLACK COLONEL

We might have gone by each other in the Pass, the Black Colonel and I, if his horse had not kicked a stone as we came together. It struck my foot and then a rock, making a rattle in the dark night. You know how noise gains when you cannot see the cause of it, and all your senses are in your ears.

"Woa, Mack!" said the Black Colonel to his beast; "can't you stand still with those mettlesome legs of yours? You may," he went on, more to himself than to the horse, "need them to-night, for our friend, Captain Ian Gordon of his Hanoverian Majesty's forces, is late, and when a man is late it generally bodes trouble; for a woman anyhow, I might confess from my experience. It is less matter if a woman be late, because it is a fashion with the sweet sex that you should wait upon it, and I am always willing to oblige out of my own warmth in gallantry, or so folk say. Eh! Mack? Kept you waiting at many a gate, have I, forgetful that it was cold outside?"

The Black Colonel and I had met before, though slightly, distantly, and I knew his habit of talking to his horse. Not an unnatural thing, because Mack was an animal of fine intelligence, coupled, it is true, with the stallion's devil of a temper, and they had spent much time alone together, which begets understanding. Were they, indeed, not a romance of the countryside, inseparable, with a friendship only found between a lonely man and his horse or his dog? They had been through a whole chapter of adventures together, and were willing to face more, or they would not have been there in the Pass.

When the stone hit my foot I stood still, knowing it must be the Black Colonel, yet wishful to be certain before I spoke. His words to Mack revealed his presence, but left me unsure whether he knew that I was within a few yards of him. Of course the horse knew, for animals of the higher order have an instinct which is often more sure than reason in a man. It is their reason, the shield of guidance which Nature gives to all her creatures.

Suddenly communication seemed to arise between us, although no word of mutual greeting had been spoken. You know how those things come about! No, you don't, nor do I, nor does anybody else, but they do happen out of a world 'twixt earth and heaven. They call them uncanny in our land, which only means they are unknown, the mysteries of them, but some day they will grow clear and be no more black witchery, only golden light.

"Walked all the way from Corgarff Castle?" he abruptly asked, preparing the way, with the usual nothings of conversation. It is oddly difficult to get into natural talk in a dark, dividing night, when eyes, faces, gestures, are hidden, and I just answered, "Yes, walked over the hills, as I've often done before, knowing them well, without having the honour of a safe conduct from you."

"Some day," he snapped, "you'll be able to bring your red-coats by the same paths, knowing them, as you say, well, and capture me for the Lowland money your Government puts on my Highland head. Nobody is too well off in our parts in these times. Captain Gordon, not, it may be, even you, who was born, I suppose, with an eye for prosperity."

It was unfair of him to say that, and as he climbed off Mack and threw the bridle loose on the horse's neck he mumbled as much.

"A touch of temper against your royal employer, nothing worse; not bad temper, merely temper, so pray excuse it. Mostly I have, as you know, been accustomed to express myself with the sword. . . ."

"Except," I interrupted with some sharpness, for I was still nettled, "when you have confided your language to the dirk, or let it speak in silence for itself."

"Now we are even, Captain Gordon, for that is not worthy of you, if, as I take it, you suggest that, on occasion, I have struck foul. No, sir, not that, never on my honour, as a gentleman; outlawed, if you like, though that troubles me little. But the fine ethics of the broad-sword and the dirk are too nice for discussion between a Gordon and a Farquharson; met as we are with, I suspect, a Forbes to attract and divide us. Besides, I spoke clumsily, not meaning any personal insult, since I want, sincerely want, to be friendly, if that be possible. Anger is a poor hostess, believe me, and I, who have been in its way, should know better than you who are young, amiably young."

Mine melted under his soft words, because such, even when they are not deeply sincere, may turn wrath aside like balm. Moreover, he had a wild charm of manner which, if it did not quite capture another man, as almost surely it would have won a woman, yet had its effect. Where exactly it lay I have never been able to decide, but the melody of his tongue had something to do with it, even when he spoke in Sassenach English. We could have talked in the Gaelic, I also having it natively, but the Black Colonel would always speak English if he met somebody to whom he could show his command of the language. It was one of his several accomplishments, acquired by study and travel in England and France, and he prided and guarded them all, as a woman does her graces of the person.

So we stood in the chasm of night and the Pass, one waiting upon the other, because our trouble, as in all affairs where two men and a maid are concerned, was how to begin, more particularly as we had no idea what would be the end. The Black Colonel had said as much when he spoke the name Forbes, the third of our Aberdeenshire clans, though it may not have all the lustre of the Gordons or the Farquharsons.

"Ehum," he murmured, dropping into a Scots mannerism which made no more than an overture to speech between us, and yet signified something already said.

"Your letter was urgent," I said. "It might have been a summons to another hoisting of the Stuart Standard on the Braes of Mar."

"And would you have come?" he inquired; "would you have come?"

"It is hard," I answered coldly, "to tell what a man would or would not do if his honour could always march with his inclination. But no summons from you would bring me to the colours, even of those who were our rightful Scottish kings."

"Still, you have come to-night."

"True, but it must occur to you that it is not of the first order of a gentleman to force a meeting, by wrapping a threat in a woman's Christian name, even when you send your message by so secure a hand as that of your ghillie, Red Murdo."

He turned his head and, I felt, though I could still only see vaguely, was looking straight at me, as, certainly, I was looking at him. While we looked and saw not, a quick, low whistle came from the foot of the Pass and an answering whistle, just as low, blew from the top of it.

Never, in all my experience of the hills, their fragrant peace and their rude surprises, have I been so moved by an unexpected noise as I was then, standing with the Black Colonel in the black Pass. Partly this was because the surprise was complete, being unheralded by a rustle or a movement, but, still more, because it was the magic hour at which the womb of night moves to the birth of a new day.

Mingle the void of heaven and earth, and the sense of unseen spaces; the long, sleeping mountains, with the drowsy trees that guard the foot-hills; the caressing sigh of the wind, and, maybe, the murmur of a stream flowing to the sea, and out of all this catch a whistle and its answer. They sounded strangely eerie as they died into the hills, touching us like the still small voice of the Scriptures and, also, like it, carrying a note of apprehension, even of awe.

Under stress a mind moves instantly, and two thoughts leapt into mine, that a trap had been set for the Black Colonel, and that he must suspect me of it. To be sure I was, myself, within the wings of that trap, but this perfect retort was like a gun in a bad position, it could not be brought to bear. However, my own situation, peculiar as I realized it to be, troubled me less, at the moment, than did the Black Colonel's thoughts, as I conceived them, about my honour, and I do suggest that it would have been the same with any other gentleman.

Ugly thoughts have a trick of riding double, and I fancied I heard him trying his stirrup leathers and bridle, to be satisfied they were in order. Even I thought I saw his hand drop down to his right garter, where a Highlander wears his skean-dhu, or short dirk, an ornament mostly, with its Cairngoram stone in the handle, but likewise a solid weapon in an emergency, like the present.

There, probably, I did him an injustice or, if his hand did make the furtive inquiry, I could think wrongly of the reason behind it. Anyhow, he said never a word, hating to be openly suspicious, where, as I could have sworn, on my conscience, there was no reason for suspicion, whatever might have happened among others, apart from me and my night's doings.

Thus we held our places, two unarmed men, for the Black Colonel had said in his letter that he would come weaponless, as he expected me to come, and a hose-dirk did not count, being, as I have said, in the first place, an ornament for a well-made leg, an Order of the Garter, to borrow an ancient title. We had met in the habiliments and disposition of peace, and if we were to close in strife it would not, I reasoned and hoped, be at our direct wish or bidding. Would it?

He must have been asking himself the same question, for he broke the silence in a changed voice which seemed doubly changed, because he had to keep it low, lest it should be overheard, and what he said was, "How comes all this, sir?"

"I don't know," I answered simply, naturally, truthfully, to his charge, for it was a charge in words and in directness.

"You don't," he went on, and I could not miss the tone which was like the growl of a dog, an ill-natured dog; not like that of my own little Scots terrier, Rob, whose bark is only meant to give himself confidence and never had the snap of biting in it.

"You don't!" repeated the Black Colonel. "I must believe you, though a suspicious man might read the signs otherwise. Still, why should you have kept the red-coats from their sleep this night and morn, in the castles of Braemar and Corgarff? There is no reason, for a talk between Highland gentlemen, if so we be, about a Highland lady, whose ladyship is beyond doubt, needed no garrison as audience. No, no, if the red-coats had been summoned to round-up some poor Jacobite devil, say myself, Captain Ian Gordon would have been with his men, as a soldier should, much as he might--and I put this to his credit--have disliked the mission."

It was idle for me to pretend any misunderstanding of the Black Colonel's meaning. He was taunting me with suspicions which he would not bring himself to believe, having a generous side to his nature, a state of mind that has inflicted much suffering on the human race, ever since the world began to go round. Mostly it occurs between men, for women are more elemental, more red in beak and claw, even when the claw is bejewelled, which indeed may give it another sharpness.

Could I blame him? Not to his face, at all events, because that would be to notice his challenge, to admit that it was not unnatural on his part. Events must be my guarantee, and if there were to be no more, well, let him say quickly why he had asked me very specially to meet him on an urgent private affair. Yes, although it were to have a casual ending, such as characterizes half the affairs of life.

Aye! good thinking, my friends, but our relations were cast in a sterner mould, and they were not to take the road of well-being. This became manifest when the now growing dawn lightly touched the eastern door of the Pass at its highest crag. The Black Colonel put his hand to his eyes, using them as you would a spy-glass, made a hawk-like sweep of the point I have indicated, and murmured harshly, "A red-coat, ah!"

Quickly he followed the wispy, growing light towards the western end of the Pass, and after another moment of hawkish searching growled: "A red-coat there also! It has been shrewdly arranged, this affair, Captain Gordon. My congratulations, for you have earned them well, as well, perhaps, as something else from me."

I said nothing, and indeed I was too full of surprise to think, except in a wondering fashion. It was only by an effort of attention that I heard the Black Colonel's further words, cursed out in a wrath not bred of any anxiety for himself, but, naturally enough, directed at me.

"So the moving picture declares itself, my dear, thoughtful kinsman," he hissed. "The red-coats from Braemar are at the western end of the Pass, those from Corgarff are at the eastern end, and the Black Colonel is within somewhere--isn't he?--keeping a private meeting with an officer in his Georgian Majesty's uniform, an officer and a gentleman! Shrewdly planned, as I say, shrewdly planned, and I suppose you want to intrigue me here until I cannot get away any more. Would you think of trying to hold me yourself, eh? It would be like your adventurous spirit? No!"

This was said with a rough sneer, and the Black Colonel made the sting sharper by adding, "You'll be thinking it an assured capture, with the ends of the Pass sealed by red-coats and its sides so steep that only those tough sheep over there can climb them."

"Truth," said I quickly, gaining my tongue, "will force you to eat those words, for I knew nothing of all this. It will be a bitter meal for you to digest, if I, by good chance, am there to assist you."

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