“I never said you were,” said I, which was exactly the rude, silly speech of a boy of ten.
Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct answered for him. Henceforth, it is to be thought, he quite forgave himself for the affair at Cluny’s; cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled airs, and looked at me upon one side with a provoking smile.
The third night we were to pass through the western end of the country of Balquhidder. It came clear and cold, with a touch in the air like frost, and a northerly wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars bright. The streams were full, of course, and still made a great noise among the hills; but I observed that Alan thought no more upon the Kelpie, and was in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather came too late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as the Bible has it) my very clothes “abhorred me.” I was dead weary, deadly sick and full of pains and shiverings; the chill of the wind went through me, and the sound of it confused my ears. In this poor state I had to bear from my companion something in the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good deal, and never without a taunt. “Whig” was the best name he had to give me. “Here,” he would say, “here’s a dub for ye to jump, my Whiggie! I ken you’re a fine jumper!” And so on; all the time with a gibing voice and face.
I knew it was my own doing, and no one else’s; but I was too miserable to repent. I felt I could drag myself but little farther; pretty soon, I must lie down and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, and my bones must whiten there like the bones of a beast. My head was light perhaps; but I began to love the prospect, I began to glory in the thought of such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, I thought; he would remember, when I was dead, how much he owed me, and the remembrance would be torture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, when I would have been better on my knees, crying on God for mercy. And at each of Alan’s taunts, I hugged myself. “Ah!” thinks I to myself, “I have a better taunt in readiness; when I lie down and die, you will feel it like a buffet in your face; ah, what a revenge! ah, how you will regret your ingratitude and cruelty!”
All the while, I was growing worse and worse. Once I had fallen, my leg simply doubling under me, and this had struck Alan for the moment; but I was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner, that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther: and with that, there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had just called me “Whig.” I stopped.
“Mr. Stewart,” said I, in a voice that quivered like a fiddle-string, “you are older than I am, and should know your manners. Do you think it either very wise or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth? I thought, where folk differed, it was the part of gentlemen to differ civilly; and if I did not, I may tell you I could find a better taunt than some of yours.”
Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his hands in his breeches pockets, his head a little on one side. He listened, smiling evilly, as I could see by the starlight; and when I had done he began to whistle a Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of General Cope’s defeat at Preston Pans:
“Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet?
And are your drums a-beatin’ yet?”
And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had been engaged upon the royal side.
“Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?” said I. “Is that to remind me you have been beaten on both sides?”
The air stopped on Alan’s lips. “David!” said he.
“But it’s time these manners ceased,” I continued; “and I mean you shall henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends the Campbells.”
“I am a Stewart—” began Alan.
“O!” says I, “I ken ye bear a king’s name. But you are to remember, since I have been in the Highlands, I have seen a good many of those that bear it; and the best I can say of them is this, that they would be none the worse of washing.”
“Do you know that you insult me?” said Alan, very low.
“I am sorry for that,” said I, “for I am not done; and if you distaste the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue* will please you as little. You have been chased in the field by the grown men of my party; it seems a poor kind of pleasure to outface a boy. Both the Campbells and the Whigs have beaten you; you have run before them like a hare. It behoves you to speak of them as of your betters.”
* A second sermon.
Alan stood quite still, the tails of his greatcoat clapping behind him in the wind.
“This is a pity” he said at last. “There are things said that cannot be passed over.”
“I never asked you to,” said I. “I am as ready as yourself.”
“Ready?” said he.
“Ready,” I repeated. “I am no blower and boaster like some that I could name. Come on!” And drawing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself had taught me.
“David!” he cried. “Are ye daft? I cannae draw upon ye, David. It’s fair murder.”
“That was your lookout when you insulted me,” said I.
“It’s the truth!” cried Alan, and he stood for a moment, wringing his mouth in his hand like a man in sore perplexity. “It’s the bare truth,” he said, and drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade with mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the ground. “Na, na,” he kept saying, “na, na — I cannae, I cannae.”
At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken, who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan’s kindness and courage in the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever that doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon me seemed to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood.
This it was that gave me a thought. No apology could blot out what I had said; it was needless to think of one, none could cover the offence; but where an apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan back to my side. I put my pride away from me. “Alan!” I said; “if ye cannae help me, I must just die here.”
He started up sitting, and looked at me.
“It’s true,” said I. “I’m by with it. O, let me get into the bield of a house — I’ll can die there easier.” I had no need to pretend; whether I chose or not, I spoke in a weeping voice that would have melted a heart of stone.
“Can ye walk?” asked Alan.
“No,” said I, “not without help. This last hour my legs have been fainting under me; I’ve a stitch in my side like a red-hot iron; I cannae breathe right. If I die, ye’ll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart, I liked ye fine — even when I was the angriest.”
“Wheesht, wheesht!” cried Alan. “Dinna say that! David man, ye ken—” He shut his mouth upon a sob. “Let me get my arm about ye,” he continued; “that’s the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens where there’s a house! We’re in Balwhidder, too; there should be no want of houses, no, nor friends’ houses here. Do ye gang easier so, Davie?”