<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER X — SIM MACTAGGART, CHAMBERLAIN </h2>
<p>On the roof of a high old church with as little architectural elegance as
a dry-stone barn, a bell jerked by a rope from the church-yard indicated
the close association of law and the kirk by ringing a sort of triumphal
peal to the procession of the judges between the court-room and the inn.
Contesting with its not too dulcet music blared forth the fanfare of two
gorgeous trumpeters in scarlet and gold lace, tie wigs, silk stockings,
and huge cocked hats, who filled the street with a brassy melody that
suggested Gabriel's stern and awful judgment-summons rather than gave
lightness and rhythm to the feet of those who made up the procession. The
procession itself had some dreadful aspects and elements as well as others
incongruous and comical. The humorous fancy might see something to smile
at in the two grey-wigged bent old men in long scarlet coats who went in
front of the trumpeters, prepared to clear the way if necessary (though a
gust of shrewd wind would have blown them off their feet), by means of the
long-poled halberts they carried; but this impression of the farcical was
modified by the nature of the body whereof they were the pioneers or
advance guard. Sleek magistrates and councillors in unaccustomed black
suits and silver-buckled shoes, the provost ermined at their head, showed
the way to the more actual, the more dignified embodiment of stern Scots
law. At least a score of wigs were there from the Parliament House of
Edinburgh, a score of dusty gowns, accustomed to sweep the lobbies of the
Courts of Session, gathered the sand of the burgh street, and in their
midst walked the representatives of that old feudal law at long-last
ostensibly abandoned, and of the common law of the land. Argyll was in a
demure equivalent for some Court costume, with a dark velvet coat, a
ribbon of the Thistle upon his shoulder, a sword upon his haunch, and for
all his sixty-six years he carried himself less like the lawyer made at
Utrecht—like Justice-General and Extraordinary Lord of Session—than
like the old soldier who had served with Marlborough and took the field
for the House of Hanover in 1715. My Lords Elchies and Kilkerran walked on
either side of him—Kilkerran with the lack-lustre eye of the
passionate mathematician, the studious moralist devoted to midnight oil, a
ruddy, tall, sturdy man, well filling the crimson and white silk gown;
Elchies, a shrivelled atomy with a hirpling walk, leaning heavily upon a
rattan, both with the sinister black tri-corne hats in their hands, and
flanked by a company of musketeers.</p>
<p>A great band of children lent the ludicrous element again to the company
by following close upon its heels, chanting a doggerel song to the tune of
the trumpets; the populace stood at the close-mouths or leaned over their
windows looking at the spectacle, wondering at the pomp given to the
punishment of a Stewart who a few years ago would have been sent to the
gallows by his Grace with no more formality than might have attended the
sentence of a kipper salmon-poacher to whipping at the hands of Long Davie
the dempster.</p>
<p>His Grace was entertaining the Lords, the Counsel (all but the convict's
lawyers—a lot of disaffected Jacobites, who took their food by
themselves at the inn, and brusquely refused his Grace's hospitality), the
magistracy, and some county friends, to a late dinner at the castle that
night, and an hour after saw them round the ducal board.</p>
<p>If Count Victor was astonished at the squalid condition of things in the
castle of the poor Baron of Doom, he would have been surprised to find
here, within an hour or two's walk of it, so imposing and luxuriant a
domesticity. Many lands, many hands, great wealth won by law, battle, and
the shrewdness of generations, enabled Argyll to give his castle grandeur
and his table the opulence of any southern palace. And it was a bright
company that sat about his board, with several ladies in it, for his
duchess loved to have her sojourn in her Highland home made gay by the
company of young women who might by their beauty and light hearts recall
her own lost youth.</p>
<p>A bagpipe stilled in the hall, a lute breathed a melody from a
neighbouring room, the servants in claret and yellow livery noiselessly
served wine.</p>
<p>Elchies sourly pursed his lips over his liquor, to the mingled amusement
and vexation of his Grace, who knew his lordship's cellar, or even the
Justiciary Vault in the town (for the first act of the Court had been to
send down bins from Edinburgh for their use on circuit), contained no
vintage half so good, and "Your Grace made reference on the way up to some
one killed in the neighbourhood," he said, as one resuming a topic begun
elsewhere.</p>
<p>"Not six miles from where we sit," replied the Duke, his cultivated
English accent in a strong contrast with the broad burr of the Edinburgh
justiciar, "and scarcely a day before you drove past. The man shot, so far
as we have yet learned, was a Macfarlane, one of a small but ancient and
extremely dishonest clan whose country used to be near the head of Loch
Lomond. Scarcely more than half a hundred of them survive, but they give
us considerable trouble, for they survive at the cost of their neighbour's
gear and cattle. They are robbers and footpads, and it looks as if the
fatality to one of their number near Doom has been incurred during a raid.
We still have our raids, Lord Elchies, in spite of what you were saying on
the bench as to the good example this part of the country sets the rest of
the Highlands—not the raids of old fashion, perhaps, but more
prosaic, simply thefts indeed. That is why I have had these troops brought
here. It is reported to me pretty circumstantially that some of the Appin
people are in the key to attempt a rescue of James Stewart on his way to
the place of execution at Lettermore. They would think nothing of
attempting it once he was brought the length of Benderloch, if only a law
officer or two had him in charge."</p>
<p>"I would have thought the duty of keeping down a ploy of that kind would
have been congenial to your own folk," said Elchies, drenching his
nostrils vulgarly with macabaw.</p>
<p>Argyll smiled. "You may give us credit for willingness to take our share
of the responsibility of keeping Appin in order," said he. "I should not
wonder if there are half a hundred claymores with hands in them somewhere
about our old barracks in Maltland. Eh! Simon?" and he smiled down the
table to his Chamberlain.</p>
<p>"Five-and-forty, to be strict," said the gentleman appealed to, and never
a word more but a sudden stop, for his half-eaten plum had miraculously
gone from his plate in the moment he had looked up at the Duke.</p>
<p>"Was't in your lands?" asked Elchies, indifferent, but willing to help on
a good topic in a company where a variety of classes made the conversation
anything but brisk.</p>
<p>"No," said Argyll, "it was in Doom, the place of a small landowner,
Lamond, whose castle—it is but a ramshackle old bigging now—you
may have noticed on your left as you rode round. Lamond himself is a man I
have a sort of softness for, though, to tell the truth, he has forced me
into more litigation than he had money to pay for and I had patience to
take any lasting interest in."</p>
<p>"The Baron of Doom, is that the man?" cried Elchies, dryly. "Faith, I ken
him well. Some years syne he was living months at a time in the Court of
Session, and eating and sleeping in John's Coffee-house, and his tale—it's
a gey old one—was that the litigation was always from the other
side. I mind the man weel; Baron he called himself, though, if I mind
right, his title had never been confirmed by the king <i>n liberam
baroniam</i> He had no civil nor criminal jurisdiction. A black-avised
man; the last time he came before me—Mr. Petullo, ye were there—it
was in a long-standing case o' multiple poinding, and if I'm no'mistaken,
a place ca'd Drimadry or Drimdarry, or something like that, changed hands
ower the head o't."</p>
<p>Petullo the writer, shrinking near the foot of the table in an adequate
sense of his insignificance, almost choked himself by gulping the whole
glass of wine at his lips in his confusion, and broke into a perspiration
at the attention of the company thus drawn to him. He squeaked back an
unintelligible acquiescence; and completed his own torture by upsetting a
compote of fruit upon his black knee-breeches.</p>
<p>Opposite the unhappy lawyer sat a lady of extraordinary beauty—a
haughty, cold, supercilious sort of beauty, remarkable mainly from the
consciousness of its display. Her profile might have been cut from marble
by a Greek; her neck and bust were perfect, but her shoulders, more
angular than was common in that time of bottle-shape, were carried
somewhat too grandly for a gentle nature. The cruelty of her character
betrayed itself in a faint irrestrainable smile at Petullo's discomfiture,
all the more cruel because his eyes were entreatingly on hers as he mopped
up awkwardly the consequences of his gaucherie. She smiled, but that was
not the strangest part of her conduct, for at the same time she nudged
with her knee the Chamberlain who sat next to her, and who had brought her
into the room. To cap the marvel, he showed no surprise, but took her hint
with a conspirator's enforced composure. He looked at the little,
dried-up, squeaking creature opposite, and—refused the lady the
gratification of a single sign of the amusement she had apparently
expected. She reddened, bit her nether lip, and "Your poor man of business
is in a sore plight," she whispered, using the name Sim with significant
freedom.</p>
<p>"My dear Kate," said he quietly, "as God's my judge, I can find nothing to
laugh at in the misery of a poor wretch like yon."</p>
<p>"That's the second time!" she whispered with well-concealed ill-humour, a
smile compelled upon her face but a serpent in her voice.</p>
<p>"The second time?" he repeated, lifting his eyebrows questioning, and
always keeping a shoulder to her—a most chilly exterior. "Your
ladyship is in the humour to give guesses."</p>
<p>She gave a swift reply to some only half-heard remark by her next-hand
neighbour, then whispered to him, "It's the second time you have been
cruel to me to-day. You seem bent on making me unhappy, and it is not what
you promised. Am I not looking nice?"</p>
<p>"My dear girl," said he calmly, "do you know I am not in the mood for
making sport of an old fool to prove my Kindness of heart to you."</p>
<p>"To me, Sim!" she whispered, the serpent all gone from her voice, and a
warm, dulcet, caressing accent in it, while her eyes were melting with
discreetly veiled love. "And I plotted so much to get beside you."</p>
<p>"That is the damned thing," he replied between his teeth, and smiling the
while to some comment of his other neighbour, "you plot too much, my dear.
I do not want to be unkind, but a little less plotting would become you
more. I have no great liking for your husband, as you may guess; but there
he's covered with compote and confusion, and for the look of the thing, if
for no more, it would suit his wife to pretend some sympathy. In any case,
for God's sake do not look at me as if I shared your amusement at his
trouble. And I'm sure that Elchies by his glowering saw you eat my plum."</p>
<p>Mrs. Petullo cast a glance of disdain at the poor object she was bound to
by a marriage for position and money, and for a moment or two gave no
attention to the society of his Grace's Chamberlain, who was so
suspiciously in her confidence.</p>
<p>Simon MacTaggart played idly with the stem of his glass. He was odd in
that bibulous age, inasmuch as he never permitted wine to tempt his palate
to the detriment of his brains, and he listened gravely to the
conversation that was being monopolised at the head of the table round the
Duke.</p>
<p>Women liked him. Indeed women loved this Chamberlain of Argyll readily,
more for his eyes and for his voice and for some odd air of mystery and
romance in his presence than for what generally pass for good looks. He
had just the history and the career and reputation that to men and women,
except the very wisest and the somewhat elderly, have an attraction all
unreasonable; for his youth had been stormy; he had known great dangers,
tremendous misfortunes, overcoming both by a natural—sometimes
spendthrift—courage; he was credited with more than one amorous
intrigue, that being in high quarters was considered rather in his favour
than otherwise; he was high in the esteem of families in the social scale
considerably above his own (that had greatly declined since his people
could first boast a coat impaled with the galley of Lome); he was alert,
mind and body, polite to punctilio, a far traveller, a good talker, and
above all a lover of his kind, so that he went about with a smile (just
touched a little by a poetic melancholy) for all. To the women at Argyll's
table he was the most interesting man there, and though materially among
the least eminent and successful, had it been his humour to start a topic
of his own in opposition to his patron's, he could have captured the
interest of the gathering in a sentence.</p>
<p>But Simon MacTaggart was for once not in the mood for the small change of
conversation. Some weighty thought possessed him that gave his eye a
remote quality even when he seemed to be sharing the general attention in
the conversation, and it was as much resentment at the summons from his
abstraction and his mood as a general disinclination to laugh at a
wretch's misery on the bidding of the wretch's wife, that made him so curt
to Mrs. Petullo's advances. To him the dinner seemed preposterously
unending. More than once his hand went to his fob with an unconscious
response to his interest in the passage of the time; with difficulty he
clenched his teeth upon the yawns that followed his forced smiles at the
murmured pleasantries of the humble bailies and town councillors in his
midst, who dared only venture on a joke of their own, and that discreetly
muffled, when there was a pause in the conversation of the Duke and the
Judges. And to the woman at his shoulder (the one on his left—the
wife of the Provost, a little fair-haired doll with a giggling
appreciation of the importance of her situation in such grand company, and
a half-frightened gladness at being so near MacTaggart) he seemed more
mysterious and wonderful than ever. Mrs. Petullo, without looking at his
half-averted face, knew by the mere magnetic current from his cold
shoulder that of her he was just now weary, that with his company as a
whole he was bored, and that some interest beyond that noisy hall engaged
his abstracted thought.</p>
<p>"No," the Duke was saying; "the murderer has not been discovered, nor
indeed have we the most important evidence that there was a murder at all—for
the body itself is as yet a mere matter of rumour, though of its existence
there is no reasonable ground for doubt. It was carried off, as I am
informed, by the Macfarlanes, whose anxiety to hush the affair is our main
proof that they were on no honest expedition when this happened. But an
affair like that gets bruited abroad: it came to us from Cairndhu that the
corpse of a Macfarlane was carried past in the gloaming by some of his
friends, anxious to get it smuggled through Ard-kinglas with as little
public notice as possible."</p>
<p>"<i>Acta exteriora indicant interiora seceta</i>, to somewhat misapply a
well-kent maxim. The <i>res gesto</i> show, I think, that it was a murder
on the part of the robbers themselves." It was Elchies who spoke, cracking
filberts the while with his great yellow teeth that gave him so cruel a
look upon the bench.</p>
<p>"As a matter of fact," said the Chamberlain suddenly, "the man was shot by
a French pistol," and a hush fell on the table in expectation of further
details, but they were not forthcoming.</p>
<p>"Well, I'm astonished to hear it, and I hope you know where to lay hands
on the homicide," said the Duke.</p>
<p>"It's none of our affair—nowadays," said the Chamberlain. "And,
forbye, I'm only telling a carried tale after all. There may be no more in
it than the fancy of the Glen Fyne folk who told me of it."</p>
<p>The Duke looked at his Chamberlain, saw that the topic, so far as he was
concerned, was ended, and signalled to the Duchess. It was not the custom
of the time, but her Grace had introduced into her Highland court the
practice of withdrawing the ladies for some time after dinner, and leaving
the men to their birling of the wine, as they phrased it. Out she swept at
her husband's signal with her company—Lady Strachur, Lady Charlotte,
Mrs. Petullo, the Provost's wife, and three or four of no greater
importance to our story—and of all that were left behind, perhaps
there was none but her husband, who, oddly' enough (as people thought) for
a duke, loved her as if he were a boy courting still, to reflect that the
room was colder and less human wanting the presence of her and her bright
company. His Grace, who cared for the bottle even less than did his
Chamberlain, slid round the wine sun-wise for a Highlander's notion of
luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhat at the eyes when they
forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepiness and glowing content of
potations carried to the verge of indiscretion; Kilkerran hummed, Petullo
hawed, the Provost humbly ventured a sculduddery tale, the Duke politely
listening the while to some argument of Elchies upon the right of any one
who had been attacked by the Macfarlanes to use arms against them.</p>
<p>"It's a well-allowed principle, your Grace," he maintained. "<i>Arma in
armatos sumere jura sinunt</i>—the possessor may use violence to
maintain his possession, but not to recover that of which he has been
deprived." He looked like a Barbary ape as his shrunk jaws masticated the
kernels he fed to his mouth with shaking claws: something deep and
foxishly cunning peered forth below his bristling red eyebrows. The Duke
could not but look at his protruding ears and experience an old sensation
of his in the company of the more animal of his fellows, that, after all,
man with a little practice might easily swing among trees or burrow in the
earth.</p>
<p>An ill-trained servant removing empty bottles left the door open behind
his Grace's chair, and through it came the strains of a duet in women's
voices, accompanied by the strumming of a harp. They sang an English air
touching upon groves and moonlit waterfalls, Lady Charlotte lending a
dulcet second to the air of the Duchess, who accompanied them upon her
instrument in sweeping chords and witching faint arpeggios. Into the room
that fumed with tobacco and wine (and the Provost at the second of his
tales in the ear of the advocate) the harmony floated like the praise of
cherubim, and stilled at once the noisy disquisition round the board.</p>
<p>"Leave the door open," said the Duke to his servants, and they did so.
When the song was done he felt his Jean was calling to him irresistible,
and he suggested that they had better join the ladies. They rose—some
of them reluctantly—from the bottles, Elchies strewing his front
again with snuff to check his hiccoughs. MacTaggart, in an aside to the
Duke, pleaded to be excused for his withdrawal immediately, as he felt
indisposed.</p>
<p>"I noticed that you were gey glum to-night," said Argyll with a kind and
even fraternal tone, for they were cousins and confidants as well as in a
purely business relation to each-other. "I'm thinking we both want some of
the stimulant Elchies and the Provost and the advocate lads take so
copiously."</p>
<p>"Bah!" said the Chamberlain; "but Sassenachs, Argyll, but Sassenachs, and
they need it all. As for us, we're born with a flagon of heather ale
within us, and we may be doing without the drug they must have, poor
bodies, to make them sparkle."</p>
<p>Argyll laughed. "Good-night, then," said he, "and a riddance to your
vapours before the morning's morning."</p>
<p>Mrs. Petullo had begun a song before the Duke entered, a melody of the
Scots mode, wedded to words that at that period hummed round the country.
It was the one triumphant moment of her life—her musically vocal—when
she seemed, even to the discriminating who dive for character below the
mere skin, to be a perfect angel. Pathos, regret, faith, hope, and love,
she could simulate marvellously: the last was all that was really hers,
and even that was lawless. She had not half-finished the air when the Duke
came into the room softly on his tiptoes, humming her refrain. A keen ear
might have perceived the slightest of alterations in the tone of her next
stanza; a quick eye might have noticed a shade of disappointment come to
her face when her intent but momentary glance at the door revealed that
some one she sought was not entering. The only ear that heard, the only
eye that saw, was Kilkerran's. He was a moralist by repute, and he would
have suspected without reasons. When Mrs. Petullo broke down miserably—in
her third verse, he smiled to himself pawkily, went up to her with a
compliment, and confirmed his suspicions by her first question, which was
as to the Chamberlain's absence.</p>
<p>As for the Chamberlain, he was by now hurrying with great speed through
the castle garden. Only once he slacked his pace, and that was when the
garden path joined the more open policies of the Duke, and another step or
two would place a thicket of laburnums and hawthorns between him and the
sight of the litten windows. He hung on his heel and looked back for a
minute or two at the castle, looming blackly in the darkness against the
background of Dunchuach; he could hear the broken stanza of Mrs. Petullo's
ballad.</p>
<p>"Amn't I the damned fool?" said he half-aloud to himself with bitter
certainty in the utterance. "There's my punishment: by something sham—and
I ken it's sham too—I must go through life beguiled from right and
content. Here's what was to be the close of my folly, and Sim MacTaggart
eager to be a good man if he got anything like a chance, but never the
chance for poor Sim MacTaggart!"</p>
<p>He plunged into the darkness of the road that led to the Maltland barracks
where the fifty claymores were quartered.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />