MacGregor's Gathering

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, one of the most exciting and romantic periods of British history, the famous Rob Roy MacGregor and his gallant nephew Gregor, a fierce young Highlander loyal to the cause, led the MacGregor clan into battle against the English Army. Outlawed and landless, they still clung to Glengyle, one small remaining corner of their ancient territories, and held fast in their loyalty to the Stuart King over the water. But in the midst of the political struggle young Gregor still managed to find time to pay court to Mary Hamilton, a lovely girl who at first rejected his rough Highland ways... 'Through his imaginative dialogue, he provides a voice for Scotland's heroes' Scotland on Sunday

Release date: December 20, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 256

Sample

YOUNG Gregor Ghlun Dubh MacGregor of Glengyle uplifted his golden head and hearty voice and shouted great laughter to an understanding heaven – the pure unsullied and spontaneous laughter of a happy soul. Not the laughter inspired by amusement or humour or mockery or still less worthy emotions, but the joyous variety born of sheer goodwill towards all, and a lively appreciation of the excellence of life. Gregor Ghlun Dubh was a great appreciator of life, and consequently a notably happy young man.

And certainly the scene was an inspiring one. Indeed, seldom could the little market-place of Drymen have seen anything more lively and altogether heartening. Cattle milled everywhere in glorious and loud-voiced confusion – not only the small black kyloes of the glens but the more substantial products of fat Lowland pastures – steers, bullocks, milch-cows and calves, in an endless variety of size, colour, shape and temperament. There were hundreds of beasts there, uncountable – though undoubtedly Gregor’s puissant uncle would be having a count kept somewhere – and their bellowing protest ascended up as a hymn of praise to a benign Providence, and the steaming throat-catching scent of them was as incense in a MacGregor’s nostrils. Laugh? The tall young man in his best tartans slapped his bare knee – the same that bore the hairy black birth-mark, so strange on a young blond giant, that gave him his by-name of Ghlun Dubh, or Black Knee – slapped and out-bellowed the cattle.

It was Lammas quarter-day, the year of Our Lord seventeen hundred and six, and the Captain of the Highland Watch was at the receipt of his dues and customs – the MacGregors’ Watch, Rob Roy’s Watch – Gregor of Glengyle assisting for the first time since coming of age.

A less vigorous and lusty young man than Glengyle might have been weary of it all by this time – for this business had been going on all day, and now the August sun was beginning to sink behind Duncryne and all the serried blue hills beyond Loch Lomond. These cattle had come from far and near, in droves great and small – for Rob Roy MacGregor cut a wide swathe. From the Graham lands of Aberfoyle and Killearn to the Buchanan territories of Touch and Kippen, from the uplands of Fintry and Kilsyth to the green plains of Stirling and Airth, from Menteith to Callander and Allan Water to the Vale of Leven, the droves great and small had come to this convenient tryst of Drymen – convenient for the MacGregors, that is – representing the tribute of some seven hundred and fifty square miles of fair Scotland to Robert MacGregor Campbell, alias Robert Ruadh MacGregor of Inversnaid, alias Rob Roy, Captain of the Glengyle Highland Watch, or, as his own Clan Alpine put it, Himself. Proud earls had contributed – even a marquis, said to be in line for a dukedom – lairds of large acres and small, fine Lowland gentlemen and canny Highland drovers, the Church and the State, all were represented there. Which was as it should be. Rob Roy was worth paying tribute to – and he made a point of leaving none in doubt of it.

It was the Church speaking now, just at the young man’s back, in the sober, indeed somewhat lugubrious person of the Reverend Ludovic Erskine, Minister of Drymen. ‘Man, Glengyle – that’s a terrible lot of beasts,’ he said, without proper enthusiasm – undoubtedly because there was a cow of his own included somewhere in the total. ‘I canna think what your uncle can be needing with them all.’ He shook a grizzled foreboding head. ‘There is danger in it, mind. The grievous danger of greed, of the worship of Mammon, Glengyle.’

Gregor Ghlun Dubh, like his uncle, was a great respecter of the Church, as of all worthy and proper things. Also he was newly enough of age to appreciate that introductory ‘Man, Glengyle’ of the minister’s. Therefore he did not turn and rend the maker of such infamous suggestions as undoubtedly he deserved. Moreover, the man had recently lost his wife, and Gregor was of a soft heart.

‘There are many MacGregor mouths to feed,’ he mentioned, still smiling. ‘You would not be having them starve in the midst of plenty?’

‘Starve, is it!’ Mr Erskine cried, his harsh voice vibrant with power and emotion. It had to be to counter the bawling of the beasts. ‘The starving will be nearer home, I doubt! And there will be no plenty in Drymen after this day.’

Gregor knew what was coming, of course. The minister was not the first to seek to approach Rob Roy through his nephew, as the less alarming individual. All men knew of Rob’s affection for his dead brother’s son, the young chieftain of Glengyle, whom he had cherished and brought up from the age of ten. Tutor of Glengyle had been one of his uncle’s proud titles, only recently relinquished – and, if the truth was known, sometimes relinquished only in name at that.

‘I am thinking the good folk of Drymen will not be letting their shepherd starve,’ he observed.

‘Little you ken them, Glengyle – backsliders, reprobates, withholders of God’s portion! And now my cow is riven from me – my best cow, the only brute-beast that is worth its keep, indeed! It is hard, hard. If you would but speak a word into your uncle’s lug, Glengyle. He is namely as a man respectful to the Kirk, kindly towards the poor and the widow. Och, and the widower is the worse off, indeed . . .’

Young Gregor groaned in spirit. That the creature should spoil this bonny day and its good work with such shameful whining! He shook his yellow head impatiently. ‘Himself is throng with business, Mhinistear. Later, may be . . .’

Glengyle paused, grateful for a diversion. A new drove was coming at the trot up the little hill from the south-west into Drymen’s slantwise market-place, mixed beasts as Rob liked them, stirks, cows and followers, but all prime conditioned stock. He pointed.

‘Oho – see you!’ he cried. ‘My Lord of Aberuchill is late. But better late than sorry, as they say!’

‘Aberuchill . . .?’ the minister echoed. ‘Man – does the Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland himself pay your Hielant blackmail?’

‘Blackmail, sirrah!’ Gregor’s voice rose menacingly, all laughter gone. ‘As Royal’s my Race – I’d have you remember to whom you speak, Mhinistear!’ His uncle could hardly have improved on that himself. ‘Choose you your words to a Highland gentleman, see you, with more care . . .!’

As well for the Reverend Erskine and any hopes in the matter of his cow, perhaps, that just then a sudden high-pitched squealing overbore even the speaker’s vehemence. At the trotting heels of the new herd a six-month calf was outdoing all rivals in ear-piercing protest, as a burly drover twisted its tail savagely as a means of propulsion. The press of beasts in the market-place was already so great that the newcomers were holding back, and the fellow was using this method to urge them on past the narrows of the street which sundry MacGregor gillies were endeavouring to keep open for incoming traffic from the east.

Gregor wasted neither breath, time nor opportunity. Leaving the minister without a word, he strode down through the little crowd of gaping townsfolk and round the near edge of the milling throng, thrusting aside men and cattle with equal disregard. This was more in his line. That calf could be injured by such treatment, for tails could break – and a broken tail took the value off a beast. Moreover, its bawling was an offence to the ear, and unsuitable. Again, the offending drover was obviously nothing but a Lowlander. And, as has been seen, Glengyle was of a notably soft heart.

The last few yards to Lord Aberuchill’s drover were covered at a pace which allowed little opportunity for Gregor’s rawhide brogans to touch the cobbles. One of the hulking fellow’s two colleagues cried a warning. But it was too late. Before the man could turn, Gregor’s arm reached out and did the turning for him, swinging him round with such force as almost to overbalance him. As he staggered, still clutching the calf’s tail, Glengyle’s other hand grabbed the substantial stick that the other held, and wrenched it from his grasp.

‘Fool! Knave! Scum!’ he cried indignantly. ‘Would you damage MacGregor’s cattle? Hands off, lout!’ And without allowing even a moment for the transgressor to question the authority of that, he swung the heavy stick and brought it down with a resounding thwack upon the creature’s forearm.

The drover yelled, in tune with the calf, and both arm and tail dropped limply. A spluttered volley of oaths, incomplete and incoherent but nevertheless hoarsely heartfelt, followed on.

But the Lord Justice-Clerk’s drover did more than swear. He lashed out with a great ham-like left fist for Gregor’s head – which branded him for a rash and impetuous fellow indeed. Perhaps he was so much of a Lowlander that he did not recognise the significance of two eagle’s feathers in a Highland bonnet. Though probably his folly was the result of mere spontaneous reaction.

It was as well, undoubtedly, for all concerned, that the blow did not strike home – for the consequences would scarcely have borne consideration. As it was, Gregor avoided it with a full inch to spare – despite the shock that such a thing could be possible. And quicker than thought, of course, he drove home the much-needed lesson.

Coming up from his hasty sideways duck, he clutched the other’s shoulder to slew him round into a more convenient position, and drove down the staff in his other hand with all his force on the man’s bullet head. The stick broke, too.

The drover grunted, swayed drunkenly, tottered on his toes, and then slumped full length on the dung-spattered cobbles, mouth open and eyes shut.

Gregor Ghlun Dubh tossed the two sections of the stick on to the body of the unconscious miscreant, wiping fastidious hands thereafter on the seat of his philamore or great kilt, as though to avoid contamination.

‘Remove it,’ he jerked, in the Gaelic, to the nearest of the gillies. And to the two remaining gaping drovers, in English, ‘Begone’. And without further ado he stalked off to return to the minister.

Not unnaturally he felt considerably better. He was prepared even to be patient with the Church-Supplicant. But as he approached his former stance before the ale-house door, a third man came hurrying from the other direction, another gillie, naked save for short kilt and brogans. They met in front of Mr Erskine.

‘Himself would be having a word with you, Glengyle,’ the newcomer said, panting a little. ‘Down in the church.’

‘Yes. I will come,’ Gregor assured, and almost started off there and then. But he recollected. Those days were past and done with. He was Glengyle now, chieftain of his house. ‘Tell Himself that I will be there very shortly, MacAlastair,’ he amended graciously. And repeated the message in English for the benefit of the minister, without the ‘very’. ‘Off with you.’

The dark-avised and sombre-browed messenger gave him a meaning look. He was Rob Roy’s own foot-gillie, and something of a privileged character. He nodded, unspeaking, and padded away silently whence he had come.

‘About this cow of yours, Mhinistear,’ Gregor mentioned handsomely. ‘What colour did you say it was? Is it a kyloe?’

The other eyed him a little askance. ‘That man . . .?’ he began, and swallowed. ‘Is he . . .? Was it needful to be so . . . so hasty, Glengyle?’

‘Hasty . . .?’ The younger man wrinkled his brow. ‘Myself hasty – to MacAlastair?’

‘Not him. The other man. Down there. The herd . . .’

‘I do not follow you, sir.’ That was said with deliberation and a remarkable clarity of diction.

‘Oh. I . . . ah . . . ummm.’ The minister glanced sidelong at the young chieftain’s elevated profile – and decided to revert to the subject of cattle. ‘My cow, yes. Och, she is just an ordinary sort of a dun-coloured creature. But a grand milker, man – a grand milker.’

‘Indeed. I am going to speak a word with, er, Inversnaid. I think it best that you accompany me, sir,’ Gregor said, somewhat stiffly formal.

‘Me . . .? Och – no, no. Not at all. No need, Glengyle. Yourself will do fine. Just a word in his lug, like I said. . . .’

‘Come,’ the other commanded, and turning on his heel, strode off.

Reluctantly, with no urgency upon him, Mr Erskine followed on, the space between them growing at every step. They made quite a notable contrast, the tall, gallant and swaggering young Highlander, in his vivid red-and-green tartans, stepping Drymen’s cobbles as though very much upon his native health, and the lanky stooping divine, clad in patched and sober grey, shuffling doubtfully after, out of the market-place and down the curving brae towards his own parish kirk.

* * *

The Kirk of Drymen could hardly have been more conveniently placed. It sat squarely above the climbing narrow road which led into the little town from the west, and nothing could pass its door unseen. Moreover, directly across the trough that the road had worn for itself was another ale-house, Drymen being namely for its numerous places of refreshment. Again, around the back, a lane encircled the town, by the water-meadows, linking up with the road that came in from the east and all the wide lands of Forth. So all that was necessary was to have a couple of stout fellows stationed at the east end of the town, directing the flow of traffic from that side down the lane to where it must join the west-coming droves, and all had thus to come surging up the hill below the kirk door, where it could be scrutinised, counted and received in business-like fashion.

Rob Roy MacGregor sat decently in the church doorway behind a table, quills, ink and paper before him – for he was almost as good a hand with pen as with claymore and dirk. These latter, of course, also lay upon the table. He was something of a stickler for the niceties of procedure. MacAlastair stood at his back, another man sat counting silver at the board, and three or four plaided gentlemen of the name lounged around. As Gregor came up the steps from the roadway, his uncle was in process of interviewing a stout red-faced little Lowland laird in cocked hat and good broadcloth, who appeared to be essaying the difficult task of keeping civil, paying over hard cash, and suggesting a rebate, all at the same time. Some clients of the Watch elected to pay their dues in silver.

‘Er . . . just that, Buchlyvie,’ Rob said pleasantly. ‘My nephew, Glengyle. Mr Graham of Buchlyvie, Greg.’ And he got to his feet as he spoke.

Rob Roy seated and standing gave two very different impressions. Seated, he looked a huge man, for he had enormous breadth of shoulder, a barrel-like chest, and arms so long that he could tie the garters of his tartan hose without stooping. Standing, he proved to be less tall than might have been anticipated – though nowise small – with stocky and just slightly bowed legs that gave an extraordinary impression of strength. That impression of strength, indeed, was the most notable quality about the man – and it was not confined to his peculiar physique. A man in his late thirties, he radiated personal power and a latent energy. His fiery red hair, fierce down-curving moustaches, and the rufus fur that clothed wrists and knees as thickly as on one of his own Highland stirks, did not lessen the effect. He was not a good-looking man, as his nephew Gregor Ghlun Dubh was good-looking, but no one who glanced once at Rob Roy MacGregor failed to look again. The brilliance of his pale blue eyes saw to that, if nothing else did. He was clad now, like Glengyle, in the full panoply of Highland dress, great kilt and plaid, tartan doublet, otter-skin sporran, silver buttons, jewelled brooches, buckles and sword-belt. Only, his bonnet, which lay on the table, flaunted but the one eagle’s feather to Gregor’s two.

‘Nephew,’ he said now, quizzically, in the English, ‘Buchlyvie here poses us a nice problem. He contends that since there has been no villainous thievery of his cattle, nor raids on his district, this past year, we ought to be reducing his rate of payment. From five percentum of rateable value, he suggests, to four. How think you?’ He sounded genuinely interested in the proposal.

‘Dia – I think Mr Graham is ungrateful!’ Gregor declared strongly, as required. ‘Because our Watch is successful, and preserves him in peace and plenty, he would deny us our poor sustenance. I cannot congratulate him on his reasoning!’

‘And there you have it, Buchlyvie!’ his uncle laughed genially. ‘My nephew has the clearer brain to us oldsters. Maxima debetur puero reverentia.’ Rob was a great one for Latin tags – for education and all its benefits indeed, and so had brought up young Gregor. ‘I cannot think that there is any more to discuss, eh? Unless indeed you would have us withdraw the Watch from you altogether?’ He was glancing down at the end of the table where one of his henchmen had the silver coins all neatly counted and stacked, and who nodded his head briefly that the tally was correct. ‘Now is the time, whatever, if you would wish it, Mr Graham?’

‘No, no! Mercy on us – never think it, Rob . . . Inversnaid!’ the laird assured hurriedly. ‘The thought never crossed my mind.’

‘That is well. We are of one mind, then?’ The MacGregor signed the handsome receipt under his hand, with a flourish, and passed it over – a document worthy of Edinburgh’s Parliament House. ‘Eh, hey – it is good to deal with reasonable men. I bid you a very good e’en, Buchlyvie.’

‘I do also,’ Glengyle agreed.

All the MacGregor gentlemen did likewise, as the little man bumbled out. Politeness was a great matter with Rob, and none laughed out loud.

‘Well now, Greg,’ his uncle said, in their own tongue, resuming his seat. ‘It was not to listen to such as Buchlyvie that I brought you here. Would you be after liking a small bit of a task, and this something of a special occasion for yourself?’ Taking his nephew’s acceptance for granted, the Captain of the Watch went on. ‘It has been a good day, and all has gone well. The tally has been kept, and only three droves have not come in. Ballikinrain, Kerse and Gallangad. But Ballikinrain and Kerse are on the way. They have been spied from up the tower, there. There is nothing from the direction of Gallangad.’

‘Ah!’

‘And only last quarter-day, see you, Graham of Gallangad was after grumbling about his payments – just the way Buchlyvie was at just now. I am thinking that it is maybe a little small lesson that he needs.’

‘That could be,’ the younger man acceded gravely. ‘And you would have me teach him it?’

‘The notion occurred to me that you might welcome the exercise, Greg. It serves no good purpose when cock-lairdies grow too cocky, whatever. The disease could be catching! You know the place?’

‘Surely. No great distance off. Behind Duncryne, yonder. Five miles, or six?’

‘Eight, make it, and the ford to cross. It will be sundown within the hour. If his beasts were to be here in time, they should have been in sight ere this. Man, Gregor – go you and fetch them in for me. All of them, you will understand? All. It will keep you from wearying.’

‘Yes, then. They are as good as here, just.’

‘No – not here, lad. Bring them to Inversnaid – to Glen Arklet. We shall be gone long before you win them back here. But . . . see you, Gregor – is that the minister that is dodging and skulking down the steps there, like a rock-rabbit?’

‘Och, yes – I had forgotten him. The man is desolate because of his bit cow that has been taken. Bewailing like all the daughters of Babylon!’ Gregor glanced sidelong to see how the other MacGregors had taken this erudite allusion. ‘God’s shadow – it is a great plague for one small cow!’

‘Ministers’ cows always low the loudest,’ Rob Roy observed. ‘But you are speaking for him, Greg?’

‘Och, well . . .’

‘Call him up, then.’

The Reverend Erskine came up to his own kirk with little of the Church-Militant about him. ‘Mr MacGregor,’ he began, with an incipient bow, ‘you’ll forgie me, I hope? I winna waste your time forbye ae meenit.’ Perturbation, it is to be presumed, was driving him into his broadest Fife doric. ‘I was just speiring at Glengyle here . . .’

‘See you, Mhinistear,’ Rob Roy interrupted, but easily. ‘Let us be discussing your matter, be it what it may, on a right footing, whatever. Myself, you may name me a number of things – but not Mister! Inversnaid would be proper, or Captain maybe. But Rob I will answer to – or even MacGregor. But, as Royal’s my Race – no man shall Mister me within my hearing or the reach of my arm, Mister Erskine!’ It was mildly said, but there was a certain sibilance of enunciation, which had a notable effect.

The growl of approval that arose came from all in hearing save Mr Erskine.

That unhappy man all but choked. ‘I . . . I . . . och, nae offence, Inversnaid! Nae offence meant, I assure you. A slip o’ the tongue, nae mair. Just oor Scots usage. . . .’

‘Are you for informing me, sir, what is Scots usage?’

‘Na, na – guidsakes! You’ll have to forgie me, Captain. I’m a right donnert man become since my wife died on me. And noo the coo . . .’

Somewhat donnert he certainly sounded. Gregor, beside him, perceived that the lean veined hand actually trembled as it gestured feebly – the same hand that undoubtedly would beat the Good Book in thunderous authority in the pulpit back there of a Sabbath. And soft-hearted as ever, he intervened.

‘It is but a little small matter, Uncle, to be wasting our time over. One small bit of a cow! Think you we could spare . . .?’

‘The cow is nothing, Nephew – but the principle is everything, whatever,’ Rob Roy declared, sternly now. ‘Mr Erskine, like others, has had my protection, and gained thereby. He cries penury now – but so does every subscriber, from my Lord Marquis downwards. Restore him his cow, see you, and I should have a tail of others demanding the like. The thing is not to be considered. But . . .’ He paused, toying with his silver-mounted dirk, his glance switching between the faces of his nephew and the alarmed presbyter. ‘. . . my respect for God’s Kirk and religion is known. MacAlastair – take you Mr Erskine and let him be choosing any two beasts from the spreagh that he will. Two – you hear me? As free gift and thank offering, from Robert MacGregor of Inversnaid.’

Into the divine’s subsequent incoherent babble of gratitude and blessing, and Gregor’s great laughter, Rob Roy held up his hand. ‘Wheesht you, Mhinistear!’ he commanded. ‘What is that outcry? A truce to your belling, Greg – what is the to-do upbye?’

They all listened. Sure enough there came down to them a considerable din other than the day’s norm of bovine protest. There was much shouting, the clatter of shod hooves and the unmistakable cracking of a whip.

‘See you to it,’ Rob directed, with a brief jerk of his red head in the direction of one of his lounging gentry.

‘I will go,’ young Glengyle announced, born an optimist, and turned him about.

* * *

It was a large travelling-coach that was the cause of the pother – a heavy, brightly painted affair drawn by four matching greys and equipped with whip-cracking jehu and shouting postillions. It was jammed in the throat of the market-place where the road from the east came in, along with perhaps fifty miscellaneous cattle-beasts, and making nothing of the business. Sundry gillies were hallooing round about, and cocked hats were poking through the coach windows. An interesting situation.

Gregor strode thitherwards laughing, pushing his way amongst the beasts. The coach doors were emblazoned with a florid coat-of-arms, ermine cinquefoils on a red field. How the equipage had got even thus far was a mystery. Determined folk, evidently.

A heavy-featured handsome man, handsomely clad and bewigged, beckoned imperiously to Gregor from one of the windows as he approached. ‘Is this a fair, or what? A tryst?’ he called out. ‘Young man – these damned animals are not yours, by chance?’

‘They are not mine, no. But a tryst it is, after a manner of speaking.’

‘Thank the Lord that you speak the Queen’s English, at any rate!’ the gentleman exclaimed. ‘Will you kindly request these jabbering heathen to clear me a passage.’ Fore God, it should be obvious enough even to such as these! I believ. . .