Unknown (58 page)

'Earl
of Kincardine. You are an earl now, Johnnie. Did you not know? Since
the King made me a marquis. Earl of Kincardine. And you, Jamie, the
Lord James Graham. How like you that, my lords? And your mother the
Marchioness of Montrose.'

'Me!
I am as little a marchioness as I was a countess! What do I care for
such ...'

'Quite
so. Yet it does put you one step above, say, your stepmother! I
conceive that might be to your satisfaction, on occasion! No? And
two steps above your brother's wife!
All
folly - but if I guess aright, not wholly without advantage!'

Magdalen
paused to consider that, while the boys yelled their new titles at
each other excitedly. Sim Mather had discreetly made himself scarce.

Setting
down the baby on the old man's pallet-bed of reed straw, Montrose
took his wife in his arms again. He was no monk, and his need for a
woman frequently was fierce - but he had never yet allowed himself
to surrender to it. To that extent, at least, he had been a better
husband than some. Now, with Magdalen's plumply rounded body under
his hands, the urge to possess her, after so long, was all but
overwhelming. But he could not possibly send his sons out of the
shack; and they were still too young to recognise his need. Magdalen
herself was tense within his embrace -although that might well have
been her own frustration and necessity. With almost an unspoken
curse, he put her away a little, and turned to pace the earthen
floor.

‘
Can
I come with you? With your army?' In a rush, she blurted it out. 'I
could do it. Other women have done it'

He
stared at her, scarcely believing that he heard aright ‘Magdalen,
lass... !'

'At
least I would be with you. I could be a camp-follower - if soldier
you must! I am none so delicate - only timorous! Take me with you,
James.'

'My
love - it is not possible. I thank you, with all my heart I thank
you for saying it, offering it...'

'I
am not offering. I am asking, praying.'

‘
No,
lass. You do not know what you ask. It is not possible. What I go to
do is too harsh, too hazardous, for anything such. You do not
understand. How could you? I have no army - only some two thousand
beggarly kerns and caterans. With that I must needs try to win
Scotland. And I will do so, God willing. But for months, a year, it
will be not warfare but skirmishing, banditry, ranging the land. No
place for you, or any woman. Living in the heather, with never a
roof or a bed. Moving all the time ...' He went to take her hands
again. ‘No, Magdalen - it cannot be. But my heart goes out to
you for saying it. Bless you!'

Her
shoulders slumped. 'Am I never to have you, then? Never? Is it
always to be... thus?'

‘
No.
I swear it will not be. Give me this year, lass. I shall see you
from dme to time. But - give me a year to win the King his kingdom
back. And then, on my oath and honour, I will come home to you.'

'If
they do not kill you first,' she said flatly.

That
is in God's hands. But, never fear, I am none so easy killed. Now -
tell me of yourself. Of your days, your life. How you spend your
time. Of little Jean's birth. Of Aud Montrose. The lands, the folk -
there is so much to hear. And so little time...'

They
had their hour, and a little more, before the man could drag himself
away.

The
parting,' he declared, then, in a strained voice. The parting again
is damnable. Too high a price to pay. For us all. But this time it
will not be for so long.' He put his arm around Magdalen's
shoulders, and pointed to his sons. 'My Graham lords - look well
after your lady-mother, I charge you. And these little ones. Grieve
her nothing. It is the Lieutenant-General's command! This is
your
part.
To hold my rear secure, in good order, while I advance. Else I
cannot do so with a single mind. It is all part of the battle. And
you, my dear, you hold so much that is precious to me beyond all
telling, in these two hands. Do not fear that I will not come back
to claim it. And soon. God keep you all.'

He
left them there in that lowly hut, tears blurring their image, one
lonely man to go and conquer Scotland. And he did not, dared not,
look back.

The
morning was further advanced than he had intended. He had to get
into the empty hills as swiftly and as unobtrusively as
possible, unable to return to Atholl by the shortest route, as he
had come - and his garrison was tired. He rode west by north, by the
Muir of Dun and the Muir of Pert, and by little Stracathro to the
Catherthun hills, and so over into the quiet hidden valley of the
West Water; and although he saw and was seen by a henwife or two,
herds with their cattle, and some men with their sickles cutting the
scanty oats, even raised his hand to them as a decent traveller
should - while keeping his too-handsome head bent or averted -
none challenged him. None of the quality, of course, were abroad at
such hour.

Once
the great rolling heather hills received him into their abiding
quiet, the man relaxed somewhat. The chances of interception, of
significant encounter, or any encounter, were now minimal. But
instead of fifty miles to ride, he now had nearer seventy, and by
rougher ways.

He
elected to make one encounter. At the lonely Lindsay
bonnet-lairdship of Craigendowie, where the rivers forked, instead
of avoiding the house he turned in there, and exchanged his
tired garron for another, plus a tankard of milk and some oatcakes,
leaving a golden guinea as acknowledgment. He did not name his
name, nor was it asked. And thereafter he had Scotland to himself.

At
least he had time, and opportunity, to think, as he crossed the wide
watersheds of Glen Clova, Glen Prosen, Glen Isla and Glen Slice, to
Glen Tilt, in Atholl.

It
was dusk again when James Graham rode down Tilt to the camp at
Blair, heavy-eyed, drooping in the saddle, having covered a total of
over
110
miles
of mountain and moor in twenty-fours hours. The place was in an
identical stir and clamour of singing, dancing and general uproar as
when he had left it, almost as though it had never paused. But one
change there was, to lift the droop from Montrose's shoulders.
John, Lord Kilpont had arrived from Stirlingshire with

300
men
- and these were trained in archery, an old-fashioned but especial
interest of Kilpont's. They were mainly Menteith Grahams and their
adherence, with the support of his friends, was an incalculable
fillip.

Before
he allowed himself to sleep that night, Montrose penned a formal
letter to Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyll. As the King's
Lieutenant he informed Argyll that he was in a state of armed and
treasonable rebellion against the monarch, and that unless he
withdrew immediately from this activity, and made full and suitable
restitution and submission to His Grace, he would be proceeded
against with all vigour forthwith by the King's forces, to his
considerable and swift injury. An immediate submission was required.
The letter-writer, tired as he was, smiled grimly to himself as he
added his signature to this crazy if old-fashioned chivalric
challenge.

22

T
hey
marched at dawn on
F
riday
the
20
th
of
A
ugust,
1644
-
and from the very first, Montrose was at pains to show all concerned
what manner of commander he was and what he expected of the troops
under his command. He himself marched on foot, targe on arm, pike
over shoulder, broadsword at side. He sang the lilting,
fast-stepping Gaelic marching-songs with them, and laughed and joked
with all. But he led at a fierce pace, and continued to do so,
ignoring all roads and even tracks unless they took them directly or
substantially in the direction he aimed to go. This was to be the
fastest-moving force in Scotland, necessarily.

For
that, of course, it was in fact ideally composed, cavalry or none.
Lean and agile Highlanders and Irish kerns, lightly armed, carrying
no more kit than their plaids, brogans of rawhide on feet hardened
to roughest going, they were mobile light infantry par excellence,
as far as swift movement was concerned - and could go where
even garrons could not. Living off the country, with no bases to tie
them, no communications to guard, a pouch of oatmeal each man's
rations, they had no baggage-trains to hamper them, no cannon. Such
as had firearms had in the main flintlock pistols and light spordng
muskets, not the more ponderous military matchlocks which required
V-topped supports and rolls of slow-burning fuse to fire. If the
lack of ammunition for these was appalling - it was reckoned that
the Irish contingent did not muster more than one ball apiece -
at least it meant that they travelled the lighter.

There
were some
2700,
now,
in all,
800
Athollmen
and other North Perthshire clansmen having joined. They forded the
Garry near Glackmore, waving goodbye to the young Earl of Atholl and
his folk, and moving up-river to Invervack, climbed then straight up
the long, long braeface, three miles and
1000
feet
of ascent, to the heather ridge of Tulach which separated the valley
of the Garry from that of Tummel, the men sweating out the effects
of much beef and liquor of the last days. Over the lofty summit they
spilled down to Loch Tummel-side at Tressait, without pause, nearly
3000
men
brushing through the knee-high, dusty, scented heather of a golden
August morning. At the loch-shore, Montrose swung right-handed,
westwards, not left, as might have been expected.

His
spies and scouts had informed him that the Lord Elcho, son to the
Earl of Wemyss, was commanding the Covenant army being raised to
deal with Colkitto's Irish, in co-operation with Argyll's Campbells.
He was based on Perth, near his own. castle of Elcho, and was
estimated to have
7000
infantry
and
700
horse,
mainly from Fife and Angus. Whether he knew of Montrose's assumption
of Alastair's command was uncertain; but at least he would not
expect an immediate advance and attack by this beggarly host on his
vastly larger and properly equipped army. The Graham, aiming at this
stage for a gesture, a demonstration to arouse confidence, rather
than any conventional battle, intended at least to surprise his
former colleague - for Elcho had served with him in the Second
Bishops' War.

Rounding
the head of Loch Tummel, they crossed the river between it and Loch
Rannoch to the west, and commenced to climb again, up and up
under the mighty cone of shapely Schiehallion by the Braes of Foss.
To the lofty, lonely small loch of Kinardochy they mounted, and so
southwards beyond, down the green Strath of Appin, with the great
valley of Tay beginning to yawn before them. By early evening they
were down amongst the levels of Dull, where the ancient Celtic
Church had once dispensed its urbane and genial faith. They had
covered twenty-one miles - whereas the man Cromwell had recently
declared that the utmost that even the best and most lightly armed
infantry could achieve in any day was thirteen, and that not in
mountainous country.