John Splendid

藐
John Splendid, by Neil Munro

The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Splendid, by Neil Munro This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn
Author: Neil Munro
Release Date: August 15, 2007 [EBook #22321]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN SPLENDID ***

Produced by David Widger

JOHN SPLENDID
The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn
By Neil Munro

William Blackwood And Sons
Edinburgh And London
MDCCCXCVIII
[Illustration: frontispiece]
[Illustration: titlepage]

CONTENTS: (Note: Chapter XII notation skipped in the print copy.)
CHAPTER I.
—FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD.
CHAPTER II.
—GILLESBEG GRUAMACH.
CHAPTER III.
—THE LADY ON THE STAIR.
CHAPTER IV.
—A NIGHT ALARM.
CHAPTER V.
—KIRK LAW.
CHAPTER VI.
—MY LADY OF MOODS.
CHAPTER VII.
—CHILDREN OF THE MIST.
CHAPTER VIII.
—THE BALE-FIRES ON THE BENS.
CHAPTER IX.
—INVASION.
CHAPTER X.
—THE FLIGHT TO THE FOREST.
CHAPTER XI.
—ON BENS OF WAR.
CHAPTER XIII.
—WHERE TREADS THE DEER.
CHAPTER XIV.
—MY LADY AND THE CHILD.
CHAPTER XV.
—CONFESSIONS OF A MARQUIS.
CHAPTER XVI.
—OUR MARCH FOR LOCHABER.
CHAPTER XVII.
—IN THE LAND OF LORN.
CHAPTER XVIII.
—BARD OF KEPPOCH.
CHAPTER XIX.
—THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY.
CHAPTER XX.
—INVERLOCHY.
CHAPTER XXI.
—SEVEN BROKEN MEN.
CHAPTER XXII.
—DAME DUBH.
CHAPTER XXIII.
—THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE.
CHAPTER XXIV.
—A NIGHT'S SHELTER.
CHAPTER XXV.
—THE ANGRY EAVESDROPPER.
CHAPTER XXVI.
—TRAPPED.
CHAPTER XXVII.
—A TAVERN IN THE WILDS.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
—LOST ON THIS MOOR OF KANNOCH.
CHAPTER XXIX.
—THE RETURN.
CHAPTER XXX.
—ARGILE'S BEDROOM.
CHAPTER XXXI.
—MISTRESS BETTY.
CHAPTER XXXII.
—A SCANDAL AND A QUARREL.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
—THE BROKEN SWORD.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
—LOVE IN THE WOODS.
CHAPTER XXXV.
—FAREWELL.

DEDICATION.
To read this tale, dear Hugh, without any association of its incidents with the old respectable chronicles of the Historians is what I should wish you could always do. That is the happy manner with Romance; that is the enviable aptness of the child. But when (by the favour of God) you grow older and more reflective, seeking perhaps for more in these pages than they meant to give, you may wonder that the streets, the lanes, the tenements herein set forth so much resemble those we know to-day, though less than two hundred years ago the bracken waved upon their promontory. You may wonder, too, that the Silver Mines of Coillebhraid, discovered in the time of your greatgrandfather, should have so strangely been anticipated in the age of Gillesbeg Gruamach. Let not those chronological divergences perturb you; they were in the manuscript (which you will be good enough to assume) of Elrigmore, and I would not alter them. Nor do I diminish by a single hour Elrigmore's estimate that two days were taken on the Miraculous Journey to Inverlochy, though numerous histories have made it less. In that, as in a few other details, Elrigmore's account is borne out by one you know to whom The Little Wars of Lorn and Lochaber are yet, as it were, an impulse of yesterday, and the name of Athole is utterly detestable.
I give you this book, dear Hugh, not for History, though a true tale--a sad old tale--is behind it, but for a picture of times and manners, of a country that is dear to us in every rock and valley, of a people we know whose blood is ours. And that you may grow in wisdom as in years, and gain the riches of affection, and escape the giants of life as Connal did the giants of Erin O, in our winter tale, is my fervent prayer.
N. M.
September 1898.

JOHN SPLENDID.
CHAPTER I.
--FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD.
Many a time, in college or in camp, I had planned the style of my home-coming. Master Webster, in the Humanities, droning away like a Boreraig bagpipe, would be sending my mind back to Shira Glen, its braes and corries and singing waters, and Ben Bhuidhe over all, and with my chin on a hand I would ponder on how I should go home again when this weary scholarship was over. I had always a ready fancy and some of the natural vanity of youth, so I could see myself landing off the lugger at the quay of Inneraora town, three inches more of a man than when I left with a firkin of herring and a few bolls of meal for my winter's provand; thicker too at the chest, and with a jacket of London green cloth with brass buttons. Would the fishermen about the quay-head not lean over the gun'les of their skiffs and say, "There goes young Elrigmore from Colleging, well-knit in troth, and a pretty lad"? I could hear (all in my daydream in yon place of dingy benches) the old women about the well at the town Cross say, "Oh laochain! thou art come back from the Galldach, and Glascow College; what a thousand curious things thou must know, and what wisdom thou must have, but never a change on thine affability to the old and to the poor!" But it was not till