taster chapter: Milord High Toby 1

 

Chapter 1; 1746, the Scottish Borders in the aftermath of the ’45 rebellion

 

It was a routine mission, tracking down a group of deserters and bringing them back to Stirling Castle for justice.  It was also, for Toby, a chance to get out in the thin, autumnal sunshine with his father and his brother, Thomas, and their companions, George Deering and Mark Hynes.

“It’d be nice weather to go out after a deer or two, wouldn’t it, Toby?” remarked Thomas.

“Aye, if we were not constrained by duty,” said Toby.

Thomas laughed.

“I wager when these renegades are rounded up, the colonel might see his way to giving us leave to do so.”

Toby chuckled.  As the colonel was their father, Colonel Lord Lorrington King, Viscount of Fairniehope, this was a standing joke.  Lord King was known to his men as ‘The Auger’, for eyes which could look right, it was said, into a man’s soul.  Though the Kings were originally a sept of Clan Gregor, Toby’s family had long held lands in the lowlands and had sided with the English king against the Stuart pretenders.

“There are few enough rebels about since Culloden,” he said.  “The greatest threat is those who have turned to crime, their hands against all.”

“And those deserters who have no king nor God but greed,” said Thomas, dryly.

 

The crack of a musket came from a point of concealment, and Toby watched in horror as a black mark appeared on his father’s forehead, and then red blood blossomed around it like some obscene flower. And then, slowly, so awfully slowly, his father slid backwards from his horse and fell with a horribly boneless crunch to the earth of the road below. Then it was George, blood spurting out of his neck.  Toby fired in the direction of the muzzle-flashes, as did Thomas and Mark. And then pain burned like fire across Toby’s side, and he swayed on his mount. And somehow he knew that the only way he might survive would be to let himself come off the mare, and lie with the other, horribly still bodies.

He was the last man down, more for luck than judgement. And he listened, tears in his eyes from pain and grief as he heard the crunch of boots.

“Got the three of them,” said a satisfied voice. Toby was furious, it was a voice he knew, the voice of one of  the deserters, a man named Daniel Hart.

“Sure they’re dead?”

“Younger boy might take longer to bleed out, but he’s getting there,” said their leader, kicking Toby in the ribs where the bullet had taken him. Toby swallowed the cry of pain and managed to convert it into a harsh breath as if he had trouble breathing. “Yes, got him in the lungs,” added his assailant. “Come on; I want my monkey of gold from Charles King for clearing the succession for him.  And such a nice natural way to do it,” he laughed a harsh laugh, and the sounds of the boots departed, and then the sounds of galloping hoofs.

Toby pulled himself to his knees, wondering why he wasn’t hit in the lungs.

His dented snuffbox, driven hard into his ribs, bruising them, seemed to be the reason, the ball diverted and merely scoring his side well enough to bleed convincingly. In truth, the bruise hurt worse!  He checked his father and brother for any signs of life; but there was none. Nor yet any life in the sightless staring eyes of George, the dandy, his fine mechlin neck-cloth dyed red with the outflow of his life’s blood from his neck. Mark, the merry jokesmith, would crack no more jokes, the agonised rictus of his mouth a cruel travesty of its living, laughing  smiles.

Toby groaned; and dizziness overcame him and he lay swooning.

 

He came to, having his wound bathed.

“Dinnae ye gae undoin’ me handywork forebye, Maister Toby,” said a voice with a soft, highland lilt with a touch of the Fifer.

“I know your voice,” gasped Toby.

“Aye, iphm, an’ ye shuid, for ye saved ma life.”

“Camsron Dubh!” said Toby. “Papa was looking for an excuse not to hang you; he hates... hated... hanging men.”

“And ye made a guid plea for me,” said the Dubh.  “Ye’ll be laird now himself an’ yer brother are gone. Here; I fetched off his signet for ye.”

Toby slipped the ring onto his finger, almost unthinking.

“Thanks, Dubh, but it’s not as easy as that,” he said, grimly. “The deserters we came to round up were paid by my cousin, Charles, to make sure of inheriting. I fear that if I go back to Stirling, he will lay false witness to say I killed my father, brother, and friends, and then I shall be hung. If only there was a way to identify a musket ball!”

“Aye, weel, a spiteful, cunning wee bawsack is the sort o’ fandan as wuid dae that,” agreed the Dubh. “Wit’s yer plan, laird?”

“I... I want to bury my brother, father, and friends, and a fifth grave to hide that I am alive,” said Toby. He swallowed. “I’ll need to take their linen, so I’ve spare clothes, then I’ll need a countryman’s clothes. I’ll... I’ll bring them to justice somehow, and have them testify against my cousin. I’ll wear a mask and pretend to be a highwayman, but I’ll hunt such men down, for Daniel Hart and his men will be likely to join such.”

The Dubh spat                          

“Aye, iphm,” he agreed, “Ye’ll want a new horse; yours has been taken, and ye’d no want tae be reckernised. And ye’ll no’ want me tae ca’ ye laird, forebye.”

Toby blinked.

“You intended to stay with me?” he asked.

The Dubh shrugged.

“Och, weel, someone has tae dae so; yer a puir shilpit wee bairn as has need o’ tak’in’ care o’ himself.”

Toby reflected that at least the  Dubh was a Campbell, and was officially named Camsron Andrew Beathan Campbell, or Cambuill in his own idiom, and so a clan loyal to the British. And it would be nice to have a companion in his endeavours. 

He sighed for thought of fair Aillie Campbell, a rather better-born member of the clan, whom he was to have wed; and got out his snuff-box again.

The eye-painting set into its top was undamaged.

“Aye, iphm, the fair lady saved ye,” said the Dubh.

“She will grieve, thinking me dead, and will maybe love again, but better that than that she give me away ere I have the proofs I need,” said Toby, numbly, his thumb caressing the painting.

“Deid! Dinnae be a wee naif,” said the Dubh. “I’ll see she kens fine weel that ye live, and that ye’ll find the man wha’s behind this, and she’s a braw lassie and will no’ shoot off her puss.”

“Do you think....” worried Toby.

“Losh! It’s no’ thinkin’, ah ken she’ll be ready tae dae a’ she micht.”

 

 

Ensconced in a gamekeeper’s bothy, and with the Dubh gone to town for supplies, Toby had the opportunity to reflect upon the probable folly of his actions.

Well, it was wise to let Charles think he was dead; that was undoubted.  He would dress well enough... he needed money.

“Dubh, are you up to breaking into King’s Keep?” he asked, when that individual returned.

“Weel, ye ken ony problems we’re likely to encounter, laird, and better to dae it the noo than when Mr. Charles is in residence,” said the Dubh. “What are we looking for?”

“The strong box,” said Toby. “You took my father’s keys, and I have my keys,  it should be easy as falling off a log.”

“Och, weel, that’s as maybe,” said the Dubh.. “But ye’ll no’ treat it ony way but cautiously, forebye.”

“No, Dubh,” said Toby, chastened.

 

Two precious villains crept up to King’s Keep,  which was more of a defensible country house than a castle. Toby had a key to the back door, to use when returning from riding, but it had been bolted.  He shrugged, and went searching in the stable for a large knife, which he used to fineagle the latch on a pantry window.

“I always got in this way if I got locked out,” he told the Dubh.

The Dubh sniffed. It was a speaking sniff.

In stockinged feet they padded into the laird’s library, and Toby unlocked the strongbox.

“Papa keeps this for emergencies,” said Toby, in an undertone. “This is an emergency.”

“Losh, are we takkin’ the lot?” said the Dubh, startled, but retaining a quiet voice.

“Yes, we are, and we’ll cache most of it,” said Toby. “And anything else of value worth taking including firearms, and good steel. Plenty of ammunition, too. We’ll be busy most of the night.”

“You’re sair trusting of a poacher.”

“We’re comrades,” said Toby.

“Och, weel, ye’re the laird,” said the Dubh. The gold and silver filled a number of sacks, then there were sacks of firearms and shot. Toby wandered off and came back with another sack filled with silver plate.

“Hideous service, it was a wedding present, so Papa had to use it, it’s more use to us melted down and sold,” he said, showing the Dubh.

“Melt it with bits of rock in it, and we’ll claim to have found a vein,” said the Dubh.

“Splendid!” said Toby.

“How are we going to get this all away afore daylight, laird?” asked the Dubh.

“We aren’t,” said Toby. “We’re going to bury it in the midden, wrapped in oilcloth for now, and take a sack each away every night until it’s all gone.”

The Dubh shrugged.

It seemed as good an idea as any.

 

Rumour travelled as always on rapid feet, that Colonel King and his sons and their friends had fallen in with trouble and were dead. The bandits had left the distinctive horses to return on their own; the laird and his sons must be presumed and declared dead for Charles King to inherit.

And Aillie Campbell was sobbing her eyes out for the sweet man she had been going to wed, a friend since childhood.

She kept mostly to her chamber, refusing to answer knocks on the door from her mother or father.

The knock on the window had her run to the casement, and then drawing back in shock at the visage of a strange man. She drew in her breath to scream.

“Hoots, wumman! Haud yer whisht syne ye want news o’ Laird Toby,” said the man, scrambling agilely over her sill.

“Toby? He isnae deid?” Aillie did not usually have much of an accent, but the strong emotion made it stronger.

“He’s in hiding, frae that bawsack cousin o’ his wha’ arranged tae hae the auld laird and baith sons killt, forebye,” said the Dubh. “And ye cannae let on that ye ken; but he wanted ye tae ken ‘twas yer snuffbox wha’ saved him from a ba’ in the bellows. And that when he can prove it, he’ll be bye tae court ye agin.”

“Oh, thank you!” whispered Aillie, her eyes like stars at this news, shining even brighter for her recent tears.

“Aye, iphm, but ye ken, ye mustnae seem tae tak’ it weel whiles yet,” said the Dubh. “But thinkin’ ye’d hae some appetite back, syne ye kennt the news, here’s some vittles tae keep yer belly frae scrapin’ yer backbone, whiles ye baw yer heid off in yer room f’ the luiks of it.”

“How very clever you are!”

“Weel, lassie, Ah’m a Campbell, too, forebye, and the best breed in a’ Bonnie Scotland,” said the Dubh.

Aillie made a full and satisfying meal of raised game pie – the Dubh was an excellent cook as well as a good shot – with bread and cheese, and she had a pump in her own room for washing as well as for drinking. She thought it the best banquet she had ever had.

 

Toby and the Dubh transferred all the treasure from the midden to a cave used at times by poachers, where they buried it under scree to look like a rockfall. It was a fallback headquarters.

“We need to rid the area of lawlessness generally,” said Toby.

“Aye, iphm, Ah’m no’ discontentit tae be lawless,” said the Dubh.

“There’s poaching which hurts nobody, and then there’s armed bands who set on innocent folks,” said Toby.

The Dubh chuckled.

“Takkin’ tae the High Toby,  which is wha’ they ca’ highway robbery, tae stop highway robbers,” he said, deriving much lively amusement in this idea of  word play.

“I thought we might prey on those who hold up coaches by falling upon them when they attack,” said Toby.

“Aye, iphm, syne we can get news, it’ll work, forebye,” said the Dubh. “And I’ve word of some guid horseflesh too.”

A few days later, Toby had a black stallion which was half wild still, black smallclothes and stockings, bucket-topped boots, a black frieze coat, and tied his dark brown hair back with a black bow, a black mask on his face, and a black tricorne to throw its contours into shadow.

He was ready.