It was a fine morning in August, several years after those adventures which brought me to my fortune and property, and I was walking down to the burn which watered the valley wherein stands the house of Shaws, a fishing-rod on my shoulder, as I had done on many a morning since taking up residence there. This morning, however, I walked with a new lightness in my step, and my heart was buoyed by a joy that had not been in it on those other mornings; for beside me to-day walked Alan Breck Stewart. He was whistling a tune as he went, and even the familiar sound of his whistling brought a fresh smile to my face.
Yet it was not quite a familiar sound.
‘Alan, what is that tune?’ I said, turning to him. ‘I don’t recall ever hearing it before.’
He stopped whistling and looked up at me, at first like a man suddenly interrupted in a reverie, then, and unaccountably, like one caught in some guilty deed. ‘This tune?’ he said. ‘Ah, no, David, it’ll not be one ye ken.’
‘But what is it?’ said I. ‘I should like to know, for I like it—it sounds so jaunty.’ And so it did: it was a blithe and bonny tune, skipping quickly up and down like the purling of the stream towards which we were bound.
Alan turned away from me, looking more embarrassed than ever. ‘Na,’ he said, ‘I shouldnae be whistling that one here. Forget ye heard it.’
At this ridiculous evasiveness I must smile once more. ‘It cannae be so very shocking!’ I persisted. ‘Come, Alan, what is it? I shall not be offended if ’tis one of your Jacobite songs.’ For I had guessed that much.
Alan gave me a steady look. Then, as if to say ‘very well, then’, he sighed, hoisted his fishing-rod on his shoulder—and began to sing the words of the song:
‘Awa, Whigs, awa
Awa, Whigs, awa
Ye’re but a pack o’ traitor loons
Ye’ll ne’er do good at a’.
‘Ah, Davie,’ he said, looking at me sidelong, ‘I should not whistle sic an insult to you, and to-day! I wasnae thinking... Can ye believe that my heart was so light to be back in Scotland, and by your side, that I just never thought what it was I was whistling so carelessly?’ His face as he spoke was full of real remorse, and I think he really feared starting a quarrel; but there was a gleam, perhaps of hope, in the corner of his eye.
Before the end of this speech I had a hard time of it not to risk an insult to him in my turn by laughing; but at this last admission my own heart so brimmed over with fond affection for the dear friend who was by my side again that I really did laugh aloud. But, ‘Ay,’ said I, ‘I can believe that, Alan.’
In answer the gleam in Alan’s eye grew brighter. He said nothing, but strode on, looking a good two inches taller for that he was so much relieved and so much pleased that I took no insult from his song. I believe he had been remembering another time when he had sung Jacobite songs to me, and it had been no jest to either of us.
But that was long past and forgotten now; and now I said, ‘Alan, I like your song very well! Your party can make a clever tune, it’s true. May I hear a little more of it?’
‘Ye dinnae want to hear more of it, Davie,’ he said in mock disbelief, looking at me.
‘I do!’ cried I, ‘for I have a plan I want to try. Sing me another verse, Alan, won’t you?’
So he did. Those readers who know the song will need no reminding what it has to say about that honourable party named in its title—that they are like a curse; a frost in June, withering the lovely flowers; the cruel hunter who pursues the poor hare. I was vastly amused, and more glad than ever to have my own Jacobite here beside me.
But I soon put my plan in motion; the first offensive verse was not past when I said, ‘Ah, now, I know what I may say to that!’—and as Alan launched into another chorus, I raised my voice in my own favourite, “Ye Jacobites by Name”.
This attempt broke down in more laughter before either of us had got through more than half a verse; but, ‘Ay,’ said Alan after that, ‘they go together very well, that song and this.’
‘So they do,’ said I.
By now we had reached the burn, and the next few moments were occupied with sitting down upon the bank and preparing our fishing equipment. Alan, doubtful of the ground’s being quite dry, spread his great-coat out for us to sit upon, and there we sat side by side. I began to hum “Ye Jacobites” again under my breath, and Alan joined in with his own song.
The fish were fortunate that day, for I believe we quite frightened them off with the noise; but if the supper to which we went back at last, still whistling in the golden afternoon, was the poorer for that, it was much the happier for us.