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Title: Legendary Tales of the Highlands (Volume 3 of 3)

Author: Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

Release date: April 3, 2019 [eBook #59202]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDARY TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS (VOLUME 3 OF 3) ***




Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









                               LEGENDARY
                        TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS.

                              A SEQUEL TO
                           HIGHLAND RAMBLES.


                                   BY
                     Sir THOMAS DICK LAUDER, Bart.

            AUTHOR OF "LOCHANDHU," "THE WOLFE OF BADENOCH,"
                        "THE MORAY FLOODS," ETC.


                           IN THREE VOLUMES.

                              VOLUME III.


                                LONDON:
                       HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
                       GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
                              M.DCCC.XLI.








CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.


                                                           PAGE

    THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH'S ADVENTURES,           1

    COMFORTS OF A LONDON CLUB-HOUSE,                         67

    THE LEGEND, &c.--Continued,                              73

    CRUELTY OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND AFTER THE BATTLE
    OF CULLODEN,                                            189

    ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY,                               193

    DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL AND SENTENCE ON INCHRORY,       210

    THE LEGEND OF THE VISION OF CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE,       212



ILLUSTRATIONS.


    JOHN SMITH EXHIBITS MILITARY GENIUS IN DEFENCE OF
    THE KILLOGIE,                                            46

    JOHN SMITH UNDER THE TURF,                              145








HIGHLAND RAMBLES.

THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH'S ADVENTURES.


To understand my story the better, gentlemen, you must yemaygine
to yourselves a snug well-doing Nairnshire farmer's onstead, [1]
situated in the parish of Auldearn, with a comfortable dwelling-house,
of two low stories, accurately put down, so as mathematically
to face the twelve o'clock line,--with its crow-steppit gables,
small windows, little out-shot low addition behind, tall chimneys,
and grey-slated roof--just such a house, to wit, as a man of his
condition required in the middle of the last century--with two lines
of strange-looking thatched or sod-covered stables, byres, barns,
and other out-houses, projecting from its sides at right angles to
its front, with divers out-riders, and isolated straggling edifices,
of similar architecture and materials, dropped down here and there, as
the hand of chance might have sown them--the smoke coming furth from
some of their lumm-heads, and partly also from their low door-ways,
proving to you, almost against your conviction, that they actually
are the dwelling-places of human beings.--Fancy the whole grouped
(as Mr. Grant, the long painter lad of Grantown, would have said)
with sundry goodly rows of peat and turf stacks, a number of corn
ricks wonderfully formed, and bulging and hanging out of the centre
of gravity, each in a different direction, like a parcel of drunken
Dutch dancers;--in the midst of all a large midden--(query whether the
word midden may not be a mere corruption of the words middle-in,--the
midden being always in the middle of all rural premises in Scotland? so
that unlucky visitors not unfrequently walk up to the middle into the
middle of it.)--Then picture to yourselves, behind the biggins, sundry
kail-yards, with a few very ancient ash trees, sycamores, and rowan
trees, rising from among their bourtree fences, or from the sides of
their dilapidated dry-stone dikes. At a little distance below, a bog,
with its attendant pools of dark moss-water, which shine amidst the
black chaotic mass around them, and look blue by their reflection of
the sky--with a half-ruined and roofless killogie, or kiln for drying
corn and malt, standing on a sloping bank at no great distance from
them. Then people all this with the farmer himself, a stout, hale,
healthy-looking man, going bustling about from door to door among
his folk, his muck-carts, and his horses, with a hodden-grey coat
upon his back, a broad blue bonnet on his head, a hazle staff in his
hand, and a colley and one or two rough terriers and greyhounds at his
heels, shouting every now and then in Gaelic to his man, John Smith,
a tall, handsome, strong-built Highlander, whilst the gudeman's wife,
a very good-looking, round-formed, trigly-dressed Englishwoman,
is seen appearing and disappearing from under the wooden porch,
over which some attempts have been made to trail a plant or two of
rose and honeysuckle, but which attempts have been rendered abortive
by the epicurean taste of the browsing animals of the farm--her south
country tongue sounding quick and sharp in the ears of Morag, or Mary,
a clever, well-made, bare-footed, and short-gowned Highland lass,
with pleasing countenance, largish cheek bones, black snooded hair,
sparkling eyes, arched eyebrows, and rosy cheeks, busied in washing
out her milk cogues, with her coats kilted up to her knees. To which
add the herd of cows, oxen, queys, stirks, and calves of all sorts and
sizes, with a due mixture of sheep and lambs, and pownys, sprinkled all
about, feeding among the whinny pasture-hillocks and baulks, dividing
the queer-shaped patches of the surrounding arable land.--Above all,
I would have you particularly to remark a vurra large sow-beast,
with a numerous litter of pigs, grubbing up the ground about the old
killogie, amid the ruins of which her progeny first saw the light. In
addition thereto, fancy, in the words of our own Scottish pastoral
poet, Allan Ramsay, that


    "Hens on the midden, ducks in dubbs are seen,"


and you will be in full possession of the first scene of my tale,
as well as acquainted with some of its more important dramatis personæ.

Mr. MacArthur, the farmer, though a Highlander, was a stanch Whig,
which made him, as you may well suppose, gentlemen, rather a


    "Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno"


among his brother Celts. He had acquired his principles during his
residence in England, where he had fallen in with and married his wife,
who was a woman of good condition for her rank of life, and of superior
yeddication. She was attached to the Hanoverian royal family, both
by principle and interest. Her brother was an officer in the Royal
Regiment; and as everything connected with England was dear to her,
because it was her country, so every thing connected with the English
army was especially dear to her on her brother's account.

During the year 1745, when the recruiting for the army of the Prince
of the Stuarts was going on, many of Mr. MacArthur's servants, and
John Smith in particular, manifested a strong disposition to enlist
under his banners. But so powerful were the influence and eloquence of
this English lady, that she succeeded in dissuading them, one by one,
from following out the bent of their inclinations. This her zealous and
active opposition to the Prince's cause, soon began to attract public
attention, in a district where it was so generally favoured. She became
a marked object of dislike to the Jacobites, and this all the more so,
perhaps, that she was an Englishwoman. Oftener than once it happened,
that, whilst they spared some of her neighbours, whose politics were
dubious, and therefore obnoxious in their eyes, they plundered her
goodman's farm on her especial account. But these depredations were
comparatively trifling, and protected as she was by her husband's
fortitude, she bore these little evils with the magnanimity of a
martyr; nay, she even ventured to talk of them with contempt, and there
were many people who believed that she actually gloried in them. As
Mr. MacArthur was a Highlander, and spoke the Gaelic language fluently,
he might perhaps have been able, by modest behaviour, kind treatment,
and smooth words, in some degree to have mitigated the prejudice which
his countrymen had against his wife as a Pensassenach, or English wife,
as she was uniformly called by way of reproach. But husbands cannot
always restrain the political enthusiasm of their ladies--and so it
was with Mr. MacArthur. With or without his approbation she scrupled
not, at times, when a good opportunity offered, to set the Jacobites
at defiance, to give them all manner of opprobrious epithets, and,
with all a woman's rashness, but with more than feminine intrepidity,
she dared them to do their worst.

It was after sunset on the evening of the 13th of April, 1745, that
the Pensassenach was seated in her elbow chair, by the fire in her
little parlour. She was alone, for her husband had been called away
from home, for some days, on very urgent business, and as she felt
herself slightly indisposed, she was prepared to take particular care
of herself for that night. A small tall-shaped chased silver vessel of
mulled elderberry wine, with a close top to it to keep its contents
warm, together with a very tiny silver cup, were placed beside her
on a little round walnut-tree table, supported on a single spiral
pillar with three claws. She was about to pour out a little of this
medicinal fluid, to be taken preparatory to retiring to bed for the
night, when she was startled by a noise in the kitchen, and immediately
afterwards she was alarmed by the abrupt entrance of her maid Morag.

"Mem!--Mem!" cried the girl, breathless with the importance of her
intelligence, "tare's Wully Tallas, ta packman in ta kitchen!--He's
come a' ta way frae Speymouth sin yesterday. Ta Englishers are a'
comin' upon us horse and futs!--horse and futs an' mockell cannons,
an' we'll be a' mordered, an' waur!--fat wull we do?"

"What say you, girl?" exclaimed the Pensassenach, starting from her
chair, and overturning all her meditated comforts in her hurry. "But
get out of my way, you senseless fool, I'll speak to the man
myself. Dallas! Will Dallas!" cried she, throwing her voice shrilly
along the passage, towards the kitchen. "Come this way, Will Dallas,
and let me hear your news from your own mouth!"

"Comin' mem!" cried the travelling merchant, as he appeared limping
along the passage, by no means sorry to be thus called on to unbuckle
his budget of news, which he was always ready to dispose of at a much
cheaper rate than he generally sold his goods.

"Where have you come from, Will Dallas?" cried the Pensassenach;
"and what news have ye got?"

"Weel, ye see, mem, I hae come straught frae Speymooth, as fast as my
heavy pack and this happity lamiter leg o' mine wad let me," replied
Dallas. "And my pack's very heavy yee noo, for I've got a grand new
stock o' gudes in't."

"Well, well! never mind your goods at present!" cried the impatient
Pensassenach; "quick! quick! what news have you?"

"Od, mem, it wad at no rate do for me no to mind my goods at a' times
and at a' saisins," said Dallas. "But touching the news, mem,--the
Duke, mem--that is, the Duke o' Cummerland, I mean, crossed the Spey
yesterday wi' a' his airmy."

"Is it possible?" cried the Pensassenach, her eyes sparkling with
delight.

"It's quite true, mem, for I seed the whole tott o' them yefeck the
passage wi' my ain een," said Dallas.

"Ha! tell me, good Dallas, how did they cross?" demanded the lady.

"They just fuirded through the Spey, mem, in three grand deveesions,
at three different pairts, just for a' the warld as gin ye had been
rollin' aff three different pieces o' red ribban, like, at yae time,"
replied Dallas.

"A glorious sight!" cried the Pensassenach.

"Aye, truly, ye wad hae said sae had ye seen't, mem," said Dallas;
"gin ye had seen them wi' the sun glancin' on their airms, and on
the flashin' faem o' the Spey! Every bone o' them got safe across,
exceppin yae dragoon that had taen a wee thoughty ower muckle liquor,
and fell fae his horse,--and four weemen fouk, wha were whamled out o'
a bit cairty, and wha were a' carried down, and a' drooned outright."

"Poor wretches!" said the Pensassenach. "But it was well they were
not men: their lives were comparatively but little worth."

"I daur swear that you're right there, mem," said Dallas; "little
worth followers of the camp they were, nae doot;--and yet the hizzies
were weel pit on. I followed the bodies as they soomed down the water,
and cleekit ane o' them ashore, and although her mutch was gane, she
had a gude goon and a daycent rocklay on, and ither things forbye;
but they ware a' sae spiled wi' the water, that I selt them till a
woman in Elgin for an auld sang. But I'll tell ye what it is, mem,
weemen--that is, daycent weemen--have nae business----"

"You have no business with the women, Mr. Dallas," interrupted the
Pensassenach impatiently--"it is of the men--of the troops, and
of their noble and gallant leader that I would hear. All across,
said you? and what became of the other Duke?" continued she, in
a contemptuous tone. "I mean the rebel Duke--the Duke of Perth,
I mean? Where was he, and where were his heroes, that they did not
arrest the progress of the Royal army?"

"Troth, mem, the Duke o' Perth and his men just came on their ways
wast the country, and left the English airmy to cross at their ain
wull," replied Willy.

"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the lady, waving her hand around her head. "The
false knaves dared not to face them! Well, any more news, Dallas?"

"I ken nae mair that I hae to tell ye," said Dallas, "exceppin'
that I was in the English camp yestreen mysel', and that I selled
a wheen caumrick pocket-napkins, and three yairds o' black ribban,
till yere brither, Captain John, and I promised to ca' in by this
way aince eerant to tell ye that he was weel, and to drink his health."

"Thank ye, thank ye, good Bill Dallas!" cried the lady, clapping her
hands in an ecstasy of joy; "you shall not fail to do that; but why
did you not tell me this joyful news before? Stay, my good man--here
is for your happy tidings!" and, running to a corner cupboard, she
brought out a bottle of brandy, and filled him a tasse, that made
his eyes dance in his head after he had tossed it off.

"My certy, that's prime stuff indeed," said Dallas, panting with the
very strength of it. "And noo, mem, will ye look at my pack.--I hae
some o' the grandest jewels, rings, chains, watches, and brooches--the
gayest ribbans--and, aboon a', the bonniest lace,--ye never saw
siccan lace. The captain said he was quite sure it wad tak your ee,
for that you had siccan a fine taste. Troth, says I till him, you're
no far wrang there, captain; Mistress MacArthur has the best taste and
joodgement in lace o' a' my customers, north or sooth--north or sooth,
said I. It's quite beautifou lace, mem, as ye'll say when ye see't;
and sae cheap, too! Od, I'm sellin' it for half nothin'. Shall I
bring the pack ben here, mem?--ye'll hae mair light here."

"No--no--no!--not at present, Will," cried the Pensassenach, her
patience quite exhausted with his prolixity. "Another time Will--but
I have other fish to fry at present. Morag!--Morag, girl! run! call
out all the men! My stars, how unfortunate it is that MacArthur is
from home! How he would rejoice! Call all the men, I say!"

"Fat vas she cryin' aboot?" said Morag, hurrying to answer her call.

"Run and call all the men, I tell you, girl!" cried the Pensassenach,
bustling about, all life and activity, and her indisposition entirely
forgotten. "Call all the men I say; and John Smith in particular. I
want John Smith here immediately. What glorious news! There wont
be a rascally rebel knave of them left in the whole country. And my
brother John coming too! Who knows but we may have the honour of being
presented to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland in person! How
provoking it is that MacArthur is from home!"

"Fat wad ta leddy be wantin' wi' her?" said John Smith, at that
moment putting his head into the room, his Kilmarnock cowl, and the
disordered state of the covering of so much of the upper part of his
person as was visible, sufficiently indicating that he had been roused
from his bed. "Fat wad ta leddy be wantin'? We wus a' beddit."

"Run, John!" cried the impatient lady, "run and make all the people
get out of their beds directly! collect every one, man and woman,
about the farm. Make them yoke all the carts, and drive a whole
peat-stack to the head of the knoll, and build up a large bonfire,
and see that you mix your layers of peats with layers of moss-fir,
and dry furze-bushes. I'll have a blaze that shall be seen from Forres
to Inverness. Have we any tar-barrels left?"

"Ou aye!" replied John; "a tar barrels tat was ower mockell fan we
last tar ta sheeps."

"Then put the whole tar-barrel in the midst of all," cried the
Pensassenach. "Come, John, why do you stand staring so? run, man,
and do as I bid you, without a moment's delay."

"Ou aye, aye, she's runnin' fast," replied John, slowly moving
away. "Fod, but she's thinks tat ta Pensassenach be gaen taft
awtagedder."

"Morag! bring a basket here directly," cried the Pensassenach,
as she hurried down stairs with the large key of the cellar in her
hand. "Now," said she, putting a number of bottles into the basket,
"take care of these; and make haste, and bring a cheese, and some
loaves of bread, and follow me quickly out to the knoll with the
basket."

In a very little time, an enormous pile of fuel was built up on
the summit of the knoll, with the tar-barrel in the centre of it,
to which an opening was at first left from the external air, which
was afterwards partially filled with dry furze-bushes dipped in tar,
so as to afford the flame a ready communication inwards. When every
thing was prepared, the Pensassenach seized a lighted candle from a
lantern, and, as Dryden hath it, she


    "Like another Helen, fired another Troy!"


that is to say, she set fire, not to a city, indeed, but to the
whin-bushes, and the flame running inwards, to the tar-barrel, the
whole mighty fabric of fuel was instantaneously in such a blaze, that
any one might have thought that it was Troy itself that was burning.

"Now," said the Pensassenach, "draw me one of those stone bottles of
brandy, and fill me a tasse of it. I drink to those to whom I have
dedicated this bonfire--I drink, in the first place, to the health
of my brother John, captain in the Royal Regiment, whom I hope soon
to see here!" and, putting the cuach to her lips, she sipped a modest
lady's share of the contents.

"Come, Bill Dallas," continued she, addressing the travelling merchant,
who, tired as he was with his long tramp, had yet sneaked out to
secure his share of the liquor, as well as of the fun. "Come, Bill,
you must drink next; you have the best right to do so, as the bearer
of the good news."

"Weel, here's to Captain John, and wussin' him health, and muckle
happiness, and a gude wife till him, wi' plenty o' siller," said the
packman, tossing off the full contents of the tasse. "I'm sure there's
no a bonnier man, nor a better man, nor a gallanter sodger--eh,
beg his honor's pardon, I meant offisher--in the hail land o' the
British Isles, be the ither wha he may."

"Well spoken, Bill," cried the lady. "Now, John Smith, come it is
your turn next."

"Here's helss, an' mokel o't, to her broder Captain Shon, and mokel
gude wifes and gude sillers!" cried John Smith, draining the cuach
to the last drop.--"Oich, but she's goot trinks!" added he.

The cup and the toast went round a large and encreasing party; for the
bonfire, sending up sharp pointed flames, as if it meditated piercing
the very clouds, spread wonder and speculation all over the country
far and wide, and brought all manner of idlers, like flies and moths,
about it. A considerable space of time, as well as a tolerable quantity
of brandy, was expended, before the health had been drank by every one.

"Now," said the Pensassenach, filling the cuach again to the brim, "I
drink health and success to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland,
and confusion to all his enemies!"--and, kissing the cup merely,
she handed it to the packman.

"Weel, mem, here's wussin' that same wi' a' my heart!" cried
Mr. Dallas, and off went every drop of his brimmer.

"Now, John," said the Pensassenach, filling the cuach again to the lip,
"now, John Smith, it is your turn. Come, man, drink the toast--health
and success to the Duke and his brave fellows."

"Na!" said John, turning away as if the cup had contained vinegar or
verjuice--"na!--Teel be on her an she do!"

"What do you mean, John?" demanded the Pensassenach in a mingled tone
of surprise and displeasure. "Will you refuse to drink my toast?"

"Hoot, man, dinna refuse to drink the leddy's toast," said the
packman. "That gude brandy wad wash down ony toast ava, let alane
siccan' a grand man, and a hero, like the Duke o' Cummerland.--Od,
man, an ye had seen him as I hae seen him, ridin' at the head o'
his men, wi' as muckle gold lace and reyal Genowa velvet aboot him
as might serve to cover a papish pupit wi', ye wad say he was the
grandest man that ever ye seed.--Come, man, drink success till him,
and confusion till a' his yennemies!"

"Surely you will not refuse to drink success to that brave army in
which my brother John serves?" said the Pensassenach,--"and to that
noble and gallant Prince who commands it?"

"She'll no grudge to trink hail bottals till ta helts o' Captain Shon,
because she's her broder," said Smith in a positive manner.--"But
fint ae drops wull she tak' to wuss ony helts to ta titter man an'
his fouks!"

"Tuts, nonsense man," said the packman; "ye're just a reyal guse.--Come
awa! drink the Duke's health--the brandy's just parteeklar gude."

"Why should you hesitate?" said his mistress.--"Come, drink the
Duke's health."

"Tamm hersell an' she do ony siccan' a sing!" said John Smith doggedly,
and with powerful emphasis and action.--"She'll as soon eat ta cuach!"

"What! are you a loyal subject, and refuse to drink the health of
the Duke of Cumberland!--the King's own brother!" exclaimed the
Pensassenach energetically.

"Ou troth--ou aye,--she be loyals eneugh till her ain Kings," said
John, "an' she'll no grudge to trink gallons till her. But for ta
titter mans, fod but she's wussin' her nasins ava but a goot clink
on ta croon," and with that John walked off, with a countenance
so expressive of dissatisfaction and determination, as rendered it
evident that it would be quite hopeless to call him back.

"He is an obstinate disloyal mule!" cried the Pensassenach, giving
full way to her anger.

"A reyal dour ass as I ever cam' across," said the packman; "an'
siccan' reyal fine speerits too. The cheild thought naething
o' hammerin' awa' and keepin' a' huss loyal fouk frae our drap
drink.--It's weel that he's awa. My certy, I rauken that there's nae
ither body here that'll be sae dooms foolish as to refuse that gude
brandy, let what toast there may be soomin' on the tap o' the brimmer."

"I trust that that fellow is the only disloyal man about the place,"
said the Pensassenach.--"If it be otherwise I'll have all such Jacobite
knaves turned off this farm. We shall have none other but good loyal
subjects here, I promise you, now that the Duke and his gallant army
are coming among us."

This hint was not lost on the rest of the company; for whatever
their private political opinions might have been, they preferred
swallowing the good brandy in peace, let the tasse be prefaced by
whatsoever toast the Pensassenach pleased, rather than be martyrs,
like John Smith, and risk the loss of the liquor and their places,
by any heroic and straightforward declaration of their sentiments. We
sometimes see such folk in common life, even at the present time,
gentlemen. Many, then, were the toasts of the same character that went
round.--Liberally did the Pensassenach make her enlivening eau-de-vie
to circulate. The huge bonfire was again and again supplied by the
willing revellers. They were wise enough to see that the endurance
of the joviality of the night must, in all probability, be measured
by that of the fire, and so they laboured and sweated like horses to
keep it going. Loud were the shouts, and many were the antic tricks
performed around its blazing circle, all of which were to be attributed
to the mirth-inspiring spirit. The packman was particularly joyous
and hilarious, and his loquacity increased as he became elevated with
the liquor. At last the Pensassenach, wishing gradually to wind up
the festivities of the night, proposed another toast.

"Now, come," said she, filling the cuach, "Let us drink confusion to
the rebels!"

"Hurrah! a capital toast!" cried the packman, whilst his cheer was
blindly echoed by the more than half-intoxicated crowd around him.

"Then here I drink it as my most cordial wish," said the Pensassenach,
sipping a little of the liquor in token of her earnestness and
sincerity.

"Tamm! but she'll rue tat wuss!" cried a hoarse voice, which came
from the shadow beyond the circle of the revellers.

"Who spoke?" demanded the Pensassenach, in vain endeavouring to dart
her eyes into the impenetrable darkness, by which the bright field
of light was surrounded.

"Tamm her, but she'll ken tat soon enough!" replied the same voice;
but the Pensassenach could see nothing but a pair of eyes, that,
for the fraction of an instant, caught a strong reflection of the red
light from the bonfire, glared fearfully at her, and then were gone.

"Lord hae a care o' huss! I wuss that I had had naething ado wi'
this matter," exclaimed Mr. Dallas, very much fear-stricken.

"Seize that man, whoever he may be!" cried the Pensassenach. But he
was nowhere to be found. All the feeble and unsteady attempts of the
drunken people to catch him were thrown away. The Pensassenach was
vexed and mortified. The voice was sterner than John Smith's. But
she could by no means banish the idea that it was his. She inquired
and found that he was no where about the place, and she retired home
to her chamber, filled with doubt regarding him, or rather more than
half convinced that she nourished a traitor in her house.

Appearances on the following morning were by no means such as to
overcome these suspicions.

"Is that you, Morag?" demanded the Pensassenach, as awakened at a later
hour than usual by her maid, she started up from that profound sleep,
which the extraordinary fatigue and excitement of the previous evening
had thrown her into, and began to huddle on such parts of her clothes
as lay nearest at hand.

"Aye, Memm, it's me," replied Morag, "Fat wull she be doin' for
mulks? Shon Smiss has driven awa a' ta wholl kye lang or it was
skreichs o' tay."

"What said you?" demanded the Pensassenach. "John Smith has driven
away all our cows! Traitorous thief and robber that he is, I thought
as much!"

"Toot na! Shon's nae fiefs nor rubbers neither," replied Morag,
in anything but a pleased tone.

"He is a thief and a traitor to boot," cried the enraged Pensassenach.

"He is no fiefs!" rejoined Morag, with great energy, both of voice
and of action. "Not a bonn o' him but is as honest as yoursel'."

"I tell you he is a thief, and a traitor; and, for aught I know,
an assassin too!" replied the Pensassenach; "and you are an impudent
baggage for daring to contradict me."

"She canna stand and hear Shon Smiss misca'ed," exclaimed Morag,
bursting into tears of mingled grief and rage, excited by the
unextinguishable love for John, which had long secretly possessed
her; "an' war she no the mistress," continued Morag, with very
violent action, "war she no the mistress, Fod, but she wad pu'
tat cockernony aff her head for saying as mockell! But och mercy be
aboot huss a'!" cried the girl, darting a look out at the window,
and then hurrying away as she spoke; "mercy be aboot huss a'! yonder
comes Shon himsel', rinnin' like ony rae-buck!"

"God be merciful to me, can the traitor mean murder!" cried the
Pensassenach, hastily shutting, locking, and bolting the chamber
door, and, with great exertion moving a chest of drawers against it,
whilst her very heart almost ceased to beat, from the terror that
fell upon her.

"Far is she, Morag? Is she oot o' her bed? cried John, in a loud and
hurried voice, as he came flying up the stair, and began thundering
like a madman at the lady's bed-chamber door. "Come, come, let her
in direckly!"

"No one can come here," said the lady trembling; "I am not half
dressed."

"Dress be tamm!" cried John, furiously; "Come away fast--open ta toor
or she be killed!"

"You shall find no entrance here, you murdering blood-thirsty villain,
whilst I have power to defend my life," cried the Pensassenach, driven
to desperation, and as, with immense labour, she was dragging a heavy
trunk of napery across the floor, which she reared on end against the
chest of drawers. "Oh, why did MacArthur leave me thus to be murdered?"

"Let her in, or she see her sure murdered," cried John, in a voice
of thunder, and kicking terribly at the door.

"God help me, I'm gone!" muttered the Pensassenach, in an agony of
fear. "Oh, why did my husband leave me? The door never can stand such
kicks as these. I see it yielding. Murder! murder! murder!"

"Tamm her nane sel', but she has no more time for nonsense!" cried
John, in a voice that seemed to betoken the climax of fury, and
with that he drove the whole weight of his body, with the force of
a battering-ram, against the door, forcing it out from its hinges,
and tumbling it, and the chest of drawers, and the huge trunk, into
the very middle of the room, with a violence that burst them open,
and scattered their contents in all directions.

"Villain!" cried the Pensassenach, now suddenly excited to an unnatural
boldness by despair of life, and standing with her back to the farther
wall, armed with her husband's broad-sword, which she had snatched
from the bed-head, and drawn in her own defence, and which she now
flourished with great activity and determined resolution, altogether
regardless of the imperfect state of her attire. "Villain that you
are, come but one step nearer to me, and this sword shall drink your
life's blood from your heart."

"Ou fye! ou fye!" cried John, standing considerably abashed at this
spectacle; "far got she tat terrible swoord?"

"Villain, you tremble!" cried the Pensassenach, roused still more,
and, advancing towards John Smith, step by step, as she spoke;
"fly villain, or I will put you to instant death!"

"Fye, fye!" said John; "but Fod she mauna mind it noo; tere's nae
mair time for ceremonies. She maun e'en tak her as she is."

"Attack me as I am!" cried the Pensassenach; "if you do, death,
instant death, shall be your portion."

"We sall see tat," said John, lifting his hazle rung; "we sall soon
see tat," and springing suddenly over the obstructing obstacles,
John, with one blow of his stick, sent the sword spinning from the
feeble grasp of the delicate hand that held it.

"Oh, mercy, mercy!" cried the Pensassenach, throwing herself on her
knees before him, with the horrible dread of impending death upon
her. "You would not murder your mistress, John, and all for asking
you to drink an idle toast? Oh, spare me! spare me! Do not murder me
in cold blood!"

"Shon Smiss murder!" cried he, with horror and astonishment on
his countenance. "Foo! foo! fat could gars her sinks tat o' Shon
Smiss?--Shon wad fichts to ta last trop o' her blots for her, futher
she be King Charles's man, or futher she be ta titter bid body o'
a sham king's man. Foo! foo!--hoo could she sinks tat Shon Smiss wad
do ony ill to ta Pensassenach tat has aye been sae kind till her, aye,
and to Morag an a'," and the poor fellow began blubbering and crying.

"God be praised that I am safe, then!" cried the lady, immeasurably
relieved. "But what is the meaning of all this violence, John? Are
you mad?"

"Na," cried John, starting from the melting fit into which he had been
thrown. "She no mad a bit. But ta Hillantmens comin'!--Swarrants ta
Hillantmens no liket ta bonfires!"

"The Highlanders!" cried the Pensassenach. "Heaven defend me, what
shall I do without the protection of my husband? What!--what shall I
do?" and she burst into a flood of tears, from the nervous excitement
to which she had been subjected.

"Troth, she be sinkin' tat its as weel tat ta master's no at hame,"
said he. "But fat need she fear as lang as Shon Smiss be here?"

"Will you protect me?" cried the Pensassenach, eagerly. "Will you
really be true to me?"

"Fat has Shon Smiss toon to mak ta Pensassenach sink tat she'll no
be true till her ain mistress?" cried Smith, in a whimpering tone,
betokening vexation, so sincere, as, in a great measure, to restore
the lady's confidence in him.

"Why did you drive away the cattle this morning, and what have you
done with them?" demanded she.

"Trots she was dootin', a' nicht, tat ta Hillantmen wad come after a'
yon mockel fires," replied John, "an' sae she just trave tem, coos,
cattal, sheeps, an' staigs, an' awtegitter, a' awa' ower to ta glen,
whaur she's sinking tat tey'll no be gettin' tem at 'tis turn."

"Faithful creature, after all, then!" cried the Pensassenach. "How
can I sufficiently thank you?"

"Did she no tell her tat Shon Smiss was nae feefs nor rubbers neither,"
said Morag, entering triumphantly at that moment. "Is she no a prave
ponny man? But uve, uve, memm, fat way is tat to be stannin'? Fye,
Shon Smiss! hoo could ye stand glowerin' tere?--get oot, man, till
she gets ta leddy dressed."

"Fod, she has nae time, noo!" cried John. "Fod, but she hears ta
pipes 'tis blesset moment. Hoot, toot!--Hurry, hurry!--Fod, but
ta Hillantmens comin' noo!" and snatching a blanket from the bed,
he threw it over his mistress, and whipping her up in his arms ere
she wist, he strode down stairs with her in a moment.

"Where are you carrying me? Where are you carrying me to, John
Smith?" cried the Pensassenach, much alarmed.

"Dis she no hear ta pipes?" cried John. "She be carrying her to hide
her in ta auld killogie to be sure. Dinna be fear. She mak' her safe
eneugh, she swarrants her o' tat."

John accordingly ran with the Pensassenach to the old kiln, as fast
as his legs could carry him and his burden. He found it already
occupied by the great sow and her numerous progeny, who, from their
unwillingness to quit it, seemed to consider it, both by birthright,
and by long possession, as their own particular castle, from which no
one could lawfully remove them. John Smith used no great ceremony with
them, but serving them all with an instantaneous process of ejectment,
delivered by divers rapid and severe blows of his hazle cudgel, he
forthwith dislodged them from the pend, or fire-place of the kiln,
where they were used to find a dry and snug lair, and from which both
mother and children retreated with manifest dissatisfaction, and with
all manner of sounds and signs of extreme ire. To these John Smith gave
but small heed, but, shoving the Pensassenach, blanket and all, with
as much tenderness and delicacy as he could, into this their vacant
bed-chamber, he concealed her as much as possible by covering her
up with straw, and he had hardly accomplished all this, and made his
retreat good from the killogie, when a large body of armed Highlanders,
under the command of a certain Captain M'Taggart, appeared filing over
the neighbouring brow, and with what intent might easily be guessed,
from the numerous horses they brought with them, some harnessed
in rude carts, and some fitted with panniers or crooked saddles,
for carrying off plunder. The men themselves displayed infuriated
countenances, and ceased not, as they drew nearer, to give vent to
the most horrible denunciations of vengeance against the Pensassenach.

"Ta Pensassenach! ta Pensassenach!" cried the same stern voice that had
spoken from amid the darkness that surrounded the blazing bonfire of
the preceding night. "She sall soon ken fat it is to trink confusion
to ta reypells! Far be ta Pensassenach?--ta Englis wife?"

"Ta Pensassenach!--ta Pensassenach!--ta heart's blott o' ta
Pensassenach!--hang her!--purn her!--troon her!--far is she?--her
heart's blott!--her heart's blott!" vociferated some thirty or forty
rough and raging voices, coming from men that thirsted revengefully
for her blood.

The poor woman's heart almost died within her through fear, as these
murderous sounds reached her, where she lay half suffocated under the
straw in the killogie. Most active and particular was the search which
the Highlanders then commenced. First of all, the captain and some
of them proceeded to examine the dwelling-house, and there they were
met at the very door by Mr. Dallas the packman. This worthy having
been altogether overpowered by his last night's debauch, had thrown
himself down in his clothes on the bed hospitably provided for him
by his hostess in the room, contained in the little out-shot behind,
and there he had slept, with his pack as usual under his head, until
awaked by the noise made by John Smith and the Pensassenach. He had
then witnessed enough to make him aware of the place where the lady
was secreted. Seeing that the Highlanders came so suddenly upon them
as to make it quite hopeless for him to attempt a retreat, with his
lame leg, he hurried away out to the kail-yard and hid his pack under
a goosberry bush, an operation which John Smith, as he was flying
with his mistress on his back, chanced, with the tail of his eye, to
observe him performing. After having done this, Mr. Dallas returned
into the house, and, making a virtue of necessity, he stepped boldly
forth to meet the leader, when the party came to the door.

"Muckle prosperity till you and your cause, noble captain," said he,
making his reverence. "There's a bonny mornin'."

"Who the devil are you, sir?" said Captain M'Taggart, sharply.

"Troth, captain, I'm a poor travellin' chapman," replied Dallas. "I
chanced to come here last night, and the gudewife gied me ludgings
for charity's sake."

"Where's your pack, sir?" demanded Captain M'Taggart.

"Troth, I left it yesterday at Inverness to get some fresh gudes pit
intil't," replied Dallas.

"You are rather a suspicious character, methinks,"  said the
captain. "See that you search every corner of the main house for
this woman," continued he, turning to his men, "and if you find this
fellow's pack bring it forth to me."

"There's nae pack o' mine there, captain, an' that's as fack as death,"
said Dallas. "But ye need hae nae jealousy o' me, for I'm a reyal
true and loyal subject o' the Prince."

"Ta Prince!" cried the same man who had watched the last night's
proceedings at the bonfire. "Ta Prince!--ta Teevil;--tat is ta
vera chield tat wanted to mak' honest Shon Smiss trink ta helss o'
tat teevil ta Tuke o' Cummerlant. He's a reyal and blotty whugg,
and weel deserves till hae his craig raxit."

"Hang up the villain directly, then," cried M'Taggart, carelessly.

"Oh! spare my life, good captain, and I'll tell ye whaur the
P--p--p----." Pensassenach is hid, were the words that the villain
would have uttered, but they were arrested by the ready hand of John
Smith, who sprang upon him with the pounce of an eagle, and clutched
him up as that noble bird might clutch up a rat, his left arm being
half round his middle, and his right hand griping his throat, in such
a manner as to stop all utterance, and nearly to choke him.

"Ta tamm scounrel would fain puy her life for tellin' her fare her
pack is," said John, laughing heartily. "But she need na mak' nae
siccan pargains wi' her, for her nane sell saw her hide it under
a perry-puss in ta kail-yaird, and a rich pack it is, she kens tat
weel eneugh. See, captain, tats ta way till ta yaird, an' Shon Smiss
'ill tak cair o' tis chiel, and pit her past tooin' ony mair harms,
she'll swarrants tat."

Off went the captain and those about him, greedy upon the scent of
the pack, and caring little what became of its owner. John called to
Morag to bring him a sack and some bits of rope, and he had no sooner
got them under one arm than he ran off with the sprawling Mr. Dallas
under the other, who, having his wind-pipe still tightened by the
fearful grasp of him who bore him, was now kicking in the agonies
of death. John dived through among some peat-stalks, and so managed
to get clear off without observation, to the side of a deep pond or
pool, in a retired spot, where the Pensassenach was wont to steep
her flax.--There laying his, by this time, semianimate burden at
length upon the brink, he put some heavy stones into the bottom of
the sack, and then began to draw it on, like an under-garment, over
the limbs of the unfortunate Mr. Dallas, inserting his arms therein,
and tying the mouth of it tight round his neck, just as if he had been
preparing him for running in a sack race, though it must be premised,
that for such a purpose the heavy stones might have been well eneugh
left out of the bottom of the sack.

"Hae mercy on my sowl, Maister Smith,--ye're no gawin' till droon
me!" groaned out Mr. Dallas, in a faint, hollow, and semi-suffocated
voice. "Oh, mercy! mercy! what a horrible death! I'm no fit till dee,
Maister Smith. I've been a horrible sinner. God forgee me for cheating
the puir fowk! Oh, hae mercy, Maister Smith--mercy!--mercy!--for I'm
no fit till dee."

"She no be gawn till mak' her dee," said John, coolly, "though she
wad pe weel wordy o't. But she only be gawn ta hide her in ta watter
tat ta Hillantmen mayna hangit her."

"Hide me in the water? and is na that droonin'?" cried the terrified
wretch. "Oh, mercy! mercy!"

"Foots, na, man!" said John. "Hidin's no troonin' ava, ava. She'll
come back an tak' her oot again fan a' is dune, an' she'll no be a
hair ta waur o't. But she maun stop her gab frae speakin' about ta
Pensassenach; an' trots an' she had been hangit or droonit either,
aye, or baith tagedder, she had been weel wordy o't a', for fat she
was gaein' to hae tell't on ta puir Pensassenach."

By this time John had prepared an effectual gag for his patient's
mouth, which he made him gape and receive between his jaws, and then
he secured it firmly by tying it behind his neck. He then lifted him
up bodily, and whilst the poor man "aw awed" and "yaw yawed," from the
dreadful fear that still possessed him that John's intention, after
all, was certainly to drown him, he gradually let down Mr. Dallas's
feet into a part of the water, the exact depth of which he perfectly
knew would just admit of his immersion up to the neck, he left him,
with his head resting safely against the bank on the side of the pool,
with some dry rushes and sedges and flax scattered carelessly both over
the bank and the water where he was, so as perfectly to conceal him.

Great as was the time that all this occupied, John found, on his
return to the farm-house, that it had not been more than sufficient
to satisfy Captain M'Taggart and his friends, in their examination
of Mr. Dallas's pack, and in the division of the rich booty it
contained. Meanwhile, the search for the Pensassenach was going on
keenly and most unremittingly, and John was relieved to find that
it was so, since he was thereby satisfied that, as yet at least,
her place of concealment had not been discovered. They opened
every door, and looked into every corner, for the unfortunate lady,
still swearing all the time the bloodiest oaths of vengeance against
her. Not a house upon the premises, not a hole nor crevice about the
whole place did they pass unexamined, save and except only the eye of
the ruined killogie itself, where the object of their search was in
reality concealed. Frequently, to the almost complete annihilation of
the action of the pulses of her heart, did she hear the footsteps of
some of them passing close beside the place where she lay, as well as
their curses, as they went. But so completely were they deceived by
the ruined appearance of the roofless killogie, that they never once
thought of the possibility of any one being concealed there. Wearied
at length with their ineffectual search, and believing that the
Pensassenach had fled, they began to wreak their rage, and to glut
their rapacity, by plundering her effects. Meal, butter, cheese, beef,
and bacon, were crammed indiscriminately into sacks, with articles
of wearing apparel, and the blankets, and the webs of cloth and linen
which the thrifty housewife had prepared for her household. Articles
of silver plate were not forgotten, as well as all other valuables
upon which they could lay their rapacious hands. The cellar was broken
open and ransacked, and its contents, as well as many other pieces
of plunder of a bulky nature, were stowed away to be carried off in
the carts belonging to the farm. A general assault then commenced
upon the live-stock. John Smith's zealous precaution had secured the
greater part of the larger animals from their clutches, but the attack
on the poultry was simultaneous and terrific. Loud was the cackling,
gobbling, and quacking of the fowls, turkeys, ducks, and geese, as
they were caught, one after another; and fearful was it to hear their
music suddenly silenced, by their necks being drawn, and melancholy to
behold their exanimate bodies thrown into the hampers that hung on the
crook-saddled horses. The good Morag's heart was rent, as she beheld
these ruthless murders committed upon the innocent creatures whom
she had delighted to rear. But honest John Smith comforted himself
with the reflection, that he had saved all the weightier and more
valuable stock, and therefore he witnessed all these ravages among the
feathered folk with tolerable composure, until a circumstance occurred
which renewed all his apprehensions for the safety of his mistress,
and again excited him to the full exertion of all his energies.

War had not been long commenced against the poultry, when the large
sow, alarmed by the murders she beheld going on around her, and
terrified by the loud hurrahs of the plunderers, as well as scared
by the sudden striking up of the bagpipes, took to flight in good
time, and made straight for the eye of the killogie, at the head of
her troop. The quick-sighted John Smith at once perceived the risk
which his mistress, the Pensassenach, ran, of being discovered, by
the animals making this attempt to find shelter there. Off he flew
like the wind to intercept them; and cutting in before them with great
adroitness, he turned them right away towards the fragment of meadow,
which lay in the close vicinity of the black bog. John played his part
so well, that this manoeuvre of his had all the appearance as if he
had been merely making a dash at them for the purpose of catching some
of them, and that the creatures had for the present foiled him. There
they were accordingly left at peace for a time, during which John's
mind also remained in some degree tranquil and at ease.

But the sow and her inviting family were not long in being descried
by the Highlanders, after every other living thing had been sacked by
them, and a most eventful, hazardous, and very ludicrous chase after
them immediately took place. Full of the most anxious apprehensions
as to the result, John planted himself in front of the killogie, and
between it and the scene of action; and as all the old sow's efforts
were directed towards her stronghold in the kiln, it was with the
greatest difficulty that he repeatedly succeeded in driving her from
the dangerous post. At length, by one exertion, greater than the rest,
he had the good fortune to force the sow once more fairly a-field
again, with all her grunting young ones running scattering after her,
whilst the Highlanders, deceived by his shouting to them in Gaelic,
and encouraging them to the pursuit, believed that he had no other
object in view than honestly to aid them in catching her. To blind
them still more, he now started off full tilt at the head of them,
and soon outran the swiftest of them. With amazing dexterity, he first
clutched up one pig, and then another, until he had one in each hand,
swinging by the tail, and squeaking so fearfully, as to excite the
maternal anxiety and rage of the sow mother, to so great an extent,
that she followed him, fast and furiously grunting, wheresoever he
turned. John inwardly chuckled at the thought of having thus got
so easily and so perfectly the command of her motions. But a sudden
onset from the Highlanders speedily dispersed the remainder of her
progeny; and the pursuers naturally scattered themselves to follow
after individual grunters, so that the race was seen to rage over all
parts of the field. This distracted the attention of the old sow, and
she went cantering about, hither and thither, like a frantic creature,
until, by degrees, she found herself at the very farthest end of
the bog. There, seized by a panic, she suddenly turned, and bolted
desperately back again, with her snout pointed directly towards the
kiln. Winged by terror, she pushed wildly on at a bickering pace,
and running her head right between John's legs, ere ever he wist,
she carried him off for several yards, horsed upon her back, with his
face to the tail; and in the blindness of her alarm, she ran headlong
with him into a great peat-pot, where he was instantly launched all
his length among the black chaotic fluid which it contained. John
scrambled out of the hole with some difficulty, and, starting to his
legs, and shaking his ears like a water-spaniel, and clearing the dirt
from his eyes, he, to his great horror, beheld the sow scouring away
as hard as she could gallop, in a direct course for that chamber in
the killogie, which prescriptive right had so long made her believe to
be her own. John saw her hurrying thither, pursued by one or two of
the Highlanders. It was evident that she must soon reach it; and he
felt certain that she would instantly dart in among the straw where
the Pensassenach was lying, and that so the lady must be exposed to
certain discovery, and consequently to instant death. What was to
be done? Not a moment was to be lost. Taking advantage of a double
which the sow was compelled to make, in consequence of some one having
headed her course, and which forced her to swerve considerably from
the straight line of the chase, John seized a gun from the hand of a
Highlander near him, and aiming at the animal as she thus presented
her great broadside to him, he fired at her, and rolled her over and
over, by a bullet that passed through her very heart. There she lay
dead before her pursuers, within some thirty or forty yards of her
perilous place of refuge. A shout of applause at so wonderful a shot
arose from all who witnessed it.

"Tat's ta learn her, mockel fusome beast tat she is, for tummelin
Shon Smiss inta ta peat-hole!" cried John, infinitely relieved from
all his terrors.

The pigs were now very speedily secured in detail, and the great sow
was dragged up to the farm-house, and quietly deposited, with her
slaughtered family, in one of the carts.

"My brave fellow!" said Captain M'Taggart, the leader of the party,
now advancing towards John, and shaking him heartily by the hand,
"you must come along with us. A young man, so handsome, so active,
so spirited, and so soldierly-looking,--and, above all, so capital a
shot as you are,--was never intended by nature to hold the stilts of a
plough, or to fill dung-carts. You were born to be an officer at the
very least, and, for aught I know, to be a colonel or a general. We
are already aware that you are stanch to the righteous cause of the
true Prince. Now is the time for you to raise yourself in the world,
by joining his royal standard. Come, then, and lend us your powerful
aid in placing our lawful King upon the throne of his ancestors!--Come
along with us, and I shall forthwith introduce you to Prince Charles,
who may yet make a lord of you before you die."

John Smith was, in truth, all that M'Taggart had called him,
being a handsome, good looking man, as brave as a lion, and not
altogether devoid of a certain natural ambition. But he was ignorant,
thoughtless, and credulous, owing to his having been, up to that
day, entirely without experience. He had never before seen anything
like military array, and irregular and deficient, in many respects,
as that was which he now beheld, still it was enough to captivate
his unpractised eye. John had a strong attachment to his master and
mistress, who had always been very kind to him. But his devotion
to the Prince, whom he had never seen, was of a higher and holier
order. Bestowing a few moments of reflection on the ceaseless and
profitless plodding, and slavish drudgery of his present duties,
all, in themselves, absolutely repugnant to the very nature of a
Highlander, and comparing them with the ideal picture he had drawn to
himself, of the gallant, gentlemanlike service of the Prince, whose
soldiers, he believed, had not only daily opportunities of enriching
themselves with honourable plunder,--a small specimen of which he
had just witnessed--but who had the prospect opened to them of one
day becoming great men, the contrast was by far too flattering in
favour of the latter not to dazzle him. But if it had not had that
effect, the promise which M'Taggart made him of introducing him to
Prince Charles, the son of the true and legitimate King of Scotland,
was enough of itself to have gained John's consent in a moment.

"Ou, troth, she'll no be lang o' gangin' wi' her," said John,
"an she'll but stop till she clean hersel' a wee frae ta durt o' ta
fulthy bog, tat ta soo beast pat her intill,--and syne bids fereweel
to ta leddy."

"Whoo!" exclaimed M'Taggart.--"The lady! What, then, the Pensassenach
is somewhere about the place after all, and you know where she
is?--By holy St. Mary, but I will burn every house here, and force
the rancorous whig she-devil to unkennel out of her hiding place!"

"Teel purn her nane sell's fooliss tongue for namin' ta leddy ava
ava!" said John bitterly. "But she may e'en purn ta hale toon gin
she likes--fint a bit o' ta leddy can she purn."

"Ha, my good fellow," said M'Taggart, "since you have the secret
knowledge of her place of concealment locked up in your bosom, what
is to hinder me to use a thumbikin as a key to unlock it.--I have a
great mind to try."

"She may e'en puts ta toomkin on her nanesell's neck, and she'll no
tell after a'," said John resolutely. "And ponny pounties tat wad be
surely for Shon Smiss to serve ta Prince."

"Nay, my good fellow, I was only joking," said M'Taggart, afraid to
lose so good a volunteer; "trust me I meant you no harm."

"Gin she purns ta toon, or gin she do ony mair ill aboot ta place,
fouk wull be sayin' tat Shon Smiss bid her do it," continued John--"an
tat wad be doin' Shon mockell harm. Teevil ae stap wull Shon be gangin'
wi' her at a' at a', an she do ony mair bad sings here."

"Well well," said M'Taggart, soothing him, "go in and dress yourself,
and make your mind easy; and the sooner we are away from here the
better."

John thought so too. He ran to the stable for his breachcan; [2]
put on his best coat, kilt, and hose; tied up his only two shirts,
and a spare pair of hose, in a napkin, and placed the bundle into the
fold of his plaid; and then seizing a trusty old broad-sword, he put on
his new Sunday's bonnet, smartly cocked up,--and he strode so erectly
forth to M'Taggart, and with so martial an air, that, added to the
wonderful change created in his personal appearance by his dress, made
the captain hesitate for a moment in believing him to be the same man.

"She be ready noo," said John; "put fare be ta rest o' ta men,
Captain!"

"They are hunting the Pensassenach," replied M'Taggart with a
careless laugh.

"She pe verra idle loons tan," said John, "for gin she wad seek a'
tay she wad na' find her." And then, by way of diverting the Captain's
attention from the search by a joke, he pointed to Morag, who stood
at the door, weeping bitterly at the prospect of his departure,
and added,--"see, tat pe ta Pensassenach."

"That the Pensassenach!" said M'Taggart.--"That's a good joke truly. I
know well enough that's not the Pensassenach that we are after."

"She pe a verra ponny Pensassenach," said John, going up to Morag,
and hastily delivering to her, in a Gaelic whisper, directions how
and when she should relieve her mistress from her confinement, and
also where she was to look for the packman, that she might get him
taken out of the water.

"That Pensassenach seems to be a favourite of yours, John," said
the Captain.

"She wunna say put she is," replied John, his heart filling a
little with sympathy for Morag's tears, and at the prospect of
leaving her.--"Petter tak tiss Pensassenach wi' huss,"--and then,
rather as a parting word of kindness than anything else, he added,
"will she go, Morag?"

This was too much for poor Morag. Her heart was too full for her to
command words to reply. She rushed forward, and threw her arms around
John. She fixed her hands into the folds of that breachcan, in which,
in their days of herding, when she was but a lassie, and he but a boy,
she had been so often wrapped by her lover as a shelter from the stormy
elements, and she gave way to a burst of grief that at length enabled
her to find utterance for her feelings. She implored him, in all the
anguish of despair, not to leave her. John's heart was softened by
her words, and her tears, and he blubbered like a child. M'Taggart,
fearing that the martial influence in John's soul might be overpowered
and extinguished by that of love, and setting a much greater value on
him as a recruit, than on the capture of the Pensassenach, he thought
it advisable to put an end to this tender interview as speedily as
might be. He ordered the piper to play up therefore, and the men,
abandoning their fruitless search after the English wife, were speedily
gathered around him. The train of carts and horses, with the plunder,
were driven on--the order of march was formed. John, after a severe
struggle with his heart, rent himself away from the arms of Morag,
and followed M'Taggart, without daring to speak, or to look behind him;
whilst the poor girl, bereft of her support, fell upon the green--where
she lay beating her breast and tearing her hair in utter despair,
till the sound of the distant pipe died away, and the presence of
some of her fellow-servants brought her back to her reason.

Morag was no sooner sufficiently calm and collected, than she hastened
to execute John Smith's last injunctions. The poor Pensassenach was
taken from the killogie more dead than alive. Morag would have had
her to go to bed, but, having recovered herself a little, she became
too much excited to rest; and, having arranged her dress, she began to
bustle about her affairs, and to take a full note of her loss. It was,
indeed, severe. But she felt that she endured it for a glorious cause,
and that reflection made her bear it with wonderful philosophy. She
was grieved, and even angry to learn that John Smith had enlisted
with the Prince's men, but she felt deeply grateful to him for having
saved her life; and especially so, when she heard from Morag the story
of the packman's treachery, and John's ingenuity in defeating it,
as well as of the whole of his exertions for her preservation.

"Where has John bestowed the villain?" demanded the Pensassenach.

"Toon in ta lint pot, memm," replied Morag; "I maun gang toon an get
him oot o' ta holl noo."

"I'll go with you, Morag," said the Pensassenach; and so mistress and
maid proceeded together towards the pond. "What noise is that?" cried
the Pensassenach, as they drew near to it.

"Aw--yaw!--yaw--aw!" cried the packman from the pool.

"Where are you, wretched man?" cried the Pensassenach.

"Yaw--aw!--yaw--aw!" replied Mr. Dallas.

"Why don't you speak distinctly?" demanded the lady.

"Aw--aw!--yaw--aw!" replied Dallas again.

"The sound would seem to come from under that loose heap of rushes
at the margin of the pool yonder," said the Pensassenach.

"Oich aye, she's here memm," cried Morag, removing the covering from
the packman's head.

"Ya--aw!--aw--aw!" cried Dallas, raising his eyes with an expression
of intense agony.

"Ah, I see how it is," said the Pensassenach; "John has gagged him,
to prevent his vile tongue from betraying me. Loosen that string,
Morag, and take out the gag."

"Oh, Heeven be praised that I hae fand freends at last," cried the
packman in a hoarse voice. "Hech, my jaws are stiff, stiff, and sair,
sair, wi' that plaguit bit o' a rung that John Smith pat into my
mooth. Hech me! kind souls that ye are, pu' me oot, pu' me oot o'
this, or I maun e'en drap awthegither owerhead into the pool, for
I haena mair poor to stand on this ae leg o' mine, and I canna rest
ony at a' on the short ane, mind ye, without sinkin' my mooth below
the water. Och, memm, pu' me out!"

"How can you ask me to assist you, base wretch that you are?" cried
the Pensassenach; "you who would have sold my life to have saved your
own. I shall push you as gently under the water as I can, but drowned
you must be."

"Oh, for the love o' Heeven hae mair charity!" cried the packman
most piteously. "I'm a sad sinner, nae doot. But I'm a puir, wake,
nervish craytur,--and fan that deevil incarnate, Captain M'Taggart,
spak o' hangin' me, my brains whurled sae i' my head, that I didna
ken what I was sayin'. But I'm sure I never thocht o' doin' harm till
you or ony o' your hoose. Pu' me oot, memm; pu' me oot for the love o'
Heeven, or the very life'll leave my legs wi' cauld."

"Pull you out," exclaimed the Pensassenach; "pull you out,--you
who would have helped the Highlanders to my murder: pull you out,
who wilfully spoke treason, to aid, abet, and comfort the rebel
Captain. My loyalty to my King and my country forbids me to assist
you, and compels me to make a sacrifice of you immediately. So,
prepare for instant death."

"Och, hae mercy on my puir sowl," cried the packman in despair;
"surely, surely, ye're no gawin' till droon me?"

"What can you say in exculpation of your treason?" demanded the
Pensassenach, laying hold of the upper part of the sack with both
her hands, and giving Mr. Dallas a gentle shake.

"Och, naething--naething ava," cried Mr. Dallas. "Oh, I'm a dead man--a
dead man: hae mercy--hae mercy upon me. I'm a great sinner--a wicked,
and hardened sinner."

"Perhaps it were well to allow you a few moments, wretch that you are,
to confess your sins and repent, before you are sent into the other
world," said the Pensassenach. "So make haste--lose not the fleeting
space of time which I thus mercifully grant to you, and lighten your
soul of as much load as you can."

"Oh, hae mercy--hae mercy on me!" cried Dallas.

"I'll have no mercy on you, more than this," cried the Pensassenach,
in a terrible voice. "If you will not confess yourself, your last
moment is at hand;" and so saying, she ducked Mr. Dallas's head under
the water.

"O! O! O! Oh!--hech! ech!" cried Mr. Dallas, panting for breath;
"I'm a dead man! I'm a dead man! Oh, Lord forgie me for sellin'
pastes for precious stanes."

"Come! is that all?" cried the Pensassenach, shaking him again.

"Hae mercy on me for sellin' rock crystal for diamunts," cried Dallas.

"Come! out with it all!" said the Pensassenach.

"Oh! Och! Forgie me for sellin' bits o' ayster shells for pearls,"
cried Dallas again, "and pinchbeck for gold; and watches wi' worn
out auld warks for new anes."

"Come! nothing else to confess?" said the Pensassenach.

"Oh, yes. Heaven help me, and hae mercy on me, for keepin' fause
weights and a fause ell-wand," cried Dallas.

"Are these all your sins, villain?" exclaimed the Pensassenach.

"Oh, hey, aye, aye," said Dallas piteously, "and ower muckle,
gude kens."

"Well, then," said the Pensassenach, taking a more determined grasp
of the sack; "now, that you have duly confessed, here goes."

"Oh, stop, stop!" cried Dallas, in great fear. "Stop, stop! no yet! no
yet! I hae mair to tell o' yet. I hae noo an' than picked up an odd
silver spoon, or sae, or ony siccan wee article whan it cam in my way,
just tempin' me like, in ony o' the hooses whaur I had quarters. But
I never was a great fief--no, no."

"'Twas you belike who stole my silver punch-ladle," said the
Pensassenach. "I missed it immediately after you were last here."

"I canna just charge my memory wi' the punch-ladle," said Mr. Dallas,
unwilling to admit that he had in any way wronged the Pensassenach.

"Nay, then, your thefts must have been too numerous for you to note
such a trifling item as that," said the Pensassenach; "but it is
clear you did steal my punch-ladle, so now you shall die for not
confessing. Now!"

"Oh, stop, stop, for mercy's sake!" cried Dallas, in livid
apprehension. "I mind noo! I mind noo! I did tak' it--I did tak'
the ladle! It shined sae tempin' through the glass door o' the bit
corner cupboard, and the door was open, sae that I may amaist say
that the deevil himsel' handed it oot till me, and pat it intil my
very pack. But I'll never wrang you ony mair."

"I'll take good care you shall not," said the lady; "you shall never
wrong me, nor any one else more. So now, prepare, for this is your
last moment."

"Oh, mercy, mercy," cried the packman again. "I hae mair yet to
confess! Oh, dinna droun me just yet!"

"Well, be quick," said the Pensassenach; "what more have ye to tell?"

"Oh, mercy, mercy!" cried Dallas. "That woman that I telled ye o'
yestreen; that woman that I clippit out o' the Spey, was na just
awthegither dead--"

"What!" exclaimed the Pensassenach, in horror; "wretch that you are,
did you murder the woman?"

"Eh, na, na!" cried Dallas; "ill as I am, I didna do that. I just
took her roklay and her gown, an some ither wee things aperteenin'
till her, and syne I gade aff wi' mysel', leaving her to come roond
to life at her nain leisure and convenience."

"Leaving her to die without help you mean, you murdering thief!" said
the Pensassenach, shrinking back with horror from the very touch
of him. "Wretch, you are unworthy of life! But I shall not be your
executioner. You will grace a gallows yet, I'll warrant you. I shall
now leave Morag to pull you out of the water. But hark ye, Mr. Dallas,
before I leave you, I may as well tell you, that though I have spared
your life, as indeed I never had the least intention of taking it,
I advise you never to darken my door again; for, if you do, I promise
you that you shall have another and a deeper taste of this lint-pot."

"Oh, bless you, memm!" cried Mr. Dallas, with an earnestness which
showed how much he was relieved by her words; "I'll never come
within five miles o' your farm. Noo, Morag, my dawty," continued he,
addressing the maid after the mistress was gone; "gudesake, woman, be
quick an' pu' me oot; or, as sure as death, I'll dee o't awthegither."

"Fawse loons tat she is," said Morag, looking terribly at him. "She
will no pu' her oot; she wull pit her toon in ta holl, an' troon
her! She is a wicked vullian--she wull pit her toon in ta holl an'
troon her wissout nae mercy at a' at a'."

"Oh!" cried the terrified Dallas, with his eye-balls again starting
from his head with apprehension. "Oh, dinna droon me, noo that your
mistress has spared me! I wus ragin' fu' wi' brandy last nicht, and
I didna ken what I wus doin'; and maybe I wus a wee unceevil till ye,
or the like. But oh, hae mercy, hae mercy on me!"

"She'll no be ta waur o' a gude tooky tan," said Morag, seizing
the sack, and plunging the gasping Mr. Dallas two or three times
successively under the water; "tat'll cool ta hot speerits in her
stamick, or she pe far mistane."

"Oh! O! O! Och! hech! och! oh!--O!" cried Dallas, gasping and
panting. "O, mercy, mercy! an' I hadna drucken a' yon oceans o' brandy
yester nicht, I had assuredly been a dead man this day, just frae very
cauld itsel'. But the brandy o' yestreen has saved me frae a' the water
that my body has imbibit frae this nasty lint-pot, by actuwully makin'
a kind o' wake punch o' me. Oh, gude lassie that ye are, pu' me oot,
pu me oot!"

"Its mair nor she's weel deservan'," said Morag, now putting forth all
her strength to pull the sack and its contents up out of the water;
"but Morag canna let a man be trooned an she can help it, pad man so
she pe."

Having hauled up the sack, she laid it upon the grass, undid the
fastenings of its mouth, and, with some difficulty, extricated
Mr. Dallas from its durance vile. The worthy packman arose to his feet,
and, shaking himself heartily, and stretching out first his short,
and then his long leg, two or three times alternately, to relieve
that killing cold cramp which possessed them, he hobbled off without
uttering a word of thanks, and shivering so, that his teeth were
rattling in his head, as if his jaws had contained a corps of drummers,
beating the rogue's march. Morag looked after him with a hearty laugh,
and then picking up the wet sack, she hastened to join her mistress.

Let us now follow the march of John Smith.








COMFORTS OF A LONDON CLUB-HOUSE.


Author.--Pray, stop for one moment, Mr. Macpherson, if you please. Let
me throw a few more peats on the fire. With the rain still beating
thus without, and the picture of the half-drowned shivering chapman
brought so vividly before our mind's eyes by your description,
we shall have our teeth rattling in our jaws from very sympathy,
if we don't keep up the caloric we have already generated.

Grant.--It is right not to allow it to be too much reduced,
certainly. But I declare I am as comfortable here in Inchrory, as if
I were in my club-house in London.

Clifford.--Much more so, my good fellow, take my word for it. Where
is the London club-house in which we could have been so quiet as we
are here, especially in such weather as this. Think of the noise in
the streets; think, I say, of the eternal thunder of the carriages of
all kinds, the hackney-coaches, stage-coaches, omnibusses, and cabs,
with the Cherokee yelling, and whooping of the drivers, uttering
strange and horrible oaths; and, to complete the instrumental part of
this mechanical concert, to have it grounded with the grating double
bass of the huge carts, drays, and waggons. The mellow roar of the
Aven is like the soft music of a flute, compared to so terrific a
combination of ear-rending sounds. Then think of the crowd of dull
and damp fellows, dry to talk to, but wet enough to the touch, who are
continually coming in and going out, restless and unhappy--miserable
when condemned to the house, and yet more wretched when out in the
rain--giving you hopes of enjoying a glimpse of the fire at one moment,
and then shutting you out entirely from it at the next, with persons
so steeped, as to make the very evaporation from their bodies, by the
heat, fill the room with clouds of steam,--talking, and chattering,
and recognizing each other--disputing about politics, or the merits
of the last opera, or opera singer, or ballet, or dancer. In vain
you try to have some rational talk with some sensible man, or to
listen to something of the greatest possible interest, which he has
to tell you--for you have hardly begun so to do, when up comes some
fool of a fellow, who, at some unfortunate time or another, has sworn
eternal friendship to you, and who now, to your great discomfiture,
as well as to the imminent peril of your good temper and manners,
breaks boisterously in upon your tête-a-tête, to prove to you how
well he keeps his oath, by nearly shaking your hand off, or perhaps
dislocating your shoulder, by loudly protesting how rejoiced he is
to see you, and by most heroically sacrificing himself, and his own
valuable time, in kindly bestowing his fullest tediousness upon you,
that he may give you the whole history of his life since he last saw
you. Then, suppose you sit down to read some important speech, or
leading article, in your favourite newspaper, or something which you
wish to devour out of some much-talked-of pamphlet or review of the
day, it is ten to one but you experience a similar interruption from
some such kind and much attached friend. But the height of your misery
is only attained, when you come to take refuge in the writing-room,
in order to write a letter of more than ordinary importance, and
requiring great care in the arrangement of its subject, as well
as in the choice of its expressions. Then it is, that among those
employed at the different tables, you are certain to find some two
or more idle scribblers, who go not there really to write, but who,
notwithstanding, waste more of the writing materials belonging to
the club, than all the rest of its members put together, in order
to give themselves importance, by an affectation of much business,
and high correspondence. Amongst these there is probably one, who,
after allowing you to get down to the bottom of your first page, and
fairly into your subject, suddenly, and as if accidentally descries
you, and rushing across to salute you, rivets himself on the floor
close to your chair, and goes on ear-wigging you with his important
secrets, whilst he is all the time curiously drinking in your's,
from your half-written letter, which lies open before him. Or, if you
should have the good fortune to escape from such a jackal as this,
then you will find the other men of his kidney, who may be sitting
at the different tables with the affectation of writing, carrying
on such a battery of loud talk across the room, as altogether to
distract your attention. In vain do you try to control your thoughts
within their proper current. They are continually jostled aside by
some half-caught sentence, which sets your mind working in some wrong
direction, merely to have it again driven off at a tangent into some
other, which is equally foreign to that subject to which you would
confine it. In vain do you rub your brow, cover your eyes, and gnaw
your pen; every thought but the right thought is forced upon you,
until at last, in utter despair, you start to your feet, snatch up
your blotted and often corrected letter, tear it into shreds, commit
it to the flames, and, seizing your hat, you abruptly hurry homewards,
duly execrating, as you go, all club-houses, and those many men of
annoyance with which clubs are so universally afflicted.

Grant.--Your picture is a lively one, Clifford, and in its general
features most just. Though our London clubs have many advantages, this
lonely house of Inchrory is certainly better for our present purpose.

Author.--Gentlemen, unless you mean to enact here the part of some
of those London club-annoyance-givers, which you, Clifford, have
so well described, I think you had better drop your conversation,
and allow Mr. Macpherson to proceed with his story.

Clifford.--I stand corrected;--then allow me to light a fresh cigar;
and now, Mr. Macpherson, pray go on with Serjeant John Smith.








THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED.


You will remember, gentlemen, that when I was interrupted, I was about
to follow John Smith on his march with Captain M'Taggart. Well, you
see, Prince Charles Edward chanced to be at this time at Kilravock
Castle, the ancient seat of the Roses. Thither the sagacious captain
thought it good policy to present himself, with the motley company,
the greater number of the individuals of which he had himself
collected. There he received his due meed of praise for his zeal,
with large promises of future preferment for his energetic exertions
in the Prince's cause. But although the Captain thus took especial
care to serve himself in the first place, he made a point of strictly
keeping his own promise to John Smith, for he did present him to
the Prince, along with some five or six other recruits, whom he had
cajoled to follow him, somewhat in the way he had cajoled John. But
this their presentation was more with a view of enhancing the value
of his own zeal and services, for his own private ends, than for the
purpose, or with the hope of benefiting them in any way. The Prince
came out to the lawn with M'Taggart, and some of his own immediate
attendants. The men were presented to him by name; and John Smith was
especially noticed by him. He spoke to each of them in succession;
and then, clapping John familiarly on the shoulder,--

"My brave fellows," said he, "you have a glorious career before
you. The enemy advances into our very hands. I trust we shall soon
have an opportunity of fighting together, side by side. Meanwhile, go,
join the gallant army which I have so lately left at Culloden, eagerly
waiting the approach of our foes. I shall see you very soon, and I
shall not forget you." So saying, he took off his Highland bonnet;
and, whilst a gentle zephyr sported and played with his fair curls,
he bowed gracefully to the men, and then retired into the house.

"She's fichts to ta last trap o' her bluids for ta ponny
Princey!" cried John, with an enthusiasm which was cordially responded
to by shouts from all present.

M'Taggart then gave the word, and the party wheeled off on their
march in the direction of Inverness, in the vicinity of which town
the Prince's army was encamped. Their way lay down through the parish
of Petty, and past Castle-Stuart. As they moved on, they were every
where loudly cheered by the populace--men, women, and children, who
turned out to meet them, and showered praises and blessings upon them;
and this friendly welcome seemed to await them all along their route,
till they joined the main body of their forces, which lay about and
above the mansion house of Culloden.

John Smith would have much preferred to have placed himself under the
standard of the Mackintosh, whom the Smiths or Gowe, the descendants of
the celebrated Gowin Cromb, who fought on the Inch of Perth, held to be
their chief, as head of the Clan-Chattan. But M'Taggart was unwilling
to lose the personal support of so promising a soldier. Perhaps
also he began to feel a certain interest in the young man; and he
accordingly advised him to stick close to him at all times.

"Stick you by me, John," said he--"stick close by my side; I shall
then be able to see what you do, as well as to give a fair and
honest, and I trust not unfavourable report of the gallant deeds
which your brave spirit may prompt you to perform. Depend upon it,
with my frequent opportunities of obtaining access to the Prince,
I can do as much good for you, at least, as any Mackintosh."

On the night of the 14th of April then, John Smith lay with M'Taggart
and his company, among the whin and juniper bushes in the wood of
Culloden, where the greater part of the Jacobite army that night
disposed of themselves. Whatever might have been the ill-provided
state of the other portions of the Prince's troops, that with which
John was now consorted, had no reason to complain of any want of those
refreshments which human nature requires, and which are so important
to soldiers. Large fires were speedily kindled; and the Pensassenach's
great sow, with all her little pigs, and the poor woman's poultry
of all kinds, together with some few similar delicacies which had
elsewhere been picked up here and there, were soon divided, and
prepared to undergo such rude cookery as each individual could command;
and these, with the bread and cheese, and other such provisions,
which they had carried off from the Pensassenach, as well as from
some other houses, enabled them to spread for themselves what might
be called a vurra liberal table in the wilderness. But the savoury
odour which their culinary operations diffused around, brought hungry
Highlanders from every quarter of the wood, like wolves upon them,
so that each man of their party was fain to gobble up as much as
he could swallow in haste, lest he should fail to secure to himself
enough to satisfy his hunger, ere the whole feast should disappear
under the active jaws of those intruders. The liquor was more under
their own control. The flask was allowed to circulate through the
hands of those only to whom it most properly belonged by the right of
capture. John, for his part, had a good tasse of the Pensassenach's
brandy; and the smack did not seem to savour the worse within his lips,
because it was prefaced with the toast of--"Success to the Prince,
and confusion to the Duke of Cumberland!"

After this their refreshment, the men and officers disposed themselves
to sleep around the fires of their bivouac, each in a natural bed
of his own selection, John Smith, being a pious young man, retired
under the shelter of a large juniper bush, and having there offered
up his evening prayer to God, he wrapped himself up in his plaid,
and consigned himself to sleep. How long he had slept he knew not;
when, as he turned in his lair to change his position, his eye caught
a dim human figure, which floated, as it were, in the air, stiff
and erect, immediately under the high projecting limb of a great fir
tree, that grew at some twenty paces distant from the spot where he
lay. The figure seemed to have a preternatural power of supporting
itself; and as the breeze wailed and moaned through the boughs,
it appeared alternately to advance and to recede again with a slow
tremulous motion. John's heart, stout as it was against every thing
of earthly mould, began to beat quick, and finally to thump against
his very ribs, with all manner of superstitious fears. He gazed and
trembled, without the power of rising, which he would have fain done,
not for the purpose of investigating the mystery, but to take the
wiser course of looking out for some other place of repose, where
he might hope to escape from the appalling contemplation of this
strange and most unaccountable apparition. He lay staring then at it
in a cold sweat of fright, whilst the faint glimmering light from the
nearest fire, as it rose or fell, now made it somewhat more visible,
and now again somewhat more dim. At length, an accidental fall of
some of the half burnt fuel, sent up a transient gleam that fully
illuminated the ghastly countenance of the spectre, when, to John's
horror, he recognised the pale and corpse-like features of Mr. William
Dallas, the packman, whom he had left so ingeniously inserted into
the sack, and deposited in the Pensassenach's lint-pot. Though the
gag was gone, the mouth was wide open, and the large, protruded,
and glazed eye-balls, glared fearfully upon him. Though the light
was not sufficient to display the figure correctly, John's fancy
made him vividly behold the sack. He would have spoken if he could;
but he felt that the apparition of a murdered man was floating before
him. His throat grew dry of a sudden. He gasped--but could not utter a
word. He doubted not that the packman had been forgotten by Morag, and
that, having fallen down into the water through cold and exhaustion,
the wretch had at last miserably perished; and he came very naturally
to the conclusion, that he who had put the unfortunate man there, was
now doomed to be henceforth continually haunted by his ghost. Fain
would he have shut out this horrible sight, by closing his eyes, or
by drawing his plaid over them; but this he was afraid to do, lest
the object of his dread should swim towards him through the air, and
congeal his very life's-blood by its freezing touch. Much as he loved
Morag, he had some difficulty in refraining from inwardly cursing
her, for her supposed neglect of his express injunctions to relieve
the packman from the pool. As he stared on this dreadful apparition,
the flickering gleam from the faggot sunk again, and the countenance
again grew dim; but John seemed still to see it in all its intensity
of illumination. No more rest had he that night. Still, as he gazed
on the figure, he again and again fancied that he saw it gradually
and silently gliding nearer and nearer to him. The only relief he had
was in fervent and earnest prayers, which he confusedly murmured,
from time to time, in Gaelic. He eagerly petitioned for daylight,
hoping that the morning air might remove all such unrealities from
the earth. At length, the eastern horizon began to give forth the
partial glimmer of dawn; but John was somewhat surprised to find,
that, instead of the apparition fading away before it, the outlines
of its horrible figure became gradually more and more distinct as it
advanced, until even the features were by degrees rendered visible. But
although John, by this time, began to discover that his fancy had
supplied the sack, he now perceived something which he had not been
able to see before, and that was, a thin rope which hung down from the
horizontal limb of the fir tree, and suspended, by its lower extremity,
the body of the poor packman by the neck. John was much shocked by
this discovery. But he could not help thanking God that he was thus
acquitted of the wretched man's death; and after the misery that he
had suffered from the supposed presence of the apparition of a man who
had been drowned through his means, however innocently, the relief
he now experienced was immense. He called up some of his comrades
to explain the mystery; and from them he learned, that Mr. Dallas
had been caught in the early part of the night, in the very act of
attempting to carry off Captain M'Taggart's horse from its piquet,
and that he had been instantly tucked up to the bough of the fir tree,
without even the ceremony of a trial.

The young Prince Charley was in the field by an early hour on the
morning of the 15th, and being all alive to the critical nature of
his circumstances, and by no means certain as yet how near the enemy
might by this time be to him, he judged it important to collect,
and to draw up his army on the most favourable ground he could find
in the neighbourhood. He therefore marched them up the high, partly
flattish, and partly sloping ridge, which, though commonly called
Culloden Moor, from its being situated immediately above the house and
grounds of that place, has in reality the name of Drummossie. He led
them to a part of this ground, a little to the south eastward of their
previous position in the wood of Culloden, and there he drew them up
in order of battle. There they were most injudiciously kept lying on
their arms the whole day, and if Captain M'Taggart's men had feasted
tolerably well the previous night, their commons were any thing but
plentiful during the time they occupied that position. It was not in
the nature of things, that subordination could be so strictly preserved
in the Prince's army, as it was in that of the Duke of Cumberland. I,
who am well practeesed in the discipline of boys, gentlemen, know
very well that it would be impossible to bring a regiment of them
under immediate command, if the individuals composing it were to
be collected together all at once, raw and untaught, from different
parts of the district. It is only by bringing one or two at a time,
into the already great disciplined mass, that either a schoolmaster,
or a field-marischal can promise to have his troops always well
under control. By the time evening came, the officers, as well as
the men of the Prince's army, began to suffer under the resistless
orders of a commander to whom no human being can say nay. Hunger,
I may say, was rugging at their vurra hearts, and as they all saw,
or supposed that they saw, reason to believe that there was no chance
of the enemy coming upon them that night, many of them went off to
Inverness and elsewhere, in search of food. M'Taggart himself could
not resist those internal admonitions, which his stomach was so
urgently giving him from time to time, and accordingly, John Smith
conceived he was guilty of no great dereliction of duty, in strictly
following the first order which his captain had given him, viz., to
"stick by his side," which he at once resolved to do, as he saw him
go off to look for something to support nature.

But the captain and his man had hardly got a quarter of a mile on
the road to Inverness, when they, with other stragglers, were called
back by a mounted officer, who was sent, with all speed, after them,
to tell them that they must return, in order to march immediately. The
object of their march was that ill-conceived, worse managed, and most
unlucky expedition for a night attack on the Duke of Cumberland's
camp at Nairn, which had that evening been so hastily planned. Hungry
as they were they had no choice but to obey, and accordingly they
hurried to their standards. The word was given, and after having been
harassed by marching all night, without food or refreshment of any
kind, they at last got only near enough to Nairn just to enable them
to discover that day must infallibly break before they could reach
the enemy's camp, and that consequently no surprise could possibly
take place. Disheartened by this failure, they were led back to their
ground, where they arrived in so very faint and jaded a condition,
that even to go in search of food was beyond their strength, so that
they sank down in irregular groups over the field, and fell asleep for
a time. Awakened by hunger after a very brief slumber, they arose to
forage. M'Taggart, and some of his party, and John Smith amongst the
rest, went prowling across the river Nairn, which ran to the south of
their position, and there they caught and killed a sheep. They soon
managed to kindle a fire, and to subdivide the animal into fragments,
but ere each man had time to broil his morsel, an alarm was given
from their camp. Like ravenous savages they tore up and devoured
as much of the half raw flesh as haste would allow them to swallow,
and hurrying back, they reached their post about eight o'clock in the
morning, when they found that the Duke of Cumberland was approaching
with his army in full march.

The position chosen by the Prince as that where he was to make his
stand on that memorable day, the 16th of April, was by no means very
wisely or very well selected. It was a little way to the westward
of that which his army had occupied on the previous day. Somewhat
in advance, and to the right of his ground, there stood the walls
of an enclosure, which the experienced eye of Lord George Murray
soon enabled him to perceive, and he was at once so convinced that
they presented too advantageous a cover to the assailing enemy,
to be neglected by them, that he would fain have moved forward with
a party to have broken them down, had time remained to have enabled
him to have effected his purpose. But the Duke of Cumberland's army
was already in sight, advancing in three columns, steadily over the
heath, from Dalcross Castle, the tower of which was seen rising
towards its eastern extremity. The Highlanders were at this time
dwindled to a mere handful, and some of the best friends of the cause
of the Stewarts who were present, and perhaps even the young Prince
himself, began to believe that he had been traitorously deserted. But
the alarm had no sooner been fully spread by the clang of the pipes,
and the shrill notes of the bugles, than small and irregular streams
of armed men, in various coloured tartans, were seen rushing towards
their common position, like mountain rills towards some Highland lake,
and filling up the vacant ranks with all manner of expedition. Many a
brave fellow, who had gone to look for something to satisfy the craving
of an empty stomach, came hurrying back with as great a void as he had
carried away with him, because he preferred fighting for him whom he
conscientiously believed to be his king, to remaining ingloriously
to subdue that hunger which was absolutely consuming him. No one
was wilfully absent who could possibly contrive to be present, but
yet the urgent demands of the demon of starvation, to which many of
them had yielded, had very considerably thinned their numbers, and,
in addition to this source of weakness, there was another obvious one,
arising from the physical strength of those who were present being
wofully diminished by the want they had endured, and the fatigue they
had undergone. But with all these disadvantages the heroic souls of
those who were on the field remained firm and resolute.

John Smith's military knowledge was then too small to allow him to form
any judgment of the state of affairs, far less to enable him to carry
off, or to describe, any thing like the general arrangement of the
order of battle on both sides. He could not even tell very well what
regiments his corps was posted with: he only knew this, that according
to the order he had received he stuck close to Captain M'Taggart. He
always remembered with enthusiasm, indeed, that the Prince rode through
the ranks with his attendants, doing all that he could to encourage
his men, and that when he passed by where John himself stood, he
smiled on him like an angel, and bid him do his duty like a man.

"Och, hoch!" cried John, with an exultation, which arose from the
circumstance of his not being in the least aware that every individual
near him had, like him, flattered himself that he was the person
so distinguished.--"Fa wad hae soughts tat ta ponny Princey wad hae
mindit on poor Shon Smiss? Fod, but she wad fichts for her till she
was cut to collops!"

But John had little opportunity of fighting, though he appears to have
borne plenty of the brunt of the battle. There were two cannons placed
in each space between the battalions composing the first line of the
Duke of Cumberland's army, and these were so well served as to create a
fearful carnage among the Highland ranks. To this dreadful discharge
John Smith stood exposed, with men falling by dozens around him,
mutilated and mashed, and exhibiting death in all his most horrible
forms, till, to use his own very expressive words,--"She was bitin'
her ain lips for angher tat she could not get at tem." But before John
could get at them, the English dragoons, who, under cover of the walls
of the enclosure I have mentioned, had advanced by the right of the
Highland army, finally broke through the fence, and getting in behind
their first line, came cutting and slashing on their backs, whilst
the Campbells were attacking them in front, and mowing them down like
grass. Then, indeed, did the melée become desperate, and then was it
that John began to bestir himself in earnest. Throwing away his plaid,
and the little bundle that it contained, he dealt deadly blows with
his broad-sword, everywhere around him. He fought with the bravery
and the perseverance of a hero. At length his bonnet was knocked from
his head, and although he was still possessed with the most anxious
desire to obey Captain M'Taggart's order to stick to his side, he was
surprised on looking about him to find that there was no M'Taggart,
no, nor any one else left near him to stick to but enemies.

John Smith's spirit was undaunted, so that, seeing he had no one else
to stick to, he now resolved to stick to his foes, to the last drop
of life's blood that was within him. Furiously and fatally did he cut
and thrust, and turn and cut and thrust again, at all who opposed him;
but he was so overwhelmed by opponents, that in the midst of the blood,
and wounds, and death which he was thus dealing in all directions, he
received a desperate sabre cut, which, descending on him from above,
entirely across the crown of his bared head, felled him instantaneously
to the ground, and stretched him senseless among the heather, whilst
a deluge of blood poured from the wound over both his eyes.

When John began partially to recover, he rubbed the half-congealed
blood from his eyelids with the back of his left hand, and looking up
and seeing that the ground was somewhat clear around him, he griped his
claymore firmly with his right hand, and raising himself to his feet,
he began to run as fast as his weak state would allow him. He thought
that he ran in the direction of Strath Nairn, and he ran whilst he had
the least strength to run, or the least power remaining in him. But
his ideas soon became confused, and the blood from the terrible
gash athwart his head trickled so fast into his eyes, that it was
continually obscuring his vision. At length he came to a large, deep
irregular hollow hag, or ditch, in a piece of moss ground, which had
been cut out for peats, and there, his brain beginning to spin round,
he sank down into the moist bottom of it to die, and as the tide of
life flowed fast from him, he was soon lost to all consciousness of
the things or events of this world.

Whilst John was lying in this senseless state, he was recognised by one
of the fugitives, who, in making his own escape, chanced to pass by
the edge of the ditch in the moss where the poor man lay. This was a
certain Donald Murdoch, who had long burned with a hopeless flame for
black-eyed Morag. With a satisfaction that seemed to make him forget
his present jeopardy in the contemplation of the death of his rival,
he looked down from the edge of the peat hag upon the pale and bloody
corpse, and grinned with a fiendish joy.

"Ha! there you lie!" cried he in bitter Gaelic soliloquy.--"The
fiend a bit sorry am I to see you so. You'll fling or dance no more,
else I'm mistaken.--Stay!--is not that the bit of blue ribbon that
Morag tied round his neck, the last time that we had a dance in the
barn? I'll secure that, it may be of some use to me;" and so saying
he let himself down into the peat hag, hastily undid the piece of
ribbon,--and then continued his flight with all manner of expedition.

Following the downward course of the river Nairn, running at one time,
and ducking and diving into bushes, and behind walls at another, to
avoid the stragglers who were in pursuit, he by degrees gained some
miles of distance from the fatal field, and coming to a little brook,
he ventured to halt for a moment, to quench his raging thirst. As he
lay gulping down the crystal fluid, he was startled by hearing his
own name, and by being addressed in Gaelic.

"Donald Murdoch!--Oh, Donald Murdoch, can you tell me is John Smith
safe? Oh, those fearful cannons how they thundered!--Oh, tell me,
is John Smith safe?--Oh, tell me! tell me!"

"Morag!" cried Donald, much surprised, but very much relieved
to find that it was no one whom he had any cause to be afraid
of,--"Morag!--What brought you so far from home on such a day as this?"

"Oh Donald!" replied Morag, "I came to look after John Smith;--oh,
grant that he be safe!"

"Safe enough, Morag," replied Donald, galled by jealousy. "I'll
warrant nothing in this world will harm him now."

"What say you?" cried Morag. "Oh, tell me! tell me truly if he
be safe?"

"I saw John Smith lying dead in a moss hole, his skull cleft by a
dragoon's sword," replied Donald with malicious coolness.

"What?" cried Morag, wringing her hands, "John Smith dead! But no! it
is impossible!--and you are a lying loon, that would try to deceive me,
by telling me what I well enough know you would wish to be true. God
forgive you, Donald, for such cruel knavery!"

"Thanks to ye, Morag, for your civility," replied Donald Murdoch
calmly; "but if you wont believe me, believe that bit of ribbon--see,
the very bit of blue ribbon you tied round John Smith's neck, the
night you last so slighted me at the dance in the barn. See, it is
partly died red in his life's blood."

"It is the ribbon!" cried Morag, snatching it from his hand with
excessive agitation, and kissing it over and over again, and then
bursting into tears. "Alas! alas! it must be too true! What will become
of poor Morag!--why did I not go with him! What is this world to poor
desolate Morag now?--And yet--he may be but wounded after all. It
must be so--he cannot be killed. Where did you leave him?--quick,
tell me!--oh, tell me, Donald. Why do we tarry here? let us forward
and seek him!--there may be life in him yet, and whilst there is life
there is hope. Let me pass, Donald; I will fly to seek him!"

"I love you too well to let you pass on so foolish and dangerous an
errand," said Donald, endeavouring to detain her. "I tell you that
John Smith is dead; but you know, Morag, you will always find a friend
and a lover in me. So think no more----"

"I will pass, Donald," cried Morag, interrupting him, and making a
determined attempt to rush past him.

"That you shall not," replied Donald, catching her in his arms.

"Help, help!" cried Morag, struggling with all her might, and with
great vigour too, against his exertions to hold her.

At this moment the trampling of a horse was heard, and a mounted
dragoon came cantering down into the hollow. His sabre gleamed in the
air--and Donald Murdoch fell headlong down the bank into the little
rill, his skull nearly cleft in two, and perfectly bereft of life.

"A plague on the lousy Scot!" said the trooper, scanning the corpse
of his victim with a searching eye. "His life was not worth the
taking, had it not been, that the more of the rascally race that
are put out of this world, the better for the honest men that are
to remain in it, and therefore it was in the way of my duty to cut
him down. There is nought on his beggarly carcase to benefit any one
but the crows.--And so the knave would have kissed thee against thy
will, my bonny black-eyed wench. Well, 'tis no wonder thou shouldst
have scorned that carotty-pated fellow; you showed your taste in so
doing, my dear: and now you shall be rewarded by having a somewhat
better sweetheart.--Come!" continued he, alighting from his charger,
and approaching the agitated and panting girl--"Come, a kiss from
the lips of beauty is the best reward for brave deeds; and no one
deserves this reward better than I do, for brave deeds have I this
day performed. Why do you not speak, my dear? Have you no Christian
language to give me? Can it be possible that these pretty pouting
lips have no language but that of the savages of this country?--Come,
then, we must try the kissing language; I have always found that to
be well understood in all parts of the world."

"Petter tak' Tonald's pig puss o' money first," said Morag, pointing
down to the corpse in the hollow.

"Ha! money saidst thou, my gay girl?" cried the trooper. "Who would
have thought of a purse of money being in the pouch of such a miserable
rascally savage as that? But the best apple may sometimes have the
coarsest and most unpromising rhind; and so that fellow, unseemly and
wretched as he appears, may perchance have a well-lined purse after
all. If it be so, girl, I shall say that thy language is like the talk
of an angel. Then do you hold the rein of this bridle, do you see,
till I make sure of the coin in the first place--best secure that,
for no one can say what mischance may come; or whether some comrade
may not appear with a claim to go snacks with me. So lay hold of the
bridle, do you hear, and dont be afraid of old Canterbury, for the
brute is as quiet as a lamb."

Morag took the bridle. The trooper descended the bank, and he had
scarcely stooped over the body to commence his search for the dead
man's supposed purse, when the active girl, well accustomed to ride
horses in all manner of ways, vaulted into the saddle, and kicking
her heels into Canterbury's side, she was out of the hollow in a
moment. Looking over her shoulder, after she had gone some distance,
she beheld the raging dragoon puffing, storming, and swearing, and
striding after her, with, what might be called, that dignified sort
of agility, to which he was enforced by the weighty thraldom of his
immense jack-boots. Bewildered by the terror and the anxiety of her
escape, she flew over the country, for some time, without knowing
which way she fled. At length she began to recover her recollection,
so far as to enable her to recur to the object which had prompted her
to leave home. On the summit of a knoll she checked her steed--surveyed
the country,--and the whole tide of her feelings returning upon her;
she urged the animal furiously forward in the direction of the fatal
field of Culloden.

She had not proceeded far, when, on coming suddenly to the edge of a
rough little stoney ravine, she discovered five troopers refreshing
themselves and their horses from the little brook that had its course
through the bottom. She reined back her horse, with the intention of
stealing round to some other point of passage; but as she did so, a
shout arose from the hollow of the dell.--She had been perceived. In
an instant the mounted riders rushed, one after another, out of the
ravine, and she had no chance of escape left her, but to ride as
hard as the beast that carried her could fly, in the very opposite
direction to that which she had hitherto pursued, for there was no
other course of flight left open to her.

The five troopers were now in full chase after Morag, shouting out as
they rode, and urging on their horses to the top of their speed. The
ground, though rough, stony, and furzy, was for the most part firm
enough, and the poor girl, now driven from that purpose to which her
strong attachment to John Smith had so powerfully impelled her, and
being distracted by her griefs and her fears, spared not the animal
she rode, but forced him, by every means she could employ, either by
hands, limbs, or voice, to the utmost exertion of every muscle.

"Lord, how she does ride!" said one trooper to the others; "I wish
that she beant some of them witches, as, they say, be bred in this
here uncanny country of Scotland."

"Bless you no, man," said another; "them devils as you speak of ride
on broomsticks. Now, I'se much mistaken an' that be not Tom Dickenson's
horse Canterbury."

"Zounds, I believe you are right, Hall," said another man; "but that
beant no proof that she aint a witch, for nothing but a she-devil,
wot can ride on a broom, could ride ould Canterbury in that 'ere
fashion, I say."

"Witch or devil, my boys, let us ketch her if we can," shouted
another.--"Hurrah! hurrah!"

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" re-echoed the others, burying their spurs
in their horses' sides, and bending forward, and grinning with very
eagerness.

For several miles Morag kept the full distance she had at first
gained on her pursuers, but having got into a road, fenced by a
rough stone wall upon one side, and a broad and very deep ditch on
the other, the troopers, if possible, doubled their speed, in the
full conviction that they must now very soon come up with her, and
capture her. Still Morag flew,--but as she every moment cast her eyes
over one or other of her shoulders, she was terrified to see that the
troopers were visibly gaining upon her. The road before her turned
suddenly at an angle,--and she had no sooner doubled it, than, there,
to her unspeakable horror--in the very midst of the way--stood Tom
Dickenson, the dismounted dragoon from whom she had taken the very
charger, called Canterbury, which she then rode. The time of the
action of what followed was very brief. For an instant she reined up
her horse till he was thrown back on his haunches.--Tom Dickenson's
sword-blade glittered in the sun.

"By the god of war, but I have you now!" cried he in a fury.

The triumphant shouts of Morag's pursuers increased, as they neared
her, and beheld the position in which she was now placed. No weapon
had she, but the large pair of scissors that hung dangling from her
side, in company with her pincushion. In desperation she grasped the
sharp-pointed implement dagger fashion, and directed old Canterbury's
head towards the ditch. Dickenson saw her intention, and wishing
to counteract it, he rushed to the edge of the ditch. The hand of
Morag which held the scissors descended on the flank of the horse,
and in defiance of his master, who stood in his way, and the gleaming
weapon with which he threatened him, old Canterbury, goaded by the
pain of the sharp wound inflicted on him, sprang towards the leap
with a wild energy, and despite of the cut, which deprived him of an
ear, and sheared a large slice of the skin off one side of his neck,
he plunged the unlucky Tom Dickenson backwards, swash into the water,
and carried his burden fairly over the ditch.

Morag tarried not to look behind her, until she had scoured across
a piece of moorish pasture land, and then casting her eyes over one
shoulder, she perceived that only two of the troopers had cleared
the ditch, and that the others had either failed in doing so, or
were engaged in hauling their half-drowned comrade out of it. The
two men who had taken the leap, however, were again hard after her,
shouting as before, and evidently gaining upon her. The moment she
perceived this, she dashed into a wide piece of mossy, boggy ground,
a description of soil with which she was well acquainted. There the
chase became intricate and complicated. Now her pursuers were so near
to her, as to believe that they were on the very point of seizing her,
and again some impassable obstacle would throw them quite out, and give
her the advantage of them. Various were the slips and plunges which
the horses made; but ere she had threaded through three-fourths of the
snares which she met with, she had the satisfaction of beholding one
of the riders who followed her, fairly unhorsed, and hauling at the
bridle of his beast, the head and neck of which alone appeared from
the slough, in which the rest of the poor animal was engulfed. The
man called loudly to his comrade, but he was too keenly intent on the
pursuit, to give heed to him. The hard ground was near at hand, and
he pushed on after Morag, who was now making towards it. She reached
it, and again she plied the points of her scissors on the heaving
flanks of old Canterbury. But she became sensible that his pace was
fast flagging,--and that the trooper was rapidly gaining on her. In
despair she made towards a small patch of natural wood.--She was
already within a short distance of it. But the blowing and snorting
of the horse behind her, and the blaspheming of his rider, came
every instant more distinctly upon her ear. Some fifty or an hundred
yards only now lay between her and the wood. Again, in desperation,
she gave the point of the scissors to her steed--when, all at once
he stopped--staggered--and, faint with fatigue and loss of blood,
old Canterbury fell forward headlong on the grass.

"Hurrah!" cried the trooper, who was close at his heels, "witch or
no witch, I think I'll grapple with thee now."

He threw himself from his heaving horse, and rushed towards Morag. But
she was already on her legs, and scouring away like a hare for the
covert. Jack-booted, and otherwise encumbered as he was, the bulky
trooper strode after her like a second Goliah of Gath, devouring the
way with as much expedition as he could possibly use. But Morag's
speed was like that of the wind, and he beheld her dive in among the
underwood before he had covered half the distance.

"A very witch in rayal arnest!" exclaimed the trooper, slackening
his pace in dismay and disappointment. And then turning towards
his comrade, who, having by this time succeeded in extricating his
horse from the slough, was now coming cantering towards him, "Hollo,
Bill!" shouted he, "I've run the blasted witch home here.--Come away,
man, do; for if so be that she dont arth like a badger, or furnish
herself with a new horse to her own fancy out of one of 'em 'ere
broom bushes, this covert aint so large but we must sartinly find
her. So come along, man, and be active."

But we must now return to poor John Smith, whom we have too long
left for dead in the bottom of a peat-hag. The cold and astringent
moss-water flowing about his head, by degrees checked the effusion
of his blood, and at length he began to revive.

When his senses returned to him, he gathered himself up, and leaning
his back against the perpendicular face of the peat bank above him,
he drank a little water from the hollow of his hand, and then washed
away the clotted blood from his eyes. The first object that broke upon
his newly recovered vision was an English trooper riding furiously
up to him, with his brandished sword. John was immediately persuaded
that he was a doomed man, for he felt that, in his case, resistance
was altogether out of the question. He threw himself on his back in
the bottom of the broad deep cut in the peat-hag. The trooper came
up, and having no time to dismount, he stooped from his saddle and
made one or two ineffectual cuts at the poor man. The horse shyed at
John's bloody head as it was raised in terror from the peat-hag, and
then the animal reared back as he felt the soft mossy ground sinking
under him. The trooper was determined,--got angry, and spurred the
beast forward, but the horse became obstinate and restive. At length
the trooper succeeded in bringing him up again to the edge of the
peat-hag; but just as he was craning his neck over its brink, John,
roused by desperation, pricked the creature's nose with the point of
his claymore. It so happened that he accidentally did this, at the
very instant that the irascible trooper was giving his horse a dig
with his spurs, and the consequence of these double, though antagonist
stimulis, was, that the brute made a desperate spring, and carried
himself and his rider clean over the hag-ditch, John Smith and all,
and then he ran off with his master through the broken moss-ground,
scattering the heaps of drying peats to right and left, until horse
and man were rolled over and over into the plashy bog.

Uninjured, except as to his gay clothes and accoutrements, which were
speedily dyed of a rich chocolate hue, the trooper arose in a rage,
and could he have by any means safely left his horse so as to have
secured his not running away, he would have charged the dying man on
foot, and so he would have very speedily sacrificed him; but dreading
to lose his charger if he should abandon him, he mounted him again,
and was in the act of returning to the attack, with the determination
of putting John to death, at all hazards, either by steel or by lead,
when he was arrested by the voice of his officer, who was then passing
along a road tract, at some little distance, with a few of his troop,
and who called out to him in a loud authoritative tone, "Come away
you, Jem Barnard! Why dont you follow the living? Why waste time by
cutting at the dying or dead?"

On hearing this command, the trooper uttered a half-smothered curse,
and unwillingly turned to ride after his comrades, throwing back bitter
execrations on John Smith as he went. John's tongue was otherwise
employed. He used it for the better purpose of returning thanks to
that Almighty Providence who had thus so wonderfully protected him.

After this pious mental exercise, John thought that he felt himself
somewhat better. He made a feeble effort to rise, but it was altogether
abortive. The blood still continued to flow from his head--he began
to feel very faint, and a raging thirst attacked him. Turning himself
round in the peat-hag, he contrived to lap up a considerable quantity
of the moss water, which, however muddy and distasteful it might be,
refreshed him so much as to give him strength sufficient to raise
himself up a little, so as to enable him to extend the circuit of his
view. He had now a moment's leisure to look about him, and to consider,
as well as the confusion of his ideas would allow him, what he had
best to do. But what was his surprise and dismay to see, that although
many were yet flying in all directions, and many more pursuing after
them, whole battalions of the enemy still remained unbroken in the
vicinity of the field of battle, and that some were marching up, in
close order, both to the right and left of him. There was but little
time left him for farther consideration, as one of these battalions
was so near to him, that he saw, from the course it was holding, that
it must soon march directly over the spot where he was. The first
thought that struck him was that his best plan would be to lie down
and feign that he was dead. But it immediately afterwards occurred to
him that a thrust from some curious or malicious person, who might be
the bearer of one of those bayonets, which already glittered in his
eyes, might do his business even more effectually than the sword of
the trooper might have done. He became convinced that he had nothing
left for it but to run. But although he was now somewhat revived, and
that the dread of death gave new strength to exhausted nature, he felt
persuaded of the truth, that if his wound should continue to bleed,
as it had already again began to do, his race could not be a long one
in any sense of the word, even if he should have the wonderful luck
to escape the chance of its being shortened by the sword, bayonet,
or bullet of an enemy. To give himself some small chance of life,
John, though he was no surgeon, would have fain tried some means of
stanching the blood, but he lacked all manner of materials for any such
operation, and he could only try to cover the wound very ineffectually
with both hands, whilst the red stream continued to run down through
his fingers. At length, necessity, that great mother of invention,
and wisest of all teachers, enabled him to hit off in a moment,
a remedy, which, as it was the best he could have possibly adopted in
his present difficult and distressing situation, might perhaps, even on
an occasion where no such embarrassment exists, be found as valuable
and effective as any other which the most favourable circumstances
could afford, or the most consummate skill devise. Stooping down,
he picked up a large mass of peaty turf, of nearly a foot square,
and two or three inches thick. This had been regularly cut by the
peat-diggers, but having tumbled by chance into the bottom of the
peat-hag, it had been there lying soaking till the soft unctuous matter
of which it was composed was completely saturated with water like a
sponge. John proceeded upon no certain ratio medicandi, except this,
that as his life's blood was manifestly welling fast away from him,
he thought that the wet peat would stop the flow of it, and as his
head was in a burning fever, every fibre of his scalp seemed to call
out for the immediate application of its cold and moist surface. John
seized it then with avidity, and clapping it instantly on his head,
with the black soft oleaginous side of it next to the wound, and
the heathery top of it outwards, he pressed it down with great care
all over his skull, and then quickly secured it fast, by tying a
coarse red handkerchief over it, the ends of which he fastened very
carefully under his chin. The outward appearance of this strange
uncouth head-gear may be easily imagined, with the heather-bush rising
everywhere around his head over the red tier that bound it on, and
surmounting a countenance so rueful and bloody; but the effect within
was so wonderfully refreshing and invigorating, that he felt himself
almost immediately restored to comparative strength. He started to
his feet; and, being yet uncertain as to which way he should run,
he raised his head slowly over the peat-hag to reconnoitre.

Now, it happened, that, at this very moment, a couple of English
foot soldiers came straggling along, thirsting for more slaughter,
and prowling about for prey and plunder. Ere John was aware of their
proximity to him, they were within a few yards of the peat-hag. As
he raised his head, he beheld them approaching with their muskets
and their bayonets reeking with gore. Believing himself to be now
utterly lost, a deep groan of despair escaped from him. The soldiers
had halted suddenly on beholding the bloody face and neck of what
scarcely seemed to be a human being, with a huge overgrown forest of
heather on the head instead of hair, appearing, as it were by magic,
out of the very earth. They started back, and stood for an instant
transfixed to the spot by superstitious fear.

"Waunds, Gilbert, wot is that?" cried one, his eyes staring at John
with horror.

Seeing, that as he was now discovered, his only chance lay in working
upon that dread which he saw that he had already excited, John first
gradually drew down his head below the bank, and then again raised
it slowly and portentously, and uttered another groan more deep and
ghostly and prolonged than the first. The effect was instantaneous.

"Oh Lord! oh Lord! one of them Highland warlocks of the bog, wot
dewours men, women, and children!" cried Gilbert. "Fly--fly, Warner,
for dear life!"

Off he ran, and his comrade staid not to question farther, but darted
away after him, and John had the satisfaction to see the two heroes,
from whom he had looked for nothing but sudden death, scouring away
over the field, and hardly daring to look behind them.

John Smith was considerably emboldened by the discovery that his
appearance was so formidable to his foes. He again applied himself
to the consideration of the question as to which way it was best for
him to fly. He cast his eyes all over the field of action around him;
and, much to his satisfaction, he perceived that the officer at the
head of the red regiment of Englishmen, which had previously given
him so much alarm, had been so very obliging as to determine this
difficult question for him. Some movement of the flying clans, who
had retreated on Strath Nairn, had induced the officer to alter his
line of march; and, in a very short time, John had the happiness of
seeing himself very much in the rear of the red battalion, instead of
being immediately in its front, as he had formerly been. Looking to
the north-eastward, he perceived that all was comparatively clear and
quiet, so far as he could see. There were now no longer any regular
masses of men on the field, neither were there any signs of flight or
pursuit in that direction. A few stragglers were to be seen, it is
true, moving about, like evil spirits among the killed, and perhaps
performing the office of messengers of death to the wounded. Strange,
indeed, was the change that had taken place, upon that which had
been so lately a scene of stormy and desperate conflict. A few large
birds of prey were soaring high in air, in eager contemplation of that
banquet which had been so liberally spread for them on the plain by
ferocious man. But, in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where
John Smith was, the terrified pewit had already settled down again
with confidence on her nest, the robin had again begun to chirp,
and to direct his sharp eye towards the earth in search of worms;
and the lark was again heaving herself up into the sky, giving forth
her innocent song as she rose,--all apparently utterly unconscious
that any such terrible and bloody turmoil had taken place between
different sections of the human race. John therefore made up his mind
at once; and, scrambling out of the peat-hag, he darted away over
the moor, and flying like a ghost across the very middle of the field
of battle, through the heaps of dead and dying, to the utter terror
and discomfiture of those wolves and hyenas in the shape of men--aye,
and of women too--who were preying, as well upon those who had life,
as upon those who were lifeless, he scattered them to right and left
in terror at his appalling appearance, and dived amid the thick woods
of Culloden.

Having once found shelter among the trees, John stopped to breathe
awhile, and then he again set forward to unravel his way. It so
happened, that, as he proceeded, he chanced to come upon the very spot
where he had feasted with MacTaggart and his comrades on his mistress
the Pensassenach's sow, and the other good things which the Highlanders
had taken from her. The gnawing demon of hunger that possessed him,
inserted his fell fangs more furiously into his stomach, from very
association with the scene. What would he not have now given for
the smallest morsel of that goodly beast, the long and ample side of
which arose upon his mind's eyes, as he had beheld her carcase hanging
from the bough of a tree, previous to the rapid subdivision which it
underwent. Alas! the very thought of it was now an unreal mockery. Yet
he could not help looking anxiously around, though in vain, among the
extinguished remains of the fires of the bivouacs; and he figured to
himself the joy and comfort and refreshment he would have experienced,
if his eyes could have lighted even on a half-broiled fragment of one
of the pettitoes, which he might have picked at as he fled. John's eyes
were so intently turned to the ground, that he saw not the unfortunate
Mr. Dallas, who still dangled from the bough of the fir tree above him.

Whilst John was poking about in this manner, earnestly turning over the
ashes, and looking amongst them as if he had been in search of a pin,
he suddenly heard the tramp of horses at some little distance. The
sound was evidently coming towards him; and he could distinguish
men's voices. He cast his eyes eagerly around him, to discover
some ready place of concealment; and now, for the first time, he
caught sight of the wasted figure of Mr. Dallas, swinging at some
distance above him, with the dull glassy eyeballs apparently fixed
upon him. His heart sank within him; for the corpse of the wretched
man seemed to typify his own immediate fate. He was paralyzed for a
moment. But the sound drew nearer; and, spying a holly-tree with a
reasonably tall stem, and a very thick and bushy head, which happened
to grow most fortunately near him, he ran towards it, reached up his
hands, seized hold of its lower branches, and, weak though he was,
the energy of self-preservation enabled him very quickly to coil
himself up amongst its dense foliage, where he sat as still as death,
and scarcely allowing himself to breathe. The holly-tree stood by the
side of a horse-track that led through the wood, and which crossed the
small open space where most of the fires of Captain M'Taggart's bivouac
had been kindled. Two troopers came riding leisurely up through the
wood along it, their horses considerably jaded by the work of the day.

"Ha!" said one of them to the other, reining up his steed as he spoke,
just on entering the open space,--"What have we here, Jack?"

"I should not wonder now if 'em 'ere should be the remains of the
fires of some of them rebel rascals," said Jack, with wonderful
acuteness. "Them is a proper set of waggabones, to be sure. How we
did lick the rascals! Didn't we, Bob?"

"To be sure we did, Jack," replied Bob.

"But you and I aint made much on it, arter all. I wish the captain
at the devil--so I do--for sendin' us a unting arter that officer he
was a wanting to ketch."

"Aye," said Jack; "so do I, from the bottom of my soul. But if we
had ketcht him, I think we should 'a gained a prize, seeing that he
wur walued at twenty golden pieces by his Highness the Duke. Whoy,
who the plague could he be? Not the chap they calls Prince Charles
Stuart himself surelye? I should think that his carcase would fetch
a deal more money."

"A deal more money indeed!" said Bob.

"Lord bless thee, I would not sell my share of him for an underd. But
why may we not ketch him yet, Jack? Look sharp; do--and see if you
can spy ere an oak in this wood, with a head so royal as to hide this
Prince Charles Stuart in it, as that 'ere one did King Charley the
Second arter the great battle of Worcester. Zounds! what a fortin
you and I should make, an' we could only ketch him!"

"Pooh!" replied Jack, moving so close to the little holly, that his
head and that of John Smith were within two yards of each other--"Pooh
man! there beant no oaks bigger than this here holly, in all this
blasted, cold, and wretched country." And, at the same time, he gave
its bushy head a thwack with the flat of his sword that set every
leaf of it in motion, and John's heart, body, muscles, and nerves,
shaking in sympathy with them.

"Beg your pardon," said Bob. "I was in a great big wood yesterday--that
same, I mean, that spreads abroad all over the country, above that
'ere ould castle wot they calls Cawdor Castle. And sitch oak trees
as I seed there! My heyes, some on 'em had heads as would cover half
a troop! But, hark ye, Jack! Is there no tree, think ye, fit to have
a man in't but an oak? Dost not think that a good stout fir-tree now
might support a man?"

"Oh," replied Jack, "surelye, surelye. This here holly, for instance,
might hide a man in its head;"--and, as he said so, he gave the holly
another thwack, that, for a few moments, banished every drop of blood
from the heart of John Smith. "But your oak is your only tree for
concealing your King or your Prince; for, as the old rhyme has it,


    'The royal oak is not a joke.'


As for your firs, they may be well enough for affording a refuge to
your men of smaller mark."

"Then you don't think that 'ere feller, wot hangs from yonder fir
tree, can be a King or a Prince, do you, Jack?" demanded Bob, laughing
heartily at his own joke.

"My heyes!" exclaimed Jack, rubbing his optics, and looking
earnestly for some time at the corpse of Mr. Dallas; "sure I cannot
be mistaken? As I'm a soldier, that 'ere is the very face, figure,
clothes, and, above all, short leg and queer shoe, of the identical
feller wot sould me an ould watch, wot was of no use, because you know
it never went, and therefore it stands to reason that it could only
tell the hour twice in the twenty-four. I say surelye, surelye, that
'ere is the very feller as sould me this here ould useless watch,
for a bran new great goer. Well, if it be'ant some satisfaction to
see the feller hanging there, my name aint Jack Blunt!"

"Them rascally rebels has robbed and murdered the poor wretch,"
said Bob.

"Well," replied Jack, "I am a right soft arted Christine; and therefore
most surelye do I forgive 'em for that same hact, if they'd never ha'
done no worse. But come Bob, my boy; an' we would be ketching kings
or princes, I doubt we mun be stirrin'."

"Aye, aye, that's true--let's be joggin'," replied Bob.

You may believe, gentlemen, that it was with no small satisfaction
that John Smith beheld them apply their spurs to the sides of their
weary animals. He listened to their departing footsteps until they
were beyond the reach of his hearing; and then, conscious as he felt
himself, that he was in much too weak a state to have maintained
an unequal combat against two fresh and vigorous men, with the
most distant chance of success, he put up a fervent ejaculation of
thankfulness for their departure, and his own safety.

He was in the act of preparing himself to drop from the tree, that
he might continue his flight, and was just putting down his legs from
amid the thick foliage, when he met with a new alarm, that compelled
him to draw them up again with great expedition. Some one on foot
now came singing along up the path, and John had hardly more than
time to conceal himself again, when he beheld the person enter upon
the open space, near the holly tree where he was perched. And a very
remarkable and striking personage he was. He wore an old, soiled,
torn, and tarnished regimental coat, which, though now divested of
every shred of the lace that had once adorned it, seemed to have once
belonged to an English officer; and this was put on over a tattered
Highland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny
feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirty canvas shirt was all
that showed itself where a waistcoat should have been, and that was
all loose at the collar, fully exhibiting a thin, long, scraggy neck,
that supported a head of extraordinary dimensions, and of the strangest
malconformation, having a countenance, in which the appearance of the
goggle eyes alone, would have been enough to have satisfied the most
transient observer of the insanity of the individual to whom they
belonged. An old worn-out drummer's cap completed his costume. He
came dancing along, with a large piece of cheese held up before him
with both hands, and he went on, singing, hoarsely and vehemently,--


   "Troll de roll loll--troll de loll lay;
    If I could catch a reybell, I would him flay--
    Troll de roll lay--troll de roll lum--
    And out of his skin I wud make a big drum.


Ho! ho; ho; that wud be foine. But stay; I mun halt here, and sit
doon, and munch up mye cheese that I took so cleverly from that ould
woman.--Ho! ho! ho! ho!--How nice it is to follow the sodgers! Take
what we like--take what we like!--Ho! ho!--This is livin' like
a man! They ca'ed me daft Jock in the streets o' Perth; but our
sarjeant says as hoo that I'm to be made a captain noo.--Ho! ho!--A
captain! and to have a lang swurd by my side!--Ho! ho! ho!--I'll
be grand, very grand--and I'll fecht, and cut off the heads o' the
reybel loons!--Ho! ho! ho!


    Troll de roll loll--troll de roll lay--
    If I could catch a reybell I wud him----"


"Hoch!"--roared out John Smith, his patience being now quite
exhausted, by the thought that his chance of escaping with life was
thus to be rendered doubly precarious, by the provoking delay of this
idiot.--"Hoch!" roared he again, in a yet more tremendous voice, whilst
at the same time he thrust his head--and nothing but his turf-covered
head--with his bloody countenance, partially streaked with the tiny
streams of the inky liquid that had oozed from the peat, and run down
here and there over his face;--this horrible head, I say, John thrust
forth from the foliage, and glared fearfully at the appalled songster,
who stopped dead in the midst of his stave.

"Ah--a-ach--ha--a-ah--ha!" cried the poor idiot, in a prolonged scream
of terror that echoed through the wood, and off he flew, and was out
of sight in a moment.

John Smith lost not another instant of time. Dropping down from the
tree, he hastily picked up a small fragment of the cheese which
the idiot had let fall in his terror and confusion, and this he
devoured with inconceivable rapacity. But although this refreshed
him a little, it stirred up his hunger to a most agonizing degree,
so that if he had had no other cause for running, he would have run
from the very internal torment he was enduring. Dashing down through
the thickest of the brakes of the wood, so as to avoid observation
as much as possible, he at last traversed the whole extent of it in
a north-easterly direction, and gained the low open country beyond
it, whence he urged on his way, until he fell into that very line of
road, in the parish of Petty, which he had so lately marched over in
an opposite direction, and under circumstances so different, with
Captain M'Taggart and his company, on the afternoon of the 14th,
just two days before.

Remembering the whole particulars of that march, and the cheers
and the benedictions with which they had been every where greeted,
John Smith flattered himself that he had now got into a country of
friends, and that he had only to show himself at any of their doors,
wounded, weary, an' hungered and athirst, as he was, to ensure the
most charitable, compassionate, and hospitable reception. But, in so
calculating, John was ignorant of the versatility and worthlessness
of popular applause. He forgot that when he was passing to Culloden,
with the bold Captain M'Taggart and his company, they had been looked
upon as heroes marching to conquest; whilst he was now to be viewed
as a wretched runaway from a lost field. But he still more forgot,
that the same bloody, haggard countenance, and horrible head-gear,
which had been already so great a protection to him by terrifying
his enemies, could not have much chance of favourably recommending
him to his friends.

John stumped on along the road, therefore, with comparative
cheerfulness, arising from the prospect which he now had of speedy
relief. At some little distance before him, he observed a nice,
trig-looking country girl, trudging away barefoot, in the same
direction he was travelling. He hurried on to overtake her, in order
to learn from her where he was most likely to have his raging hunger
relieved. The girl heard his footstep coming up behind her, whilst
she was yet some twenty paces a-head of him;--she turned suddenly
round to see who the person was that was about to join her, and
beholding the terrible spectre-looking figure which John presented,
she uttered a piercing shriek, and darted off along the highway, with
a speed that nothing but intense dread could have produced. Altogether
forgetful of the probable cause of her alarm, John imagined that it
must proceed from fear of the Duke of Cumberland's men, and, with
this idea in his head, he ran after her as fast as his weak state
of body would allow him, earnestly vociferating to her to stop. But
the more he ran, and the more he shouted, just so much the more ran
and screamed the terrified young woman. Another girl was seated,
with a boy, on the grassy slope of a broomy hillock, immediately
over the road, tending three cows and a few sheep. Seeing the first
girl running in the way she was doing, they hurried to the road side
to enquire the cause of her alarm, but ere they had time to ask, or
she to answer, she shot past them, and the hideous figure of John
Smith appeared. Horror-struck, and so bewildered that they hardly
knew what they were doing, both girl and boy leaped into the road,
and fled along it. A little farther on, two labourers were engaged
digging a ditch, in a mossy hollow below the road. Curiosity to know
what was the cause of all this shrieking and running, induced these
men to hasten up to the road-side. But ere they had half reached
it, they beheld John coming, and turning with sudden dismay, they
scampered off across the fields, never stopping to draw breath till
they reached their own homes. John minded them not,--but fancying
that he was gaining on the three fugitives before him, and perceiving
a small hamlet of cottages a little way on, he redoubled his exertions.

Some dozen of persons, men, women, and children, were assembled about
a well, at what we in Scotland would call the town-end. They were
talking earnestly over the many, and most contradictory rumours, that
had reached them of the events of that day's battle, their rustic and
unwarlike souls having been so sunk, with the trepidation occasioned
by the distant sound of the heavy cannonade, that they as yet hardly
dared to speak but in whispers. Suddenly the shrieking of the three
young persons came upon their ears. They pricked them up in alarm,
and turned every eye along the road. The shrieking increased, and
the two girls and the boy appeared, with the formidable figure of
John Smith in pursuit of them.

"The Duke's men! the Duke's men! with the devil at their head!" cried
the wise man of the hamlet in Gaelic. "Run! or we're all dead and
murdered!"

In an instant every human head of them had disappeared, each having
burrowed under its own proper earthen hovel, with as much expedition
as would be displayed by the rabbits of a warren, when scared by a
Highland terrier. So instantaneously, and so securely, was every
little door fastened, that it was with some difficulty that the
three fugitives found places of shelter, and that too, not until
their shrieks had been multiplied ten-fold. When John Smith came up,
panting and blowing like a stranded porpus, all was snug, and the
little hamlet so silent, that if he had not caught a glimpse of the
people alive, he might have supposed that they were all dead.

John knocked at the first door he came to.--Not a sound was returned
but the angry barking of a cur. He tried the next--and the next--and
the next--all with like success;--at last he knocked at one, whence
came a low, tremulous voice, more of ejaculation than intended for
the ear of any one without, and speaking in Gaelic.

"Lord be about us!--Defend us from Satan, and from all his evil
spirits and works!"

"Give me a morsel of bread, and a cup of water, for mercy's sake!" said
John, poking his head close against a small pane of dirty glass in
the mud wall, that served for a window.

"Avoid thee, evil spirit!" said the same voice.--"Avoid thee, Satan!--O
deliver us from Satan!--Deliver us from the Prince of Darkness and
all his wicked angels!"

"Have mercy upon me, and give me but a bit of bread, and a drop of
water, for the sake of Christ your Saviour!" cried John earnestly
again.

"Avoid, I say, blasphemer!" replied the voice, with more energy than
before. "Name not vainly the name of my Saviour, enemy as thou art
to him and his. Begone, and tempt us not!"

John Smith was preparing to answer and to explain, and to defend
himself from these absurd and unjust imputations against him, when
he heard the sound of a bolt drawn in the hovel immediately behind
him. Full of hope that some good and charitable Christian within,
melted by his pitiful petitions, had come to the resolution of opening
his door to relieve him, he turned hastily round. But what was his
mortification, when, instead of seeing the door opened, he beheld
the small wooden shutter of an unglazed hole in the wall, slowly and
silently pushed outwards on its hinges, until it fell aside, and then
the muzzle of a rusty fowling-piece was gradually projected, levelled,
and pointed at him. John waited not to allow him who held it to perfect
his aim. He sprang instantly aside towards the wall, and fortunately,
the tardy performance of the old and ill constructed lock enabled him
to do so, just in time to clear the way for the shower of swan-shot
which the gun discharged in a diagonal line across the way. Luckily
for John, he had thus no opportunity of judging of the weight of the
charge in his own person, but he was made sufficiently aware that it
was quite potent enough, by its effects on an unfortunate sheep-dog,
that happened to be at that moment lying peaceably gnawing a bone on
the top of a dunghill, some fifty yards down the road, on the opposite
side of the way to that where the hovel stood from which the shot had
been fired. The poor animal sprang up, and gave a loud and sharp yelp,
when he received the shot, and then followed a long and dismal howl,
after which he rolled over on his back and died. After such a hint as
this, John staid not to make farther experiments on the hospitality
of the little place, but, getting out at the farther end of its street
with all manner of expedition, he slowly proceeded on his way, weary,
faint, and heart-sunken.

Just as sunset was approaching, he came to the door of a small single
cottage, hard by the way-side. There he knocked gently, without saying
a word.

"Who is there?" asked a soft woman's voice in Gaelic, from within.

"A poor man like to die with hunger and thirst," replied John in
the same language. "For the love of God give me a piece of bread,
and a drink of water."

"You shant want that," said the good Samaritan woman within, who
promptly came to undo the door.

"Heaven reward you!" said John fervently, as she was fumbling with the
key in the key-hole, and with an astonishing rapidity of movement in
his ideas, he felt, by anticipation, as if he was already devouring
the food he had asked for.

"Preserve us, what's that?" cried the woman, the moment the half-opened
door had enabled her to catch a glimpse of his fearful head and
bloody features.

The door was shut and locked in an instant; and whether it was that
the poor young lonely widow, for such she was, had fainted or not, or
whether she had felt so frightened for herself and her young child,
that she dared not to speak, all John's farther attempts to procure
an answer from her were fruitless. It was probably from the cruel
and unexpected disappointment that he here had met with, just at the
time when his hopes of relief had been highest, that his faintness
came more overpoweringly upon him. He tottered away from the widow's
door, with his head swimming strangely round, and he had not proceeded
above two or three dozen of steps, when he sank down on a green bank
by the side of the road, where he lay almost unconscious as to what
had befallen him.

He had not lain long there, when the tender hearted widow, who
had reconnoitred him well through a single pane of glass in the
gable end of her house, began to have her fears overcome by her
compassion. Seeing that he was now at some distance from her dwelling,
she ventured again to open her door, and perceiving that he did not
stir, she retired for a minute, and then reappeared with a bottle
of milk and two barley cakes, with which she crept timorously, and
therefore slowly and cautiously, along the road. Her step became
slower and slower, as, with fear and trembling, she drew near to
John. At last, when within three or four yards of him, she halted,
and, looking back, as if to measure the distance that divided her
from her own door, she turned towards him, and ventured to address him.

"Here, poor man," said she, setting down the cakes and the bottle of
milk on the bank. "Here is some refreshment for you."

John Smith raised his eyes languidly as her words reached him, and
spying the food she had brought him, he started up and proceeded to
seize upon it with an energy which no one could have believed was
yet left in him; and, as the benevolent widow was flying back with a
beating heart to her cottage, she heard his thanks and benedictions
coming thickly and loudly after her. John devoured the barley cakes,
and drank the milk, and felt wonderfully refreshed, and then, placing
the bottle on the bank in view of the cottage, he knelt down and
offered up his thanks to God for his mercy, and prayed for blessings
on the head of her who had relieved him. He then arose, and having
waved his hand two or three times towards the cottage in token of his
gratitude, he proceeded with some degree of spirit on his journey. I
may here remark, gentlemen, that however those worthies who denied
John admittance to their houses may have passed the night, I may
venture to pronounce, and that with some probability of truth too,
that the sleep of that virtuous young widow, with her innocent child
in her arms, was as sweet and refreshing as the purity and balminess
of her previous reflections could make it.

John Smith had not gone far on his way till the sun went down;
but, as the moon was up, and he knew his road sufficiently well,
he continued to trudge on without fear, until he approached the
old walls of an ancient church, the burying yard of which had an
ugly reputation for being haunted, and then he began to walk with
somewhat more circumspection. As he drew nearer to it, he halted
under the shadow of a bank, and stood for a time somewhat aghast,
for, in the open part of the grave-yard, between the church and the
high-road, he beheld three figures standing in the moonlight which
then prevailed. At first John quaked with fear, lest they should
prove to be some of the uncanny spirits which were said to frequent
the place. But he soon became reassured, by observing enough of them
and of their motions to convince him that they were men of flesh and
blood, yea, and Highlanders too, like himself.

As John Smith had no fear of mortal man, he would have at once
advanced. But there was something so suspicious in the manner in which
the three fellows hung over the wall, as if they were watching the
public road, that he became at once convinced that they were lying
in wait for a prey; and although he had nothing to lose, he did not
feel quite assured as to the manner in which they might be disposed
to accost him; and in his present weak state, he felt prudence to be
the better part of valour. Availing himself of the concealment of the
bank, therefore, until he had entered a small opening in the churchyard
wall, he crept quietly across a dark part of the churchyard itself,
by which means he got into the deep shadow that fell with great
breadth all along the church wall, between the moon and the three
figures who were watching the road, and who consequently had their
backs to the old building. Having succeeded in accomplishing this,
John was stealing slowly and silently along the wall, with the hope of
passing by them, altogether unnoticed, when, as ill luck would have it,
one of them chanced to turn round, so as dimly to descry his figure.

"What the devil is that gliding along yonder?" cried the man, in
Gaelic, and in a voice that betrayed considerable fear.

"Halt you there!" cried another, who was somewhat bolder. "Halt,
I say, and give an account of yourself."

John saw that there was now no mode of escaping the danger but by
boldly bearding it. He halted therefore, but still keeping deep within
the shade, he drew out his claymore, and placed his back to the church
wall to prepare for defence.

"Ha! steel!" cried the third fellow; "I heard it clash on the
stones of the wall, and I saw it bring a flash of fire out of them
too. Come, come, goodman, whoever you are--come out here, and give
us your claymore."

"He that will have it, must come and take it by the point," said John,
in Gaelic, and in a stern, hoarse, hollow voice; "and he had better
have iron gloves on, or he will find it too hot for his palms."

"What the devil does he mean?" said the first.

"We'll detain you as a runaway rebel," said the third.

"The boldest of men could not detain me," replied John, now recognising
the last speaker, by the moonlight on his face, as well as by his
voice. "But for a base traitor like you, Neil MacCallum, better were
it for you to be lying dead, like your brave brother, among the slain
on Drummosie Moor, than to encounter me here in this churchyard,
at such an hour as this!"

"In the name of wonder, how knows he my name?" exclaimed MacCallum
in a voice that quavered considerably.

"Oh, Neil! Neil!" cried the first speaker, in great dismay, "it is
no man! it is something most uncanny: For the love of God, parley
with it no farther!"

"Pshaw--nonsense!" exclaimed the second speaker. "Its a man, and
nothing else. Let us all rush upon him at once. Surely, if he were
the devil himself, three of us ought to be a match for him."

"I am the devil himself!" cried John Smith in a terrible voice, and at
the same time stalking slowly forth from the shadow, with the bloody
blade of his claymore before him, he strode into the moonlight, which
at once fully disclosed his hideous head-gear and ghastly features,
to which at the same time it gave a tenfold effect of horror.

"Oh, the devil!--the devil!--the devil!" cried the fellows, the moment
they thus beheld him; and, overpowered by their terror, they rushed
forward towards the churchyard wall, and threw themselves over it
pell-mell, tumbling higgledy-piggledy into the road, and scampering
out of sight and out of hearing in a moment, leaving John Smith sole
master of the field.

In the midst of all his miseries, John could not help laughing
heartily at the suddenness of their retreat. But gravity of mood came
quickly over him again, when he heard his laugh re-echoed--he knew not
how, as it were in a tone of mockery, from the old church walls. He
began to recollect where he was, and he half repented that he had so
indiscreetly used the name of Satan in the manner he had done.

"The Lord be about us!" ejaculated John most fervently, whilst his
knees smote against each other violently, and his jaws were stretched
to a fearful extent.

He felt that the shorter time he tarried in that uncanny place the
better it would be for his comfort; and, accordingly, he began to
move forward as quickly as he could towards a wicket gate, which he
well knew gave exit to the footpath at the other end of the churchyard.

John, now proceeding at what might rather be called an anxious
pace than a quick one, had very nearly reached the wicket, when his
eye caught a tall white figure, standing within a few yards of it,
and posted close by the path which he must necessarily pursue. The
moonshine enabled him to see a terrible face, with a huge mouth; and,
so far as his recollection of his own natural physiognomy went, derived
as it was from his shavings on Saturday nights ever since his chin had
required a razor, he felt persuaded that the countenance before him
was a fac-simile of his own. It was, moreover, very ghastly, and very
bloody. His eyes fixed themselves upon it with unconquerable dismay,
and he shook throughout every nerve, like the trembling poplar. But
that which most astonished and terrified him, as he gazed on this
apparition, was, the strange circumstance, that he could distinctly
perceive, that it had already assumed a head-gear precisely similar
to the very remarkable one which he had been so recently compelled
from necessity to adopt. On the summit of its crown appeared a huge
sod, with all its native plants upon it, and these waved to and fro
before him with something like portentous omen. John felt as if he
had only fled from the battle-field of Culloden to meet both death
and burial in this most unchancy churchyard, and if his knees smote
each other before, they now increased their reciprocal antagonist
action in a degree that was tenfold more striking. John felt persuaded
beyond a doubt, that the devil had been permitted thus to assume his
own appearance, and to come thus personally to reprove him for the
indiscreet use which he had made of his name. Sudden death seemed to
be about to fall on him. The grave appeared to be about to open to
receive his wounded and worn-out body. But these were evils which,
at that dreadful moment, John hardly recognized, for the jaws of the
Evil Spirit himself seemed to him to be slowly and terribly expanding
themselves to swallow up his sinful soul. Fain would John have fled,
but he was rivetted to the spot. No way suggested itself to his
distracted mind by which he could escape, and he well knew that he had
no way that led homewards to that spot where he looked for concealment
and safety, save that which went directly by the dreaded object before
him. For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat,
until at length, overpowered by his feelings, he dropped upon his
knees, and began putting up such snatches of prayer to Heaven, for
help against the powers of darkness, as his fears allowed him to utter.

As John thus sat on his knees, praying and quaking, his animal courage
so far returned to him as to permit him to observe that the object
of his terror remained unchanged and immovable. At length his mind
recovered itself to such an extent, as to enable him to revert to that
night of misery which he had so recently experienced, in beholding
that which he had believed to be the spirit of Dallas the packman,
and remembering how that matter had been cleared up by the appearance
of daylight, he began to reason with himself as to the possibility of
this being a somewhat similar case. Having thus so far reduced his
fears within the control of his reason, he summoned up resolution
to raise himself from his knees, and to advance one step nearer to
the phantom which had so long triumphed over the courage that was
within him. And, seeing that, notwithstanding this movement of his,
it still maintained its position, and uttered no sound, he ventured
to take a second step--and then a third step, until the truth, and
the whole truth, began gradually to dawn upon his eyes and his mind,
and then, at last, he discovered, to his very great relief, that the
horrible and much-dreaded demon whose appearance had so disturbed
and discomposed his nervous system, was no other than a tall old
tombstone, with a head so fearfully chisselled on the top of it, as
might have left it a very doubtful matter, even in the day-time, for
any one, however learned in such pieces of art, to have determined
whether the rustic sculptor had intended it for a death's-head or
a cherubim. Some idle artist of the brush, in passing by that way
with a pot full of red paint, prepared for giving a temporary glory
to a new cart about to be turned out from a neighbouring wright's
shop, had paused as he passed by, and exhausted the full extent of
his small talents in communicating to the countenance that bloody
appearance, the effect of which had so much appalled John Smith,
and some waggish schoolboy had finished the figure, by tearing up a
sod covered with plants of various kinds, and clapping it on its top,
so as thereby very much to augment its artificial terrors. John Smith
drew a long breath of inconceivable relief on making this discovery,
and then darting through the wicket, he pursued his journey with as
much expedition as his weakness and fatigue permitted him to use.

John walked on for some hour or twain with very determined resolution,
but at length the great loss of blood he had experienced, brought on so
unconquerable a drowsiness, that he felt he must have a little rest,
were it but for a few minutes, even if his taking it should be at
the risk of his life. John was never wont to be very particular as
to the place where he made his bed, but on the present occasion it
happened, probably from the blood-vessels of his body having been
so much drained, that he had a most unpleasant chill upon him. He
felt as if ice itself was shooting and crystallizing through every
vein and artery within him. Then the night had become somewhat raw,
and he had left his plaid, which is a Highlander's second house,
on the fatal field of battle. Under all these circumstances, John
was seized with a resistless desire to enjoy the luxury of sleep for
a short time, under the shelter of a roof, and in the vicinity of a
good peat fire. Calling to mind that there was an humble turf-built
cottage in a hollow a little way farther on, by the side of a small
rushy, mossy stream, he made the best of his way towards it.

The house consisted of three small apartments, one in the middle
of it, opposite to the outer door, and one at either end, which had
their entrances from that in the centre. When John came to the brow
of the bank that looked down upon this humble dwelling, he was by no
means sorry to perceive that the middle apartment had a good blazing
fire in it, as he could easily see through the window and outer door,
which last chanced to be invitingly open. John, altogether forgetful
of his uncouth and terrific appearance, lost not a moment in availing
himself of this lucky circumstance. But he had no sooner presented
his awful spectral form and visage within the threshold, than he
spread instantaneous terror over the group assembled within.

"Oh, a ghost! a ghost!" cried out in Gaelic a pale-faced girl of some
eight or nine years of age, as she dropped on her knees, shaken by
terror in every limb and feature.

"Oh, the devil! the devil!" roared an old man and woman, who also
sank down before John, bellowing out like frightened cattle. "Och,
och! we shall all be swallowed up quick by the Evil One!"

"Fear nothing," said John Smith, in a mild tone, and in the same
tongue. "I am but a poor wounded and wearied man. I only want to lie
down and rest me a little, if you will be so charitable as to grant
me leave."

"Wounded!" said the old man, rising from his knees, somewhat reassured;
"where were you wounded?"

"In the head here," said John, with a stare that again somewhat
disconcerted the old man; "and if it had not been for this peat that
I clapped on my skull, I believe my very brains would have been all
out of me."

"Mercy on us, where got ye such a mischance as that?" exclaimed the
old woman.

"At Culloden, I'll be sworn," said the old man.

"Aye, aye, it was at Culloden," replied John. "But, if ye be
Christians, give me a drink of warm milk and water, to put away this
shivering thirst that is on me, and let me lie down in a warm bed
for half an hour."

"Och aye, poor man, ye shall not want a drop of warm milk and water,
and such a bed as we can give you," said the old woman, moving about
to prepare the drink for him.

"Thank ye--thank ye!" said John, much refreshed and comforted by
swallowing the thin but hot potation. And then following the old
man into the inner apartment on the right hand, he sank down in a
darksome nook of it, on a pallet among straw, and covering himself up,
turf, nightcap and all, under a coarse blanket, he was sound asleep
before the old man had withdrawn the light, and shut the door of his
clay chamber.

"Oh that our boys were back again safe and sound!" cried the old woman,
wringing her hands.

"Safe and sound I fear we cannot expect them to be, Janet," replied
the old man. "But oh that we had them back again, though it was to
see them wounded as badly as that poor fellow! Much do I fear that
they are both corpses on Drummossie Moor."

"What will become of us!" cried the old woman, weeping bitterly; "what
will become of this poor motherless lassie now, if her father be gone?"

But, leaving this aged couple to complain, and John Smith to enjoy his
repose, we must now return to poor Morag, whom, as you may recollect,
gentlemen, we left hunted into covert by the two dragoons who had so
closely pursued her. The patch of natural wood into which she dived
was not large. It chiefly consisted of oaks and birches, which, though
they had grown to a considerable size in certain parts, so that their
wide-spreading heads had kept the knolls on which their stems stood,
altogether free from the incumbrance of any kind of brushwood,--had
yet in most places risen up thinner and smaller, leaving ample room
and air around them to support thickets of the tallest broom and
juniper bushes.

It chanced that Morag was not altogether unacquainted with the
nature of the place, having at one time, in earlier life, been hired
to tend the cows of a farmer at no great distance from it. She was
well aware that a rill, which had its origin in the higher grounds
at some distance, came wimpling into the upper part of the wood, and
thence, during its descent over the sloping surface of the ground,
from its having met with certain obstructions, or from some other
cause, it had worn itself a channel through the soft soil, to the
depth of some six feet or so, but which was yet so narrow, that the
ferns and bushes growing out of the undermined sods that fringed the
edges of it, almost entirely covered it with one continued tangled
and matted arch. Towards this rill Morag endeavoured to make her
way through the tall broom, and, as she was doing so, she heard the
dismounted trooper, who had by this time entered the wood after her,
calling to his comrade, who sat mounted outside:

"Bill! do you padderowl round the wood, and keep a sharp look out that
she don't bolt without your seeing her. I'll follow arter her here,
and try if I can't lay my hands on her; and if I do but chance to
light on her, be she witch or devil, I'll drag her out of her covert
by the scruff of the neck."

Morag heard no more than this.--She pressed forward towards the bed of
the rill, and having reached it, she stopped, like a chased doe, one
moment to listen, and hearing that the curses, as well as the crashing
of the jack-boots of her pursuer, as yet indicated that he was still at
some distance behind her, and evidently much entangled in his progress,
she carefully shed the pendulous plants of the ferns asunder, and then
slid herself gently down into the hollow channel. There finding her
feet safely planted on the bottom, she cautiously and silently groped
her way along the downward course of the rill, through the dark and
confined passage which it had worn out for its tiny stream. In this
way she soon came to the lower edge of the wood, where the hollow
channel became deeper, and where it assumed more of the character
of a ravine, but where it was still skirted with occasional oaks,
mingled with thickets of birches, hazels, and furze bushes.

Morag was about to emerge from the obscurity of this subterranean
arch, into the more open light, when, as she looked out, she beheld
the mounted trooper standing on his stirrups on the top of the bank,
eagerly gazing around him in all directions. The furze there grew too
thick and high for him to be able to force his way down to the bottom
of the ravine, even if he had accidently observed her. But his eyes
were directed to higher and more distant objects, and seeing that she
had been as yet unperceived, she instantly drew so far back, as to be
beyond all reach of his observation,--whilst she could perfectly well
watch him, so long as he maintained his present position. She listened
for the crashing strides of him who was engaged in searching the wood
for her. For a time they came faint and distant to her ear, but, by
degrees, they began to come nearer,--and then again the sound would
alternately diminish and increase, as he turned away in some other
direction, fighting through the opposing boughs, and then came beating
his way back again, in the same manner, with many a round oath. At
length she heard him raging forward in the direction of the rill, at
some forty yards above the place where she was, blaspheming as he went.

"Ten thousand devils!" cried he; "such a place as this I never se'ed
in all my life afore. If my heyes beant nearly whipt out of my head
with them 'ere blasted broom shafts, my name aint Tom Wetherby! Dang
it, there again! that whip has peeled the very skin off my cheek, and
made both my heyes run over with water like mill-sluices--I wonder
at all where this she-devil can be hidden? Curse her! Do you think,
Bill, that she can raaly have ridden off through the hair, as they
do say they do? But for a matter of that, she may be here somewhere
after all, for my heyes be so dimmed, that, dang me an' I could see
her if she were to rise up afore my very face. How they do smart
with pain! Oh! Lord, where am I going?" cried he, as he went smack
down through the ferns and brush into the concealed bed of the rill,
and was laid prostrate on his back in the narrow clayey bottom of it,
in such a position that it defied him to rise.

"Hollo Bill!" cried he, from the bowels of the earth, in a voice which
reached his comrade as if he had spoken with a pillow on his mouth,
but which rang with terrible distinctness down the hollow natural
tube to the spot where Morag was concealed. "Hollo!--help!--help!"

"What a murrain is the matter with ye?" cried Bill, very much
astonished.

"I've fallen plump into the witches' den!--into the very bottomless
pit!--Hollo!--hollo! Help!--help!" cried the fallen trooper from
the abyss.

"How the plague am I to get to ye if so be the pit be
bottomless?" cried Bill, in a drawling tone, that did not argue
much promise of any zealous exertion of effective aid on the part of
the speaker.

"Curse ye, come along quickly, or I shall be smothered in this here
infernal, dark, outlandish place," cried Tom Wetherby.

"Well,--well," replied Bill, with the same long-drawn tone of
philosophic indifference, "I'm a coming--I'm a coming. But you must
keep chaunting out from the bottom of that bottomless pit of yours, do
you hear, Tom, else I shall never find you in that 'ere wilderness. And
how the devil I am to get into it is more than I know."

The dragoon turned his horse very leisurely away, to look for some
place where he could best quit his saddle, in order to make good his
entrance on foot into the thicket. The moment the quick eyes of Morag
perceived that he had disappeared from his station on the brow of the
bank, she crept forth from her concealment, and keeping her way down
through the shallow stream, that her footsteps might leave no prints
behind them, she stole off, until she was beyond all hearing of the
two dragoons. Then it was that Morag began to ply her utmost speed,
and, after following the ravine until it expanded into a small and
partially wooded glen, she hurried on through it, until at length she
found herself emerging on the lower and more open country. Afraid of
being seen, she made a long circuitous sweep through some rough broomy
waste ground of considerable extent, towards a distant hummock, with
the shape of which she was familiar, and having thus gained a part of
the country with which she was acquainted, though it was still very
distant from her present home, she hailed the descent of the shades
of night with great satisfaction.

Under their protection she proceeded on her way with great alacrity,
and without apprehension, though with a torn heart, that made her
every now and then stop to give full vent to her grief for John
Smith, of whose death she had so little reason to doubt, from all the
circumstances she had heard. At length, fatigue came so powerfully upon
her, that she was not sorry to perceive, as she was about to descend
into a hollow, the light of a cheerful fire, that blazed through the
window of a turf-built cottage, and was reflected on the surface of
a rushy stream, that ran lazily through the bottom near to it. The
door was shut, but Morag descended the path that led towards it,
and knocked without scruple.

An old man and woman came immediately to open it, and looked out
eagerly, as if for some one whose coming they had expected, and
disappointment seemed to cloud their brows, when they found only her
who was a stranger to them. Morag, addressing them in Gaelic, entreated
for leave to rest herself for half an hour by their fireside. She was
admitted, after some hesitation and whispering between them, after
which she craved a morsel of oaten cake, and a draught of water. A
little girl, of some eight or nine years old, waited not to know her
granny's will, but ran to a cupboard for the cake; and brought it
to her, and then hastened to fill a bowl with water from a pitcher
that stood in a corner. The old couple would have fain pumped out
of Morag something of her history, and they put many questions to
her for that purpose. But she was too shrewd for them, and all they
could gather from her was, that she had been away seeing her friends
a long way off, and that she had first rode, and then walked so far,
that she was glad of a little rest, and a morsel to allay her hunger,
after which she would be enabled to continue her journey, with many
thanks to them for their hospitality.

Morag had not sat there for many minutes, when there came a rap to
the door. The old man sprang up to open it, and immediately three
Highlanders appeared, full armed with claymores and dirks, but very
much jaded and soiled with travel. Morag retired into a corner.

"Och, Ian! Ian!"--"Och, Hamish! Hamish!" cried the old couple,
embracing two of them, who appeared to be their sons; and, "Oh,
father! father!" cried the little girl, springing into Ian's arms.

"Tuts, don't be foolish, Kirstock!" cried Ian, in a surly tone, as
he shook off the little girl; "What's the use of all this nonsense,
father?--Better for you to be getting something for us and our comrade
MacCallum here to drink. We are almost famished for want;" and with
that he threw himself into the old man's wooden arm-chair.

"Aye, aye, father," said Hamish, occupying the seat where his mother
had sat, and motioning to MacCallum to take that which Morag had just
left; "we have had a sad tramp away from the battle. Would we had
never gone near it! Aye, and we got such a fright into the bargain."

"Fright!" cried the old man much excited; "Surely, surely, my sons
are not cowards!--Much as I love you, boys, I would rather that you
had both died than run away."

"Oh!" said MacCallum, now joining in the conversation, "we all three
fought like lions in the battle. But it requires nerves harder than
steel to look upon the Devil, and if ever he was seen on earth,
we saw him this precious night."

"Preserve us all!" said the old woman; "what was he like?"

"Never mind what he was like, mother," said Ian gruffly; "let us have
some of your bread and cheese, and a drop of Uisge-beatha to put some
heart in us."

"You shall have all that I have to give you, boys," said the old
man; "but that is not much. I would have fain given a sup out of the
bottle to the poor wounded man that came in here, a little time ago;
but I bethought me that you might want it all, and so we sent him to
his bed with a cup of warm milk and water."

"Bed, did you say?" cried Ian. "What! one of Prince Charley's men?"

"Surely, surely!" said the old man. "Troth, I should have been any
thing but fond of letting in any one else but a man who had fought
on the same side with yourselves."

"Don't speak of our having fought on Charley's side, father," said
Ian; "that's not to be boasted of now. The fruits of fighting for
him have been nothing but danger and starvation, so far as we have
gathered them; and now we have no prospect before us but the risk of
hanging. Methinks you would have shewn more wisdom if you had sent
this fellow away from your door. To have us three hunted men here,
is enough to make the place too hot, without bringing in another to
add to the fire."

"Never mind, Ian," said MacCallum; "why may we not make our own of
him? You know very well that John MacAllister told us that he could
make our peace, and save our lives, if we could only prove our loyalty
to the King, by bringing in a rebel or two."

"Very true," said Hamish; "and an excellent advice it was."

"Most excellent," said Ian; "and if we act wisely, and as I advise,
this fellow shall be our first peace-offering."

"Oh, boys, boys!" cried the old man; "would you buy your own lives
by treachery of so black a die?"

"Oh, life is sweet!" cried the old woman--"and the lives of my
bairns----"

"Hold your foolish tongue, woman!" interrupted the old man. "No, no,
boys! I'll never consent to it."

"Oh life is sweet! life is sweet!" cried the old woman again; "and
the lives of both my bonny boys--the life of Ian, the father of this
poor lassie!----"

"Oh, my father's life!" whimpered the little girl.

"This is no place to talk of such things," said the old man, leading
the way into the apartment at the opposite end of the house, to that
where John Smith was sleeping, and followed by all but Morag, who,
having slipped towards the door, to listen after he had closed it,
heard him say, "What made you speak that way before the stranger lass?"

"Who and what is she at all?" demanded Ian.

"A poor tired lass, weary with the long way she has been to see her
friends," said the old woman; "but she'll be gone very soon."

"If she does not go of her own accord, we must take strong measures
with her too," said Ian.

"God forgive you, boys, what would you do?" said the old man. "Let
not the Devil tempt you thus. Would you bring foul treason upon
this humble, but hitherto spotless shed of mine, by violating the
sacred rights of hospitality to a woman, and by giving up a man to an
ignominious death, who, upon the faith of it, is now soundly sleeping
under my roof, in the other end of the house? Fye, fye, boys! I tell
you plainly I will be a party to no such wickedness."

"So you would rather be a party to assist in hanging Hamish and me,
your own flesh and blood?" said Ian. "But you need be no party to
either; for we shall take all the guilt of this fellow's death upon
ourselves."

"You shall never do this foul treason, if I can prevent it," said
the old man, with determination.

"Poof!" said Ian, "how could you prevent us?"

"By rousing the man to defend himself," said the father rather
unguardedly.

"Ha! say you so?" cried Ian. "What! would you rouse up an armed man
to fight against your own children? Then must we take means to prevent
your so doing."

"Oh, Ian!" cried the old woman. "Oh, Hamish! Oh, boys! boys!"

"What! what! what boys!" cried the old man with great excitement,
whilst there was a sound of feet as of a struggle. "Would you lay
your impious hands upon your own father?"

"Oh, don't hurt poor granny!" cried the little girl, in the bitterest
tone of grief.

"Be quiet, I tell you, Kirstock!" cried Ian, in an angry tone. "Hold
out of my way, mother! We'll do him no harm! we are only going to
bind him that he may not interfere."

"Boys, boys!" cried the old man; "you have been tempted by the
Devil! There is no wonder that you should have seen him once to-night;
and I should not wonder if he was to appear to you again, for you
seem resolved to be his children, and not mine."

"Sit down--sit down quietly in this chair," said Ian; "sit down, I
say quietly, and let MacCallum put the rope about you. By the great
oath you had better!"

"Oh, boys!" cried the old woman; "Och, Hamish! Och, Ian."

Morag hardly waited to hear so much of this dialogue as I have given,
when she resolved to be the means, if possible, of saving the life
of the poor wounded man, whom the wretches had thus determined
so traitorously to give up to the tender mercies of the Duke of
Cumberland. She had her hand upon the door of the chamber where he
slept, in order to go in and rouse him, when she remembered that,
in this way, her own safety was almost certain to be compromised. She
therefore immediately adopted a plan, which she considered might be
equally effectual for her purpose as regarded the stranger, whilst
it would leave to herself some chance of escape. Slipping on tiptoe
to the outer door, she quietly opened it, and, letting herself out,
she moved quickly round the house, towards a little window belonging
to the room at that end of it, where she knew the wounded man was
lying. It consisted of two small panes of glass, placed in a frame
that moved inwards upon hinges. She put her ear to it, but no sound
reached her save that of deep snoring. Morag pushed gently against
the frame, and it yielded to the pressure. Having inserted her head,
and looked eagerly about, in the hope of descrying the sleeper, by
the partial stream of moonlight that was admitted into the place,
she could discover nothing but the heap of straw in the bedstead in
a dark corner, where, wrapped in a blanket, he lay so buried as to be
altogether invisible. She called to him, at first in a low voice, and
afterwards in a somewhat louder tone, till at length she awaked him.

"Who is there?" demanded he in Gaelic.

"Rise! rise, and escape!" said she, in a low but distinct voice,
and in the same language; "Your liberty! your life is in danger! Up,
up, and fly from this house!" Having said this, she retreated her
head a little from the window, to watch the effect of her warning,
so that the moon shone brightly upon her countenance, and completely
illuminated every feature of it.

There was a quick rustling noise among the straw, and then she heard
the slow heavy step of the man within. Suddenly a head was thrust
out of the window, and the moonbeam falling fully upon it, disclosed
to the terrified eyes of Morag, the features of John Smith--pale,
bloody, and death-like, with all the fearful appendages which he bore,
the whole combination being such as to leave not a doubt in her mind
that she beheld his ghost. With one shrill scream, which she could
not control, she vanished in a moment from before the window. John
Smith, filled in his turn with superstitious awe, as well as with
the strangeness of the manner in which he had been roused from the
deep sleep into which he had been plunged,--and struck by the well
known though hollow voice in which he had been addressed--the solemn
warning which he had received, and, above all, the distinct, though
most unaccountable appearance of Morag, with whose features he was
so perfectly acquainted--together with the wild and sudden manner in
which the vision had departed--all tended to convince him that the
whole was a supernatural visitation. For some moments his powers of
action were suspended; but steps and voices in the outer apartment
speedily recalled his presence of mind. He drew his claymore, summoned
up his resolution, and banging up the door with one kick of his foot,
he took a single stride into the middle of the floor. The fire was
still blazing, and it threw on his terrible figure the full benefit of
its light. The three villains having tied the old man into his chair,
and locked him and his wife and grandchild into the place where their
conference was held, had been at that moment preparing to steal in
upon the sleeping stranger. Suddenly they beheld the same apparition
which they had seen in the churchyard, burst from the very room which
they were about to enter. The threatening words of the old man recurred
to them all.

"Oh, the devil! the devil! the devil!" cried the terrified group,
and bearing back upon one another, they tripped, and, in one moment,
all their heels were dancing the strangest possible figures in the
air, to the music of their own mingled screams and yells. You will
easily believe, gentlemen, that John Smith tarried not a moment
to inquire after their bruises, but pushing up the outer door, and
slapping it to after him, he again pursued his way towards the farm
of the Pensassenach.

Winged by her fears, and in dreadful apprehension that the ghost
of John Smith was still following her, Morag flew with an unnatural
swiftness and impetus. She was quite unconscious of noticing any of
the familiar objects by the way; yet, by a species of instinct, she
reached home, in so short a time, that she could hardly believe her
own senses. But still in dreadful fear of the ghost, she thundered
at the door, and roared out to her mistress for admittance. The
kind-hearted Pensassenach had been sitting up in a state of the
cruellest anxiety regarding Morag, of whose intended expedition she
had received no inkling, nor had she been informed of her departure,
until long after she was gone. She no sooner heard her voice, and
her knock, than she hastened to admit her.

"Foolish girl that you are!" said she, "I am thankful to see you
alive. My stars and garters, what a draggled figure you are!--But
come away into this room here, and let me hear all you have to tell me
about the battle. The rebels were defeated, were they not?--eh?--Why,
what is the matter with the girl? she pants as if she was dying. Sit
down, sit down, child, and compose yourself; you look for all the
world as if you had seen a ghost."

"Och, och, memm!--och, hoch!" replied the girl very much appalled,
that her mistress should thus, as she thought, so immediately see
the truth written in her very face. "Och, hoch! an' a ghaist Morag
has surely seen. Has ta ghaist put her mark upon her face?--Och,
hoch! she'll ne'er won ower wi't!"

"The poor girl's head has been turned by the horrible scenes of
carnage she has witnessed," said the Pensassenach.

"Och, hoch!" said Morag, with her hands on her knees, and rocking to
and fro with nervous agitation; "terrible sights! terrible sights,
surely, surely!"

"Here, my poor Morag," said the Pensassenach, after she had dropped
into a cup a small quantity of some liquid nostrum of her own, from
a phial, hastily taken from a little medicine chest, and added some
water to it, "drink this, my good girl!"

"Och, hoch!" said Morag, after she had swallowed it; "she thinks she
sees ta ghaist yet."

"What ghost did you see?" demanded the Pensassenach.

"Och, hoch! Och, hoch, memm!" replied Morag, trembling more than ever;
"Shon Smiss ghaist; Shon Smiss, as sure as Morag is in life, an'
ta leddy stannin' in ta body tare afore her e'en."

"John Smith's ghost!" cried the Pensassenach. "Pooh, nonsense! But
again I ask you, how went the battle? The rumour is, that the rebels
have been signally defeated, and all cut to pieces."

"Och, hoch! is tat true?" said Morag, weeping. "Och, hoch, poor
Shon Smiss!"

"Did you not see the rout?" demanded the Pensassenach. "Did you not
witness the battle, and behold the glorious triumph of the royal army?"

"Och, hoch, no!" replied the girl. "Morag saw nae pattals, nor naesin'
but hearin' terrible shots o' guns, an' twa or sree red cotted sodgers
tat pursued her for her life."

"Well, well!" replied the Pensassenach; "Come now! tell me your
whole history."

Morag's nerves being now somewhat composed, she gave her mistress
as clear an outline as she could, of all that had befallen her. The
Pensassenach dropped some tears, to mingle with those which Morag
shed, when she recounted the evidence of John Smith's death, which
she felt to be but too probably true. But when she came to talk of
the ghost, she did all she could to laugh the girl out of her fears,
insisting with her that she had been deceived by terror and weakness,
and seeing how much the poor girl was worn out, she desired her to
take some refreshment, and to go to bed directly; and she had no
sooner retired, than the Pensassenach prepared to follow her example.

Morag, overcome with the immense fatigue she had undergone, had not
strength left to undo much more than half her dress, when she dropped
down on her bed, and fell over into a slumber. She had been lying
in this state for fully half an hour or more, during part of which
she had been dreaming of John Smith, mixed up with many a strange
incident, with all of which his slaughter, and his pale countenance
and bloody figure were invariably connected, when she was awaked by
a tapping at the window of her apartment, which was upon the ground
floor. She looked up and stared, but the moon was by this time gone
down, and all without was dark as pitch.

"Morag! Morag!" cried John Smith, who knowing well where she slept,
went naturally to her window to get her to come round and give him
admission to the house, and yet at the same time half doubting,
after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he
believed to be her wraith, that he could hardly expect to find her
alive. "Morag! Morag!" cried he again in his faint hollow voice.

"Och, Lord have mercy upon me, there it is!" cried Morag, in her native
tongue, and shaking from head to foot with terror. "Who is there?"

"Its me, your own Ian," cried John, in a tender tone. "Let me in,
Morag, for the love of God!"

"Och, Ian, Ian!" cried Morag. "Och, Ian, my darling dear Ian! are you
sure that it is really yourself in real flesh and blood?--for I have
got such a fright already this night. But if it really and truly be
you, go round to the door and I'll be with you in a minute. Och, och,
the Lord be praised, if it really be him after all!"

Trembling, and agitated with the numerous contrary emotions of hope,
fear, and joy, by which she was assailed, Morag sprang out of bed,
lighted her lamp, hurried on just enough of her clothes as might make
her decent in the eyes of her lover, and with her bosom heaving, and
her heart beating, as if it would have burst through her side, she
ran to unlock the outer door. Her lamp flashed on the fearful figure
without. She again beheld the horrible spectre which had so recently
terrified her, and believing that it was John Smith's ghost which
she saw, and that it had followed her home to corroborate the fatal
tidings she had heard regarding his death, which had been already so
much strengthened by her dreams, she uttered a piercing shriek, and
fainted away on the floor. The shriek alarmed the Pensassenach, who
was not yet in bed. Hastily throwing a wrapper over her deshabille,
she seized her candle, and proceeded down stairs with all speed, and
was led by John's voice of lamentation to the kitchen, whither he had
carried Morag in his arms, and where the lady found him tearing his
hair, or rather the heathery turf which then appeared to be doing
duty for it, in the very extremity of mental agony. It is strange
how the same things, seen under different aspects and circumstances,
will produce the most opposite effects. There being nothing now
about John Smith, or his actions, that did not savour of humanity,
but his extraordinary head-dress, the Pensassenach had no doubt that
it was the real bodily man that she saw before her, she perceived
nothing but what was powerfully ludicrous in his strange costume,
the absurdity of which was heightened by his agonizing motions and
attitudes, and exclamations of intense anxiety about Morag, whose
fainting-fit gave no uneasiness to a woman of her experience. The
Pensassenach laughed heartily, and then hurried away for a bunch
of feathers to burn under Morag's nose, by which means she quickly
brought her out of her swoon, and by a little explanation she speedily
restored her to the full possession of her reason. This accomplished,
the Pensassenach entirely forgot John Smith's wretched appearance, in
the eagerness of her inquiries regarding the result of the engagement.

"How went the battle, John?" demanded she. "We heard the guns,
but the cannonade did not last long. The victory was soon gained,
and it was with the right cause, was it not?"

"Woe, woe! Oich, oich!" cried John, in a melancholy tone, and shaking
his head in utter despair. "Oich, oich, her head is sore, sore."

"Very true, very true!" cried the compassionate Pensassenach. "I had
forgotten you altogether, shame on me! Ah! poor fellow, how bloody
you are about the face! You must be grievously wounded."

"Troth she be tat," said John Smith. "She has gotten a wicked slash
on ta croon, tat maist spleeted her skull. An' she wad hae peen dead
lang or noo an it had na peen for tiss ponny peat plaister tat she
putten tilt. Morag tak' her awa' noo, for she has toon her turn,
and somesing lighter may serve."

"Och, hoch, hoch, tat is fearsome," said Morag, after she had removed
the clod from John's head. "She mak's Morag sick ta vera sight o't."

"Oich, but tat be easy noo," said John. "Hech, she was joost like an
if she had been carryin' a' ta hill o' Lethen Bar on her head."

"Poor fellow, poor fellow!" cried the Pensassenach, "that is a fearful
cut indeed. But I don't think the skull is fractured. How and where
did you get this fearful wound?"

"Fare mony a petter man's got more," replied John, yielding up his
head into the affectionate hands of Morag, who was now so far recovered
as to be able to look more narrowly at it.

"Oich, oich, fat a head!" cried the affectionate and feeling girl,
shuddering and growing pale, and then bursting into an agony of tears,
as she looked upon his gaping wound. "Oich, oich, she'll never do
good more! She canna leeve ava, ava!"

"Tut, tut!" cried John, with a ghastly smile, that was meant to
reassure Morag. "Fat nonsense, tat Morag pe speak! An' she pe traivel
a' ta way hame so far, fat for wad she pe deein' noo tat she is
at hame?"

"Alas, poor fellow!" said the Pensassenach, as she was directing
Morag to bind up his head, "I wish I may be able to make this your
home. After all our losses and sufferings for our loyalty by those
marauding rascals, three days ago, we shall next run the risk of
being punished for harbouring a rebel. But no matter. Happen what may,
you have large claims upon me, John, and as long as Morag can conceal
you here you shall be safe. You have been so short a time away that
few people can be aware of it, and still fewer can know the cause of
your absence."

What the Pensassenach said was true, for as most of her people had run
away when the Highland party appeared, there were few who certainly
knew the cause of John Smith's absence, and those few who did know
were not very likely to tell any thing about it. Trusting to this,
she gave out that she had sent him after the rebels, to keep an eye on
her husband's horses, and to endeavour to recover them if he could,
and that, in making this attempt, he had received his wound. To give
the better colour to this story, she called her people together, and
offered a handsome reward to such of them as would go immediately and
try to find and bring back the horses, telling them that John Smith
could describe to them whereabouts they were most likely to fall in
with them, he having, at one time, actually got possession of most of
them, but that they had escaped from him, having been scared away by
the thundering of the artillery. But not a man of them would venture
upon such a search among the gibbets, where, as they were told,
so many of their murdered countrymen were still hanging, and where,
without much inquiry or ceremony, any one who might go on such an
errand might be tucked up to swing in company with them. Every hour
increased this terror, by bringing accounts of fresh executions, and
indeed the fears of the Pensassenach's men turned out to be by no means
groundless, for it is a truth but too well known, that many innocent
servants who were sent to seek their master's horses never returned.

The Pensassenach did not suffer for her kindness in thus protecting
John Smith; and she and her husband were ultimately no losers from the
havoc which the Highlanders committed on their farm. Their damage was
reported to the Duke of Cumberland, and the lady's conduct having been
highly extolled, as that of a very loyal Englishwoman, who had been
thus persecuted for the open expression of her sentiments, the most
ample remuneration was assigned to her by the government.

John Smith, nursed as he was by Morag, soon recovered. After he was
quite restored to health, he only waited until he could scrape a little
money together to enable him to furnish a cottage, ere he should make
her his wife. The penetration of the Pensassenach soon enabled her
to discover how matters stood between them, and she found means to
make all smooth for them in the manner which was most flattering to
John, that is, by presenting him with a very handsome purse of money,
as a reward for the eminent services he had rendered her. John was
so proud of the purse that he did not know whether most to value
it or the gold pieces it contained, and much as he loved Morag,
and eager as he was for their union, he had some doubt whether he
could ever bring himself to part, even with one of those pretty
pieces which he so respected for the Pensassenach's sake. And,
alas, as it so happened, he was never called upon to spend them as
it was intended they should have been spent. Fain would I have made
my story end happily, gentlemen; but, as I am narrating a piece of
actual history, I must be verawcious. John had made all preparation
for their marriage, when, alas, Morag was seized with some acute
complaint about the region of the heart and lungs, which all the
medical attendants that the Pensassenach could command could not
fathom or relieve. John watched her with the tenderest and most
unremitting solicitude. But it pleased God that his unwearied care
of her, should not be blessed with the same happy result, which hers
had been with regard to him, for after a long and lingering illness,
poor Morag died on the very day she should have been his bride. The
probability was, that the unheard of fatigue of body, and agitation
of mind, which she underwent during her heroic expedition in search
of her lover, had produced some fatal organic change within her.

John Smith was inconsolable for the loss of Morag. For some time he
was more like a walking clod than a man. Even the kind attempts of
his master and mistress to rouse him were unavailing. When at length
he was able to go about his usual duties on the farm, to do which his
honest regard for his employer's interest stimulated him, he suffered
so much mental agony from the painful recollections which every object
around him suggested to his mind, that he felt he could no longer go
rationally about his master's affairs. Being at last convinced that he
was in danger of falling into utter and hopeless despair, he came to
the resolution of enlisting in the army, and having once formed this
determination, he went through a very touching scene of parting with
the kind Pensassenach and her husband, and shouldering his small kitt,
he went and joined the gallant Forty-Second, then the Black Watch. He
served with distinguished approbation in all the actions in which that
brave corps was in his time engaged. He was made a serjeant at Bunker's
Hill; and after time had in some degree assuaged his affliction, he
married a very active, intelligent, and economical woman, with whose
aid he undertook to keep the regimental mess. John could neither read
nor write, and he always spoke English imperfectly. But his clever wife
enabled him to carry on the business for so many years, with so much
credit to himself, and so successfully, that he ultimately retired with
her at an advanced period of life, with the enjoyment of his pension,
and such an accumulation of fortune as made him perfectly comfortable.

I knew John well. He was a warm-hearted man, and always remarkable
for his uprightness and integrity, and especially for a strict
determination to keep his word, whatever it might cost him so to do. As
an instance of this, I may mention, that having on one occasion had
a serious illness, in which he was given up by the doctor, he made
a will, in which he left many small legacies to poor people. John
recovered, but he thought it his duty to keep his word, and he paid
the legacies. To me, and to my brother, who lived in one of his
houses while we were at the school of Nairn, he acted the part of a
kind friend and guardian. He was perhaps too kind and indulgent to
us, indeed. No one dared to him to impute a fault to us, even when
we were guilty. I remember that he had a large garden, well stocked
with fruit trees, and gooseberry bushes. Often has the good old man
sent me into it, to steal fruit for myself and brother, whilst he
watched at the door, lest his wife might surprise and detect me. Many
is the time that I have listened to him, with boyish wonder, as, with
lightning in his eye, he fought over again his battles of Culloden,
Bunker's Hill, and Ticonderoga.

As John had no children, his intended heir was a nephew. His greatest
desire in life was to marry him to a grand-daughter of his old
departed benefactress, the Pensassenach. He offered to settle his
whole fortune, which was not small, on the young lady, if she would
only marry his nephew; and John's wife did all in her power to back
up the proposal. But although the nephew was a good, well-doing lad,
he was not the man to take the young woman's fancy; and so the match
never took place.








CRUELTY OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND AFTER THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN.


Clifford.--Is it possible that the Duke of Cumberland could have
authorized such atrocities, as the hanging up innocent servants in
the way you describe, Mr. Macpherson?

Dominie.--I am afraid that what I have asserted is but too true, sir.

Author.--I am sorry to say, that I am in possession of a document
which but too satisfactorily proves, that he did give most cruel
orders. It is an orderly book of the thirty-seventh regiment, which
was called Cholmondeley's Regiment; and in that I find, in the
general orders, dated "The Camp at Enwerness, Aprill 17th, 1746,"
the following entry:--"A captain and fifty foot to march directly,
and vizt all the cothidges in the naberhod of the field of batall,
and to search for rebbels, the officers and men will take notiss,
that the pubilick orders of the rabells yesterday was to give us no
quarters." This, I think, was a pretty broad hint to the men and the
officer commanding them, what it was that the Duke expected of them.

Grant.--Very distinct, indeed.

Author.--Not to be mistaken, I think.

Clifford.--Is there anything existing to establish that any such
order was given by the Prince, previous to the battle, as that to
which the Duke here alludes?

Author.--Not a vestige of any thing that I am aware of. But if
such orders had been given by the Prince, that circumstance would
have afforded no apology for him to have issued the order I have
now repeated to you, after the battle was over, and the enemy so
effectually cut to pieces in the field. Nothing, I think, could more
mark a sanguinary temper than his thus letting loose a body of men,
to visit all the neighbouring cottages, and to put to death, in cold
blood, all whom his ignorant and bloodthirsty myrmidons might choose
to consider as rebels. The slaughter in this way, of the innocent as
well as of the guilty, was said to have been immense.

Clifford.--The picture is horrible!

Grant.--It is horrible to think of it, even at this great distance
of time, seated comfortably, as I am at this moment, in this great
oaken arm-chair.

Serjeant.--And a comfortable arm-chair that is, sir; and many a good
day and queer night has it seen. If I am not mistaken, that was old
Alister Shaw of Inchrory's very chair.

Author.--Ay--who was Alister Shaw, Archy?

Serjeant.--Faith, sir, he was a queer tough little fellow,
Inchrory--for by that name he was always best known in the country--as
proud as a bantam cock on his own midden-head. The body cared not
for the King. I have two or three curious little anecdotes about him,
which I can tell you and the gentlemen, if you have no objections.

Clifford.--Objections, Mr Serjeant! I, the secretary, desire that
you shall tell them, without another moment's delay.

Serjeant.--Aweel, aweel, sir! I'll do that at your bidding. I'm not
accustomed to disobey the adjutant.








ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY.


It happened one day, gentlemen, that the Earl of Fife was travelling
up this glen, on his way over to his house of Mar Lodge, in Braemar,
and having stopped at Caochan-Seirceag over by yonder, he sent one
of his people across the meadow here, to tell Inchrory that he meant
to honour him with a visit. The gentleman knocked at the door, was
admitted by the goodwife, and ushered into Inchrory's presence. He
found him seated in his arm-chair, in the position which he always
occupied, that is, on the most comfortable side of the fire.

"Good day to you, Inchrory," said the gentleman, bowing.

"The same to you sir," said Inchrory, bowing his head very grandly
and ceremoniously, but without stirring.

"My Lord the Earl of Fife, who is halting at Caochan-Seirceag, on his
road to Braemar, has sent me over to tell you, that he means to step
aside from his way to visit you," said the gentleman.

"Well, sir," said Inchrory, proudly, "what of that? Tell him he
is welcome."

The gentleman, astonished with his reception, bowed and retired,
as an ambassador might have done from a royal presence.

"Well, sir," said Lord Fife to him, after he had rejoined him,
"is Inchrory at home?"

"He is at home, my Lord," replied the gentleman; "but he is the
surliest churl I ever came across."

"As how?" demanded the Earl.

"Why, my Lord, the little wretch never rose from his chair," replied
the gentleman; and then he repeated the conversation he had had with
Inchrory. "If your Lordship would take my council, you would e'en
continue your journey, and leave the bear to suck his own paws in
his own den."

"Why do you not flit [3] that insolent fellow," said Lord Fife to
James MacGrigor of Pitiveach, his factor, who happened to be with him;
"you are tacksman of this farm, and so you have it in your power to
turn him out."

"Why, my Lord," replied MacGrigor, "he and his forebears [4] have been
there for generations; and, though he certainly is a great original,
he is no bad fellow for all that."

"So, so," replied the Earl, laughing, "the fellow is an original,
is he? Then I must see him. It is something to discover so great a
potentate, holding his undisputed reign in wilds like these, so many
miles from any other human dwelling. I must visit him directly."

The fact was, that the Earl had but recently become possessed of
these Highland estates, and Inchrory looked upon him as a new man--a
Lowlander--whom it was his duty, as it was very much his inclination,
to despise; whilst the Earl, for his part, knowing that such was a
feeling which naturally enough pervaded the minds of the Highlanders,
even on his own newly acquired lands, was determined to do it away,
by using all manner of courtesy to every one with whom he might come
into contact. Above all things, he felt that the opportunity which he
now had of overcoming the prejudice of such a man as Inchrory, was by
no means to be lost. To Inchrory, therefore, he went without a moment's
delay, was admitted into the house, and ushered into the presence.

"Good day to you, Inchrory," said the Earl, bowing.

"Good day to you, Lord Fife," replied Inchrory, bowing with the
same formality as formerly, but still keeping his seat. "Sit down,
my Lord--sit down. Here is a chair beside me; for I always keep the
benmost [5] seat in my own house."

"Very right, Inchrory," said the Earl, smiling, and seating himself
accordingly beside his host; "and a very comfortable seat it seems
to be."

"Very comfortable," said Inchrory, setting himself more firmly into it;
"and I hope that one is easy for your Lordship."

"Very easy indeed," said Lord Fife; "a long ride, such as I have had,
would make a hard stone feel easy, and much more this chair beneath
your hospitable roof of Inchrory, and before your good fire, in this
bitter cold day."

"Well, well, my Lord," replied Inchrory, for the first time shaking
the Earl heartily by the hand, and very much pleased with the
familiar manner in which his visitor had so unexpectedly comported
himself,--"Well, all I can say is, that you are heartily welcome
to it.--Here, gudewife! Bring out the bottle. Lord Fife must taste
Inchrory's bottle; and bestir yourself, do you hear, and see what
you can give his Lordship to eat."

The whisky bottle was brought, and Inchrory drank the Earl's health,
who, without any ceremony, hobernobbed with him in turn. Mutton, ham,
cheese, broiled kipper salmon, bannocks and butter, were produced,
and put down promiscuously. The Earl ate like a hill farmer, and
partook moderately of the whisky, which Inchrory swallowed in large
and repeated bumpers to his Lordship's good health. He talked loud and
joyously, and the Earl familiarly humoured him to his full bent. They
were the greatest friends in the world. The Earl particularly delighted
Inchrory by praising, caressing, and feeding a great rough deer-hound,
which, roused from his lair in front of the fire by the entrance of the
eatables, put his long snout and cold nose into his Lordship's hand,
and craved his attention. But this dog had very nearly ruined all;
for the Earl was so much taken with the animal, that having left the
house after a very warm parting with Inchrory, he sent back his factor
to him, to offer to purchase the animal at any price.

"What!" cried Inchrory, drawing himself up in his chair, and looking
thunderbolts,--"What! does Lord Fife take me for a dog-dealer? I would
not sell my dog to any Lord in the land. I would not sell my dog to
the King on the throne. Tell his Lordship, I would as soon sell him
my wife!"

"What a stupid fellow I am, Inchrory!" said the factor. "Did I say that
it was the Earl that sent me? If I did, I was quite wrong. No! no! his
Lordship did no such thing. He only admired the dog so much, that
he could speak of nothing else as he crossed the meadow to join his
people. It was my mistake altogether. Hearing him admire your dog so
much, I thought it would be a kind act from me to you, my old friend,
just to ride back quietly, and give you a hint of it. 'I thought I
had the best dogs in all Scotland,' said the Earl, 'but that dog of
Inchrory's beats them all clean. He is worth them all put together. He
is a prince among dogs, as his master is a prince among men. Where
could you find a master worthy of such a dog but Inchrory himself--the
best fellow I have met with in all this country.'"

"Did the Earl of Fife say that?" cried Inchrory. "Here, bring me a
leash. Now," added he after having fastened it about the hound's neck,
"take hold of that, and lead the dog with you to the Earl, and tell
him that Inchrory begs he will accept of him as a present."

The Earl was delighted with the dog, as well as with the able conduct
of his ambassador who brought him; and he was no sooner fairly
established in his own house at Mar Lodge, than he sent an especial
messenger over the hill to Inchrory, with a letter from himself,
thanking him for his noble present, and requesting him to come and
pay him a visit. Inchrory most graciously accepted the invitation;
and the Earl took care to be prepared to give him a proper reception.

Inchrory, dressed in his best Highland costume, accoutred with sword,
dirk, and pistols complete, mounted his long tailed garron, and
rode over to Mar Lodge. When he arrived at the door, two grooms of
the Earl's were ready, one to hold his horse's head, and the other
his stirrup whilst he dismounted, and he was ushered into the house
by the house-steward, and through an alley of footmen, all richly
attired in the Earl's livery, till he was shewn into the room where
his Lordship was seated. Inchrory had never seen anything the least
like this before. But he was too proud to manifest the smallest
surprise--and holding up his head, he strode in with a dignified air,
and took all this pomp as if it had belonged to him of course. The
Earl was seated, amidst all his magnificence, in a great arm-chair
next the fire, with an empty one placed at his left hand.

"Good day to you, Inchrory," said the Earl to him as he entered,
and at the same time nodding his head familiarly as he spoke, but
without rising from his seat.

"Good day to you, my Lord," said Inchrory, strutting forward like a
turkey cock.

"Come away, and sit down beside me here, Inchrory," said the Earl,
"for I always keep the benmost seat in my own house."

"Right!--right, my Lord!" said Inchrory, seating himself beside
the Earl, and taking his hand and shaking it heartily, without any
sort of ceremony; "you are quite right, my Lord; that is exactly my
rule. Every man should have the benmost seat in his own house."

"You see that Luath hath not forgotten you," said the Earl, as the
great dog was manifesting his joy at seeing his old master.

"By my faith you have him in good quarters here!" said Inchrory,
observing that a quadruple fold of carpet had been spread for the
animal close in front of the fire.

"The best I can give him, Inchrory," said the Earl; "as, next to
his late master, he deserves the best at my hands. Here, bring the
bottle! Inchrory must taste the Earl of Fife's bottle! And, do you
hear, bring something for Inchrory to stay his hunger with after his
long ride!"

Immediately, as if by magic, several footmen entered with a table
covered with the richest viands and wines, which was placed close to
Inchrory's chair and that of the Earl. By especial order a bottle of
whisky appeared among the other liquors.

"Here's to ye, Inchrory!" said the Earl, after filling himself a
glass of whisky, and drinking to his guest with a hearty shake of
his hand. And,--

"Here's to you, my Lord," cried Inchrory, following his example in
a bumper of the same liquor.

Inchrory had no reason to complain of his entertainment during the
time he was at Mar Lodge. The Earl gave orders that every thing
should be done to please him; and the little man was highly pleased,
and as proud as a peacock. Amongst other things, hunting parties
were made in all directions through the neighbouring forests; and
although these were by no means expressly got up for him, yet he was
always brought so prominently forward on all such occasions, that,
in his pride, he believed, like the fly on the pillar, that the very
world was moving for him, and for him alone.

It happened that a Tenchil, or a driving of the woods for game of all
kinds, was one day held at Alnac. Inchrory was posted in a pass with
Farquharson of Allargue and Grant of Burnside in Cromdale, who was
one of Lord Fife's factors. This last mentioned gentleman, having
only arrived at Mar Lodge that morning, knew nothing of Inchrory
personally, though Inchrory knew something of him. So that, whilst
Farquharson, who was by this time well acquainted with Inchrory
and all his peculiarities, was treating him with all that respect,
which was at all times paid him by a universal agreement among Lord
Fife's friends then assembled as his guests, the little man was left
quite unnoticed by Burnside, and treated by him as nobody. Inchrory
was severely nettled at this apparently marked neglect on the part
of Burnside towards him. As usual on such occasions, the people who
had surrounded a large portion of the forest, gradually contracted
their circle, and their shouts increasing, and the dogs beginning to
range through the coverts, and to give tongue, game of all kinds came
popping singly out through the different passes where the hunters were
stationed. A short-legged, long-bodied, rough, cabbage-worm-looking
terrier, of the true Highland breed, came yelping along towards the
point where Burnside, Allargue, and Inchrory were posted near to
each other. All was anxiety and eager anticipation. A hart of the
first head was the least thing that was looked for. When,--lo, and
behold, out came an enormous wild-cat, the very tigger of our Highland
woods. Burnside had a capital chance of him, but fired at him, and
missed him. Inchrory immediately levelled his piece, and shot him dead.

"There's at you, clowns of Cromdale!" cried Inchrory, leering most
triumphantly and provokingly over his shoulder at Burnside.

"What do you mean by that, you rascal?" cried Burnside, firing up at
this insult, and at the same time striding towards Inchrory with every
possible demonstration of active hostility. "What do you mean by that,
you little shrimp?"

"Sir," said Inchrory, standing his ground boldly and proudly, "what
do you mean? I know nothing of you; and, it appears by your insolent
manners, that you know nothing of me."

"Stop, stop, gentlemen!" cried Allargue, running in between them;
"the fault is mine for having neglected to introduce you to each
other. Burnside, this is Inchrory, the particular friend of the Earl
of Fife;--and, Inchrory, this is Burnside, also a particular friend
of your friend, the Earl. This, I hope, is enough to put a stop to
any thing unpleasant between you."

"Oh!" said Burnside, who had caught the intelligent wink of the eye
which Allargue had secretly conveyed to him, whilst going through this
pompous introduction, and who had heard enough of Inchrory to enable
him to guess at the case and the character of the animal he had to
deal with, as well as to pick up his cue as to the proper way in which
he should treat him. "Oh, that is altogether another affair! Had I
only known the person in whose company I had the good fortune to be,
I should not have presumed to have fired a shot before him. But if I
have said any thing amiss, I am sure Inchrory will have the magnanimity
to forgive me, seeing that I have been already sufficiently punished
by the exhibition of bad gunning which I have unwittingly ventured
to make in presence of him, who is by all acknowledged to be the best
marksman in Scotland."

"Sir," said Inchrory, rising full a couple of inches higher in his
brogues, and coming forward to Burnside with extended palm, and with
a manner full of dignified condescension. "You are a gentleman of the
first water! I beg you will forget and forgive any expression which
in my ignorance I may have let fall, that may by chance have given
you offence."

"Sir, I am proud to shake hands with you," said Burnside, advancing
to give him a cordial squeeze.

"Sir," said Inchrory with a proud air, but at the same time shaking
him heartily by the hand, "any friend of my friend the Earl of Fife,
is my friend. Henceforth, sir, I am your sworn friend."

I daresay, gentlemen, I have given you enough of Inchrory to make you
sufficiently well acquainted with his character. But I have yet one
more anecdote of him, which I think brings it out more than all the
others. His wife, Ealsach, was one morning occupied in tending the
cattle at the shieling of Altanarroch. Lonely as you already know this
place of Inchrory to be, its loneliness was nothing when compared to
that of the shieling of Altanarroch, where even the cattle themselves
could only exist for a month or two during the finest part of the
year. Now, it happened that Ealsach, being in the family way, became
extremely anxious and unhappy as her time of confinement approached,
and her anxiety went on increasing daily, till at last she began
to think it very expedient to go home to Inchrory. The distance was
considerable, and the way rough enough in all conscience. But, having
the spirit of a Highland woman within her, she set out boldly on foot,
and arrived at Inchrory at an early hour in the morning. Her husband
met her at the door of the house, where she looked for a kind welcome
from him, and modestly signified the cause of her coming.

"Ha!" exclaimed he proudly, and with anger in his eye. "How is this
that you come on foot? How dared you to come home till I sent a horse
for you, that you might travel as Inchrory's wife ought to do?"

"No one saw how I came," replied his wife meekly. "I met nothing but
the moor-cocks and the pease-weeps on the hill."

"No matter," said Inchrory, "even the moor-cocks and the pease-weeps
should not have it to say, that they saw the wife of Inchrory tramping
home a-foot through the heather. Get thee back this moment every foot
of the way to Altanarroch, that I may send for thee as Inchrory's
wife ought to be sent for."

The poor woman knew that argument with him was useless. Without
entering the house, therefore, she was compelled to turn her weary
steps back to Altanarroch; and she was no sooner there, than a servant
appeared, leading by the bridle a horse, having a saddle on its back
covered with a green cloth, on which she was compelled to mount
forthwith, in order to ride home over the barren and desert moors
and mosses, in such style, as might satisfy the moor-cocks and the
pease-weeps, that she was the wife of Inchrory.








DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL AND SENTENCE ON INCHRORY.


Dominie.--What a vain windy-wallets of a body the creature must have
been! My humble opinion is, that he would have been much benefited
by a gentle tasting of my tawse.

Clifford.--Or the drummer's cat-o-nine-tails, Mr. Macpherson. But come,
gentlemen, who tells the next tale? I have nothing now on my book but
Old Stachcan, and Turfearabrad, both, as I understand, adjourned to
time and place more fitting. Come, I must beat up for a volunteer.

Author.--The circumstance of Mr. Macpherson having incidentally
mentioned Ticonderoga, towards the end of his account of the adventures
of Serjeant John Smith, has brought to my mind a legend of the family
of Campbell of Inverawe, which I had from a friend of mine, the story
of which is intimately connected with that most disastrous affair. If
you like I shall be happy to give it to you.

Clifford.--Andiamo dunque, Signore mio!--let's have it without
more delay.








THE LEGEND OF THE VISION OF CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE.


Perhaps you are all acquainted with the history of the Black Watch,
which, as Mr. Macpherson has already told you, was afterwards
formed into that gallant corps now immortalized by its actions as the
Forty-Second Highlanders? General Stewart of Garth, in his interesting
account of the Highland Regiments, tells us that it was originally
composed of independent companies, which were raised about 1725 or
1730. These were stationed in small bodies in different parts of the
country, in order to preserve the peace of the Highlands. It was,
in some sort, a great National Guard, and it was considered so great
an honour to belong to it, that most of the privates were the sons of
gentlemen or tenants. Most of them generally rode on horseback, and
had gillies to carry their arms at all times, except when they were
on parade or on duty. They were called Freiceadan Dubh, or the Black
Watch, from the dark colour of their well-known regimental tartan,
in opposition to the Seider-Deargg, or Red Soldiers, who were so
named from the colour of their coats. You may probably remember the
circumstance of their having been most unfairly marched to London,
under the pretence that they were to be reviewed by the King,--of
their having been ordered abroad,--of their refusal to go,--of their
having been moved, as if by one impulse pervading every indignant bosom
among them, to make that most extraordinary and interesting march of
retreat which they effected to Northampton,--of their having been
ultimately brought under subjection,--and, finally, of their brave
conduct in Flanders, from which country they returned in October 1745.

After their return to Great Britain, the Black Watch were ordered
into Kent, instead of being sent into Scotland with the other
troops under General Hawley, to act against those who had risen
for Prince Charles. This arrangement probably arose entirely from
great consideration and delicacy on the part of the government,
who, fully aware of the high honour of the individuals of the corps,
never entertained the smallest doubt of their loyalty, but who felt
the cruelty of exposing men to the dreadful alternative of fighting
against their friends and relatives, many of whom were necessarily to
be found in the ranks of the insurgents. There were, however, three
additional companies raised in the Highlands, a little time before
the return of the regiment from abroad. These were kept in Scotland,
and however distressing to their feelings the duty was which they were
called upon to perform, on the side for which they were enlisted,
they did that duty most honourably. One of these was recruited and
commanded by Duncan Campbell, laird of Inverawe.

After various services in their own country during the period that
the rest of the corps was abroad for the second time, these three
companies were ordered to embark, in March 1748, to join the regiment
in Flanders. But the preliminaries of peace having been soon afterwards
signed, the order was countermanded, and they were reduced.

During the time that Campbell of Inverawe's company was occupied in the
unpleasant duty to which I have alluded, he had been on one occasion
compelled to march into the district of Lorn, and to burn and destroy
the houses and effects of a few small gentlemen, who were of that
resolute description that they would have sacrificed all they had,
and even life itself, rather than yield to what they held to be the
government of an usurper. Having been thus led to pursue his route,
in a certain direction, for many a mile, he happened, on his return,
to be detained behind his men by some accidental circumstance, and
having lost his way after night-fall, he wandered about alone for
several hours, until he became considerably oppressed with hunger and
fatigue. With the expectation of gathering some better knowledge of
his way, he left the lower grounds, where the darkness of night had
settled more deeply and decidedly down, and he climbed the side of a
hill with the hope of benefiting, in some degree, by the half twilight
which lingers longer upon these elevations, continuing to rest upon
them sometimes for hours after it has altogether deserted their lower
regions. With the dogged perseverance of one who labours on because he
has no other alternative, he blindly pursued his hap-hazard course in
a diagonal line along the abrupt face, always rising as he proceeded,
until his way became every moment more and more difficult. The side
of the hill became steeper and steeper at every step, until he began
to be satisfied that he had no chance of reaching its brow, except
by retracing his steps, in order to discover some other means of
ascending to it. To any such alternative as this he could by no means
make up his mind. He cursed his own folly for allowing his company to
march on without him. He uttered many a wish that he was with them. He
felt sufficiently convinced that he had acted imprudently in having
thus exposed himself alone, in the midst of a district which was
yet reeking with the vengeance which his duty had compelled him so
unwillingly to pour out upon it. But his courage was indomitable, and
his way lay onwards, and onwards he without hesitation resolved to go.

He had not proceeded far, until high cliffs began to rear themselves
over his head, whilst, from his very feet, perpendicular precipices
shot down into the deep night that prevailed below. The goat or deer
track that he followed became every moment more and more blocked
up with stony fragments, until at length it offered one continuous
series of dangerous steps, requiring his utmost care and attention
to preserve him from a slip or fall that might have been fatal.

Whilst he was thus proceeding, with his whole attention occupied in
self-preservation, he was suddenly challenged in Gaelic by a rough
voice in his front.

"Who comes there?"

"A friend," replied Inverawe, in the same language in which he was
addressed.

"I am not sure of that," said the same voice hoarsely and bitterly. "Is
he alone?"

"He is alone," said a voice a little way behind Inverawe; "We are
quite safe."

"Come on then, sir," said the voice in front, "you have nothing
to fear."

"Fear!" cried Inverawe, in a tone which implied that any such feeling
had ever been a stranger to him; "I fear nothing."

"I know you to be a brave man, Inverawe!" said the man who now appeared
in front of him. "Come on then without apprehension. You need not put
your hand into the guard of your claymore, for no one here will harm
you. But what strange chance has brought you here?"

"The loss of my way," replied Inverawe. "But how do you come to know
me so well?"

"It is no matter how I know you," replied the other. "It is sufficient
that I do know you, and know you to be a brave man, to whom, as such,
I am prepared to do what kindness I can. What are your wants then,
and what can I do for you?"

"My wants are, simply to find my lost way, and then to procure some
food, of which I stand much in need," replied Inverawe.

"Be at ease then, for I shall help you to both," replied the person
with whom he was conversing; "but methinks your last want requires
to be first attended to, as the most urgent; so follow me, and look
sharply to your footing." Then, speaking in a louder tone to some
individuals, who, though unseen, were posted somewhere in the obscurity
to the rear of Inverawe, he said, "Look well to your post, lads, I
shall be with you by and bye." And then again turning to Inverawe,
he added--"Come on, sir, you must climb up this way; the ascent is
steep, and you will require to use hands as well as feet. Goats were
wont to be the only travellers here, and even they must have been
hardy ones. But troublous times will often people the desert cliffs
themselves with human beings, and scare the very eagle from her aerie,
that she may yield her lodging to weary man."

Inverawe now began to clamber after his guide up a steep, tortuous,
and dangerous ascent, where in some places they were compelled to pull
up their bodies by the strength of their hands and arms. It lasted
for some time; and he of the Black Watch, albeit well accustomed to
such work, was beginning to be very weary of it, when at length they
landed on a tolerably wide natural ledge, where Inverawe perceived that
the cliffs that arose from the inner angle of it so overhung their
base as to render it self-evident that all farther ascent in this
direction was cut off by them. Rounding a huge fallen mass of rock,
which lay poised on the very edge of the precipice, they came suddenly
on a ravine, or rift, in the face of the cliff above, on climbing a
few paces up which, they discovered the low, arched mouth of a cave,
whence issued a faint gleam of light, and an odour of smoke. His
guide stooped under the projection of the cliff that hung over it, and
let himself down through the narrow entrance. Inverawe followed his
example without fear, and found himself in a cavern of an irregular
form, from ten to twenty feet in diameter. This he discovered partly
by the light of a fire of peats that smouldered near the entrance,
and partially filled the place with smoke, but more perfectly by a
torch of bog-fir which his guide immediately lighted. But he felt no
curiosity about this, in comparison with that which he experienced
in regard to the figure and features of his guide, with which he was
intensely anxious to make himself acquainted.

He was a tall and remarkably fine looking man, considerably below
middle age. He was dressed in a grey plaid and kilt, betokening
disguise, but with the full complement of Highland armour about
him. His hair hung in long black curls around his head. His face was
very handsome, his nose aquiline, his mouth small and well formed,
having its upper lip graced by a dark and well-trimmed moustache. His
eyes, and his whole general expression, were extremely benignant. After
scanning his face with great attention, Inverawe was satisfied
that he never had seen him before, and he had ample opportunity of
ascertaining the reverse, if it had been otherwise, for the man stood
with the bog-fir torch blazing in his hand, as if he wished to give
his guest the fullest advantage of it in his scrutiny of him, and then,
as if guessing the conclusion to which that scrutiny had brought him,
he at last began to speak.

"Aye," said he calmly, "you are right, Inverawe. Your eyes have
never beheld me until this moment. But I have seen you to my cost. I
was looking on all the while that you and your men were burning and
destroying my house, goods, and gear, this blessed morning, and I
can never forget you."

"I know you not, that is certain," replied Inverawe; "and the cruel
duty we were on to-day was so extensive in its operation, that I
cannot even guess whom you are."

"You shall never know it from me, Inverawe," replied the other.

"And why not?" demanded Inverawe.

"From no fear for myself," replied the stranger; "but because I would
not add to that remorse, which you must feel, from being compelled
to execute deeds which are as unworthy of you, as I know they are
contrary to your generous and kindly nature. I have suffered from
you deeply--deeply indeed have I suffered. But I look upon you but
as an involuntary minister of the vengeance of a cruel Government,
and perhaps as an agent in the hand of a just God, who would punish me
for those sins and frailties which are inherent in my human nature. I
blame not you, and I can have no feeling of anger against you, far
less of revenge. Give me, then, the right hand of fellowship."

"Willingly, most willingly!" said Inverawe, cordially shaking hands
with him. "You are a noble high-minded man; for certainly I can
imagine what your feelings might have very naturally been against me,
and I know that I am now in your power."

"All I ask, Inverawe, is this," continued the stranger; "that as I
have been, and will continue to be honourable towards you, you will
be the same to me; and in asking that, I know that I am asking what
is sure to be granted. The confidence in your honour which I have
shown by bringing you here, will not be betrayed."

"Never!" said Inverawe, with energy. "Never while I have life!"

"I know I can rely upon you," said the stranger; "and now let me
hasten to give you such refreshment as I possess. Sit down, I pray
you, as near to the ground as possible, you will find that the smoke
will annoy you less."

Inverawe did as his host had recommended, and, seating himself on some
heather which lay on the floor of the place, the stranger opened a
wicker pannier that stood in a low recess, and speedily produced from
it various articles of food, of no mean description, together with a
bottle of French wine, and, spreading the viands before his guest, he
seated himself by him, and they ate and drank together. They had little
conversation; and the stranger no sooner saw that Inverawe's hunger
was satisfied, than he arose, and proposed that he should now guide
him on his journey. Creeping from the hole, therefore, they descended
the crags together, with all that care which the steepness of the
declivity rendered necessary, until they came to the spot where they
had first encountered each other, and then the stranger began to guide
Inverawe onwards in the same direction he had been formerly pursuing.

They had not proceeded far, until they were challenged by voices among
the rocks, showing that his host's place of retreat was protected
by sentinels in all quarters. His guide answered the challenge, and
they then went on without molestation. After about an hour's walk
over very rugged ground, during which they wound over the mountain,
and threaded their way through various bogs and woods, that completely
bewildered Inverawe, his guide suddenly brought him out upon a road
which he well knew, and then shaking hands with him, and bidding him
farewell, he dived again into the wood, and disappeared.

Inverawe rejoined his company at their night's quarters. They had
spent an anxious time, regarding him, during his absence, and they
were clamorous in their enquiries as to what had become of him. He
gave them an account of the circumstance of his losing his way; but he
told them not a syllable of his adventure with the stranger, resolving
that it should be for ever buried in his own bosom. There, however,
it produced many a thought; and often did he earnestly hope, that
chance might again bring him into contact with the man who had taken
so noble a revenge of him--to whom he felt as an honest bankrupt might
do towards his generous and forgiving creditor; and whose person and
features he had engraven so deeply on his recollection, to be embalmed
there amidst the warmest and kindliest affections of his heart.

It was soon after the disbanding of his company, that Campbell of
Inverawe returned to his own romantic territory, and to his ancient
castle, standing in the midst of beautiful natural lawns, surrounded
by wooded banks and knolls, lying at the north-western base of the
mighty Ben-Cruachan. Speaking in a general way, the country around
was thickly covered with oak and birch woods, giving double value,
both in point of beauty and utility, to the rich, glady pastures,
which were seen to spread their verdant surface to the sun, along
the course of the river Awe. Behind the grey towers of the building,
broken rocks arose here and there, in bare masses, in the direction of
the mountain,--whilst the blue expanse of Loch Etive stretched away
from the eye towards the north-east, as well as to the west. To the
south-west, the groves, and grassy slopes, were abruptly broken off
by the perpendicular crags of the romantic ravine through which the
river makes its way, to pour itself across the open haughs of Bunawe,
and into Loch Etive. To sketch out the remainder of the neighbourhood,
so that you may be fully aware of the nature of the country, which was
the scene, where one of the most important circumstances of my tale
took place, I may add, that about a mile above the ravine, the river
has its origin from a long narrow arm of Loch Awe, which presents one
of the most romantic ranges of scenery in Scotland. The lake in the
bottom, is there every where about eighty or an hundred yards wide
only; and whilst a bare, rocky mountain front, furrowed by many a
misty cataract, rises sheer up out of the water on its western side,
the steep, lofty, and rugged face of Cruachan shuts it in on the
eastern side, forming the grand and wild pass of Brandera. Here the
mountain exhibits every variety of picturesque form,--of prominent
crag, and half-concealed hollow, among which the grey mists are
continually playing and producing magical effects; together with
deep torrent beds, and innumerable waterfalls, thundering downwards
unseen, save in glimpses, amid the thick copse which, generation
after generation, has sprung from the stools of those giant oaks,
which were once permitted to rear their spreading heads, and to throw
their bold arms freely abroad, athwart the rocky steeps that rear
themselves so high up above, as to be softened by distance and air,
till they almost melt from human vision.

Having thus put you in possession of the scenery, I shall now proceed
to tell you, that Campbell of Inverawe, after his long absence from
home on military duty, felt all the luxury of enjoyment which these
his own quiet scenes could bestow, and his mind expanding to all
his old friendships, he largely exercised all the hospitalities of
life. Frequently did he fill the hall of his fathers with gay and
merry feasters, and his own hilarious disposition, always made him
the very soul of the mirth that prevailed among them.

On one occasion, it happened that he had congregated a large party
together. The wine circulated freely. The fire bickered on the hearth,
and threw a cheerful blaze over the walls of the hall, reddening the
very roof, and gleaming on the warlike weapons that hung around. The
wine was good,--the jests were merry,--and the conversation sparkling,
so that the guests were as loath to depart as their kind host was
unwilling to let them go. His lady had retired to her chamber--but
still they sat on, making the old building ring again with their jocund
laughter. But all things must have an end. The parting cup, to their
host's rooftree, was proposed by a certain young man called George
Campbell, and it was filled to the brim. But as all were on their
legs to drain it, with heart and good will, to the bottom,--a rattling
peal of thunder rolled directly over their heads. There was not a man
of them that did not feel that the omen was appalling. Some hardy
ones tried to laugh it off, as a salvo from heaven in homologation
of their good wishes to the house of Inverawe. But the pleasantry
went ill down with the rest. Servants were called for,--horses were
ordered, and out poured their owners to mount them,--when they were
all surprised to see the heavens quite serene and tranquil. But not
a word of remark was ventured by any one on this so very strange a
circumstance. Their hospitable entertainer saw every man of them take
his stirrup cup; and they galloped away, one after the other.

After they were all gone, Inverawe paced about in the court-yard for
some time, in sombre thought, which stole involuntarily upon him. He
then sought his way up stairs, and lifting an oaken chair towards
the great hearth, where the billets had by this time begun to burn
red, and without flame, he sat down in it for a while, listlessly to
ponder over the events of the evening. The weary servants had gladly
stolen away to bed, and the whole castle was soon as silent as the
grave. Not a sound was to be heard within the walls, but the dull,
drowsy buzzing of a large fly, which the flickering light of a solitary
lamp, left on the table, had prevented from retiring to some cranny of
repose. The master of the mansion smiled for a moment, as the whimsical
idea crossed him, that this tiny insect was perhaps the only thing
of life, which, at that time, kept watch with him within the castle.

Inverawe's thoughts reverted to the last toast which had been given by
his young friend Campbell, and the strange circumstances by which it
had been accompanied. He had an only son, called Donald, a promising
young man, who was the prop of his house, and to whose future career
in life he looked forward with all a father's anxiety. He had been
long accustomed to weave a silken tissue of anticipated happiness,
and honours, for the young man, and to view him, in his mind's eye, as
the father of many generations to come. The youth was at that time from
home; and this was the very first moment of his life that the notion
of there being any chance of his being one day left childless, had ever
occurred to him. He tried to shake off these gloomy presentiments, but
still they returned, and clung to him, with a force and pertinacity
that no reason could conquer. He would fain have risen to go to his
chamber, but he felt as if some powerful, though unseen hand, had
held him down to his chair,--and he continued to sit on, absorbed in
contemplative musings on these gloomy and painful dreams, till the
billets on the hearth had consumed themselves to their red embers.

Suddenly all such thoughts were put to flight from his mind. He
distinctly heard the great outer door of the castle creak upon its
hinges. He remembered, that although he had not locked it, he had shut
it behind him when he came in. It now banged against its doorway, and
sent a hollow sound echoing up the long turnpike stair. Faint, quick,
and stealthy footsteps, were then heard ascending. One or two other
doors were moved in succession. The footsteps approached with cautious
expedition. And as Inverawe listened with breathless attention,
the door of the hall was thrust open,--a human countenance appeared
for an instant in the dusky aperture--and then a man, with a naked
dirk in his hand,--his clothes dripping wet--his long hair hanging
streaming over his shoulders, and half veiling his glaring eyes, and
pale and haggard countenance, rushed in, and made straight up to him.

Inverawe started to his feet, drew his dirk, and prepared to defend
himself from this unlooked for attempt at assassination. But ere he
had well plucked it forth from its sheath, the intruder assumed the
attitude of a suppliant.

"For mercy's sake pardon my unceremonious entrance, Inverawe!" said
the stranger, in a hollow, husky, and exhausted voice. "And be
not alarmed, for I come with no hostile intention against you or
yours. I am an unfortunate wretch, who, in a sudden quarrel, have
shed the blood of a fellow-creature. He was a man of Lorn. I have been
hotly pursued by his friends, and though I have thrown those who are
after me considerably out, during the long chase they have kept up,
yet they are still pressing like blood-hounds on my track. To baffle
them, if possible, I threw myself into the river, and swam across it,
and I now claim that protection, and that hospitality, which no one
ever failed to find within the house of Inverawe."

"By Cruachan!" cried Inverawe, sheathing his dirk, and slapping it
smartly with the open palm of his hand. "By Cruachan, I swear that
you shall have both!"

Now, I must tell you, that this was considered as the most solemn
pledge that a Campbell of Inverawe could give. Their war-cry was,
"Coar-a-Cruachan," that is, "Help from Cruachan." And this expression
had a double meaning, inasmuch as the word Cruachan had reference both
to the mountain of that name, and to the hip where the dirk hung. To
swear by Cruachan, therefore, and to strengthen the oath by slapping
the dirk with the open palm, was to utter an oath, which must, under
all circumstances, be for ever held inviolable.

"But tell me," said Inverawe, "how happened this unlucky affair?"

"We were all met to make merry at a wedding," replied the stranger,
"when, as I was dancing with---- But hold!--I hear voices! They
approach the castle! I am lost if you do not hide me immediately."

"This way," said Inverawe, leading him to a certain obscure part of
the hall. "Aid me to lift this trap.--Now, down with ye and crouch
there.--They come."

Inverawe had barely time to drop the trap-door into its place,
to resume his seat at the fire, and to affect to be in a deep
sleep, when the voices and the sound of human footsteps were
heard ascending the stairs. Three men entered the hall in reeking
haste--claymores in hand. They rushed towards the fire-place, where
he was sitting. Inverawe started up as if just awaked by the noise
they made, and drew his dirk, as if to defend himself from their
meditated attack.

"Ha!" cried he, with well-feigned surprise. "Assassins: Then must I
sell my life as dearly as I can."

"Not assassins!" cried they. "We are not assassins, Inverawe. We
crave your pardon for this apparently rude intrusion, but we are in
pursuit of an assassin. We come to look for a man who has murdered
another. Have we your permission to search for him?"

"Certainly," said Inverawe, "wherever you please."

"He cannot be here," said one of the men. "I told you that he could
not be here. Don't you see plainly that he could not have come in
here without awaking Inverawe. We lose time here. We had better on
after our friends."

"Depend on't he has run up Loch Etive side," said another of them.

"What are all these wet foot-steps on the floor?" said the first
of them that spoke. "He might have been here without Inverawe's
knowledge."

"Don't you see that Inverawe has had a feast, and that wine, and water,
and whisky too, have been flowing in gallons in all directions?" said
the second man. "See there is a large pool of lost liquor. I verily
believe that some of these footsteps are my own, made this moment,
by walking accidentally through it. I tell you he never could have
come here."

"It is true that I have had a feast," said Inverawe, carelessly,
"as you may see from the wrecks of it that still remain on the table."

"I told you so," said the second man. "We only lose time here. If
you had only been guided by my counsel we might have been hard at
his heels by this time, as well as the rest."

"Haste, then, let us go!" said the first man.

"Away! away!" cried his companions, and, without waiting for farther
parley, they rushed out of the hall, and Inverawe heard with some
satisfaction, their footsteps hurrying down stairs, and the shouts
which they yelled forth after their companions, growing fainter
and fainter, until they were altogether lost in the direction of
Loch Etive.

Inverawe was no sooner certain that they were fairly gone, without
all risk of returning, than he proceeded, in the first place, to
secure the outer door of the castle, and then returning to the hall,
he went to the trap-door, and calling softly to the man concealed
below it, he desired him to aid him in raising it, by applying his
strength to force it upwards, and thus their united strength enabled
them speedily to open it, and to lift it up.

"Come forth now, unfortunate man," said Inverawe; "your pursuers
are gone."

"I come," said the stranger, in his husky hoarse voice, and as he
raised himself from the trap-door, his haggard countenance, and his
blood-shot eyes, that glared with the horror of his situation, half
seen as they were through his long moist locks, chilled Inverawe's
very heart as he looked upon him.

"Now, sir," said Inverawe, "you are safe for the present, your pursuers
have passed on."

"Thanks! thanks!" replied the man; "I know not how sufficiently to
thank you."

"Aye--all is so far well for you," said Inverawe; "but concealment for
you here is impossible. You must remove into a place of more certain
safety, and no time is to be lost. At present you may remove without
observation or suspicion; but no one can say how soon the search for
you hereabouts may be renewed. Here," continued he, setting before
him some of the remains of the feast, which the tired servants had
not removed from the sideboard; "take what refreshment circumstances
may allow, whilst I go for a basket, in which to carry food enough
to last you during to-morrow. We must go to Ben-Cruachan, with as
much secrecy and expedition as we can."

The stranger, thus left for a few minutes by himself, hastily devoured
some of the viands, of which he had so much need, and having swallowed
a full cup of wine, he was rejoined by Inverawe with a basket, into
which he hastily packed some provisions, and, without a moment's
delay, they quietly and stealthily quitted the hall, and the castle,
and the moment they found themselves in the open air, Inverawe led
the way diagonally up the slope, on the western side of Ben-Cruachan.

Their way was long, and their path rough, and they moved on through
woods, and over rocks, without uttering a word. Many a half expressed
exclamation, indeed, burst involuntarily from the stranger, betraying
a mind ill at ease with itself, and many a start did he give, as
if he apprehended surprise from some lurking pursuer; and Inverawe
shuddered to think, that the haggard appearance of the man, and
these his guilty-like apprehensions, were more in accordance with the
accusation of murder, or unfair slaughter, which seemed to have been
made against him, by the expressions of some of those who had come
into the hall in search of him, than with the chance-medley killing
of a man in an affray, which was the complexion he had himself wished
to put on the matter. Be this as it might, however, his most solemn
pledge had been given for his security, and accordingly he determined
honourably to fulfil it, at all hazards to himself. His reflections,
as he went with this man, were of any thing but a pleasing nature.

After a long and painful walk, or rather race, for their pace had
been more like that, than walking, Inverawe began to climb up the
abrupt face of Cruachan, till he came to that part of it which hangs
over the northern entrance of the Pass of Brandera, where the river
Awe breaks away from the end of the narrow branch of the lake, and
there, after some scrambling, he led the stranger high up the face of
the mountain, to a cave that yawned in the perpendicular cliff. The
concealment here was perfect, for its mouth was masked in front by a
cairn of large stones, which might have been accidentally accumulated
by falling during successive ages from the rocks above, or perhaps
artificially piled up there in memory of some person or event long
since forgotten. It was moreover surrounded by trees of all sorts
of growth; indeed, the universal wooding which prevailed over the
surrounding features of nature, of itself rendered any object on the
ground of the mountain side difficult to be discovered by any creature
that did not, like an eagle, mount into the sky. In addition to this,
the great elevation of the position, added to the security of the
place, and the ravine-seamed front of the perpendicular mountain of
rock that guarded the western side of the pass, immediately opposite
to the face of Cruachan, precluded all chance of observation from
that quarter.

"This is not exactly the place where Campbell of Inverawe would
wish to exercise his hospitality, to any one who deigns to ask for
his protection," said the Laird, whilst he was engaged in striking
a light; "but in your circumstances it is the best retreat in which
I can extend it towards you. Here is a lamp; and I will leave this
tinder-box, and this flask of oil with you. The cave is dry enough,
and there is abundance of heather to be had around you. Use your lamp
only when you may find it absolutely necessary so to do; for its light
might betray you; and take care to show yourself as little as possible
during the daylight of to-morrow. I have promised you protection by
Cruachan, and by Cruachan you shall have it. You must be contented
with this my assurance for the present, for your safety demands that
I shall not see you again, until I can do so without observation,
under the veil of to-morrow-night's darkness. Till then, you must
e'en do with such provisions as this basket contains, and you may
reckon on my bringing a fresh supply with me when I return. Farewell,
for I must hurry back, so as to escape discovery."

"Thanks! thanks! kind Inverawe!" said the man, in a state of extreme
agitation and excitement,--"a thousand thanks! But, must you--must you
leave me thus alone? Alone, for a whole night, on this wild mountain
side, with that yawning hole for my place of rest, and with nothing
but the roar of these eternal cataracts, mingled with the wild howl of
the wind through the pass to lull me to repose! That cairn, too!--may
not that be a cairn which marks the spot where--where--where some
murder has been done? Can you assure me that no ghosts ever haunt
this wild place?"

"The soul that is free from all consciousness of guilt may hold
patient, solitary, and fearless converse with ghost or goblin,
even on such a wild mountain side as this," said Inverawe, somewhat
impatiently. "But surely you cannot expect that my hospitality to
you should require my sharing this mountain concealment with you? If
you do, I must tell you, what common prudence ought to teach you,
that if I were disposed to do so, nothing could be more unwise,
as nothing could more certainly lead to your detection. My absence
from home would create so much surprise and anxiety, that the whole
country would turn out to seek for me, and their search for me, could
not fail to produce your discovery. Even now, I may be risking it by
thus delaying to return."

"True, true, Inverawe!" said the stranger, in a desponding tone, and
apparently making a strong effort to command his feelings. "There
is too much truth in what you say. I must steel myself up to this
night. My safety, as you say, demands it. Yet, 'tis a terrible
trial! Would that the dawn were come! Is it far from day?"

"I hope it is, indeed," replied Inverawe, "else might my absence and
all be discovered. It cannot, as yet, as I suppose, be much after
midnight; but even that is late enough for me. I must borrow the
swiftness of the roebuck to carry me back. So again I say farewell
till to-morrow-night."

Inverawe tarried not for an answer, but, darting off through the wood,
he rapidly descended among the rocks, and then bounded over all the
obstacles in his way, with a swiftness almost rivaling that of the
animal he had alluded to; and so he reached his own door, in a space
of time so short, as to be almost incredible. The fire in the hall
had now sunk into white ashes. The lamp, which he had left burning,
was now flickering in its last expiring efforts. He swallowed a single
draught of wine to restore his exhausted strength, and then he stole to
his chamber, and crept into bed, happy in the conviction that his lady,
who was in a deep sleep, had never discovered that he had been absent.

The sleep that immediately fell upon Inverawe himself was that of the
most perfect unconsciousness of existence. He knew not, of course,
how long it had lasted, nor was he, in the least degree, sensible of
the cause or manner of its interruption. But he did awake, somehow
or other; and then it was that he discovered, to his great wonder and
astonishment, that the chamber which, on going to bed, he had left as
dark as the most impenetrable night could make it, was now illuminated
with a lambent light, of a bluish cast, which shone through the very
curtains of his bed. A certain feeling of awe crept chillingly over
him; for he was at once convinced that the light was something very
different from the dawn of morning. It became gradually more and
more intense, till, through the thick drapery that surrounded him,
he distinctly beheld the shadow of a human figure approaching his
bed. He was a brave man; but he felt that every nerve and muscle of
his frame was paralysed, he knew not how. He watched the slow advance
of the figure with motionless awe. The shadowy arm was extended, and
the curtain was slowly and silently raised. The bluish light that so
miraculously pervaded the chamber, then suddenly arose to a degree
of splendour, that was dazzling to his sight, and clearly defined
the appalling object that now presented itself to his eyes. The face
and figure were those of the very man who had formerly entertained
him in the hole in the cliff on the mountain side, in Lorn. He was
wrapped in the same grey plaid, too. But those handsome features,
which had made so deep an impression on the recollection of Inverawe,
were now pale and fixed, as if all the pulses of life had ceased, and
the raven locks, which hung curling around them, and the moustaches
which once gave so much expression to his upper lip, now only served
to increase the ghastliness of the hue of death that overspread his
countenance, as well as that of the glaze of those immoveable eyes,
which had then exhibited so much generous intelligence. Inverawe lay
petrified, his expanded orbs devouring the spectacle before them. With
noiseless action, the figure dropped one corner of the shadowy plaid
in which it was enveloped, and displayed a gaping wound in its bosom,
which appeared to pour out rivers of blood. Its lips moved not;
yet it spoke--slowly, and in a hollow and sepulchral tone.

"Inverawe!--blood must flow for blood! Shield not the murderer!"

Slowly did the spectre drop the curtain; and its shadow, seen through
it, gradually faded away in the waning light, ere Inverawe could
well gather together his routed faculties to his aid. He rubbed his
eyes, started up in bed, leaned on his pillow, and brushed the curtain
hastily aside. All was again dark and silent. Again he rubbed his eyes,
and looked; but again he looked into impenetrable night.

"It was a dream," thought, rather than said, Inverawe; "a horrible
dream--but nevertheless it was a dream--curious in its coincidences,
but not unnatural. Nay, it was most natural, that the strangest
adventure of my past life, should be recalled by the yet stranger
occurrences of this night, and that both should thus link themselves
confusedly and irrationally together during sleep. Pshaw! It is
absurd for a rational man to think of this illusion more. I'll to
sleep again."

But sleep is one of those blessed conditions of human nature, which
cannot be controlled or commanded by the mere will. On the contrary,
the very resolution to command it, is almost certain to put it to
flight. The vision, or whatever else it might have been, haunted his
imagination, and kept his thoughts so busily occupied, that he could
not sleep. When his lady awaked in the morning, she found him lying
fevered, restless, and unrefreshed. Her inquiries were anxious and
affectionate; but, by carelessly attributing his indisposition to the
prolonged revelry of the previous evening, he at last succeeded in
ridding himself of farther question, and springing from his couch, he
tried to banish all thought of the unpleasant dilemma into which he had
been brought, by occupying himself actively in the business of the day.

He was so far successful for a time; but, as night approached, his
uncomfortable reflections and anticipations began again to crowd
into his mind. He must fulfil his promise of visiting his guest
of the cave, a guest whom he now could not help looking upon with
horror as a foul murderer; and yet, if he disbelieved the reality of
the previous night's visitation, there was no reason that he should
so regard him more now, than he had done before. The difficulty of
contriving the means of managing his visit, so that it should escape
observation or suspicion on the part of his lady, or his domestics,
was very considerable. His lady was that evening more than ordinarily
solicitous about him, from the conviction that pressed upon her,
that he had had little or no sleep the previous night, and remarking
his jaded appearance, she eagerly urged him to retire to bed at an
early hour.

"My dearest," said he affectionately, "I shall; but before I can do so,
I have some otter-traps to set. Perhaps I had better go and finish
that business now, while there is yet some twilight. Go you to your
chamber, and retire to rest. I shall sleep all the sounder by and bye,
after breathing the fresh air of this balmy evening for an hour or so."

The lady yielded to his persuasion, and she had no sooner left
him, than he took an opportunity of filling his basket, with such
provisions as he could appropriate for the stranger, with the least
possible chance of detection; and putting a few of his otter-traps
over all, by way of a blind, he sallied forth in the direction of
the river. There he first most conscientiously made good his word,
by planting his traps, and then, as it was by that time dark, he
turned his steps up the side of Ben-Cruachan, and made the best of his
way towards the cliffs where the cave was situated. As he drew near
to its mouth, he was, in some degree, alarmed by observing a light
proceeding from it. He approached it with caution, and, on entering
it, he beheld the stranger sitting in the farthest corner of it, on
the bed of heather, with his figure drawn up and compressed together,
and his features painfully distorted, whilst his eyes were intently
fixed on vacancy. For a moment Inverawe doubted whether some fit had
not seized upon him; but he started at the noise made by the entrance
of his protector, and sprang up to meet him.

"Oh, Inverawe," said he, "what a relief it is to behold you! Oh what
a wretched weary time I have passed since you left me!"

"I have brought you something to comfort you," said Inverawe, so
shocked with his haggard appearance, and conscience-worn countenance,
as almost to recoil from him. "You know that I could not come
sooner. You seem to be exhausted with watching. You had better take
some of this wine."

"Oh, yes, yes, give me wine--a large cup of wine!" cried the stranger,
wildly seizing the vessel which Inverawe had filled, and swallowing
its contents with avidity. "Oh, such a time as I have spent!"

"This place is quite secure," said Inverawe. "You have no cause
for such anxiety, if you will only be prudent. But why do you keep
this light burning? Did I not tell you it was most dangerous to do
so. Some wandering or belated shepherd or huntsman might be guided
hither by it, and if your retreat should be once discovered, your
certain destruction must follow."

"I could not remain in darkness," replied the stranger, with a cold
shudder; "it was agonizing to do so! Horrid shapes continually haunted
me,--horrid, horrid shapes!--Even the shutting of my eyes could not
exclude them. Oh, such a night as last! never have I before endured
any thing so horrible."

"You must take your own way then," said Inverawe, as he spread out the
contents of the basket before him; "I am sorry that I can do nothing
better for you, but this is the best fare I could provide for you,
without exciting suspicion in my own house. Stay--here is a blanket
to help to make your bed somewhat more comfortable. And now, I must
hurry away.--Yet, before I go, let me once more caution you about
the light. Perhaps I had better make all secure, by taking the lamp
with me."

"Oh no! no! no! no!" cried the stranger, his eyes glaring like those
of a maniac, whilst he rushed towards the lamp and seized it up, and
clasped it within his arms. "No, nothing shall rend it from me! I
will sacrifice my life to preserve it. What! would you leave me to
another long, long, and dreadful night? Would you leave me to utter
darkness and despair?"

"Leave you I must," replied Inverawe; "and if you will keep the lamp,
you must do so at your own risk. But your thoughts must be dreadful
thoughts indeed, so to disturb you. If conscious guilt be the cause
of them, I can only advise you to confess yourself humbly to your
Creator, and to pray for his forgiveness."

Without waiting for a reply, Inverawe left the cave, and made the best
of his way home. On reaching his apartment, he found his lady awake.

"You have been a long time absent, Inverawe," said she anxiously.

"I have, my love," replied he carelessly; "the delicious air of this
night induced me to stay out longer than I had intended; but I hope
I shall sleep all the better for it."

Exhausted as he was by fatigue of body and mind, as well as worn out
by want of rest, Inverawe did fall asleep immediately, and his sleep
was sound and deep. For aught he knew, it might have lasted for some
hours, when again, as on the previous night, he was awaked, he could
not tell how. The curtains of his bed were drawn close, but the same
uncouth blue light which pervaded the apartment on the former night,
now again rendered them quite transparent. To convince himself that
he was awake, Inverawe looked round upon his wife. Even at this early
stage, the light was sufficiently bright to enable him distinctly to
see his lady's features as her head lay in calm repose on the pillow
beside him. He turned again towards the side of the bed, and his eyes
were dazzled by the sudden increase of light, produced by the curtain
being raised as before, by the extended hand of the spectre. The same
well remembered features were there, pale, fixed, and corpse-like,
but the expression of the brow, and bloodless lips, was more stern
than it was on the previous night. Again the spectre dropped the fold
of the filmy plaid that covered the bosom, and displayed the yawning
gash, which continued to pour out rivers of blood. The spectacle was
horrible, and Inverawe's very arteries were frozen up. Again it spoke
in a deep hollow tone, whilst its lips moved not.

"Inverawe! My first visit has been fruitless!--Once more I come
to warn you that blood must flow for blood. No longer shield the
murderer! Force me not to appear again, when all warning will be vain!"

Inverawe made an effort to question it. His parched mouth, and dried
and stiffened tongue, refused to do their office. The curtain fell,
and the light in the room, as well as the shadow of the figure,
began to wane away. He struggled to spring out of bed, but his nerves
and muscles refused to obey his will, until it was gone, and all was
again darkness. The moment that his powers returned to him, he dashed
back the curtain, threw himself from the bed, and searched through
the room, with outstretched arms, yet, bold and desperate as he was,
he almost feared that they might embrace the cold and bloody figure
which he had beheld. His search, however, was vain, and, utterly
confused and confounded, he returned to bed with his very heart as
cold as ice. Fortunately, his lady had lain perfectly undisturbed, and
amidst his own horror, and amidst all his own agonizing agitation of
thought, he felt thankful that she had escaped sharing in the terrors
to which he had been subjected. As on the former night, he tried to
persuade himself that all that had passed was nothing more than a
dream,--but all the reasoning powers he possessed were ineffectual
in removing from his mind the conviction that now laid hold of it,
that it really was a spirit that had appeared to him. Sleep was
banished from his eyelids for the remainder of the night; and never
before had he so anxiously longed for day-break. It came at last;
and soon afterwards his lady awaked.

"Inverawe," said she, tenderly and anxiously addressing him, "you are
ill--very ill. What, in the name of all goodness, is the matter with
you? Your worn out looks tell me that something terrible has occurred
to you. Your late excursion of last night has something mysterious
about it. You were not wont thus to have concealment from me--from
me your affectionate wife!--What is it that preys upon your mind?--I
must know it."

"Promise me, upon the honour of Inverawe's wife," said he, now seeing
that concealment from her was no longer practicable; "promise me
on that honour which is pure and unsullied as the snow, that you
will not divulge what I have to tell you, and your curiosity shall
be satisfied."

With a look of intense and apprehensive interest, the lady
promised what he desired, and then Inverawe communicated to her
every circumstance that had occurred to him. She was struck dumb and
petrified by the narration; but she had no sooner gathered sufficient
nerve to speak, than she earnestly entreated him to have nothing to
do in concealing the guilty stranger.

"Let not this awful warning, now given you for the second time,
be neglected," said she. "Send for the officers of justice without
delay, and give up the murderer to be tried by the offended laws
of his country. You know not what curse may fall upon you, for thus
trying to arrest Heaven's judgment on the guilty man. Oh, Inverawe,
it is dreadful to think of it!"

"All this earnestness on your part, my love, is natural," said Inverawe
calmly. "But think of the solemn oath I have sworn;--you would not
have Inverawe--you would not have your husband--break a pledge so
solemnly given? Whatever may befal me here, I cannot so dishonour
myself. Besides," added he, "whilst, on the one hand, I know that
he to whom I am so pledged is like myself, a man of flesh and blood,
who, for anything I know to the contrary, may, after all, be really
less guilty than unfortunate; I cannot even yet say with certainty,
that I have not been the sport of dreams, naturally enough arising
out of the strange circumstances to which I have been exposed. But
were it otherwise, and that, contrary to all our accustomed rational
belief, I have indeed been visited by a spirit, what proof have I
that it is a spirit of health? What proof have I that it may not be a
spirit wickedly commissioned by the Father of lies to take this form,
in order to seduce me into that breach of my pledge, which would for
ever blacken the high name of Campbell of Inverawe, and doom myself
to ceaseless remorse during the rest of my days?--No, no, lady!--I
must keep my solemn vow, whatever may befal me."

The lady was silenced by these words from her husband, but her
anxiety was not thereby allayed. It increased as night approached; and
especially when Inverawe told her that he must again visit the man in
the cave. During that day, various rumours had reached him, of people
being afoot in search of a murderer, who was supposed to have found a
place of concealment somewhere in that neighbourhood; and it was with
some difficulty that he could suppress a hope that unconsciously arose
within him, that he might be relieved from his pledge, and from his
present most distressing and embarrassing position, by the accidental
capture of him for whom they were searching. The duty of visiting the
wretched man had now become oppressively painful to Inverawe,--and the
painfulness of it was not decreased by the additional risk which he
now ran of being detected. But Inverawe was not a man to abandon any
duty for any such reasons. Having again privately made up his basket
of provisions therefore, and put his otter-traps over its contents,
as formerly, he left the castle as twilight came on, and making
his circuit by the river side with yet more care and caution than
before, he climbed along the side of Cruachan, and in due course of
time reached the mouth of the cave. The light was burning as before,
and on entering the place, its inmate was sitting with a countenance
and expression if possible more haggard and terrific than he had
exhibited on the previous night.

"Welcome!--welcome!" cried he, starting wildly up, and speaking
in a frantic tone, as he rushed forward to seize Inverawe's cold
hand in both of his, that felt like heated iron,--"welcome, my
guardian angel! All other good angels have fled from me now!--And the
bad!--Oh!--But you will not leave me to-night?--Oh, say that you will
not leave me to-night!"

"I grieve to say, that, for your own sake, I cannot gratify you,"
replied Inverawe, withdrawing his hand involuntarily from the
contamination of his touch, and shrinking back with horror from
the glare of his phrenzied and blood-shot eyes, though with a heart
almost moved to pity for the wretch before him, whose very manhood
seemed to have abandoned him. "It is vain to ask me to stay with you,
as I have already frequently explained to you; but much more so now,
that I have learned that there are men out searching for you in
this neighbourhood, brought hither by the strong conviction that
you are concealed somewhere hereabouts. This circumstance renders
it imperatively necessary that you should no longer persevere in
the perilous practice of burning your lamp, which exposes you to
tenfold danger."

"Talk not to me of danger!" exclaimed the man, in a dreadful
state of excitement, and in a tone and words that seemed more like
those of a raving madman than anything else--"I must have light--I
should go distracted if I had not light. Darkness would drive me to
self-destruction! I tell you it is filled with horrible shapes. Even
when I shut my eyes the horrible spectre appears. Have pity!--have
mercy on me, and stay with me but this one single night!--for even
the light of the lamp itself cannot always banish the terrific spectre
from before me!"

"Spectre!" cried Inverawe, shuddering with horror,--"what spectre?"

"Aye, the horrible spectre," replied the man. And then suddenly
starting back, with his hands stretched forth, as if to keep off some
terrific shape that had instantaneously risen before him, and with his
eye-balls glaring towards the dark opening of the cave, he shrieked
out--"Hell and torments! 'tis there again,--there--there--see there!"

"I see nothing," said Inverawe, with some difficulty retaining a proper
command of himself. "But this is madness--absolute insanity. See,
here is your food;--I must leave you immediately."

"Oh, do not go!" said the stranger, following Inverawe for a few steps
towards the mouth of the cave, and entreating him in a subdued and
abject tone. And then, just as his protector was about to make his
exit, he again started back, and stood as if he had been transfixed,
whilst, with his hands stretched out before him, and his eyes fearfully
staring on the vacancy of the darkness that was beyond the cavern's
mouth, he again yelled out--"There! there!--see there!"

It must be honestly confessed, that it was with no very imperturbed
state of nerves, that Inverawe committed himself to the obscurity of
that night, to hurry homewards, and though no spectre appeared before
his visual orbs, yet the harrowing spectacle which the guilty man had
exhibited, and the allusion which he had made to the supposed spectre
which he had seen in his imagination, kept that which he had himself
beheld constantly floating before his mind's eye, during the whole
of his way home; and he was not sorry, when he reached his own hall,
to find his lady sitting by the fire waiting for his return. She was
lonely, and cheerless, and full of anxious thoughts regarding him;
but her eye brightened up at his entrance, and she filled him a goblet
of wine. Inverawe swallowed it greedily down,--gave her a brief and
bare account of his evening's expedition,--and then they retired to
their chamber.

On this occasion Inverawe silently took the precaution of bolting the
door of the apartment; and, on going to bed, the lady, with great
resolution of mind, determined within herself to keep off sleep,
and to watch, so that she too might behold whatever apparition might
appear; hoping that if the spectre which had so disturbed Inverawe,
should, after all, prove to be nothing but a dream, she might be able,
from her own observation, to disabuse him of his phantasy. But it
so happened, that, notwithstanding all her precautions, and all her
mental exertions to prevent it, she fell immediately into a most
unaccountably deep sleep; and Inverawe himself, in spite of all
his harassing and distressing thoughts, was speedily plunged into a
similar state of utter unconsciousness.

Again, for this the third night, he was awaked by the same light
streaming through the apartment, and rendering the curtain of his
bed transparent by its wonderful illumination.--Again he looked round
on his wife, and beheld every feature of her face clearly displayed
by its influence. She lay in the soundest and sweetest repose. His
first impulse was to awake her,--but he instantly checked himself, and
felt grateful that she was thus to be saved from the contemplation of
the terrific spectral appearance, the shadow of which he now observed
gliding slowly towards the bed. The curtain was again raised.--The same
well-remembered figure and face appeared under the usual increased
intensity of light. Again the filmy plaid was partially dropped, and
the fearful gash in the bosom was exposed, as before, pouring out
blood. Again the deep, hollow voice came from the motionless lips,
but it was accompanied by a yet sterner expression of the eyes,
and of the pale countenance.

"Inverawe!--My warnings have been vain.--The time is now past.--Yet
blood must flow for blood!--The blood of the murderer might have
been offered up--now your blood must flow for his!--We meet once more
at Ticonderoga!"

This last visitation of the apparition, accompanied as it was by a
denunciation so terrible, had a yet more overwhelming effect upon
Inverawe than either of those that preceded it. Bereft of all power
over himself, he lay, conscious of existence it is true, but utterly
incapable of commanding thought, much less of exercising action. Ere
he could rally his intellect, or his nervous energy, the spectre was
gone; and the apartment was dark. When his thoughts began to arise
within him, they were of a more agonizing character than any which
he had formerly experienced--"Your blood must flow for his."--These
dreadful words still sounded in his ears, in the same deep, sepulchral
tone in which they had been uttered. Do not suppose that one thought
of himself ever crossed his mind. He thought of his son--that son,
for whose welfare every desire of his life was concentrated,--that
was his blood, against which he conceived this dread prophecy to
be directed--that was his blood which he dreaded might flow. He
shivered at the very thought. He recalled the strange circumstances
which had attended the drinking of the toast to his roof-tree. His
anxiety about his son was raised to a pitch, that converted his bed,
for that night at least, into a bed of thorns. He slept not,--yet all
his tossings failed to awaken his lady, who slept as if she had been
drenched with some soporiferous drug. The sun had no sooner darted his
first rays through the casement, however, than she awaked as if from
a most refreshing sleep. She looked round upon her husband--observed
his haggard and tortured expression--and the whole recollection of
what she previously knew having come upon her at once, she began
vehemently to upbraid herself.

"I have slept," said she, in a tone of vexed self-reprehension.--"After
all my determination to the contrary, I have slept throughout the
whole night; and you have been again disturbed.--Say!--what has
happened? Have you seen him again?"

"I have seen him," replied Inverawe in a subdued tone and manner--"I
have seen him, and his appearance was terrible."

"Say--tell me!--what passed?" exclaimed the lady earnestly. "Inverawe,
I must know all."

Inverawe would have fain eaten in his words. He would have especially
wished to have left his wife in ignorance of the denunciation to
which the apparition had given utterance. But he had not as yet
recovered sufficient mastery over himself, to enable him to baffle
the questioning of an acute woman. In a short time the whole truth
was extracted from him; and now the lady, in a state of agitation
that very much exceeded his, began to press upon him the necessity of
giving up the criminal to justice. Her argument was long and energetic;
and during the time that it occupied, he gradually resumed the full
possession of himself.

"I have heard you, my love," replied he calmly; "yet you have urged,
and you can urge nothing which can persuade me to break my solemn
pledge. The hitherto spotless honour of Inverawe shall never be
tarnished in my person. Dreadful as is the curse which has been
denounced upon me, I am still resolved to act as an honourable man. Yet
I will do this much. I will again visit the man in the cave, and insist
with him that he shall seek some other place of refuge. I have done
enough for him. I have suffered enough on his account. He must go
elsewhere. Perhaps I should have come to this resolve yesterday--the
time, alas! may now be past. But, come what come may, I am determined
that the visit of this night shall be the last that I shall pay to
him. He must go elsewhere. Even his own safety requires that he shall
do so--and mine! But no matter, he must seek some other asylum."

Even this resolve--late though it might be, was, for the time, some
consolation to the afflicted mind of his wife. Nay, it was in some
degree matter of alleviation to his own sufferings. The broad sunlight
of Heaven, and the bustling action of the creatures of this world while
all creation is awake, produces a wonderful effect upon the human mind,
in relieving it from all those phantoms of anticipated evil which the
silent shades of night are so apt to conjure up within it. Inverawe
and his lady were less oppressed with gloomy thoughts during that
day than might have been supposed possible. It is true, that he often
secretly repeated over the denunciation of the apparition, but even
yet he would have fain persuaded himself, as he tried to persuade
his wife, that he had been the sport of dreams, resulting from some
morbid state of his system.

"Ticonderoga!" said he, "where is Ticonderoga? I know of no such
place; nay, I never heard of any such place; and, in truth, I do
not believe that any such place really exists on the face of this
earth. Ticonderoga! A name so utterly unknown to me, and so strangely
uncouth in itself, would lead me to believe that it is the coinage
of my own distempered brain; and, if so, then the whole must have
been an illusion. Yet it is altogether unaccountable and inexplicable."

Thus it was that Inverawe reasoned during that day; but as night
again approached, it brought all its phantoms of the imagination
along with it.

Inverawe, however, wound himself up to go through with that which he
now considered as his last trial. Having filled his basket as before,
he set off on his wonted circuitous route to the cave. As he went
thither, he endeavoured to steel up his mind to assume that resolute
tone with the stranger which he now felt to be absolutely necessary
to rid himself of so troublesome and distressing a charge. Much as it
did violence to his innate feelings of hospitality to come to any such
determination, he resolved to insist on his departure from the cave
that very night, and he had no difficulty in persuading himself that
his doing this would be the best line of safety he could prescribe
for the stranger, seeing that, by the active use of his limbs during
the remaining portion of it, he might well enough reach some distant
place of concealment before day-break. Full of such ideas, he pressed
on towards the cave, that he might get him off with as little delay
as possible. The light which had shone from its mouth upon former
occasions was now absent, and Inverawe hailed the circumstance as
a proof that the wretched man had at last become more rational. He
approached the orifice in the cliff, and gently called him. His
own voice alone was returned to him from the hollow bowels of the
rock. All was so mysteriously silent, that an involuntary chill fell
upon Inverawe. He repeated his call in a louder voice, but still there
was no reply--no stir from within. A cold shudder crept over him,
and for a moment he half expected to see issue from the black void
before him, that appalling apparition which had now three several times
appeared by his bedside. A little thought enabled him to get rid of
this temporary weakness. He recalled the last words of the spectre,
and the strange uncouth name of Ticonderoga. If such a place had
existence at all, it was there, and there only, that he could expect
to behold him again. He became reassured, and all his wonted manliness
returned to him. He struck a light, and crept into the cave. A short
survey of its interior satisfied him that the stranger was gone. The
blanket, the extinguished lamp, and some other things lay there, but
no other vestige of its recent inmate was to be seen. Inverawe felt
relieved; he was saved from even the semblance of inhospitality. But
the recollection of the apparition's last words recurred to him,
and then every thing around him seemed to whisper him that indeed
the time might now be past. He began, most inconsistently, to wish
that the stranger had still been there--nay, he almost hoped that he
might yet be lingering about the neighbouring rocks or thickets. He
sallied forth from the cave, and abandoning all his former caution,
he shouted twice or thrice in succession, at the very top of his
voice, but without obtaining any response, except that which came
from the echoes of the cliffs, muffled as they were by the roar of
the numerous cataracts of the mountain side, and the howling blast
that swept downward through the pass far below. For a moment he felt
that if the stranger had been still in his power, he could have given
him up to justice, to be dealt with as a murderer; but reason made him
blush, by bringing back to him his high and chivalric sense of honour
in its fullest force, so that he turned to go homewards possessed
with a very different train of thought. When his lady met him, she
was eager in her enquiries, and deeply depressed when she learned
that Inverawe had now lost all chance of delivering up the murderer.

"Alas!" said she, in an agony of tears, "the time is now past."

"Do not allow this matter to distress you so, my love," said Inverawe,
endeavouring to sooth her into a calm, which he could by no means
command for himself. "The more I think of it, the more I am persuaded
that the whole has been a phantasm of the brain. Let us have a cup of
wine, and laugh all such foolish fancies away ere we go to bed. This
perplexing and distressing adventure has now passed by, and this
night I hope to shake off all such vapours of the imagination."

Inverawe had little sleep that night, but he was undisturbed by
any re-appearance of the apparition. Unknown to his wife, he made a
circuitous excursion next day to Ben-Cruachan, where a more accurate
examination of the cave and its environs satisfied him that the
stranger was indeed gone. And he was gone for ever, for Inverawe
never afterwards saw him,--nor, indeed, did he ever again hear the
slightest intelligence regarding him.

Days, weeks, and months rolled away, and by degrees the gloom which
these extraordinary and portentous events had brought upon Inverawe,
as well as upon his lady, began to be in a great degree dissipated. His
son had long since returned home in full health and vigour, and things
fell gradually into their natural and usual course.

Inverawe was one night sitting in social converse with his wife and
his son, and their friend, young George Campbell--the same individual
who, as you may remember, was the giver of the toast of the roof-tree
of Inverawe--when a packet of letters was brought in, and handed to
the laird.

"What is all this?" exclaimed he, quickly breaking the seal, and
hastily examining the contents. "Ha! the old Black Watch again! this
is news indeed!"

"What?--What is it?" cried his lady.

"Glorious news!" cried Inverawe, rubbing his hands. "I am appointed to
the majority of the Highlanders; and here is an ensign's commission
for you, young gentleman," said he, addressing George Campbell. "And
my friend Grant, who writes to me, tells me that he has got the
lieutenant-colonelcy. What can be more delightful than the prospect
of serving in such a corps, under the command of so old a friend?"

"Glorious!--glorious!" cried young George Campbell, jumping from his
chair, and dancing through the room with joy.

"A bumper to the gallant Highlanders, and their brave commander!" cried
Inverawe, filling the cups.

The toast was quaffed with enthusiasm. Young Inverawe alone seemed
to feel that there was no joy in the cup for him.

"Would I had a commission too!" said he, in a tone of extreme vexation.

"Boy," said Inverawe, gravely, "Your time is coming. It will be well
for you to stay at home to look after your mother. One of us two is
enough in the field at once."

"Am I then to be doomed to sloth and idleness at home?" said Donald,
pettishly; "better put petticoats on me at once, and give me a distaff
to wield."

"Speak not so, Donald," said his mother, in a trembling voice. "You
are hardly old enough for such warlike undertakings; and, indeed,
your father says what is but too true--for what could I do, were both
of you to be torn from me?"

Donald said no more. The cup circulated. George Campbell was in high
spirits, and full of happy anticipations.

"I hope we may soon be sent on service," said he, exultingly.

"You may have service sooner than you dream of," said Inverawe, going
on to gather the remainder of the contents of his packet. "Grant writes
me here, that in consequence of the turn which matters are taking
in America, he hopes every day for the arrival of an order for the
regiment to embark. George, you and I must lose no time in making up
our kitts, for we must join the corps with all manner of expedition."

The parting between Inverawe and his lady was tender and
touching. Donald bid his father farewell with less appearance of
regret than his known affection for him would have led any one
to have anticipated. There was even a certain smile of triumph on
his countenance as he saw them depart. But his mother was too much
overwhelmed by her own feelings, to notice any thing regarding those
of her son.

The meeting between Inverawe and his old brother officers was naturally
a joyous one, and nothing could be more delightful than the warmth of
the reception he met with from his long-tried friend Colonel Grant,
now the commanding-officer of the corps.

"My dear fellow, Inverawe!" said he, cordially shaking him by the hand,
"This happy circumstance of having got you amongst us again, is even
more gratifying to me than my own promotion, and yet, let me tell you,
the peculiar circumstances attending that were gratifying enough."

"I need not assure you that the news of it were most gratifying to
me," replied Inverawe. "It doubled the happiness I felt, in getting
the majority, to find that I was to serve under so old and so much
valued a friend. But to what particular circumstances do you allude?"

"When the step was opened to me, by the promotion of Colonel Campbell
to the command of the fifty-fourth regiment," replied Colonel Grant,
in a trembling voice, and with the tears beginning to swell in his
eyes, "I was not a little surprised, and, as you will readily believe,
pleased also, to be waited on by a deputation from the non-commissioned
officers and privates of the corps, to make offer to me of a purse
containing the sum necessary to purchase the lieutenant-colonelcy,
which they had subscribed among themselves, and proposed to present
to me, with the selfish view, as the noble fellows declared to me,
of securing to themselves as commanding-officer a man whom they all
so much loved and respected! Campbell!--Inverawe!" continued he, with
his voice faultering still more from the swelling of his emotions,
"I can never forget this, were I to live to the age of Methuselah--I
can never deserve it all--but--but--phsaw! my heart is too full to
give utterance to my feelings--and I must e'en play the woman."

"Noble fellows indeed!" cried Inverawe, fully sympathizing with him
in all he felt; "but by my faith they looked at the matter in its
true light, when moved by selfish considerations, they were led so
to act--for they well knew that you would be as a father to them."

"I shall ever be as a father to them whilst it pleases God to spare
me," said the Colonel warmly, "and if ever I desert them while life
remains, may I be blown from the mouth of a cannon!"

"What was the result of this matter then?" demanded Inverawe.

"Why, as it happened," replied the Colonel, "the promotion went in
the regiment without purchase, so that I enjoyed all the pleasure of
receiving this kind demonstration from my children, without taxing
their pockets, or laying myself under an unpleasant pecuniary
obligation to them, which might at times have had a tendency in
some degree to paralyze me in the wholesome exercise of strict
discipline. And we shall require to stick the more rigidly to that now,
seeing that we are going on service."

"We are going on service then?" said Inverawe.

"We have this very evening received our orders for America," replied
Colonel Grant; "and never did commanding-officer go on service with
more confidence in his men and officers than I do."

"And I may safely say that never did officers or men go on service
with greater confidence in their commander than we shall do," replied
Inverawe, again shaking the Colonel heartily by the hand.

George Campbell was introduced by Inverawe to the particular notice
of Colonel Grant, and by him to the rest of the officers, among whom
he soon found himself at his ease. The time for their embarkation
approached, and all was bustle and preparation amongst them. George
had much to do, and it was with some difficulty, but with great inward
delight, that he at last found himself complete in all his arms,
trappings, and necessaries. The night previous to their going on board
of the ships appointed to convey them to their place of destination,
was a busy one for him, and he was still occupied, at a late hour,
in his quarters, when he was surprised by a knock at his door.

"Come in!" cried George Campbell.

The door opened, and a young man entered, whose fatigued and soiled
appearance showed that he had come off a long journey.

"Donald Campbell of Inverawe!" cried George, in utter astonishment;
and the young men were instantly in one another's arms. "My dear
fellow, what strange chance has brought you hither?"

"I come to throw myself on your honour," said Donald. "I come to throw
myself on the honour of him whom I have ever held to be my dearest
friend;--on the honour of one who has never failed me hitherto,
and who, if I mistake not, will not fail me now. Give me your solemn
promise that you will keep my counsel, and do your best to assist me
in my present undertaking."

"Methinks you need hardly ask for my solemn promise," replied George
Campbell; "for you might safely count on my best exertions to oblige
you at all times. But what can I do for you? It would need to be
something that may be quickly and immediately gone about, else cannot
I stay to effect it. We embark to-morrow morning."

"You will not require to stay behind the rest, in order to do what
I require of you," said Donald of Inverawe.

"I could not if I would," replied George Campbell.

"Do you go in the same ship with my father?" demanded young Inverawe.

"I wish I did," replied George Campbell; "but I regret to say that
I go in a different vessel."

"So much the better for my purpose," replied young Inverawe
eagerly. "You will be the better able to take me with you without my
being discovered."

"Take you with me!" cried George Campbell, in great astonishment. "What
in the name of wonder would you propose?"

"That which is perfectly reasonable," replied young Inverawe. "Do you
think that I could sit quietly at home, whilst my father, and you,
and so many of my friends, are earning honour and glory abroad? Ask
yourself, George, what would you have done under my circumstances?"

"I have never thought as to how I might have acted, had I been so
placed," replied George Campbell, much perplexed. "But I have no relish
for having any hand in aiding you to oppose the will of your father."

"No matter now, George, whether you have any relish for it or not,"
replied young Inverawe, smiling. "You have given me your promise
that you will aid me, and you must now make the best of it. So come
away. Let me see how you can best manage to get me aboard. I must
not be seen by my father till we land in America, and then I shall
enter as a volunteer."

"What will your father say then?" demanded George Campbell.

"Why, that the blood of Inverawe was too strong in me to be
restrained," replied Donald. "Why man, it is just what he would have
done himself. He will be too proud of the spirit inherent in his
house, which has impelled me to this act, ever to think of blaming
me for it. Come, come, you have given me your word."

"I have given you my word," said George Campbell; "and I must honestly
tell you that I wish I had been less precipitate. But having given it,
I must in truth abide by it. It may be as you say, that your father
will have more pride than pain in this matter, when he comes to know
it. And then, as for myself, I shall be too happy to have you as my
companion in so long a voyage. But come, let us have some refreshment,
and then we can talk over the matter, and consider how your scheme
may be best carried into effect."

The thing was easily enough arranged. Many of the privates of the corps
were gentlemen who had attendants of their own. There was nothing
extraordinary, therefore, in an officer being so provided. A slight
disguise was employed to alter Donald's appearance, so that he might
escape detection from any one who had seen him before. Next morning he
went on board in charge of some of Ensign George Campbell's baggage,
and there he remained snugly, until the expedition sailed.

The Highland regiment embarked full of enthusiasm, and it
was ultimately landed at New York in the highest health and
spirits. Colonel Stewart of Garth, in his interesting work, tells
us, that they were caressed by all ranks and orders of men, but more
particularly by the Indians. Those inhabitants of the wilds flocked
from all quarters to see the strangers, as they were on their march to
Albany, and the resemblance which they discovered between the Celtic
dress and their own, inclining them to believe that they were of the
same extraction as themselves, they hailed them as brothers. Orders
were issued to treat the Indians kindly; but, although these were
most generally and most cheerfully obeyed, instances did occur, where
gross acts of impropriety and harshness were exhibited towards them,
and one of these I shall now mention.

A young Indian, of tall and handsome proportions, with that conscious
air of equality which they all possess, came up to a group of the
Highlanders who were resting themselves round a fire. An ignorant and
mischievous fellow of the party, who much more merited the name of
savage than him of the woods, having heated the end of the stalk of
a tobacco-pipe, handed it, full of tobacco, with much mock solemnity,
to the young Indian,--who, in ignorance of the trick, was just about
to take it into his hand, and to apply the heated end of it to his
lips, when a young Highlander who was present, dashed it to the
ground. The Indian started--looked tomahawks at the Highland youth,
and might have used one too, had not he, with his glove on, taken up
a portion of the broken pipe-stalk, and signing to the Indian to feel
it, made him sensible of the kind and friendly service he had rendered
him. The ferocious rage that lightened in the eye of the Red Man was
at once extinguished. A mild and benignant sunshine succeeded it. He
took the hand of the young Highlander, and pressed it to his heart;
and then, darting a look of dignified contempt upon the poor creature
who had been the author of this base and childish piece of knavery
against him, he slowly, solemnly, and silently withdrew.

Whilst Major Campbell of Inverawe was on the march, his noble
appearance seemed to make a strong impression on their Indian
followers. For his part, he was peculiarly struck with the fine figure
and graceful mien of a heroic-looking young warrior of the woods,
who seemed to keep near to him, as if earnestly intent on holding
intercourse with him. He encouraged his approach; and, conversing
with him, as well as the young man's imperfect knowledge of English
permitted him to do, he invited him, when they halted for refreshment,
to partake of his hasty meal. The young Eagle Eye--for such was the
Indian's name in his own tribe--carried a rifle; and Major Campbell
having put some questions to him as to his skill in using it, his
curiosity was so excited by all that the red man said of himself,
that he resolved to put it to the proof. Having loaded his own piece,
therefore, he proposed to his new Indian ally, to take a short circuit,
to look for game, during the brief time that the men were allowed for
rest, and one or two of the officers arose to accompany them. The Eagle
Eye moved on before them with that silence, and with that dignified
air, which marked the confidence which he had in his own powers. A walk
of a few hundred yards from their line of march, brought them into a
small open space of grassy ground, surrounded by thickets. Inverawe
stopped by chance to adjust the buckle of his bandoleer, when the Eagle
Eye, who happened at that moment to be some paces to the right of him,
sprang on him like a falcon, and threw him to the ground. As he was
in the very act of doing so, an arrow from the thicket in front of
them pierced the Indian's shoulder, whilst he, almost at the same
moment, levelled his rifle, fired it in the direction from whence
the arrow came, and, rushing forward with a yell, plunged among the
bushes. The whole of these circumstances passed so instantaneously,
that Major Campbell's brother officers were confounded. But having
assisted him to rise from the ground, they congratulated him on his
escape from a danger which neither he nor they could as yet very well
comprehend or explain. They were not long left in suspense however,
for the Eagle Eye soon reappeared, dragging from the thicket the
body of an Indian belonging to a hostile tribe. In an instant, the
Eagle Eye exercised his scalping-knife, and possessed himself of the
bloody trophy of his enemy. On examination, the ball from his rifle
was discovered to have perforated the brain through the forehead
of his victim. The mystery was explained. The young Eagle Eye had
suddenly descried the lurking foe, deeply nestled among the bushes,
and in the act of taking a deliberate aim at Inverawe. He had saved
the Major's life at the imminent risk of his own, and that quick
sight from which he had his name, had enabled his ready hand to take
prompt and deadly vengeance for the wound he had received in doing
so. The grateful Inverawe felt beggared in expressions of thanks to
his Indian preserver. He and his friends extracted the arrow from the
shoulder of the hero, poured spirits into the wound, and bound it up;
and then, as they hastened back to join the troops, he entreated the
Eagle Eye to tell him how he could recompense him.

"It is enough for me," replied the young Indian warrior, with dignified
gravity of manner, mingled with becoming modesty, and in his broken
language, the imperfections of which I shall not attempt to give you,
though I shall endeavour to preserve the finer peculiarities of its
poetical conceptions,--"it is enough for my youth to be suffered to
live within the shadow of a chief, broad as that which the great rock
spreads over the grassy surface of the Prairie. A chief among those
who have come over the waters of the great salt lake, in number like
that of the beavers of the mohawk, whose fathers were the brethren of
our fathers, though their hunting grounds are now so far apart. The
tribe of the Eagle Eye has been broken. The pride of the foes of the
Eagle Eye is swelled by a thousand scalps of his kindred. He is like a
solitary tree that has escaped from the whirlwind that has levelled the
forest. The Eagle Eye has no father--he is alone--make him thy son."

"You shall be as a son to me!" said Inverawe, deeply affected by the
many tender recollections of home which this appeal had awakened
in his mind. "You shall never want such fatherly protection as I
can give you. But I would fain have you ask some more instant and
direct recompense from me, for having thus so nobly saved my life at
the peril of your own. Is there nothing immediate that I can do for
you? Gratify me by asking something."

"The Eagle Eye will obey his father," replied the Indian, calmly. "One
of your pale-faced tribe has deeply insulted your red son."

"Ha!" exclaimed Inverawe, "find him out for me, and you shall forthwith
see him punished to your heart's content."

"The cunning and cowardly kite is beneath the vengeance of the Eagle,"
replied the Indian. "But there was a youth among your pale faces,
who stood the red man's friend. Him would I hold as my brother. Him
would I bring with me beneath the shelter of my father, the great
chief, that he may grow green and lofty under his protection."

"You shall search me out that youth," replied Inverawe, "and be
assured he shall find a friend in me for your sake."

The Eagle Eye, with great dignity, took the right hand of Inverawe
between both of his, and pressed it forcibly to his heart. When they
reached the ground where the men were halting, the major despatched a
non-commissioned officer with the Indian, to find out the young man,
and to bring him immediately before him. They soon reappeared with
him; and what was Inverawe's astonishment, when he lifted up his eyes,
and beheld--his son!

It was exactly as Donald had himself prognosticated. Inverawe's
heart was so filled with joy, in thus so unexpectedly beholding and
embracing his boy, at the very moment when he had been dreaming that he
was so far from him; and with pride in thinking of that brave spirit
which had impelled him to follow him to America; as well as with deep
gratification at the kind-hearted act which had thus caused him to be
so strangely brought before him, that no room was left within it for
those gloomy thoughts which might have otherwise arisen there. He
clasped him again and again to his bosom, whilst the Indian stood
by as a calm spectator of the scene, his countenance unmoved by the
feelings of sympathy that were working within him. Their first emotions
were no sooner over, than Inverawe hurried Donald away to introduce
him to the commanding-officer, and he was speedily admitted into the
corps as a gentleman volunteer, with the promise of the first vacant
ensigncy. It will easily be believed, that the strict ties which
were thus formed between the Campbells of Inverawe and the noble
Eagle Eye, were destined to increase every day. Under the direction
of his European friends, his wound was treated with the most tender
care, and he was soon perfectly cured. The Eagle Eye deeply felt the
kindness of his Highland father and brother; but, whether in happiness
or in pain, in joy or in grief, his lofty countenance never betrayed
those feelings which are so readily yielded to in civilized life. It
was in vain that they tried to induce him to adopt European habits,
or to domesticate him so far as to make him regularly participate
in those comforts, which are the fruits of civilization. He adhered
with pertinacity to his own customs, and looked down with barbarian
dignity upon those of his hosts, which so widely differed from them;
and when at any time he was induced to partake of them, it was with
a lofty native politeness, which seemed to indicate that he did so
more in compliment to those with whom he was associated, than from
any gratification he received in his own person.

Circumstances, with which they or their commanding-officer had nothing
to do, had kept the Highlanders altogether out of action during the
campaign of 1757, which had done so little for the glory of the British
arms. But in the autumn of this year, Lord Loudon was recalled, and
Lieutenant-General Abercromby succeeded to the command of the army. By
this time, the Highlanders had received an accession of strength,
by the arrival of seven hundred recruits from their native mountains;
and the corps now numbered no less than thirteen hundred men, of size,
figure, strength, and courage, not easily to be matched. The British
army in America now consisted altogether of above twenty-two thousand
regulars, and thirty thousand provincial troops, which last could
not be classed under that character. The hopes of all were high,
therefore, and active operations were immediately contemplated.

It was some little time before this, that Inverawe was spending an
evening, tête-a-tête, with his friend, Colonel Grant. The bottle was
passing slowly but regularly between them, when, by some unaccountable
change in their conversation, the subject of supernatural appearances
came to be introduced. Colonel Grant protested against all belief
in them. The recollection of the apparition which had three several
times visited Inverawe, came back upon his mind, in form and colours
so strong and forcible, that his cheeks grew pale, and a deep gloom
overspread his brow; so much so, indeed, that it did not escape the
observation of his friend. Colonel Grant rallied him, and asked him,
jocularly, if he had ever seen a ghost.

"I declare I could almost fancy that you saw some spectre at this
moment, Inverawe," said he.

"Where?--how?--what?" cried Inverawe, darting his eyes into every
corner of the room, with a degree of perturbation which the Colonel
had never seen him display before.

"Nay," said the Colonel, surprised into sudden gravity, "I cannot say
either where or what; but I must confess that you seem to me as much
disturbed at present as if you saw a spectre."

"I cannot see him here," said Inverawe, with an abstracted solemnity of
tone and manner, that greatly increased his friend's astonishment--"I
cannot see him here. This is not the place where I am fated to
behold him."

"Him!" exclaimed Colonel Grant, with growing anxiety--"him!--whom,
I pray you? For heaven's sake, tell me whom it is that you are fated
to behold!"

"Pardon me," replied Inverawe, at length in some degree collecting his
ideas, but speaking in a solemn tone. "An intense remembrance which
came suddenly upon me, regarding strange circumstances which happened
to myself, has betrayed me to talk of that which I would have rather
avoided, and--and which cannot interest you, incredulous as you have
declared yourself to be regarding all such supernatural visitations."

"Nay, you will pardon me, if you please," said the Colonel, eagerly;
"for you have so wonderfully excited my curiosity, that I must e'en
entreat you to satisfy me. What were these circumstances that happened
to you?--tell me, I conjure you."

"It is with great pain," said Inverawe gravely, "that I enter upon
them at all; for, although they still remain as fresh upon my mind as
if they had happened yesterday, I would fain bury them, not only from
all mankind, but from myself. And yet, perhaps, it may be as well that
you should know them,--for strange as they are in themselves, they
would yet be stranger in their fulfilment. Listen then attentively,
and I shall tell you every thing, even to the very minutest thought
that possessed me." And so he proceeded to narrate all that I have
already told.

"Strange!" said the Colonel, after devouring the narrative with
breathless attention--"wonderfully strange indeed! But these are airy
phantoms of the brain, which we must not--nay, cannot allow to weigh
with us, or to dwell upon our minds--else might we be bereft of reason
itself, by permitting them to get mastery over us, and so might we
unwittingly aid them in working out their own accomplishment. Help
yourself to another cup of wine, Inverawe, and then let us change
the subject for something of a more cheerful nature."

But all cheerfulness had fled from Inverawe for that night, and the
friends soon afterwards separated, to seek a repose, which he at
least in vain tried to court to his pillow for many hours; and when
sleep did come at last, the figure of the murdered man floated to
and fro in his dreams. But it did so, only the more to convince him
of the wonderful difference between such faint visions of slumber,
and that vivid spectral appearance, which had formerly so terribly and
deeply impressed itself upon his waking senses, in his own bed-chamber
at Inverawe.

The conversation I have just repeated, together with Inverawe's
narrative, remained strongly engraven upon the recollection of
Colonel Grant. The whole circumstances adhered to him so powerfully,
that he almost felt as if he too had seen the apparition, and heard
him utter his fatal words. He could not divest himself of a most
intense solicitude about his friend's future fate, which he could
in no manner of way explain to his own rational satisfaction. But
the active and bustling duties which now called for his attention,
in consequence of the approaching campaign, very speedily banished
all such thoughts from his mind.

It was not long after this, that Colonel Grant was summoned by General
Abercromby to meet the other commanding-officers of corps in a council
of war. The council lasted for many hours, and when the Colonel came
forth from it after it had broken up, he was observed to have a cloud
upon his brow, and a certain air of serious anxiety about him, which
was very much augmented by his meeting with his friend Inverawe.

"Well," said Inverawe cheerfully to him, as Colonel Grant joined him
and his other officers at mess. "I hope you have good news for us,
Colonel, and that at last you can tell us that we are to march out
of quarters on some piece of active service."

"We are to march to-morrow," replied the Colonel, with unusual gravity.

"Whither?" cried Inverawe eagerly. "Whither, if I may be permitted
to ask?"

"We march to Lake George," replied the Colonel, with a very manifest
disposition to taciturnity.

"Pardon me," said Inverawe; "perhaps I push my questions
indiscreetly,--if so, forgive me."

"No," replied the Colonel, with assumed carelessness. "I have nothing
which the good of the service requires me to conceal from you,
Inverawe, nor, indeed, from any one here present. We march for Lake
George, as I have already said; and there we are to be embarked in
boats to proceed up the lake. Our object," added he, in a deeper and
somewhat melancholy tone,--"our object is to attack Fort Defiance."

"What sort of a place is it?" demanded one of the officers.

"A strong place, as I understand from the engineer who reconnoitred
it," replied the Colonel. "But these American fastnesses are so beset
with forests, that no one can well judge of them till he is fairly
within their entrenchments."

"Then let us pledge this cup to our speedy possession of
them!" exclaimed Inverawe joyously.

"With all my heart," said the Colonel, filling his to the brim,--but
with a solemnity of countenance that sorted but ill with the cheerful
shouts of mutual interchange of congratulation, that arose around
the table. "With all my heart, I drink the toast, and may we all be
there alive to drink a cup of thanks for our success."

"Father," cried young Inverawe, in his keenness overlooking the
Colonel's ominous addition to the toast; "now father, these Frenchmen
shall see what stuff Highlanders are made of!"

"They shall, my boy," replied Inverawe.--"Come, then, as I am master
of the revels to-night, I call on you all to fill a brimmer.--I give
you Highlanders shoulder to shoulder!"

"Hurrah!--hurrah!--hurrah!" vociferated the whole officers present.

This was but the commencement of an evening of more than usual
jollity. The spirits of all were up,--and of all, none were so
high in glee as those of Inverawe and his son. There was something,
indeed, which might have been almost said to have been strangely wild
in the unwonted revelry of the father. Colonel Grant was the only
individual present, who did not seem to keep pace with the rest. The
flask circulated with more than ordinary rapidity and frequency,--but
as the mirth which it created rose higher and higher, and especially
with Inverawe and young Donald, Colonel Grant's thoughts seemed to sink
deeper and deeper into gloomy speculation. If any one chanced so far
to forget his own hilarity for a moment, as to observe this strange
anomaly in his commanding-officer, it is probable that he attributed
it to those cares, which must necessarily arise in the mind of one,
with whom so much of the responsibility of the approaching contest
must rest. He retired from the festive board at an early hour, leaving
the others, who kept up their night's enjoyment as long as they could
do so with decency. Inverawe and his son sat with them to the last;
and all agreed, at parting, that they had been the life and soul of
that evening's revel.

The next morning, the officers of the Highlanders were early astir,
to get their men into order of march. Major Campbell of Inverawe was
the most active man among them. General Abercromby's force upon this
occasion consisted of about six thousand regulars, and nine thousand
provincial troops, together with a small train of artillery. Before
they moved off, the General rode along the line of troops, giving his
directions to the field officers of each battalion in succession. When
he came up to the Highlanders, he courteously accosted Colonel Grant
and Major Campbell.

"Gentlemen," said he, "we shall have toughish work of it; for though
the enemy have not had time to complete their defences, yet, I am
told, that, even in its present state, there are few places which
are naturally likely to be of more troublesome entrance than we
shall find----"

"Than we shall find Fort Defiance," somewhat strangely interrupted
Colonel Grant, with an emphasis which not a little surprised Inverawe,
as coming from a man usually so polite.--"Aye, I have heard, indeed,
that Fort Defiance is naturally a strong place, General. But what
will not Highlanders accomplish!--You may rely on it you shall have
no cause to complain of the Black Watch!"

"I have no fear that I shall," replied the General, betraying
no symptom of having taken offence at the Colonel's apparently
unaccountable interruption. "I know that both you and your men will
do your duty against Fort Defiance, or any other fort in America."

"Fort Defiance is a bold name, General," said Major Campbell, laughing.

"It is a bold name," said the Colonel gravely.

"It is a vaunting name enough," replied the General.--"Yet I
hope to meet you both alive and merry as conquerors within its
works. Meanwhile, gentlemen, pray get your Highlanders under march
for the boats with as little delay as possible."

Not another word but the necessary words of command were now
uttered. The regiment moved off steadily, and the embarkation on Lake
George was speedily effected, with the most perfect regularity and
order, on the 5th of July, 1758.

It must have been a beautiful sight indeed, to have beheld that
immense flotilla of boats moving over the pellucid surface of that
lovely sheet of water--not a sound proceeding from them save that of
the oars,--the unruffled bosom of the lake every where reflecting the
serene sky of a July evening, together with all the charms of its bold
and varied shores, and its romantic islands;--its stillness affording
a strange prelude to that tempest of mortal contest which was about
to ensue. Its breadth is about two miles--so that the boats nearly
covered it from side to side. As they moved on, they were occasionally
lost to the eyes of those who looked upon them from the shores, as they
disappeared into the numerous channels formed by its islands, or were
again discovered, as they emerged from these narrow straits. There were
snatches of scenery, and many little circumstances in the features
of nature around them, that called up the remembrance of their own
Loch Awe to both the Laird of Inverawe and young Donald, as the sun
went down; and the pensiveness arising from these home recollections,
at such a time, kept both of them silent. At length, after a safe,
and easy, and, on the part of the enemy, an unobserved navigation,
the boats reached the northern end of the lake early on the ensuing
morning; and the landing having been effected without opposition,
the troops were formed by General Abercromby into two parallel columns.

The order was given to advance; and the troops speedily came to an
outpost of the enemy, which was abandoned without a shot. But as they
proceeded, the nature of the ground, encumbered as it was with trees,
rendered the march of both lines uncertain and wavering, so that the
columns soon began to interfere with each other; and great confusion
ensued. Whilst endeavouring to extend themselves, the right column,
composed of the Highlanders, and the Fifty-fifth Regiment, under
the command of Lord Howe, fell in with a detachment of the enemy,
which had got bewildered in the wood, just as they themselves
had done. The British attacked them briskly, and a sharp contest
followed. The enemy behaved gallantly; and the Highlanders especially
distinguished themselves. Young Donald of Inverawe, his bosom bounding
with excitement, from the shouts of those engaged in the skirmish,
rushed into the thickest part of the irregular melée, and performed
such feats of prowess with his maiden claymore, that they might have
done honour to an old and well-tried soldier. Excited yet more by
his success, he became rash and unguarded, and being too forward in
the pursuit among the trees--which had already broken the troops on
both sides into small handfulls--he found himself suddenly engaged
with three enemies at once. As he was just about to be overpowered
by their united pressure upon him, a ball from a rifle stretched
one of them lifeless before him, and in an instant afterwards, the
Eagle Eye, whose accurate aim had directed it to its deadly errand,
was flourishing his tomahawk over the head of another of his foes. It
fell upon him--the skull was split open--the man rolled down on the
ground a ghastly corpse; and the third, that was left opposed to young
Inverawe, began to give way in terror before him. Urging fiercely upon
this last foe, however, the youth ran him through with one tremendous
thrust, and he too dropped dead.

Flushed with success, Donald Campbell was now about to continue the
pursuit, after some fugitives of the enemy, who came rushing past him,
when, turning to call on his red brother and preserver, the Eagle Eye,
to follow him, he beheld him stooping over one of his dead foes, in
the act of scalping him. At that very moment, he saw a French soldier
approaching his Indian brother unperceived, with sword uplifted, and
with the fell intent of hewing him down. Springing before the Eagle
Eye, the young Inverawe prepared himself to receive the meditated
stroke--warded it skilfully off,--and then following in on his foe
with a thrust, he penetrated him right through the breast, with
a wound that was instantaneously mortal. The Eagle Eye was now as
sensible that he owed his life to young Donald, as Donald could have
been that his had been preserved by the Indian warrior. They stood
for a moment gazing at each other,--and then they embraced, with
an affection, which the stern Eagle Eye had difficulty in veiling,
and which young Inverawe could not conceal.

By this time the enemy were all cut to pieces, or put to flight. The
joy of this unexpected victory was turned into mourning, by the death
of Lord Howe, who had been unfortunately killed in the early part of
this random engagement. His loss, at such a time, was greater than
anything they had gained by this partial overthrow of the enemy. And
you will easily understand this, when I tell you, that it was said of
this young nobleman, that he particularly distinguished himself by his
courage, activity, and rigid observance of military discipline; and
that he had so acquired the esteem and affection of the soldiers, by
his generosity, sweetness of manners, and engaging address, that they
assembled in groups around the hurried grave to which his venerated
remains were consigned, and wept over it in deep and silent grief.

The troops having been much harassed by this engagement, as well
as by the troublesome nature of their march, General Abercromby,
in consideration of the lateness of the hour, deemed it prudent, to
deliver them from the embarrassment of the woods, to march them back to
the landing-place; which they reached early in the morning. They were
then allowed the whole of the ensuing day and night for repose. But
on the morning of the 8th of July, he rode up to the lines of the
Highlanders, and saluting Colonel Grant and Major Campbell of Inverawe,

"Gentlemen," said he, "I have just obtained information from some of
the prisoners, that General Levi is advancing with three thousand men
to reinforce, or succour,--a--a--a--to succour, I say,--the garrison
I wish to attack."

"What!" exclaimed Colonel Grant,--"to succour Fort Defiance,
General? Then I presume you will move on directly, to strike the blow
before they can arrive."

"That is exactly my intention," replied General Abercromby. "And now
I must tell you, confidentially, Gentlemen, that the present garrison
consists of fully five thousand men, of whom the greater part are said
to be French troops of the line; who, as I am informed, are stationed
behind the traverses, with large trees lying every where felled in
front of them. But I have sent forward an engineer to reconnoitre
more strictly, and I trust I shall have his report before we shall
have advanced as far as--as--"

"As Fort Defiance," interrupted Colonel Grant. "Well, General, are
we to be in the advance?"

"No," replied the General. "As you and the Fifty-fifth have had all
the fighting that has as yet fallen to our lot, I mean that you shall
be in the reserve upon this occasion. The picquets will commence the
assault, and they will be followed by the grenadiers,--which will be
in their turn supported by the battalions of the reserve.--Nay, do
not look mortified, Colonel;--you and your men will have a bellyfull
of it before all is done, I promise you."

With these words the General left them, and the columns moved
on through the wood, in the order he had signified to them. They
had now possessed themselves of better guides, and they were thus
enabled to make their march more direct, and as they had already
cleared their front of enemies, the leading troops were soon up at the
entrenchments. Here they were surprised to find a regular breast work,
nine or ten feet high, strongly defended with wall-pieces, and having
a very impregnable chevaux de frise, whilst the whole ground in front
was every where strewed thickly over with huge newly felled oak trees,
for the distance of about a cannon-shot from the walls. From behind
the chevaux de frise, the enemy, in strong force, commenced a most
galling and destructive fire upon the assailants, so as to render the
works almost unapproachable, without certain destruction, especially
without the artillery, which, from some accident, had not as yet
been brought up. But the very danger they had to encounter seemed
to give the British troops a more than human courage. Regardless of
the hail-storm of bullets discharged on them, with deliberate aim,
from behind the abattis, whilst they were fighting their laborious
and painful way through the labyrinth of fallen trunks and branches
that opposed their passage, they continued, column after column,
to advance, dropping and thinning fearfully as they went.

The Highlanders beheld this slaughter that the enemy was making of
their friends--their blood boiled within them. In vain Colonel Grant
and Major Campbell galloped backwards and forwards, along the line,
using every command and every argument that official authority or
reason could employ to restrain and to sooth them, till their time for
action should arrive. With one tremendous shout, they rushed forward
from the reserve, and cutting their way through the trees with their
claymores, they were soon shewing their plumed crests among the very
foremost ranks of the assailants. But so murderous was the fire that
fell upon them, that their black tufted bonnets were seen dropping in
all directions, never to be again raised by the brave heads that bore
them. Their loss, before they gained the outward defences of the fort,
was fearful; but the onset of those who survived was so overwhelming,
that it drove the enemy from these outworks, and compelled them to
retreat within the body of the fort itself.

Now came the most dreadful part of this work of death. The garrison,
protected by the works of the fort, mowed down the ranks of the
besiegers with a yet more certain and unerring aim. Under the false
report that these works were as yet incomplete, scaling ladders had
been considered as unnecessary. The Highlanders, gnashing their teeth
like raging tigers caught in the toils, endeavoured to clamber up
the front of them, by rearing themselves on each other's shoulders,
and by digging holes with their swords and bayonets in the face of the
intrenchments. Some few succeeded, by such means, in gaining a footing
on the top. But it was only to make themselves more conspicuous, and
more certain marks for destruction; and they were no sooner seen, than
their lifeless bodies, perforated by showers of bullets, were swept
down upon their struggling comrades below. By repeated and multiplied
exertions of this kind, Captain John Campbell succeeded in forcing
his way entirely over the breastwork, at the head of a handful of men;
but they also were instantly despatched by the multitude of bayonets by
which they were assailed. Four hours did these gallant men persevere
in the repetition of such daring attempts as I have described--all,
alas! with equal want of success, and with increasing slaughter, till
General Abercromby ordered the retreat to be sounded. To this call,
however, the Highlanders were deaf; and it was not until Colonel Grant,
after receiving three successive orders from the General, which he had
failed in enforcing, threw himself among them, and literally drove
them back from the works with his sword, that he could collect and
bring away the small moiety that yet remained alive, of that splendid
regiment with which he had marched to the attack. More than one-half
of the men, and two-thirds of the officers, were lying killed or
wounded on that bloody field.

Colonel Grant had hardly gathered this remnant of his men together,
when he hastened back over the ground where the contest had raged,
to search eagerly for some of those whom he most dearly loved, and
for the cause of whose absence from this hasty muster he trembled
to inquire or investigate. The enemy, though victorious, had been
too roughly handled to be tempted to a sally, for the mere purpose of
annoying those who were peacefully engaged in the sad duty of carrying
off their wounded or dying comrades. The Colonel was therefore enabled
to make his way over the encumbered field without molestation, and
with no other interruption than that which was presented to him by
the prostrate trees, which, however, seemed to him to offer greater
obstruction to his present impatience, than they had done during
his advance with his corps to the attack. The scene was strangely
terrible! It might have been imagined by any one who looked upon
that field, that all Nature, even the elements themselves, had been
at strife. Slaughtered, and mutilated, and dying men lay in confused
heaps, or scattered singly among the overthrown giants of the forest,
those enormous trees which had been so recently rooted in the primeval
soil, where they had stood for ages. Colonel Grant looked everywhere
anxiously around him. Many were the familiar faces that he recognized,
but their features were now so fixed by the last agonizing pang of
a violent death, as cruelly, yet certainly, to assure him, that they
could never again in this world recognize him. The last spirited words
of high and courageous hope, so recently uttered by many of them to
him in their anticipation of triumph, still rang in his recollection,
and as he tore his eyes away from them, the tears would burst over his
manly cheeks as the thought arose in his mind, that words of theirs
would never again reach his ears. He moved hurriedly on, endeavouring
to suppress his feelings, but every now and then compelled to give way
to them, till his attention was absorbingly attracted by descrying
the dark form of an Indian, who was seated on his hams, beneath the
arched trunk and boughs of a huge felled oak. It was the Eagle Eye.

He sat motionless as a bronze statue, with the drapery of his blanket,
hanging in deep folds from his shoulders. His features were grave
and still, and apparently devoid of feeling; but his eyes were
turned downward, and they were immovably fixed on the countenance
of a young man, who lay stretched out a corpse before him. His head
was supported between the knees of the red man, whilst the cold and
stiffened fingers of him who was dead, were firmly clasped between
both his hands. The body was that of young Donald Campbell of Inverawe.

"God help me!" cried the Colonel, clasping his hands, and weeping
bitterly. "God help me, what a spectacle!"

"Why should you weep, old man?" said the Eagle Eye, with imperturbable
calmness. "My young brother has gone to the Great Spirit, like a great
warrior as he was. Who among his tribe shall be ashamed of him? Who
among warriors shall call him a woman? I could weep for him too,
did I not know that the Great Spirit has taken him to happiness,
from which it were wicked in me to wish to have detained him for my
own miserable gratification. But he is happy! He has gone to those
fair, boundless, and plentiful hunting-grounds that lie beyond the
great lake, where he will never know want, and where we, if our deeds
be like his, will surely follow him. But till then, the sunshine of
the Eagle Eye has departed, and night must surround his footsteps,
since the light of his pale-faced brother has departed!"

"This is too much!" said the Colonel, quite overwhelmed by his
feelings. "Help him to bear off the body. It must not be left here."

The Eagle Eye arose in silence, and gravely and solemnly assisted
the Highlander, who attended the Colonel, to lift and bear away
the body, and they had not thus proceeded more than a few paces in
their retreat from the works, when the weeping eyes of the Highland
commanding-officer, and the eagle gaze of the red warrior, were equally
arrested, at the same moment, by one and the same object. This was
the manly and heroic form of Major Campbell of Inverawe. He sat on the
ground, desperately wounded, with his back partially supported against
the body of his horse, which had been killed under him. His eye-balls
were stretched from their sockets, and fixed upon vacancy, with an
expression of terror, greater than that with which death himself,
riding triumphant as he was over that field of the slain, could have
filled those of so brave a man. Colonel Grant was so overcome, that
he could not utter a word. He was convulsed by his emotions. The
Eagle Eye laid down the body of Donald opposite to his father, and
silently resumed his former position, with the youth's head between
his knees. The father's eyes caught the motionless features of his son,
and he started from his strange state of abstraction.

"My son!" murmured the wounded Inverawe. "So, it is as I supposed,--he
is gone! But I shall soon be with you, boy. God in his mercy help
and protect your poor mother!"

"Speak not thus, my dearest friend!" said Colonel Grant, making an
effort to command himself, and hastening to support and comfort the
wounded man; "trust me you will yet do well. You must live for your
poor wife's sake."

"No!" replied Inverawe, with deep solemnity. "My hour is come. In vain
was it that your kind friendship, and that of the brave Abercromby,
succeeded in deceiving me,--for I have seen him--I have seen him
terribly,--and this is Ticonderoga!"

"Pardon me, my dear Inverawe, for a deception which was so well
intended," said the Colonel, much agitated. "It is indeed Ticonderoga
as you say, but--but--believe me,--that which now disturbs you was
only some phantom of your brain, arising from loss of blood and
weakness. Cheer up!--Come, man!--Come!--Inverawe!--Merciful Heaven,
he is gone!"



                          END OF VOLUME THIRD.








NOTES

[1] A Scottish farmer's house and offices.

[2] Plaid.

[3] Remove.

[4] Ancestors.

[5] Innermost.








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