'There they go towards the Atlantic—dun deer and red foxes, fat hares and long-eared rabbits, fuimarts, otters, and everything! By the blood that is in us, Sir Horace, but it is mighty little shooting you or yours will have hereabout for these some years to come! The people have gone towards the sea, and your devilish game have followed them. But see,' added Callum; 'what is that—a man mounted on a deer?'
'No, no—a pony.'
'How he gallops! Dioul! my fine fellow, take care of your neck.'
'It is Snaggs!' said I.
'Snaggs—and he rides like fury—up hill too! now the pony falls—'
'He is down!'
'Up again—on foot, and he runs like a sow possessed by a devil towards the Craig-na-tuirc, with the fire rolling at his heels,' said Callum, rubbing his hands in fierce glee.
'Fire behind and a precipice in front.'
'Dioul—we are giving him claw for claw at last!'
'But we must save him, Callum—he will be scorched to death or dashed to pieces.'
A fierce laugh was his only reply. While all this passed in less time than I have taken to record it, we dashed along the stony ravine, guided by the rivulet, and though half-blinded by smoke, reached the Ora, which was there overhung by the Craig-na-tuirc. At that moment a wild and despairing cry for succour rang in the air above us.
'Ay, bay to the moon, false wolf—but there are few ears now in Glen Ora to hear you!' growled Callum through his thick, rough beard, as we began rapidly to clamber up the brow of the precipice, the summit of which was shrouded by smoke, and streaked with fire like the crater of a volcano.
Hawks, gleds, and eagles, with a hundred birds of other kinds, whose nests had been destroyed, were screaming, as if in anger or surprise, and flapping their wings about us, in the mid and murky air, as we clambered up, and thrice the wild cry of the despairing wretch tingled in my ears, before we reached the summit, after a half-hour of arduous exertion.
There, on the giddy verge, a strange sight awaited us.
Not far from the spot where Callum had rescued Sir Horace Everingham, and at a place where the steep rocky brow of the cliffs overhung the dark chasm through which the foaming waters of the black river bellowed, roared, and forced a passage towards the sea, we saw the miserable factor Snaggs dangling in mid-air like a crow, and clinging to the branches of a tough but withered mountain-ash, and to its stem, which—terrible to conceive!—projected over this dark Cimmerian gulf. Hemmed in on every side by the encroaching fire, which ran at his heels, he had been forced to retreat upward to the edge of the rock, and though all unused to feats of strength or agility, excess of terror had supplied him with both; for when the flames assailed the thick coating of turf, soft heather, and crackling whins which covered the summit of the Craig, he was compelled to take refuge in the branches of the mountain-ash, and to these he clung, swinging above the dark vacuity below, with a tenacity of clutch and a horror impossible to portray.
But now the same fire which had consumed the tufted whins, the turf and heath, assailed the dry roots of the ash which twined among them, and soon the whole fabric of the tree was in a blaze; and as its fibres crackled and relaxed their tough grasp of the rocks and smouldering turf, the stem began to sink and yield with its own weight, and the weight of the fainting sinner who clung to it.
Such was the terrible tableau that awaited us on reaching a ledge of rock close by it.
As seen by the fitful glimpses of the moon through gauzy clouds and rolling smoke, the pale, white, ghastly visage of Snaggs was appalling. He still shrieked for succour and for mercy, and his entreaties were but a succession of shrill screams like those of a girl. His eyes glared; foam hung upon his lips, and his tongue was parched and swollen. I would have hastened to proffer him assistance, but the strong hands of Callum held me back by main force.
'Mercy to the merciless?' said he; 'nay—he shall have such mercy as he gave the people of our glens—such mercy as he would have given my poor Minnie at the Clach-na-greiné. He is a fiend—so let him die a fiend's death! Ha—ha! Mr. Snaggs—the tree is bending now; once it rose at the angle of forty-five, now it is quite horizontal. I wish every factor hung on its branches like fruit for the devil. Think of the old widow of the Ca-Dearg, and her silver hair all clotted in her blood; think of the cold, grey morning that dawned on the wet mountain-side, when the dying wife of the Red Gillespie lay with her new-born babe, and expired without a shelter from the blast! Her babe is now where you can never be—for it is among the flowers that are gathered in heaven! Think of the cruel advice you have given this jolter-headed stranger—this Horace Everingham—whose presence has been a curse to us. Think of my Minnie and the evil you intended for her. Think of all your hypocrisy, your legal quirks and quibbles, and of all the villanies of your past life, for the root of the tree burns bravely, and will not last a minute more. Ha! ha! ha!'
The love of life, the lust of gold, and the dread of death and hell grew strong within the wretched soul of Snaggs, and his aspect became frightful. Matted by perspiration, his hair clung about his temples, and his eyes were starting from their sockets. With all the tenacity that love of existence, conflicting with an awful fate, can impart to the sinews of a coward, he clung to that withered ash, and swung wildly over the hideous abyss, where the black water foamed two hundred feet below.
Now his toes touched the brow of the rock, and anon his feet would beat the empty air in vain! The flames played about the roots; the smoke almost choked him, and slowly, gradually, fearfully the stem continued to sink and to yield, as the knotty fibres which so long had grasped the rocks were relinquishing their hold at last.
'Mercy—mercy—mercy!' he shrieked.
'Such mercy as you gave the people in Glen Ora and Glentuirc—such mercy as you have ever given the poor and the trusting, I give you now—a tiger's mercy!' replied Callum, still holding me back, though it was physically impossible for me to have afforded the least assistance to Snaggs, circumstanced as he was then, and cut off from us by the flaming tree.
'God—God!' gasped the miserable wretch.
'Call not on Him, hypocrite, for even He may fail one so steeped in wickedness as you. Hear me—I am Callum Dhu Mac Ian, on whom you have never ceased to heap up insult, contumely, and contempt. I am well and young, and strong, having, with God's blessing, many years of life before me, while you are now in the jaws of death. You will go down into the depth of that dark linn like a stone, Mr. Snaggs; a splash, a bubble, and all will be over! One sinner more will have gone to his awful account—'
'Mercy!' he croaked.
The tree was still burning and bending!
'A time will come, a week, a month, a season perhaps, and the deep waters of Loch Ora will give up the ghastly dead. A corpse, swollen, hideous and frightful beyond all humanity, will be cast upon the pebbled beach, and it may lie there long undiscovered, amid gnats that swarm in the sunshine of noon, and birds that scream in the night—ay, very long, for our glens are desolate now, and for months a human foot may never press the heather there. That corpse will beyours, Mr. Snaggs! When found, it will excite awe and wonder, for the foolish mother that bore you would not know her sinful son; but anon horror and disgust will force the finders to cover it hastily up with earth and stones; and there you will rot, Mr. Snaggs, while your ill-gotten gear will be spent and enjoyed by others.'
'Oh, have mercy upon me!' howled Snaggs, who now ceased to make the smallest exertion, as every movement served more and more to dislodge the consuming root. 'Mercy—I tell you—mercy; my dear, good man, have mercy!'
'Dioul! how long that tree holds on!' cried Callum, stamping his foot; 'but now it bends! now it breaks! Hoigh—one moment more and all will be over, Mr. Snaggs!'
The white lips of the victim quivered; he was uttering a voiceless prayer—or perhaps it was the more contortion and convulsing of his features. The fitful light of the moon, and occasionally the gleams of the blazing heather and distant thickets, played on the rocks and wild plants of the chasm, imparting a satanic effect to the episode.
Suddenly the tree snapped with a crash that made my heart leap, and with a cry, amid a shower of sparks that flew upward, Snaggs vanished with the half-burned stem into the black gulf below, where the fierce and foaming mountain-torrent swept them away like autumn leaves, towards the deeper waters of the Loch, and the more distant waves of the Atlantic.
I never heard that his corpse was found.
'It is God's judgment,' said Callum, who had gazed frigidly at this terrible sight, the realities of which I could not reconcile for a time, or believe to be palpable and true.
'Those who do injuries to others,' says the delightful author ofI promessè Sposi, 'are not only accountable for the evil they inflict, but also for the perversion of sentiment which they cause in their victims.' I am happy that this trite sentence occurred to me, for by this mode of reasoning we shall find Mr. Snaggs alone guilty of Callum's unusual hardness of heart, and, in short, the author of his own untimely demise.
Chilled and almost terrified by the new and awful events of the night, I hastened away by the route we had come, descending the face of the rocks towards that part of the stream which lay below the cascade, and proceeding along its banks among the wet water-docks and green leaves which the fire, that was still raging in many parts of the muirland district. had failed to consume. Midnight was past now. The moon was waning behind the summit of the scorched and burning hills. We were weary and looked about us for a shelter; but in every direction the country seemed dotted by the fires which yet smouldered in the thickets and morasses, reddening and flashing in every puff of wind.
'Free—but homeless, houseless, penniless, and desperate!' said I.
'A chial!' responded my fosterer; 'how many brethren we have in this wide world, which is all before us now!'
A ruined cottage afforded us a resting-place, and there we threw ourselves down upon the thick soft grass that was springing up within its four bare walls of turf and boulder-stones. I was so overcome by lassitude, that even the supernatural terrors of this place failed to scare me from it, and Callum, who would rather have passed the night in any other part of the mountains, could not leave me. A mouthful of whisky from his hunting-flask revived us, and to change the current of my thoughts, which were incessantly and upbraidingly reverting to the terrible scenes we had just witnessed, he told me several wild and quaint stories of Dougald-with-the-Keys, the former occupant of the ruined cottage, and in whose service Callum had been when a boy.
Dougald was a smuggler and distiller of illicit spirits. He had his manufactory in a hollow of the adjacent morass, a high rock overlooking which was the post of his scout. Malie, his lynx-eyed wife, generally watched for the hated exciseman, who might be wandering along the road from Inverness or Tain. He was named Dougald-with-the-Keys, from a bunch of mysterious keys which he bore at his sporran-belt. These rattled when he walked, and gave him, it was averred, a mysterious power; for once, when conveying to Inverness two casks of the mountain-dew, slung across a stout pony, two excisemen gave him chase, and being well mounted, were about to make a capture of Dougald's distillation; but near the source of the Ora he shook his keys at them, and plucking a sprig of rowan, planted it by the wayside, uttering certain strange and terrible words. On approaching the sprig, the pursuers felt themselves constrained to alight from their saddles, and to dance round it furiously, hand-in-hand, while Dougald laughed and proceeded safely on his journey towards the Highland capital. The frantic and involuntary gyrations of the unfortunate excisemen were continued for more than two hours, until a passing shepherd pulled up the rowan-sprig, dissolved the spell, and permitted them to fall prostrate on the road, breathless, powerless, terrified, and resolved never more to meddle with Dougald, who continued to smuggle and distil in success and security, and had large sums to his credit, standing in the books of various discreet retailers in the vicinity of the Clachnacudden.
Once upon a time Callum had been despatched thither for payment, and was returning to the glen with a purse well filled with silver 'Georges,' and mounted on the active shelty which usually carried the casks. Pleased with the large sum he had to pay over to the gloomy, fierce, and avaricious Dougald, he switched up the nag as he entered the glen, and hastened on, for the double purpose of ridding himself of this important cash, and obtaining his supper.
The cottage and its little outhouses were buried in obscurity when he approached them; all was dark, yet the hour was not late, and, save a real or fancied sound of lamentation, all was still. According to his usual custom, Callum rode straight to the stable door, slipped from the bare-backed pony, which he had ridden in the Highland fashion, in his kilt, sans bridle and crupper. On opening the door, for the purpose of bedding and foddering the little nag, he heard a well-known rattling of keys. The sound seemed to be in the air! The pony started—snorted—perspired and trembled; its eyes shot fire; its fore-feet were firmly planted on the ground, and remained immovable. Again the keys were heard rattling, and between him and the moon, Callum saw the figure of Dougald pass like a shadow along the summit of the little garden wall. The pony then sprang into the stable with a convulsive bound. An indescribable emotion—a horror filled the heart of my fosterer; and closing his eyes, lest he might see something still more appalling, he flung down a few armfuls of hay and straw to the pony, locked the stable door, and sprang into the cottage, to find Dougald stretched on the floor, a corpse, and his wife, Malie, lamenting over him; for at the instant Callum had seen his figure passing, as it were, through the air, he had sunk down and expired of some disease unknown.
Such stories as these, and others, Callum related in low and impressive whispers, and his powerful and poetical Gaelic, which invested every trifle with pathos or with terror, were but ill calculated to soothe a mind which ever and anon in fancy saw the pale visage and glaring eyes of Snaggs; thus I was glad when the breaking day began to brighten in the east, and we left the ruined hut of Dougald the Smuggler to survey the country, which was all black, burned, and desolate. Its aspect was strange and terrible; a sea of flame seemed to have rolled over it, sweeping every trace of life and verdure from its surface. The origin of that nocturnal fire was then involved in mystery; but the game over eighteen square miles was irretrievably destroyed, and Callum laughed in scorn.
'Let this be a hintfor our Highlanders!' said he.
The desolation of the scene was now complete, as that which Abraham saw of old, when looking towards the cities of the Doomed, he beheld the smoke of The Land of the Plain, ascending as the smoke of a furnace. A stripe of green was lingering on the lofty places, but all was scorched below; thus
"In mountain or in glen,Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower,Nor aught of vegetative power,The wearied eye may ken;But all its rocks at random thrown,Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone."
All this occurred only three years ago, but subsequent events have rendered the concealment of poor Callum's name unnecessary now.
Three days elapsed before the fire exhausted itself, or was extinguished, on the thickets being cut down in some places by the axe, and the heather torn up in others, to bar their progress.
Meanwhile the sufferings of the poor evicted people, who were bivouacked in the burial-ground of St. Colme, had been terrible. In their hunger and despair, some of them had made a species of meal or flour from the leaves and seed of the wild mustard, and bruising them together, had kneaded a kind of cake, which, when eaten with mountain herbs, brought on deadly inflammations and fluxes, of which they died so fast, that the frightful condition of the survivors reached the ears of the humane in the Lowlands. But why dwell on a subject that is of daily occurrence in the Scottish Highlands, and with the hourly horrors of which the columns of the northern press are constantly filled?
A subscription was prepared for them, in common with the miserable Rosses, who were then being driven out of Sutherland, and the starved Mac Donnels, who were then hunted down like wild beasts in Glenelg; but this relief was soon abandoned, through the malevolence of the usual enemy of the Celtic population—a scurrilous Edinburgh print, of which Mac Fee, in common with other small wits of the Scottish Parliament House, was of course a supporter. Charity thus arrested and withheld, the result proved most fatal to the poor people of Glen Ora, who died daily—the strong man and the tender child together.
At last, as I have stated, the authorities, who had been packing our peasantry in ships like negroes from Africa, and despatching them in naked hordes from Isle Ornsay and elsewhere to America and Australia, proposed to the miserable remnant of the Mac Innons that they too should sail for that far-off land of the West, where the sun of the Celtic tribes is setting, and with something of despair they consented, for the most cruel and terrible ultimatum—death by starvation and exposure menaced them all.
I will pass over the touching scenes that ensued when the last of our people were torn from their native district, every feature and memory of which were entwined around their hearts—torn from their ruined homes—their father's lonely graves—from all they had loved since childhood, and when they were thrust, without regard to sex or age, on board of a small steamer in Loch Ora, for conveyance to Glasgow, where the great emigrant—or Celtic slave-ship, theDuchess, awaited them.
Many of these poor people, after the usual custom of the evicted Highlanders, made up little packages of earth—their native soil—-to bear it with them to the wilds of America, as a relic or memento of their country; and in the hope that, in this little handful might be the seeds of the heather-bell and other native plants and flowers. Strong, deep, and undying is this pure and noble—this holy love of home, in the Highland heart. The unavailing sorrow, the unheeded agony, the mental and bodily misery of our evicted emigrants is a theme so constantly before the public, that we now regard the depopulation of a valley as quite a usual occurrence, like the fall of the leaf or the coming of summer; hence I will pass over this part of iny narrative as briefly as possible.
The people sailed for Glasgow, and Callum and I, who were to follow and join them in a day or two, stood on the shore of the loch, and saw the steamer ploughing through its still blue waters, as it bore away the sad and wailing freight.
Near us, on the beach, knelt a man in prayer; his white hairs were glistening in the setting sun; his eyes were bent upon the lessening steamer, and his hands were stretched towards her. This was old Father Raouil, who was sending his last blessing after those on whose faces he would never look again.
Near him knelt Callum Dhu, with his bare knees in the sand, and his rough sunburned face covered by his bonnet—for the strong man had now given way, and was weeping like a child.
We are literallythe last of the clan.
We watched the steamer till she diminished to a speck, and vanished round a promontory; then we turned away, and, mechanically and in silence, ascended the desolate mountains, a community of thought—a unity of sentiment—leading us instinctively towards the deserted glen, although neither home nor tie remained unto us there.
The excitement of this temporary separation over, my thoughts now reverted to Laura Everingham, whom I had not seen since the day of my mother's funeral, and from whom I was now on the verge of being separated for ever—separated so hopelessly, that my heart sickened at the contemplation.
Oh how different were my fate, my fortune and position from those of that bright and happy girl, whose sunny English face and beaming eyes spoke only of a heart that had never known care or thought or bitterness. Now budding from the spring of youth into the summer of womanhood, her figure, though rather undersized, was beautiful and graceful, lithe and faultless, as all her pretty little ways were amiable and winning. There was a romance in loving her—a desperation in it that excited all my ardour; and (as Washington Irving says) 'do not let us consider whatever is romantic as incompatible with real life.'
My hitherto isolated existence had given me few opportunities of seeing much of the world; hence, unhackneyed in its ways, I loved Laura more deeply and devotedly than I was quite aware of until this time of separation came.
Rambling erratically and in silence, Callum and I reached a sequestered part of the banks of the Ora, which had escaped the fires of the late conflagration.
The sun was setting now, and its golden rays played upon the water, above the surface of which the salmon rose at times, while the heron stalked among the sedges. A few corn-patches, sown by those whose hands wouldnever reap them, were turning from pale green to warm yellow on the southern slope of the hills; the heather about us was in bloom; the wild flowers spread their fragrant garlands over the volcanic rocks, and the honey-bee hummed drowsily in the summer sunshine.
The scarlet berries of the mountain-ash kissed the sparkling current of this beautiful river, which teemed with spotted salmon; but these were all bought up for the southern markets, and it was as much as a man's life was worth to drop a line into its waters. All was solemn silence round us now. An occasional deer scrambling along a ridge of rocks, and rolling the loose stones down the slope, where they continued to rebound until the sound died in the hollow below; or the splash of a large salmon, attempting to leapupthe falls of the Ora, alone woke the echoes of the solitude.
A huge grey polecat, about three feet long, gazed at us from a fragment of rock without moving, and with an expression of wonder in its savage eyes; for by the result of the game-restrictions and other Draconian laws of our Highland feudatories, God's image was becoming somewhat as scarce in these districts as in Breadalbane, Sutherland, or on the Braes of Lochaber.
As the sunset lingered on our magnificent native mountains, Callum and I gazed about in silence. Every spot had its old and quaint—its terrible or beautiful—associations and traditions. On one side lay an inlet of the sea, blue, deep and overshadowed by the impending rocks, which were alleged in the days of our fathers to have been the haunt of theMhaidan Mhare, or Water Virgin, a being with snow-white skin and flowing golden hair, and having a melodious voice, which mingled with the ripple of the waves, and foretold the coming rain. On the other side, deeper and darker still, lay a lonely mountain pool, from the oozy depth of which theTaru Uisc, or Water Bull, was wont to rise at midnight, to bellow horribly at the waning moon, and to scare the little fairies who danced among the velvet grass and blue bells, which covered the Sioth Dhunan, or Hills of Peace, which Druid hands had formed perhaps three thousand years ago, by the margin of their holy lake. Between us and the flush of the western sky rose the stupendous circle of their temple, the blocks of which were said to be enchanted, so that one might count them a hundred times, and never find the same number twice. Farther off rose a ridge named Druim-na-dears, or the Hill of Tears; for there two hundred of our men, who joined the 42nd Highlanders, had waved their bonnets in farewell for the last time, and of that two hundred onlyonecame back to tell how his comrades had all perished with Brigadier Howe, before the ramparts of Ticonderoga.
Thus every stone, and rock and linn around us, had their memories, their poetry, their imaginary tenants or their terrors—their tales of the times of old—and all these we were leaving for ever!
Our occasional communings and regrets, with many a long pause between, were suddenly arrested by a shrill cry of terror. We started from the grassy bank on which we had been seated, and saw a lady, wearing a broad hat and feather, and mounted on a little mountain pony, coming at full speed down a narrow path towards the deep and rapid stream, pursued by a furious stag—the far-famedwhite stagof Loch Ora!
With something of fear I gazed upon this gigantic animal, which, since my infancy, I had been taught to believe had a supernatural existence, and to be the forerunner of evil to the race of Mac Innon; but the reiterated cry of the fair fugitive filled my heart with other thoughts, on recognizing Laura Everingham, when wild with terror, and pale, as the fear of a dreadful death could make her, she rushed past me on her fierce little Highland garron. My resolution was formed in a moment; and before the stronger and perhaps braver Callum Dhu, had arranged his thoughts on the subject, I had sprung forward and unsheathed the skene which I always wore in my right garter. Rising superior to the flood of gloomy and despairing thoughts which had made me their victim, and heedless whether the terrible and traditionary stag slew me and ended all my sorrows at the feet of Laura, I rushed upon it with my skene-dhu—a weapon only four inches long.
The fury of my thoughts gave me treble strength, and insured me victory.
The aspect of this animal was appalling; its red eyes shot fire; a moment it paused, bellowing, roaring, and raking and stabbing, as it tore up the purple heather with its giant antlers; but with a cry of triumph I rushed full at him, and escaping by a blessed mercy his terrible array of points, buried my sharp skene-dhu in his broad chest.
Back went the noble head with its lofty antlers, the fore-legs were extended, and the knees bent as the red life-blood gushed out in torrents; but again and again my black knife was buried to its hilt in the snow-white chest of the stag—the wondrous stag of the Mac Innons!
His head rose and fell; his whole frame vibrated; he lolled out a hot steaming tongue, and sank at my feet, dead—this strange creature of a hundred gloomy legends—leaving me covered with gore—panting with excitement, and with the hilt of my skene-dhu glued to my right hand by the hideous puddle that had gushed upon it at each successive death-blow.
Laura was saved, and byme!
'Hoigh, Mac Innon!' exclaimed Callum Dhu, with a shout of triumph; 'such a feat has not been done since old Glengarry slew the wild stag in the pass of Glendulochan!'
I lifted Laura (who was faint and almost sick with terror) from her pony, and placed her on the soft grassy bank, where I besought her to be calm, as all danger was now past; but, on perceiving that my right hand and arm were drenched in blood, she uttered a cry, and clasping my left hand in hers, asked me in the most moving terms whether 'I was hurt—if I was safe—uninjured—to speak to her, to say whether I was wounded or not?'
I forget alike her exact words and my answer; for we were both trembling and confused; but in that moment of excitement each had revealed to the other, more of mutual regard than any circumstance, save danger, could have drawn forth. On recovering a little, I said,—
'For the act of to-day, I trust, Miss Everingham, that you will think of me kindly when I am gone.'
'Kindly!' she exclaimed, while her blooming prettiness became absolute beauty, as her fine eyes beamed, and her face filled with ardour, and with an expression of gratitude and joy; 'ah how can you speak so coldly—kindly?—say gratefully, lovingly, prayerfully. You will ever have all the gratitude—the esteem, my heart can feel!'
'Thanks, dear Miss Everingham,' I replied, kissing her hand, while my voice and lips trembled; 'esteemis the first element of love. Without it no passion can endure.'
She grew pale—looked down, and trembled.
'And you go?—'
'Yes.'
'But, when?' she asked, lifting her eyes sadly to mine.
'To-morrow.'
'And you return!—'
'Never.'
'Never?' she reiterated.
'Never—oh never! I go to return no more. It is the doom of our race, my dear Miss Everingham.'
'Oh say not so—but here comes dearest papa to thank you in better words than I can command.'
As she spoke, Sir Horace, accompanied by Miss Clavering, the Captain and Mr. Snobleigh, came down the mountain-path at a furious gallop, and with high alarm depicted in all their faces; however, a glance at the dead stag, at Laura seated, smiling on the bank, and her pony quietly cropping the grass beside her, explained in a moment that she was in perfect safety. Moreover, from the top of the hill, they had seen me rush upon the stag, and lay it dead at my feet. My skene-dhu, dripping with blood, explained all the rest.
'Dearest Laura—and you are safe!' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, flinging off her broad hat as she sprang from her pony, and hurried to embrace her friend; 'oh heaven, my dear girl, I wish we were all safe again in London, or at Elton Hall! We have been little more than six months in these atrocious Highlands, and yet we have first had your papa—dear old stupid thing! nearly drowned; then we were all but burned alive in the shrubbery the other night; and to-day you on the verge of being torn to pieces by a wild animal!'
'Aw—aw—Miss Everingham—you would be wilful,' yawned Snobleigh, 'and would go—aw into that fwightful jungle, where we lost you—the wood of—of—'
'Coil-chro.'
'Aw—yes—those devilish 'Ighland names!'
'I know of no better fun than to have a fine man of the Guards essaying to get his lazy tongue round an Argyleshire, or a Galway name. And so it was you, my brave fellow, who slew this noble stag?' asked the impulsive Fanny, blushing, as she laid her hand on the shoulder of Callum, who was kneeling on the grass, and feeling the dead animal with his hands.
'I—madam?—No; it was slain by the chief—my master; and it is a deed that would long be remembered in Glen Ora, were there other inhabitants now than the red-roes and the moor-fowl.'
'Aw—my dear fellow, get your hands washed, for weally that wed blood is atwocious, 'pon my soul it is.'
'Stuff, Snobleigh,' said Captain Clavering; 'what the deuce does a little blood matter? You have done well and nobly, Mac Innon; but you look a little pale—you are not hurt, I hope?'
'Not in the least.'
'Why don't you speak, Sir Horace?' said Miss Clavering, impetuously; 'have you not a tongue to thank him who saved your daughter's life?'
'I have a tongue, but not words, my dear Miss Clavering,' said the cold and pompous baronet. 'You have saved my Laura from a terrible death, sir,' he continued, addressing me with a warmth of manner somewhat unusual in him; 'stay among us, Mr. Mac Innon, and I shall leave nothing undone for your welfare—that is, if it is in my power, of course.'
'Aw—of course,' chorused the languid Snobleigh.
'Do, Mr. Mac Innon,' added Fanny Clavering, bending her bright and beautiful eyes upon me, while she laid her pretty hand upon my arm; 'do, and all the past shall be forgotten.'
'Your offer comes too late, Sir Horace,' said I, in a broken voice, 'though my heart is rent in two by this separation from my native country—with that separation every tie is broken. Restore the people—restore that now ruined hamlet and desolate glen to what it was a month ago; give me back my poor old mother from her cold grave on yonder promontory, that grave to which your severity or the cruelty of your underlings drove her, andthenspeak of remaining here; but not till then.'
'Arms are the natural profession of a Highlander,' said Captain Clavering, putting a hand on my shoulder in his frank English way; 'could you, Sir Horace, not do something for him at the Horse Guards?—Devilish sorry that I have no interest in that quarter myself.'
'It would afford me the utmost gratification to do so,' replied the stiff and pompous baronet, in his coldest manner; 'butreally, the fact is, I do not feel myself at liberty to ask a favour from any of the present administration.'
'The deuce you don't?'
'Aw—of course,' hummed Snobleigh.
And there was an end of it; though I would have died rather than accepted the smallest favour at his hands. To be patronized byhim! The idea was enough to call my mother's fiery spirit back to earth.
As a huntsman, Callum was now, by mere force of habit, proceeding to gralloch the stag with his sharpened skene; and as this work progressed, unfortunately for the legends of our glensmen, he found it to be—not two hundred years old—but a finewarrantable stagof at least six summers.
'Well, my friend, the fox-hunter,' said Clavering; 'could you not stay among us—I'll take the odds on it, Sir Horace could do something for you.'
'Likely enough,' said the baronet, mounting; 'you would make a first-rate gamekeeper.'
'Many thanks, sir,' replied Callum, touching his bonnet with a fierce and covert irony gleaming in his dark eyes; 'but the time has gone past, Englishman, for that too; we go, we go to return no more! You purchased this land, true; any other depopulating game speculator might have done so; but he who sold it to you—was ithisto sell? It belonged to the people and not to him. The land was God's gift to the Gael; it is theirs, and all the produce thereof is theirs.'
'This is a thief's maxim,' said Sir Horace, sharply.
'To you it may seem so; but we have a saying among us—Breac na linne, slàt na coille, s'fiadh na fireach meirladh nach do gabh duine riamh nair as.
'What the devil is all that in English? it sounds like the croaking of frogs in a Dutch canal.'
'It means, that a fish from the stream, a stag from the mountain, or a tree from the forest are no thefts, but the right of he who wants them.'
'Why sirrah, this is poaching or trespassing, as Snaggs would tell you, had he not disappeared so unaccountably. I must teach these Highland fellows, Clavering, to respect the sacred laws of property! I have as much right to the wood and water, and game, as to anything else. "If the sun goes down on my property," says theMan made of Money, "I have a clear title to that sunset; if the clouds, over my land, are remarkably fine, they are my clouds." A noble maxim! Then does not the same rule apply to the pheasants, plover, curlew, deer, and foxes—eh?'
'You are a stranger here,' retorted Callum, 'and consequently know no better. God—blessed be his name!—never sent a little mouth into the world without providing food for it. There was a time when, in these glens, we had food enough to spare; but, a chial! for the devil came in breeks and took it away from us.'
'This bores me,' said Sir Horace: 'Clavering, assist Laura and your sister to mount; we'll send some one for the stag. Many thanks, good fellow, for your cutting and carving it thus—but please to let it alone. Ah—a good evening and a safe voyage to you, Mr. Mac Innon,' and with a brief nod, Sir Horace walked his shooting pony leisurely up the slope.
Laura and Miss Clavering reluctantly followed him; but both bade me kindly—the former silently—adieu. I knew that in the twilight she was weeping behind her veil, and my heart was deeply moved, for I might never behold her again. Snobleigh—the empty, vacant and insipid Snobleigh—bowed and cantered after them; but Clavering lingered still, and said,
'I feel sincere regret, Mac Innon, to see a bold young fellow like you, flung upon this cold and faithless world—can I do anything for you?'
'I thank you, sir—but know of nothing.'
'We are now at war with Russia—you have thus before you a noble field for action.'
'And after the treatment I have experienced in my own country, I should justly seek it in the Russian ranks. You are right, Captain Clavering—I thank you; war is the natural resource of the desperate and poor; but alas! I have neither interest nor money to enter the service.'
'Deuced awkward—and we have no volunteering in this war. But think over all I have said, for it is a devil of a thing to take to felling of trees and draining swamps in the Far West, leaving civilization far behind you, and having the Pacific and the Red men in your front, while your nearest chum dwells three hundred miles off—and there you will fight with the Indians, the earth and the elements, to feed a little herd of snivelling Yankees, who will grow up in hatred of the land their fathers came from. It won't do, my dear fellow—think over it, and if I can do anything for you, drop me a line at Glen Ora House, or at the Western Club, Glasgow, where I shall be in a day or so, about the happiest piece of business in the world. Adieu!'
With these words we separated, and Callum and I were left on the dark hill-side; the last glow of sunset had faded away, and the mysterious white stag of Loch Ora was lying at our feet dead, motionless, and still as a drift of snow.
To-morrow evening, the steamer from Loch Linnhe for Oban and Glasgow, would touch at Loch Ora, and with it, Callum and I were to leave our native district for ever. The bitter, crushing, and painful sinking of the heart that accompanied this conviction was increased by the knowledge that never again would I see the face or hear the voice of Laura. Grinding poverty on one hand, and wealth on the other, had reared a solid rampart between us; yet I still loved Laura, despite the hopelessness of that love, which made me feel more bitterly than ever that a poor gentleman is the most miserable of all God's creatures.
Callum, my fosterer, though to me, ever gentle as a woman and faithful as a dog, was alternately morose or silent, and appalled by our approaching departure; and as he lay that night on some freshly-pulled heather, in a corner of poor Father Raoul's humble hut, I heard him sobbing under the tattered plaid which enveloped his head and shoulders; for his gallant heart and strong resolution were failing him at last.
My whole thoughts were of Laura now, for my hopeless separation from her, conflicted with my regret on leaving my desolated home. The craving desire to see her once again became uncontrollable, and desiring Callum to wait for me, by a near and familiar path—never again to be trod by me—I hastened up the glen, which led directly to the new manor-house of Glen Ora.
It was a narrow road which led of old to the stronghold of our tribe, and there had been a time when none could have thought that a Mac Innon would ever ascend it in such bitterness of soul as I then endured. The tower—the home of a race whose source even tradition failed to trace—was demolished now, and the huge square modern villa of the baronet crowned its site; but all unchanged with its shade of silver birch was the bramble-covered path by which for ages
'The hunter of deer and the warrior trodTo his hills that encircle the sea.'
Everything spoke to me of home and farewell. The murmur of the dark pines that shaded the hills; the hiss of a little cascade, falling in foam down the old grey rocks, like the end of a silvery scarf; the sun lingering like a globe of fire above the dark shoulder of Ben Ora. The little cascade seemed to have its source in the clouds, and, like a silver shower, the light wind flung its spray abroad upon the turf and flowers.
A moment I lingered there, and thought it would be a boon to be dead and buried in peace on that green mountain slope, where the heather might wave and the deer bound over me; for the dread of dying in a far distant land is strong in the heart of every mountaineer.
But enough of such thoughts and themes.
Full of them, however, I reached the new birchen avenue which led to the elegant manor-house of Sir Horace Everingham, and without having conceived how I should achieve the desired interview with Laura, or what means to pursue.
I lurked among the trees and shrubbery, watching the windows for nearly half an hour, fearing to be seen, hopeless of seeing her alone if I saw her at all, and trembling with anxiety, for every moment was of priceless value to me. I saw the falling shadows lengthening to the eastward, and knew that when the sun sank below the shoulder of the Ben, the Highland steamer would be at the pier of the loch.
An exclamation of joy escaped me, as a drawing-room window which unfolded to the floor was opened, and she—Laura herself—stepped out into the gravel-walk of the garden, not a pistol-shot distant from where I was concealed.
She was attired in a very becoming evening costume; she had her broad hat slung by its ribbons over her left arm, and had an open volume in her right hand. She looked pale and thoughtful, but was neither sad, nor bearing a trace of tears. This disappointed me, as she must have known that this was the eve of my final departure; but the claim I had on her regard and memory was too slight—and among so many gay friends and accomplished admirers, and amid so much luxury, it might easily be effaced and forgotten.
My heart beat like lightning, as she approached and entered a summer-seat, which was shrouded by a little dome, and four sides of iron wire, in the fashion of a Turkish kiosk, and was covered completely with roses and honeysuckle. I quickly crept towards it, and—-as my evil fortune would have it—had only time to ensconce and conceal myself among the ample laurel-bushes close by, when the voice of the gay and laughing Fanny Clavering, who had been asleep, I presume, in the arbour, fell suddenly on my ear, as she at once resumed what appeared to be a former conversation. To all this I was compelled to listen. It may be the reverse of etiquette to repeat what passes in private, and still more so, aught we may chance to overhear; but there would be a fearful hiatus in many a veracious history, in mine in particular, without those opportune eaves-droppings; besides, I believe that no man in this world could resist the desire to listen, 'with all the ears in his head,' if he deemed himself the subject of conversation between two pretty women. Thus, as much that passed between these fair friends concerned myself, I hearkened with an anxiety that was the more painful, as I dared not, for very shame, avow or discover myself.
The two girls were seated near each other. Laura had resigned her book, and was twirling the ribbons of her broad summer hat round her slender fingers. Fanny had her white hands thrust into the pockets of a very bewitching little black silk apron, and her beautiful features, her fine eyes, and noseretroussé, wore the most droll and arch expression in the world.
'Come now, Fanny, don't be silly,' said Laura.
'Is it possible that you have lived to the age of twenty without having one dear little affair of the heart?'
'Not one, Fanny—andyou?—'
'Oh, don't speak of my heart, pray—it has been broken twenty times. But, don't you know, love, that an engagement of the heart is a most delightful thing?'
'Perhaps so—but mine is only formed for friendship.'
'Fiddlestick! one lover is worth a hundred friends.'
'Nay, Fanny; I thinkonefriend worth a thousand lovers; and I never met with a man capable of inspiring in me more than the merest friendship.'
'And how about my brother Tom?'
'Nay, nay, Fanny; now don't look so archly.'
'Well, then—our young Highland friend?'
Laura was silent, and became very pale.
'Speak?'
'You are a dear droll!' said Laura, making an effort to laugh, after a pause; 'well—heis both handsome and winning.'
'But so innocent—so particularly verdant.'
'Yet that innocence of dissipated life charms me.'
'I am excessively amused! But you cannot—dare not, encourage this idea. Lovehim—oh, Laura, such amésalliance! the imaginary chief of a beggarly burned up tract in the West Highlands. The last of the Mohicans!'
'Mésalliance!' reiterated Laura, with an air of pique; 'what is our family, which dates from the Restoration, when compared to his, which, for aught that I know, dates from the days of Ossian.'
'Immensely superior, I should say—for the gentlemen of Ossian's time knew deuced little about making up a book on the Oaks, or knowing the points of the winner of the Derby, asIdo—or of Bank-stock, or shares or railway scrip, and so forth, as Sir Horace does.'
'But then, Fanny dear, think of what I owe him—that dreadful rescue of yesterday? Oh, there is nothing I admire so much as bravery in a man!'
'But this is a boy.'
'Well—a brave boy—and are we much more than girls?'
'Such a little sophist it is! If you run on thus I shall end by loving that tall fellow who hunts the foxes. I own to be immensely delighted with him. Is he not a love of a man, with his magnificent black beard?'
'You have spoken more ofhimthan I have done of his master.'
'Perhaps I am in love with him,' said Fanny, with a roguish expression in her beautiful eyes.
'Scarcely,' replied Laura, with a little reserve; 'for it is your style to yawn and fret to-day over all that enchanted you yesterday. You tire of everything.'
'And thus would very soon tire, I fear, of such a lover as your Allan Mac Innon. He is but a wild Highland boy—I should like a man with a lofty presence—a man of whom I should feel proud, even when I had tired of him, and ceased to love him.'
'Oh, Fanny! Iamproud of him, in my own quiet and unobtrusive little way. He is so bold, so hardy, so active, and so manly!' said poor Laura, blushing deeply at her own energy, while my heart beat with tumultuous joy; 'his eyes, too—do they not tell the history of a sad and thoughtful life? He is like the Mac Ivor of Waverley.'
'There it is! you have caught the tartan fever, which is nearly as bad as the scarlet one, and may be worse now, since the Line have lost their epaulettes. Well, I should like a lover of whom one would not be ashamed to make one's husband.'
'Husband—'
Laura was silent; and, trembling with joy, I forgot all about poor Callum Dhu, who was seated patiently with my baggage on the pier, awaiting the steamer which was now coming down the loch.
'Young Mac Innon is so poor, so wild, so strange!' resumed the painfully plain-spoken Fanny.
'These only make me the more his friend.'
'And we all know that "friendship in woman is kindred to love." He is quite like a young robber.'
'Well,' replied Laura, taking up her lively friend's rattling manner, 'I always thought it would be divine to marry a bandit! When we travelled from Rome to Naples, I looked daily for a handsome young brigand in a sugar-loaf hat, velvet jacket, and those red bandages which no outlaw is ever without—a Masseroni—a Fra Diavalo—but, alas! none ever came, and we jogged as quietly along the Appian Way as if it had been Rotten Row or the Canterbury-road.'
'But as we have had enough about Allan Mac Innon, now let us recur to our constant theme—my brother Tom and his old suit—or his friend, Snobleigh.'
Recur, thought I.
'I couldlearnto love your brother, perhaps, Fanny, because he is gentlemanly, kind, and lovable; but, as for Snobleigh—the fop, the mouthing idler—who would propose just as coolly as he would light a cigar, button his glove, or stroke a horse's knee, do not speak of such an atrocity as marriage with him—and yet he has proposed to me twice.'
'And been rejected?' asked Fanny, her dark eyes flashing with a mixture of fun and pique.
'Yes—rejected, yet still he loiters here, devoid alike of spirit and delicacy.'
'How did he receive your refusal?'
'Such was his provoking coolness, that I could have boxed his ears. Stroking his buff-coloured moustache, which, as you know, finds him a vast fund of employment, he adjusted his round collar and long-skirted surtout, and yawned out, "Vewy well, Miss Lawa—it don't mattaw—aw-aw—but, wemembaw that, the—aw—choicest gifts of God and of the Gwenadiaw Gawds, are—aw-aw—at your feet."'
Fanny's loud and ringing laugh at her friend's description was interrupted by the bell to dress for dinner; on which she murmured something about her attire, and in her usual volatile manner, sprang away, leaving Laura to follow her as she chose.
All that I had overheard proved unmistakably the interest I had in Laura's heart—a discovery that proved the foundation of much joy and pride and future misery to me.
All that followed is dim and wavering now, as a dream of years long past.
She was about to leave the saloon, when I stood before her, trembling in heart and in every limb. She grew very pale on seeing me, and I pressed her white passive hands to my lips and to my breast, and in such language as the agony of the moment supplied, I thanked her for the interest she took in one so miserable as I—and I prayed her to remember me when gone, for never more would my voice fall on her ear; I prayed, too, that God might bless her, and while thus pouring out the long-treasured secret of my heart, without daring once to touch her lips, though she stood beside me, pale and passive as a marble statue, I sprang away, as the voice of Clavering was heard in the shrubbery close by. I reached the avenue, and leaving the park and plantations far behind me, rushed like a deer down the glen to reach the steamer.
There was yet time to pause a moment!
I looked back to the old primeval woods which shaded the mansion-house of Glen Ora, and to the fire-scathed mountains that overhung it. Strange to say, I had now no bitterness in my heart, for Laura was their heiress, and I loved her more than all the world. I gave a parting glance at that beloved scenery now deepening in the summer gloaming. Glen Ora was dark and silent now—dark as if the shadow of death lay on it—and silent and voiceless as the grave, the last home of our people.
Sorrow and love were struggling in my heart, and sad, solemn, and terrible thoughts rose within me.
As each familiar object faded away and melted into night, then came to my heart the bitter conviction that I was a houseless wanderer, with the wide world all before me—that I was without country, friends, or home—but of the right mettle to become a brave and reckless soldier.
My country indeed!
I would have cursed her! What did I owe her? nothing. But she owed me a debt of blood—the blood of more than thirty of my own name and kindred, who had perished in her reckless wars—dying bravely sword in hand, and in the king's service—for in legions have the men of the clans gone forth to battle for Britain, and now ruin, treachery, extirpation and obloquy, with the garbage of the public press, are heaped upon the remnant who remain.
Callum Dhu, with my little baggage, had awaited me with some anxiety; but I joined him at the pier in time to reach the steamer which was to take us to the Clyde.
When I told him of all that had passed, his dark eyes flashed, and his swarthy cheek glowed, and slapping his bare knee, he exclaimed:—
'Dioul! now or never is the time to make your fortune, like Donald Gair or Robin Oig. Marry the Englishman's daughter, and Glen Ora—hill, wood, and water—shall all be ours again!'
But the monotonous flap-flap-flapping of the steamer's screw was the only reply he heard, as she bore us away for ever.
We reached the noble Clyde in due time, and landed at Dumbarton, for there we ascertained theDuchesswas to take on board our emigrants.
I have often thought of the truth of the poet's maxim, that there is a culminating point in the life of every man, and woman too—a turn of 'the tide,' which decides their destiny, and by which their future is irrevocably fixed; and, as this chapter will show, the whole current of my after-life has been changed by the simple circumstance of this emigrant ship being at Dumbarton instead of Glasgow. She was not quite ready for sea—thus three weeks slipped away, during which I lived at a hotel, frittering away the little funds I possessed, while my poor emigrants (who were daily receiving fresh accessions from the expatriated Rosses and Mac Donels) occupied certain old storehouses and sheds upon the quays.
One day Callum and I were sitting at a sequestered part of the river, surveying the stupendous rock of Dumbarton, which is cleft in two, and rises like a mighty mitre of basalt from the channel of the Clyde, strong and formidable in aspect, defended by cannon and by venerable ramparts, from which the beautiful vale of the Leven, the dark mountains of Arrochar, and the vast expanse of the azure river are visible. The shadow of many ages lay upon its hoary walls, for it is the Balclutha of Ossian and of the Romans—the Dun Britton, whence came 'the tall Galbraiths of the Red Tower,' so famed in Celtic story. Now its summits were wreathed in mist; the shades of evening were closing on it, and the red gleam of bayonets appeared upon its walls, as the sentinels of a Highland regiment trod to and fro upon the same ramparts from which the soldiers of the Cæsars, in nearly the same costume, had, eighteen hundred years ago, kept this key of the Western Highlands and of the navigation of the Clyde.
As I gazed at the bayonets glittering ever and anon above the old grey bastions, the words of Clavering came again and again to my memory, and the longing to become a soldier, with a horror of hopeless banishment as an emigrant, grew strong within me. My father had once belonged to this very regiment—the famous fighting —th Highlanders. My resolution was taken in a moment. I would see their colonel—I would speak with him—tell my wishes and depressing circumstances, and frankly ask his advice. Callum loudly applauded this idea!
'He'll make a captain of you,' said he, with a confidence that was certainly not based on a knowledge of the service. 'Who can say nay?' he continued, with kindling eyes; 'a Mac Innon of Glen Ora could never be less than a captain—Mona, Mon Dioul—no! and I shall become a soldier too, and, with five and twenty more of our lads, will follow you to the end of the world, and further!'
In ten minutes after this resolution was formed we were ascending the steep pathway of the castle rock, while Callum whistled lustily an interminable but most warlike pibroch. Entering by the gate which is at the foot of the fortress, and faces the south-east, we passed several strong ramparts, and ascended an abrupt flight of steps into the heart of the place, where the magazine stands, and the sword of Sir William Wallace is preserved. Here a few Highland soldiers who were on guard, and who sat smoking and lounging on a deal form in front of the guard-house, pointed out the quarters of their colonel, in search of whom I immediately repaired; but was informed by an orderly that he was in the mess-room, into which he at once ushered me without much ceremony.
The apartment was large and plain; the windows afforded a view of the mighty valley of the Clyde; the furniture consisted of thirty hard-seated Windsor chairs, a long mahogany table, and side tables strewed with newspapers and dog-eared army-lists. Over the mantelpiece hung an engraved portrait of Sir Colin Campbell, General of the Highland Division, and a row of enormous stags' antlers and skulls.
A handsome, but elderly man, with grizzled hair, becoming slightly bald, and having an obstinate moustache that despised bandoline and defied all trimming, and having a face browned by every climate under heaven, was seated on one chair, while his spurred heels rested on another. He was immersed in the pages of the 'U.S. Gazette.' He wore green tartan trews and a red shell-jacket, with a sash over his left shoulder; a plain Highland bonnet and a splendidly jewelled dirk lay beside him; and close by was a decanter of peculiar mess port, a glass of which he set down with a glance of surprise as Callum and I, after the preliminarysingle knockon the door, were ushered in by the mess-waiter.
This officer was Colonel Ronald Crawford, who distinguished himself so much in India, and of whom it was often said, that he was so brave and cool, that he would not have winked even if a cannon ball had shaved his whiskers. He bowed politely to me—looked inquisitively at Callum, who he no doubt supposed to be a recruit, and whose tattered mountain garb was somewhat remarkable. He stood dutifully, bonnet in hand, about a yard behind me, eying the colonel dubiously, as he might have eyed an ogre.
'I believe I have the honour to address Colonel Crawford of the —th Highlanders,' said I.
'The same at your service,' said the colonel, rising, planting his feet astride, and placing his back to the fire—a favourite professional attitude.
'Mr. Allan Mac Innon,' said I, introducing myself with timid anxiety.
The colonel bowed again, and said, blandly,—
'In what can I serve you, Mr. Mac Innon?'
My story was briefly told, and he listened with considerable interest, for he was too brave in heart to hear it without emotion.
'Your name is Mac Innon, and your father was, you mention, in the —th Highlanders. Did he serve once with the 1st Royal Scots?'
'Yes, in the war against the Pindarees, and fought at the battle of Nagpore and the storming of Gawelghur.'
'I knew him, my lad, I knew him well,' said the old Colonel, pressing both my hands in his; 'God bless me, but this is strange! And you are the son of old Allan Mac Innon of the Royals!—He saved my life at Nagpore—.'
'Thenyouare the officer, to save whom he made such a desperate effort at the head of thirty men of the Royals, and whom he found tied to the muzzle of a brass gun, which was loaded—'
'With round shot and grape, my boy! but he saved me, by cleaving with one blow of his sword the rascally Arab who was about to apply the match that would have blown me to shreds! This was just within the Durawazza gate, when poor Jack Bell of ours, with a company of the Royal Scots and a party of Sappers, stormed it. Bless my soul! and you are really the son of my old chum and comrade, Allan Mac Innon? Drink your wine, my lad, and tell me all this once again.'
In ten minutes we were quite old friends; another decanter of port was ordered up, Callum was consigned to the care of the mess-waiter, and then I made known my wishes to the colonel, who began alternately to smile and look a little perplexed.
'You wish a commission—we are now at war to be sure; but there are many difficulties. Have you any interest?'
'None—all who might have served me have died in the army.'
'You cannot purchase?'
'I have not quite twenty guineas in the world.'
'Bless my soul! Then there are the necessary studies—a curriculum in fact—an examination and cramming at Sandhurst. What languages do you know?'
'English, a little French, and Gaelic.'
The old colonel burst into a fit of laughter.
'Come—I like this! Did your father purchase?'
'No.'
'Then how did he join the Black Watch?'
'By bringing two hundred men to its ranks.'
'We are making the regiment up to two battalions—the full war establishment; if, among your emigrants you could procure as many volunteers as would entitle you to an ensigncy—'
'How many are required?'
'Five and twenty,'
'I can bring you that very number!' said I, rising and seizing my bonnet.
'Nay, not so fast,' said the colonel, laughing, and filling my glass again. 'Will they all pass the doctor's examination?'
'They are the flower of the district—strong, hardy, and athletic men,' I replied, as the wine mounted into my head; 'men inured to a life of poverty and toil; men who with no other covering than their kilt and plaid have remained upon the frozen heather and in the open air for weeks together, to stalk the wild red deer; men who with a single bullet will kill a hawk or eagle in full flight, or bring the most furious stag to bay—ay and slay it too, by one stroke of a skene-dhu or a clubbed rifle!'
'Bravo! this is the stuff to make soldiers of! Instead of five and twenty, I wish you had five hundred such,cho laidir Re Cuchullin—as strong as the Fingalian. You see, my lad, I don't forget my Gaelic.'
'The day will never come again, when five hundred such men will march from the Braes of Loch Ora, colonel.'
He invited me to dine that day at the mess, where the splendor of the plate, the richness of the Highland uniforms, the various wines, the number and delicacy of the dishes, with the kindness and frank good-fellowship of the officers, charmed and dazzled me; and as they were all passionately fond of sporting, shooting, and deer-stalking, topics in which I was quite at home, I conversed about them with an ease, energy, and confidence which—when I forgot the pink champagne—certainly surprised myself.
Anxious to have his battalion made up without delay, the colonel had already written to the Horse Guards about me: bounties were high, and men were scarce; my twenty-five volunteers were ready and willing, and an answer was expected from the General Commanding-in-Chief within eight days.
The night was far advanced before I left the castle.
Full of new thoughts, new hopes, and new life, my whole horizon seemed to have become suddenly cloudless, bright, and sunny; Laura's beautiful eyes were before me, and amid the mellowing influences of the moonlight and the mess champagne, nothing seemed impossible for me to achieve, and I felt happy, confident, and glorious.
The moon shone with silver splendor on the broad expanse of the Clyde, and far across its bosom threw the shadow of Dumbarton's double peak. To me there seemed but one dark spot in the landscape—the large emigrant ship, which lay at anchor in the stream—theDuchess, which was to convey our poor and expatriated people to their new homes in the Land of the West.
I will hasten overtheirdeparture to America; the sailing of the vessel was hurried next day, and they were thrust on board pell-mell, like sheep. I will not attempt to describe the parting between them and the twenty-five who volunteered to share my fortune in the old world, rather than become the pioneers of civilization and the patriarchs of another race in the western hemisphere. Callum and Minnie parted for the time, with the usual promises of constancy, of remembrance, and of writing until they met again, for she would not leave her relations to become the wife of a soldier—and so we all separated.
Alisdair Mac Gouran and the older of the expatriated, were full of many misgivings; but aged people always are so; and the shrill cry of sorrow and farewell which ascended from that crowded deck as the fore-yard was filled, and when the anchor was apeak, went to my heart like a dagger. The elders of the tribe, whose tastes, habits, and thoughts were bounded by the narrow horizon of their native glen, were naturally filled with consternation by the idea of the new and far-off land of their labours and eternal rest; but I now felt a fresh hope—a new joy springing up within me, as the love of adventure and the consciousness of freedom, so dear to a young and buoyant heart, roused my energies and my enthusiasm, and I now longed for the hour when I should belt on my sword, with the world for my home, and the colours for my household gods.
I will refrain from detailing the cruelties and barbarities to which, in their outward voyage, the last of the clan were subjected; how they were decimated by starvation and fever; how the old perished daily and the young lost health and heart together; and how the aged Mhari and the young and blooming Minnie died off the foggy Bank of Newfoundland. On board theDuchessa small allowance of meal with a liberal quantity of brackish water was their daily food; but than they were amply furnished with anti-slavery tracts, Addresses to the Women of America, and shilling copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Whether or not it is owing to the apathy or incapacity of the man—the solitary man—the supposed legal and diplomatic Briareus, to whom the government of Scotland is intrusted, or to the utter ignorance of that country betrayed by British legislators, that the sufferings of our Celts arise, I pretend not to say. The fault lies somewhere.
Ignorance of Scottish affairs and of Scottish wants and wishes, together with the criminal apathy of Scottish representatives and the overwhelming influence of centralization, are doubtless the cause of much of the misery and ruin of the Highland population; and the day may come when Britain will find the breasts and bayonets of her foreign legionaries, or the effeminate rabble of her manufacturing cities, but a poor substitute for the stubborn clansmen of Sutherland, Ross-shire, and Breadalbane.