‘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, shortleg 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 departingfootsteps 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 tatteredHighland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirtycanvasshirt 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 thatould 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 thereover 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 theparish 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 terrifyinghis 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. Johnminded 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 ofwater, 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 theshot, 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 movementin 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 tenderhearted 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 benevolentwidow 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 continuedto 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 nothingto 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 lyingdead, 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 compelledfrom 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 hewell 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.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.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 hisreason, 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 neighbouringwright’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 unpleasantchill 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 hisuncouth 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 starethat 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 theirwide-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 waythrough 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 timethey 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 besmothered 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 hurriedon 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 shewas 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, occupyingthe 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 inhere, 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, ifwe 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 whereJohn 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 inhanging 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 ownsafety 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 mannerin 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 beensitting 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 thehorrible 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 therebels 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 terrorand 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 sametime half doubting, after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he believed to be herwraith, 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 herclothes 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 themost 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. ButI 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!”
‘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, shortleg 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 departingfootsteps 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 tatteredHighland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirtycanvasshirt 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 thatould 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 thereover 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 theparish 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 terrifyinghis 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. Johnminded 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 ofwater, 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 theshot, 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 movementin 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 tenderhearted 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 benevolentwidow 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 continuedto 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 nothingto 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 lyingdead, 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 compelledfrom 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 hewell 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.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.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 hisreason, 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 neighbouringwright’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 unpleasantchill 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 hisuncouth 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 starethat 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 theirwide-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 waythrough 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 timethey 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 besmothered 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 hurriedon 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 shewas 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, occupyingthe 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 inhere, 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, ifwe 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 whereJohn 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 inhanging 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 ownsafety 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 mannerin 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 beensitting 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 thehorrible 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 therebels 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 terrorand 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 sametime half doubting, after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he believed to be herwraith, 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 herclothes 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 themost 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. ButI 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!”
‘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, shortleg 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 departingfootsteps 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 tatteredHighland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirtycanvasshirt 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 thatould 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 thereover 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 theparish 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 terrifyinghis 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. Johnminded 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 ofwater, 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 theshot, 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 movementin 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 tenderhearted 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 benevolentwidow 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 continuedto 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 nothingto 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 lyingdead, 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 compelledfrom 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 hewell 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.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.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 hisreason, 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 neighbouringwright’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 unpleasantchill 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 hisuncouth 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 starethat 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 theirwide-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 waythrough 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 timethey 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 besmothered 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 hurriedon 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 shewas 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, occupyingthe 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 inhere, 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, ifwe 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 whereJohn 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 inhanging 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 ownsafety 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 mannerin 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 beensitting 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 thehorrible 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 therebels 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 terrorand 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 sametime half doubting, after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he believed to be herwraith, 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 herclothes 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 themost 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. ButI 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!”
‘The royal oak is not a joke.’
‘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, shortleg 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 departingfootsteps 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 tatteredHighland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirtycanvasshirt 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.
“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 thatould 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——”
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 thereover 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 theparish 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 terrifyinghis 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. Johnminded 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 ofwater, 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 theshot, 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 movementin 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 tenderhearted 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 benevolentwidow 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 continuedto 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 nothingto 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 lyingdead, 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 compelledfrom 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 hewell 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.
For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.
For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat.
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 hisreason, 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 neighbouringwright’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 unpleasantchill 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 hisuncouth 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 starethat 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 theirwide-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 waythrough 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 timethey 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 besmothered 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 hurriedon 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 shewas 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, occupyingthe 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 inhere, 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, ifwe 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 whereJohn 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 inhanging 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 ownsafety 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 mannerin 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 beensitting 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 thehorrible 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 therebels 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 terrorand 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 sametime half doubting, after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he believed to be herwraith, 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 herclothes 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 themost 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. ButI 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!”