Early on the morning of the 12th July, 1743, when the sun was yet below the dim horizon, and a frowsy fog that lingered on the river was mingling with the city's smoke to spread a gloom over the midsummer morning, all London seemed to be pouring from her many avenues towards Tower Hill, where an episode of no ordinary interest was promised to the sight-loving Cockneys—a veritable military execution, with all its stern terrors and grim solemnity.
All the troops in London were under arms, and long before daybreak had taken possession of an ample space enclosing Tower Hill; and there, conspicuous above all by their high and absurd sugar-loaf caps, were the brilliantly accoutred English and Scots Horse Grenadier Guards, the former under Viscount Cobham, and the latter under Lieutenant-General John Earl of Rothes, K.T., and Governor of Duncannon; the Coldstream Guards; the Scots Fusiliers; and a sombre mass in the Highland garb of dark-green tartan, whom they surrounded with fixed bayonets.
These last were the two hundred men of the Reicudan Dhu selected for banishment, previous to which they were compelled to behold the death, or—as they justly deemed it—the deliberate murder under trust, of three brave gentlemen, their comrades.
The gates of the Tower revolved, and then the craped and muffled drums of the Scots Fusilier Guards were heard beating a dead march before those who were "to return to Lochaber no more." Between two lines of Yeomen of the Guard, who faced inwards, the three prisoners came slowly forth, surrounded by an escort with fixed bayonets, each doomed man marching behind his coffin, which was borne on the shoulders of four soldiers. On approaching the parade, each politely raised his bonnet and bowed to the assembled multitude.
"Courage, gentlemen," said Farquhar Shaw; "I see no gallows here. I thank God we shall not die a dog's death!"
"'Tis well," replied MacPherson, "for honour is more precious than refined gold."
The murmur of the multitude gradually subsided and died away, like a breeze that passes through a forest, leaving it silent and still, and then not a sound was heard but the baleful rolling of the muffled drums and the shrill but sweet cadence of the fifes. Then came the word,Halt!breaking sharply the silence of the crowded arena, and the hollow sound of the three empty coffins, as they were laid on the ground, at the distance of thirty paces from the firing party.
Now the elder brother patted the shoulder of the other, as he smiled and said—-
"Courage—a little time and all will be over—our spirits shall be with those of our brave forefathers."
"No coronach will be cried over us here, and no cairn will mark in other times where we sleep in the land of the stranger."
"Brother," replied the other, in the same forcible language, "we can well spare alike the coronach and the cairn, when to our kinsmen we can bequeath the dear task of avenging us!"
"If that bequest be valued, then we shall not die in vain."
Once again they all raised their bonnets and uttered a pious invocation; for now the sun was up, and in the Highland fashion—a fashion old as the days of Baal—they greeted him.
"Are you ready?" asked the provost-marshal.
"All ready," replied Farquhar; "moch-eirigh 'luain, a ni'n t-suain 'mhairt."*
* Early rising on Monday gives a sound sleep on Tuesday.—see MacIntosh'sGaelic Proverbs.
This, to them, fatal 12th of July Was aMonday; so the proverb was solemnly applicable.
Wan, pale, and careworn they looked, but their eyes were bright, their steps steady, their bearing erect and dignified. They felt themselves victims and martyrs, whose fate would find a terrible echo in the Scottish Highlands; and need I add, that echowas heard, when two years afterwards Prince Charles unfurled his standard in Glenfinnan? Thus inspired by pride of birth, of character, and of country—by inborn bravery and conscious innocence, at this awful crisis, they gazed around them without quailing, and exhibited a self-possession which excited the pity and admiration of all who beheld them.
The clock struck the fatal hour at last!
"It is my doom," exclaimed Farquhar; "the hour of my end hath followed me."
They all embraced each other, and declined having their eyes bound up, but stood boldly, each at the foot of his coffin, confronting the levelled muskets of thirty privates of the Grenadier Guards, and they died like the brave men they had lived. One brief paragraph inSt. James's Chroniclethus records their fate.
"On Monday, the 12th, at six o'clock in the morning, Samuel and Malcolm MacPherson, corporals, and Farquhar Shaw, a private-man, three of the Highland deserters, were shot upon the parade of the Tower pursuant to the sentence of the court martial. The rest of the Highland prisoners were drawn out to see the execution, and joined in their prayers with great earnestness. They behaved with perfect resolution and propriety. Their bodies were put into three coffins by three of the prisoners, their clansmen and namesakes, and buried in one grave, near the place of execution."
Such is the matter-of-fact record of a terrible fate!
To the slaughter of these soldiers, and the wicked breach of faith perpetrated by the Government, may be traced much of that distrust which characterized the Seaforth Highlanders and other clan regiments in their mutinies and revolts in later years; and nothing inspired greater hatred in the hearts of those who "rose" for Prince Charles in 1745, than the story of the deception andmurder(for so they named it) of the three soldiers of the Reicudan Dhu by King George at London. "There must have been something more than common in the case and character of these unfortunate men," to quote the good and gallant old General Stewart of Garth, "as Lord John Murray, who was afterwards colonel of the regiment, had portraits of them hung in his dining-room."
This was the first episode in the history of the Black Watch, which soon after covered itself with glory by the fury of its charge at Fontenoy, and on the field of Dettingen exulted that among the dead who lay there was General Clayton, "the Sassenach" whose specious story first lured them from the Birks of Aberfeldy.
"As the regiment expects to be engaged with the enemy to-morrow, the women and baggage will be sent to the rear. For this duty, Ensign James Campbell, of Glenfalloch."
Such was the order which was circulated in the camp of the 42nd Highlanders (then known as the Black Watch) on the evening of the 28th April, 1745, previous to the Duke of Cumberland's attack on the French outposts in front of Fontenoy. Our battalion (writes one of our old officers) was to form the advanced guard on this occasion, and had been ordered to the village of Veson, where a bivouac was formed, while Ensign Campbell, of Glenfalloch, the same who was afterwards wounded at Fontenoy, marched the baggage, with all the sorrowing women of the corps, beyond Maulpré, as our operations were for the purpose of relieving Tournay, then besieged by a powerful French army under Marshal Count de Saxe, and valiantly defended by eight thousand Dutchmen under the veteran Baron Dorth. It was the will of Heaven in those days that we should fight for none but the Dutch and Hanoverians.
I had been appointed captain-lieutenant to the Black Watch from the old 26th, or Angus's Foot, and having overtaken the corps on its march between the gloomy old town of Liege and the barrier fortress of Maestricht, the aspect and bearing of the Highlanders—we had then only one regiment of them in the service—seemed new and strange, even barbaric to my eyes; for, as a Lowlander, I had been ever accustomed to associate the tartan with fierce rapine and armed insurrection. Yet their bearing was stately, free, and noble; for our ranks were filled by the sons of Highland gentlemen, and of these the most distinguished for stature, strength, and bravery were the seven sons of Captain Maclean, a cadet of the house of Duairt, who led our grenadiers. The very flower of these were the seven tall Macleans, who, since the regiment had beenfirstmustered at the beautiful Birks of Aberfeldy, in May, 1740, had shone foremost in every encounter with the enemy.
Captain Campbell, of Finab, and I seated ourselves beside the Celtic patriarch who commanded our grenadier company, and near him were his seven sons lounging on the grass, all tall and muscular men, bearded to the eyes, athletic, and weather-beaten by hunting and fighting in the Highlands, and inured alike to danger and to toil. Though gentlemen volunteers, they wore the uniform of the privates, a looped-up scarlet jacket and waistcoat faced with buff and laced with white,* a tartan plaid of twelve yards plaited round the body and thrown over the left shoulder; a flat blue bonnet with the fesse-chequé of the house of Stuart round it, and an eagle's feather therein, to indicate the wearer's birth. The whole regiment carried claymores in addition to their muskets, and to these weapons every soldier added, if he chose, a dirk, skene, pair of pistols, and target; in the fashion of the Highlands; thus our front rank men were usually as fully equipped as any that stepped on the muir of Culloden. Our sword-belts were black, and the cartouch-box was slung in front by a waist-belt. In addition to all this warlike paraphernalia, our grenadiers carried each a hatchet and pouch of hand-grenades. The servicelike, formidable, andcap-à-pieaspect of the regiment had impressed me deeply; but Captain Maclean and his seven sons more than all, as they lay grouped near the watchfire, in the red light of which their bearded visages, keen eyes, and burnished weapons were glinting and glowing.
* The regiment was not made royal until 1768.
The beard of old Maclean was white as snow, and flowed over his tartan plaid and scarlet waistcoat, imparting to his appearance a greater peculiarity, as all gentlemen were then closely shaven. As Finab and I seated ourselves by his fire, he raised his bonnet and bade us welcome with a courtly air, which consorted ill with his sharp west Highland accent. His eye was clear and bold in expression, his voice was commanding and loud, as in one whose will had never been disputed. Close by was his inseparable henchman and foster-brother Ronald MacAra, the colour-sergeant of his company, an aged Celt of grim presence and gigantic proportions, whose face had been nearly cloven by a blow from a Lochaber axe at the battle of Dunblane.
"Welcome, gentlemen," said old Maclean, "a hundred thousand welcomes to a share of our supper, a savouryroad collop, as we call it at home. It was a fine fat sheep that my son Dougal found astray in a field near Maulpré; and here is a braw little demijohn of Belgian wine, which Alaster borrowed from a boor close by. These other five lads are also my sons, Dunacha, Deors, Findlay Bane, Farquhar Gorm, and Angus Dhu, all grenadiers in the King's service, and hoping each one to be like myself a captain and to cock their feathers among the best in the Black Watch. Attend to our comrades, my braw lads."
Thelads, the least of whom was six feet in height, assisted us to a share of the sheep, which was broiling merrily on the glowing embers, and from which their comrades, who crowded round, partook freely, cutting off the slices, as they sputtered and browned, by their long dirks and sharp skenes. The seven grenadiers were all fine and hearty fellows, who trundled Alaster's demijohn of wine from hand to hand round the red roaring fire, on which the grim henchman or colour-sergeant heaped up, from time to time, the doors and rafters of an adjacent house, and there we continued to carouse, sing, and tell stories, until the night was far advanced.
The month was April, and the night was a glorious one; all our bivouac was visible as if at noonday. The hum of voices, the scrap of a song, a careless laugh, the neigh of a horse, or the jangle of a bridle alone broke the silence of the moonlit sky; though at times we heard the murmur of a stream that stole towards the Scheldt, like a silver current through the fields of sprouting corn, and under banks where the purple foxglove, the pink wild rose, and the green bramble hung in heavy masses.
And could aught be more picturesque than our Highland bivouac, lighted up by wavering watchfires and the brilliant queen of night—the Celtic soldiers muffled in their dark-green plaids, their rough bare knees, hardy as the stems of the mountain pine, and alike impervious to the summer heat and winter cold, lying asleep upon their "umbered arms," or seated in groups, singing old songs, or telling wild stories of those distant glens from which, asSeidaran Deargor "Red Soldiers," the chances of the Belgian war had brought them here.
I was delighted with the old chief and his sons—they were so free and gay in manner, so frank and bold in bearing, while there was something alike noble and patriarchal in the circumstance of their stately old father leading a company of brave hearts, nearly all of whom were men of his own name and kindred. The fire had been freshly heaped with billets and fagots, the demijohn still bled freely; we had just concluded a merry chorus, which made the Uhlan videttes on the distant plain prick up their ears and listen, and we had reached that jovial point when a little wit goes a very long way, when Sergeant Ronald MacAra, the old henchman, approached Captain Maclean, and placing a hand upon his shoulder with that kind but respectful familiarity which his relation as a foster-brother sanctioned, said with impressive solemnity—
"For the love of the blessed God, see that ye do not fight the stranger to-morrow with your stomach fasting."
The ruddy face of the old soldier grew pale.
"No, Ronald," said he; "our race has already paid dear for neglecting that strange warning."
"God and Mary forbid!" muttered two of his sons, crossing themselves devoutly.
"Keep something for me in your havresack, Ronald," said the captain, "and call me before the drums beat for marching; keep something for the laddies, too—for the Lord forfend that ever son of mine should draw his blade with a fasting stomach under his belt."
"A wise precaution, Maclean," said old Captain Campbell of Finab; "but Gude kens we have often had to draw our blades here in Low Germanie, and fall on, without other breakfast than a tightened waist-belt."
"True; but it was by omitting to break his fast that my worthy ancestor Sir Lauchlan Maclean lost his life in Mull, and hence the warning of Sergeant MacAra, my fosterer."
"How came that to pass?" I asked with surprise; for the impressive manner of these Celts was strange and new to me.
"'Tis a story as well as any other, and I care not if I tell you, gentlemen," said the old captain of grenadiers. "Dunacha, throw some more sticks on the fire—Angus, pass round the black-jack, my son, while I tell of the doleful battle of Groynard. The presence of the Lord be about us, but that was a black day, and a dreary one for the house of Duairt and the Clan Gillian to boot!"
After this preamble and collecting his thoughts a little, the captain commenced the following strange story:—
History will tell you, gentlemen, that in the early part of the reign of his Majesty James VI. there arose a deadly feud between my people, the Clan Gillian in Mull, and the Clan Donald of Islay, concerning the claim which, from times beyond the memory of man, we had, or believed we had ('tis all one in the Highlands) to the Rhinns of Islay. For many a year our people and the Macdonalds invaded, harried, hacked, hewed, and shot each other; the axe and bow, the pistol and claymore were never relinquished for one entire week, but we were never nearer our end, for I must admit that our antagonists were a brave tribe, though in boyhood—such is the absurdity of a transmitted feud—I was taught to hate them more than death. I have been told that there was not a man of either of the hostile tribes but had lost his nearest and dearest kinsmen in that ungodly contest.
But now a crisis was coming.
My worthy ancestor, Sir Lauchlan Maclean of Duairt, was a soldier of high renown and bravery—one whose skill in war was acknowledged by all who saw him lead the Clan Gillian to victory at the great battle of Benrinnes, where twelve thousand Scottish Protestants measured swords with Lord Huntly's Catholics on the banks of the Livat, and there decided their religious differences like pretty men. Well, Sir Lauchlan, through the great favour in which he was held at court, obtained from the King's own hand at Holyrood a charter or warrant empowering him to take possession not only of those devilish Rhinns, but of the whole island of Islay—the patrimony and home of the Lords of the Isles—what think you of that, sirs? All Islay with Eilan-na-Corlle, or the Island of Council, the great castle in Loch Finlaggan, the Rock of the Silver Rent, the Rock of the Rent-in-Kind, with everything that flew over Islay, walked on its hills, or swam in its lakes, to him and his heirs for ever, heritably and irredeemably, until the day of doom.
This seemed a severe stroke of fortune to the poor Clan Donald, the more so as their chief, Angus of Kintyre, was aged and frail, and had not drawn a sword since last he fought our people in his seventieth year, and now he was eighty. His son, Sir James, was as yet unknown as a soldier, while Sir Lauchlan was in the noon of his strength and manhood—second to none that stepped on heather or ever wore the tartan: hence, full of hope and confident of success, he rejected with scorn the offers of mediation made by neighbouring chiefs; for old Angus had many friends, and my forefathers' claims were, to say the least of them, rather unjust. Sir Lauchlan summoned all the clan, his friends and kinsmen, to meet him in arms and with their galleys on a certain day to sail for Islay, when he hoped to crush the Clan Donald for ever in one decisive battle.
On the evening before the muster, mounted and alone he rode from Duairt to consult a witch who dwelt in an uncouth den known among us as "the cave of the Grey Woman." It was not without some misgivings that my ancestor paid this visit; but the advice and auguries of this woman, Aileen Glas, had never failed our race in times of war and peril.
As he drew near her dwelling, the night was closing in; the wind shook the boughs of the forest, and as he looked back, they resembled the long green waves of a sea of foliage rolling up the narrow glen. The "gloaming" darkened fast, and the silent dew distilled from the drooping leaves; the golden cups of the broom and the calices of the heather-bells were shrinking with many a summer fly and honey-bee concealed in their petals, for night was descending on the stormy shores and boisterous hills of Mull—boisterous indeed, for there the hollow winds rave and howl from peak to peak, and wreath up the mist into many a strange and many a fearful shape, till the ghosts of Ossian seem again to tower above Benmore and Bentaluidh.
Sir Lauchlan rode rapidly up the narrowing glen, till he found the cave of the Grey Woman before him. It yawned dark, lofty, and profound; so, dismounting, he tied his horse to a tree, and with his target and claymore advanced boldly, but with no small trouble, as the darkness was now intense, and the ascent to the cavern was rocky and difficult. Above his head rose its capacious arch, fringed by matted ivy and the light waving mountain ash that covered all the upper rocks, the splintered peaks of which shot up against the starless sky in abrupt and jagged outline. Clambering up, he entered with a stately step, though his heart beat fast with anxiety; before him lay a dark abyss of blackness and vacancy, opening into the bowels of the mountain; and though lightly shod in cuarans of soft deer hide, he could hear his footsteps echoing afar off.
At last a red light began to gleam before him, playing in fitful flashes upon the wet slimy walls of the den, and on the huge stalactites that hung like rough Gothic pendants from the roof, and were formed by the filtrations of calcareous rills that stole noiselessly down between the chasms and crannies in the walls of rock.
Aileen Glas was said to have been born in the mossy isle of Calligrey, in a hut built among the stones of the temple of Annat, the mined shrine of a Druidical goddess. Annat presided over the young maidens of the Western Isles, and there still remains her well, in which they are said to have purified themselves. In that well Aileen was baptized by the Red Priest of Applecross, and hence her magical power.
As Maclean stepped on, he perceived the Grey Woman, a withered, shrivelled, and frightful hag, whose nose was hooked like an eagle's beak, and on whose chin was a grey tuft, like a thistle's beard—a mere anatomy of bones and skin—seated before a heap of blazing turf and sticks, but asleep, and reclining against the wall of rock. A tattered plaid of our clan tartan was over her head, the grey hair of which hung in twisted elflocks round her bony visage. An urchin—a hideous hedgehog—nestled in her fleshless bosom, and its diminutive eyes shone like red beads in the light. On one side lay a heap of withered herbs, a human skull cloven in battle, and the spulebane of a sea-wolf; on the other side was an old iron three-legged pot used in her incantations. Therein sat a huge, rough, and wild-eyed polecat, which spat at the intruder, and woke up a large, sleepy bat that swung by his tail from a withered branch which projected from a fissure of the rock.
The Grey Woman awoke also, and, without moving, fixed her green basilisk eyes on Sir Lauchlan's face, saying sharply—
"What want ye, Duairt?"
"Your advice, good Aileen Glas," replied the chief, meekly, for he was awed by her aspect.
"Advice!" shrieked the Grey Woman. "Is it a spell you seek, to insure success, that you may do a greater wrong unto the hapless and guiltless Clan Donald of Islay?"
"I seek to do them no wrong, Aileen. The Rhinns are ours by right, and Islay is ours by the King's own charter."
"Thepeoplewere there before kings or charters were known in the land. God gave the hills and the isles to the children of the Gael, and His curse will fall on all who seek to dispossess them by virtue of sheepskins and waxen seals. Did not a Lord of the Isles say that he little valued a right which depended on the possession of a scrap of parchment? Beware, Lauchlan Maclean! beware! for the hand of fate is upon you!"
Scared by her words and her fury, as her shrill voice awoke the inmost recesses of the vault, Sir Lauchlan said—
"In the name of the mother of God, Aileen Glas, I beseech you to be composed, and to tell me of what I must beware!"
She snatched up the spulebane of the wolf, and, after looking through it by holding it between her and the fire, cast it aside with a shriek, saying—
"Lauchlan of Duairt, listen to me, for never may you hear my voice again!"
"It may be so, Aileen; we sail for Islay to-morrow!"
"Well, do not land upon aThursday, and do not drink of the well that flows at the head of Loch Groynard, for I can see that one Maclean will be slain there, andlie headless! Away! leave me now! In the glen you will meet those who will tell you more!" and she muffled her face in her plaid as Sir Lauchlan left her.
"I can easily avoid a landing on Thursday, and a draught of that devilish well too; but whom shall I meet in the glen?" thought he, as he mounted and galloped homewards to Duairt, glad the horrid interview was over. As he rode round the base of Benmore, the waning moon began to show half her disc above the black shoulder of the mighty mountain, and a pale light played along the broad waves of Loch-na-keal, which lay on his left, and were rolled in foam against the bold headlands and columnar ridges, which are covered with coats of ivy and tufted by remains of oak and ash woods that overhung the salt billows of that western sea, where the scart, the mew, and the heron were screaming.
On, on rode our chief, treasuring the words of Grey Aileen in his heart, and soon he saw the lights in his own castle of Duairt glittering before him about a mile off, and anon he could perceive the outline of the great keep as it towered in the pale moonlight on its high cliff that breasts the Sound of Mull. But hark! the voice of a woman made him pause.
He checked his horse and looked around him.
Under an old and blasted oak-tree, the leafless and gnarled branches of which seemed white and ghastly in the cold moonlight, stood the figure of a woman arrayed in a pale-coloured dress that shimmered and gleamed as the moon's half-disc dipped behind the sharp rocky cone of Bentaluidh. The figure, which was thin and tall, was enveloped in a garment that resembled a shroud. It came forward with one lean arm uplifted, as if to stay the onward progress of Maclean, whose rearing horse swerved, trembled, and perspired with fear. Nearer she came, and, as the starlight glinted on her features, they seemed pallid, ghastly, hollow, and wasted; the lips were shrunken from the teeth, the eyes shone like two pieces of glass, and, to his horror, Sir Lauchlan recognised his old nurse Mharee, who had been buried in the preceding year, and whom, with his own hands, he had laid in her grave, close by the wall of Torosay Kirk, the bell of which at that moment tolled the eleventh hour of the night. Gathering courage from despair, he asked—
"In the name of Him who died for us, Mharee, what want you here to-night?"
"Oh, my son!" said she, "for such indeed I may call you (for did not these breasts, on which the worms are now preying, give you suck?) this expedition against the men of Islay is full of mighty consequences to you and all Clan Gillian!"
"I am sure of that, Mharee," replied Maclean, with a sinking heart; "but we go to gather glory and triumph, to spread the honour and the terror of our name, and to win a fairer patrimony to bequeath, with our swords, to the children who succeed us."
"Lauchlan Maclean! by the bones of your father and the fame of your mother, I conjure you to abandon this wicked war, to sheath your sword, to burn the King's charter, and to leave the Clan Donald in peace, for Islay is the land of their inheritance."
"To what disgrace would you counsel me, Mharee? to be a coward and a liar in the face of the King, of my kindred and clansmen? Come weal, come woe, to-morrow my birlinns shall spread their sails upon the sea that leads to Islay, though I and all my people go but to their graves: by the cross of Maclean I have sworn it!"
"So be it then; but if go you will, I warn you not to cross the threshold of Duairt with afasting stomach, or sore evil, Lauchlan, will come of it to all thy kin and thee!"
With these strange words, the figure faded away like a moonbeam, and nothing was seen but the bare, blasted tree stretching its naked anna across the narrow way. Some time elapsed before Maclean recovered from his terror and astonishment to find his horse dashing up the ascent which led to the Castle of Duairt, where his pale face and wild manner caused many questions and excited much comment; but he kept his own counsel, resolving not to march on the morrow before breakfast, not to land on a Thursday, andnotto drink of any well in Islay, if other liquor could be found for love or money.
Next morning great were the hurry, din, and preparation in Duairt, and long before cockcrow the shore of Loch Linnhe was covered by armed men, with their brass targets and burnished claymores, axes, bows, and Spanish muskets; their helmets and lurichs sparkled in the dawn, and when the sun arose above the hills of Lorn, the white sails of the birlinns, with banners flying and pipers playing at the prow, covered all the sea around the Castle of Duairt. Sir Lauchlan in person superintended the embarkation of his followers, and if there was one, there were seven hundred good claymores among them—not a bonnet less! Every man, as he left Duairt, had a ration of bannock, cheese, and venison given to him, with a good dram to put under his belt, for such is our Highland custom before setting out on an expedition.
But such was the enthusiasm, such were the cheers, the congratulations and hopes uttered aloud, the yelling of pipes, the twangling of clairsachs and quaffing of toasts with blade and bicker held aloft, that it was not until he was on board his great war birlinn, with all her canvas spread to catch the northern gale which blew towards the peaks of Jura, that the fated chieftain found that, in attending to his people, he had forgotten to regale himself, and, contrary to the solemn warning of the spirit, had actually commenced his hazardous expedition with a "fasting stomach!"
"Dhia!" cried he to my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch; "I am lost, nephew," and he related the vision of last night.
"If that be all," replied my grand-uncle, who was his brother's son, "rest easy, for here have I and Ronald of the Drums marched too, with nothing under our belts but the cold north wind."
Still my ancestor felt far from easy; but he forgot it before night, when a heavy gale came on, and the birlinns were scattered on the waters of the darkening deep like a flock of gulls; and it was in vain that he fired his pateraroes as signals to keep together.
The storm increased, and while some of the little fleet narrowly escaped being sucked (like the Danish prince of old) into the roaring whirlpool of Coirvreckan, many were blown to the Isle of Colonsay and others to the Sound of Jura. Many days—all days of storm with nights of pitchy blackness—followed, and on the firstThursdayof the next week the little fleet of birlinns made the low green shores and sandy inlets of Islay, and saw the rising sun gild the woods and hills that rise upon its eastern coast. Still the stormy wind ploughed up the sea; the sun was enveloped in watery clouds, and the tempest-tossed Clan Gillian gladly steered their vessels (oh, fatality!) into the salt Loch of Groynard, a shallow bay on the north-west of the isle, where, with a shout of triumph, they ran the keels into the sand and leaped ashore with brandished swords, and formed their ranks, all barelegged, in the water.
But long ere this the crian tarigh, or cross of fire, had blazed upon the hills of Islay!
Under their young chief, Sir James, the whole Clan Donald, many of whom had been trained to service in the Irish wars, were drawn up in array of battle at the head of Loch Groynard; and there, with all their weapons glittering from the purple heather, they hovered like a cloud of battle. As the hostile bands drew near, some gentlemen of the Clan Donald, to prevent the effusion of Christian blood, prevailed upon Sir James to promise that he would resign one half of Islay to Maclean during his life, provided he would acknowledge that he held it for personal service to the Clan Donald, in the same manner as our forefathers had held the Rhinns of Islay.
But, rendered furious on finding that he had doubly transgressed the wizard warnings he received, Sir Lauchlan laughed the proposition to scorn. Then the young chief offered to submit the matter in dispute to any impartial umpires Duairt might choose, with the proviso that, iftheyshould disagree, his Majesty the King should be their arbiter.
But my ancestor drew off his glove, and, taking a handful of water from a fountain that gurgled from a rock near him, exclaimed—
"May this water prove my poison, if I will have any arbiter but my sword, or any terms but an absolute surrender of the whole island!"
Then my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch uttered a cry of terror—for Duairt in his anger had forgotten the prediction, and drank of "the well at the head of Loch Groynard, where one Maclean was to fall"—and there, in ten minutes after, he was slain by a MacDonald, who by a single blow of a claymore swept his head off his shoulders.
Long and bloody was the battle that ensued when the MacDonalds rushed down the hill to close with the Clan Gillian, who were routed, leaving eighty duinewassals and two hundred soldiers, with their chief, dead upon the field. Ronald Maclean of the Drums—a little tower upon the peninsula of Loch Suinard—was shot by an arrow, and not one who left Duairt with "a fasting stomach," escaped;—why, God alone knows; for though my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch retreated with a remnant of our people to the birlinns, he was mortally wounded by a musket-shot. Of the Clan Donald, only thirty men were killed and sixty wounded. Among the latter was their young chief—afterwards a general of the Scots Brigade in Holland—who was found on the field with an arrow in his breast.
I have heard my mother say that all that night the watchman on the keep of Duairt heard cries and moans coming from the seaward, though the castle was more than fifty miles distant from Groynard; for it seemed as if the spirits of the air brought the sounds of battle on their wings from the fatal shore of Islay. Late that night, the hoofs of a galloping horse were heard reverberating in the glen and ringing on the roadway that led to Duairt; and soon a horse and rider were seen in the moonlight approaching rapidly, the hoofs of the steed striking fire from the flinty path.
"A messenger approaches!" cried the watchman, and in an instant the lady of Duairt and all her household were at the gate; but how great was their terror when they perceived that the approaching horseman was headless, though wearing the arms, plaid, and trews of a chief! Up, up the ascent came the terrible vision, galloping in the pale moonlight, but passing on, it disappeared in the glen which led to the blasted oak where Sir Lauchlan had received his last unearthly warning.
Be this story false or true, there are in our regiment a hundred brave men of trust and honour, who can swear to having seen this spectre gallop up to Duairt gate on the anniversary of the battle of Groynard, or when any calamity overhangs the Clan Gillian. Sir Lauchlan—the heavens be his bed to-night!—sleeps in Torosay Kirk, yet that headless horseman may appear to-morrow on the shore of Mull, for many a bonnet will be on the turf, many a plaid in our ranks dyed red in the wearer's blood—and I have seven sons in the field! But our fate is in the hands of God, so let our hearts be stout and true, for He will never fail us, though we may be false to ourselves. Hand round the demijohn, Findlay, my brave lad—and rouse the brands, Farquhar, for the moon has sunk behind the hills, and our fire is getting low.
So ended this legend of Celtic diablerie, to which I had listened attentively, for the air and manner of the venerable narrator were very impressive, as he devoutly believed it all; but Captain Campbell of Finab, who affected to consider it, as he said, "a tale of a tub," was as much startled as I by the issue of the next day's engagement with the enemy.
By dawn next day the wild pibroch "Come to me and I will give you flesh," that fierce invitation to the wolf and raven, rang in the allied bivouac, as his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland took post at Maulpré in view of the French position, and ordered a squadron of each regiment, with six battalions of foot, five hundred pioneers, a body of Austrian hussars, and six pieces of cannon, all under the command of the veteran Lieutenant-General Sir James Campbell, K.B., Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh, to drive the enemy out of the defiles of the wood of Barri. This movement was the prelude to the disastrous battle of Fontenoy, where Campbell was killed.
The Guards and we—the old Black Watch—began the engagement at Veson—the well-known affair of outposts. There the Dauphin commanded, and his soldiers were the flower of the French line, a splendid brigade, all clad in white coats laced with gold, long ruffles, tied perriwigs, and little plumed hats. They were intrenched breast high, and defended by an abattis.
We fell furiously on; the Scottish Foot-guards with their clubbed muskets and fixed bayonets; the Black Watch with swords, pistols, and dirks, and the struggle was terrible, as the action ensued at a place which was swept by the fire of a redoubt mounted with cannon and manned by six hundred of the noble Regiment de Picardie. Old Captain Maclean, at the head of his grenadiers and with his seven sons by his side, rushed up the glacis to storm the palisades.
"Open pouches—blow fuses—dirk and claymore, fall on!" were his rapid orders, as the hand-grenades fell like a hissing shower over the breastwork, from which a sheet of lead tore through the ranks of our stormers. Maclean fell at the foot of the palisades with one hand upon them and the other on his sword. All his sons perished with him, falling over each other in a gory heap as they strove to protect his body. The last who fell was the youngest, Angus Dhu, who, after slaying a French field officer, had driven a bayonet into his head, thrusting it through the ears; using it as a lever, he strove furiously to twist, tear, or wrench off the Frenchman's skull as a trophy of vengeance; for the young Celt was beside himself with grief and rage, when a volley of bullets from the white-coated Regiment de Picardie laid him on the grass to rise no more, just as Sir James Campbell carried the intrenchment sword in hand, and totally routed or destroyed the soldiers of the Dauphin.
Whether old Captain Maclean and his sons marched that morning without breaking their fast—a fatal omission apparently in any of the Clan Gillian—I have no means of ascertaining; but, as Ronald MacAra, who bore their provisions, was killed by a stray bullet about daybreak, it was generally believed so by the regiment, as this faithful henchman of the captain was found dead with a full havresack under his right arm, and the weird story of the seven fated grenadiers was long remembered by the Black Watch, when the greater events of the rout at Fontenoy and the evacuation of Flanders were forgotten.
A LOVE STORY.
I have been told that a better or a braver fellow than Louis Charters of ours never drew a sword. He was, as the regimental records show, captain of our 7th company, and major in the army when the corps embarked for service in theIllinoisin 1763; but prior to that his story was a strange and romantic one. Louis was a cadet of one of the oldest houses in Scotland, the Charters of Amisfield; thus he was a lineal descendant of the famous Red Riever. Early in life he had been gazetted to an ensigncy in Montgomery's Highlanders, theold77th, when that corps was raised in 1757 by Colonel Archibald Montgomery (afterwards Earl of Eglinton and Governor of Dumbarton), among the Frasers, Macdonalds, Camerons, Macleans, and other Jacobite clans.
Charters was a handsome and enthusiastic soldier, full of the old chivalry and romance of the Highlands; but, at the time he joined the Black Watch, with the remnant of Montgomery's regiment, which volunteered into our ranks in 1763, he was a pale, moody, and disappointed man, who had no hope in the service, but that it might procure him an honourable death under the balls of an enemy.
The story of Louis Charters was as follows:—
In January, 1757, he was recruiting at Perth for the 77th, when it was his good, or perhaps ill fortune, to become attached to a young lady possessed of great attractions, whom he had met at a ball, and who was the only daughter of the Laird of Tullynairn, a gentleman of property in the vicinity of the "Fair City."
Emmy Stuart was four-and-twenty, and Louis was three years her senior. She was tall and beautiful in face and figure; her hair was chesnut, her eyes hazel, and there was a charming droop in their lids which enhanced all her varieties of expression, especially the droll, and lent to them a seductive beauty, most dangerous to the peace of all who engaged in a two-handed flirtation with her; for although that word was unknown to the fair maids of Perth in those days, yet they flirted nevertheless, and none more than the lively Emmy Stuart.
Though her charming figure was almost hidden by her frightful hoop petticoat, and her beautiful hair by white powder—but that, if possible, increased the brilliance of her eyes and complexion—none knew better than Emmy the piquant mode of arranging her capuchin, of holding a vinaigrette under her pretty pink nostrils; and your great-grandmother, my good reader, never surpassed her in the secret art of putting those devilish little patches on her soft cheek, or about her bright roguish eyes, in such a manner as to give double point to those glances of drollery or disdain in which all ladies then excelled; or, worse still, an amorous languish, levelledà la Francaise, in such a mode as would have demolished a whole battalion; while the adorableembonpointof her figure was somewhat increased by the arrangement of her busk, her jewelled necklace, her embossed gold watch andetui, which no lady was ever without, and which Emmy of course carried at her waist.
When she left the assembly, there was always such a crush of gay gallants about the door to see her depart, that Louis seldom got her safely into her sedan or coach without swords being drawn, and some unfortunate being run through the body, or having a few inches of a flaming link thrust down his throat; for the "fine fellows" of those days were not over-particular in their mode of resentment when a pretty woman was concerned. The "Blood," or "Buck," or "Maccaroni," of the last century was a very different fellow from the peaceful unmitigated "snob" of the present day.
It was no wonder that Louis loved Emmy; the only marvel would have been had he proved invulnerable; so he fell before a glance of her bright hazel eyes, as Dunkirk fell before the allied armies. But Emmy was so gay in manner, distinguishing none in particular, that Charters was often in an agony of anxiety to learn whether she would ever love him; and moreover, there was one of ours, a Captain Douglas, recruiting in Perth, who possessed a most annoyingly handsome person, and who hovered more about the beautiful Emmy than our friend of the 77th could have wished. To make the matter worse, Douglas was an old lover, having met Emmy at a ball three years before, and been shot clean through the heart by one of her most seductive glances.
Emmy was so full of repartee and drollery, that though Charters was always making the most desperate love to her, he was compelled to mask his approaches under cover of pretty banter, or mere flirtation; thus leaving him an honourable retreat in case of a sharp repulse; for he could not yet trust himself to opening the trenches in earnest, lest she might laugh at him, as she had done at others; and Louis knew enough of the world to be aware, that a lover once laughed at is lost, and may as well quit the field.
So passed away the summer of—I am sorry to give so antique an epoch—1757. The snow began to powder the bare scalps of the Highland frontier; the woods of Scone and Kinnoull became stripped and leafless, and their russet spoils where whirled along the green inches and the reedy banks of the Tay; then the hoar frost wove its thistle blades on the windows in the morning, and our lovers found that a period was put to their rambles in the evening, when the sun was setting behind the darkening mountains of the west.
Now came the time to ballot for partners for the winter season; and then it was that Louis first learned to his joy that he was not altogether indifferent to the laughing belle. The fashion of balloting for partners was a very curious one, and now it is happily abolished in Scottish society; for only imagine one's sensations, good reader, on being condemned to dance everything with the same girl, and with her only, during a whole winter season! Besides, as the devil would be sure to have it so, one would always have the girl one did not want. The laws respecting partners were strictly enforced, and when once settled or fairly handfasted to a dancing girl for the season, a gentleman was on no account permitted to change, even for a single night, on pain of being shot or run through the body by her nearest male relative.
In the beginning of the winter season, the appointment for partners usually took place in each little coterie before the opening of the first ball or assembly. A gentleman's triple-cocked beaver was unflapped, and the fans of all the ladies present were slily put therein; the gentlemen were then blindfolded, and each selected a fan; then she to whom it belonged, however ill they might be paired or assorted, was his partner for the season. Such was the strange law, most rigidly enforced in the days of Miss Nicholas, who was then the mirror of fashion and presiding goddess of the Edinburgh assemblies.
When the time for balloting came, great was the anxiety of poor Louis Charters lest his beloved Emmy might fall to the lot of that provoking fellow Douglas of ours; but judge of his joy when Emmy told him, with the most arch and beautiful smile that ever lighted up a pair of lovely hazel eyes, how to distinguishher fanfrom amid the eighteen or twenty that were deposited in the hat.
"Now, my dear Mr. Charters," said she in a whisper, "I never pretended to be ferociously honest, and thus my unfortunate little tongue is always getting me into some frightful scrape; but I shall give you a token by which you will knowmyfan. Does that make you supremely happy?"
"Happy, Emmy? Dear Emmy, more than ever you will give me credit for!"
"Do not be sure of that, and do not make a scene. Quick now, lest some one anticipate you."
"But the fan——"
"Has a silver ball in lieu of a tassel. Now go and prosper."
Thus indicated, he soon selected the fan and drew it forth, to the annoyance of Douglas, who beheld him present it to the fair owner; and her hazel eye sparkled with joy as Charters kissed her hand with a matchless air of ardour and respect. Honest Charters felt quite tipsy with joy. Emmy had now shown that he wasnotwithout interest to her; and was not this a charming admission from a young beauty, who could command any number of wedding-rings at any hour she pleased? Thus, according to the witty Sir Alexander Boswell, who (for one of his squibs) was shot one morning by Stuart of Dunearn,
"Each lady's fan a chosen Damon bore,With care selected many a day before."
With the dancing of a whole season before them, the reader may easily imagine the result. All the tabbies, gossips, and coteries of the fair city had long since assigned them to each other; and though the mere magic of linking two names constantly together has done much to cajole boys and girls into a love for each other, no such magic was required here, for Emmy, I have said, was four-and-twenty, and Louis was three years her senior.
Finding himself completely outwitted, and that the fan of a demoiselle of somewhat mature age and rather unattractive appearance had fallen to his lot, Willy Douglas "evacuated Flanders,"i.e., forsook the ballroom, and bent all his energies to recruiting for the second battalion of the Black Watch, leaving the fair field completely to his more successful rival.
But though assigned to Charters by the fashion of the time, and by her own pretty manoeuvre, as a partner for the season, our gay coquette would not yet acknowledge herself conquered; and Charters felt with some anxiety that she was amusing herself with him, and that the time was drawing near when he would have to rejoin his regiment, which was then expecting the route for America, over the fortunes of which the clouds of war were gathering. Besides, Emmy had a thousand little whims and teasing ways about her, all of which it was his daily pleasure, and sometimes his task, to gratify and to soothe; and often they had a quarrel—a real quarrel—for two whole days. These were two centuries to Louis; but then it was of course made up again; and Emmy, like an Empress, gave him her dimpled hand to kiss, reminding him, with a coy smile, that
"A lover's quarrel was but love renewed."
"True, Emmy; but I would infinitely prefer a love that required no renewal," said Charters, with a sigh.
"How tiresome you become! You often make me think of Willy Douglas. Well, and where shall we find this remarkable love you speak of?"
"Ah, Emmy, you read it in every eye that turns to yours; it fills the very air you breathe, and sheds a purity and a beauty over everything."
"Then you always see beauty here?"
"Oh, Emmy, I always seeyou, and you only; but you are still bantering."
"Do you know, Captain Charters, that I do not think it polite to tell a woman that she is beautiful?" said Emmy, pretending to pout, while her eyelids drooped, and she played with her fan.
"To tell any ordinary woman that she was beautiful, might offend her, if she was sensible; but to tell you so, though you have the sense of a thousand, must be pleasing, because you are conscious of your great beauty, Emmy, and know its fatal power—but alas! too well."
"What!" exclaimed Emmy, her eyes flashing with triumph and fun, "I am beautiful, then?"
"Too much so for my peace. Beautiful! Oh, Emmy Stuart, you are dangerously so. But you trifle with me cruelly, Emmy. Think how time is gliding away—and a day must come when I shall be no longer here."
Her charming eyelids drooped again.
"A time—well, but remember there is an Italian poet who says,
All time is lost that is not spent in love."
Charters gazed at her anxiously, and after a momentary pause, with all his soul in his eyes and on his tongue, he said:—
"Listen to me, dearest Emmy. Of all things necessary to conduce to man's happiness, love is the principal. It purifies and sheds a glory, a halo over everything, but chiefly around the beloved object herself. It awakens and matures every slumbering virtue in the heart, and causes us to become as pure and noble as a man may be, to make him more worthy of the woman we love. Such, dear Emmy, is my love for you."
This time Emmy heard him in silence, with downcast eyes, a blush playing upon her beautiful cheek, a smile hovering on her alluring little mouth, with her breast heaving and her pretty fingers playing nervously with her fan and the frills of her busk.
This conversation may be taken as a specimen of a hundred that our lovers had on every convenient opportunity, when Louis was all truthful earnestness—devotion and anxiety pervading his voice and manner; while Emmy was all fun, drollery, and coquetry, yet loving him nevertheless.
But a crisis came, when Charters received, by the hand of his chief friend, Lieutenant Alaster Mackenzie, of the house of Seaforth, a command to rejoin his regiment, then under orders to embark at Greenock, to share in the expedition which Brigadier-General Forbes of Pittencrief was to lead against Fort du Quesne, one of the three great enterprises undertaken in 1758 against the French possessions in North America. How futile were the tears of Emmy now!
"Though divided by the sea, dear Louis, our hope will be one, like our love," she sobbed in his ear.
"Think—think of me often, very often, as I shall think of you."
"I do not doubt you, Louis. I now judge of your long, faithful, and noble affection by my own. Oh, Louis! I have been foolish and wilful; I have pained you often; but you will forgive your poor Emmy now; she judges of your love by her own."
It was now too late to think of marriage. Emmy, subdued by the prospect of a sudden and long separation from her winning and handsome lover, and by a knowledge of the dangers that lay before him by sea and land, the French bullet, the Indian arrow—all the risks of war and pestilence—was almost broken-hearted on his departure. The usual rings and locks of hair, the customary embraces, were exchanged; the usual adieus and promises—solemn and sobbing promises of mutual fidelity—were given, and so they parted; and with sad Emmy's kiss yet lingering on his lips, and her undried tears on his cheek, poor Charters found himself marching at the head of his party of fifty recruits, while the drum and fife woke the echoes in the romantic Wicks of Baiglie, as he bade a long adieu to beautiful Perth, the home of his Emmy, and joined the headquarters of Montgomery's Highlanders at Greenock.
But amid all the bustle of the embarkation in transports and ships of war—such rough sea-going ships as Smollet has portrayed in his "Roderick Random"—Charters saw ever before him the happy, bright, and beautiful Emmy of the past year of joy; or as he had last seen her, pale, crushed, and drooping in tears upon his breast—her coquetry, her drollery, her laughter, all evaporated, and the true loving and trusting woman alone remaining—her eyes full of affection, and her voice tremulous with emotion.
Louis sailed for America with one of the finest regiments ever sent forth by Scotland, which, in the war that preceded the declaration of American independence, gave to the British ranks more than sixty thousand soldiers*—few, indeed, of whom ever returned to lay their bones in the land of their fathers.
* See "Present Conduct of the Chieftains Considered." Edinburgh: 1773. "Thus it appears," says an anti-ministerial pamphlet, published in 1763, "that out of 756 officers commanding in the Army, garrisons, &c., 210 are Scots: and out of 1930 in the Navy, 536 are Scots." The table was thus:—