Legendary Tales of the Highlands (Volume 3 of 3) / A sequel to Highland Rambles
Date: 2019-04-03T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Legends -- Scotland; Highlands (Scotland) -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Legendary Tales of the Highlands (Volume 3 of 3)

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

Author: Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

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

Language: English

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

LEGENDARY

TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS.

VOL. III.

LEGENDARY
TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS.

A SEQUEL TO
HIGHLAND RAMBLES.

BY
Sir THOMAS DICK LAUDER, Bart.
AUTHOR OF “LOCHANDHU,” “THE WOLFE OF BADENOCH,” “THE MORAY FLOODS,” ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME III.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
M.DCCC.XLI.

Printed in Great Britain.

CONTENTS
OF THE
THIRD VOLUME.

| | PAGE
| THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH’S ADVENTURES, | 1
| COMFORTS OF A LONDON CLUB-HOUSE, | 67
| THE LEGEND, &c.—Continued, | 73
| CRUELTY OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND AFTER THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN, | 189
| ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY, | 193
| DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL AND SENTENCE ON INCHRORY, | 210
| THE LEGEND OF THE VISION OF CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE, | 212

ILLUSTRATIONS.

| JOHN SMITH EXHIBITS MILITARY GENIUS IN DEFENCE OF THE KILLOGIE, | 46
| JOHN SMITH UNDER THE TURF, | 145

HIGHLAND RAMBLES.

THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH’S ADVENTURES.

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

“Hens on the midden, ducks in dubbs are seen,”

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

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

“Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A glorious sight!” cried the Pensassenach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fat vas she cryin’ aboot?” said Morag, hurrying to answer her call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like another Helen, fired another Troy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tuts, nonsense man,” said the packman; “ye’re just a reyal guse.—Come awa! drink the Duke’s health—the brandy’s just parteeklar gude.”

“Why should you hesitate?” said his mistress.—“Come, drink the Duke’s health.”

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

“What! are you a loyal subject, and refuse to drink the health of the Duke of Cumberland!—the King’s own brother!” exclaimed the Pensassenach energetically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dress be tamm!” cried John, furiously; “Come away fast—open ta toor or she be killed!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who the devil are you, sir?” said Captain M’Taggart, sharply.

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

“Where’s your pack, sir?” demanded Captain M’Taggart.

“Troth, I left it yesterday at Inverness to get some fresh gudes pit intil’t,” replied Dallas.

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

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

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

“Hang up the villain directly, then,” cried M’Taggart, carelessly.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hide me in the water? and is na that droonin’?” cried the terrified wretch. “Oh, mercy! mercy!”

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

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

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

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

With amazing dexterity, he first clutched up one pig, and then another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She be ready noo,” said John; “put fare be ta rest o’ ta men, Captain!”

“They are hunting the Pensassenach,” replied M’Taggart with a careless laugh.

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

“That the Pensassenach!” said M’Taggart.—“That’s a good joke truly. I know well enough that’s not the Pensassenach that we are after.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Where has John bestowed the villain?” demanded the Pensassenach.

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

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

“Aw—yaw!—yaw—aw!” cried the packman from the pool.

“Where are you, wretched man?” cried the Pensassenach.

“Yaw—aw!—yaw—aw!” replied Mr. Dallas.

“Why don’t you speak distinctly?” demanded the lady.

“Aw—aw!—yaw—aw!” replied Dallas again.

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

“Oich aye, she’s here memm,” cried Morag, removing the covering from the packman’s head.

“Ya—aw!—aw—aw!” cried Dallas, raising his eyes with an expression of intense agony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Och, naething—naething ava,” cried Mr. Dallas. “Oh, I’m a dead man—a dead man: hae mercy—hae mercy upon me. I’m a great sinner—a wicked, and hardened sinner.”

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

“Oh, hae mercy—hae mercy on me!” cried Dallas.

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

“O! O! O! Oh!—hech! ech!” cried Mr. Dallas, panting for breath; “I’m a dead man! I’m a dead man! Oh, Lord forgie me for sellin’ pastes for precious stanes.”

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

“Hae mercy on me for sellin’ rock crystal for diamunts,” cried Dallas.

“Come! out with it all!” said the Pensassenach.

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

“Come! nothing else to confess?” said the Pensassenach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, mercy, mercy!” cried Dallas. “That woman that I telled ye o’ yestreen; that woman that I clippit out o’ the Spey, was na just awthegither dead—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us now follow the march of John Smith.

1 A Scottish farmer’s house and offices. ↑

2 Plaid. ↑

COMFORTS OF A LONDON CLUB-HOUSE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH’S ADVENTURES CONTINUED.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Witch or devil, my boys, let us ketch her if we can,” shouted another.—“Hurrah! hurrah!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“To be sure we did, Jack,” replied Bob.

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

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

“A deal more money indeed!” said Bob.

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

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

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

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

‘The royal oak is not a joke.’

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

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

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

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

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

“Aye, aye, that’s true—let’s be joggin’,” replied Bob.

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

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

“Troll de roll loll—troll de loll lay;

If I could catch a reybell, I would him flay—

Troll de roll lay—troll de roll lum—

And out of his skin I wud make a big drum.

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

Troll de roll loll—troll de roll lay—

If I could catch a reybell I wud him——”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Lord be about us!—Defend us from Satan, and from all his evil spirits and works!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who is there?” asked a soft woman’s voice in Gaelic, from within.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What the devil does he mean?” said the first.

“We’ll detain you as a runaway rebel,” said the third.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 his reason, he summoned up resolution to raise himself from his knees, and to advance one step nearer to the phantom which had so long triumphed over the courage that was within him. And, seeing that, notwithstanding this movement of his, it still maintained its position, and uttered no sound, he ventured to take a second step—and then a third step, until the truth, and the whole truth, began gradually to dawn upon his eyes and his mind, and then, at last, he discovered, to his very great relief, that the horrible and much-dreaded demon whose appearance had so disturbed and discomposed his nervous system, was no other than a tall old tombstone, with a head so fearfully chisselled on the top of it, as might have left it a very doubtful matter, even in the day-time, for any one, however learned in such pieces of art, to have determined whether the rustic sculptor had intended it for a death’s-head or a cherubim. Some idle artist of the brush, in passing by that way with a pot full of red paint, prepared for giving a temporary glory to a new cart about to be turned out from a neighbouring wright’s shop, had paused as he passed by, and exhausted the full extent of his small talents in communicating to the countenance that bloody appearance, the effect of which had so much appalled John Smith, and some waggish schoolboy had finished the figure, by tearing up a sod covered with plants of various kinds, and clapping it on its top, so as thereby very much to augment its artificial terrors. John Smith drew a long breath of inconceivable relief on making this discovery, and then darting through the wicket, he pursued his journey with as much expedition as his weakness and fatigue permitted him to use.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“At Culloden, I’ll be sworn,” said the old man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ve fallen plump into the witches’ den!—into the very bottomless pit!—Hollo!—hollo! Help!—help!” cried the fallen trooper from the abyss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Bed, did you say?” cried Ian. “What! one of Prince Charley’s men?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, life is sweet!” cried the old woman—“and the lives of my bairns——”

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

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

“Oh, my father’s life!” whimpered the little girl.

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

“Who and what is she at all?” demanded Ian.

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

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

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

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

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

“Poof!” said Ian, “how could you prevent us?”

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

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

“Oh, Ian!” cried the old woman. “Oh, Hamish! Oh, boys! boys!”

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

“Oh, don’t hurt poor granny!” cried the little girl, in the bitterest tone of grief.

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

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

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

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

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

“Who is there?” demanded he in Gaelic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What ghost did you see?” demanded the Pensassenach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grant.—Very distinct, indeed.

Author.—Not to be mistaken, I think.

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

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

Clifford.—The picture is horrible!

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY.

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

“Good day to you, Inchrory,” said the gentleman, bowing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“As how?” demanded the Earl.

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

“Why do you not flit1 that insolent fellow,” said Lord Fife to James MacGrigor of Pitiveach, his factor, who happened to be with him; “you are tacksman of this farm, and so you have it in your power to turn him out.”

“Why, my Lord,” replied MacGrigor, “he and his forebears2 have been there for generations; and, though he certainly is a great original, he is no bad fellow for all that.”

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

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

“Good day to you, Inchrory,” said the Earl, bowing.

“Good day to you, Lord Fife,” replied Inchrory, bowing with the same formality as formerly, but still keeping his seat. “Sit down, my Lord—sit down. Here is a chair beside me; for I always keep the benmost3 seat in my own house.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Here’s to ye, Inchrory!” said the Earl, after filling himself a glass of whisky, and drinking to his guest with a hearty shake of his hand. And,—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Remove. ↑

2 Ancestors. ↑

3 Innermost. ↑

DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL AND SENTENCE ON INCHRORY.

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

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

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

Clifford.—Andiamo dunque, Signore mio!—let’s have it without more delay.

THE LEGEND OF THE VISION OF CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who comes there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And why not?” demanded Inverawe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Certainly,” said Inverawe, “wherever you please.”

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

“Depend on’t he has run up Loch Etive side,” said another of them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Inverawe!—blood must flow for blood! Shield not the murderer!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Spectre!” cried Inverawe, shuddering with horror,—“what spectre?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I have seen him,” replied Inverawe in a subdued tone and manner—“I have seen him, and his appearance was terrible.”

“Say—tell me!—what passed?” exclaimed the lady earnestly. “Inverawe, I must know all.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?—What is it?” cried his lady.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We are going on service then?” said Inverawe.

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

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

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

“Come in!” cried George Campbell.

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

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

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

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

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

“I could not if I would,” replied George Campbell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What will your father say then?” demanded George Campbell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Pardon me,” said Inverawe; “perhaps I push my questions indiscreetly,—if so, forgive me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hurrah!—hurrah!—hurrah!” vociferated the whole officers present.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is a bold name,” said the Colonel gravely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

END OF VOLUME THIRD.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY T. CONSTABLE,
PRINTER TO HER MAJESTY.

Colophon

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Title: | Legendary Tales of the Highlands, Volume III |
Author: | Thomas Dick Lauder (1784–1848) | Info
Language: | English |
Original publication date: | 1841 |

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Page | Source | Correction | Edit distance
N.A. | Britai | Britain | 1
19, 165, 205, 207, 239 | [Not in source] | “ | 1
36, 164 | ” | [Deleted] | 1
40 | ? | ! | 1
42 | forgotton | forgotten | 1
58 | .’ | ’. | 2
91 | any any | any | 4
121 | Did’nt | Didn’t | 2
126 | canvass | canvas | 1
175 | ! | . | 1
191 | arm chair | arm-chair | 1
197, 219 | [Not in source] | ” | 1
199, 229, 262 | , | . | 1
228 | And | and | 1
250 | the the | the | 4
253 | [Not in source] | . | 1
313, 314 | frieze | frise | 2
313 | chevauz | chevaux | 1

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Table of Contents

- CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

- ILLUSTRATIONS.

- HIGHLAND RAMBLES. THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH’S ADVENTURES.

- COMFORTS OF A LONDON CLUB-HOUSE.

- THE LEGEND OF SERJEANT JOHN SMITH’S ADVENTURES CONTINUED.

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

- ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY.

- DRUM-HEAD COURT-MARTIAL AND SENTENCE ON INCHRORY.

- THE LEGEND OF THE VISION OF CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE.

- Colophon

- Availability
- Metadata
- Revision History
- External References
- Corrections

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE