JACOB STAIN WOOD : 24 25 26 27 28 29 30- 31 3-2 n 34 34 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 ROUTLEDOE'S STANDARD NOVELS, Price Ttco Shillings and Sixpence each. ACTHOB. FAMILY FEUD By the author of" Alderman Kalph. FRANK HILTON ; or, the Queen's Own THE YELLOW FRIGATE . SUSAN HOPLEY THE THREE MUSKETEERS THE BIVOUAC .... THE SOLDIER OF LYONS ADVENTURES OF MR. LED- BURY JACOB FAITHFUL . JAPHET IN SEARCH OF A FATHER .... THE KING'S OWN . MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY . NEWTON FORSTER. THE PACHA of MANY TALES James Grant. Ditto. Mrs. Crowe. Alexandre Dumas. Maxwell. Mrs. Gore. Albert Smith. Captain Murryat. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. RATTLIN THE REEFER, mumo BT Ditto. THE POACHER . . . THE PHANTOM SHIP . THE DOG FIEND. PERCIVAL KEENE . HECTOR O'HALLORAN THE POTTLE TON LEGACY THE PASTOR'S FIRESIDE. MY COUSIN NICHOLAS . THE BLACK DRAGOONS . ARTHUR O'LEARY . SCATTERGOOD FAMILY . LUCK IS EVERYTHING; Brian O'Linn BOTHWELL; or, the Days Mary of Scotland . . . CHRISTOPHER TADPOLE . VALENTINE VOX the Ventrilo- quist SIR ROLAND ASHTON . TWENTY YEARS AFTER or, of Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Maxwell. Albert Smith. Miss Porter. Ingoldbby. Grant. Lever. Albert Smith. W. H. Maxwell. James Grant. Albert Smith. Henry Cork ton. Lady Catharine Long Alexandre Duma*. The Black Watch in Canada. LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH: OR, fortn-scconi) gigblanfcers. BY JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF BOMAXCB OF WAB," " HOLLTWOOD HALL," ETC., ETC. XEW EDITION. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, AVA1JNK, AND ROUTLEDGE, FABRINGDOX STBKET. XEW YORK: 60, WALKEB 8TBEET. I860. [7)0 AuOtor rtr:e the riylit qf Iraiulatio*.'] tOKDOlT I-ATIU. 1ITO SBWABDS, PBDTTBBS, CHASDO9 STBKKI. PREFACE. WOVEN up with an occasional legend or superstition gleaned among the mountains from whence its soldiers came, the warlike details and many of the names which occur in the following pages, belong to the military history of the country and of the brave Kegiment whose title is given to our Book. It is generally acknowledged that but for the reten- tion of the kilt in the British service, and for the high character of those regiments who wear it, the military name of Scotland had been long since for- gotten in Europe, and her national existence had been as completely ignored during the Wars of Wellington as in those of Marlborough ; nor in times more recent had the electric wire announced that, when the cloud of Russian horse came on at Balaclava and our allies fled, " the Scots stood firm." The kilt alone indicated their country, as our Scots Lowland regiments are clad like the rest of the Line. The martial and picturesque costume of iv PREFACE. the ancient clans which is now so completely iden- tified with modern Scotland, is one of the few rem- nants of the past that remain to her; and it is remarkable that it has survived so long ; for it was the garb of those adventurous Greeks who fought under Xenophon, and of those hardy warriors who spread the terror of the Roman name from the shores of the Euphrates on the east, to those of the Caledonian Firths upon the west. It was the best public service of the great Pitt when he first rallied round the British throne, as soldiers of the Highland Regiments, the men of that warlike race, who had been so long inimical to the House of Hanover. " I sought for merit wherever it was to be found," said he ; " it is my boast that I was the first minister who looked for it and found it on the mountains of the north. I called it forth, and drew into your ser- vice a hardy and intrepid race of men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifice of your enemies, and who, in the war before the last, had well nigh gone to have overturned the State. These men in the last war were brought to combat by your side ; they served with fidelity as they fought with honour, and conquered for you in every part of the world." Highlander and Lowlander are now so mingled by PREFACE. V intermarriage that there is scarcely a subject in the northern kingdom without more or less Celtic blood in his or her veins; and to this mixture of race, which unites the fire and impatience of the former to -ready perseverance of the latter, Scotland owes her present prosperity. The Clans are passing away, and with them a thou- sand great and glorious historical and romantic asso- ciations; while, by the rapid spread of education, even their language cannot long survive ; " but when time shall have drawn its veil over the past as over the present when the last broadsword shall have been broken on the anvil, and the shreds of the last plaid tossed to the winds upon the cairn, or been bleached within the raven's nest, posterity may look back with regret to a people who have so marked the history, the poetry, and the achievements of a distant age ;" and who, in the ranks of the British army, have stood foremost in the line of battle and given place to none ! 20, DANUBE STREET, EDINBURGH, Octubtr, \ CONTENTS. PAG* I. THE STOUT OP FARQUHAR SHAW 5 IL THE SEVEN GRENADIERS 47 III. TUB LOST REGIMENT A LOVE STORY .... 67 IV. MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY .... 95 V. THE WIFE OF THE RED COJIYN MY GRAND- FATHER'S STORY 175 VI. STORY OF THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRE A FRAG- MENT OF THE SEVEN YEARS* WAR .... 200 VII. THE LETTRE DE CACHET 25G VIII. THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT .... 289 IX. THE STORY OF DICK DUFF 323 X. THE FOREST OF GAICH OR THE CAPTAIN DHU . 35-i LEGENDS THE BLACK WATCH. I. THE STORY OF FARQUHAR SHAAV. Tnis soldier, whose name, from the circumstances connected with his remarkable story, daring courage, and terrible fate, is still remembered in the regiment, in the early history of which he bears so prominent a was one of the first who enlisted in Captain 1 ijibell of Finab's independent band of the idem l>li". i>r Black Watch, when the six sepa- 'ompanies composing this Highland force V.LTC established along the Highland Border in 1729, to repress the predatory spirit of certain tribes, and to nt the levy of black mail. The companies were independent, and at that time wore the clan tartan of their captains, who were Simon Frazer, the celebrated Lord Lovat ; Sir Duncan Campbt-ll of Lochnell ; Grant of Ballindalloch ; Alister Camp- bell of Finab, whose father fought at Darien ; Lin Campbell of Carrick, and Deors Monro of Cul- cairn. . The privates of these companies were all men of a superior station, being mostly cadets of good families gentlemen of the old Celtic and patriarchal lines, 6 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. and of baronial proprietors. In the Highlands, the only genuine mark of aristocracy was descent from the founder of the tribe ; all who claimed this were styled uislain, or gentlemen, and, as such, when off duty, were deemed the equal of the highest chief in the land. Great care was taken by the six captains to secure men of undoubted courage, of good stature, stately deportment, and handsome figure. Thus, in all the old Highland regiments, but more especially the JReicudan Dhu, equality of blood and similarity of descent, secured familiarity and regard between the officers and their men for the latter deemed them- selves inferior to no man who breathed the air of heaven. Hence, according to an English engineer officer, who frequently saw these independent com- panies, "many of those private gentlemen-soldiers have gillies or servants to attend upon them in their quarters, and upon a march, to carry their provisions, baggage, and firelocks/' Such was the composition of the corps, now first embodied among that remarkable people, the Scottish Highlanders " a people," says the Historian of Great Britain, " untouched by the Roman or Saxon in- vasions on the south, and by those of the Danes on the east and west skirts of their country the un- mixed remains of that vast Celtic empire, which once stretched from the Pillars of Hercules to Arch- angel." The E-eicudan Dhu were armed with the usual weapons and accoutrements of the line ; but, in addi- tion to these, had the arms of their native country the broadsword, target, pistol, and long dagger, while the sergeants carried the old Celtic tuagh, or Lochaber axe. It was distinctly understood by all who enlisted in this new force, that their military duties were THE STORY OF FAUqUIIAK SHAW. 7 confined within the Highland Border, where, from the wild, predatory spirit of those clans which d\v<-lt next the Lowlands, it was known that they would find more than enough of military service of tin- most harassing kind. In the conflicts which daily ensued among the mountains hi the sudden lies by night ; the desperate brawls among ; ans, who were armed to the teeth, fierce as nature and outlawry could make them, and who dwelt in wild and pathless fastnesses secluded amid rocks, woods, and morasses, there were few who in courage, energy, daring, and activity equalled Farquhar Shaw, a gentleman from the Braes of Lochaber, who was esteemed the prcm'x r private in the company of Campbell of Final), which was then quartered in that district ; for each company had its permanent cantonment and scene of operations during the eleven years which succeeded the first formation of the udan Dhu. rquhar was a perfect swordsman, and deadly shot alike with the musket and pistol ; and his strength was such, that he had been known to twist a horse-shoe, and drive his akene dhu to the hilt in a pine log ; while his activity and power of enduring T, thirst, heat, cold and lati^ue, became a rb among the companies of the Watch : for thus had he been reared and trained by his father, a line old Celtic gentleman and warrior, whose memory went back to the days when Dundee led the valiant and true to the field of Rinrory, and in whose arms the viscount fell from his horse in the moment of victory, and was borne to the house of Urrard to die. Hi? was a true Highlander of the old school; for an old school has existed in all ages and every- :o, even among the Arabs, the children of Ish- 8 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCIL mael, in the desert ; for they, too, have an olden time to which they look hack with regret, as being nobler, better, braver, and purer than the present. Thus, the father of Farquhar Shaw was a grim d 'sal, who never broke bread or saw the sun rise without uncovering his head and invoking the names of " God, the Blessed Mary, and St. Colme of the Isle " who never sat down to a meal without opening wide his gates, that the poor and needy might enter freely ; who never refused the use of his purse and sword to a friend or kinsman, and was never seen un- armed, even in his own dining-room ; who never wronged any man ; but who never suffered a wroug or affront to pass, without sharp and speedy ven- geance; and who, rather than acknowledge the supremacy of the House of Hanover, died sword in hand at the rising in Glensheil. For this act, his estates were seized by the House of Breadalbane, and his only son, Farquhar, became a private soldier in the ranks of the Black Watch. It may easily be supposed, that the son of such a father was imbued with all his cavalier spirit, his loyalty and enthusiasm, and that his mind was filled by all the military, legendary, and romantic memories of his native mountains, the land of the Celts, which, as a fine Irish ballad says, was THEIRS Ere the Roman or the Saxon, the Norman or the Dane, Had first set foot in Britain, or trampled heaps of slain, "Whose manhood saw the Druid rite, at forest tree and rock And savage tribes of Britain round the shrines of Zernebok ; Which for generations witnessed all the glories of the Gael, Since their Celtic sires sang war-songs round the sacred fires of Baal. "When it was resolved by Government to form the six independent Highland companies into one regi- THE STORY OP FARQUHAR SHAW. 9 merit, Farquhar Shaw was left on the sick list at the cottage of a, widow, named Mhona Cameron, near Invrlueliy, having been wounded in a skirmish with :uns in Glennevis, and he writhed on his sick- win n his comrades, under Fiuab, marched for i !irks of Aberfcldy, the muster-place of the whole, wh ! i he companies were to be united into one lion, under the celebrated John Earl of Crawford and Lindesay, the last of his ancient race, a hero covered with wounds and honours won in the services of Britain and Russia, \\Vuk, wan, and wasted though he was (for his wound, a slash from a pole-axe, had been a severe one), Farquhar almost sprang from bed when he 1 the notes of their retiring pipes dying away, as they marched through Maryburgh, and round by margin of Lochiel. His spirit of honour was ruffled, moreover, by a rumour, spread by his enemies th<> Caterans, against whom he had fought repeatedly, that he was growing faint-hearted at the prospect of the service of the Black Watch being ex- tended beyond the Highland Border. As rumours to this effect were already finding credence in tin: glens, the fierce, proud heart of Farquhar burned within him with indignation and unmerited shame. At last, one night, an old crone, who came stealthily to the cottage in which In- was residing, informed him that, by the same outlaws who were seeking to di-privu him of his honour, a subtle plan hail been laid to surround his temporary dwelling, and put him to death, in revenge for certain wounds inflicted by vord upon their comrades. The energy and activity of the Black Watch had long since driven the Catalans to despair, and nothing 10 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. but the anticipation of killing Farquhar comfortably, and chopping him into ounce pieces at leisure, enabled them to survive their troubles with anything like Christian fortitude and resignation. " And this is their plan, mother ?" said Farquhar to the crone. " To bum the cottage, and you with it" " Dioul ! say you so, Mother Mhona/' he ex- claimed ; " then 'tis time I were betaking me to the hills. Better have a cool bed for a few nights on the sweet-scented heather, than be roasted in a burning cottage, like a fox in its hole." In vain the cotters besought him to seek conceal- ment elsewhere ; or to tarry until he had gained his full strength. " Were I in the prime of strength, I would stay here/' said Farquhar; "and when sleeping on my sword and target, would fear nothing. If these dogs of Caterans came, they should be welcome to my life, if I could not redeem it by the three best lives in their band ; but I am weak as a growing boy, and so shall be off to the free mountain side, and seek the path that leads to the Birks of Aberfeldy." " But the Birks are far from here, Farquhar," urged old Mhona. "Att< 'mj>t, and Did-not, were the worst of FingaTs hounds," replied the soldier. "Farquhar will owe you a day in harvest for all your kindness ; but his comrades wait, and go he must ! Would it not be a strange thing and a shameful, too, if all the Eeicudan Dhu should march down into the flat, bare land of the Lowland clowns, and Farquhar not be with them? What would Finab, his captain, think? and what would all in Brae Lochaber say V " Yet pause," continued the crones. STuKY OF FAi;<>UHAU SHAW. 11 " Pause ! Dhia ! my father's bones will soon be clattering in their Lrnive, far away in um-u Giensheil, whfi L for King JM -na." continued the old woman, " lest you go for ever, Farquhar." " It is longer to for ever thnn to Beltane, and by ;ay I must be at the Birks of Aberfeldy." Then, seeing that he was determined, the crones muttered among themselves that the tarvccoill would fall upon him ; but Farquhar Shaw, though far from being free of his native superstitions, laughed aloud ; for the tarvecoill is a black cloud, which, if seen on a new-year's eve, is siid to portend stormy weather ; hence it is a proverb fora misfortune about to h;i{)pt.-n. " You were unwise to become a soldier, Farquhar," '.lit-ir last argument. \Yhy-." " The tongue may tie a knot which the teeth can- not untie." " As your husbands' tongues did, when they mar- riud you all, poor men!" was the good-natun.d retort of Farquhar. " But fear not for me ; ere the snow begins to melt on Ben Nevis, and the sweet wallflower to bloom on the black Castle of Invi r- lochy, I will be with you all again," he added, while u-])lni'l about him, sliuging his target on his shoulder, and whistling upon Bran, his favourite stag-hound ; he then set out to join the u;nt, by the nearest route, on the skirts of Ben Nevis, resolving to pass the head of Lochlevin, through Larochmohr, and the deep glens that load rds the Braes of Rannoch, a long, desolate, and perilous journey, but with his sword, his pistols, and gigantic houud to guard him, his plaid for a covering, 12 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. and the purple heather for a bed wherever he haltoil, Farqulnr ft-ared nothing. Hi.- i lithful dog Bran, which had shared his couch and phiid since the timo when it was a puppy, was a noble specimen of the Scottish hound, which was used of old in the chase of the white bull, the wolf, and the deer, and which is in reality the progenitor of the common greyhound ; for the breed has de- generated in warmer climates than the stern north. Bran (so named from Bran of old) was of such size, strength, and courage, that he was able to drag down the strongest deer ; and, in the last encounter with tin- Caterans of Glen Nevis, he had saved the life of Farquhar, by tearing almost to pieces one who would have slain him, as he lay wounded on the field. His hair was rough and grey ; his limbs were muscular and wiry ; his chest was broad and deep ; his keen eyes were bright as those of an . Such dogs as Bran bear a prominent place in Highland song and story. They were remarkable for their sagacity and love of their master, and their solemn and dirge-like howl was ever deemed ominous and predictive of death and woe. Bran and his master were inseparable. The noble dog had long been invaluable to him when on hunt- oxpeditions, and now since he had become a soldier in the Reicudan Dhu, Bran was always on guard with him, and the sharer of all his duties ; thus Farquhar was wont to assert, " that for watchfulness on sentry, Bran's two ears were worth all the rest in the Black Watch put together." The sun had set before Farquhar left the green thatched clachan, and already the bases of the purple mountains were dark, though a red glow lingered on their heath-clad summits. Lest some of the Cateran THK STORY OF FARQUHAR SHAW. 13 hand, of whose malevolence he was now the object, i night already have knowledge or suspicion of his departure and be watching him with lynx-like from behind some rock or bracken bush, he pursued for a time a path which led to the westward, until the darkness closed completely in ; and then, after cast- ing round him a rapid and searching glance, he struck at once into the old secluded drove-way or Fingaliau road, which descended through the deep gorge of Corriehoilzie towards the mouth of Glencoe. On his left towered Ben Nevis or " the Mountain of Heaven" sublime and vast, four thousand three hundred feet and more in height, with its pale summits gleaming in the starlight, under a coating of eternal snow. On his right lay deep glens yawning between pathless mountains that arose in piles above each other, their sides torn and rent by a thousand water- courses, exhibiting rugged banks of rock and gravel, fringed by green waving bracken leaves and black whin hushes, or jagged by masses of stone, lying in ;>iles and heaps, like the black, dreary, and Cyclopean ruins " of an earlier world." Before him lay the wil- derness of Larochmohr, a scene of solitary and solemn grandeur, where, under the starlight, every feature of the landscape, every waving bush, or silver birch ; every bare scalp of porphyry, and every granite block torn by storms from the cliffs above ; every rugged watercourse, tearing in foam through its deep marl bed between the tufted heather, .n-d shadowy, unearthly, and weird dark and mysterious; and all combined, were more than enough to impress with solemnity the thoughts of any man, but more especially those of a Highlander; for the savage grandeur and solitude of that district 9 14 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. at such an hour the gloaming were alike, to u paradox, soothing and tern fie. There was no moon. Large masses of crape-lite vapour saih.-d across the blue sky, and by gradually veiling the stars, made yet darker the gloomy path which Farquhar had to traverse. Even the dog Bran seemed impressed by the unbroken stilli and t rutu-d close as a shadow by the bare legs of his master. For a time Farquhar Shaw had thought only of the bloodthirsty Caterans, who in their mood of vengeance at the Black Watch in general, and at him in particular, would have hewn him to pieces without mercy ; but now as the distance increased between himself and their haunts by the shores of the Lochy and Eil, other thoughts arose in his mind, which gradually became a prey to the superstition incident alike to his age and country, as all the wild tales he had heard of that sequestered district, and indeed of that identical glen which he was then traversing, crowded upon his memory, until he, Farquhar Shaw, who would have faced any six men sword in hand, or would have charged a grape-shotted battery without fear, actually sighed with apprehension at the waving of a hazel bush on the lone hill side. Of many wild and terrible things this locale was alleged to be the scene, and with some of these the Highland reader may be as familiar as Farquhar. A party of the Black Watch in the summer of 1738, had marched up the glen, under the command of Corporal Malcolm MacPherson (of whom more anon), with orders to seize a flock of sheep and arrest the proprietor, who was alleged to have " lifted" (i.e., stolen) them from the Camerons of Lochiel. The soldiers found the flock to the number of three hundred, grazin^ Till! STOKY OF FAIiqrilAi: S-'IIAV.-. 15 on a hill siile, all fat black-faced sheep with fine long 1 seated near them, crook in hand, upon a of rock, they found the person (one of the rans already referred to) who was alleged to have a them. J it- was a strange-looking old fellow, with a long white beard that flowed below his girdle ; .-as attended by two huge black dogs of fierce and repulsive aspect He laughed scornfully when bed by the corporal, and hollowly the echoes of his laught'T run;,' among the rocks, while his giant hounds bayed and erected their bristles, and their > if emitting sparks of fire. The soldiers now surrounded the, sheep and drove them down the hill side into the glen, from whence they prue'-e'i"d towards Maryburgh, with a piper playing in front of the Hock, for it is known that \> will readily follow the music of the pipe. The k Watch were merry with their easy capture, but ; 'herson's party were so merry as the cap- tured shepherd, whom, for security, the corporal had *) the left hand of his brother Samuel ; and in this older they proceeded for three miles, until they .ied a running stream; when, lo ! the whole ot the three hundred fat sheep and the black dogs turned into clods of brown earth; and, with a wild mocking lan^h that seemed to pass away on the wind which swept the mountain waste, their shepherd vanished, and no trace of his presence remained but the empty rin-- of the fetters which dangled from the. left wrist of Samuel Macl'liersoii, who felt every hair on his head bristle under his bonnet with terror and affright. Thi> ;;lso the abode of the Duoinr. . or (im.d N.-i-libinir.-:. as they are named in the Lowlands; and of this fact the wife of the pay- i: '2 16 I.K.i ;KN*I)S OK THE BLACK WATCH. sergeant of Farquhar's own company could bear blc evidence. These imps are alleged to have a .nge love for abstracting young girls and women great with child, and leaving in their places bundles of dry branches or withered reeds in the resemblance of the person thus abstracted, but to all appearance dead or in a trance ; they are also exceeding partial to having their own bantlings nursed by human mothers. The wife of tlie sergeant (who was Duncan Camp- bell of the family of Duncaves) was without children, but was ever longing to possess one, and had drunk of all the holy wells in the neighbourhood without finding herself much benefited thereby. On a summer evening when the twilight was lingering on the hills, she was seated at her cottage door gazing listlessly on the waters of the Eil, which were reddened by the last flush of the west, when suddenly a little man and woman of strange aspect appeared before her so suddenly that they seemed to have sprung from the ground and offered her a child to nurse. Her husband, the sergeant, was absent on duty at Dumbar- ton ; the poor lonely woman had no one to consult, or from whom to seek permission, and she at once accepted the charge as one long coveted. "Take this pot of ointment," said the man, im- pressively, giving Moina Campbell a box made of shells, " and be careful from time to time to touch the eyelids of our child therewith." " Accept this pairse of money," said the woman, giving her a small bag of green silk ; " 'tis our pay- ment in advance, and anon \\e will come again." qunint little father and mother then each blew a breath upon the face of the child and disappeared, or as the sergeant's wife said, seemed to melt away THE STORY OF FAK<>riIAR SHAW. 17 into the twilight haze. The money given by the woman was gold and silver ; but Moina knew not its v.i 1 ue, for the coins were ancient, and bore the head <>f King Constantino IV. The child was a strange, pale and wan little creature, with keen, bright, and inrhmcholy eyes ; its lean freakish hands were almost transparent, and it was ever sad and moaning. Yet in the care of the sergeant's wife it throve bravely, and always after its eyes were touched with the oint- ment it laughed, crowed, screamed, and exhibited such wild joy that it became almost convulsed. This occurred so often that Moina felt tempted to apply the ointment to her own eyes, when lo ! she 'ived a group of the dwarfish Daoine Shie little men in trunk hose and sugar-loaf hats, and little women in hoop petticoats all of a green colour dancing round her, and making grimaces an$ antic gestures to amuse the child, which to her horror she was now convinced was a bantling of the spirits who dwelt in Larochmohr ! What was she to do ? To offend or seem to fear lln in was dangerous, and though she was now daily tormented by seeing these green imps about her, she ted unconsciousness and seemed to observe them not ; but prayed in her heart for her husband's speedy return, and to be relieved of her fairy charge, to whom she faithfully performed her trust, for in time the child grew strong and beautiful ; and when, again on a twilight eve, the parents came to claim it, the woman wept as it was taken from her, for she had learned to love the little creature, though it belonged neither to heaven nor earth. me months after, Moina Campbell, more lonely now than ever, was passing through Larochmohr, when suddenly within the circle of a large green fairy 18 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. rinir, she saw thousands, yea myriads of little imps in green trunk hose and with sugar-loaf hats, dancing aii'l making merry, and amid them were the child she had nursed and its parents also, and in terror and distress she addressed herself to them. The tiny voices within the charmed circle were hushed in an instant, and all the little men and women hecame filled with anger. Their little faces -n-\v red, and their little eyes flashed fire. " How do you see us ?" demanded the father of the fairy child, thrusting his little conical hat fiercely over his right eye. " Did I not nurse your child, my friend ?" said Moina, trembling. " But how do you see us ?" screamed a thousand little voices. Moina trembled, and was silent. " Oho \" exclaimed all the tiny voices, like a breeze of wind, " sho has been using our ointment, the in- solent mortal !" " I can alter that," said one fairy man (who being three feet high was a giant among his fellows), as he blew upward in her face, and in an instant all the green multitude vanished from her sight ; she saw only the fairy ring and the green bare sides of the silent glen. ^ Of all the myriads she had seen, not one was visible now.* '' Fear not, Moina," cried a little voice from the hill side, " for your husband will prosper." It was the fairy child who spoke. Thi?, and the two legends which follow, were related to me l'\ ,-i Highlander, who asserted, with tlu- almost good faith, that thry happened in (Jlendochart; hut I have since seen an Arahian till.-, which somewhat resembles the adventure of the sergeant's wife. THE STOUY OF FA11QUHAR SHAW. 1 ( J " But his fate will follow him/' added another voice, angrily. Full of fear the poor woman returned to her cot- . fn-< :i :it ti 11 days and nights ; but she saw her husband no more: in the meantime he had embarked for a foreign land, being gazetted to an eusigncy ; thus so far tin- fairy promise of his prospering proved true.* Another story flitted through Farquhar's mind, and troubled him quite as much as its predecessors. In a shieling here a friend of his, when hunting, one night sought shelter. Finding a fire already lighted therein he ; : ue alarmed, and clambering into the roof sat upon the cross rafters to wait the event, and ere long there ' x -l a little old man two feet in height. His 1, hands, and feet were enormously large for the size of his person ; his nose was long, crooked, and of rlet hue ; his eyes brilliant as diamonds, and they ul.ned in the light of the fire. He took from his baek a bundle of reeds, and tying them together, pro- led to blow upon them from his huge mouth and nde.d cheeks, and as lie blew, a skin crept over the dry bundle, which gradually began to assume the appearance of a human face and form. ,in^s were more than the huntsman on his ptn h above could endure, and filled by dread that the process below might end in a troublesome likene^ of himself, he dropped a sixpence into his ery thing evil is proof to Iccul) and fired straight at the hu^; head of the spirit or gnome, which vanished with a shriek, tearing away in his * His "fail'" would srem to h.ivo followed him, tro; for ho \v;is killed ;it TiamdiT<>p;:i. when car-kuu-lk'uU'tnnl of the Hl;ick Watoh. See Stewart' t Skctckct. 20 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. wrath and flight the whole of the turf wall on one side of the shieling, which was thus in a moment re- duced to ruin. These memories, and a thousand others of spectral Druids and tall ghastly warriors, through whose thin forms the twinkling stars would shino (but these orbs were hidden now) as they hovered by grey cairns and the grassy graves of old, crowded on the mind of Farquhar; for there were then, and even now are, more ghosts, devils, and hobgoblins in the Scottish Highlands than ever were laid of yore in the Red Sea. Nor need we be surprised at this superstition in the early days of the Black Watch, when Dr. Henry tells us, in 1831, that within the last twenty years, when a couple -agreed to marry in Orkney, they went to the Temple of the Moon, which was semicircular, and there, on her knees, the woman solemnly invoked the spirit of Woden ! Farquhar, as he strode on, comforted himself with the reflection that those who are born at night as his mother had a hundred times told him he had been never saw spirits ; so he took a good dram from his hunting-flask, and belted his plaid tighter about him, after making a sign of the cross three times, as a protection against all the diablerie of the district, but chiefly against a certain malignant fiend or spirit, who was wont to howl at night among the rocks of Larochmohr, to hurl storms of snow into the deep vale of Corriehoilzie, and toss huge blocks of granite into the deep blue waters of Loch Leven. He shouted on Bran, whistled the march of the Black Watch, " to keep his spirits cheery," and pushed on his way up the mountains, while the broad rain drops of a coming tempest plashed heavily in his face. He looked up to the " Hill of Heaven." The night Till-: STORY OP FARQUHAU SHAW. 21 clouds were gathering round its awful summit, wheel- in.:, eddy in-.:, and floating in whirlwinds from the dak chasms of rock that yawn in its sides. The ling of the thunder among the riven peaks of granite overhaul announced that a tempest was at hand; but though Farquhar Shaw had come of a brave and adventurous race, and feared nothing /r/ lily, he could not repress a shudder lest the mournful gusts of the rising wind might bear with them the cry of the Tar' Uisc, the terrible Water Bull, or the shrieks of the spirit of the storm ! The lonely man continued to toil up that wilder- til 1 he reached the shoulder of the mountain, where, on his right, opened the black narrow gorge, in the deep bosom of which lay Loch Leven, and, on his left, opened the glens that led towards Loch Treig, the haunt of Damh mohr a Voualia,or Enchanted Stag, which was alleged to live for ever, and be proof to mortal weapons ; and now, like a tornado of the tropics, the storm burst forth in all its fury ! The wind seemed to shriek around the mountain summits and to bellow in the gorges below, while the thunder hurtled across the sky, and the lightning, ii and ghastly, flashed about the rocks of Loch n. shedding, ever and anon, for an instant, a sudden gleam upon its narrow stripe of water, and on the brawling torrents that roared down the mountain , and were swelling fast to floods, as the rain, which had long been falling on the frozen summit of Ben Nevis, now descended in a broad and blinding torrent that was swept by the stormy wind over hill and over valley. As Farquhar staggered on, a gleam of lightning revealed to him a little turf shieling under the brow of a pine-covered rock, and mak rous effort to withstand the roaring wind, which LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. tore over the bare waste with all the force and might of a solid and palpable body, he reached it on his hands and knurs. After securing the rude door, which was composed of three cross bars, he flung himself on the earthen floor of the hut, breathless and exhausted, while Bran, his dog, as if awed by the ele- mental war without, crept close beside him. As Farquhar's thoughts reverted to all that he had :d of the district, he felt all a Highlander's native horror of remaining in the dark in a place so weird and wild ; and on rinding near him a quantity of dry wood bog-pine and oak, stored up, doubtless, by some thrifty and provident shepherd he produced his Hint and tinder-box, struck a light, and, with all tht; readiness of a soldier and huntsman, kindled a fire in a corner of the shieling, being determined that if it was the place where, about "the hour when church- yards yawn and graves give up their dead," the browni' s WITC alleged to assemble, they should not come upon him unseen or unawares. J living a venison steak in his havresack, he placed it on the embers to broil, heaped fresh fuel on his fire, and drawing his plaid round Bran and himself, wearied by the toil of his journey on foot in such a night, and over such a country, he gradually dropped asleep, Hess alike of the storm which raved and bellowed in the dark glens below, and round the bare scalps of the vast mountain whose mighty shadows, when falling .van! at eve, darken even the Great Glen of Albyn. In his sleep, the thoughts of Farquhar Shaw wnn- d to his comrades, then at the Birks of Aberfeldy. He dreamt that a long time how long he knew not had elapsed since he had been in their ranks ; but he saw the Laird of Finab, his captain, surveying I STOHY OF FARQUHAR SHAW. him with a gloomy brow, while the faces of friends ami comrades v.'ere avcrb il from him. " Why is this how is this?" ho demanded. Then ho was told that the Reicudan Dim were dis- graced by tin- di-MTtion of three of its soldiers, who, on that day, won- to die, and the regiment was paraded to witness their fate. The scene with all its solemnity and all its terrors grew vividly before him ; lie heard the lamenting wail of the pipe as the three doomed men marched slowly past, each behind his black coffin, and the scene of this catastrophe was far, far a\v:iy, he knew not where ; but it seemed to be in a strange country, and then the scene, the sights, and th voices of the people, were foreign to him. In the background, above the glittering bayonets and blue bonnets of the Black Watch, rose a lofty castle of foreign aspect, having a square keep or tower, with four turret:-!, the vanes of which were shining in the early morning sun. In his ears floated the drowsy hum of a vast and increasing multitude. Farquhar trembled in every limb as the doomed men passed so near him that he could sec their bn heave as they breathed; but their faces were o>n- 1 from him, for each had his head muffled in his plaid, according to the old Highland fashion, when imploring mercy or quarter. Lots were cast with great solemnity for the firing party or executioners, ami, to his horror, Farquhar fbund himself one of the twelve men chosen for this, to every soldier, most obnoxious duty ! Wh-'ii the time came for tiring, and the three unfortunates wore kneeling opposite, each within his eoflin, and each with his head mullled in a plaid, Farquhar menially resolved to close his eyes and firo at random against the wall of the castle opposite; 2-1 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. but some mysterious and irresistible impulse com- piled him to look for a moment, and lo ! the plaid had fallen from the face of one of the doomed men, and, to his horror, the dreamer beheld himself! His own face was before him, but ghastly and pale, and his own eyes seemed to be glaring back upon him with affrigh^ while their aspect was wild, sad, and _ard. The musket dropped from his hand, a weak- ness seemed to overspread his limbs, and writhing in agony at the terrible sight, while cold perspiration rolled in bead-drops over his clammy brow, the dreamer started, and awoke, when a terrible voice, low but distinct, muttered in his ear "Farquhar Shaw, bithidth duil ri fear feachd, acJi ch bki duil ri fear lie!"* He leaped to his feet with a cry of terror, and found that he was not alone, as a little old woman was crouching near the embers of his fire, while Bran, his eyes glaring, his bristles erect, was growling at her with a fierce angry sound, that rivalled the bellowing of the storm, which still continued to rave without. The aspect of this hag was strange. In the light of the fire which brightened occasionally as the wind swept through the crannies of the shieling, her eyes glittered, or rather glared like fiery sparks ; her nose was hooked and sharp ; her mouth like an ugly gash ; her hue was livid and pale. Her outward attire was a species of yellow mantle, which enveloped her whole form ; and her hands, which played or twisted nervously in the generous warmth of the glowing embers, resembled a bundle of freakish knots, or the talons of an aged bird. She muttered to herself at times, * A man ma}' return from an expedition ; but there is no hope that he may return from the grave. A Gaelic Proverb. THE STORY OF FARQUHAR SHAW. 25 and after turning her terrible red eyes twice or thrice covertly and wickedly towards Farquhar, she suddenly snatched tin: venison steak from amid the flames, and, with a chuckle of satisfaction, devoured it steaming hot, and covered as it was with burning cinders. On Farquhar secretly making a sign of the cross, beholding this strange proceeding, she turned sharply with a savage expression towards him, and to her full stature, which was not more than three feet ; and he felt, he knew not why, his heart tremble ; for his spirit was already perturbed by the effectf of his terrible dream, and clutching the steel collar of Bran (who was preparing to spring at this strange visitor, and seemed to like her aspect as little as his master) he said Woman, who are you ?" " A traveller like yourself, perhaps. But who are you?" she asked in a croaking voice. " Do you know our proverb in Lochaber What sent the messengers to hell, But asking what they knew full well ?" was the reply of Farquhar, as he made a vigorous effort to restrain Bran, whose growls and fury were fast becoming quite appalling; and at this proverb the eyes of the hag seemed to blaze with fresh anger, while her figure became more than ever erect " Oich ! oich !" grumbled Farquhar, " I would as readily have had the devil as this ugly hag. I have got a shelter, certainly ; but with her 'tis out of the cauldron and into the fire. Had she been a brown- eyed lass, to a share of my plaid she had been wel- come; but this wrinkled cailloch down, Bran, down ]" he added aloud, as the strong hound strained ::\ns OP THE FILACK WATCH. iu liis collar, ui:TORY OP FARQUHAR SHAW. :7 the waters of tlie deluge pour through Corriehoilzie, and sul). ide I'roni the slope of Ben Nevis?" This is a very good joke, mother," said poor 1'arquhar, attempting to laugh, while the- hideous old \vuin:in, who was so small when he first saw her as (n be alnio t a dwarf, was now, palpably, veritably, and without doubt, nearly a head taller than him- : and watchfully he continued to gaze on her, :ng one hand on his dirk and the other on the collar of Bran, whose growls were louder now than the .storm that cart-en 'd through the rocky glen below. " Woman !" said Farquhar, boldly, " my mind mis- gives me there is something about you that I little like ; I have just had a dreadful dream." V morning dream, too !" chuckled the hag- with an ellis.ii grin. " So I connect your presence here with it." " Be it so." ' What may that terrible dream foretell?" pondered Karquhar ; "for morning dreams are but warnings and pivsag'-s unsolved. The blessings of God and all his saints be about me !" At these words the beldame uttered a loud laugh. " You are, I presume, a Protestant?" said Farquhar, .ily. At this suggestion she laughed louder still, but seemed to grow more and more in stature, till Far- quhar became well-nigh sick at heart with astonish- 7in nt and tear, and began to revolve in his mind the ibility of reaching the door of the shieling and rushing out into the storm, there to commit himself to Providence and the elements. Besides, as her stature <,nvw. h.-r ey, B waxed ivdder and brigliter, and lu-r malevulcnt hilarity incn-a^ed. It was a tiend, a demon of the wild, by whom he 28 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. was now visited and tormented in that sequestered hut. His heart sank, and as her terrible eyes seemed to glare upon him, and pierce his very soul, a cold per- spiration burst over all his person. " Why do you grasp your dirk, Farquhar ha ! ha !" she asked. "For the same reason that I hold Bran to be ready. Am I not one of the King's Reicudan Dim ? But how know you my name ?" " J Tis a trifle to me, who knew MacGillony." " From whence came you to-night ?" " From the Isle of Wolves," she replied, with a shout of laughter. " A story as likely as the rest," said Farquhar, " for that isle is in the Western sea, near unto Coll, the country of the Clan Gillian. You must travel fast." " Those usually do who travel on the skirts of the wind. " " Woman !" exclaimed Farquhar, leaping up with an emotion of terror which he could no longer con- trol, for her stature now overtopped his own, and ere long her hideous head would touch the rafters of the hut ; " thou art either a liar or a fiend ! which shall I deem thee ?" " Whichever pleases you most," she replied, start- ing to her feet "Bran, to the proof!" cried Farquhar, drawing his dirk, and preparing to let slip the now maddened hound ; " at her, Bran, and hold her down. Good, dog brave dog ! oich, he has a slippery handful that grasps an eel by the tail ! at her, Bran, for thou art strong as Cuchullin." Uttering a roar of rage, the savage dog made a wild bound at the hag, who, with a yell of spite and defiance, and with a wondrous activity, by one spring, THE STORY OF FARQUHAR SHAW. 29 left the shieling, and dashing the frail door to frag- iii<-nts in her passage, rushed out into the dark and tempestuous night, pursued by the infuriated but battled Bran battled now, though the fleetest hound on the Braes of Lochaber. They vanished together in the obscurity, while Farquoar gazed from the door breathless and terrified. The storm still howled in the valley, where the dark- ness was opaque and dense, save when a solitary gleam of lightning ilashed on the ghastly rocks and narrow defile of Loch Leven ; ami the roar of the bellowing wind as it tore through the rocky gorges and deep granite chasms, had in its sound something more than usually terrific. But, hark ! other sounds cann- upon the skirts of that hurrying storm. The shrieks of a fiend, if they could be termed so ; for they were shrill and high, like cries of pain and laughter mingled. Then came the loud deep baying, with the yells of a dog, as if in rage and pain, while a thousand sparks, like those of a rocket, glittered for a moment in the blackness of the glen below. Tho heart of Farauhar Shaw seemed to stand still for a time, while, dirk in hand, he continued to peer into the d. use obscurity. Again came the cries of Bran, but nearer and nearer now ; and in an instant more, the noble hound sprang, with a loud whine, to his er's side, and sank at his feet It was Bran, the tlrrt, the strong, the faithful and the brave ; but in what a condition! Torn, lacerated, covered with blood and frightful wounds disembowelled and dying ; for the poor animal had only strength to loll out his hot tongue in an attempt to lick his master's hand before he expired. "Mother Mary," said Fan|uhar, taking off his bonnet, inspired with horror and religious awe, " keep c 30 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. thy blessed hand over me, for my dog has fought with a demon !" It may be imagined how Farquhar passed the re- mainder of that morning sleepless and full of terrible thoughts, for the palpable memory of his dream, and tli-' episode.which followed it, were food enough for tion. With dawn, the storm subsided. The sun arose in a cloudless sky ; the blue mists were wreathed round the brows of Ben Nevis, and a beautiful rainbow seemed to spring from the side of the mountain far beyond the waters of Loch Leven ; the dun deer were cropping the wet glistening herbage among the grey rocks ; the little birds sang early, and the proud eagle and ferocious gled were soaring towards the rising sun ; thus all nature gave promise of a serene sum mer day. With his dirk, Farquhar dug a grave for Bran, and lined it with soft and fragrant heather, and there he covered him ' up and piled a cairn, at which he gave many a sad and backward glance (for it marked where a faithful friend and companion lay) as he ascended the huge mountains of rock, which, on one hand, led to the Uiac Dhu, or Vale of the Black Water, and on the other, by the tremendous steep named the Devil's Staircase, to the mouth of Glencoe. In due time he reached the regiment at its canton- ments on the Birks of Aberfeldy, where the inde- pendent companies, for the first time were exercised as a battalion by their Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Robert Munro of Culcairn, who, six years afterwards, was slain at the battle of Falkirk. Farquhar's terrible dream and adventure in that Highland wilderness were ever before him, and the events subsequent to the formation of the Black THE STORY OF FARQUIIAH SHAW. 31 Watch into a battalion, with the excitement produced among its soldiers by an unexpected order to march thin*!, served to confirm the gloom that preyi-d upon his spirits. The story of how the Black Watch were deceived is well known in the Highlands, though it is only one of the many acts of treachery performed in those clays by the British Government in their transactions with the people of that country, when seeking to u the adherents of the Stuart cause, and ensnare them into regiments for service in distant lands; henn- tin- many dangerous mutinies which occurred after the enrolment of all the old Highland corps. This unexpected order to march into England rau-ed such a dangerous ferment in the Black Watch, as being a violation of the principles and promise under which it was enrolled, and on which so many Highland gentlemen of good family enlisted in its ranks, that the Lord President Duncan Forbes of (Julloden, warned General Clayton, the Scottish Com- mander-in-Chief, of the evil effects likely to occur if this breach of faith was persisted in ; and to prevent the corps from revolting en inasse, that officer in- formed the soldiers that they were to enter England " solely to be seen by King George, who had never seen a Highland soldier, and hail been graciously pleased to express, or feel great curiosity on tho subject" joled and flattered by this falsehood, the soldiers of the Reicudan Dhu,aM uiiaware that .v/i/'y, woe <>r, r to be reviewed by his Majesty." Everywhere on the march throughout the north of England, they were received with cordiality and hospitality by the people, to whom their garb, aspect, and equipment were a source of interest, and in return, the gentlemen and soldiers of the Reicudan Dhu behaved to the admiration of their officers and of all magistrates ; but as they drew nearer to Lon- don, according to Major Grose, they were exposed to the malevolent mockery and the national " taunts of the true-bred English clowns, and became gloomy and sullen. Animated even to the humblest private with the feelings of gentlemen," continues this English officer, " they could ill brook the rudeness of boors, nor could they patiently submit to affronts in a country to which they had been called by the invita- tion of their sovereign." On the 30th April, the regiment reached London, and on the 1 4th May was reviewed on Finchley Com- mon, by Marshal Wade, before a vast concourse of spectators ; but the King, whom they expected to be present, had sailed from Greenwich for Hanover on the same night they entered the English metropolis. Herein they found themselves deceived ; for " the King had told them a lie," and the spark thus kindled was soon fanned into a flame. After the review at Finchley Common, Farquhar Shaw and Corporal Malcolm MacPherson were drinking in a tavern, when three English gentlemen entered, and seating themselves at the same table, entered into conversation, by praising the regiment, their garb, their country, and saying those compli- ments which are so apt to win the heart of a Scotch- THE STORY OF FAK<>riIAIl SHAW. S3 man when far from home ; and the glens of the Gael seemed then indeed, far, far away, to the imagination of the simple souls who maimed the Black Watch in 1743. Both Farquhar and the corporal being gentlemen, wore the wing 'of the eagle in their bonnets, and were well educated, and spoke English with tole- rable fluency. " I would that his Majesty had seen us, how- ever," suid the corporal ; " we have had a long march south from our own country on a bootless errand." " Can you possibly be so simple as to believe that the King cared a rush on the subject V asked a .in -nt Ionian, with an incredulous smile ; for he and his companions, like many others who hovered about these new soldiers, were Jacobites and political incen- diaries. "What mean you, sir?" demanded MacPherson, with surprise. ' Why, you simpleton, that story of the King wishing to see you was all a tale of a tub a oare. "A snare!" " Yes a pretext of the ministry to lure you to this distance from your own country, and then transport you bodily for life." . where V " Oh, that matters little perhaps to the American plantations." "Or, to Botany Bay," suggested another, mali- ciously ; " but take another jorum of brandy, and ft MI- nothing ; wherever you go, it can't well be a worse place than your own country." "Thanks, gentlemen," replied Farquhar, loftily, 84 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. while his hands played nervously with his dirk ; " we want no more of your brandy." "Believe me, sirs," resumed their informant and tormentor, " the real object of the ministry is to get as many righting men, Jacobites and so forth, out of the Highlands as possible. This is merely part of a new system of government," " Sirs," exclaimed Farquhar, drawing his dirk with an air of gravity and determination which caused his new friends at once to put the table between him and them, " will you swear this upon the dirk ?" " How why ?" " Upon the Holy Iron we know no oath more binding," continued the Highlander, with an expres- sion of quiet entreaty. " I'll swear it by the Holy Poker, or anything you please," replied the Englishman, re-assured on finding the Celt had no hostile intentions. " Tis all a fact," he continued, winking to his companions, " for so my good friend Phil Yorke, the Lord Chancellor, who experts soon to be Earl of Hardwick, informed me." The eyes of the corporal flashed with indignation ; and Farquhar struck his forehead as the memory of his terrible dream in the haunted glen rushed upon his memory. " Oh ! yes," said a third gentleman, anxious to add his mite to the growing mischief ; " it is all a Whig plot of which you are the victims, as our kind ministry hope that you will all die off like sheep with the rot ; or like the Marine Corps ; or the Invalids, the old in Jamaica." " They dare not deceive us !" exclaimed MacPher- son, striking the basket-hilt of his claymore "Dare not!" TIIK STOKY OP FARQUIIAIl SHAW. 85 " Xo " i deed why?" "For in the country of the clans fifty thousand claymores would be on the grindstone to avenge ' A laugh followed this outburst. King George made you rods to scourge your own countrymen, and now, as useless rods, you are to be Hung into the fire," said the first speaker, tauntingly. " By (iod ami Mary !" began MacPhersou, again laying a hand on his sword with sombre fury. " Peace, Malcolm/' interposed Farquluir ; " the Saxon is right, and we have been fooled. Bithidh r^ai'li ni mar is aill Dhiu. (All things must be as God will have them.) Let us seek the Reicudan Dhu, and woe to the Saxon clowns and to that German churl, their King, if they have deceived us I" On the march back to London, MacPherson and Farquhar Shaw brooded over what they hud heard at Fim-hley ; while to other members of the regiment similar communications had been made, and thus, ere nightfall, every soldier of the Black Watch felt hat he had been entrapped by a royal false- hood, which the sudden, and to them unaccountable, d.-jiarture of George II. to Hanover seemed beyond all doubt to confirm. " In those whom he knows," according to General art, "a. Highlander will repose perfect confi- dence, and if they are his superiors will be obedient and respectful ; but ere a stranger can obtain this 'fence, he must show that he merits it When once it is given, it is constant and unreserved ; but if confidence be lost, no man is more suspicious. K : of a Highland regiment, on his first joining the , must have observed in his little trau.-actions with the men how minute and strict they are in every 30 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. item ; but when once confidence is established, scru- tiny ceases, and his word or nod of assent is as good as his bond. In the case in question (the Black Watch), notwithstanding the arts which were prac- tised to mislead the men, they proceeded to no violence, but believing themselves deceived and be- trayed, the only remedy that occurred to them was to get back to their own country." The memory of the commercial ruin at Darien, and of the massacre at Glencoe (the Cawnpore of King William), were too fresh in every Scottish breast not to make the flame of discontent and mistrust spread like wildfire ; and thus, long before the bell of St. Paul's had tolled the hour of midnight, the conviction that he had been BETRAYED was firmly rooted in the mind of every soldier of the Black Watch, and mea- sures to baffle those who had deluded and lured them so far from their native mountains were at once pro- posed, and as quickly acted upon. At this crisis, the dream of Farquhar was con- stantly before him, as a foreboding of the terrors to come, and he strove to thrust it from him ; but the words of that terrible warning a man may return from an expedition, but never from the grave seemed ever in his ears ! On the night after the review, the whole regiment, except its officers, most of whom knew what was on the tapis, assembled at twelve o'clock on 'a waste common near Highgate. The whole were in heavy marching order ; and by direction of Corporal Malcolm MacPherson, after carefully priming and loading with ball-cartridge, they commenced their march in silence and secresy and with all speed for Scotland a wild, daring, and romantic attempt, for they were heedless and ignorant of the vast extent of THE STORY OP FAH' .'I'll All SHAW. 87 hostile country that lay between them and their homes, and scarcely knew the route to pursue. They had now but three common ideas; to keep to- gether, to resist to the last, and to march tun-lli. With some skill and penetration they avoided the two great highways, and marched by night from wood to wood, concealing themselves by day so well, that for some time no one knew how or where they had gone, though, by the Lords Justices orders had been issued to all officers commanding troops between London ami the Scottish Borders to overtake or intercept them ; but the 19th May arrived before tidings reached the metropolis that the Black Watch, one thousand strong, had passed Northampton, and a body of Marshal Wade's Horse (now better known as the :>rd or Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) over- t-ink them, when faint by forced and rapid marches, by want of food, of sleep and shelter, the unfortunate regiment had entered Ladywood, about four miles from the market town of Oundle-on-the-Nen, and had, as usual, concealed themselves in a spacious thicket, which, by nine o'clock in the evening, was completely environed by strong columns of English cavalry under General Blakeney. Captain Ball, of Wade's Horse, approached their bivouac iti the dusk, bearer of a flag of truce, and was received by the poor fellows with every respect, and Faiquhar Shaw, as interpreter for his comrades, heard his demands, which were, "that the whole battalion should lay down its anus, and surrender at discretion as mutineers." "Hitherto we have conducted ourselves quietly and peacefully in the land of those who have deluded and wronged us, even as they wronged and deluded our Mthers," replied Far i. Two duinewassals of the Clan Chattan, lioih named .Mael'herson, stepped forward, blew 40 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. the priming from their pans, and accompanied him to the outposts of his own men the Saxon Seidar Dearg, or Red English soldiers, as the Celts named them. Here, on parting from them, the good captain re- newed his entreaties and promises, which so far won the confidence of the corporals, that, after return- ing to the regiment, the whole body, in consequence of their statements, agreed to lay down their arms and submit the event to Providence and a court-mar- tial of officers, believing implicitly in the justice of their cause and the ultimate adherence of the Govern- ment to the letters of local service under which they had enlisted. Farquhar Shaw and the two corporals of the Clan Chattan nobly offered their own lives as a ransom for the honour and liberties of the regiment, but their offer was declined ; for so overwhelming was the force against them, that all in the battalion were alike at the mercy of the ministry. On capitulating, they were at once surrounded by strong bodies of horse, foot, and artillery, with their field-pieces grape- shotted; and the most severe measures were faith- lessly and cruelly resorted to by those in authority and those in whom they trusted. While, in defiance of all stipulation and treaty with the Highlanders, the main body of the regiment was marched under escort towards Kent, to embark for Flanders, two hun- dred privates, chiefly gentlemen or cadets of good family, were selected from its ranks and sentenced to banishment, or service for life in Minorca, Georgia, and the Leeward Islea The two corporals, Samuel and Malcolm MacPherson, with Farquhar Shaw, were marched back to London, to meet a more speedy, and to men of such spirit as theirs, a more welcome fate. THE STORY OF FARQUHAIl SHAW. 4-1 The examinations of some of these poor fellows prove how they had been deluded into service for the Line. " I did not desert, sirs," said John Stuart, a gentle- man of the House of Urrard, and private in Camp- bell of Carrick's company. " I repel the insinuation," he continued, with pride ; " I wished only to go back to my father's roof and to my own glen, because the inhospitable Saxon churls abused my country and ridiculed my dress, We had no leader; we placed no man over the rest." " I am neither a Catholic nor a false Lowland Whig," said another private Gregor Grant, of the family of Rothiemurchus ; " but I am a true man, and ready to serve the King, though his actions have proved him a liar ! You have said, sirs, that I am afraid to go to Flanders. I am a Highlander, and never yet saw the man I was afraid of. The Saxons told me I was to be transported to the American plantations to work with black slaves. Such was not our bargain with King George. We were but a \V;itch to serve along the Highland Border, and to i broken clans from the Braes of Lochaber." " We were resolved not to be tricked," added Far- quhar Shaw. " We will meet the French or Spaniards in any land you please ; but we will die, sirs, rather than go, like Saxon rogues, to hoe sugar in the plan- tations." " What is your faith ?" asked the president of the court-martial. "The faith of my fathers a thousand y> ms liofore tlu- li;it.'fn] sound of the Saxon drum was heard upon Highland Border!" You mean that you have lived " " A -. ! UM God and the Blessed Mary, I shall die LEGENDS OF Til 15 BLACK WATCIt. a Catholic and a Highland gentleman ; stooping to none and fearing none " " None, say you ?" " Save Him who sits upon the right hand of His Father in Heaven." As Farquhar said this with solemn energy, all the prisoners took off their bonnets and bowed their heads with a religious reverence which deeply impressed the court, but failed to save them. On the march to the Tower of London, Farquhar was the most resolute and composed of his com- panions in fetters and misfortune ; but on coming in sight of that ancient fortress, his firmness forsook him, the blood rushed back upon his heart, and he became ieadly pale ; for in a moment he recognised the cattle of his strange dream the castle having a square tower, with four vanes and turrets and then the whole scene of his foreboding vision, when far away in lone Lochaber, came again upon his memory, while the voice of the warning spirit hovered again in his ear, and he knew that the hour of his end was pur- suing him ! And now, amid crowds of country clowns and a rabble from the lowest purlieus of London, who mocked and reviled them, the poor Highlanders were marched through the streets of that mighty metro- polis (to them, who had been reared in the mountain solitudes of the Gael, a place of countless wonders !) and were thrust into the Tower as prisoners under sentence. Early on the morning of the 12th July, 17i3, when the sun was yet below the dim horizon, and a frowsy fog that lingered on the river was mingling with the city's smoke to spread a gloom over the midsummer morning, all London seemed to be pouring from her many avenues towards Tower Hill, where an episode THE STOEY OP FAKQUIIAK SIIA\V. 43 of no ordinary interest was promised to the sight- loving Cockneys a veritable military execution, with all its stem terrors and grim solemnity. All the troops in London were under arms, and long before daybreak had taken possession of an. ample space enclosing Tower Hill ; and there, conspi- cuous above all by their high and absurd sugar-loaf caps, were the brilliantly accoutred English and Scots Horse Grenadier Guards, the former under Viscount Cubham, and the latter under "Lieutenant-General John Earl of Rothes, K.T., and Governor of Duncan- non ; the Coldstream Guards ; the Scots Fusiliers ; and a sombre mass in the Highland garb of dark- green tartan, whom they surrounded with fixed bayonets. These last were the two hundred men of the Reicudan Dim selected for banishment, previous to which they were compelled to behold the death, or as they justly deemed it the deliberate murder under trust, of three brave gentlemen, their comrades. The gates of the Tower revolved, and then the I ;md muffled drums of the Scots Fusilier Guards were heard beating a dead march before who were " to return to Lochaber no more." Between two lines of Yeomen of the Guard, who 1'aerd inwards, the three prisoners came slowly forth, surrounded by an escort with fixed bayonets, each doomed man inarching behind his coffin, which was borne on. the shoulders of four soldiers. On approach- ing the parade, each politely raised his bonnet and bowed to the assembled multitude. " Courage, gentlemen," said Farquhar Shaw ; " I see no gallows here. I thank God we shall not die a 3 death I" " Tis well/' replied MacPberson, " for honour is more precious than refined gold." 44 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. The murmur of the multitude gradually subsided and died away, like a breeze that passes through a forest, leaving it silent ahd still, and then not a sound was heard but the baleful rolling of the muffled drums and the shrill but sweet cadence of the fifes. Then came the word, Halt ! breaking sharply the silence of the crowded arena, and the hollow sound of the three empty coffins, as they were laid on the ground, at the distance of thirty paces from the firing party. Now the elder brother patted the shoulder of the other, as he smiled and said " Courage a little time and all will be over our spirits shall be with those of our brave forefathers." " No coronach will be cried over us here, and no cairn will mark in other times where we sleep in the land of the stranger." " Brother," replied the other, in the same forcible language, " we can well spare alike the coronach and the cairn, when to our kinsmen we can bequeath the dear task of avenging us \" " If that bequest be valued, then we shall not die in vain." Once again they all raised their bonnets and uttered a pious invocation ; for now the sun was up, and in the Highland fashion a fashion old as the days of Baal they greeted him. " Are you ready ?" asked the provost-marshal. " All ready," replied Farquhar ; " moch-eirigh 'liiain, a ni'n t-suain 'mhairt."* This, to them, fatal 1 2th of July was a Monday ; so the proverb was solemnly applicable. ^ an, pale, and careworn they looked, but their eyes were bright, their steps steady, their bearing Early rising on Monday gives a sound sleep on Tuesday. See Macintosh's Gaelic Proverbs THH STOUV OK FAK^UIIAU >imv. \:> erect and dignified. They felt themselves victims and martyrs, whoM,- late would find a terrible echo in the ish Hi-hlands ; and need I add, that echo was IK a ,-if, when two years afterwards Prince Charles un- I'urliKl his standard iu Glenfinnan? Thus inspired by pride of birth, of character, and of country by inborn bravery and conscious innocence, at this awful crisis, they gazed around them without quailing, and ex- hibited a self-possession which excited the pity and admiration of all who beheld them. The clock struck the fatal hour at last ! " It is my doom," exclaimed Farquhar ; " the hour of my end hath followed me." They all embraced each other, and declined having their eyes bound up, but stood boldly, each at the foot of his coffin, confronting the levelled muskets of thirty privates of the Grenadier Guards, and they died like, the brave men they had lived. One brief para- graph in tit. James's Chronicle thus records their " On Monday, the 1 :Mli, at six o'clock in the morn- ing, Samuel and Malmlm MacPherson, corporals, and Fanjiiliar Shaw, a private-man, three of the Highland were shot upon the parade of the Tower pursuant to the sentence of the court martial. The <>f the Highland prisoners were drawn out to see the execution, and joined in their prayers with great earnestness. r l'h y behaved with perfect resolution and propriety. Their bodies were put into three coffins by three of the prisoners, their clan 8rn< n "/"/ names ikes, and buried in one grave, near the place cation." Such is the matter-of-fact record of a terrible fate! To the slaughter of these soldiers, and the wicked D 46 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. breach of faith perpetrated by the Government, may be traced much of that distrust which characterized the Seatbrth Highlanders and other clan regiments in their mutinies and revolts in later years ; and nothing inspired greater hatred in the hearts of those who " rose " for Prince Charles in 1 745, than the story of the deception and murder) for so they named it) of the three soldiers of the Reicudau Dhu by King George at London. " There must have been some- thing more than common in the case and character of these unfortunate men," to quote the good and gal- lant old General Stewart of Garth, " as Lord John Murray, who was afterwards colonel of the regiment, had portraits of them hung in his dining-room." This was the first episode in the history of the Black Watch, which soon after covered itself with glory by the fury of its charge at Fontenoy, and on the field of Detfingen exulted that among the dead who lay there was General Clayton, " the Sassenach " whose specious story first lured them from the Birks of Aberfeldy. II. THE SEVEN GRENADIERS. "As the regiment expects to bo engaged with the enriny to-morrow, the women and baggage will bo sent to tin- iv:ir. For this duty, Ensign James. Campbell, of Gli-nfalloch." Such was the order which was circulated in the ramp of the 42nd Highlanders (then known as the Black "Wuteh) on the evening of the 28th April, 17t"', previous to the Duke of Cumberland's attack on the French outposts in front of Fontenoy. Our tlion (writes one of our old officers) was to form tin' advanced guard on this occasion, and had been red to the village of Veson, where a bivouac formed, while Ensign Campbell, of Glenfalloch, the same who was afterwards wounded at Fontenoy, marched the baggage, with all the sorrowing women of the corps, beyond Maulpre, as our operations were for the purpose of relieving Tournay, then besi. by a powerful French army under Marshal Count de Saxe, and valiantly defended by eight thousand Dutchmen under the veteran Baron Dorth. It wa.s tlu; will of Heaven in those days that we should fight for none but the Dutch and Hanoverians. I had been appointed captain-lieutenant to the T.lack Watch from the old 2(>th, or Angus's Foot, and having overtaken the corps on its march between the D 2 48 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. gloomy old town of Liege and the barrier fortress of Maastricht, the aspect and hearing of the Highlanders we had then only one regiment of them in the ser- vice seemed new and strange, even barbaric to my eyes ; for, as a Lowlander, I had been ever accus- tomed to associate the tartan with fierce rapine and armed insurrection. Yet their bearing was stately, free, and noble ; for our ranks were filled by the sons of Highland gentlemen, and of these the most distinguished for stature, strength, and bravery were the seven sons of Captain Maclean, a cadet of the house of Duairt, who led our grenadiers. The very flower of these were the seven tall Macleans, who, since the regiment had been first mustered at the beautiful Birks of Aberfeldy, in May, 1740, had shone foremost in every encounter with the enemy. Captain Campbell, of Finab, and I seated ourselves beside the Celtic patriarch who commanded our grenadier company, and near him were his seven sons lounging on the grass, all tall and muscular men, bearded to the eyes, athletic, and weather- beaten by hunting and fighting in the Highlands, and inured alike to danger and to toil. Though gen- tlemen volunteers, they wore the uniform of the pri- vates, a looped-up scarlet jacket and waistcoat faced with buff and laced with white,* a tartan plaid of twelve yards plaited round the body and thrown over the left shoulder ; a flat blue bonnet with the fesse- cheque of the house of Stuart round it, and an eagle's feather therein, to indicate the wearer's birth. The whole regiment carried claymores in addition to their muskets, and to these weapons every soldier added, if he chose, a dirk, skene, pair of pistols, and * Tlio regiment was not made roj-al until 1758. THE SEVEN GRENADIERS. 49 target, in the fashion of tho Highlands; thus our front rank men were usually as fully equipped as any that stepped on tho muir of Culloden. Our sword- belts were black, and the cartouch-box was slung in front by a waist-belt. In addition to all this warlike paraphernalia, our grenadiers carried each a hatchet ami pouch of hand-grenades. The servicelike, for- midable, and cap-ti-pie aspect of the regiment had impressed me deeply ; but Captain Maclean and his :i sons more than all, as they lay grouped near th-i wutehfire, in the red light of which their bearded visages, keen eyes, and burnished weapons were glinting and glowing. The beard of old Maclean was white as snow, and flowed over his tartan plaid and scarlet waistcoat, imparting to his appearance a greater peculiarity, as all gentlemen were then closely shaven. As Final) and I seated ourselves by his fire, he raised his bonnet and bade us welcome with a courtly air, which con- sorted ill with his sharp west Highland accent. His was cli-ur and bold in expression, his voice was rumuwnding and loud, as in one whose will had never b.-i-n disputed. Close by was his inseparable hench- man and foster-brother Ronald MacAra, the colour- ant of his company, an aged Celt of grim pre- aml gigantic proportions, whose face had been nearly cloven by a blow from a Lochaber axe at the battle of Dunblane. "\Yolcuim.', gentlemen," said old Maclean, "a hun- dred thousand welcomes to a share of our supper, a savoury road collop, as we call it at home. It was a 11 n' fat sheop that my son Dougal found astray in a lit-Kl near Maulpre' ; and here is a braw little demi- john of P. -l^ian wine, which Alaster borrowed from a close by. These other five lads are also my 50 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. sons, Dunacha, Deors, Findlay Bane, Farquhar Gorm, and Angus Dhu, all grenadiers in the King's service, and hoping each one to be like myself a captain and to cock their feathers among the best in the Black Watch. Attend to our comrades, my braw lads." The lads, the least of whom was six feet in height, assisted us to a share of the sheep, which was broil- ing merrily on the glowing embers, and from which their comrades, who crowded round, partook freely, cutting off the slices, as they sputtered and browned, by their long dirks and sharp skenes. The seven grenadiers were all fine and hearty fellows, who trun- dled Alaster's demijohn of wine from hand to hand round the red roaring fire, on which the grim hench- man or colour-sergeant heaped up, from time to time, the doors and rafters of an adjacent house, and there we continued to carouse, sing, and tell stories, until the night was far advanced. The month was April, and the night was a glorious one ; all our bivouac was visible as if at noonday. The hum of voices, the scrap of a song, a careless laugh, the neigh of a horse, or the jangle of a bridle alone broke the silence of the moonlit sky ; though at times we heard the murmur of a stream that stole towards the Scheldt, like a silver current through the fields of sprouting corn, and under banks where the purple foxglove, the pink wild rose, and tho green bramble hung in heavy masses. And could aught be more picturesque than our Highland bivouac, lighted up by wavering watchfires and the brilliant queen of night the Celtic soldiers muffled in their dark-green plaids, their rough bare knees, hardy as the stems of the mountain pine, and alike impervious to the summer heat and winter cold, lying asleep upon their "umbered arms," or seated in THE SEVEN GKENADi: 51 groups, singing old songs, or tolling wild stories of distant glens from which, as Seidaran Deary or " Red Soldiers," the chances of the Belgian war had brought thorn here. I v, ; ited with the old chief and his sons they were so free and gay in manner, so frank and bold iu bear! ii;:. while there was something alike noble and patriarchal in the circumstance of their ly old father leading a company of brave hearts, IK arly all of whom were men of his own name and kindred. The fire had been freshly heaped with bil- .t'id fagots, the demijohn still bled freely; we had just concluded a merry chorus, which made the Uhlan videttes on the distant plain prick up their ears and li-tcn, and wo had reached that jovial point when a lit tit- wit goes a very long way, when Sergeant Ronald MacAra, the old henchman, approached Cap- tain M;icle;m, and placing a hand upon his shoulder with that kind but respectful familiarity which his relation as a foster-brother sanctioned, said with im- solemnity For the love of the blessed God, see that ye do not fight the stranger to-morrow with your stomach ing." ruddy face of the old soldier grew .pale. " No, Ronald/' said he ; " our race has already paid ting that strange warning." " God and Mary forbid \" muttered two of his sing themselves devoutly. > something for me in your havresac, I the captain, " and call me before the drums l..-.-ti for maivhiug ; keep something for the laddies, too for the Lord forfend that ever son of innif Min-.dd t ants measured swords with Lord Huntly's Catho- lic on the banks of the Livat, and there decided their religious differences like pretty men. Well, Sir Lauch- lan, through the great favour in which he was held at court, obtained from the King's own hand at Holyrood a charter or warrant empowering him to take posses- not only of those devilish Ilhinns, but of the whole island of Islay the patrimony and home of the Lords of the Isles what think you of that, sirs ? All Islay with Eilan-na-Corlle, or the Island of Coun- cil, the uivat castle in Loch Fmlaggan, the Rock of the Silver Rent, the Rock of the Rent-in-Kind, with vthing that flew over Islay, walked on its hills, or swam in its lakes, to him and his heirs for ever, heritably and irredeemably, until the day of doom. This seemed a severe stroke of fortune to the poor Clan Donald, the more so as their chief, Angus of Kintyre, was aged and frail, and had not drawn a swunl since last he fought our people in his seventieth yar, and now he was eighty. His .-MID, Sir Janifs, was ;is yt unknown as a soldier, whilr Sir Lauchlan \\as in the noon of his strength and manhood second 54 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. to none that stepped on heather or ever wore the tartan : hence, full of hope and confident of success, he rejected with scorn the offers of mediation made by neighbouring chiefs ; for old Angus had many friends, and my forefathers' claims were, to say the least of them, rather unjust. Sir Lauchlan summoned all the clan, his friends and kinsmen, to meet him in arms and with their galleys on a certain day to sail for Islay, when he hoped to crush the Clan Donald for ever in one decisive battle. On the evening before the muster, mounted and alone he rode from Duairt to consult a witch who dwelt in an uncouth den known among us as "the cave of the Grey Woman." It was not without some misgivings that my ancestor paid this visit ; but the advice and auguries of this woman, Aileen Glas, had never failed our race in times of war and peril. As he drew near her dwelling, the night was closing in ; the wind shook the' boughs of the forest, and as he looked back, they resembled the long green waves of a sea of foliage rolling up the narrow glen. Tho " gloaming" darkened fast, and the silent dew dis- tilled from the drooping leaves ; the golden cups of the broom and the calices of the heather-bells were shrinking with many a summer fly and honey-bee concealed in their petals, for night was descending on the stormy shores and boisterous hills of Mull bois- terous indeed, for there the hollow winds rave and howl from peak to peak, and wreath up the mist into many a strange and many a fearful shape, till the ghosts of Ossian seem again to tower above Beumore and Bentaluidh. Sir Lauchlan rode rapidly up the narrowing glen, till he found the cave of the Grey Woman before him. It yawned dark, lofty, and profound ; so, dismounting, THE SEYKX (ilJKXADIKRS. f>5 he tied his horse to a tree, and with his target and claymore advanced boldly, but with no small trouble, as tlif duikiH'.ss was now intense, and the ascent to the . u was rocky and difficult Above his head rose i paeious arch, fringed by matted ivy and the light waving mountain ash that covered all the upper rocks, tin- splintered peaks of which shot up against the star- ky in abrupt and jagged outline. Clambering up, he entered with a stately step, though his heart last with anxiety; before him lay a dark abyss of blackness and vacancy, opening into the bowels of tin.' mountain; and though lightly shod in cuarans of soft deer hide, he could hear his footsteps echoing afar oft'. At last a red light began to gleam before him, playing in fitful flashes upon the wet slimy walls of the den, and on the huge stalactites that hung like h Gothic pendants from the roof, and were formed by the filtrations of calcareous rills that stole noise- Irssly down between the chasms and crannies in the walls of rock. Aileen Glas was said to have been bora in the mossy isle of Calligrey, in a hut built among the s of the temple of Annat, the ruined shrine of a Dmidical goddess. Annat presided over the young maidens of the Western Isles, and there still remains h'T well, in which they are said to have purified themselves. In that well Aileen was baptized by the Hod Priest of Applecross, and hence her magical pi >wcr. As Maclean stepped on, he perceived the Grey Woman, a withered, shrivelled, and frightful lia-. wln.s iio.M- \\as hooked like an eagle's beak, and on wln" chin \\ tuft, like a thistle's beard a anatomy of bon"i and ^-kin - seated before a heap 56 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. of blazing turf and sticks, but asleep, and reclining against the wall of rock. A tattered plaid of our clan tartan was over her head, the grey hair of which hung in twisted elflocks round her bony visage. An urchin a hideous hedgehog nestled in her fleshless bosom, and its diminutive eyes shone like red beads in the light. On one side lay a heap of withered herbs, a human skull cloven in battle, and the spulebane of a sea-wolf; on the other side was an old iron three- legged pot used in her incantations. Therein sat a huge, rough, and wild-eyed polecat, which spat at the intruder, and woke up a large, sleepy bat that swung by his tail from a withered branch which projected from a fissure of the rock. The Grey Woman awoke also, and, without moving, fixed her green basilisk eyes on Sir Lauchlan's face, saying sharply " What want ye, Duairt ?" " Your advice, good Aileen Glas," replied the chief, meekly, for he was awed by her aspect. " Advice !" shrieked the Grey Woman. " Is it a spell you seek, to insure success, that you may do a greater wrong unto the hapless and guiltless Clan Donald of Islay ?" " I seek to do them no wrong, Aileen. The Rhinns are ours by right, and Islay is ours by the King's own charter ?" ' " The people were there before kings or charters were known in the land. God gave the hills and the isles to the children of the Gael, and His curse will fall on all who seek to dispossess them by virtue of sheepskins and waxen seals. Did not a Lord of the Isles say that he little valued a right which depended on the possession of a scrap of parchment ? Beware, THE SEVEN GRENADIERS. 57 Lauchlan Maclean ! beware ! for the hand of fate is upon you!" Scared by her words and her fury, as her shrill voice awoke the inmost recesses of the vault, Sir Lauclilan siid " In the name of the mother of God, Aileen Glas, oech you to be composed, and to tell me of what I must beware !" She snatched up the spulebane of the wolf, anle go but to their graves : by the cross of Maclean I have sworn it!" So be it then ; but if go you Avill, I warn you not to cross the threshold of Duairt with a fcUtfao '(.A, or sore evil, Lauchlan, will come of it to all thy kin and thce !" With these strange words, the figure faded away like a moonbeam, and nothing was seen but the bare, Masted tree stretching its naked arms across thu narrow way. Some time elapsed before Maclean re- covered from his terror and astonishment to find his horse da.shing up the ascent which led to the Cast!.' of Duairt, where his pale face and wild manner il many questions and excited much comment; but he kept his own counsel, resolving not to march on tho morrow before breakfast, not to land on aThurs- 60 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. day, and not to drink of any well in Islay, if other liquor could be found for love or money. Next morning great were the hurry, din, and pre- paration in Duairt, and long before cockcrow the shore of Loch Linnhe was covered by armed men, with their brass targets and burnished claymores, axes, bows, and Spanish muskets ; their helmets and lurichs sparkled in the dawn, and when the sun arose above the hills of Lorn, the white sails of the birlinus, with banners flying and pipers playing at the prow, covered all the sea around the Castle of Duairt. Sir Lauchlan in person superintended the embarkation of his followers, and if there was one, there were seven hundred good claymores among them not a bonnet less ! Every man, as he left Duairt, had a ration of bannock, cheese, and venison given to him, with a good dram to put under his belt, for such is our Highland custom before setting out on an expedition. But such was the enthusiasm, such were the cheers, the congratulations and hopes uttered aloud, the yelling of pipes, the twanghng of clairsachs and quaffing of toasts with blade and bicker held aloft, that it was not until he was on board his great war birlinn, with all her canvas spread to catch the northern gale which blew towards the peaks of Jura, that the fated chieftain found that, in attending to his people, he had forgotten to regale himself, and, contrary to the solemn warning of the spirit, had actually commenced his hazardous expedition with a " fasting stomach '" " Dhia I" cried he to my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch ; " I am lost, nephew," and he related the vision of last night. " If that be all," replied my grand-uncle, who was his brother's son, "rest easy, for here have I and THK SEVKN (1KKXADIERS. 61 Ronald of tlio Drums marched too, with nothing under our belts but the cold north wind." Still my ancestor frit far from easy; but he forgot it before night, when a heavy gale came on, and the birlinns were scattered on tin- waters of the darkening deep like a flock of gulls ; and it was in vain that he iiivd his pateraroes as signals to keep together. The storm increased, and while some of the little lit it narrowly escaped being sucked (like the Danish prince of old) into the roaring whirlpool of Coirv- reckan, ninny were blown to the Isle of Colonsay and others to the Sound of Jura. Many days all d:iys of storm with nights of pitchy blackness followed, and on the first Thursday of the next week the little fleet of birlinns made the low green shores and sundy inlets of I slay, and saw the rising sun gild the woods and hills that rise upon its eastern coast. Still the stormy wind ploughed up the sea ; the sun was en- veloped in watery clouds, and the tempest-tossed Clan Gillian gladly steered their vessels (oh, fatality !) into the salt Loch of Groynard, a shallow bay on the north-west of the isle, where, with a shout of triumph, thov ran the keels into the sand and leaped ashore with brandished swords, and formed their ranks, all legg-d, in the water. But long ere this the crian tarigh, or cross of fire, had blazed upon the hills of Islay ! Under their young chief, Sir James, the whole Clan Donald, many of whom had been trained to service in the Irish wars, were drawn up in array of battle at the head of Loch Groynard ; and there, with all their weapons glittering from the purple heather, they hovered like a cloud of battle. As the hostile bands drew near, some gentlemen of the Clan Donald, to prevent the effusion of Christian blood, 'prevailed I C2 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. ' upon Sir James to promise that he would resign one half of Islay to Maclean during his life, provided he would acknowledge that he held it for personal service to the Clan Donald, in the same manner as our fore- fathers had held the Rhinns of Islay. But, rendered furious on finding that he had doubly transgressed the wizard warnings he received, Sir Lauchlan laughed the proposition to scorn. Then tho young chief offered to submit the matter in dispute to any impartial umpires Duairt might choose, with the proviso that, if they should disagree, his Majesty the King should be their arbiter. But my ancestor drew off his glove, and, taking a handful of water from a fountain that gurgled from a rock near him, exclaimed " May this water prove my poison, if I will have any arbiter but my sword, or any terms but an abso- lute surrender of the whole island \" Then my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch uttered a cry of terror for Duairb in his anger had forgotten the prediction, and drank of " the well at the head of Loch Groynard, where one Maclean was to fall" and there, in ten minutes after, he was slain by a MacDonald, who by a single blow of a claymore swept his head off his shoulders. Long and bloody was the battle that ensued when the MacDonalds rushed down the hill to close with the Clan Gillian, who were routed, leaving eighty duinewassals and two hundred soldiers, with their chief, dead upon the field. Ronald Maclean of the Drums a little tower upon the peninsula of Loch Suinard was shot by an arrow, and not one who left Duairt with " a fasting stomach," escaped ; why, God alone knows ; for though my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch retreated with a remnant of our TIIK SKVKN fJllK: 03 people to the birlinns, lie was mortally wounded by a musket-shot. Of the Clan Donald, only thirty men. :id sixty wounded. Among the latter I heir young chief afterwards a general of tho i Jlrigade in Holland who was found on the iield with an arrow in his breast. I have heard my mother say that all that night the watchman on the keep of Duairt heard cries and moans coining from the seaward, though the castle was more than fifty miles distant from Groynard ; for it seemed as if the spirits of the air brought the sounds of battle on their wings from the fatal shore of Islay. Late that night, the hoofs of a galloping e were heard reverberating in the glen and ring- in',; on the roadway that led to Duairt ; and soon a horse and rider were seen in the moonlight approach- rapidly, the hoofs of the steed striking fire from flinty path. " A messenger approaches \" cried the watchman, and in an instant the lady of Duairt and all her household were at the gate ; but how great was their i when they perceived that the approaching i was headless, though wearing the arms, plaid, and trows of a chief ! Up, up the ascent came the terrible vision, galloping in the pale moonlight, but pa -sing on, it disappeared in the glen which led to the; blasted oak where Sir Lauchlan had received his last unearthly warning. Be this story false or true, there are in our regi- a hundred brave men of trust and honour, who swear to having seen this spectre gallop up to ;t gati- on the anniversary of the battle of Groy- nard, or when any calamity overhangs the Clan Gil- lian. Sir l.auchlan the heavens be his bed to-night ! -ps in Torosay Kirk, yet that headless horseman ... 9 1 . - 64 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. may appear to-morrow on the shore of Mull, for many a bonnet will be on the turf, many a plaid in our ranks dyed red in the wearer's blood and I have seven sons in the field ! But our fate is in the hands of God, KO let our hearts be stout and true, for He will never fail us, though we may be false to our- selves. Hand round the demijohn, Findlay, my brave lad and rouse the brands, Farquhar, for the moon has sunk behind the hills, and our fire is getting low. So ended this legend of Celtic diablerie, to which I had listened attentively, for the air and manner of the venerable narrator were very impressive, as he devoutly believed it all ; but Captain Campbell of Finab, who affected to consider it, as he said, " a tale of a tub," was as much startled as I by the issue of the next day's engagement with the enemy. By dawn next day the wild pibroch " Come to me and I will give you flesh," that fierce invitation to the wolf and raven, rang in the allied bivouac, as his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland took post at Maulprd in view of the French position, and ordered a squadron of each regiment, with six batta- lions of foot, five hundred pioneers, a body of Austrian hussars, and six pieces of cannon, all under the com- mand of the veteran Lieutenant-General Sir James Campbell, K.B., Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh, to drive the enemy out of the defiles of the wood of Barri. This movement was the prelude to the disastrous battle of Fontenoy, where Campbell was killed. The Guards and we the old Black Watch began the engagement at Veson the well-known affair of outposts, There the Dauphin commanded, and his THE SEVKN CKKNADIEKS. soldiers were the flcnvor of the French line, a splendid brigade, all clad in white coats laced with gold, long n i tiles, tied perriwigs, and little plumed hats. They \\- )' intrenched breast high, and defended by an abattis. We fell furiously on ; the Scottish Foot-guards with their clubbed muskets and fixed bayonets; the !<. \Yatch with swords, pistols, and dirks, and the struggle was terrible, as the action ensued at a place which was swept by the fire of a redoubt mounted with cannon and manned by six hundred of the noble ment do Picardie. Old Captain Maclean, at the head of his grenadiers and with his seven sons by his si' !. rushed up the glacis to storm the palisades. "Open pouches blow fuses dirk and clay more, fall on '." were his rapid orders, as the hand-grenades fell like a hissing shower over the breastwork, from which a sheet uC lead tore through the ranks of our stormers. .in fell at the foot of the palisades with ono hand upon them and the other on his sword. All his pi -rushed with him, falling over each other in a they strove to protect his body. The whi> fell was the youngest, Angus Dhu, who, after slaying a French field officer, had driven a bayonet into liis head, thrusting it through the ears ; using it I.-VLT. In/ strove furiously to twist, tear, or wrench ofV the Frenchman's skull as a trophy of vengeanci- ; for the young Celt was beside himself with grief and . when a volley of bullets from the white-coated Regiment de Picardie laid him on the grass to rise no more, just as Sir James Campbell carried the in- trenchmeut sword in hand, and totally routed or royed the soldiers of the Dauphin. Whether old Captain Maclean and his sons marched that morning without breaking their fast a fatal 6G LDJENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. omission apparently in any of the Clan Gillian I have no means of ascertaining ; but, as Ronald Mac Ara, who bore their provisions, was killed by a stray bullet about daybreak, it was generally believed so by the regiment, as this faithful henchman of the captain was found dead with a full havresac under his right arm, and the weird story of the seven fated grenadiers was long remembered by the Black Watch, when the greater events of the rout at Fontenoy and the evacuation of Flanders were for- gotten. 67 III. THE LOST REGIMENT. A LOVE STOBY. I HAVE boon told that a better or a braver fellow than Louis Charters of ours never drew a sword. He .is the regimental records show, captain of our 7th company, and major in the army when the corps embarked for service in the Illinois in 1763 ; but prior to that his story was a strange and romantic one. Louis was a cadet of one of the oldest houses in Scot- land, the Charters of Amisfield ; thus he was a lineal descendant of the famous Red Riever. Early in life ho had been gazetted to anensigncyin Montgomery's Highlanders, the old 77th, when that corps was raised in I7">7 by Colonel Archibald Montgomery (after- wards Earl of Eglinton and Governor of Dumbarton), among the Frasers, Macdoualds, Camerons, Macleans, and other Jacobite clans. Charters was a handsome and enthusiastic soldier, full of the old chivalry and romance of the Highlands ; but, at the time he joined the Black Watch, with the remnant of Montgomery's regiment, which volunteered into our ranks in 1763, he was a pale, moody, and disappointed man, who had no hope in the service, IMI! that it might procure him an honourable -death nndi-r tho balls of an enemy. The story of Louis Charters was as follows : 68 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. In January, 1757, he was recruiting at Perth for the 77th, when it was his good, or perhaps ill fortune, to become attached to a young lady possessed of great attractions, whom he had met at a ball, and who was the only daughter of the Laird of Tullynairn, a gentleman of property in the vicinity of the " Fail- City/' Emmy Stuart was four-and -twenty, and Louis was three years her senior. She was tall and beautiful in face and figure ; her hair was chesnut, her eyes hazel, and there was a charming droop in their lids which enhanced all her varieties of expression, especially the droll, and lent to them a seductive beauty, most dan- gerous to the peace of all who engaged in a two- handed flirtation with her ; for although that word was unknown to the fair maids of Perth in those days, yet they flirted nevertheless, and none more than the lively Emmy Stuart Though her charming figure was almost hidden by her frightful hoop petticoat, and her beautiful hair by white powder but that, if possible, increased the brilliance of her eyes and complexion none knew better than Emmy the piquant mode of arranging her capuchin, of holding a vinaigrette under her pretty pink nostrils ; and your great-grandmother, my good reader, never surpassed her in the secret art of putting those devilish little patches on her soft cheek, or about her bright roguish eyes, in such a manner as to give double point to those glances of drollery or disdain in which all ladies then excelled ; or, worse still, an amorous languish, levelled d, la Francaise, in such a mode as would have demolished a whole battalion ; while the adorable embonpoint of her figure was somewhat increased by the arrangement of her busk, her jewelled necklace, her embossed gold watch and THE LOST REGIMENT. 69 which no lady was ever without, aud which Emmy of course carried at her waist. When she left the assembly, there was always such a crush of gay gallants about the door to see her depart, that Louis seldom got her safely into her Boon or coach without swords being drawn, and some unfortunate being run through the body, or having a few inches of a rlaming link thrust down his throat ; for the " fine fellows" of those days were not over- pal titular in their mode of resentment when a pretty woman was concerned. The " Blood/' or " Buck," or " M;iccaroni/' of the last century was a very different fellow from the peaceful unmitigated " snob " of the nt day. It was no wonder that Louis loved Emmy ; the only marvel would have been had he proved invulne- rable. ; so he fell before a glance of her bright hazel as Dunkirk fell before the allied armies. But Kinmy was so gay in manner, distinguishing none in particular, that Charters was often in an agony of anxiety to learn whether she would ever love him ; and moreover, there was one of ours, a Captain recruiting in Perth, who possessed a most annoyingly handsome person, and who hovered more about the beautiful Emmy than our friend of the 77th could have wished. To make the matter worse, Douglas was an old lover, having met Emmy at a ball three years before, and been shot clean through the 'heart by one of her most seductive glances. Emmy was so full of repartee and drollery, that though Charters was always making the most desperate love to her, he was compelled to mask his approaches under cover of pretty banter, or mere flirtation ; thus leaving him an honourable retreat in case of a sharp repulse ; for he coitld not yet trust himself to opening 70 BNDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. the trenches in earnest, lest she might laugh at him, as she had done at others ; and Louis knew enough of the world to be aware, that a lover once laughed at is lost, and may as well quit the field. So passed away the summer of I am sorry to give so antique an epoch 1757. The snow began to powder the bare scalps of the Highland frontier ; the woods of Scone and Kinnoull became stripped and leafless, and their russet spoils where whirled along the green inches and the reedy banks of the Tay ; then the hoar frost wove its thistle blades on the windows in the morning, and our lovers found that a period was put to their rambles in the evening, when the sun was setting behind the darkening mountains of the west Now came the time to ballot for partners for the winter season ; and then it was that Louis first learned to his joy that he was not altogether indif- ferent to the laughing belle. The fashion of balloting for partners was a very curious one, and now it is happily abolished in Scottish society ; for only imagine one's sensations, good reader, on being condemned to dance everything with the same girl, and with her only, during a whole winter season ! Besides, as the devil would be sure to have it so, one would always have the girl one did not want The laws respecting partners were strictly enforced, and when once settled or fairly handfasted to a dancing girl for the season, a gentleman was on no account permitted to change, even for a single night, on pain of being shot or run through the body by her nearest male relative. In the beginning of the winter season, the appoint- mentfor partners usually took place in each littlecoterie before the opening of the first ball or assembly. A gentleman's triple-cocked beaver was unflapped, and Till*: LOST REGIMENT. 71 tin* fans of :ill tin- ladies present were slily put, in ; the gentlemen were then blindfolded, and selects I a fan; then -she to whom it belonged, Imwever ill they might be paired or assorted, was his partner for the season. Such was the strange law, must rigidly enforced in the days of Miss Nicholas, who was then the mirror of fashion and presiding god- dess of the Edinburgh assemblies. When the time for balloting came, great was the anxiety of poor Louis Charters lest his beloved Emmy might fall to the lot of that provoking fellow Douglas of ours ; but judge of his joy when Emmy told him, with the most arch and beautiful smile that ever lighted up a pair of lovely hazel eyes, how to dis- tinguish her fan. from amid the eighteen or twenty were deposited in the hat 'Nn\v, my dear Mr. Charters/' said she in a whisjK r, " I never pretended to be ferociously honest, and thus my unfortunate little tongue is always getting me into some frightful scrape ; but I shall give you a token by which you will know my fan. that make you supremely happy?" " Happy, Emmy ? Dear Emmy, more than ever you will give me credit for 1" " Do not be suro of that, and do not make a scene. Quick now, lest some one anticipate you." "But the fan " " Has a silver ball in lieu of a tassel. Now go and :>er." Tims indicated, he soon selected the fan and drew it forth, to the annoyance of Douglas, who beheld him present it to the fair owner ; and her hazel, eyo kled with joy as Charters kissed her hand with a DMttchless air of ardour and respect Honest Charters felt quite tipsy with joy. Emmy had now shown .72 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. that he was not without interest to her ; and was not this a charming admission from a young beauty, who could command any number of wedding-rings at any hour she pleased ? Thus, according to the witty Sir Alexander Boswell, who (for one of his squibs) was shot one morning by Stuart of Dunearn, " Each lady's fan a chosen Damon bore, With care selected many a day before." "With the dancing of a whole season before them, the reader may easily imagine the result. All the tabbies, gossips, and coteries of the fair city hud long since assigned them to each other; and though the mere magic of linking two names constantly together has done much to cajole boys and girls into a love for each other, no such magic was required here, for Ernmy, I have said, was four-and-twent} 7 , and Louis was three years her senior. Finding himself completely outwitted, and that the fan of a demoiselle of somewhat mature age and rather unattractive appearance had fallen to his lot, "Willy Douglas " evacuated Flanders," i.e., forsook the ballroom, and bent all his energies to recruiting for the second battalion of the Black Watch, leaving the fair field completely to his more successful rival. But though assigned to Charters by the fashion of the time, and by her own pretty manoeuvre, as a partner for the season, our gay coquette would not yet acknowledge herself conquered ; and Charters felt with some anxiety that she was amusing herself with him, and that the time was drawing near when he would have to rejoin his regiment, which was then expecting the route for America, over the fortunes of which the clouds of war were gathering. Besides, Emmy had a thousand little whims and teasing ways THE LOST REGIMENT. 73 about her, all of which it was his daily pleasure, and sometimes his task, to gratify and to soothe ; and often they h:nl :i quarrel a real quarrel for two whole days. TlifM- were two centuries to Louis; but then it was of course made up again ; and Emmy, like an Empress, gave him her dimpled hand to kiss, reminding him, with a coy smile, that " A lover's quarrel was but love renewed." " True, Emmy ; but I would infinitely prefer a love that required no renewal," said Charters, with a sigh. " How tiresome you become ! You often make me think of Willy Douglas. Well, and where shall we liml this remarkable love you speak of?" " Ah, Emmy, you read it in every eye that turns to yours ; it lills the very air you breathe, and sheds ;i purity and a beauty over everything." " Then you always see beauty here ?" " Oh, Emmy, I always see you, and you only ; but you are still bantering." " Do you know, Captain Charters, that I do not think it polite to tell a woman -that she is beautiful ?" said Emmy, pretending to pout, while her eyelids drooped, and she played with her fan. "To tell any ordinary woman that she was beauti- ful, might offend her, if she was sensible ; but to tell you so, though you have the sense of a thousand, must be pleasing, because you are conscious of your great beauty, Emmy, and know its fatal power but alas ! too well/' " What !" exclaimed Emmy, her eyes flashing with triumph and fun, " I am beautiful, then ?" " Too much so for my peace. Beautiful ! Oh, Emmy Stuart, you are dangerously so. But YOU trill.- with me cruelly, Emmy. Think how time is 74 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. gliding away and a day must come when I shall bo no longer here." Her charming eyelids drooped again. " A time well, but remember there is an Italian poet who says, All time is lost that is not spent in love." Charters gazed at her anxiously, and after a mo- mentary pause, with all his soul in his eyes and on his tongue, he said : " Listen to me, dearest Einmy. Of all things ne- cessary to conduce to man's happiness, love is the principal. It purifies and sheds a glory, a halo over everything, but chiefly around the beloved object herself. It awakens and matures every slumbering virtue in the heart, and causes us to become us pure and noble as a man may be, to make him more worthy of the woman we love. Such, dear Emmy, is my love for you/' This time Emmy heard him in silence, with down- cast eyes, a blush playing upon her beautiful cheek, a smile hovering on her alluring little mouth, with her breast heaving and her pretty fingers playing nervously with her fan and the frills of her busk. This conversation may be taken as a specimen of a hundred that our lovers had on every convenient opportunity, when Louis was all truthful earnestness devotion and anxiety pervading his voice and man- ner ; while Emmy was all fun, drollery, and coquetry, yet loving him nevertheless. But a crisis came, when Charters received, by the hand of his chief friend, Lieutenant Alaster Macken- zie, of the house of Seaforth, a command to rejoin his regiment, then under orders to embark at Greenock, to share in the expedition which Brigadier-General TIIK LOST many 75 Forbes of Pittencricf was to lead ngainst Fort du Quesne, oue of the three great enterprises undertaken in 17o>S against the French possessions in North America. How futile were the tears of Emmy now ! " Though divided by the sea, dear Louis, our hope will be one, like our love," she sobbed in his ear. " Think think of me often, very often, as I shall think of you." " I do not doubt you, Louis. I now judge of your long, faithful, and noble affection by my own. Oh, Louis ! I have been foolish and wilful ; I have pained you often; but you will forgive your poor Emmy now ; she judges of your love by her own.'' It was now too late to think of marriage. Emmy, subdued by the prospect of a sudden and long sepa- ration from her winning and handsome lover, and by a knowledge of the dangers that lay before him by md land, the French bullet, the Indian arrow ;ill the risks of war and pestilence was almost broken- ;ed oil his departure. The usual rings and locks of hair, the customary embraces, were exchanged ; tin,- usual adieus and promises solemn and sobbing promises of mutual fidelity were given, and so they purled ; and with sad Emmy's kiss yet lingering on lips, and her undried tears on his cheek, poor Charters found himself marching at the head of his party of fifty recruits, while the drum and fife woke thr echoes in the romantic Wicks of Baiglie, as he l>;i'!e a long adieu to beautiful Perth, the home of his Emmy, and joined the headquarters of Montgomery's Highlanders at Greenock. .1 amid all the bustle of the embarkation in transports :ui'l ships of war such rough sea-going ships as Smollet has portrayed in his " Roderick I dom" Charters saw ever before him the happy, 76 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCIT. bright, and beautiful Emmy of the past year of joy ; or as he had last seen her, pale, crushed, and droop- ing in tears upon his breast her coquetry, her drol- lery, her laughter, all evaporated, and the true loving and trusting woman alone remaining her eyes full of affection, and her voice tremulous with emotion. Louis sailed for America with one of the finest regi- ments ever sent forth by Scotland, which, in the war that preceded the declaration of American independence, gave to the British ranks more than sixty thousand soldiers* few, indeed, of whom ever returned to lay their bones in the land of their fathers. Montgomery's Highlanders consisted of thirteen companies, making a total of 1460 men, including 65 sergeants who were armed with Lochaber axes, and 30 pipers armed with target and claymore. Once more among his comrades, the spirit of Char- ters rose again ; a hundred kindly old regimental sympa- thies were awakened in his breast, and, though the keen regret of his recent parting was fresh in his memory, yet in the conversation of Alaster Mackenzie (who shared his confidence), and in his military duty, he found a relief from bitterness a refuge which was denied to poor Emmy, who was left to the solitude of her own thoughts and the bitter solace of her own tears, amid those familiar scenes which only conduced to add * See " Present Conduct of the Chieftains Considered." Edinburgh: 1773. "Thus it. appears," rays an anti-ministerial pamphlet, published in 17G3, " that out of 756 officers com- manding in the Army, garrisons, &c., 210 are Scots : and out of 1930 in' the Navy, 536 are Scots." The table was thus : Scots Generals 29 \ . Scots Admirals 7* Colonels 39 [ 5? Captains 81 Lieut. -Colonels 81 [ jj Masters 33 Majors 61 J Lieutenants . . . 271 Surgeons , , , , Uii THE LOST I:KI;IMI:NT. 77 poignancy to her grief, and served hourly to recal memory of the absent, and those hours of love and pleasure that had lied, perhaps never to return. Meanwhile, Charters had not a thought or hope, desire or aim, but to do his duty nobly in the field, to obtain promotion, and to return to wed Emmy. A year two years yea, even three, though an eternity to a lover, would soon pass amid the bustle and ex- ciinnent of war and of foreign service. Three years at most, then, would find him again at the side of Emmy, hand in hand as of old. But, alas ! as poor Robert Burns says pithily " The best-laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft ajee." Though our lovers had resolved that nothing should exceed the regularity of their correspondence, and thnt the largest sheets of foolscap should be duly filled with all they could wish each other to say, in those when regular mails, steamers, telegraphs, and penny postage were yet concealed in Time's capacious wallet, neither Emmy nor Charters had quite calcu- late! upon the devious routes or the strange and wild icts into which the troops were to penetrate, or the chances of the Western war, with all its alternate glories and disasters. After a lapse of two long and weary months, by a Hailing vessel poor Emmy received a letter from Louis, and, in the hushed silence of her own apartment, tin: humbled coquette wept over every word of it and read it a^ain and again for it seemed to come like the beloved voice of the writer from a vast distance and from that land of danger. Then when she looked ut tlie date and saw that it was a month a whole 78 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. month ago, and when she thought of the new ter- rors' each day brought forth, she trembled and her heart grew sick ; then a paroxysm of tears was her only relief, for she was a creature of a nervous and highly excitable temperament. It described the long and dreary voyage to America in the crowded and comfortless transport one thought ever in his soul the thought of her ; one scene ever around him sea and sky. It detailed the hurried disembarkation and forced march of General Forbes's little army of 6200 soldiers from Philadelphia in the beginning of July, through a vast tract of country, little known to civilized men ; all but impenetrable or impassable, as the roads were mere war paths, that lay through dense untrodden forests or deep morasses and over lofty mountains, where wild, active, and ferocious Indians, by musket, tomahawk, scalping- knife, and poisoned arrow, co-operated with the French in harassing our troops at every rood of the way. He told how many of the strongest and healthiest of Montgomery's Highlanders perished amid the toils and horrors they encountered ; but how still he bore up, animated by the memory of her, by that love which was a second life to him, and by the darling hope that, with God's help, he would sur- vive the campaign and all its miseries, and would find himself again, as of old, seated by the side of his be- loved Emmy, with her cheek on his shoulder and her dear little hand clasped in his. He sent her some Indian beads, a few forget-me-nots that grew amid the grass within his tent ; he sent her another lock of his hair, and prayed kind God to bless for the sake of the poor absent heart that loved her so well. And here ended this sorrowful letter, which was THE LOST REGIMENT. 79 dated from the camp of the Scottish Brigadier, who halted at Raystown, ninety miles on the inarch from Fort du Quesne. Thus, by the time Emmy received it, the fort must have been attacked and lost or won. " Attacked !" How breathlessly and with what protracted agony did she long for intelligence for another letter or for the War-office lists ! But days, :s, months rolled on; the snow descended on the land mountains ; the woods of Kinnoull were : i leafless ; again the broad Inches of Perth wore the white mantle of winter ; the Tay was frozen hard nt between its banks and between the piers of T.l wooden bridge ; there now came no mails from America ; uo letter reached her ; and poor Emmy, though surrounded by admirers as of old, felt all the* misery of that deferred hope which " maketh the heart sick." an while Louis, at the head of his company of Montgomery's Highlanders, accompanied the force of idier Forbes, who, in September, despatched from Raystown Colonel Bouquet to a place called Loyal Henuing, to reconnoitre the approach to Fort du ue. The colonel's force consisted of 2000 men ; of these he despatched in advance 500 Provincials and 400 of Montgomery's regiment, under Major James Grant of Ballindalloch, whose second in command was Captain Charters. Despite the advice of the latter, Grant, a brave but reckless and imprudent officer, ad- vanced boldly towards Fort du Quesne with all his ^ playing and drums beating, as if he was ap- proaching a friendly town. Now the French officer who commanded in the fort was a determined fellow. He it was who had behaved with such heroism at the recent siege of Savannah, where he had been sergeant- F 2 80 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK \VATC1I. major of Dillon's Kegiment of the Irish Brigade in the service of King Louis. When the Comte d'Estaing madly proposed to take the fortress by a coup-de- main, M. le Comte Dillon, anxious to signalize his Irishmen, proposed a reward of a hundred guineas to the first grenadier who should plant a fascine in the fosse, which was swept by the whole fire of the garri- son ; but his purse was proffered in vain, for not an Irishman would advance. Confounded by this, Dillon was upbraiding them with cowardice, when the ser- geant-major said " Monsieur le Comte, had you not held out a sum of money as an incentive, your grenadiers would one and all have rushed to the assault \" The count put his purse in his pocket "Forward!" cried he forward went the Irish grenadiers, and out of 194 who composed the com- pany, 104 left their bodies in the breach. But to resume : the moment the soldiers of Grant were within range, the French cannon opened upon them, and under coyer of this fire, the infantry made a furious sortie. " Sling your muskets ! Dirk and claymore !" cried the major as the foe came on. A terrible conflict ensued, the Highlanders fighting with their swords and daggers, and the Provincials with their fixed bayonets ; the French gave way, but, unable to reach the fort, they dispersed and sought shelter in the vast forest which spread in every direction round it. Here they were joined by a strong body of Indians, and returning, from amid the leafy jungles and dense foliage they opened a murderous fire upon Major Grant's detachment, which had halted to refresh, when suddenly summoned to arms. A yell pierced the sky ! It was the Indian war- LOST BECIMKIsT. 81 whoop, startling the green leaves of that lone American f,iv :, and waking the echoes of the dis- tant hills that overlook tho plain of the Alleghany ; thousands of Red Indian warriors, horrible in their native uglinrss, their streaky war paint, jangling mocassins and tufted feathers, naked and muscular, savage as tigers and supple as eels, with their barbed spears, seal ping-knives, tomahawks, and French mus- kets, burst like a living flood upon the soldiers of Bal- lindalloch. The Provincials immediately endeavoured to form square, but were broken, brained, scalped, and trod under foot, as if -a brigade of horse had swept over them. While, in the old fashion of their native land, the undaunted 77th men endeavoured to meet the foe, foot to foot and hand to hand, with the broad- sword, but in vain. Grant ordered them to throw aside their knapsacks, plaids, and coats, and betake themselves to the claymore, and the claymore only. For three hours a desultory and disastrous combat was maintained every stump and tree, every bush, rock, and stone being battled for with deadly energy and all the horrors of Indian warfare yells, whoops, the tomahawk and the knife were added to those of Europe, and before the remnant of our Highlanders effected an escape, Captains MacDonald and Munro, Lieutenants Alaster, William and Robert Mackenzie, and Colin Campbell, were killed and scalped, with many of their men. Ensign Alaster Grant lost a hand by a poisoned arrow ; but of all who fell, Charters most deeply regretted Alaster Mackenzie, his friend and confidant, to save whom, after a shot had pierced his breast, ho made a desperate effort and slew three Indians by three consecutive blows; but this succour came too late, and Mackenzie's scalp was torn off before he breathed his last 82 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. "Stand by your colours, comrades, till death!" were his last words. " Farewell, dear Charters may God protect you for your Emmy's sake we'll meet again I" "Again!" " Yes again in heaven !" he answered, and ex- pired with his sword in his hand, like a brave and pious soldier. The Red men were like incarnate fiends, and, amid groans' yells, prayers, and entreaties, were seen on their knees in frenzy, drinking blood from the spout- ing veins and bleeding scalps of their victims. The combat was a mere massacre, and seemed as if all hell had burst its gates and held jubilee in that wild forest of the savage West. The Provincials were destroyed. Grant, with nineteen officers, fell into the hands of the French; and of his Highlanders only 150 suc- ceeded in effecting a retreat to Loyal Henning, under the command of Louis Charters, to whose skill, bravery, and energy, they unanimously attributed their escape. Many of their comrades who were cap- tured died under agonies such as Indians, Turks, or devils alone could have devised ; and the story of one Private Allan MacPherson who escaped a cruel death by pretending that his neck was sword-proof, as related by the AbbI Reynal, and General Stewart of Garth, is well known. James Grant of Ballindalloch died a general in the army in 1806 ; but he never forgot the horrors of his rashness at Fort du Quesne, which was abandoned to Brigadier Forbes on the 24th November; by this he was deprived of a revenge, and to win it Charters had volunteered to lead the forlorn-hope. Poor General Forbes died on the retreat, Charters's regiment served next in General Am- THE LOST REGIMENT. 83 herst'.s army at Ticonderoga, at Crown Point, and on the Lake Expedition, where he *aved the life of Ensign Grant now known as Alaster the One-handed by bearing him off the field when wounded ; but during all those desultory and sanguinary operations, he never heard from Emmy, nor did she hear from him. He suffered much ; he nearly perished in the snow on one occasion with a whole detachment ; he was wounded in the left shoulder on that night of horrors at Ticonderoga, and had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball in the fight with a French ship, when proceeding on the- expedition to Dominique under Lord Rollo and Sir James Douglas ; but though the ball spared his head, the wind of it raised a large in- flamed spot, which gave him great trouble and pain. He was with his corps at the conquest of the Havan- nah ; he was at the capture of Newfoundland with the 45th and the Highlanders of Fraser, and he served with honour in a hundred minor achievements of the brave Highlanders of Montgomery. Renewed or recruited thrice from the Highland clans, the old 77th covered themselves with glory, and of all the Scottish corps in the King's service, there was none from which the soldiers more nobly and ly transmitted to their aged parents in Scotland the savings of their poor pay or the prize money gained by their blood in the Havannah. In one of his (unanswered) letters to Emmy Stuart, Louis says, " I have known some of our poor fellows, my dear girl, who almost starved themselves for this pur])' One of the majors being killed at the storming of the Moro, his widow, in consideration of his great ser- . was permitted to sell his commission. Louis now senior captain, and tin- n^iim-nt kin-\v v.vll that lie, having only his pay, was unable to purchase 8-4 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. it: but so greatly was he beloved by tho soldiers, many of whom, iy America, had thrown themselves before the sharp tomahawks and poisoned arrows of the Indians to save him, that they subscribed each Highlander so many days' pay to purchase his ma- jority ; and the plunder of the rich Havannah having put these brave souls in good funds, the money was all fairly laid on the drum-head in one hour, when the corps was on evening parade in the citadel of El Fuerte. Such a noble instance of camaraderie and true soldierly sentiment never occurred in the British ser- vice but once before ; and then it was also in an old Scottish regiment which had served, I believe, in the wars of Queen Anne, before the amalgamation of the forces of the two kingdoms.*" This was the most noble tribute his soldiers could pay to Charters, who was duly gazetted when the re- giment was stationed at New York in the summer of 3763, to enjoy a little repose after the toils of the past war. The services and adventures so briefly glanced at here, had thus spread over a period of five years to Louis, long and weary years during which he had never heard of Emmy but once ; and now he had no relic of her to remind him of those delightful days of peace and love that had fled apparently for ever. The ring she had given him, warm from her pretty hand, had been torn from his finger by plunderers as he lay wounded and helpless on the ramparts of Fort Loudon, on the confines of far Virginia ; her fan was lost when his baggage was taken on the retreat from Fort du Quesne ; the locket with her hair had been * Sec "Advice to Officers." Perth, 1795. THE LOST IlKiJIMEXT. 85 rent from him, when he was taken prisoner and stripped by the French, in the attack on Martinique. He was changed in appearance too ; his hair once black as night was already seamed by many a silvery thread, yet he was only two-and-thirty. His face was gaunt and wan, and bronzed by the Indian sun and keen American frost. His eyes, like the eyes of all inured to facing death and danger, pestilence and the bullet, were fierce at times, and keen and hag- gard ; and when tidings came, or it was mooted at mess, that the war-worn regiment of Montgomery was once again to see the Scottish shore, poor Louis looked wistfully into his glass, and doubted whether Emmy would know him ; for between the French and the Cherokees he had acquired somewhat the aspect of a brigand. Peace was proclaimed at last, and the Government made an offer to the regiment, that such officers and nifii as might choose to settle in America should have grants of land proportioned to their rank and services. The rest might return to Scotland or volun- teer into other corps. A few remained among the colonists, and on the revolt of America in 1775, were the first men to join the standard of George III., who ordered them to be embodied as the 84th or Royal Regiment of Highland Emigrants. The rest most of whom volunteered to join the Black Watch, with the baud, pipes, and colour's, under Loute Charters, embarked at New York, and, full of hope and joy, with three hearty cheers, as their ship cleft the waters of the Hudson and bore through the Nar- rows, saw the future capital of the western world sink iu the distance and disappear astern. Five years ! " Emmy must now be nearly nine-and-twenty I" 86 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. thought Louis ; "in a month from this time I shall see her shall hear her voice shall be beside her again, assuring her that I am the same Louis Char- ters of other days." But month after month passed away, and six elapsed after the sailing of the transport from New York had been duly notified by the London and the Edinburgh Gazettes, and yet no tidings reached Britain of the missing regiment of Montgomery. During all these five long years those sixty months those one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days, every one of which had been counted by poor Louis how fared it with the beautiful Emmy Stuart, who was still the belle of the fair city ? So far as the defective newspapers of those days, when Edinburgh had only three (and those of London seldom came north), supplied intelligence, she had traced the operations of Montgomery's Highlanders in the Canadas, the States, on the Lakes, and in the West Indies, in the despatches of Brigadier Forbes, of Colonel Bouquet, Lord Hollo, and others ; she had frequently seen the name of her lover mentioned, as having distinguished himself, and twice as having been left wounded on the field. I need not dwell on her days and nights of sickening sorrow and suspense, which no friendship could alleviate. Save once, no letter from Louis had ever reached her ; yet poor Louis had written many : from among frozen camps and bloody fields from wet bivouacs, and places such as Emmy's gentle mind could never conceive had he written to her the outpourings of his heart, believing that in due time Emmy would be gazing fondly on the words his hand had traced, and endeavouring to conjure up the tones in which he would have said all that distance and separation com- THE LOST REGIMENT. 87 pellcd him to commit to paper ; but, by a strange fatality, these letters never reached her ; yet Emmy, the belle, the coquette, remained true, for she knew the chances of war ; and that, until the regiment re- turned home and he proved false, she could not desert her lover. But Willy Douglas of the Black Watch, who had been all this time comfortably recruiting about Perth ami Dunkeld (thanks to his uncle, the Duke of Douglas), was wont to remind her that the 40th : in 'lit had been more than forty years abroad,* and the battalion of Montgomery might be quite as ^ away. After three years had passed without letters arriv- ing, Emmy still mourned and loved Louis more than ever ; while well-meaning friends, who never thought of consulting the army list, assured her that he was killed ; but it availed them nought. Then five years elapsed, and in all that time there came no letter ; yet, when taunted that Louis IKK! forgotten her, she replied as Cleopatra did to Alexis when he advised her to deem her lover cruel, incon- stant, and ungrateful : " I cannot, if I could ; these thoughts were vajn ; Faithless, ungrateful, cruel if he be, I still must love him !" But time changes all things. A pleasing and sad recollection was now beginning to replace her lively affection for Charters. Tired of worshipping one wln> had become little more than a beautiful statue, in is had disappeared gradually, till the assiduous Douglas alone remained in the position Fact in 176-1. 88 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. of a tacit and privileged dangler. Willy was an honest-hearted fellow, and with his real love for Emmy there was mingled much of pity for what she suffered on account of his " devilish neglectful rival," as he termed Charters. Emmy had long been insen- sible to his addresses ; but as Douglas, who was very prepossessing, was the nephew of the last Duke of Douglas, and had a handsome fortune, her father frequently, earnestly, and affectionately urged her to accept his proposals ; while her mother reminded her that she was past eight-and-twenty now ; and added, that in a new and more fortunate attachment in the love that is supposed to follow marriage she would forget the sorrows of the past. But Emmy, though knowing that this was all mere sophistry, was about to give a, silent acquiescence to their schemes, when, turning over the leaves of an old periodical, one day, in a dreamy and listless mood, her eye fell on the following : " A union of fortunes, not a union of hearts, is the thing generally aimed at in marriage, and, by those who esteem themselves prudent people, is thought the only rational view. There is no divine ordinance more 'frequently disobeyed than that wherein God forbids human sacrifices, for in no other light can most modern marriages be viewed. Brazen images, indeed, are not the objects of their worship ; a purer metal is their deity. Every one who reads in ancient history of human sacrifices, exclaims against the horrid practice and trembles at the narrative, though there is scarcely one of the female readers, if she is of a marriageable age, who is not ready to deck her person, like an adorned victim, in the hope of tempting some golden idol to receive a free-will offering:/' THE LOST K! 89 Emmy thought of Douglas's fortune, and the book fell from her hand. 'NO, no," she said with a shudder; " I shall not be the adorned victim offered up to this golden idol ;" and from that hour she resolved to decline his addresses. On the day succeeding this brave resolution came tidings "that the remnant of Montgomery's High- hinders, under the command of Major Louis Charters, had sailed from New York six weeks ago, and were daily expected at Greenock, from whence that gal- lant corps had sailed for the wars of the Far West in 1758." Now came Emmy's hour of triumph, and already Louis seemed before her, loving, trusting, and true ; and hourly she expected to have, in his own hand- writing, assurance of all her heart desired ; but, alas ! time rolled on days became weeks weeks became months, and no tidings reached Britain of the High- landers of Montgomery. "The lost regiment" was spoken of from time to time, till even friends, comrades, and relations grew tin d of futile surmises, and their unaccountable dis- appearance became like a tale that is told or a frag- in nt of old and forgotten intelligence. For a time a sickening and painful suspense had been kept alive by occasional reports of pieces of wreck, with red coats and tartan fluttering about thriu, having been espied in the Atlantic; vessels waterlogged and abandoned were passed by solitary ships, and averred to be the missing transport ; craft answering her description had been seen to founder in tempests off the banks of Newfoundland ; but after eight months had elapsed nothing \v;is hr .ml of what was emphatically called the lost regiment. 90 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Emmy mourned now for Louis as for one who was dead one who, after all his toil and valour, suffering and constancy (she felt assured he had been constant), was sleeping in the great ocean that had divided them so long. Tired of all this, her friends had arrayed her in mourning as for one who was really dead; and to carry out a plan of realizing this conviction, her father had erected in the church of St. John a hand- some marble tablet to the memory of Charters ; and this cold white slab in memoriam met Emmy's heavy eyes every time she raised them from her prayer-book on Sunday. So at last Louis was dead she felt convinced of it, and, with a reluctant and foreboding mind, she consented to a marriage with Captain Douglas of the Black Watch a consent in which she had but one thought, that in making this terrible sacrifice she was only seeking to soothe the anxiety and gratify the solicitations of her mother, who was now well up in the vale of years, and who loved her tenderly. Emmy was placid and content ; but though even cheerful in appearance, she was not happy ; for her cheek was ever pale and her soft hazel eyes, with their half-drooping lids, failed to veil a restlessness that seemed to search for something vague and unde- fined. They were married. We will pass over the appear- ance of the bride, her pale beauty, her rich lace, the splendour of all the accessories by which the wealth of her father, of her husband, and the solicitude of her kind friends surrounded her, and come to 11/e crisis in our story a crisis in which a lamentable fatality seemed to rule the destinies of the chief actors in our little drama. THE LOST REGIMENT. 91 The minister of St. John's Church had just pro- nounced the nuptial blessing, and the pale bride was in her mother's arms, while the officers of the Black Watch were crowding round Douglas with their hearty congratulations ; a buzz of voices had filled the large withdrawing room, as a hum of gladness suc- ceeded the solemn but impressive monotony of the marriage service, when the sharp rattle of drums and the shrill sound of the fifes ringing in the Southgate of Perth struck upon their ears, and the measured march of feet, mingling with the rising huzzahs of the people, woke the echoes of every close and wynd. A foreboding smote the heart of Captain Douglas. He sprang to a window and saw the gleam of arms the gutter of bayonets and Lochaber axes, with the waving of plumed bonnets above the heads of a crowd which poured along the sunny vista of the South- gate ; and, as the troops passed, led by a mounted officer whose left arm was in a sling a bronzed, war- worn, and weatherbeaten band their tartans were :nised as well as the tattered colours which : i it -i I in ribbons on the wind, and their name went from mouth to mouth : " The Lost Regiment the Highlanders of Mont- gomery !" A low cry burst from Emmy ; she threw up her clasped hands, and sank in a dead faint at her mother's feet. All was consternation in the house of Stuart of Tullynairn ; and the marriage guests gazed at the passing soldiers, as at some fascinating but un- real pageant but on they marched, cheering, to the barracks, with drums beating and pipes playing; and now the mounted officer, who had been gazing wist- fully at the crowded windows, stoops from his saddle aud whispers a few words to another Alaster the 92 LEGE2TDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. One-handed, now a captain then he turns his horse, and, dismounting at the door, is heard to ascend the stair ; and in another moment, Louis Charters, sallow, thin, and hollow-eyed, by long toil and suffering, his left arm in a sling and his right cheek scarred by a shot, stands amid all these gaily-attired guests in his fighting jacket, the scarlet of which had long since become threadbare and purple. He immediately approached Emmy, who had now partially recovered and gazed at him, as one might gaze at a spectre, when Douglas threw himself forward with a hand on his sword. " What is the meaning of all this ?" said Louis, who grew ashy pale, and whose voice sank into Emmy's Koul ; " have you all forgotten me Louis Charters of Montgomery's Kegiment ?" " No/' replied Douglas, " but your presence here at such a time is most unfeeling and inopportune." "Unfeeling and inopportune I Miss Stuart Emmy" " Miss Stuart has just been made my wedded wife ; thus any remarks you have to make, sir, you will please address to me." Louis started as if a scorpion had stung him, and his trembling hand sought the hilt of hi.s sword ; here the old miuister addressed him kindly, imploringly, and the guests crowded between them, but ho dashed them all aside and turned from the house, without a word or glance from Emmy. Poor Emmy ! dismay had frozen her, and mute despair glared in her hag- gard yet still beautiful eyes. " Half an hour earlier and I had saved her and saved myself !" exclaimed Charters, bitterly ; " the half-hour I loitered in Strathearn !" for he had halted there to refresh his weary soldiers. THE LOST REGD! 98 And now to explain this sudden reappearance. Tempest-tossed and under jurymasts, after long beating against adverse winds, the transport, with the remnant of his regiment, had been driven to 37 and 40 degrees of north latitude, and was stranded on the small isles of Corvo and Flores, two of the most western and detached of the Azores. There they had been lingeringamong the Portuguese for seven months, unknown to and unheard of by our Government ; and it was not until Charters, leaving Alaster Grant in command at Corvo, had visited Angra, the capital of the island, and urged the necessity of having his soldiers transmitted home, that he procured a ship at Ponta del Gadu, the largest town of these islands, and sailing with the still reduced remnant of his corps for many had perished with the foundered transport he landed at Greenock, from whence he was ordered at once to join the 2nd battalion of the Black Watch, into which his soldiers had volunteered, and which, by a strange fatality, was quartered in Perth the home of his Emmy, and the place where for five long years he had garnered up his thoughts and dearest hopes. The reader may imagine the emotions of poor Emmy on finding that her lover lived, and that her heart was thus cruelly wrenched away from all it had treasured and cherished for years. Then, as if to aggravate hpr sorrow, our battalion marched the next day for foreign service, and Louis again embarked for America, the land of his toil, without relentless fate }H rniitting Emmy to excuse or explain herself. Douglas left the corps and took his wife to Paris, where he fell in a duel with a Jacobite refugee. Emmy lived to be a very old woman, but she never smiled again. 94 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Thus were two fond hearts separated for ever. Three months after Louis landed in America, he died of a broken heart say some ; of the marsh ; say others. He was then on the march with a detach- ment of ours up the Mississippi, a long route of 1500 miles, to take possession of Fort Charters in the Illi- nois. His friend, a Captain Grant Alaster the One- handed performed the last offices for him, and saw him rolled in a blanket, and buried at the foot of a cotton-tree, where the muskets of the Black Watch made the echoes of the vast prairie ring as they poured three farewell volleys over the last home of a brave but lonely heart. 95 IV. THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. WHEN the Black Watch sailed for America, in 1756, i vo untliT the heroic Wolfe and fight against the |uis of Montcalm, the lieutenant of the 7th com- ji:niy was Roderick MacGillivray, known in the ranks by his local patronymic, Roderick Ruadh (or the Red) of Glenarrow, a gentleman of the Clan Chattan, who, eleven years before, had been a cap tain in the army of Prince Charles Edward, and had served throughout the memorable campaign of 1745-6. In his heart Roderick MacGillivray had no love either for the service or sovereign of Britain, whom he considered as the butcher of his countrymen, and the usurper of their crown ; but his estate of Glenarrow had been forfeited ; he was penniless, and having a young wife to maintain, he was glad to accept a commission in the Royal Highlanders a favour he procured through the interest of one who has already been mentioned in these pages, Louis Charters, who served at Fort du Quesne, as already related in the legend of the " Lost Regiment/' In those days there were many soldiers in the ranks of our regiment who had served in the army of Prince Charles, and who deemed his father, James VIII., the undoubted sovereign of these realms, by that G 2 96 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK \YATCH. hereditary right, which, as their Celtic proverb has it, " will face the rocks," and which they deemed as sacred and immutable as if the breath of God had ordained it. Thus they served George II., not be- cause they wavered in their loyalty to their native kings, but because they hated his enemies the French, whom they knew to have betrayed the cause of the clans, and in the hope that a time would yet come when the standard which Tullybardine, the loyal and true, unfurled in Glenfinnan, would again wave over a field in which God would defend the right. And such thoughts and hopes as these were the theme of many a poor soldier of the Reicudan Dhu, in their tents and bivouacs, on the plains of Flanders, on the Heights of Abraham, and by the vast and then untrodden shores of the American lakes. Similar thoughts, and the memory of all he had endured at the hands of the victorious party, together with the confiscation of his estate, which had de- scended to him through twelve generations of martial ancestors, made Roderick MacGillivray a grave and somewhat sombre man. He had fought valiantly in the first line at Culloden, where he was one of the guard, the Leine Ckrios (i.e. Shirt of Mail, or Children of the Belt) around the Laird of Dunmacglas,* who led the Macintoshes, and who was next day mur- dered by the English soldiers, when found all but dead of wounds upon the field, where they dashed out his brains by the butts of their muskets as he lay in the arms of his distracted wife. After that day, MacGillivray became a fugitive and outlaw, but was happy enough to be one of those * The Fort of the Grevraan's Son. THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. ( J7 eight brave men who, with MacDonald of Glenala- dale the faithful, the gentle, and the true Glenala- watched, guarded, and tended by night and by day the unfortunate Prince Charles in the wild cavern of Coire-gaoth among the beautiful Braes of Glemnnrriston. There these starving and outlawed men made a bed of heather for the royal fugitive, and there he slept and lurked in perfect security, though thirty thousand pounds were set upon his head by George II., and though the Saxon drum was heard, where the flames of rapine were seen rising on the vast steeps of Corryarrack. The memory of those stirring days this com- panionship with the son of his exiled King, with Prionse Tearlach Righ nan Ghael, words that wenj said and promises made, with all that winning charnv of manner, for which the princes of the House of Stuart were so remarkable, sank deep in Roderick's heart ; and there were times when in his soul he panted for the hour when again the White Rose would shed its bloom upon the wasted Highland hills, wln-n the swift vengeance of the loyal would fall on the faithless clans of the west, and the shrill wild j.ibroch of the Clan Chattan would ring in fierce triumph above the burial mounds at Culloden. And so he hoped and thought, and watched and waited, but that new day of battle never came ! His secret aspirations were shared to the full by his young wife, Mary MacDonald, who was a grand- daughter of MacViclan, the chieftain of Glencoe, the iile Williamite episode in whose history can yet make the brow of every Highlander darken. But Mary was gentle and timid ; she had seen too much of war and bloodshed, of butchery and terror in her girlhood, during the time that followed Culloden ; and 98 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. though she prayed in her innocent little heart for the restoration of Scotland's exiled kings, it was in peace she would have wished it achieved. In the ancient fashion of the Highlands, Koderick on the day of their marriage had bestowed on Mary in addition to the espousal ring an antique brooch ; one of those old marriage gifts which were usually given on such occasions. It had been worn by many matrons of his house, and thus became invested with many deep and endearing memories : association, old tales of the love, the spirit and virtue of the dead, hallowed the gift, for it had shone on many a soft breast that had long since mouldered in the dust. Being circular, it was the mystic emblem of eternity, and bore the crest of the Clan Gillibhreac a cat, with the significant motto in the old Gaelic letter " Touch not the cat without the glove;" and as her own life Mary prized this old bridal brooch, the dearest gift her husband could bestow upon her. When MacGillivray joined the regiment, Mary was in her twentieth year. She was pale and more than pretty, having that dazzling white skin for which the women of her clan are said to excel all others in Scotland ; but of old the same was said of the Camp- bells and the Drummonds. Her hair was black ; her eyes, deep and quiet, were dark hazel, and her fea- tures were unexceptionable. She was neither bril- liant nor beautiful, but there was a sweetness and delicacy in her smile and manner that touched and won the hearts of all who knew her. There was a sadness, too, in her air and tone, for the most of her kindred had perished in the Glencoe massacre, or at Culloden. She was thus alone in the world, with Till] MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 99 none to shield or shelter her but her husband he \\ho\\as iio\v beginning a life 6f W*r And peril the '.rand double peril of acampaigii in America, a wild and untrodden land of barbarous hordes and mighty forests. She shrank with a terror of the ;>ect before them, and viewed with dismay the many lesser horrors which surrounded her in a crowded transport of those day-;. MucGillivray sailed on board the Mercury, the T of which was James Cooke, afterwards the celebrated navigator. 'Twain of heart and of purpose/' husband and wife were to each other all in all ; and the Celtic soldiers, who knew their story well, said in their own forcible language, that if the bullet of a Frenchman or the arrow of an Indian brought death to Roderick Ruadh, the daughter of MacVicIan would not sur- vivt- him long. Each scarcely knew how deep was the love of the other ; for the Scots are not a demonstrative people, and the most powerful emotions of the heart hose which they have been taught, perhaps erro- neously, to conceal ; but of this negative quality we find less in the more impulsive Celt. The ardour of love had now been succeeded by the affection of marriage, and the sincerity of friendship had replaced the glow of passion ; but Roderick's enthusiasm in the .ate of perfect excellence by which he judged his own little wife was only equalled by the standard which she had formed for him. To make her happy was to be himself happy, and it was the study of his lite to surround her with such comforts as a camp and barrack or transport afforded upon the pay of a lieutenant of the line in the days of George II. " England," says honest Harry Covcrdalc, "expects 100 LEGENDS OF THE liLACK WATCH. every man to do his duty, and occasionally recom- penses him for it with honourable starvation." And such was indeed a subaltern's pay in 1757. In their new mode of existence all seclusion was destroyed ; and amid the whirl of a military life, the hurry of embarkation for foreign service, and in the narrow recess allotted to her in the transport, odious by the odour of tar, tobacco, and bilge water, poor Mary sighed for the hum of the summer bee, and for the free, pure breeze that waved the heather bells in Glencoe, or for her husband's once happy home in Glenarrow, roofless and ruined now, as the flames and the devastators of the ducal butcher had left it " We have lost all, Mary," said Roderick, bitterly, as one evening she sat on deck, nestled in his plaid, and whispering of these things and of other times ; " all but the name of our fathers have gone to the Campbells of Breadalbaae, for-they have become the lords of all" " But a time shall come, Roderick, when these usurpations and another still greater shall end, and then the Clan Donald, the MacGregors, the Macln- tyres of Glen O, and the race of Mac Vicar, like the King, shall enjoy their own again/' " Mhari, laoghe mo chri Mary, calf of my heart," replied the husband, folding her, with a smile, to his breast ; " but this will never be " " Until the fatal plaid floats down Loch Fyne," she added, with a smile. There is a Highland prophecy, that a time is coming when a plaid of many colours shall float down Loch Fyne from the Ara to the Firth of Clyde, and then the eagles from a thousand hills shall assemble, and each take therefrom a piece of his own colour ; Till: AT FORT WILLIAM HKNRV. 101 and this is to be the day of general restoration by the Campbells of all of which they have dispossessed the clans of the west. Under Colonel Francis Grant of Grant (afterwards a lieutenant-general) the regiment landed in America, where the peculiar garb of the Highlanders astonished the Indians, who, during the march to Albany, "flocked from all quarters to see these strangers, who they believed were of the same extraction as themselves, and therefore received as brothers ;" for the long hunting-shirt of the Indians resembled the kilt, as their moccassins did the gartered hose, their striped blanket the shoulder plaid, and they too had round shields and knives, like the target and dirk of the Celt ; hence, according to General Stewart, " the Indians were delighted to see a European regiment in a costume so similar to their own." At this period our officers wore a narrow gold braiding round their jackets, but all epaulettes and lace had been laid aside to render them less conspi- cuous to the Canadian riflemen. The sergeants laced their coats with silver, and still carried the terrible fv'rjh or Lochaber axe, the head of which was fitted for hooking, hewing, or spearing an enemy. After remaining in quarters at Albany for some months, during the winter and spring of 1757, the Black Watch were exercised in bush-fighting and sharpshooting ; and amid the dense copsewood or jungle which covered the western margin of the Hudson, on the rugged, stern, and sterile banks of the Mohawk, among woods of stunted pine, dwarf shrubs, and sedge grass, they soon revived the skill they had attained as hardy hunters, deerstalkers, and deadly shots on their native hills ; but when they fairly took 102 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. the field, their ardour and impatience often lured them within the fire of the more wary and cunning Indians who served the Marquis of Montcalm. So expert, brave, and active did the soldiers of the Black Watch prove themselves in skirmishing, that when, in the beginning of summer, a plan was formed to reduce Louisbourg, and they joined the army destined for that purpose under Major-General Aber- crombie, a detachment of fifty chosen men, under the orders of MacGillivray of Glenarrow, departed to re- inforce the little garrison in Fort William Henry, on the southern bank of the beautiful Lake George, a sheet of clear water, which is thirty-three miles long and two miles broad, and which, on its northern quarter, near Ticonderoga (that place of fatal memory to the Royal Highlanders), discharges itself into Lake Champlain. It is surrounded by high mountains of the most romantic beauty. Here, then, lay a garrison of nearly three thousand British soldiers, commanded by Colonel Munro, a veteran Highland officer of great courage and expe- rience, who had for some time successfully protected the frontier of the English colonies, and by his cannon covered the waters of the lake, the double purpose for which the fort had been built. Before the depar- ture of MacGillivray, a serious malheur had occurred near this place. Munro having heard that the French advanced guard, composed of regulars and Indians, had reached Ticonderoga, sent Colonel John Parker, with four hundred soldiers, down the lake in bay-boats to beat up their quarters ; but three of his boat crews being captured, his design became known to M. Bcauchatel, the officer in command. Parker was lured into an ambush, and the most dreadful scene of massacre and THE MASSACIIK AT FORT WILLIAM IIEXIIY. 103 scalping ensued. His detachment was literally cut to pieces, only two officers and seventy privates escaping, of the four hundred who left the garrison of Munro. It was on a beautiful evening when MacGillivray's party of Highlanders, marching from the mountains that look down on Lake Champlain, came suddenly in view of Lake George. They had their muskets slung, ^d were encumbered by their knapsacks, liavresacks, canteens, and blankets, and the live-long day had toiled to reach the fort ere night fell ; for to halt in that woody district, teeming as it was with the savage Iroquois of Montcalm, would have been a measure fraught with danger and death. ( jillivray came in rear of his little band, leading by the bridle a stout pony, on the pad of which his wife was mounted, for she was ever the object of his tenderest solicitude. This pony was a sturdy little nag, but the long march from Albany had somewhat lired its vigour, and now it was beginning to fail when almost at the end of the journey. With the detachment of MacOillivray were two of his ou:n:i'it's in the late civil war, Alaster Mac- _or, from Glengyle, and Ewen Chisholm, one of the faithful mm of Glmmorriston, who guarded the 1'iince in the Coire-gaoth. Th<; sun was setting, and his gorgeous disc seemed for a time to linger among clouds of saffron, crimson, i mi pie, that were piled in glowing masses above the \\<><>ded hills, some of which were a thousand feet in heijit, and surrounded the waters and isl< Lake George named by the Indians of old the Il"ii<'aii, ami by the Pilgrim Fathers the Lake of the :it ; for, charmed by the limpid purity of the : and the sylvan beauty of the scenery, it had been selected, especially by the Jesuits, as a place for 104 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. procuring the element of baptism. But now for the old Indian name had been substituted that of his Majesty George II. ; while, to awe the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Tuscaroras, and to keep the French in check, Fort William Henry named after another prince of the House of Brunswick had been built, as related, upon the southern margin of the lake. Like all American forts, it was formed with earthen ramparts, covered by rich green turf, and defended by tall stockades of dry white timber. Within were seen the shingle-covered roofs of the low barrack buildings, tarred and painted black, and all glistening in the sunshine. Two of the lower bastions were faced with stone and washed by the azure water of Lake George, while a deep fosse secured the fort on the landward, and dangerous morasses protected its flanks. Beyond lay a cleared space, where the timber of the old primeval forest had been cut down for garrison pur- poses. The bayonets of the sentinels flashed like stars on the green ramparts ever and anon, while some thirty or forty lines of steady horizontal light marked where the setting sun shone on the iron guns that peered through the embrasures, or frowned en barbette above the slope of the parapets. The gaudy Union Jack hung uuwaved upon its staff. As evening closed in, masses of vapour ascended from the bosom of the deep blue water, and wreathed like white and golden scarfs about the summits of the mountains, whose tops were mellowed in the distance, and those rocky bluffs that start forward from the wooded slopes, as if to break the harmony of the scenery by a few darker and bolder features. As the last vestige of the sun sank, and its rays alone re- mained to play upon the clouds above and the ripples of the Horican below, the boom of the evening gun THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 105 was heard pealing through the wilderness with a hundred solemn reverberations ; and as the flag de- scended from its staft' on the fort, a sound on the soft and ambient air caine floating up the mountain- side. " The drummers are beating the evening retreat, Mary," said MacGillivray to his wife, who was looking pale and weary ; " in half-an-hour we shall be with old Munro." " Yonder fort is like some place I have seen before," said she, pressing her husband's hand. "Aye, Lady Glenarrow," responded Ewen Chis- holm, coming close with the easy familiarity of a High- lander a familiarity that is destitute of all assurance ; " you are thinking of Fort George, for there are the same palisades and the same fashion of ramparts washed by the waves of the Moray Firth ; but oich ! oich ! we miss green Ard-na-saor." " And the Black Isle, and the Chanonry-ness, Ewen," added MacGillivray. " Yes, yes," said Mary, thoughtfully, to the soldiers in their own language ; " the land is beautiful ; but it is not home. Then what is it to us ?" " Yet," said Ewen, "here is a badge for your bon- net, MacGillivray, and, though of American growth, you cannot despise it" " Thanks, Ewen," said the officer, with a kindling eye, as he placed the gift in his bonnet. It was a sprig of the red whortleberry, the badge of those of his name in Scotland, where they are styled the Clann Gillibhreac, "or the Sons of the Freckled Man." The elm, the ash, the cypress, the chesnut. the pine, and the beech, all mingled their varied foliage above the narrow track or Indian trail the soldiers 106 LEGENDS OF THE I5LACII WATCH. were pursuing, while a thousand flowers and shrubs, to them unknown, flourished in all the rich luxuriance of this new world into which they were penetrating, and the musk-rat, the racoon, and the fox scampered before them from tree to tree as they proceeded. " Hark I" exclaimed Alaster MacGregor, a wary old forester, "something on two feet stirs in the bush I" " Dioul ! and see, Alaster, the objects are close enough," added the officer. At a part of the wood where it became more open by the trees having been cut away, and where the ground shelved abruptly down to the depth of eighty or a hundred feet, they suddenly came in view of two Indians gliding stealthily from stem to stem, as if seeking to elude observation. Their wild" and horrid aspect caused the timid wife of MacGillivray to utter a faint cry of terror, while the whole detachment halted simultaneously to observe them, and began in- stinctively to handle their muskets. " They are Iroquois/' whispered MacGillivray to his sergeant ; " I was told that Montcalm had filled all the woods around Lake George with the cursed tribes of that race." " One of them is carrying something," replied the sergeant, as he shred away by his Lochaber axe a mag- nificent azalea, the flowers and foliage of which ob- scured his view. " It is a child a poor little child," exclaimed Mary, piteously. " Listen to its cry of despair !" " The child of a white man, by Heaven !" added MacGillivray. " Come hither you that are the best shots, and bring yonder rascals down; but fire one it a, time, lest we needlessly alarm the fort, or, THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 107 what is worse, bring all the tribes of the Iroquois US. Both these savages were nearly nude. Their skins h:ul the deep and tawny red of their race, but were ked with war paint. One was daubed over red and l)lue, and the other who bore the child was striped with white lines, and these glaring upon a background so sombre, gave him the horrible aspect of a walking skeleton. Their heads were closely shaved, or by some other process divested of all hair, save the scalp- lock, in which was tied a tuft of eagles' feathers. : had the terrible tomahawk and scalping-knife flittering at his gay wampum girdle, and each bore a .uh musket ornamented with brass rings. One wore over his shoulder the fur of a wild animal ; the other had nothing across his bare, brawny chest but the buff belt of a cartridge-box. By their weapons they were at once known to be allies of the Marquis de Montcalm, who with a policy, alike dangerous and ungenerous, had armed the six nations of the Iroquois -l the British. On finding themselves perceived, the savages rod a wild laugh of derision, and the skeleton he who bore the child, a poor little boy of some three or four years waved him thrice round his head, as if with the intention of dashing out his brains list a tree; then, suddenly seeming to change his mind, he deliberately deposited him on the ground, and grasping a handful of the boy's golden hair in his brown fingers, drew his scalping-knife from the tail-piece of a musk-rat, the skin of which formed his hunting-pouch : but now a wild cry of entreaty from Mary MacGillivray made him pause. 108 LEGES DS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " Ewen Chisholm Alaster, shoot shoot, at all hazards I" exclaimed her husband. Ewen knelt down, took a deliberate aim, and then paused, for the Iroquois was also on his knees, and had artfully interposed the child between his person and the soldiers. " Fire, Ewen, T command you ; fire at all hazards !" reiterated MacGillivray, impetuously ; " 'tis better for the poor child to die by a bullet than by an Indian's knife a poisoned one, perhaps." The Iroquois raised his arm for the purpose of giving the knife one vigorous sweep round the scalp of the child, who was frozen with fear ; but at that moment Ewen fired. The ball pierced the red skin near the shoulder ; with a yell of rage he dropped his weapon, and plunging into the woods disappeared. A shot from the musket of Alaster MacGregor brought down his companion, who though one of his legs was broken, endeavoured to crawl away, but Avas overtaken by the soldiers, and roughly dragged up the slope to the forest path. The rescued child clung to his preservers, and to the neck of Mary MacGillivray, who placed him on her saddle-bow, and with that motherly tenderness and those caresses which come so naturally from a kind and amiable woman, endeavoured to calm the terrors his late ad- venture had excited. With a sudden glare of defiance, the wounded Iroquois surveyed those captors at whose hands he expected immediate immolation. Several bayonets were directed against him, and more than one musket was clubbed butt-end upper- most to close his career, when Mary interposed and begged that his life might be spared, on which the H ighlanders drew back. The glittering eyes of the THE MASSACRE AT FOltT WILUAM I1KSUY. 109 Iroquois were fixed upon her, and though he knew not the language in which she spoke, he was aware that to her intercession he owed his life, and smiled ; for, Indian like, he despised the manhood of men who could be swayed by a woman. Thus he evinced neither surprise nor gratitude, nor even pain, though his wounded litnb bled freely, and must have occasioned him exquisite torment. By Mary's desire the limb was bound up, and in a few minutes the astonished savage found himself placed across four muskets, and borne towards the fort, which was now little more than a quarter of a mile distant. From time to time he glanced keenly and sharply into the adjacent thickets, as if expecting a rescue, but none appeared ; and on finding himself clear of the forest he doubtless gave If up for lost " We are close to the gates," said MacGillivray to the piper ; " play up, Alisdair Bane." "Bodoich n' m briogois?" suggested the piper, assuming his drones. The officer assented, and soon the far-stretching dingles of American forest were ringing to the stirring notes of Lord Breadalbane's march, while the tones of the instrument seemed to astonish and excite the terror of the Indian, in front of whom the piper was strutting with that lofty port peculiar to his profession. Considering this to be probably a prelude to his being scalped and slain, the Iroquois smiled disdainfully, remembered that he was a warrior, and relapsed into his previous state of apathetic indifference, resolved that in the death of torment for which he doubted not he was reserved, to perish with the phlegmatic cool- ness and iron resolution of his race. These Iroquois were a confederation of tribes, who supported each other in battle in a manner not unlike H 110 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. the sixteen confederated clans known in Scotland as the Clan Chattan. The chief of the Iroquois were the Mohawks, who resided on the Mohawk River and the banks of those lakes which still bear their name, and from thence they extended their conquests beyond the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, sub- duing the Eries, the Hurons, the Ottawas and five other tribes, till they became the terror of their enemies by their ferocity and valour ; but even these were forced to yield at last to British rule.* The report of the musket-shots had reached the fort, where the mainguard and a strong inlying piquet were under arms when the Highlanders marched in. They were received by their countryman Colonel Munro, who, to his astonishment and joy, discovered in the little fellow who nestled in the arms of the mounted lady, his own son and only child Eachin (or Hector), who had been abstracted but how, none could tell from the gate of the fort by some of the lurking Indians. The colonel was a brave and veteran officer, who had recently been deprived, by death, of a young wife. She had left him this little boy, and the heart of the soldier was filled with lively gratitude for the rescue of one whom he prized more than life. After pouring out his thanks to MacGillivray, he turned sternly towards the Iroquois. A sudden glow of anger for the narrow escape of the child made him unsheath his sword, with the intention of passing it through the heart of the Indian, to destroy him, as * In the Army List of the 15th September, 1816, will be found among officers having the local rank of Major in Canada, "John Norton, alias Teyoninhakawaren, Captain and leader of the Indians of the Five Nations." TIIi: MASS.VKK AT FORT WILLIAM IIF.XRY. Ill one might slay a reptile or wild animal ; but again Alary interposed, saying, " For my sake, spare him, Colonel Munro." "I cannot refuse you anything* madam/' replied the old soldier, courteously, lowering the point of his sword ; " and I would that you had something of or value to ask of me than the life of a wretched Iroquois ; but it shall be spared ay, and his wound shall be dressed, if such is your wish." "Thanks, dear colonel." " But, bear in mind, madam/' continued Munro, ing his little boy close to his breast, "that were the case reversed and we at the mercy of the Iroquois, as ihi; tawny villain is at ours, we should be stripped, bound to trees, and put to death by such torments as devils alone could devise. And now, MacGillivray, though doubtless weary with your long march, ere you refresh, tell me (for here amid tho wilds of the Horican, we hear nothing but the whoop of the wild Iroquois, the yells of the Mo- hawks, and, now and then, a rattle of musketry) what news of the war ?" " The Earl of London has marched to besiege Louisbourg !" " And delayed his attack upon Crown Point ?" " Yes." "I expected so much. Since the capture of Oswego, the French have remained masters of the lakes, and collecting the Indians, force or lure them, like the Iroquois, to serve King Louis, and thus all our settlements on the Mohawk River and the Ger- man Flats have been destroyed and the land laid as waste and desolate as " " The Braes of Lochaber after Culloden," said Mac Gillivray, with a louring eye. n 2 112 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK \VATCII. "While here with red coats on us, let us think no more of Culloden," replied Munro in a low voice. " But what news of Montcalm ? Our scouts assert he is moving up this way to besiege ir.e." " At Abercrombie's head-quarters, all ?uy that, elated by recent advantages, Louis de St. Veran, and his second in command, the Baron de Beauchatel, are desirous of attempting something great." "And that something " " Will be the destruction of Fort William Henry, as it covers the frontiers and commands Lake George." " But does the commander-in-chief expect that I, with only three thousand regulars, will be able to withstand the whole French army ?" asked Munro, with a stern and anxious whisper. "No General Webb " " Old Dan Webb of the 48th ?" " With a column of infantry, was to leave head- quarters a day or two after us to succour you, and Fort Edward is to be the base of his operations. Meanwhile, I with my fifty Highland marksmen, pushed on as a species of avant-garde." " Then both Webb and Montcalm are en route for this locality ? ;> " Tis a race, and he who wins may win Fort Wil- liam Henry." " In three days a great game shall have been played here, perhaps," said Munro, thoughtfully ; " but to God and our own valour we must commit the event ; and now, madam, a hundred pardons for leaving you here so long," he added, bowing to Mary, and with that old air of Scoto-French gallantry which Scott has so well portrayed in his " Baron of Brad- Tli:: LT FOBT WILLIAM HEKBY. 113 wardine," he drew the glove from his right hand, and 1 his little triangular hat; " permit me to lead you to my quarters until your own are prepared, and we shall have a cheerful evening's chat about poor old Scotland, and the homes we may never see again. ;i I first heard the sound of your pipe rising up from the dingles of yonder forest, and saw the tartans ng as your Highlanders marched up the gate, I cannot describe the emotions that filled my heart. Th? thoughts of home and other times came throng- ing thick and fast upon my memory kinsmen and friends, father, mother, and wife voices and faces of years long passed away, of the loved, the lost, and the dra'l, were there with the memory of all that the vdlce of the war-pipe rouses in the heart of an exiled Scotsman ; but enough of this ! And cow, to you, madam, and to you, MacGillivray, as we say in the land of hills and eagles, a hundred thousand welcomes to Fort William Henry !" The wounded Iroquois was consigned to the tem- porary hospital of the fort ; the newly arrived High- landers were "told off" (as the phrase is) to their quarters, and in one hour after, when the last roll of tlu- drum at the tattoo had died away, and when the rising moon shone over the wooded mountains 011 the clear glassy water and green islets of Lake George, all was still in Fort William Henry, and nothing Deemed moving but the bayonets flashing . the rays of silver on their tips, as the muf- fled sentinels trod to and fro upon the palisadoed ramparts. The fatigue of her journey northwards from Albany to Lake George had proved too much for the delicate wife of MacGillivray, as at this timn she wa.i on the eve of adding a littL- stranger to the number of the 114 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. garrison, and thus the solicitude of her husband for her health and safety, in a crowded fort, prepared for a desperate siege, and situated in a wild district, now swarming with hostile Indians, became at times alike deep and painful. The issue of the coming strife, none -could foretell, and Koderick knew that if aught fatal happened to him, Mary and her babe the babe he might not be spared to see would be alone, in this far world of the west, exposed to penury, to perils and horrors, which his mind could neither contem- plate nor conceive. The first and second day after their arrival passed without any alarm. On the third, Mary visited the wounded Indian, and gave him some little comforts prepared by her own hands. His limb had been simply fractured, and the wound, which was not so severe as had been at first supposed, was now healing rapidly. He received her with a bright smile of recognition perhaps of gratitude, for he remembered that she had twice saved his life first from the bayonets of the Highlanders, and secondly from the sword of Colonel Munro. His features were rather regular and handsome, and save for their deep tawny tint and strong lines, not unlike those of many Europeans. He received her presents, and then relapsed into moody and sullen silence ; but Mary, whose tender nature felt pity for the poor Indian who was deemed and treated little better than a dog by those around him, had learned some of the native language from an old Ottawa woman who had acted as her servant in Albany ; and now she made an effort to address the savage in that singular mix- ture of Canadian-French, English, and Indian, which formed the usual medium of communication with the natives. She asked his name. THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HEXItV. 115 " Orono," he replied in a husky voice, while his I lightened, and a red deeper even than the war- paint and the glass beads he wore, spread under his tawny skin. " And he who accompanied you ?" " Ossong, a Mohawk warrior, and a brave one ! Before the door of his wigwam a hundred scalps of the Yengees are drying in the wind." Mary uttered a faint exclamation of horror, but the savage smiled, and said " Are no men ever killed in your country ?" " And what meant you to do with the child ?" The stealthy and cunning eyes of Orono lowered for a moment ; then, as a gleam of unutterable fero- city spread over his striped visage, he answered " To have kept him till we could get the grey scalp of the white chief his father." " And then " " We would have given him to an old pawaw, as a sou, to replace one slain by the white chief two moons ago ; but I will pardon him all wrong for the sake of you, the pale-face who have been so kind to me." As he said this the Indian took the tiny white hand of Mary in his strong brown muscular fingers, and attempted to place it on his bare head near the scalp- lock, in token of amity and future service ; but she .sin auk back in terror and with a repugnance which she could not repress, and once more the malevolent gleam which always filled her with dread, shone in the glit- teriiij;- eyes of the Red Indian. " Have you a wile, Orono ?" she asked, to conciliate him. " Orono had a wife," replied the Indian, sadly ; "a girl of the Oneidas, and he had two little children for whom she boiled the rice and maize, and wove bright 116 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. belts of wampum. Orono had a mother too, who shared his wigwam Joy the sunny bank of the Hori- can ; but three moons ago the red warriors came, his wigwam was burned, his cattle taken, the trees were cut down, and the mother, the squaw, and the children of Orono were all destroyed, as we would destroy the big snakes in the reeds or the otter in the swamps. And they slew his father an aged warrior, a man of many moons, and many, many days, who remembered when first the great fire-spouting canoes of the Yengees, with their huge white sails, came over the salt lake from beyond the rising sun ; but they slew him also all, all ! Father, mother, squaw, and papoose cattle and dog ; nothing was left but a little heap of cinders to mark where the wigwam stood : all were gone, like the flowers of last summer gone to the happy hunting grounds of the Iroquois/' he added, pointing westward. " And poor Orono is left quite alone I" said Mary, patting his shoulder kindly, for the story of the Indian impressed her by its resemblance to the fate of her own family in Glencoe, and to many an episode of murder and outrage after Cullo- den ; " alone," she added, " in this great selfish world!" " To revenge them ; and for this I have trod on the pipe of peace and dug up the war-hatchet !" he re- plied in a voice like the hiss of a snake, while his eyes glared like two red carbuncles in the dusk of the even- ing, as Mary retired in dismay. Ere the night was finally set in her tender sympathies for her new friend received a severe shock. To her husband, who had just returned from a reconnoitring expedition, she was relating her interview with Orono, when the sharp report of two muskets echoed among THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 117 the logwood edifices which formed the barracks of the fort. Mary grew deadly pale, and clung to ick. "The French !" was his first thought, as he broke away, snatched his claymore, and hurried to the barrack-square, where he heard that a soldier of the Royal American Regiment had been assassi- nated. Orono the Indian had abstracted a knife from the basket of his late unsuspecting visitor, and springing en upon the sentinel at the hospital *loor had . him, swept the blade once round his head above the cars, and torn away his scalp. Then though weak and wounded, with hi.s knife in one hand, and the ghastly trophy reeking in the other, he had bounded over the palisades like an evil spirit, glided through the wet ditch like an eel, and, escaping the musket- shots of two sentinels on the summit of the glacis, reached the darkening forest, where all trace of him was instantly lost in the thickness of the foliage and the gloom of a moonless evening. "And so, dear Mary, with this terrible episode closes your little romance," said MacGillivray, with a kind smile, as he put an arm round her. " I devoutly hope so,"said she, shuddering, and feel- ing, she knew not why, a horrible impression that she would yet see more of this Indian, whose lithe but herculean form, sternly sombre face, glittering eyes, and scalp-lock were ever before her. " The black traitor, to reward our kindness thus ! Tis a thousand pities, dearest, you saved him from our men on the march, and from old Munro's sword in the fort ; for these wretches are no better than wild beasts. Thus it matters little whether wo kill them now or a month hence/' 118 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " Oh, Roderick !" exclaimed Mary, with her hazel eyes full of tears ; " how can you talk thus ?" "Why?" " For so said King William's warrant to massacre my people in Glencoe ; and so said that order which was written on the night before Culloden." " True, true ; the poor Indian only fights for the land God gave his fathers, even as ours, Mary, was given to the children of the Gael," replied Roderick, as the usual current of his bitter thoughts returned ; " and a t me there was Mary (God keep thee from harm !) when I little thought to find myself so far from my father's grave, wearing the black cockade of the Hanoverian in my bonnet, and the red uniform of those men who trampled on the white rose at Cul- loden, and murdered the aged men, the women, and the little ones of your race, under cloud of night, at the behest of a bloodthirsty Dutchman !" " Still speaking of Glencoe and Culloden !" said Colonel Munro, joining them, as they sat on the bas- tion, at the base of which rippled the waters of Lake George, then flushed red with the last light of sunset. " Yes, Munro ; -I am thinking of the time when the kilt alone was seen upon the Highland mountains, and when the breeches of the Lowlander the brat- galla (i.e. foreigner's rag) were unknown among us." " Let us have no more of these sour memories, and if my fair friend will favour me with that song which she sang to my little boy last evening, it may lighten the tedium of a time which to me, after being caged up here for six months, seems insuf- ferably weary." Mary coloured, and glanced round timidly, for THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 119 several officers of the garrison who had been lounging on the parapets drew near, and she knew few songs those of her native hills, and consequently they were in a language totally unintelligible to the gentle- men of the Royal Americans and Parker's Foot ; but on being pressed by the colonel and his little one, who led at her feet, she sang the only English song with which she was acquainted. It was a paraphrase of one of the psalms,* and was then a favourite with the Jacobites, who sang it to a beautiful and plaintive old Highland air. On Gallia's shore we sat and wept, When Scotland we thought on, Bobbed of her bravest sous, and all Her ancient spirit gone ! " Revenge !" the sons of Gallia said, " Rvenge your wasted land ; Already your insulting foes Crowd the Batavian strand ! " How shall the sons of Freedom e'er For foreign conquest fight ? For power how wield the sword, deprived Of liberty and right ? " If thee, Scotland I we forget, Even to our latest breath, Muy foul dishonour stain our name, And bring a coward's death. " May sad remorse for fancied guilt Our future days employ, If all thy sacred right* are not Above our chiefeat joy. * Psalm cxuvii. 120 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " And thou, proud Gaul, faithless friend, Thy ruin is not far ; May God, on thy devoted head, Pour all the woes of war ! " When thou, thy slaughtered little ones, And outraged dames shalt see j Such help, such pity mayest thou have, As Scotland had irom thee !" As Mary sang, many loiterers of the Black Watch had joined the little group around her, and listened as if turned to stone. The veteran colonel of the Royal Americans, who had been long, long from the land of his birth, felt his grave iron nature melted. He sat on the parapet of the gun-battery, with his chin placed in his right hand, and his left nervously grasping the hilt of his sword. His keen grey eyes, which roved uneasily from one object to another, began at last to moisten and fill, and then tears ran down the furrows of his cheeks old dry channels worn by war and time, but all unused to such visitors. The air rather than the words moved MacGillivray and his soldiers who listened. Their heads were bowed and their eyes were sad, for their hearts and souls, their memory and their love, were far away away to the land where, at that hour, the silver moon was casting the shadows of the heath-clad mountains on the grassy glens below ; away to the Braes of Lochaber, the shores of Lochiel, and the deep blue lochs that form a chain of watery links in the great glen of Caledonia ; away to the land of the clans, the soil from whence their fathers sprang, and where their graves lay under the old sepulchral yew, or by THE MASSACIli: AT FORT WILLIAM IIKNUY. 121 the Druid clachan of ages past and gone ; away from the lone woods and mighty wilds of that Far West, which in the next century was to become the home of their children, where the expatriated men of Suther- land, JBarra, and Breadalbane were to find a refuge from the avaricious dukes, the canting marquises, and grinding factors of the Western Highlands, and from their infamous system of modern oppression, tyranny, and misrule, which has decreed that the poor have no right to the soil of their native country. All were hushed and still in the group as the Highland girl sang for, though a wedded wife, and on the eve of being a mother, Mary was sbut a girl yet when hark ! the report of a musket on the outer bastion broke the stillness of the evening hour, and an officer of the mainguard rushed, sword in hand, towards the startled listeners. " Munro," , he exclaimed ; " Colonel Munro a column of French are in sight, and already within range of cannon-shot" " So close, Captain Dacres ?" " And in great strength," added the officer. " And the Indians those diabolical Iroquois V " Fill the woods on every side they are already at the foot of the glacis. Hark !" continued Captain Dacres, as a confused volley was heard, " the main- guard are opening a fire on their advanced files." The colonel kissed his child, and with an impres- -lance consigned it to the care of Mary. " Fall in, Sixtieth !" he exclaimed, rushing into the barracks, where the alarm was now general. " Mac- Gillivray, get your lads of the Black Watch under arms, and let them pick me off those brown devils as fast as they can load and fire again. Gentlemen, to your companies ; we shall have grim work to do 122 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. before another sun sets on the waters of the Horican." In ten minutes the troops in the little garrison were all under arms, for the men came rushing, cross- belted, to their colours, while the log huts echoed again and again to the long roll of the alarm drum that peculiar roll, which, when heard in camp or garrison, makes the blood of all quicken, as it is the well-known warning <: to arms ;" and now the pipes of Alisdair Bane (a pupil of Munich Dhu, or Black Murdoch Maclnnon, the old piper of Glenarrow) lent their pibroch to swell the warlike din, while the troops loaded, and fresh casks of ball-cartridge were staved and distributed by the sergeants in rear of each company. The artillerymen stood by their guns, with rammer, sponge, and lighted matches ; the battalions of the Royal Americans and of the unfortunate Colonel Parker, a corps of Provincials, and the fifty Celts of the Black Watch, soon manned the ramparts, from whence, in the dim twilight of eve, the white uniforms of the regiments of Beam, Guienne, and Languedoc, who formed the flower of Montcalm's army, and the bronze-like figures of the gliding Iroquois, who formed the scourge of ours, were seen at times between the green masses of foliage that fringed the calm, deep waters of Lake George, which lay motionless as a vast mirror of polished steel. " AAvay to the bomb-proofs, Mary ; this is no scene for you," said MacGillivray, giving his weeping and terrified wife a tender embrace ; " the vaults are your only place of safety. Would to God," he added, giving her a farewell kiss, " that you were safe at home, laoighe mo chri, even with the humblest of our cottars in Glenarrow. The thought of you alone THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 123 causes my heart to fail, and makes a coward of me, Mary. Alaster MacGregor, conduct her to the bomb- proofs, and join us again." Tin* soldier led her to the vaults in which the whole of the women aud children of the garrison were en- d for safety from shot and shell, and where they nestled together in fear and trembling, preparing lint and bandages for the wounded ; and scarcely had ter rejoined his commander, when a red flash ami a stream of white smoke came from the dar- kening wood, and the first cannon of the French sent a sixteen-pound shot crashing through the log barracks and slew a captain of the Royal Ameri- Then a hearty hurrah of defiance rose from the garrison of Munro, and the fiendish yells and war- whooping of the Iroquois were heard in the echoing IB. MncGillivray envied the lightness of heart possessed at this crisis by his unmarried comrades, who had neither wife nor child to excite their anxiety, corn- on, or fear men who, careless and soldierlike, < d to live for the present, without regret for the r (In ad of the future ; but such is the life of a soldier, while as we have it in " Don Juan" " Nought so bothers The hearts of the heroic in a charge, AH leaving a small family at large." At the head of all the forces he could collect, ten thousand regular infantry of France, and hordes of the wild Iroquois, Louis de St. Veran, Marquis of Montcalm, and his second in command, the Baron de Beauchatel, Chevalier of St. Louis, now invested Fort "William Henry, and pushed the siege with a vigour 124 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. that was all the greater because General Webb, with four thousand British troops, was posted at some dis- tance, for the purpose of protecting Munro's garrison, a duty about which he did not give himself the smallest concern whatever. Before daybreak next morning, the French artil- lery opened heavily on the turf ramparts, the wooden palisades and log huts of the fort ; while a fire of musketry was maintained upon it from every avail- able point, and the Indian marksmen, from behind every tree, rock, and bush, or tuft of sedge-grass that afforded an opportunity for concealing their dingy forms, shot with deadly precision at the officers, and all who in any way exposed or signalized themselves. Munro and his soldiers fought with ardour, and defended themselves with confidence, never doubting that General Webb would soon advance to their sup- port, and by a brisk attack in the rear, compel the marquis to abandon the siege. From their gun-bat- teries and stockades, they maintained an unceasing fire, and thus the slaughter on both sides became desperate and severe. In the gloomy vault to which the humanity and prudence of Colonel Munro had consigned the women and children of his garrison, the timid wife of Mac Gillivray could hear the roar of musketry, with the incessant booming of the heavy artillery on every side, and ever and anon the hiss or crash of the ex- ploding shells. These and other dreadful sounds paralysed her ; for she had but one thought the safety of her husband ; and appalled by the united horrors of the siege, she almost forgot to pray, and sat with her arms round the child of Munro, pale, sad, and silent awed and bewildered. Meanwhile Roderick, with his party of the Black THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIKNRY. 125 Watch, proved invaluable to Munro. As the dis- U of the latter lias it, "Being all expert marks- men and deadly shots, they manned a line of loopholed stockades, which faced a wood full of the Iroquois, of whom they slew an incredible number ; for if the foot or hand, or even the scalp lock of a warrior became visible for a moment to these quicksighted deer- stalkers from the Highland hills, it revealed where tin rest of his body could be covered by their levelled barrels ; thus there were soon more dead than living warriors in the bush where the braves cf the Five Nations had posted themselves, and the yells and screams of rage uttered by the survivors in their anticipations of vengeance, were like nothing one could imagine but the cries of the damned." Among the savages who swarmed thick as bees upon the skirts of the forest, MacGillivray repeatedly recognised the ghastly warrior Ossong, who was painted over with white stripes ; and his comrade Orono, who had so recently made an escape from the fort, and who was conspicuous alike by his bravery and the tuft of eagle's feathers in his scalp- lock. MacGillivray relinquished hisclaymore for a musket, and, as Munro said, " Knocked over more Red Indians in an hour, than he could have done red deer in a k, at home." On the second day, just as the firing was about to re-commence, a French officer, bearing a flag of truce, and accompanied by a drummer beating a parley, appeared before the gates, and was received by Mac Gillivray, who conducted him, blindfolded by a hand- kerchief, to the presence of Munro. He was a tall and handsome man, about forty years of a, and wore the white uniform of the Grenadiers of Guienne, 126 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. with the order of St. Louis, and had a white flowing peruke, a Id Louis XV. " Your name, monsieur ?" said Munro, bowing low. "The Sieur Fontbrune, Baron of Beauchatel," replied he, bowing to the diamond buckles at his knees, and then presenting his box of rappee. " Indeed the second in command to the Marquis of Montcalm \" "The same, and Colonel of the Regiment of Guienne." " We are greatly honoured." "Nay," responded the courteous French noble, " the honour is mine in having the privilege of con- ferring with an officer of such valour as M. le Colonel Munro." " And your purpose ?" asked the latter, drily. " The delivery of this letter." In presence of the senior officers of his garrison, Munro opened and read this communication from the French marquis, in which the latter wrote, that he deemed himself obliged by the common dictates of humanity to request that M. le Colonel Munro would surrender the fort, and cease, by a futile resistance, to provoke the savage Iroquois, who accompanied the French army in such vast' and unmanageable hordes. " A detachment of your garrison, under Colonel Parker, has lately (he continued) experienced their cruelty. I have it yet in my power to restrain and oblige them to observe a capitulation, as comparatively few of them have been hitherto killed. Your persisting in the defence of your fort can only retard its fate a few days, and must of necessity expose an unfortunate THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIENltY. 127 ison, who cannot possibly receive relief, when we consider the precautions taken to prevent it. I demand a decisive answer ; and for this pur- pose have sent the Sieur de Fontbrune, one of my You may implicitly credit all that he tells you. " MONTCALM." " I will never surrender while we have a shot left," exclaimed Munro, furiously. " What say you, gentlemen ?" " That we and our soldiers will stand by you, Colonel, to the last gasp \" replied Captain Dacres. " This, then, is your decision, messieurs ?" said M. Beauchatel, playing with the ringlets of his peruke. ' : It is it is," was the answer on all hands. 1 A most unwise one, permit me to say," urged the baron. " To yield when General Webb is within less than one day's march of us, would be a treason to the King and a disgrace to ourselves." The French baron smiled with provoking coolness, and xii'l, " General Webb beholds our preparations and ap- proaches 'with an apparent indifference that originates cither in infamous cowardice or miserable infatua- tion. In short, M. le Colonel, he has abandoned you." " M. le Baron," replied Munro, with some heat, "General Webb is a British officer, and I have no doubt will fully maintain his reputation. If he has not already advanced to raise the siege, he must dr m it better for the King's service to remain in position I 2 128 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCIL where he is ; but, ere long, you will hear his cannon opening on your rear." " Pardieu, you delude yourself." " I do not, M. le Baron, and you may inform the Marquis de Montcalm, that he had better have con- tinued to amuse himself with mounting guard at Versailles and Marli, than by beating up our quarters here on the Canadian lakes/' " Oh, he and I have mounted guard at Mons and Tournay, at Lisle and Fontenoy, Colonel, where men don't play at soldiers, as here in America," replied the Frenchman, smiling ; " but adieu, mon ami adieu." "Farewell MacGillivray, conduct M. le Baron beyond the gates." So ended this parley, and in less than five minutes the din of cannon and musketry, with the warwhoop of the Indians, again rang along the echoing shores of the Horican, and once more the white smoke shrouded alike the defences and defenders of Fort William Henry. The Baron de Beauchatel led the Regiment of Guienne close up to the stockades, which were lined by the fifty Highlanders of the Black Watch, and though exposed to a withering fire, he bravely and furiously strove to destroy the barrier by axes and sledge hammers. MacGillivray thrice covered the Baron with his deadly aim ; but, inspired by some mysterious emotion, the origin of which at that time he could not fathom, he spared him and levelled his weapon at others. Filled with rage by the resistance they experienced, the soldiers of the Regiment of Guienne encouraged each other by shouts of " Vive le Roi ! Tue tue les sauvages d'Ecosse ! a la baionette ! a la baionette I" Till- MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIKXRY. 129 They soon fell into confusion ; but the brave ..hatel continued to brandish his sword and shout the mot ds ratliemcnt of his corps, for it was then in the French service to have a war-cry or regi- il rally ing- word. otre Dame ! Notre Dame de frappemort !" (Our holy Lady, who strikes home ! ) he was heard crying a-_ r :ii:i and again ; for the Virgin was the patroness of tlif ( iivnudiersof Guienne; but neither the spell of her name nor the fiery spirit of Beauchatel enabled the Kildiers to withstand the fire- of the Highlanders, whose position was impregnable ; and on Captain Ducres' company of the 6'Oth opening a flank fusilade upon them, they were swept back into the forest, leaving a mound of white-coated killed and wounded before the stockades they had so valiantly attempted to destroy. Alaster MacGregor received a wound from a French soldier, who, on finding himself dying, crawled on his hands and knees close up to the stockade, and, with the last effort of expiring nature, fired his musket through a loophole and fell back dead. " A brave fellow !" exclaimed MacGillivray. " Yes," added Alaster, as the blood dripped from his left cheek : " but I wish he had departed this life five minutes sooner." A third and fourth day of conflict passed away, and the loss by killed and wounded became severe in Fort William Henry ; five hundred dead men were already lying within the narrow compass of its batteries ; but still there was no sign of Webb's brigade advancing to the rescue. Munro began to havo serious doubts of the issue, with secret regrets that he had not accepted the first offers of the Marquis de Montcalm, for tho blood of the Iroquois was now at bailing heat, 130 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. in their longing to revenge the fall of so many of their braves, who, notwithstanding all their caution and cunning, had perished under the deadly aim of the Highland marksmen, and lay in dusky piles among the long wavy sedge grass and luxuriant foliage of the forest ; but though he confined these thoughts to his own breast, his garrison began to have the same mis- givings. One day, telescope in hand, he was eagerly sweep- ing the distant landscape in the direction where it was known that General Webb was posted, when Dacres, of his own regiment, approached him. Not a bayonet or musket-barrel were seen to glitter, or a standard to wave in the hazy distance in token of coming aid, and he sharply closed the glass with a sigh and turned away ; so Dacres addressed him. " When smoking a pipe in the bomb-proofs this morning by the bye, my dear colonel, I am always thoughtful during that operation it occurred to me that General Webb " " Well, sir well," said Munro, irritably. " Remains very long in position without advancing to our relief." " I am too well aware of that, sir." " But what does such conduct mean ?" "God and himself alone know," replied Munro, while his keen grey eye flashed with passion; " he would seem to be in league with the enemy against us ; ay, in league with Montcalm, and the words of Beauchatel seemed to infer some previous knowledge of his inten- tions, and hence perhaps the friendly warning about the Indians ; but we have cast the die with them. If in the course of one day more Webb comes not to our aid " " By Heaven, I will pistol him with my own hand ; THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HKNRY. 131 that is, if I survive this affair I" exclaimed MacGilli- who joined them. ' Xay, sir," replied the colonel, " I shall claim that task, if task it be ; but hark ! there is a salvo." A tremendous shock now shook the fort, as a cama- rade battery of ten 32-pounders commenced a dis- charge against it, and showers of destructive bomb- bulles from small mortars were poured into the heart of the place. Many of these little engines of destruction bounded from the shingle roofs of the bar- racks and burst in the waters of the lake ; others were exploding in all directions, with a sound like the roar of artillery, forcing the soldiers, who crept and cowered in ivar of the parapets and palisades, to lie close, while the heavy hum of the round shot, with that peculiar sound which terminates its course by piercing the ground, or crashing through a building, and the sharper u-l ink of the musket-balls, filled up all the intervals by sfraughtwith alarm. The barracks and storehouses soon unroofed and ruined, for the camarade bat- tery proved very destructive ; the stockades were soon 't away in showers of white splinters before its discharges, which resembled nothing but a whirlwind of shot and shell, while vast masses of the earthen works were also torn down, leaving the defenders ex- 1 to tin- deadly rifles of the lurking Indians. The i an non of Alunro were alike defective and danger- ous to his soldiers; for two 18-pounders, two 32- pounders, and two 9-pounders burst in succession, destroying all who were near them, and at last the colonel received intimation that only seventeen bombs remained in the magazine. On the sixth day, there was still no appearance of 1 i al Daniel Webb (who was Colonel of the 48th, or Northamptonshire Foot), though his column was 132 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. within hearing of the firing, being at Fort Edward, which was only six miles distant ; arid now the spirit of the garrison began to sink ; but in that dejected band there was no heart more heavy than MacGilli- vray 's, for the condition of his wife at such a terrible crisis rilled him with the deepest anxiety and the most tender solicitude. At last Munro, finding the futility of further resist- ing forces so overwhelming, and that all hope of suc- cour from Webb was hopeless, on the 9th day of August, 1757, lowered his standard, and sent forth MacGillivray to the French camp, bearer of a flag of truce, to confer on the terms of a surrender. Immediately on leaving the gates, he was received by the Baron de Beauchatel and a party of the Grena- diers of Guienne, who surrounded him with fixed bayonets, as a protection from the infuriated Iroquois, who crowded near in naked hordes, leaping, dancing, screaming like incarnate fiends, and brandishing their tomahawks, seeking only an opening in the close files of the French escort to slay, scalp, and hew him to pieces. Thus he was conducted to the tent of Louis Marquis de Montcalm de St. Veran, Marechal du Camp, and Lieu- tenant-General of the Armies of His Most Christian Majesty in America. Before the tent were posted the colours of the Regiments of Beam and Languedoc, and around it were a guard of grenadiers in white coats, with the long periwigs and smart little trian- gular hats of the French line. These received the flag of truce with presented arms, while the drums beat a march. Montcalm, then in his forty-fifth year, came forth, and, presenting his hand to MacGillivray, conducted him within. Then followed several officers of the THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIKX.UY. 133 staff whom, with M. de Bcauchatel, lie had invited to the conference. " You perceive, now," said the baron, " that I proved a true prophet I" " In what manner, monsieur?" asked MacGillivray. " When I affirmed that M. le General Webb would leave Munro to his own resources. Ma foi ! but he is a brave fellow, Munro." "M. le Marquis," eaid MacGillivray, with an air of hauteur, " I am here to stipulate that our garrison shall be permitted to inarch out with their arms "Unloaded " " Be it so ; but as Christian men you cannot refuse us arms in a land so wild as this; the officers to havo their baggage, and the men their kits ; that a detachment of French troops shall escort us to within two milt-s of the gates of Fort Edward, and that your interpreter attached to the savages will make this treaty known to the Iroquois." " 1 gladly agree to these conditions," replied Mont- calm, "though I fear the latter portion will be achieved with difficulty ; for the comprehension of these Red Iroquois is not very clear, and they will despise me for burying the war-hatchet and smoking the pipe of peace, for permitting you to depart with your scalps on, and so forth ; but they must be forced to under- stand and observe our treaty. For the space of eighteen months every officer and soldier now in Fort William Henry must not bear arms against the Most Christian King. M. le Colonel Munro must give me hostages for the safe return of my troops who are to form your escort ; and say to him, that in testimony of my esteem for his valour and spirit as a soldier, I shall present him with one cannon, a 134 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. 6-pounder, to be delivered at the moment the grena- diers of my own regiment receive the gates of the fort, and his troops are ready to depart." " Our wounded and sick, of whom we have many " " I shall send under guard to General Webb at Fort Edward." " Thanks, marquis." The terms were soon drawn up and signed by the staff officers of both forces ; by Munro in the name of the British Commander-in-Chief, and by Montcalm in the name of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor- General, and Lieutenant-General of New France ; and after ably concluding this negotiation, so important for his comrades, MacGillivray returned to the fort just as the red round moon began to rise like a bloody targe above the eastern skirts of the forest, and to tinge with its quivering rays the placid waters of Lake George. The first who received him at the gate was his " dear wee Mary," as he called her, trembling and in tears for his safety. During the whole time of his visit to the camp of Montcalm, the yelling and whooping of the -Indians had filled the fort and the woods with horrid sounds. The next day passed before Munro had all pre- pared to leave the shattered ramparts he had defended so well. It was on a gorgeous August evening when his war- worn and weary garrison paraded, prior to their final departure. The western clouds, as they floated across the sky, were tinged with violet and saffron hues. The forest and the grass wore their most brilliant green, and Lake George its deepest blue. The large golden butter-cups that spotted all the verdant glacis THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIEXIIY. 135 of the ramparts, within which so many brave men rk and stiffened in their blood, and the it-coloured wildflowers that grew amid the waters ot the fosse and by the margin of the lake which fill' d it, were unclosing their petals, to catch the coming dew, and wore their gayest tints. The whole aspect of the scenery, and of the soft balmy evening, were little in accordance with the horrors that were passed, and those which were soon to ensue ! Already the grenadiers of Montcalm, with all the formality of friends, had received the gates and vari- ous posts from the guards of the Royal Americans ; the white banner of France, under a royal salute, had replaced the Union Jack, and at that moment sharply beat the drums, as the garrison began to march out, with their unloaded muskets slung and their colours cased the Royal Americans, Parker's Foot, and the little band of our old friends, the Black Watch (now less by sixteen men than on the day of their arrival), with the piper and MacGillivray at their head, de- filing from the fort in close column of subdivisions, while the French escort was under arms to receive thnn in line by a general salute, with drummers beat- ing on the flanks. A faint cheer was heard within the fort. It came from the log huts where the wounded lay. They, poor fellows ! were left to the care of the enemy, to- gether with the unburied bodies of those who would never hear a sound again until the last trumpet shakes the earth with its peal. The veteran Colonel Munro, tall and erect, with his quaint Kevenhuller hat and old-fashioned wig of thc> days of Malplacquet, marched at the head of his crest- fallen column; he was on foot, with his sword drawn, 136 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. and led by the hand the child, his son, as being the only object he cared about preserving in that hour of bitterness and defeat. Seated on the tumbril of the 6-pounder, with two other ladies (one of whom had lost her husband in the siege), was the wife of MacGillivray, awe-stricken and all unused to such stern and stirring scenes as she had daily witnessed in Fort William Henry. Her r/i"/'- riage, brooch, almost the only ornament she possessed, she had concealed in the folds or tresses of her long black hair, lest it should excite the cupidity of any French soldier or Indian, for she had an equal dread, and nearly an equal repugnance for them both. A slender escort of French soldiers with their bayonets fixed protected Munro's garrison on both flanks ; but as they proceeded into the forest, the savages continued to assemble in dark hordes, till their numbers, their gestures, and yells of rage be- came seriously alarming. They were animated by the blindest frenzy on finding themselves deluded of their plunder and the blood the red reeking scalps of the hated Yengees by a treaty which they could not and cared not to understand. They were re- hearsing to each other the bravery and worth, the names and number of their warriors who had perished, and all continued to scream and shout, but none cared to begin the work of destruction while so near the tents of the pale faces of France. " Push on push on, for God's sake, gentlemen and comrades !" " Forward, my friends let us lose no time in reach- ing Fort Edward/' "Step out, comrades step out, you fellows in front." THE MASSACRE AT POUT WILLIAM HENRY. 137 "Throw off your knapsacks let these greedy hounds have them." " Better lose an old kit than a young life.", " On, on push on, boys !" Such were the cries that were heard along the column as the rear urged on the front, and the dark yelling hordes of the infernal Iroquois blackened all the woods and grew denser and closer, until at last they insolently jostled and crushed the French guard among the impeded ranks of those they were es- corting. " This is intolerable let us attack those dogs," said MacGillivray. " Beware beware I" exclaimed Munro ; " if once blood be shed or the warwhoop raised, all will be over with us." The leader of this hostile display was the savage whom we have already introduced as Ossong. A Lenni Lennape, he was almost the last of his ferocious tribe, which, with the Miami, had been conquered and exterminated 'by the Iroquois, with whom he had now completely identified himself. His aspect was fright- ful ! His forehead was low; with a short nose of great bi. adth ; his ears were huge, and set high upon his hrad ; his mouth was large, with teeth sharp and serrated like those of some voracious fish. His mantle of woven grass was trimmed with scores of human sc:iljvlocks salted and dried, while rows of human it, th intermingled with glass beads and gilt regi- mental buttons arid British coins (the relics of Colonel Parker's force) covered all his brown expansive chest. On his brawny shoulders hung the skin of a black bear ; in front, he wore the fur of a racoon ; his uii', moccassins, and arms were ornamented with brilliant wampum beads, which rattled as he walked, 138 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. and he brandished alternately a rifle, a tomahawk, and scalping-knife. Two or three soldiers had already been dragged out of the ranks and slain to increase the general alarm ; but as yet the warwhoop had not been raised. Perceiving a savage near him, who was placing his hands to his mouth and puffing out his cheeks, pre- vious to raising that dreadful signal for a general on- slaught, MacGillivray, unable longer to restrain the fury which boiled within him, drew the Highland tack (i.e. steel pistol) from his belt and shot him dead. " Rash man," exclaimed Munro, " we are lost !" " Fix your bayonets, my lads, and bear back this naked rabble I" said MacGillivray, drawing his sword. " Remember, colonel, you are a kinsman of the House of Foulis ; in an hour like this belie not your name \" A thousand throats now uttered the horrible whoop of the Iroquois, and from a myriad echoes the vast forest encircling the shores of the Horican replied. It was the death-knell of the Yengees ; and now ensued that frightful episode of the war known in American history as the Massacre of Fort William Henry. " In the name of God and the King, keep together, 60th shoulder to shoulder, Royal Americans I" cried Munro ; but his soldiers, crushed and impeded by the pressure, strove in vain to free their muskets and bear back the human tide that closed upon them. In the confusion poor old Munro lost his child, and with him all his soldierly coolness and self-possession. He be- came a prey to grief and distraction. "Lochmoy! Lochmoy ! stand by MacGillivray!" were the shouts of the Black Watch, as they flung aside their muskets, knapsacks, and cantines, and, THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 189 unshf .filing their dirks and claymores, closed hnnd- td-li.-ind with tin- Iroquois, and hewed them down like children on every side. " Dhia ! Dhia ! my wife !" was the first thought of M;icGillivray ; and 'when last he saw Mary she was in^ erect on the tumbril, the horses of which had been shot, wringing her hands in an attitude of iir, as the brown tide of the Iroquois swept round li'-r like a living sea ; and the last she saw of her hus- band was his form towering above all others, when combating bravely and making frantic efforts, with er MacGregor, Ewen Chisholm, Bane the pipor, tlier Celtic swordsmen, to reach her; but by a horde of savages they were driven into the forest, and iw them no more. The French guard offered but a feeble resistance, (led ; then ensued a thousand episodes replete with horror ! On all hands the unfortunate survivors of the siege were hewn down, slashed, stabbed, toma- hawked, and scalped. Shrieks, groans, screams, prayers, and wild entreaties for mercy, with the occa- sional explosions of musketry, rang through the forest ; but above all other sounds, on earth or in the sky of heaven, rose the appalling whoop of the un- glutted Iroquois. One of Mary's companions the widow was lite- rally hewn to pieces in a moment, while her children were whirled round by the feet, and had their brains dashed out against the trees ; her other friend, the of Captain Dacres, a fair-haired and pretty young -hwoman, was torn from her side. The glitter- ing hatchet of one Indian cleft her head to the i while another caught her body as it was fallinj. and by a single sweep of his knife shred off her scalp, and waved the silken curls as a trophy abovo his head. 140 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. Mary was to be their next victim ; but ere they could drag her down she flung herself at the feet of Ossoug, and, clasping his moccassined legs, said in his own language " I will pray the Great Spirit that he pardon you my death ; but do not torture me ; do not make me suffer I am a weak woman, and about to become a mother." Ossong grinned hideously, and grasping her by the hair raised his seal ping-knife ; but at that moment his hand was grasped from behind. He turned furi- ously, and was confronted by Orono. "Spare her!" said the latter, in his guttural tones. " For what ? My ears are not as the ears of an ass, therefore I hear not follies ; nor of a fox, therefore I hear no lies I" responded the fierce savage ; " spare her for what ?" " The wigwam of Orono." Ossong laughed scornfully, and turned away in search of other victims, which he found but too readily. Mary clung to her preserver. She gave a wild and haggard glance over that forest scene, in the recesses of which the shrieks of the destroyer and destroyed were already dying away over that wilderness of red-coated dead, of mothers and their children, gashed, hewn and dismembered, scalped and muti- lated over the debris of scattered muskets, torn standards, and broken drums, rifled baggage, open knapsacks, hats, and powdered wigs everywhere blood, death, and disorder ! Then the light seemed to go out of her eyes ; she became senseless, and re- membered no more. Saved by the French, Colonels Mun.ro and Young THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIKXIiV. 1 II with thtve hundred fugitives reached Albany; and ml \\M1>, when all was over, sent out five him- div.l men from Fort Edward to glean up survivors :uid bury the dead. Our soldiers perished in the ; in scores under every species of torture, wounds, thirst and fatigue; many were flayed and roasted alive by the Iroquois ; others were stripped nude, scalped, and made a mark for bullets or tomahawks till death relieved them of their misery. "Thus," says Smollett, "euded (with the fall of Fort William Henry) the third campaign in America, where, with an evident superiority over the enemy, an army of twenty thousand regular troops, a great number of provincial forces, and a prodigious naval power not less than twenty ships of the line we abandoned our allies, exposed our people, suffered them to be cruelly massacred in sight of our troops, and relinquished a large and valuable tract of country, to the eternal disgrace and reproach of the British nain Three of the Black Watch alone escaped this mas- sacre viz., Ewen Chisholm, with Alaster MacGregor whose adventures were somewhat remarkable and another, of whom hereafter. Duncan MacGregor, a soldier from Glengyle, and aasome averred a son of the venerable Glhun Dhu, who was captain of Douue Castle under Prince Charles, iell mortally wounded by a bullet from the rifle of an Indian in the woods. On finding himself dying, he begged his elaiisman Alaster to convey his little all a le\v ji Minds of back pay and ]>ri/<- money to his . and widowed mother. Faithful to the trust re- i in him by his expiring friend, this poor fellow bore the money about with him, untouched, through- out the most arduous stniyj'-s of the- American cam 142 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. paign, during a long captivity in France, and amid the urgent necessities of nearly ten years of privation, until he reached Glengyle, and then he handed to the mother of his comrade the money, still wrapped in the moccassin of a Pawnee, whom he had slain at Fort William Henry. Ewen Chisholm, one of the eight faithful men of the Coire-gaoth in Glenmorriston, survived the war in America, but was slain when the Black Watch was at Guadaloupe, in 1759 ; and his death is thus recorded in the Edinburgh Chronicle for that year, which contains a letter from Ensign Grant known as Alas- ter the One-handed detailing the circumstance : " When the troops were to embark, the outpost-; were called in. This soldier (Chisholm) had been placed as a single sentinel by his captain. When sum- moned to come off, he refused, unless his captain who had appointed him his post would personally give him orders. He was told that his captain and most of the troops were embarked, and that unless he came off he would be taken prisoner ; he still refused, and said he would keep his station. When the troops were all on board the ships, they saw a party of forty or fifty men coming towards him ; he retired a little, and setting his back to a tree, fired his gun at them, then, throwing it aside, he drew his sword, ruslied amongst them, and after making considerable havoc was cut to pieces." Such was the end of Ewen Chisholm ; but to re- sume : The noon of the next day the llth August was passed before Mary became fully alive to the desolate nature of her position to all that she had lost and suffered and to the circumstance that in her deli- rium she had become the mother of a little daughter. TIIK MA^ACIM: AT FOKT WILLIAM IIKXRY. 1 l-'J was lying on a bed of soft furs of various kinds, within a hut formed l>v branches .and matting tied to , and covered with broad pieces of bark. Upon tin -so poles hung varipus Indian weapons, at the sight of which she closed her swimming eyes as the memory of her husband and the horrors of yesterday rushed u;>on her. An old Indian woman, hideous as a tawny skin full of wrinkles and streaked with paint could * her, sat near, squatted on the ground like a Burmese idol ; but this ancient squaw was nursing tho horn infant tenderly, and with care placed it in the. bu.Mjm of Mary, who wept and moaned with sorrow and joy as she pressed it in her arms, and the new emotions of a mother woke within her ; but again the light seemed to pass from her eyes, and a faintness over her. Then starting, she sought tP shake it off that she might look upon her child, and strive to trace the features of Roderick in her face ; but the weakin -.-s she suffered was too great she sank back upon the bed of furs, and lay still, and to all appear- asleep, though tears were oozing fast from her black lashes. Close by, behind a matting, crouched an Indian warrior. This person was Orono concealing himself, for the honest creature felt instinctively, that at such a critical time his presence or his aspect might very naturally excite the terror of the desolate patient. Two terrible questions were ever on the tongue aud in the heart of the latter. " Was Roderick safe T If so, how were she and her babe to join him 1 At last she ii-ineinbered Orono, who had j IHT, and on the third day, though weak, and though she knew it not dying she inquired of the squaw he \vw. K 2 Ml- LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " Here," replied the watchful Indian, stepping for- ward, while his eyes beamed with pleasure, on find- ing that he was not forgotten. "My husband, Orono know you aught of my husband ?" The Indian shook his head. " When did you last see him ?" she asked, im- ploringly. " Fighting against a hundred braves in the forest, where the pawaws of the French have put up two trees, thus," said he, crossing his fingers to indicate a cross made by the Jesuits near the Horican. "Alas ! my mother taught me that the way of the cross was the way to heaven. Oh, my husband ! and that at the foot of that cross I should give up my whole heart. God, who bringeth good out of evil, will order all things for the best ; but can this be, if my husband, my friend, my protector, the father of my babe, be slain ? May he not have been preserved for himself and this little one ? Oh, yes God is kind. His will is adorable," continued the poor girl, kissing her babe in a wild rapture of resignation and despair. She recalled with sorrow and horror the many whom she had seen so barbarously destroyed, and others whom she believed to have perished ; the brave soldiers, the kind old colonel, and the poor little boy, his son, to whom she had been almost a mother, during the terrors of the recent siege. Their voices lingered in her ear; their faces hovered before her. Orouo visited the place where he had last seen the " white chief," as he not inaptly named MacGillivray ; but could discover no trace of him. Many of the dead had already been interred by the soldiers of Till-: MASSAHJK AT n >UT WILMAM IIKNUY. 115 Montcalm, who now possessed the shattered remains of Fort William Henry; others had been devoured by wild animals. No body answering the description of Roderick had been, found or seen among the slain by the Iroquois. He was known to have a gold bracelet of Mary's, rivetted round his sword arm ; luit that might have been cut off, or buried with him, undiscovered. Mary felt a great repugnance for the old squaw; yet the poor Indian was kind and attentive in her o\\n barbarous fashion ; and the patient, while her in-art was swollen almost to bursting, conversed with her, in tin- hope of obtaining surer protection for her little one, and discovering some traces of its lather. " What would it avail you, were he found ?" asked -Why?" "Tin lied warriors would immediately take his scalp, for the oracles of the pawaws have driven them mud. After three days of conjuration, they have told us '' i hey are the pawaws a tribe of the Iroquois?" " They are our wise men our oracles." "And they told what?" " That the devils would not hinder the pale faces from being masters of our country. Wo have fought bravely ; but the brandy, the gold and silver of the Yengees are more powerful than the proph of tin- lying pawaws or the knives of our warriors." " Every Red man in the land has dug up the war- hatchet," said a strange guttural voice ; " tne print of tin- white moccassins will soon be effaced on the prairies and in tin: woods their graves alone will re- main their scalps and their bones." 146 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. The old squaw started nimbly forward, and poor Mary pressed her little naked babe clo.ser to IHT breast, on seeing the towering form of Ossong, streaked with his ghastly war paint, appear bet., her and the" door of the wretched wigwam in which she lay so helplessly at his mercy. " What seek you in the dwelling of Orono ?" demanded the Indian woman with some asperity. " Neither the squaw nor the papoose of the white man," replied Ossong, scornfully. "It is well. You are in your native land, and can find the bones of your fathers ; but here the poor squaw of the white chief is a stranger." "And Orono will protect her," added the other savage, who bore that name, stepping proudly forward. " The pawaws say our fathers come from the rising sun, and that we must go towards the place of its sotting that there is the future home of the Red man," said Ossong, as a savage glare lit up his eyes and he played with his scalping-knife ; " shall even one pale face be permitted to live, if such things are said ? Go Orono has become a woman I" With this taunt, the most bitter that can be made to an Indian, Ossong waved his hand,, and strode away with a sombre air of fury and disdain. As he left the hut, a glittering ornament which hung at his neck caught the eye of Mary. She uttered a faint cry, for she was weak and feeble, and while clutching her babe in one arm, strove to raise her attenuated form with the other. She endea- voured to call back Ossong ; but her voice failed, and she sank dispairingly on her bed of skins. Among the gewgaws which covered the broad breast of Ossong, to her horror, she had discovered the gilt TIIK MA>S.U'Ki: .-. WILLIAM HKNKY. 117 regimental gorget of her husband, which she knew too well, by its silver thistle, as there had be- n n<> i officer of Highlanders but he in Fort William Henry. Tli of Orono gleamed brightly; he, too, h.id detected the cause of her agitation, and he said, "It is an ornament of the pale chief, worn by ng." I " It was my husband's ! Oh, Orono, ask him for pity, ask him, where, when, how he obtained po sion of it" " Ossong is fierce as a Pequot," said the Iroquois, sadly. " Ask him, lest I die !" exclaimed Mary, pas- siona: " Ossong is a strong and fierce warrior," replied the savage, gently; "I will steal it for you, if I can. Ossong is cruel Listen ; he found a pale face on the shore of the Horican ; he was wounded and feebl'e, so Ossong stripped and bound him to a gum-tree, whore he roasted him with sedge-grass, and, before i. forced him to eat his own ears, which were cut off by a scalping-knife." " Oh, my husband !" exclaimed Mary, in despair ; "and a fiend such as this has had his hands on you :" " I fear aie/' said Orono, shaking his head, " that ho you weep for has gone to where the sun hides it night" " What mean you, Orono ?" " Away beyond the great prairies of the buffaloes to the place of sleep the \vi^\v;im of A here the Indian sleeps Bunder than oven the tire-water of the white man ean make him." 148 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " Alas ! you mean the grave ?" The Iroquois nodded his head, and relapsed into silence, while with a low moan at a suggestion which oo seemed to fulfil her own fears, and seemed only too probable, Mary fell back and became, to all appear- ance, insensible. Several days passed, during which she hovered be- tween time and eternity; but nothing, even in civilized life, could surpass the watchful 4dnd ness and atten- tion of the poor but grateful savage on whose mercy she found herself thrown. Hoiv Ossong became possessed of the regimental gorget whether he had found it in the wood, or torn it from her husband's neck when dead, Orono could never discover, as his tawny compatriot was animated in no measured degree by the worst attributes of the American Indian craft, timidity, fickleness, ferocity, revenge, and quickness of apprehension. Hence there were no means of wresting the important perhaps dreadful secret from him. He was soon after shot in a skirmish by the soldiers of Fort Ed- Avard, and the story of the gilded badge perished with him. " Oh, never to see my dear, dear husband again never, in this dreary world ! It is a terrible blow a dreadful and soul-crushing conviction !" Mary con- tinued to exclaim, " God has required many sacrifices of me ; but that Roderick should never see the wee pet-lamb I have brought into this vale of woe is the bitterest thought of all ; and to what a fate shall I leave it ! My heart is like a stone my brain a chaos." " Remain and be the squaw of Orono ; he is good and gentle, and will love the lonely pale face, and will teach her to hoe rice," said the enterprising pro- Till; MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM I1KNKY. 1 !' prietor of the wigwam, who also possessed a valuable property in wampum and scalp-locks. " Remain hero ! a month, yea, a week of this will kill me, Orono. Remain here, and so far away from my country from the deep glens where the heather ins so sweetly ! I cannot stay, Orono," continued the poor girl, wildly. "I have been taught to love my native land by the voices of my father, who fell in battle, of my mother, who died of sorrow, and of my bravo husband, who perished in this hated wil- derness !" "Orono understands," said the Indian, quietly; "he, too, loves the hunting-grounds of the Jroquois ; but he will protect the poor pale face and her child." Seeing her weep bitterly, after a pause, during which he regarded her attentively " Orono," said he, " is but a poor Indian warrior and knows not the God of the pale faces; but may , lir speak T v on." "Turn to the Great Spirit of the Iroquois, who dwells far away beyond the lakes and the prairies ; signed to his will. The lightning is not swifter than his wrath ; the hunting-grounds are not greater than his goodness. This Great Spirit knows every in the woods every ripple on the waters; and doubtless he has removed the white chief from evils more terrible than yonder battle by the Horicau ; for suddm death is good." " How think you so ?" " I know not; but the pawaws say so." Here was a subject for one who could reflect ; but the heart of .Mary seemed to have died within her. 150 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " Oh yes," continued the Indian, patting her white shoulder gently with his strong brown hand, and pointing south ; " he is gone to the abode of the Great {Spirit, to the happy hunting-grounds, where the souls of all brave warriors go, and where they seem to live again." " Oh that I were with him." " Orono has no squaw now ; but the Oneida girl who slept on his breast is there." " Orono," said the widow, touched by his tone, and gathering hope from his protection, "is a good warrior." " He is a brave one \" replied the Troquois, proudly. " It is better to be good than brave ; and you are good." " 0/ono is grateful to the squaw of the white chief, and has given his promise to protect her ; so the strongest and tallest braves of the Iroquois must respect that promise. My brothers say, Let the pale face die " " She will not trouble you long/' said Mary, weep- ing over her child, for which she had neither proper nurture nor little garments, nor even the rites of baptism. " Are we to perish, they cry, that pale faces may gather, and dig, and sow, on the sacred banks of the Horican ? Are they sent here to inherit the home of the Indian, the hunting-ground of his fathers, and the great solemn barrows where their bones lie by the Oswego and the Mississippi, as if the Great Spirit loved them better than his children the Iroquois." From this day fever of mind and body an illness for which she had neither nurse, physician, nor com- forts around her prostrated the faculties of the poor widow, for such she deemed herself. As each link in THK MAS.vU'KK AT TOUT WILLIAM HLXllV. 1 o I the chain of life is broken by death, wo are unlit ,1 -oly to those which remain ; but to poor Mary nil seemed a hopeless blank. The last link child, \vhos" feeble life and doubtful future filled her with dismay. Now that Roderick was gone, her heart seemed to follow him. She clung with fonder affection to the world that was to come, and where she was to : him; but her babe, could she selfishly forsake it? lli-r In 'art was sorely lacerated. Eternity seemed close terribly close to her ; and her husband being th> re, instituted to her a more endearing tie betv this world and that mysterious " bourne from whence no traveller returns." She had no terror of this journey, for he whom she loved with all the strength of her soul had gone before and awaited her there. At times she fancied that he chid her delay ; she felt drawn towards that spirit-world by a chord of tion which made her now yearn for it, as before she had wept and yearned for her Highland home. But her babe so innocent and so deserted could she die and leave it among the Iroquois? How did Roderick die where? Peacefully or in torture ? Was he buried, or lying still unentombed? i dreadful questions and thoughts were ever re her in the intervals of waking from her fits of limn, which often lasted for hours; and her snatches of sleep were filled by horrible dreams. Jn these intervals a new hope dawned in her h Her husband might have escaped and gained Fort Kdward or the army of Montcalm, and she miidii >et r .-i.-h him with her child if protected by Oi This idea gave a new and exciting impulse to her already >v. r\vnu^ht frame; but it came, alas! too . for, a few days after the birth of her little one, 132 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. she too surely felt herself dying dying there with none to hear her story, or to whom she could bequeath her helpless babe a thought sufficient alone to kill her. With the last effort of her strength she took from her now matted hair the Celtic marriage brooch (the old palladium of her husband's family) which she had kept there concealed since the day of their departure from Fort William Henry, and fixing it to a fragment of her own dress, which she had wrapped round the infant, pointed to it, that Orono might deem it an amulet or talisman " a great medicine"- and expired ! * * * * It was about the time of sunset, and before inter- ring the body in a deep grave which he had scooped at the foot of a gum-tree, and lined with soft furs, Orono sat silent and watching in his wigwam. Near the dead mother her unconscious child slept peace- fully. The poor Indian was perhaps praying, and feeling thankful in his heart that he had discharged a debt of gratitude, and would yet do more by con- veying the little orphau to the nearest white settle- ment, and there leaving her to her fate. The evening was beautiful, like those which pre- ceded the siege and the massacre. A mellow sunset was deepening on the hills' that overlook the waters of Lake George, and the setting beams played with a wavering radiance on the green foliage that was tossed like verdant plumage by the evening wind, and on the ripples that ran before it over the bosom of that lovely lake. All was still within the Indian hut where the dead woman lay, with her long black lashes resting on the pallid cheek from which they never more would rise ; and with her pure, pale profile, sharply defined against the coarse grass matting that screened THE MASSACRE AT FORT WILLIAM IIF.XUY. K.:J lier wivt<'ln-d couch. Crouching on one side was the old squaw, appalled by the marble hue of the strange corps,' ; on the other sat Orono, divested of his plume ami all his ornaments in token of grief, with his deep glittering eyes fixed on the rocky bluffs which seemed to start forward from the copse-covered slopes, and were tln'ii tinted with a deep purple by the sinking sun. As the last rays died away from the volcanic peaks, th" Indian started up and prepared to inter the i. mains of poor Mary, when the glittering epaulettes and appointments of a Frencli officer, who was lead- inn his horse by the bridle, appeared at the door of , igwam. He was the Baron de Beauchatel, with the gold cross of St. Louis dangling on the lapelle of the gay white uniform of the Grenadiers of Guienne. Having lost his way in the forest, he now sought a guide to tin i amp of Montcalm ; but the dead mother caught his i -ye at the moment he peered into the obscurity of tin- hut. "Mon Dieu ! what have we here?" he asked, with sorpi " The squaw and papoose of a pale chief," replied tin- apparently unmoved Indian. " Dead a lady, too !" exclaimed the French officer, stooping over her with a commiseration that was .tly increased when he discovered that she was V"ium and beautiful. He gently pressed her thin white hand, and lifted her soft black hair. "And this is her child ?" Orono nodded. " Almost newly born how calmly it sleeps ! The poor infant alone in this wilderness Tete Dieu ! it is frightful ! Tell me all about this, Imquois, and 1 will reward you handsomely with a now English clasp- 154 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. knife, a bottle of eau de vie, a blanket, or whatever else your refined taste teaches you to prize most." In his own language, by turns soft and guttural, Orouo related to the baron all that he knew of the white woman ; that she had twice saved his life, and that he, ingratitude, had protected her from the Iroquois ; but he had no power over the Great Spirit. The baron was a humane and gallant French officer of the old days of the monarchy. He had been a gay fellow some few years before, and had been sent to America (according to Parisian gossip) because he had been too favourably noticed by Madame de Pompadour; but he had a good and tender heart ; thus, the story of the poor mother, and the helplessness of her orphan, stirred him deeply. By the whole aspect of the dead, and the remains of her attire, he suspected that her rank and position in life had been good a lady at least. A ring upon the fourth finger of her left hand, bearing the name of her husband in GaeUc, he gently removed ; he then cut off some of her fine black hair, and, after making a few memoranda descriptive of her person, he bargained with the Indian that he should give up the child for a few francs. This the Iroquois at once agreed to do, and, with the assistance of the baron, Mary was wrapped in furs and buried under a tree on the sequestered shore of the Horican. To Beauchatel it seemed strange and repugnant that a Christian woman should be laid there without a prayer or a blessing, on the rough mould that covered her pale attenuated form, her pains and her sorrows ; but it was long since he had prayed ; yet, with an impulse of piety, he cut on the bark of the tree, which covered the place where she lay, a large cross, and raising his hat retired. The act was in itself a prayer ! Till: MA VT FORT WILLIAM IIKNIIV. 1 .V) " Can I now do aught for you ?" he asked of Orono. The Indian mournfully shook his head, and then said, " Give me a new musket, for the time is coming the time that has boon foretold." "By whom?" " The sachems, the pawaws, and the old men of the ;ois." " And what shall happen, mon camarade ?" " The warriors of the Six Nations will break the pipe of peace and dig up the great war-hatchet," ..ainst whom ?" .1 who corne from the land of the rising sun." . io it so," said the baron, shrugging his shoulders, ami looking with some anxiety towards the long shadows, that darkened in the forest vistas ; " you .shall ha\v your musket ; but give me the child, iiion ; and now for the camp of Louis do JSt. V. ran I" * -.:-. * Let us change the scene. Jt is 1778, exactly twenty-one years after the r\viiis n -curded as having happened at Fort William IL-nry. We are now in France, in the sunnv province of Guienne, an7 bathed in the broad light of a glorious June sunset. But Th always do." "Poor, poor fellows!" sighed Therese ; " ah, Nanon, I feel sad when I see them, for M. le Baron says my mother was one of these people : yet it ...s so strange that I should ever have had any r than Therese de St. Veran dear Madame hi !u-ss<-, whom the Blessed Virgin has taken to herself See how they crowd into that little boat! Oh, mon Dieu ! the brave reckless fellows it will never hold them all !" " And the stream is deep and rapid there." See see, Dieu ! what has happened !" shrieked .on. " Overturned the boat has overturned." " No 'tis* man overboard ! he is in the stream, and drowning !" 1 Oh, I cannot look- upon this!" said Therese, shrinking back and burying her face in her hands, while loud cries of alarm ascended from the river to the windows of the chateau ; but Nanon, whose ner- vous teiiiju nunent was less delicate than that of her .ess, continued to gaze steadily. Two men were swimming or splashing in the water. One had fallen overboard ; the other had plunged in i occur or save him ; but both were swept away by the stream. In short, the former was soon OfOwneo, ami the latter rescued with the utmost difficulty. When tln'.j'jvd on shore he was quite insensible ; but tin- officer in command of the escort, having no time nare, desired four of his men to form a litter with thi-ir muskets, and bear him to the Chateau do V Inline, as the m at. jj phuv where the usual m might be adopted for the restoration of life. 16-1 LEGENDS OF TIIK BLACK WATCH. The half-drowned man, who had perilled life so gallantly to save the unfortunate soldier, was an officer, and moreover, one that was sure to win favour in French eyes, being young, handsome, and an Offider d'Ecossais, as Nanon reported minutely to her startled mistress, who had promptly all her household in attendance on the sufferer, though she dared not peep into his room in person. At last Nanon brought the joyous intelligence that he was " recovering, and had opened a pair of such beautiful eyes " so here was a stirring episode for our young demoiselle, who, a half hour before, had been so dull and ennuye that she was weary of her own charming self and all the world beside. France and Britain were still, as we last left them twenty-one years ago, engaged in the lively and profit- able occupation of fighting battles, battering fleets and burning towns in America, where the subject of taxa- tion had occasioned hostilities between the mother country and her colonies, whose forces, led by Washing- ton, were aided in the strife by the armies and fleets of France, Spain, and Holland. Some days elapsed before the young officer, who was on his parole of honour, had sufficiently recovered to appear on the terrace of the chateau, where Mademoiselle Therese and the gossiping Nanon re- ceived him in due form. He was pale and thin from the effects of a wound, his long sea voyage, and the severe treatment to which prisoners of war were usually subjected in those days ; but all this only served to make him the more interesting to the two girls, who were quite flattered by the presence of the chance visitor fortune had sent them to enliven the old chateau. His uniform was sorely dilapidated ; the lace and epaulettes of his scarlet coat were Tin: MASSACKI: AT FORT WILLIAM in:xi:v. 1 darkened by powder and long service, and it con- sorted oddly with a pair of French hussar pantaloons. Still, notwithstanding these disadvantages, his bear- ing . gallant, and gentlemanly ; and in very jjood French he thanked the lady of Fontbrune for her humanity and hospitality. " May I ask your name, monsieur ?" asked Therese, timidly. Munro Hector Munro." " And your regiment?" " The Black Watch -Ecossais." ( )h, indeed," said Therese, with her dark eyes brightening; for to belong to a Scottish regiment in tho-c days (and even in the present} was as sure a guide to French favour as if he could have answered, " The Irish Brigade." " And you were taken prisoner " " In America, mademoiselle, on the Acushnet River, where my regiment was serving with the brigades of idiers and light infantry then ordered to destroy :i number of pirates who made New Plymouth their haunt. This we achieved successfully, but not with- out severe loss." - \Vere you not dreadfully frightened ?" " I was then under fire for the first time" said the young officer, smiling. " And how did you feel oh, pray tell me ?" " A tightening of the breast a long-drawn breath, as thefirst shot whizzed past my ear ; another as the tir>t cannon-ball seemed to scream in the air over- land, and then I rushed on fearless, filled by a fierce and tumultuous joy. I heard only the din of the li;iupij)L.s and tin- cheers of my comrade?. But I lost my way in the \vn..ii,and falling among a detachment of the Regiment of Languedoc, was made a prisoner. ICG LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. With many others in the same predicament, I was soon shipped off for France, and so have the honour to appear before you." " And who was the soldier for whom you risked your life ?" " A sergeant of the Regiment of Languedoc." " A Frenchman I" 11 Yes, mademoiselle ; the same man who made me prisoner in America." " Ah, mon Dieu ! and you tried to save him ! How noble !" " Mademoiselle, my father, who was a brave old soldier, taught me that when the sword was in the scabbard all men are brothers." '' And your rank ?" " Lieutenant; and now," he added, bitterly, " I may remain a prisoner for ten years perhaps, with my hopes blighted, my promotion stopped, and my pay gone." " It is very sad," replied Therese, casting down her fine eyes, which she feared might betray the interest she already felt in the young prisoner of war ; " but when the baron comes home from Paris he will be here in three days we shall see what can be done for you." Three days poor little Therese ! by that time she was irrevocably in love with young Hunro, and Nauon left nothing undone or unsaid to convince her that the passion was quite mutual. Though they did not meet at meals, they, were constantly together on the terraces and in the gardens of the chateau ; thus it was impossible for this young man to spend his time in the society of such a girl as Therese, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty (a. fair bloom that belonged not to Franco), without feeling his heart in- THE MASSACRE AT FOIIT WILLIAM HKXKY. 1G7 fluenced ; while her artless ami charming manner, which liy turns was playful, sad, earnest,. or winning, hucil him into a passion against which his 1. judgment strove in vain ; for he knew the danger and absurdity of a subaltern a prisoner of war a lad without rank, home, friends, or subsistence and more than all, in that land of tyranny, bastilles, and lettres de cachet, engaging in a love affair with a lady of rank and wealth. " In three days," thought he, " this deuced old baron returns ; but in three days I shall be well enough to be out of the sick list, to march off from here, and report myself at the Chateau de Trom- According to the author of Dream Life, "Youth- ful passion is a giant ! It overleaps all the dreams and all the resolves of our better and quieter nature, and madly drives toward some wild issue that lives only in its own frenzy. How little account does pas- sion take, of goodness ! It is not within the cycle of volution it is below it is tamer it is older it wears no wings/' So the evening of the sixth day passed into twi- light, and found M. Hector Munro, of his Britannic Majesty's i2nd Highlanders, still lingering by tin- side of Therese in the. garden of that delightful old chaieau by the " silvery Garonne," when the ominous sound of horses' hoofs, and of wheels rasping on the v.-l under the antique porte cochere, announced the return of the Baron de Beauchatel 1 rese grew deadly pale. " Your father he has arrived, and I must bid you farewell," said Munro, kissing her trembling hands with sudden emotion. luunsieur," said Therese, iu an imploring 168 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. voice. So " monsieur" stayed ; to go was impos- sible. " M. le Baron !" exclaimed Nanon, rushing towards them, while her round black eyes dilated with excite- ment ; " M. le Baron, and oh, mon Dieu, M. le Comte d'Arcot is with him I" " M. d'Arcot I" murmured poor Therese, and stood rooted to the spot, the statue of terror and grief ; for, after six days such as the last, to meet an old and previously unknown fiance with the cordiality requi- site, was more than poor human nature could bear or achieve. The baron, who was considerably changed in person since we last had the pleasure of seeing him, having become stout and paunchy, abrupt and irritable in manner, now approached, leading, and indeed almost pulling forward a tall, thin, and soldier-like Chevalier of St. Louis, whose form and face seemed wasted by inward thought and care, by exposure to the burn- ing sun of India and the toils of war, rather than by lapse of time ; yet he seemed quite old, though in reality not much more than fifty years of age. His hair, which he wore unpovvdered, was white as snow, and was simply tied behind by a black ribbon. He wore the undress uniform of a French Mare'chal du Camp, and leaned a little on his cane as he walked. " Mademoiselle de Beauchatel my daughter M. le Comte d'Arcot," said the baron, introducing them, and kissing Therese. " M. le Comte is most welcome to Fontbrune," said Therese, presenting her trembling hand to the tall old soldier, who kissed it respectfully; and after a few polite commonplaces, muttered hurriedly, on the calm- ness of the evening, the beauty of the chateau, its gardens, the scenery, &c., she drew aside to wipe away THE MASSACHE AT FORT WILLIAM III-XRV. 109 her tears, and desire Nanon to conceal Munro or get him quietly away. "What think you of her?" asked the baron, rtly. She is most lovely; but now, rny dear Beau- 1, though I have come to visit you, pray forget your project of the marriage." " Forget the object nearest my heart !" exclaimed the impetuous baron. " To unite an old veteran, a man of a withered heart, to a blooming young girl December to May it is absurd, my dear baron I" replied the Mardchal du Camp, laughing. " Absurd parbleu ! do not say so." " I assure you it is." When you know her, you will be charmed." " I do not doubt it," replied D'Arcot ; " but oh ! what is this that moves me ? Her face seems more than familiar to me, and recals some old friend or relative." " Impossible, comte ; you have been more than in India, and she is barely twenty-one." Therese came forward again, and the comte began to examine her features with a fixed and earnest gaze, which filled her timid heart with inexpressible fear and confusion. At that moment the baron's eye caught the red coat of poor Munro, who had withdrawn a little way back, and was irresolute whether to advance or retire on finding himself so suddenly de trop where hitherto he had been so much at home. "Oh, sacre bleu!" exclaimed Beauchatel, drawing his sword in a sudden gust of fury and suspicion, as he rushed upon the stranger; "whom have we here?" 170 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK \VATCH. Therese uttered a cry and sprang forward ; but she was less alert than Count d'Arcot, who, at that moment, threw himself between the baron and the object of his jealous anger. " Permit me, to arrange this matter," said the Mare'chal du Camp, unsheathing his sword ; " officer, answer me truly on your honour on your life how long you have been here." " Six days, M. le Comte." " Oh, sang Dieu !" swore the baron, pirouetting about in a fresh gust of fury ; " six whole days." " How came you here V " On a litter, insensible being half-drowned, in attempting to save the life of a French soldier in the Garonne." " You are a prisoner " " On my parole," interrupted Munro, bowing. " One of those who were landed at Castillon from America, and were en route for the Chateau de Trompette?" " Exactly, M. le Comte." " You are named- 1 " " Munro Hector Munro, lieutenant in the 42nd Highlanders." " The old Black Watch !" said the Mare'chal du Camp, sheathing his sword, while an inexplicable ex- pression came over his grave features ; " I once knew well an officer who bore the good old name of Munro." " My father, perhaps," said the prisoner, anxiously ; " he was a brave soldier." " Was he is, then, dead ?" " He fell in action against the Spaniards \" "Where?" " At the storming of the Moro Castle." Till: UK AT FOIIT WILLIAM IIKXUY. 171 " And what was his rank ?" 'olonel of his Britannic Majesty's 60th Regiment of Infantry." " Or Royal Americans ?" continued the count, with a kindling eye. .esame, M. le Comte." " Did he command at Fort William Henry, where led troops were so shamefully abandoned by General Webb, and were afterwards massacred by the Iroquois ?" " He did. I was saved from that massacre by the of a French soldier. It was my second narrow escape from the Iroquois, then ; for once before two Indians bore me into the forest, and my life was spared by the luckiest chance in the world." " You must have been very young," said Beau- chatel ; " I too, served there, and am quite an old fellow now." " I was a mere child, messieurs, in those days." " Ah, they will soon be friends now !" thought Therese ; " already they are comrades." " And you were saved " resumed D'Arcoi " By an officer named MacGillivray, who was on liis march to join that ill-fated garrison with a party of the Black Watch, the same regiment to which I have now the honour to belong. Then folloAved that unparalleled massacre, the memory of which seems like a horrible dream to me." " And to me, too, boy ; for I, also, was at the siege of Fort William Henry, and I was that lieutenant of the Black Watch who saved you from the Iroqu said Count d'Arcot, taking the hand of Munro in his; "I had, then, a wife perhaps a child," In- addod in a troubled voice; "but both lie buried in the forest by the shore of Lake George !" 172 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " Your wife, M. le Comte," said Beaucliatcl ; " how did she die ?" " Not as the leaves die when the summer is over ; for she was torn from me by the hands of the accursed Iroquois my beloved Mary ! After the lapse of one and twenty years, baron, her image, so noble, so gentle, and so womanly, fills up my past, as once it filled my future. I was taken prisoner, as you know, and joining the French army in sheer disgust of the British, whose conduct, under Webb, mad- dened me, I have attained in India the rank I now bear, and which I never could have won in the armies of the House of Hanover." " Stay paste ! a sudden light breaks in upon me !" exclaimed the baron, smiting his forehead ; " ah, tnon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! if it should be !" "What?" " Excuse me, messieurs, for one moment ; a thought has struck me !" said the impulsive Frenchman, and rushing into the house, he returned in a few moments, bearing in his hands an antique oak casquet, in which he kept his commissions, his diplomas, orders of knighthood, and other objects of value; and, drawing therefrom the brooch which had been found upon the dress of Therese when a child, he placed it in the hands of the count. As Eoderick MacGillivray, now M. le Comte d'Arcot, Governor of Pondicherry, Mare'chal du Camp, and Colonel of the Regiment du Hoi, a man grown old by war and thought and time, saw the ancient and well-known heirloom of his house the marriage- brooch of the brides of Gleuarrow the same mystic symbol which, in youth, he had bestowed upon his v/ife, a sudden tremor came over him, and a flush and then a pallor crossed his wrinkled face. THK M\SSACl;i: AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 173 Locltnwy f" he muttered in his native language, whirh he had so long unused; "touch not tlte cat U'tt/nmt flu' ijlm-i-. Oh my Gqd ! whence came this trinket, Beauchatel ?" " I found it fastened to the dress of a newly-horn Lunr in the forest near Lake George a babe that lay on the breast of its dead mother, in the wigwam of an Iroquois, and on her finger was this ring, inscribed ' . " RoderaickRuadh MacGillibhreac my own name, and my gift it was to Mary, the grand-daughter of the murdered Maclan of Glencoe," exclaimed Mac Gillivray, in an agonized voice, as his eyes filled with ; "and you buried her " " By my own hands, at the foot of a tree, which I marked with a cross " " God bless thee, my brave and honest Beau- chatel !" exclaimed Roderick. " And there she lies in peace." " But the babe, baron the little babe ?" " Therese she stands before you." The veteran Comte d'Arcot opened his arms, and tin- pale and agitated girl found herself pressed to the breast of her newly- discovered father. * * * * Our readers may guess the sequel. Hector Munro of the Black Watch remained a prisoner of war in France until the autumn of 1782, when a general peace was concluded. He was on parole not to pass beyond two miles from the gates of the Chateau de Trompette. As the mansion of Therese was within that boundary, he found his limits ample enough, and long before that auspicious day when the cannon on the ramjarts of Buunleaux announced the peace of tho two countries, and the 174 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. independence of America, he had become the son-in- law of Count d'Arcot The latter, soon after, seeing the approaching storm of the Revolution, transferred himself and all his pro- perty to Britain, and thus escaped the fate of the loyal and gallant Beauchatel, whose noble chateau was destroyed, and whose fate is thus recorded in a despatch of the Comte d'Artois, dated Coblentz, 10th June, 1793. "M. Beauchatel rivalled his forefathers in glory and in faith. He died in battle, at the head of his Emigrant Regiment, and lies in the trenches of Lisle, a fitting grave for the premier Chevalier de St. Louis" 175 V. THE WIFE OF THE RED COMYN. MY OUANDFATHKB'S STOBT. THK old gentleman had served in the 42nd High- landers, or old Black Watch, in early life, and could to us endless yarns of the bloody affair of Ticon- drwga, where the regiment had no less than six hundred and forty-seven officers and soldiers killed or wounded ; the expedition to the Lakes ; the sur- render of Montreal ; the siege of the Moro, and the ing, flaying alive, the tomahawking, and other little pleasantries incidental to the relief of Fort Pitt in 17<>-" ; and of that devilish business with the Red .Indians amid the swamps and rocks at Bushy Run, all of which were " familiar in our mouths as house- hold words ;" while, to the venerable narrator, the smell of gunpowder, the flavour of Feriixtosh,' or the skirl of a bagpipe were like the elixir vitas of the anrii MI! s, and seemed to renew his'youth, strength, and spirit for a time ; and thus the fire of other years would flash up within him, like the last gleam of a sinking lamp, as we sat by our bogwood tire in the long winter nights of the North. In the year 1768, his regiment was cantoned in ay, where it was reviewed by Major-Gem i.d Artni^er, and the old gentleman was wont to !> that, exc-opt two Lowland Scots, every soldier in its ranks was from the clans that dwell northward of the M 'I 17G LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Tay, "and happily for the corps," he used to add, " these two were knocked on the head during the onfall at Long Island." The regiment, then for the third time in Ireland, remained there for seven years. During 1772, it was employed in suppressing tumults occasioned by the complicating interests and adverse views of the Catholic and Protestant landlords and tenants in Antrim and elsewhere ; and in this deli- cate service their Highlanders were found particularly useful, from th*e knowledge of the language and their gentle bearing towards the people, whom by old tra- dition they believed to be sprung from the same stock as themselves. Though some of the Highland tribes have a proverb which says, cha b'ionann Brien is na Gael that O'Brien and the Gael are not alike, yet they found many sympathies in common to wit, a love of fun and breaking heads ; a jealousy of the English ; an aversion to still-hunting, and a just, laudable, and commendable antipathy to all gaugers and tax-gatherers. For the ticklish service of settling disputes in the neighbourhood of Antrim, it pleased his Majesty George III. to order that an additional company of the Black Watch should be raised among the Breadal- bane Campbells ; and it was soon seen, that though the slaughter of Ticonderoga had carried woe and desolation to many a lonely hearth and loving heart in the country of the clans, so far from extinguishing the military ardour of the Highland youth, it made them more than ever anxious to enrol themselves in the ranks of the Reicudan Dim, for so was the regi- ment named, from the dark colours of its plumes and tartans, in contradistinction to the troops of the line, who wore scarlet coats, white waistcoats, pipeclayed breeches And flour-powdered wigs, with .queues, poma- TI1K \VIFfc OF THE RED COMYN. 177 turned curls, and looped-up hats, having the true Blen- heim cock and the star of Brunswick i.e. the black It.'.-uher cockade of the Protestant succession, which still survives on the chapeaux of the penny postman. My grandfather was popular among the Breadal- li:uieraen, to please whom he had, at various times, hanged suiulry MacNabsand MacAlpines, whose ideas of the eighth commandment were somewhat vague ; thus on being sent into "the marquis's country" to r.ciuit, lie rnis'-i I the required company in three days, inarched down from the hills of Glen Urchai with pi|>es playing, across the dreary Braes of Rannoch, and du\vn by the Brig of Tay with a hundred of the handsomest men that ever became food for gun- powder, all clad in their native tartans, and well armed, each with his own sword, dirk and pistols, to which the Government added the usual arms and ac- coutrements of the line. From Perth, the captain ordered to march his company to Glasgow, there to embark for Ireland ; and proceeding en ronf<\ after leaving Falkirk and traversing the remains of the Torwood, he found himself, with his little com- niaii'l, approaching the burgh of Kirkintulloch one (livary November evening, just as the dusk \\as closing in, while the rain fell in torrents, and the wind swept in gusts through the pastoral hollows and hurled the wet and withered leaves furiously before it There he was compelled to halt, and oblige the authorities to procure immediate quarters for a hun- dr-'l Highlanders a race of whom the westland Whigs had harboured a holy aversion and wholesome terror, since the epoch of the Great Montrose and his lap -devil Cavaliers, ono hundred and twenty years before. " But what has all this to do with the Wife of the 178 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. Red Comyn ?" the reader may ask. I answer, every- thing for had not my grandfather halted on that wet November night in the ancient burgh of Kirkintul- loch, that good lady though she made some noise in her time had never been introduced to the reader's notice. So patience yet awhile. The soldiers were soon distributed among the people by the town constable, and in a few minutes after seeing the last man off to his billet, my grandfather found himself standing before the gate of the Castle of Kirkintulloch drenched through plaid and philabeg, while the rain dripped gracefully from his long feathers into the nape of his neck, and the water spouted from his scabbard as from a syringe when he sheathed his claymore. Draggled and weary, he knocked furiously against the gate of the huge mansion, on which, as being the most important in the town, he was billeted as commander of the forces. Being a Celt, 'and not blessed with overmuch patience, he thrust his billet-order almost into the mouth of the servant who opened the door, and then swaggered in with all the air of a man who had heard the forty days' cannonade at the Moro ; but a couple of good drams from a jolly magnum bonum of Ferintosh, which were given to him without delay, at once re- stored his equanimity, and, chucking the plump housekeeper under the chin, my grandfather or, as I shall call him in future, the captajn proceeded up- stairs. This ancient Castle of Kirkintulloch, which had been stormed by Edward I. of England, but re-taken by the Scots, was a good specimen of the gloomy mansions of the Middle Ages, when every Scotsman was forced to keep watch and ward against his neigh- bour, and, more than all, against Southern invasion; THK WIFE OP THE UKI) COMYX. 179 for it was built by tlic Comyns, who flourished iu the - of Malcolm III., and were Lords of Lin ton Ro- deriek and uf Batlenoch, and Avho made a ,L Jigim- during the reigns of the three Alexanders and rtl. In those turbulent times every Scotsman was a soldier, and a brave one, too ; every house was a for- , every fortress a citadel, and its inmates were a garrison, while the urgent necessity for security caused tin 1 Scottish baron literally to found his dwelling on a rock. A site alike remote and inaccessible was usually selected, on the isle of some deep lake, or the brow of a sequestered hill, and there the Scottish feudatory 1 the mansion in which his race were to dwell, to bo married and given in marriage, to be born and to di.-, ''while grass grew and water ran" the strong suuare peel-house, with its corbelled battlements, through the openings of which missiles could be shot securely ; its stone-flagged roof; its irregular slits or windows, all strongly grated, though ninety or a hundred feet from the base, and girdled by a bar- bican, having an arched gate and flanking tov. .Such was unvaryingly the external aspect of tin- dwelling of a Scottish baron, and such was the Castle of Kirkintulloch. Above the gate, which bristled with loopholes for musketry, were the armorial bearings of Robert ( '"inyn, who was slain at the battle of Alnwick, and the monogram of his descendant, the black Lord of JJadenoch, who married the Princess Mar; ilan.vhtf-r of King John Baliol, and whoso son was the last of his race. After taking a draught from the cup of alt; which was filled for him, as for all other visitors, from a ban-! ISO LEGENDS OF. THE BLACK WATCH. which stood in a recess of the entrance lobby, the captain ascended the hollow-stepped stair to the common hall of the venerable tower. Internally the accommodation and construction were of the plainest description. A narrow turn- pike stair gave access to the various floors of the keep. The first of these being the levelled rock on which the edifice was founded, was vaulted, and con- tained the pit or dungeon, with cellars for the stores necessary to a crowded household during the long northern winter, and there was also a deep draw-well hewn through the living rock. The next contained the arched hall into which our wet and weary captain was ushered with much formality. Its floor was paved ; the fireplace was of stone, and had ingle-seats within its arch. The windows were deeply embayed, and were secured by shutters within and iron bars without. The sun, when it shone through the half- darkened halls of those days, must have imparted to the dwelling of the Scottish baron the aspect of a prison ; thus their prisons became dungeons, for the good folks of the olden time knew no medium in anything. A gigantic fire blazed redly 09 the hearth, and by its light the captain could discern a number of those unfortunate wights who, as casual guests, trencher- men, or boys-of-the-belt, in that year, 1 772, shared the old-fashioned hospitality of the Flemings of Kirkintulloch ; but not being of sufficient conse- quence to have separate apartments, lay rolled up in their plaids on the benches, or among the stag- hounds that nestled together on the warm hearth- stone. The reader may deem my description somewhat minute, but the events which occurred to my vene- THK win: m THK RED COMVX. 181 rable kinsman in the old stronghold of the Corny ns, ami ;i tale which In- heard there, served to impress y feature of it on his memory, and thus it bore a prominent place in his narrative. As he entered the hall, a stout and jolly-looking old man, who sat with his sturdy legs stretched out before the lire, one hand supporting a long pipe in his mouth, <;hcr resting on a silver tankard of mulled claret, up at his approach and bade him welcome. The f;vshioii of this person's dress was old for still the Scots are always a year or two behind every innova- tion; his red vest was deeply flapped, his coat of brown broadcloth was square-tailed, with enormous cull's and silver buttons ; he wore a brown bob peri- with a single row of curls round the bottom thereof; square buckles on his square-toed shoes, and a hat cocked with great exactness in the form of an equilateral triangle, completed the costume of the old chamberlain or castle bailie of the Laird of Kirk- intuUbch. " A cold night, bailie," said the captain ; " I am sorely chilled, having marched from the Torwood amid this tempest of wind and rain." The more are you welcome, sir, to the Castle of Kirkintulloch," replied the bailie, placing a chair; "and if a draught from this tankard of hot mulled claret will comfort you, take it and welcome, while something better is preparing." "A thousand thanks, good bailie," replied the captain, as he drained the silver pot which came set 'tiling from the glowing hob. Being thoroughly drenched, he begged the bailie would have him shown to an apartment where he niii^ht change certain portions of his attire. A boy in the livery of the Flemings, with their goat-head 182 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. worked on his sleeves, appeared to conduct him, and, taking a candle, the lad, who was evidently disph at being summoned from the warm fire of the kitchen, which in the Scoto-French fashion adjoined the hall, hurried up the staircase before the captain, leaving him to follow as he pleased. I have already hinted that my grandfather was somewhat short-tempered, so he swore one of those hearty oaths which our army picked up so glibly in Flanders, adding, " Hollo ! you young devil do you mean to leave me here in the dark ?" Without heeding him, the lad sprang to the top of the stairs, and hastened across the landing-place into an apartment, leaving the captain to ascend by no other light than the feeble rays that fell from a candle in a tin sconce, which hung on the wall in the first turn of the spiral stair. Looking angrily up in search of his guide, the captain saw or thought he saw a lady cross the landing-place. She was tall, and her white profile was stem and grave, and she was attended by the most diminutive black dwarf in the world a little creature who ap- peared absolutely to perspire under the weight of her enormous train, which was of some dark rich stuff, but brilliantly brocaded with white stars. The captain paused and bowed very low, lifting up the end .of his long claymore, believing that this stately dame might wish to descend ; but when he raised his head again she was gone ! Her disappearance was so sudden that he was confounded, and rubbed his eyes. '' Can the long march against a chill November wind have affected my vision ?" thought he ; " or has that brimming tankard of hot claret affected my nerves ? Impossible ! Tush the dame has been scared by my draggled appearance, and has hastened THE \\IFK OF THK RKT) COMYX. 183 into ono of these apartments ;" so the old gentleman tnish oath, and reached the top of 018. The guide now reappeared, and ho would certainly have had his ears pulled, but the captain's mind was strangely agitated by thoughts of the lady, whose tall aristocratic figure, and pure, cold, and almost sublimo profile seemed to be still before him in the dusk. J It- was shown into a handsome bed-chamber, which lighted by four candles in brass-mounted holders trved oak. The walls were hung with antique leather, of a pale yellow colour, embossed with red llowers ; the bed was very ancient, and resembled the canopied tombs one occasionally sees in old chuiv r the mantelpiece was a Latin legend, informing the visitor that in this chamber the wife of the Red Comyn had died a prisoner in the year of our redemp- tion 1310. " Four hundred and sixty two years ago," quoth the ,iin, after airing his subtraction a little; "ugh! bow gloom vibe place looks, compared to the cheerful hall so gloomy, indeed, that I shall be here as little -/i!>le before marching to-morrow." lie Hung off his belted plaid, badgerskin sporan, and sword- Kelt, wrung the water from his kilt and l'r< mi the curls of his periwig, smoothed his queue, donned a p.-iir of dry hose, and, after giving a casual glance to the primings and charges of his pistols, which were a pair of true steel-butted Doune pops, from the armoury of old Thomas Caddel, he turned to leave the chamber, from the ceiling of which a dried kingfisher hung by a thread; for it is an old superstition that the bird will turn his bill to f/tut it from which tho \\ind Mows. Taking one of the candles, the captain left the 184 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. chamber, and was about to descend, when by some " glamour" he mistook the way; for being supper I am convinced that the hot wine had affected his head ; he stumbled against a door ; it flew open, and he found himself in the dressing apartment of a lady, whose face was turned towards him, and by the lights on a side-table he perceived at a glance that she was the same queenly dame who had recently crossed the landing-place. She gazed fixedly at the amazed in- truder, as she stood before a mirror, with her round polished shoulders turned towards him, and her jet black hair gathered up in heavy massQS on her slender fingers, for she seemed in the act of dressing it. From a faultless bust, her dark dress, brocaded with stars, hung in magnificent folds to her feet, where, crouching like a marmoset, the hideous little dwarf was sitting. Her figure was beautiful, but so motionless and still, as she gazed with eyes full of indignation and inquiry, that the words of apology huug half arrested on the lips of the bowing intruder, who, in another moment, discovered that he had before him a picture only a picture; but one painted in the first style of antique art. Nothing artistic could be more beautifully executed than the upturned and polished arms, from which the lace that foreign looms must have woven, hung in loops upheld by diamonds. A necklace of precious stones encircled her neck, and a large band of the same formed a coronet round her head, and gave an imperial grace to her lofty beauty of feature and of form. The captain gazed on it till the figure appeared to come forward and the canvas to recede, till the eyes seemed to fill with light and the proud lips to curl with a scornful smile ; and then he turned away, for THE WIFE OP THE RED COMYX. the strange picture had a mysterious effect upon him, ami hastily he sought the hall, where a hot and savoury supper smoked on the centre table, :md where thr bailie or castellan of the absent proprietor impa- tit ntly awaited him. " Conn- awa, sir come awa ; I thought you meant to bide up -stairs a' night. Here are hot collops, devilled turkey, stewed kidneys, mulled claret, port, slu-rry, and whisky toddy draw in a chair, sir, and make yourself at name.' " 1 have a hawk's appetite, bailie," said my kins- man, applying himself assiduously to the devil and the sherry. " And I ditto, double for I have ridden in from Stirling market to-day ; try the cold gibelotte pie." " Thank you ; I'll rather stick to my old friend a devilled bone smacks of tho bivouac. Pass the sherry, bailie. Thank you." " Try the kidneys ; they would serve a king." " Thauka By the bye, who is that noble lady now residing here?" " Noble lady ?" reiterated the bailie, looking up with his mouth full, and surprise in his flushed face. " Yes ; she whom I passed, or rather who passed me, on the staircase to-night." The bailie pushed back his chair and plate. " A lady, sir !" he stammered, while his eyes jji.-ni-d wider. "She in the black dress brocaded with white stars." " Gude hae mercy on us ! and a dwarf holding up h.-r tail r " The same." ISO LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " The Lord take us a' into his holy keeping ! Ye have seen her ?" " Seen who ? What the devil do you mean 1" " The wife of the Red Corny n !" " Come, that is good ; but I am too old a soldier, bailie, to believe all this." " Keep us frae harm !" continued the old man, as his rubicund visage grew pale, and he glanced stealthily over his shoulder while lowering his voice ; " she hasna' been seen for these ten years past ; heaven send it portends uae evil to our family !" " Our family," meant the house ; so completely were the old Scottish domestics identified with those they served. " Lord help you, sir/' he continued, draining a hot jug of toddy almost at a draught; "you have seen a wandering spirit." " It may have been fancy, bailie ; but I certainly saw her picture, and that is tangible enough." " That picture was painted two hundred years and mair after her death ; and there is a devilish Btory connected with it too/' " Ton my honour, bailie, you quite interest me," said the captain, brewing a jug of smoking toddy, and drawing a chair nearer to the fire ; " the atmosphere of this place becomes full of diablerie. Painted two hundred years after her death ! I hope the likeness is good ; but tell me all about it." " She was the wife of the last Comyn to whom this castle belonged, and she was a woman possessing alike the pride and temper of Lucifer ; but they cost her dear, for she suffered a sore penance in the yellow bed- chamber up-stairs, and there 'tis said her spirit walks to this hour. Now it chanced that in the days of King James IV., his Master Painter, the famous Sir THE WIFE OF THE RED COMYN. Thomas Galbruith, the pupil of Quentiu Alatsys, of Antwerp, and the friend of Leonardo da Vinci and of Titian \ ocelli, came here during the lifetime of John Lord Fleming the same who was so barbarously assassinated by the cursed Laird o' Drummel/ier, ui \vliose folk we have a feud outstanding yet, like an auld lt -lit well, the King's painter slept, or rather, I is. passed the night in the yellow room, and from ; hue he was a changed man ; from being rosy- !, he became pale and wan, hollow-eyed and : ly ; from being as full of fun and frolic as the King himself, he became sad, woful and thoughtful, lie shut himself up in the haunted-room, where In- worked day and night for a whole week, without eating, drinking, or sleeping, as folks aver, until I/tot awful picture was finished; and whether it was done from the memory of one vision of the spirit, or whether the wife of the Red Comyncame to him nightly from ht-11, and sat for her portrait, I cannot say ; but when h'ni.sla (! by Sir Thomas Galbraith, it was the last work h<: did on earth, for he was found dead, seated before it, one morning, with a pallet on his left thumb and a brush in his il.jlit hand. Terror was on his dead face, ami tin- marks of strangulation were round his throat ; so the Flemings buried him in the auld Kirk of St. Nitii.-in, >it the Oxgang, where his grave is yet to be I would fain have the picture burned, but the family set a high value upon it ; yet I verily believe, it .1 puir presumptuous auld carle like me dare judgfl o' >ie. tilings, that its presence here may keep the spirit o' that awt'u' woman hovering about the walls o' the auld castle she rendered accursed by her crimes '" " Well, bailie, tell me the story and " " Mo-k' another browst o' toddy while the water is hot, sir," replied the castellan, as he stirred up the firo 188 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. with an enormous poker, and as the flames roared in the tunnel-like chimney, the red sparks flew up in pyramids. '' I am charged to the brim," said the captain ; " so fire away, my friend, I am all impatience." After a few preliminary hems, coughs, and flourishes, with sips of toddy between, the bailie told the captain the following strange story, which I uiv<- in my own words, being vain enough to prefer them to his. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Castle of Kirkintulloch was the principal residence of John Comyn Lord of Badenoch, who, a nephew of King John Baliol, was a competitor with Bruce for the crown of Scotland, and he was called the Red Comyn to distinguish him from his father, the Black Comyn, who was so named from his swarthy com- plexion. In those days the country around this castle was covered by forests of oak and pine, through the secluded hollows of which the Kelvin and the Logie crept with that slow and sluggish current which gives them more the aspect of Flemish canals than streams that roll from Scottish mountains. The rising burgh was then roofed with stone, or thatched ; the Roman fort on the Barhill was nearly entire, as when a thou- sand years before the soldiers of the Caesars had relin- quished it befere the furious Scots ; and the how ruined tower of Sir Robert Boyd, Baron of Kilmar- nock, Hartshaw, Ardneil and Dairy, was still the stronghold of his family, who were the sworn enemies of the Baliols and all their adherents. So deep, indeed, was their hatred, that they would not bury TI1K Will: or THK HLI) COMVN. 1 .) their dead in the same church ; thus, while the Boyds were laid in the Chapel of St. Mary (which is now the parish kirk), the Comyns were interred in the Church . Ninian. The Red Corny n was powerful, cunning, and dis- sembling ; being ambitious, and though he fought under Wallace at Falkirk, intensely selfish, he feared to lose his estates after that disastrous battle was lost ; and as usual with Scottish nobles, considering his own interior before the common weal or the national honour, he joined the English ranks, and fought against his own country in the army of the traitor- king, John Baliol. He was a woful tyrant to the burgh of Kirkintul- loch ; for, in defiance of the old laws of the land, ho enforced the bludewit, the stingisdynt, the marchet, the herezeld, and other exactions now unknown within the ports of a Scottish town ; and as all pleas between burgesses and travelling merchants must be settled before the third flowing and ebbing of the tide, he usually decided them by whipping the burgess and confiscating the goods of the stranger. Moreover, although it had been ordained by the kings of old, that on any burgess departing on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or other sacred place, his goods and family should be protected "vntill God brought him name againe," the wives of the absent were oft ni seized by Comyn, and their goods by his lady. At his mills he exacted exorbitant mulctures, and he hung all who dared to complain ; if any ventured to grind wheat, mashloch, or rye with hand querns, they were also hanged; and though it was statute and ordained that he who stole a halfpenny-worth of bread should be scourged, that he who stole a pair of N 190 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. shoes should be pilloried, or eightpence worth should have one leg cut off, the tyrant hanged them all. Thus his Dule-tree was never without a man hanging from it, with the black gleds flying round him ; for Comyn ground alike to the dust the burgesses within the walls and the gudemen of the Newlaud Mailings without ; so that it was generally said in Dumbarton- shire, that the devil himself would be a gentler over- ord than he ; and he was so hated that men remem- bered the dreadful fate of his father in Badenoch, and it came to be whispered about that there was a prophecy made by a weird woman, that he too should die a violent death I His wife, Lady Gwendoleyne, was esteemed one of the most beautiful women in Scotland, and none had outshone her at the Court of Queen Yolande, the consort of Alexander III. Lovely beyond all com- parison, tall, stately and magnificent in form, with pale commanding features and dark eyes, indicative rather of pride of birth and loftiness of mind than of gentleness, she made the people even those whom her beauty dazzled, and her slightest smile would have won for ever shrink and quail before her, as beneath the eye of some mysterious spirit; for the keen black eye of that imperious lady is said to have been as dangerous in its beauty as it was terrible in its expression. She had been wedded early to the Red Lord of Badenoch ; they had three daughters, the youngest of whom (according to Andrew Wyntoun) was mar- ried to the traitorous MacDougal of Lorn. They had also one son, who at the time this history opens, A.D. 1306, was in his eighteenth year, and was said to be a handsome, gallant, and high-spirited youth ; but, unfortunately, devoted to the false Baliol, at THE \VIFK OF THK IIKI) COMYN. 191 ^o mock Court in tho Castle of Perth lie resided, and there he had been educated. Notwithstanding her own unparalleled beauty, her husband's rank, power, and overweening authority, Lady Gwendoleyno was far from being happy ! A thorn sharper than a poisoned arrow rankled in her heart, in the form of a restless jealousy of her hus- band, to whom she was passionately devoted, and whom she loved with all the ardour of her impulsive nature. And though he seemed to be, in manner, all that befitted a faithful and attached spouse, he was m object of suspicion to Gwendoleyne ; for some artful minion had skilfully sown the seeds of mis- trust between them, and several of Comyn's unguarded actions and interferences with the wives of pilgrim- burgesses had given her every reason to deem her fears were just and true ; hence her fiery heart became a prey to furious passions and to bitter thoughts, and she looked about ner, longing for some fitting object on which to vent her wrath. Her husband's kinsman and her own dear friend, old Sir Alexander Baliol of Cavers, Great Chamber- lain of Scotland, to whom she often hinted her com- plaints against Comyn and her suspicions of his in- v, endeavoured to laugh away her fears. "Madam," said he, on one occasion, "jealousy is the soul of a love which will brook no rival even for a moment. I mean not to hint that you love II <\ Comyn too much, but without this jealousy your love for him perhaps would die." "You are too subtle a casuist for a woman, Sir Alexander of Cavers," replied the lady, cresting up lnM- beautiful head ; " but you must lie aware that the disposition and manners of Comyn, your kinsman, are at least but too well calculated to excite my suspicion N "2 192 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. and distrust. To wit : his passionate and unconcealed admiration for female beauty ; this is known over the whole country, and thrice, on vague suspicion, I have had to discard certain ladies of my household, and thus make their families deadly enemies of ours. And say, my good Lord Chamherlain, are these wan- dering sallies not shameful, when perpetrated by om- who has a sou now in his eighteenth year, and tall and handsome as himself?" Sir Alexander thought of Comyn's gigantic red beard, and smiled when remembering the handsome youth, who had all his mother's beauty, without his father's ferocity of aspect and bearing. " You srnile, Sir Alexander \" said the fiery dame. " You smile 'tis very well, sir ! You know more of the Red Comyn and his secrets than you care to tell me, and that courtier's smile assures me that I am an injured wife- " I beg to assure you, Lady of Badenoch- " Assure me of nothing, Lord of Cavers, if you can- not assure me of your kinsman's faith and purity." " Madam," said the old Lord Chamberlain, testily, "there are two kinds of jealousy a pure fear by which the young and restless lover is animated and a grovelling suspicion, which is jealousy in the worst sense of the term. Your suspicion wounds your self- esteem it piques your honour and is but a new phase of selfishness, for you suspect yourself an injured woman." " And justly too, for Comyn's coldness to me during the last month cannot be accounted for but by some new fancy." " Your husband is never jealous of you, madam." " That only proves his indifference. Tis shainel, false, and unknightly ; and 1 only trust that the pre- THE WIFE OF THK KKD COMYX. 193 sence of our boy, the young Sir John, whom the King just knighted, will in some degree recal my wan- dering husband to a sense of his own honour and the honour of his wife and daughters." "Madam, how often shall I assure you that the husband of one so beautiful as you could never prove false I am an old man, your father's friend, and may well say this." " True, you arc an old man, and were my father's friend," resumed the lady, whose black eyes flashed with dusky fire through their tears ; " thus it is the more culpable in you to be in my husband's wicked secrets, and endeavouring thus to blind and to deceive a loving and devoted wife. But woe to Comyn and to you in that hour when I prove the falsehood of you both !" And gathering up her long silk kirtle, which was worn without sleeves, but was so long in the skirt as constantly to require upholding by one hand, she ; a\v;iy with the air of an offended queen, and with her long and magnificent hair floating over her shoulders from under a band of burnished gold. " Alas !" thought tho old chamberlain, shrugging his sin in:- i. -i-, "how true it is, that love being jealous, maketh a good eye look asquint." In those days maidens of good family were received into the houses of ladies of high rank to be delicately nurtured and well educated ; for which, strange as it may now seem, a befitting fee or pension was paid. Now, among the ladies of the tabourctte, or damta (l'1/onneur of the Lady of Badenoch, were the daugh- ters of many noble houses of the Baliol faction, and who were consequently false to their country. Thus she had Margaret, daughter of that Lord Abernethy who basely accepted from the English King a com- 194 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. mission as Captain- General of the Scottish rebels ; Muriel, daughter of Sir Gilbert de Umphreville, the forfeited Earl of Angus ; Isabel, daughter of David Lord Brechin, who was accused of a design to betray Berwick to the English ; Rosamond and Alice, the daughters of John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Lord High Constable of Scotland, another prime traitor of the Baliol faction ; and Yolande, daughter of William de Gifford, Lord of Tester, in East Lothian. All these were beautiful girls, and, save the last, w r ere proud, haughty, and reserved ; for their manners and bearing were all modelled exactly after those of Lady Comyn. Yolande de Gifford, whose father, though a lord, had, strange to say, been true to Scotland, was an orphan, and had been taken into the Castle of Kirkintulloch at the request of Bernard, Abbot of Arbroath, the Lord Chancellor, and almost in pity, as all her father's lands in the shire of Haddington had been seized by John BalioL She was the most beautiful of Gwendoleyne's attendants, and perhaps the most reserved and gentle, for she felt herself friendless and alone among the selfish courtiers of the Scottish King. Blue eyed, golden haired, and softly skinned, Yolande, who had been so named after her godmother, the late queen (Yolande, Countess de Dreux.), was, indeed, the most gentle and loveable of all gentle creatures, and she shrank under the bold black eyes of Lady Gwendoleyne, as a sensitive plant might shrink beneath a hot sun, or before the keen north wind. Yolande, when the tresses of her rich hair were gathered in the golden crespinette then worn by ladies of the Scottish Court, to show the contour of the neck and shoulders ; when her blue kirtle, with its tight sleeves, displayed her beautiful form, over which THK win: OF Tin: RED COMYN. float od lior sunjiiayiir or velvet mantle, tied with Is at each shoulder, looked only second in beauty to Lady Coinyn li rself, for they were nearly of a lit; and lit T pretty white fingers were the most expert of all the ladies there at the weaving of those endless waves of tapestry at which all noble demoi- n worked daily for the comfort and decora- tion i>r their dwellings and churches. Such was then tii.- industrious custom ; and we are told that Matilda, 11 of William the Conqueror of England, sewed with her own fair hands sixty-seven yards representing the history of the Conquest of South Britain, begin- wlth Harold's embassy to the Norman Court, and eihlin'4 with his death at Hastings. After a long absence at King Edward's Court in ion, Red Comyn returned to Scotland, which tin 'ii groaning under the yoke of the infamous Kin;_f John Buliol, the tool of the English, and a fac- tion of traitorous Scottish nobles. On arriving at his home, he gave presents to all the ladies of his house- hold to one a necklace, to another a bract-let, a cinette, a brooch, and so forth; but to Yolande i lillbrd he gave a golden ring. /r the return of her son, the young Sir John Corayn, whom whether the youth was so disposed or not she meant to wed to his cousin, Alicia Comyn, daughter of the Lord High Constable, she i, r ;iin imparting her griefs to Sir Alexander of Cavers. " Comyn goeth from bad to worse ; he braves me now, and dares to keep his minion here, whether I will it or no. By God's teeth, sir, could I but dis- cover aught to prove my suspicions right, I'd slay that pale-faced Yolande with Red Comyn's own - H" 1 beseech you, lady, to compose yourself, and to be assured that your suspicions are alike unjust and cruel ; for they malign your husband and crush this friendless maiden to the dust." 1 1 tell you that I hate her !" responded the impe- rious dame, grinding her beautiful teeth, while her jnificent eyes Hashed fira " Then get her married," said the Chamberlain of Scotland, pithily. " Who in these selfish times will be mad enough to wed the penniless daughter of a forfeited house? Who would ask her love V " I for one, were I young as herself ; but let her seek a husband according to the ancient law." " Sir Alexander, you mock me again." " Heaven forbid, fair kinswoman ; I do but remind you of an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of the late Queen Margaret." "Pshaw thn Mniil of Norway well?" " Auent spinsters, like this Yolande." 198 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " Well well," continued Gwendoleyne, stamping her pretty foot. " In 1288, it was statute and ordained, ' that during the reign of her Most Blessed Majesty, ilk mci' Imlye of baith high and lowe estate shall Imcr, lilei'tie to bespeak ye man she UJces : albeit, if he re- fuses to take her to be his wyf, he shall be mulctit of ye sum of one hundred pounds or less, as his estate may be, except and alwais, if he can make it appear that he is betrothit to ane ither woman, when he shall be free." " Yolande is proud as myself, for she comes of a race that would not stoop their crests to kings ; and this is but mockery, my Lord Chamberlain, so but what is this now ?" At that moment the little black dwarf crept close to her side, pulled her skirt, and pointed towards the chamber of Yolande Gifford. The yellow glossy eyes of the stunted negro gleamed with malevolent light, as, snatching up her train, the lady swept out of the hall ; and the Chamberlain shrugged his shoulders and blessed his stars that he was still a bachelor, while he whistled merrily, and resumed his employ- ment of teaching a hawk to shake its little bells and coquette with its wings. With all her pride and spirit, her furious will and temper, so completely had the demon of jealousy taken possession of her soul, that Gwendoleyne stooped to the humility of eavesdropping ; and on hearing the murmur of voices whispering in the chamber of Yolaude, she crept close to the thick arras that covered the door, and listened with all her soul in her ( " Go, I implore you," she heard Yolande say, in a stifled voice ; " alas ! if you are discovered here, what will my tyrannical mistress say ?" Till: WIFE OF THE RED COMYX. 199 "Just what she pleases," replied a voice, and then tin re was a sound a kiss which set the listener's blood on fire. " I am watched by that hateful imp her dwarf, and live in daily terror of her discovering all," continual tin- sobbing Yolande ; "and you know what her vicus are concerning yourself. Go go John Comyn, for tin- love of God and Saint Mary, go !" " John Comyn !" muttered Lady Gwendoleyne ; "oh, wretch ! that I had a dagger here to avenge this double perfidy !" A pause ensued. "To-morrow evening be it, then at the Roman Peel," .said a low voice. " When the moon is over Campsie Fells." " You will not forget, beloved Yolande." " Oh, no no ; and let that meeting be our last, for nnnther day will change the face of everything," wept Yolande. Unable longer to restrain her fury, the white hand of Lady Comyn tore aside the arras, and she rushed into tin- apartment with all the aspect of an enraged Pythoness, whileat the same moment the figure of a man vanished from the open window, and his steps were heard crashing through the bushes and trees without, as he retired hastily and in the dusk ; but Gwendo- leyne saw or thought she saw enough to bo con- vinced that the fugitive was no other than her husband ! " Alas ! madam," cried Yolande, sinking on her kn.-es in an agony of terror, "you have discovered us." " At last yes, at last ! " exclaimed the fierce, ex- ulting woman, in hoarse accents, as she savagely wreathed her slender fingers, which rage had endued 200 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. with triple strength, in the golden hair of Yolande, and proceeded to drag her several times across the oak floor ; " beggar ! viper ! outcast ! ha, ha, ha ! thou shalt die now I" and she laughed as she tore out those beautiful tresses in handfuls, till the poor girl's shrieks died away, and she sank senseless at her feet. Then Gwendoleyne locked her up, and after tying the key of the chamber to her silver girdle, re- tired to her own apartment to still the fierce tumult that swelled her fiery heart, and to lay her plans of deeper and surer vengeance. Alas ! they were but too soon formed and matured for pity or remorse to arrest them. The night passed away, and though she had alter- nate fits of tenderness and tears, with gusts of jealous rage and passion, the morning found her cold, calm, inexorable, and resolved to have a terrible retribution on the Red Comyn for this attempt to deceive her ; and the arrival of a hasty message from him, stating that he was compelled to depart with a slender train on public business to the town of Dumfries, only made her smile the more bitterly, as she thought she saw the game her truant husband meant to play ; but she resolved to checkmate him. " Dumfries, my Lord Chamberlain I" she said, with a scornful smile upon her lovely lip ; " now what fool's errand takes him there ?" " To hold a conference with Sir Robert Bruce, the young Earl of Annandale," replied the other, in a low voice ; " the Bruces have some bold project now in hand." "A project." " Ay, to root the English faction and all Baliol's people out of Scotland. Comyn hath known of this project long, and duly gives King John and King THE WIFE OF THE RED COMYX. 201 Edward notice of its progress ; thus Bruce ere long must peri-h ami'l his own plots and follies." " Ami without waiting for our boy's arrival from Perth, without even bidding me adieu, Comyn has goae to confer with him? Tis well I wish him 1 on his journey. But there is a prophecy con- '', rock and peak with fire. Gwendoleyno prayed in her heart that no one might 204. LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. come that she might have been deceived that Comyn, the father of her four children but, hark ! the hoofs of a horse rang hollowly on the green turf, and through the archway of the ruined enclosure rode an armed man, who sang merrily the same march to which, eight years after, Bruce marched his victorious host to Bannockburn. " Hark to the tramp, from yonder camp, Whence the Scottish spearmen come ! When they hear the bagpipe sounding, Tuttie taittie to the drum !" " Tis the Red Comyn's favourite song !" said she, shrinking aside ; " now mayest thou be accursed from the bearing cloth in which thou wert baptized to that shroud of blood in which thou shalt lie ! Now by the soul of him who loved me well, the Grahame who fell at Falkirk, and by the life of my son my dearest hope I shall have a terrible vengeance !" The knight, on whose head was a plumed chapel-de- fer, with a mail coif that concealed the lower part of his face, wore over his armour an embroidered coin- tise, with the cognisance of the Comyns, two ostriches, with the motto " Courage." He dismounted, and after looking about him for a moment, discovered Gwendoleyne, to whom he hastened with an exclama- tion of joy, and she recognised on the breast of the surcoat some embroidery, on which she had but too surely and too lately seen the white hands of Yolande Gifford plying the needle ! What other proof of perfidy was necessary ? * An arm was thrown around her, and passionately and joyously she was pressed to the breast of the new comer. But while trembling with ungovernable fury to find herself exposed to embraces intended for Till: WIFE OF THE RED COMYN. 205 Yolande, she drove her poniard in the heart of the twice, exclaiming, " Die, villain and deceiver die in your adultery die !" "Mother oh, mother!" cried a voice, which froze the marrow in her bones ; and the frantic and wretched udoleyne discovered that she had slain not the Red Comyn but their beloved and only son. The plumed chapcl-dc-fer rang as the wearer sank to the earth. A gurgling sound was all that followed ; the ruined tower swam round that miserable woman, and, mul- tiplied by a thousand times, the horse of the mur- dered knight seemed to career around her; till borne down by misery, by a revulsion of feeling, by over- tension of the heart, and by horror of what she had done, Gwendoleyne sank senseless on the body of her son. The young Sir John Comyn had loved the orphan Yolande, and on his return had secretly wished to meet perhaps, for all that we can learn now to ise her; but this terrible catastrophe ended his litu and intentions together. Meanwhile, like a true Scottish baron bent on selfish srh'-mes of family ambition and degrading aggran- disement, Red Comyn had ridden fast to meet Robert Bruce, the younger, at Dumfries, and to concert with him a pretended plan to free Scotland from the English and from John Baliol ; but of this scheme the red-headed traitor had duly informed King Ed- \\-.\\\\ from time to time. On Comyn's arrival in Nithsdale, the gallant Robert, afterwards King of Scotland, had fled in safety northward, by reversing his horse's hoofs, as the ground was covered with sncw; and being furnished with clear proofs of his com- o 206 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. patriot's villainy, he pursued him to the church of the Minorites at Dumfries, whither he had fled for sanc- tuary, being full of conscious guilt; but neither the house of God nor its high altar could protect this perfidious wretch, who was false to Scotland and her people ; and the prophecy that " Red Comyn should die by a violent death " was terribly fulfilled ; for there Bruce, Lindsay, and Kirkpatrick buried their daggers in his heart upon St. William's day, the 1 Oth of February, 1306. So perish all who are false to their country ! He was the last Comyn of the house of Badenoch, and was, moreover, the last of his race a race which Scotland well could spare. Lady Gweudoleyne never spoke after she was borne into the castle with the dead body of her son. She lived for five years a close captive in that yellow cham- ber, and during those terrible five years a word, even of prayer, never passed her lips ; but a period was put to her sufferings, for this proud and resentful beauty died on the 10th day of February, 1310, at the hour of three in the afternoon, the' anniversary of the very moment in which her husband died under the three daggers in the Minorite Church of Dumfries. She was buried before the Shrine of St. Ninian, with all the grandeur of a princess and all the splen- dour of the Roman ritual ; her son slept by her side, and Sir Alexander of Cavers reared a stately monu- ment above them ; but that fierce woman's restless spirit is still said to haunt the Castle of Kirkintul- loch and the Roman ruins at the west end of the town ; for it is supposed that she will never find re- pose or peace until the day of doom. THE WITH OF TITE RED COMVX. 20? Such was the story told to the captain by tho castel- lan of the old fortress of Kirkintulloch, scarcely one e of which now stands upon another, as it was ivnit.vfil ali'Uit the beginning of the present century. "And Yolande GirYord what of her?" asked the captain. ^he did not die of love or grief either, but ! to be a very old woman, and passed away in :il>ut her eightieth year, when Robert III. was King, a prioress of the Bernardino nuns of St. Mary a convent of which you may still see the ruins on the north bank of the Avon, about a mile above Linlithgow Bridge." " A melancholy story !' J said the captain ; " what vil of a wife that Gwendoleyne must have been but no better than such an infamous traitor as Com) u deserved !" " Beware ye, sir," said the castle bailie, lowering his voice, and looking furtively round him ; " she is ttiid to walk about ay, at this very hour, and may pay you a visit that you may never get the better of." " I'll be hanged, bailie, if I go up-stairs to-night or this morning, rather," said my grandfather, laugh- ing ; "I would rather face the Dons at the Moro again, than meet that dame in black velvet with her 1 of a dwarf so make a fresh browst and stir up the fire." The clock struck four. " Four !" said the soldier ; " four already ; and we inarch in an hour !" The bailie, who was a jolly old fellow, brewed a fivsh jorum of hot toddy by this time they had under their girdles ten jugs each ; and my grandfather now began to spin his yarns, and detailed the slaughter o 2 208 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. of Ticonderoga, the scalping and flaying at Fort Pitt, the storming of the Moro, where British mus- ket-butts and the pates of the Dons tested the hard- ness of each other ; he proceeded on the expedition up the Lakes, and had just opened the trenches before Montreal, when he found himself at the bot- tom of his tenth jug, the fire out, the bailie asleep in his easy-chair, and heard the warning drum beaten in the streets of Kirkintulloch the warning for the march, Avhile the grey dawn stole through the ancient windows. It was daylight now, and fearless alike of Dame Gwendoleyne and her dwarf, my grandfather sallied down-stairs, and propping himself between his clay- more and the walls of the houses, or an occasional pump-well as he passed it, reached the muster-place, and holding himself very erect, gave, with great emphasis, the command to " march." His detach- ment marched accordingly, and here ends our story for the present. 209 VI. STORY OF THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRE. A FRAGMENT OF THE SEVEN YEABS* WAB. AMONG the captains of " Ours" who had the honour of serving in the Seven Years' War was one named Allan Robertson, a gentleman of the clan Donno- quhy, and a cadet of the loyal house of Struau, who bore the singular soubriquet of the Mousquetaire . and whose adventures during the early part of his military career were very remarkable. In his latter years, when leading a quiet " half-pay life" in the Scottish capital, Allan was known to all tin- military loungers about " Poole's Coffee-house," .it the east end of Prince's Street, then the great ren- (Ir/.vous of the military idler, as a warlike octogena- rian :i sih vr-haired remnant of other days and as a ln-ave and warm-hearted old Highlander, who was so devoted to the memory of the 42nd, that he never saw those two numerical figures, even on a street door, without lifting his hat, and saying, "God U.'s.s the old number!" for his heart swelled at everything that reminded him of the venerable Black Watch. The manner in which Allan joined the regiment was in itself romantic und singular. 210 LEGENDS OF THE JJLACK WATCH. Among the French army at the famous battle of Minden, in the year 1759, when the Household troops were led by Prince Xavier of Saxony, brother of the French Queen, no cavalry distinguished them- selves more by the fury and valour of their reiterated charges than the Compagnie Franche, or "Free Com- pany" of the Chevalier Jules de Cceurdefer, and two other bands entirely composed of gentlemen of the highest rank and of irreproachable character, who were named from the colour of their uniforms Les Mousquetaires Gns et Rouges, led by the Vicomte de Chateaunoir. In the fury of their last attack, the gallant Prince Xavier was slain by the 51st Regiment, and the leader of the grey troop (for all these noblesse served on horseback) was left behind bleeding on the ground, though a desperate rally was thrice made by tho energy of one Grey Mousquetaire to rescue and carry off the colonel. These noble rallies were made in vain ; for, after a third attempt, the Mousquetaires were swept from the plain of Minden by the terrible charge of the Scots Grey Dragoons, led by old Colonel Preston, the Icist soldier who wore a buff coat in the British service, and who had risen to command from being a kettle-drummer in the old Flanders War. The faithful Mousquetaire fell in this flight, being pierced by a musket-shot from one of Lord George Sackville's Dragoons, and he lay all night on that sanguinary field, near the leader he had striven so valiantly and in vain to rescue. A distinguished Highland officer, whose memoirs have been published, mentions that on the 2nd of August, the day after the battle, he rode over the plain, accompanied by Major Pringle of Edgefield. " On one part of the field we saw a French officer, THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRK. 211 who had boon wounded in the knee, sitting on the ground, with his back supported by a dead horse. W,- accosted him, and offered any assistance in our power. He proved to be the commanding officer of Les Afous- i Gris, and was distinguished by several is, which, with a handsome snuff-box, had pro- bably excited the cupidity of some of the wretches who are never found wanting in the train of an army. We left him in high spirits, having under- taken to bring a cart or tumbril to carry him from the field ; but with the hasty imprudence of young officers, we rode off together on this duty, instead of one of us remaining with the wounded man. It could not be more than ten or twelve minutes when w returned with the cart, and found to our un- kable concern the murdered body of the poor 1 r. uch colonel (the Vicomte de Chateaunoir) lying naked on the ground." Another officer adds, that near the corpse of the iiuiurtunate colonel, which had been so ruthlessly stripped by the German marauders and death- hunters, lay, pistol in hand, the Mousquetaire, who had made such vigorous efforts to save him in the -barge of yesterday. He was still breathing, and after having his wound hurriedly dressed by a sur- geon of the 51st, he was conveyed to the rear, in care of Major Pringle, who was a son of Lord Edge- lield, a distinguished senator of the Scottish Coll. - of Justice. At the place where they found him, tin- adverse artillery had furrowed up the plain like a ploughed field by their shot, which lay so thick and half sunk in the turf, that they resembled an iron pavement, strewn with all the destruction and debris of battle. The Grey Mousquetairo was a tall and handsome 212 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. man, bronzed by the weather and scarred by battle. On the breast of his grey uniform glittered those de- corations which few of the corps were without the golden crosses of St. Louis and St. Lazare. Pringle conveyed him to his own tent, for he knew well that the Mousquetaires were all men of no ordi- nary rank, and there he supplied him with wine and other comforts. As yet, he had not spoken ; but as he gathered strength, he began to mutter and talk to himself in a strange language. " Assuredly this man is not a Frenchman !" said Pringle, kneeling down to listen. The Mousquetaire Gris was praying in the Erse tongue ! " What are you a Scotchman ?" exclaimed the astonished major. " A Highlander," sighed the other. "I recognised your Gaelic at once." " Likely enough," responded the other, in a low voice; "the Gaelic was the first language I heard, and, please God, it shall be my last ! 1 spoke but the tongue I learned at my mother's breast !" " And you are a Mousquetaire Gris ?" " Yes that grey uniform is all the inheritance which the dark day of Culloden has left me." " Poor fellow !" said Major Pringle, with commi- seration ; " and you are " " Allan Kobertson, of the house of Struan, who, thirteen years ago, was a captain in the Athole Re- giment under his Royal Highness Prince Charles, whom God long preserve !" " Hush hush I" said Pringle, hurriedly ; " remem- ber that you are in the British camp." " I care not," replied the other, with flashing eyes ; " I have shouted his name at Preston, Falkirk and THE GREY MOUSQUETAIIIK. 213 Cullodcn, anil why should I shrink from naming him here V Major Pringle kept the Jacobite officer in his quarters, ami in a few days he was able to sit up in a camp bed, and converse with ease and coherence ; and many Scottish gentlemen of the army whose political sympathies were with the exiled race, fre- < limited the tent, and supplied him with whatever he rrd particularly about the wounds on the breast of his dead colonel, the Vicomte de Chateciunoir, and on being informed that they must have been done with a dagger, he became dreadfully excited, and ex- claimed, " Jules de Coeurdefer has murdered him !" "Who?" exclaimed Major Pringle and several officers who were present. " A wretch most justly named Cceurdefer, who serves in the French army, to its disgrace ; a noble and an outlaw a soldier and a robber ! a riband, with whom the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges have had more than one sword-in-hand encounter." Among the mass of papers and regimental memo- randa, from which these legends are gleaned and pre- p.nt 1. i find this Chevalier Jules de Cceurdef't r frequently mentioned as a prominent character during the early part of the Seven Years' War ; ami some of Robertson's adventures with him during his service in the Grey Mousquetaires were very remark- able. His narrative was as followa " We, the Red and Grey Mousquetaires, by forced marches from Paris, quitted the gay Court of Louis X V., and joined the army of M. de Coutades about tho 214 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. end of May, crossed the Rhine with him at Cologne, Sind on the same day the Free Band of the Chevalier de Coeurdefer joined us, to the great annoyance of the whole army; for our hitherto quiet and well- ordered camp became a scene of incessant disquiet, by drunken brawls, duels, and severe military punish- ments ; for as this Franche Gompagnie, like the wild Pandoors of Baron Trenck, subsist only by gambling and secret robbery in camp, and by open plunder and ruthless bloodshed in the field, you may imagine our repugnance to co-operate with them ; and our asto- nishment that leaders so strict as M. de Contades or Prince Xavier of Saxony would tolerate their pre- sence among us for a moment. Their ranks were filled by men of all nations runaway students, spend- thrifts, cashiered officers, deserters, fugitive malefac- tors in short, by men ready for any desperate work, and being deemed the cheapest food for gunpowder, they had enough of it. " Their captain, the Chevalier Cceurdefer, is the re- presentative of an ancient but decayed family in Lor- raine, who spent his patrimony among the gambling- houses, the cabarets and bordels of Paris. Dismissed summarily from the French line when a captain in the Regiment du Roi for barbarously slaying a brother officer, after severely wounding him in a duel about a courtesan, he has now joined our army against the Prussians, in the hope of winning himself a new name by reckless bravery, cruelty, and outrage. He is handsome and young, but without fear of God or man ; without religion, and without honour. Even their chaplain " " What ! they have a chaplain ?" exclaimed Pringle, laughing. " Yes, a canon of Notre Dame, who was unfrocked THE OREY MOrson.TAIRE. by the Archbishop of Paris for having an affair with a citizen's wife in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He is a burlesque oil the clerical character, and rights as I was about to say more duels than even the chevalier his leader. One of this choice band plundered a church at Cologne, and as sacrilege could not bo tole- 1, Prince Xavier made a great hubbub about it. The thief had been seen ; he wore the tattered uni- form of the Franclm Compagnie, and hail huge red wkixki'i-s. The chevalier paraded his men next day for inspection. Bearing a piece of the true cross, the holy fathers came along the line in solemn procession to discover the culprit ; but lo ! every man was shaven to the eyes, and not a vestige of whisker was to be seen in the whole band of the Chevalier Jules. " On the 2nd June, 1759, with the force of M. de Contades, we joined the Marechal Due de Broglio near Giessen, and left M. d'Armentieres with twenty thousand men to oppose Prince Ferdinand of Bruns- wick, in the neighbourhood of the Wesel ; and on tliis important day we had an open rupture with the Free Company of Coeurdefer, for when detailed together rm the advanced guard of horse, the gentlemen of the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges flatly refused to share a post of honour with a corps of outlaws. Then the chevalier, flaming with irrepressible fury, flung jlovc in the face of our colonel, Henri the Vicomte de Chateaunoir, with whom he had an old unfinished feud, and a duel to the death was only prevented by the determination of the mare'clml due, who bound them both down by solemn promises to keep tin- peace towards each other, at least until the close of the campaign ; but the villain -Ccourdefer made a vow of vengeance, s\ve:iring to ' lay the vicomte at his where he luvd laid many a better man ;' and you 216 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. see how he has kept that vow, for by him or by his men our wounded leader was murdered on the field on the morning after Minden I" " I do not understand," said Major Pringle, in whose tent this conversation took place one evening, when, with a few droppers-in, he and the now-con- valescent Mousquetaire lingered over a few bottles of Rhenish wine ; " in fact, it seems tome a marvel how a gallant soldier such as the late Prince Xavier of Saxony could tolerate the presence of such a ruffian and bully as this Captain Cceurdefer." " For various reasons ; he is brave " " Bravery is no strange quality in the French or Imperial armies, I think," said one of the 51st. " Moreover, he is an expert forager, skilful in war, useful in council, and leader of two hundred troopers, who have only one virtue their devotion to him. Besides, the brutal qualities he displays are not singular in the history of wars in Germany. We have had many such examples as he among the mixed races which make up the armies of France and Austria. " In the last century there was the terrible Count Merode, a colonel of musketeers, whose name has be- come a proverb for all that is vile ; and there was the ferocious Jehan de Wart, a colonel of horse, who in Bavaria spared neither man, woman, nor child, when the lust of blood glowed in his fiery heart." " Thank Heaven ! we have no such fellows among us," said the officer of the 51st, complacently. " Sir," said Allan Robertson, with a cloudy brow, "you forget the nine of diamonds the exterminating order of Cumberland, written on the night before we fought you at Culloden." " But the assassination of your poor colonel," TIIK UKKV Mor.M>ri.TAli:K. '-17 u Pringle, hastily, to change the turn the con- ition was taking. "Ali ! that was a frightful episode in this new war ; and yet believe me, my dear major, Coeurdefer has committed many such acts, and has always contrived to elude the hand of justice. Witness his vow to lay our colonel at his fcut, where better men had lain. Liar that he is! Chateaunoir was the first gentle- man in France ! But true it is that, of the many who have lain at the feet of Jules, few have fallen in battle or fair combat." " You seem to have serious cause for disliking him," sui< I rringle. " Disliking !" reiterated Robertson, while his eyes sparkled and his pale face glowed with anger "say al'horring him !" " You had your sword," said the officer of the 51st. " But it is the sword of a Mousquetaire," replied Robertson, sternly ; " the chevalier ranks with a field offic " True," said Pringle ; "you must pardon my friend, who forgets surely what discipline inculcates. And tin cause of this animosity ?" " Is a dark and painful story," sighed Robertson, as In; drained his green glass of Rhenish, and tossed it un the- turf floor of the tent " Let us hear it" "Before the rising of the clans in 1745," began Robertson, " I was a student at the Scottish College of Pontamousson, where I learned Latin and the classics under the tuition of old Father Innes. I had dim a dear friend named Louis d'Herblay, a native of Remiremont, at the foot of Mount Vosge in Lorraine* Louis was handsome, brave, and courteous ; an expert maker of verses ; a tolerable player on the guitar, 2l8' LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. and a smart handler of his sword, which he had seldom occasion to use, for he was beloved by every one ; a successful love affair with Mademoiselle Annette, a pretty and sprightly girl, had put him in the best of humours with all mankind. Annette was the only daughter of the old Marquis de Chateaunoir, father of the vicomte of that title, Great Marechal of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc. "Jules Cceurdefer, the spendthrift, gambler, and roue, was then, to our great regret, at college with us too, and having not yet come to his estates, his finances being far below his ambition and expendi- ture, to keep these equal he had betaken him to cards, dice, successful bets, to bullying some and cajoling others- and to every means his wild and wayward course of life permitted a course which was the scandal of the good fathers of Pontamousson, and soon procured him the only favour he wished at their hands expulsion . " Between him and Louis d'Herblay there grew an aversion a hatred that waxed stronger daily ; an an- tagonism on his side, but on the part of Louis a cold and haughty bearing ; for he despised the life and habits of Cceurdefer, whom he had thrice fought and thrice disarmed, when involved with him in tavern brawls beyond the college gates ; for within these barriers no sword or other weapon was ever worn. But in the very spirit of a Venetian bravo, Jules was known, or suspected, to bear about his person a small crystal poniard, the most savage of all weapons for inflicting a wound ; as the blade, when broken off at the hilt, remained like a deadly sting in the body of the victim. It was a weapon which could be used but once only, and then with terrible effect. " I have mentioned that my friend D 3 Herblay had T1IK GREY MOUS<>r: 219 tVair. As a trophy of it, he wore at his breast an antique cameo of great size, set round \\itli diamonds, and within it was the hair of Annette concealed by a secret spring. He was not rich, but -utlick-ntly wealthy and well born to render him an acceptable suitor even to the most wary of fathers ; thus it had been arranged that, as soon as he left col- lege, his marriage would be celebrated. Father Innes, our old preceptor, was to perform the ceremony ; all tudents congratulated Louis, and looked forward to his nuptials as to a fete at least, all save i d fur, who kept ever aloof from him, and smiled with the quiet covert smile of malice and hate, when 1) ihrblay or his affairs were mentioned in his pre- "At last came the time appointed for Louis to the college, and I was to accompany him to Remiremont. He bade adieu to all the old Scottish priests of Pontamousson, and severally shook hands with all his brother students all till he came to where Cceurdefer was lounging outside the gates smoking a huge German pipe ; and D' Herblay, in tin' happy fulness of his honest heart, being unwilling to leave a foe behind him, approached and held out his hand, saying " ' Farewell, M. le Chevalier, though we have not always been the best of friends, I hope we do not as enemies. Here is my hand to you my hand, in token of friendship and future amity.' " Despito the honest frankness that beamed in tho blue eyes of D'Herblay and the confiding generosity of his speech, the coarse Jules Coeurdefer gave him a sullen frown, and while rudely emitting a volume of smoke full in his face, with a sullen gesture of con- tempt, strode away. 220 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " All the students muttered ' Shame !' and for a moment a cloud hovered on the usually smooth brow of D'Herblay. " ' Bah !' said he, turning to me, c one who is so happy as I, can well afford to pity the wrath of one so poor in spirit and in Christian charity. Farewell, Jules/ he added, as we leaped on our horses ; ' when next we meet, we shall part less sullenly/ " ' Yes when next we meet, our parting shall be different/ replied Coeurdefer, looking over his left shoulder, with a black frown in his face, as we trotted from the college gates. " ' He means me mischief pooh ! let the fool do his worst/ said Louis. We soon dismissed him from our thoughts, and laughing and chatting gaily, waving our hats to the old people, and kissing our hands to the young girls, we rode through the old familiar streets of Pontamousson, and took the road that led direct to D'Herblay 's home, which lay more than twenty leagues distant. And now, gentlemen, observe that within one hour after we left the college gates, Jules de CcEurdefer, alone and unattended, also departed on horseback, ostensibly to return to his father's house on the French side of the Rhine. " We cantered along the road to Nancy, between the yellow cornfields, feeling happy as boys in our new freedom, and singing together a song which Louis bad composed in honour of Annette de Chateaunoir, and thus we pushed on without halting at the capital of the duchy, save for a few minutes at a jeweller's, where my friend bought a diamond bracelet for his future bride. Blaziers and Neufchateau were soon passed, and then we reached Epinal, which, in 1466, was bestowed upon the once independent princes of THE (JIJKY MOUSQUETAIRE. Lorraine ; and their castle, now a ruin, crowns an eminence above it. " Epinal is within ten miles of Remiremont, and tin re we were compelled by the state of our horses to halt, notwithstanding the impatience of my friend, to whom a night spent so near the residence of Annette :ied an age, and the ten miles that intervened a thousand leagues ; but we called for supper and made ourselves comfortable at an auberge. Louis assumed his guitar, and we sought to while away the time; and the hours flew quickly, for we had a thousand plans to form and things to talk of. " Alas ! how little did we dream that Jules de Cceurdefer, like a bloodhound, was tracking us swiftly and surely, by Nancy, Blaziers, and Neuf- chateau, and had actually lodged himself in an auberge opposite ours, at Epinal. " After sitting up late, we retired. Overcome by an excessive lassitude, induced by the long and arduous journey of the past day, I fell into a deep and pro- ti.inul sleep so deep indeed, that the noon of the next day had rung from the church bells ere I awoke, and inquired for my companion. Thus, you may see, the dift'erence between one who is a lover ami one who is not. " Louis had been up with the lark, as the aubergisto informed me, and full of impatience to visit his mis- tress, had mounted a fresh horse, and set forth alone, leaving a message for me to follow him to the man- sion of the marquis, near Remiremont ; adding, as an apology for his abrupt departure, that he was loth to iuu>.' me from a slumber so comfortable and \>K>- found. "I ordered my horse, paid my bill, and departed at - for I had J>o hope of overtaking Jura, An 222 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. easy trot of ten miles brought mo to Remiremont, which is a pretty little town on the left bank of the Moselle, and without difficulty I reached Chateau- noir, the fosse of which was filled by the river. The edifice was ancient, surmounted by heavy turrets and all built of black stone .(hence its name), and it stood embosomed among fine old trees. " I sent up my name, and inquired for M. d'Herblay. " ' How is he not with you, M. Allan ?' asked the old marquis,, with astonishment in his tone and manner. " ' No/ said I ; 'he quitted Epinal at least four hours before me, leaving a message for me to follow him hither/ u ' Four hours before you, and he has not arrived yet!' " ' This is most perplexing, M. le Marquis !' said I. " ' Oh, mon Dieu ! what can have happened ?' ex- claimed mademoiselle, whom I now saw for the first time, and who was a fair blonde, with a beautiful skin and long dark eyelashes, which lent a softness and inexpressible charm to her face. " I could not reply. My heart misgave me ; for knowing D'Herblay as I did, I feared that some- thing most unusual must have occurred to prevent his appearance at the chateau. " Noon passed ; the sun verged westward, and still he did not appear. I became seriously alarmed ; the old marquis was perplexed and irritated ; while Annette wept in silence. " Horses were ordered at last, and with Chateaunoir, his son the Vicomte Henri, afterwards Colonel of the Grey Mousquetaires, and all his servants, I set forth to search the roads and inquire for my friend. THE GREY MOUSQUETAIIIK. 223 For some time we prosecuted this object in vain ; but alter much labour ami anxiety, judge of ou horror, when in a secluded orangery, about two miles from Epinal, the young vicomte found a man lying on the grass wounded, bleeding and dying, sur- rounded by a group of pitying and terrified viin drenera " The damps of death were on the brow of this unfortunate, who proved to be my friend, poor Louis (I'll i rblay. " He was frightfully pale, having received several wounds one of these in the bosom occasioned him the most exquisite agony. From this wound he had bird for some hours undiscovered, and now he was beyond all hope of recovery. Revived partially by our presence, by a cordial poured between his lips, and by the stoppage of the crimson tide which had soaked the soil whereon he lay, in broken accents and at long intervals,, he related what. had befallen him ; and every word he uttered there, so slowly, painfully, and laboriously, sank deeply in our hearts, lor they were too surely the last words of the dyin-. "Loth to arouse me untimeously at Epinal, my kind friend had arisen, and softly descended the wooden stair, saddled his horse, and left the aufcerge by dawn. ; ;i-d from Epinal at a canter, and in the over- flowing happiness of his heart was singing merrily, when at a solitary part of the road, he heard tin- hoofs of a galloping horse, and a voice impetuously calling upon him to stop. Believing this folK i, who had discovered his secret and hasty dc- parUnv, he turned to find himself confronted by a tall stranger, whose face was concealed by a black t mask, and whom he believed to be a brigand or assassin. p 2 224 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " ' Monsieur/ said the strange horseman, in a voice which, by its varying tones, was too evidently dis- guised as his face, 'you are abroad betimes.' " ' As you also are/ replied Louis ; ' but was it you, monsieur, who called upon me to stop ?' "'It was.' " ' For what purpose ?' " ' That you shall shortly see.' " ' Shortly nay, as soon as you please, for I am in haste.' " ' Indeed !' said the other scornfully and slowly. " ' What is your wish, sir ?' " Simply, that you measure swords with me in this meadow.' ' " Why ?' asked Louis, with astonishment. " ' I intended to have pistolled you through the back, sans ceremonw, at first ; but my heart re- lented; thus, I mean to afford you a chance of saving your miserable life though I must have your purse and valuables.' " ' You are, then, a robber.' " ' If one whose funds are down to zero, and who is desperate, be a robber, then I am one/ replied the mask, still in his feigned voice. '"I am no* poltroon, yet I will gladly save your soul the commission of a double crime/ said poor D'Herblay, who was the very mirror of generosity ; ' here is my purse, good fellow pray accept it and be gone, for I have no time to trifle with you/ The unknown coolly put the purse in his pocket and drew his sword, saying, with an ironical laugh "' I thank you, though I would have had it, at all events ; but still/ he added, grinding his teeth, ' you must fight with me !' " ' Leave me until to-rnorrow/ said Louis ; ' thero THE GREY MOUSQUETA1UE. 225 is one awaiting me at Rcmiremont one expecting me to-day whom I would not disappoint a lady who loves me, monsieur.' " The stranger laughed scornfully. " ' Let me see her but once again, and I shall meet you with joy.' " The stranger laughed louder, and said bitterly " ' Why not meet me now ?' "'I know not,' urged poor D'Herblay, who was anxious to ride on; 'but your presence chills my heart I have a dark and solemn presenti- ment.' " For a third time the other laughed ferociously, while his eyes sparkled through the holes in his ma-k, and he menaced D'Herblay with his sword, sa \iiii; "Fighfc: fight!' ' ' To-morrow I tell you, to-morrow/ ' ' Never be it now or never !' ' ' I am too full of happiness to fight.' ' ' Happiness !' " ' She whom I love she whom I am to wed, ex- pects me at Remiremont' " ' She whom you love, and whom you hope to wed, shall never see you, but as a breathless corpse, fool !' " ' If I am slain, who will bear my last words to Aim.-ttr r " ' The spirits of the air or the demons of hell I care not which,' was the fierce response. " ' Fool that I was to leave the auberge without my friend. Moreover, I decline to fight with a rascally lUUur/' " This epithet, which is used in France to distinguish a person who, without provocation, delights in quar- 226 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. relling and forcing others to fight, made this highway brawler tremble with rage. " ' Coward !' he thundered out. " ' Hah !' exclaimed Louis, leaping from his horse, and in his passion forgetting all but vengeance. " Coward, come on !' reiterated his assailant. "Louis pressed to his lips the cameo locket which contained the hair of Annette, and with a prayer to Heaven that he might be spared to see her, rushed upon his furious antagonist. A desperate duel began, and so ably were the voice and costume of the masker disguised, that never once did a thought of Jules de Ccourdefer cross the mind of D'Herblay. They had withdrawn from the roadway into an orangery, and taken off their coats and vests to afford them greater freedom. A perfect fencer, Louis stood erect, with his head upright, his bo^y forward on a longe, all the weight on his left haunch feet, hands, body, arm and sword in a line, and completely covered by his weapon. " Their swords clashed and gleamed in the bright morning sun ; both were expert combatants, and most of their passes were skilfully made and as skilfully parried. The masker made a feint to the left, but changing the attack, suddenly ran his weapon through the sword-arm of Louis, fairly wedging the blade between the bones below the elbow, and covering his shirt with blood in a moment. Paralysed by this, his future defence was feeble. He received repeated wounds, and was at last laid prostrate on the earth, bleeding and senseless. " ' Lie there, thou moonstruck fool !' exclaimed his ruthless conqueror, giving him a final stroke in the breast. Tearing away the cameo locket, he left the unhappy D'Herblay a dying man, for he expired in THE lini-Y MOUSQUETAIKE. 227 our amis as we were conveying him to Rcmire- raont unining the wound in his breast, we found that it had been made by the blade of a email cry.-t v the bravoes ; but the proofs I could adduce were too slight for me, a stranger and a foreigner, to ;so the son of a powerful baronial family ; thus the terrible suspicion remained locked in my own luvast a suspicion that grew less, however, when I remembered that the victor, like a common foot- I >:i might retract, the ceremony was hurried on with a haste on his part which the good-natured gossips of 230 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. Remiremont averred to be somewhat indelicate at least. "His sister perceived the strange waverings and mis- givings that agitated the mind of poor Annette, and on the marriage morning she embraced and kissed her tenderly. " ' Beware what you do, dearest Annette/ said she, ' lest you repent the hour you leave us. In marriage the love of the mind and character must be blended with and united to the love of the person, or there can never be any duration of tenderness or of mutual con- fidence. Oh, I pray Heaven, I may not have acted wrong in this affair !' " The misgivings of the geod abbess came too late. " Full of hope, the gentle Annette smiled through her tears ; full of love and triumph, the exulting chevalier led her away, and they were married. Before leaving the convent, Jules placed in her hand a case containing a complete set of brilliants a tiara for her head, a necklace, bracelets, and rings. Among these jewels was a cameo locJcet, studded with the purest diamonds. " On perceiving this well-known trinket, Annette grew pale, and tottered to a chair. It seemed to come like a signal from the grave of Louis d'Herblay to reproach her ! Her features became convulsed and her voice tremulous, for in a moment she recognised her own gift to Louis, previous to his last departure for Pontamousson, and there occurred to her a strange, but just and dreadful suspicion, that for a moment paralysed her and rendered her totally inca- pable of repelling the chevalier, who held her in his arms, and perceived at once, and with no little confusion, the misfortune or discovery which was impending. THE GREY M0l> .ilE. " ' Cursed fatality !' ho exclaimed, through his cl'-nclic'l teeth. " ' Wlicnce came this trinket, Jules ? How came it into your possession? Speak!' she exclaimed, in accents of terror, and with the gestures of passion. " ' I do not understand you, dear Annette/ said he, finding that nothing but perfect confidence and a bold falsehood would carry him through this nudheur. ' I had that locket made for me by a jeweller of the Rue St. Honore', in Paris, many years ago, as a gift for my mother." " ' It is false all this; for, four years ago, I had it In -re in Remiremont." "'Annette!' ' ' Has it any secret spring or clasp ?' she asked. " ' No none, I am assured/ he answered, boldly. " ' You are sure of this, Jules ?' " ' I swear to you Annette/ he urged, becoming frightfully agitated, while the perspiration rolled like beads down his brow. " ' Swear not you have lied enough already/ she ;iimed wildly. ' See, monsieur/ she added, press- ing a spring and opening the locket by a secret hitherto unknown to Cceurdefer, ' it contains my miniature and a braid of my hair mine, given in a happy, happy hour to Louis d'Herblay ! O, Louis! look down on me from heaven, and see how fate has avenged thee ! Away, chevalier away ; come not near me, and touch me not ! If other proof were wanting that you were his murderer, it is here.' "These words were rashly spoken, yet they stung Jules to the soul. She tore her bridal chaplet and voil from her brow, trampled on them with gestures of frenzy, and was borne away insensible in the arms of the canonesses. 232 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. ." In one hour after thaid&nonement the exasperated chevalier had left Remiremont for the French camp left it to return no more." " And what of Annette ?" asked some one. " She took the black veil, and is now nun of the convent of St. Nicole, seven miles from Nancy. With that day's discovery began and ended the wedded life of Coeurdefer ; and since then he has led a wild and reckless career, committing innumerable acts of daring, which by some strange fatality have passed as yet unpunished ; but the assassination of D'Herblay for that he did assassinate him, I have not the slightest doubt is the blackest of his acts ; unless, indeed, that other episode at Minden be a deeper and a darker one. " The marriage prevented the Vicomte Henri alike from prosecuting him at common law as a felon, and from challenging him to a solemn duel, and so time passed on ; but he hated my colonel the handsome young Mousquetaire with the hate of a tiger ; hence I doubt not that by his hand, or the hands of some of his lawless troop at his behest, my leader perished on the field of Minden ! " France has not in all her army a more splendid soldier than that Mousquetaire Gris ! " After the junction of the French army under M. de Contades and M. de Broglio, as I have related, on their approach Prince Ferdinand retreated, first to Lippstadt, and afterwards to Ham, where he mus- tered all the forces in the Bishopric of Munster, and was joined by the soldiers of Imhoff, while we ad- vanced and took possession of Cassel, Minden, and Beverungen. " While we lay at Cassel, engaged in repairing and strengthening the fortifications, the vicomte, our THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRK. 233 loader, was engaged in two pieces of service, which savoured of the romance of the Middle Ages in Ger- many. " There came to the colonel of the Mousquetaires, fnun the Lower Saxon side of the Weser, a certain old kniyht named Otto of Burgsteinfort, who though an adlinvnt of the enemy, implored him as a soldier and a Lr<-iitlriuaii to attempt the rescue of his daughter, ;ily child, who had been carried off by a party of _, r e Uzkokes or Hungarian infantry, who had been Miksidized by the King of Prussia, and formed a por- tion of the column commanded by Prince Ferdinand, but were more immediately under the orders of Count Hatzfeld in Munden, twelve miles distant on the W.-ser ; and these wretches, he added, had borne her into a forest in the Bishopric of Paderborn, where he dared not follow them, alone at least. Pitying the distress of the old man, Chateaunoir left Cassel on this errand of mercy with forty gentlemen of the Mousquetaires Gris. Of these forty I had the honour to be one. " * Will not Count Hatzfeld do this service for you, baron ?' I asked. " ' No though on my knees I prayed him ; I who never have bent my knee before to aught but a minister of God.' " ' Why r " ' Because our families are and have been lon at " ' Good I can understand that, for in my country we are not without hereditary liatnds. Yt-t in tin-; instance his onidurt ha- been alike ungenerous and wicked.' "'True; thus I, a German, appeal to ihivnlry/ LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. " ' In a happy moment, baron/ said Chateaunoir, * and your appeal shall not be made in vain. This abduction ' " ' Occurred three days ago/ " ' Peste ! then we have no time to lose !' " We crossed a range of mountains in the night, and entered the Bishopric of Paderborn, pushed on towards the forest, riding with such speed, that, to prevent our horses being knocked up, at a village near Borcholz, we refreshed them in the old Reiter fashion, by bathing their nostrils with vinegar, giving them water and wine to drink, and folding round their bits a piece of raw flesh sliced from a stray cow, which we shot, and cut up for the purpose. " Otto, the knightor baron (for we named him both), acted as our guide, and such was the deadly treachery so frequently practised by those Germans, that we were not without fear that the whole story of the ab- duction might be a snare to lure away into ambush those who were considered by the King of Prussia as the right arm of the French general ; and thus our colonel gave me express orders to keep by the old man's side, and on the first indication of treachery, or attempted flight, to pistol him without mercy ! " The harvest moon was shining full and yellow in her placid beauty high above the steep green moun- tains that look down on Liebenau ; but now it was on the wane, for the east was marked by the coming day, as in silence and circumspection we approached the fortress of the lawless Uzkokes. Every leaf was still, the sky was of the purest blue, and spread like a starry curtain behind the 'dark mountain peaks, and the sombre forest scenery was reflected like inverted trees of bronze in the calm lakes and tarns which we passed THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRE. 235 in our progress through this wild region of solitude and old romance. " An old servant of the baron, who had been lurking about the forest in the vague hope of succouring his young mistress, now joined us, and threw himself at the feet of his master. For two nights and days this faithful fellow had been lurking in the vicinity of these terrible depredators, and now he acted most efficiently as our guide. His appearance, his tears, and enthu- siasm dissipated our fears of a snare, and made me somewhat ashamed of having encouraged them. "The Uzkokes, about twenty in number, were 'iers from Count Hatzfeld's garrison in Munden, and had possessed themselves o an old and deserted hunting lodge of the Electoral Bishops, built at the foot of a rock ; from thence they had been issuing from time to time, to plunder the peasantry, to rob \v:iyf;iivrs and to shoot deer. " The sound of guttural voices in loud altercation, '.lfl with savage laughter, informed us that we iu the immediate vicinity of those enterprising who had abducted the baron's daughter. Then we saw the gleam of a red wavering light between the stems and branches of the trees. This came from a huge fire around which they were all bivouacked, drinking, sleeping, or making merry, and being ap- paivntly without any proper watch or scout, as we were enabled to approach them by a forest path un- challenged ;md unseen. The reason of this seeming confidence was soon explained, when we found 01. their number lyin^ across the narrow way stretclnd upon his mii.-kft, either sottishly drunk or in profound slumber; but which wo m-vrr had time to discover, for, quick as thought, the servant of the baron, a 236 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. bloodthirsty Westphalian boor, dispatched him by one slash of his short and sharp couteau de ckasse. " The father was by my side as we advanced. Bare- headed, he was praying with his clenched hands pressed upon his breast. The poor old man was full of agony and terror. '"They are twenty in number, you say?' asked Chateaunoir. " ' Exactly twenty, mein herr/ replied the old servant, wiping his hunting-knife on the grass with grim care before he sheathed it. " ' Then ten of -MS are enough for them/ replied our heroic young colonel ; ' let the ten gentlemen next me dismount and take their pistols with them. You are sure, my friend, that your young mistress is still among them ?' " ' Sure as I li ve, mein herr/ replied the boor. The baron groaned. " ' See !' exclaimed a Mousquetaire, ' there is a white dress amid their circle. " ' Christ I kreutz ! it is my young lady !' whispered the servant, in a breathless voice. " I placed my gloved hand on the baron's mouth lest he might utter a cry, and spoil all. " ' Where where ?' asked Chateaunoir. " ' At the foot of that elm-tree, and, mein Gott / she is tied to it with a cord.' " Creeping forward after Chateaunoir (for he would allow no man to precede him) I saw a very remark- able scene. "Around a huge fire of dried branches that crackled, sputtered, and blazed, casting a red and lurid glow on the gnarled trunks of the old oak-trees and on the leafy canopy formed by their twisted and entwined foliage overhead, were the twenty UzkoHes, all fit . TIP.: ;KMV MOUSQUKTAIKK. ^:'>7 looking little men, of powerful, active, and athletic figures, with hooked noses, keen eyes, and wild in ire. They were bearded to the cheekbones, and wen- round fur caps and brown pelisses, or short jackets, and wide red breeches, ending in brodecjuins, or half-boots. They had each a short musket, slung -s his body, with a crooked sabre, which worn in front, so that the hilt came readily to the right hand. A few were asleep, snorting off the fumes of the midnight debauch, as they sprawled am"i)g staved barrels, broiled bones and broken dishes. The rest were engaged in a vehement dis- . while near them drooped the poor object of their contention, a pale-cheeked and slender young girl, secured to a tree by two broad buff waist-belts and a cord ; her dress was disordered ; her flaxen hair dishevelled and unpowdered ; her face bowed down in her hands, which rested on her knees. " This was the daughter of Otto of Burgsteinfort. " Once she looked wildly up to heaven, and then bowed down her fnco again in hopeless misery. She ghastly pale, and had a hopeless glare in her blue eyes. Beauty, if she really possessed it, seemed to have been quite scared from her. . " ' Morllcu ! how pale she is 'tis quite a little spectre !' muttered the mousquetaires. " ' Hush, gentlemen/ said the vicomte, cocking a I and drawing his sword ; ' we have come at a critical time. These wretches are all insanely drunk, and, if I understand their barbarous jargon aright, are now in vehement dispute as to whose property their lair prisoner shall be.' "All seemed inflamed by the desire of poeseoung the prize by the strong hand ; hence sal ires drawn, and a brawl, which might have saved us all 238 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. further trouble, was about to ensue, when a corporal, who was leader of the gang, and evinced more brutality even than his comrades, swore 'that none should have her but the wolves/ and unslinging his musket, levelled it full at her head ; but at that moment a shot pierced his chest and he fell dead upon his face, with arms outspread upon the earth. Death had come to him from the ready pistol of Chateaunoir, who now led us on, and taking them by surprise, we cut down almost the whole party without resistance. Four who were asleep and dead drunk we hanged at our leisure, before mounting to return. " We then, without loss of time, retraced our steps, lest we might be discovered and cut off by troops of Count Hatzfeld or Prince Ferdinand, and rode on the spur towards the Weser. "To the grateful Baron Otto and his daughter we bade adieu within a few miles of jHatzfeld's head- quarters, and sent the count an ironical message, complimenting him on his chivalry and gallantry to the fair sex. After this we reached our quarters in Cassel next evening, without the loss of a man, and so ended our adventure in the forest at Paderborn. "The next affair to which I referred, is as fol- lows : " We remained quietly in our new quarters for a few days until the Due de Broglio devised an attack upon Munden, the fortifications of which were increasing under the eye of Count Hatzfeld. The Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges marched on this service, and early that morning, long before our trumpets sounded, I was roused by the din of the chopping blocks, of which every French troop has one, to cut straw for the horses before marching. THK <;KKV MOUSQUETAIKK. 239 "With the dragoons of Brissac we formed the ad- vanced guard of this expedition, which included the Regiments of Picardie and Normandio ; and here I may mention that our mounted comrades were not named from Brissac in Alsace, but from a little town of the same name in Anjou, which belonged to the ancient family of Cosse, one of whom, Charles de Cossc, made a peer by Louis XIII., with the title of : chal Due de Brissac. " En route to the scene of our operations, the guide, a wild-looking denizen of the neighbouring forests, clad almost entirely in wolf's fur, and having a shock head of flaxen hair, which he seemed to comb on an average once in a year, left us in a wooded gorge to shift for ourselves, as he knew full well that the rocks and thickets on both sides were manned by his Prus- sian friends. We were thus caugh n an ambush of infantry led by Count Hatzfield in person ! From both sides of the path there suddenly opened a de- structive fire upon us. Night was just closing, and an immediate confusion ensued. After a short and feeble resistance the Dragoons de Brissac, believing them- selves to be, as the French say, ocharpc, or cut to pieces, fell back in a panic on our infantry, who were about a mile in the rear, and we, finding ourselves alike bewildered and unsupported, retired, leaving several of our comrades shot or unhorsed. Among ", unnoticed and unseen, was our Colonel, the Vicomte de Chateaunoir, whose horse had been killed by a musket-shot The animal, after plunging thrice, fell heavily, and severely bruised the rider's right leg, which was crushed by its weight in his jack-boot, though the latter was lined by ribs of tempered iron. Thus he lay helpless and unahlr either to rise or ex- tricate himself. Close by him lay a chevalier of the Q 2 210 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Golden Fleece, gorgeously attired, with silver ai-_ f ni- lettes on his shoulders. The blood was oozing from a wound in his breast. Chateaunoir strove to staunch it, and ultimately succeeded. " ' Leave me, monsieur/ said the sufferer, who was in great agony ; ' leave me that I may die, and go to that God who for you and me suffered more than I this night endure !' " With these pious words he became insensible, and this chevalier, so daring and devout, was poor Prince Xavier of Saxony, who was afterwards slain on the field of Minden. " The . moon rose above the mountains to light the scene of this misfortune, and while stretched on the ground, enduring great pain and thirst, Vicomte Chateaunoir had the horror of beholding many of his wounded companions butchered (even as he, perhaps, was butchered at Minden !) by the sabres of some prowling Jagers in search of plunder ; and though he lay still, feigning death, such would too probably have been his own fate, had not a sudden torrent of rain mercifully driven them into an adjacent wood for shelter. " Believing himself to be now altogether lost for if not rescued by his French comrades, he was certain when day dawned to be slain by the Jagers or the Westphalian peasantry he lay bruised, sore, and help- less under the drenching rain, and was on the point of becoming insensible from exhaustion and suffering, when the tremulous light of a lantern gleamed along the wet grass, and glinted on the scattered weapons, the shot-riven soil, and the pale faces of the dead. Two dark fmires approached noiselessly, and then he heard a female crying "'Hatzfeld Count Hatzfeld ;' and near him TUB GREY MOUSQUETAIRE. 21-1 there passed a voting woman of great beauty, muffled to her chin in a mantle of furs, and attended by an old man hi-aring a lantern, the light of which, (while shuddering at the terrors it revealed), they turned from to side on the faces of the dead and wounded anion^ whom they threaded their way. " ' If you seek Count Hatzfeld, madame, you seek in vain,' said the vicomte, faintly. " ' Who spoke V said the lady, pausing in terror. " ' I a wounded Frenchman !' " ' And wherefore say you so, monsieur ?' asked the lady, while her large dark eyes seemed to dilate with alarm ; ' is he wounded slain ?' " ' Nay, I hope not, as you are interested in his safety ; but he has simply fallen back with his victo- rious infantry towards the town of Munden.' " ' Thanks thanks/ said she, turning away ; and then, seeing by the light of her lantern that the speaker was a young and very handsome man, she added ' Pardon my selfish anxiety, for Count Hatz- 1'i-id is my husband ; but you who are you?' To-night I am your humble servant, madame ; this morning I was colonel of the brave Mousquetaires Gris, under Louis XV.' Your name ' " ' Henri, Vicomte de Chateaunoir.' " ' Who was the first to cross the Rhine at ae? J " ' I had that honour, madame.' " ' Oh, monsieur, I have heard of you very often.' "'Then I would pray you, madame, a Prus- sian though you be, to give me but a cup of wati-r ; for even under this falling rain I am dying of " The Countess of Hut/tVld hastened to give him 212 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. some wine from a flask borne by her attendant, and she even proposed to remain beside him. " ' I would rather perish of cold and exhaustion, or die by the knives and sabres of those rascally Jagers or Uskokes, than have you remain here in such a piti- less night as this, lady/ replied Chateaunoir. ' I am a Mousquetaire Gris. I thank you, Madame la Corn- tesse ; but leave me to my fate. I have done my duty to God and his Most Christian Majesty, and am quite willing to leave the event to chance/ " But this dame with the gentle eyes and black tresses was one of the Douglases of Esthonia,* and was resolved to leave the event in the hands of one quite as fickle as fate, to wit, herself, and she pro- tested that she would not and could not quit the vicomte ; but with the assistance of her old valet, whose silence and fidelity could evidently be relied on, she succeeded in extricating him from his fallen charger ; she bound up the bruises of his limb, and, supported partly by the hard paw of the old German valet on one side, and by her soft arm on the other, he was conveyed to an adjacent mansion, of which the Prussians had taken possession. It stood about a mile from the field ; and there the lady laid him on a couch, and attended him with every care, while her attendant a cunning old fellow kept watch, to an- nounce when the count, a young and fiery soldier who had vowed extermination to the enemies of the Great Frederick, should return. " When Chateaunoir found himself in a luxurious bed, within a handsome apartment, hung with green silk festooned by golden cords and massive tassels, * Where .the ruins of their castle are still to be seen on the Douglasberg. They WCTC descended from a Scottish Douglas who served the Teutonic knights. THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRE. 213 and having buhl toilet-tables, covered with Mechlin lair festooned with white and silver; large oval mir- rors, lighted by rose-coloured candles in girotfdoles of glittering crystal, and vases of flowers between, he be- lieved himself to be in a dream, the more so, as witli hali-closed eyes he saw a beautiful woman, with re- markably white hands, long tremulous eyelashes, and fine eyes, gliding noiselessly about his couch, and from time to time watching over his slumbers and re- covery. So he thought, " ' Tis a spirit-woman, and this is some enchanted castlo on the Rhine, or under it, perhaps. In Paris, I have often heard tales of such adventures in this land of diablerie, and seen them, too, in the theatres.' " But the hands and arms of this ' spirit woman/ wlu-ii they touched the vicomte were remarkably un- like those of a spectre or spirit ; moreover, she had a bright roguish eye, and, by her manner, seemed not at nil reluctant to receive compliments, or to indulge in ;i little innocent coquetry, being, as most pretty women are, charmed by the admiration she excited. She had resided long at Berlin, and as our young cul<>n'l was almost fresh from the King's antechamber at Versailles, she was charmed to find a chevalier so gallant in that sequestered district which lay between tin \Y. .-< r and the (then) wild forests of Paderborn. " Three days slipped pleasantly away at that q;:iet old German chateau. " On the evening of the 3rd, the galloping of horses heard in the avenue, and Count Hatzfeld, still llu.shed by the success of his ambuscade, which, for a tinu', had completely delayed the advance of the Mnivchal Due de Broglio towards Munden, accom- panied 1 v a squadron of Blue Prussian Hussars, 24-1 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. arrived at the mansion, and, without removing his soiled and blood-stained uniform, hastened to embrace his countess. Pale and confused, the latter had barely time to conceal the vicomte in a secret alcove, or ancient hiding-place which she had discovered, and which opened by a sliding panel at the lack of tin 1 couch, whereon he had been reposing when Hatzfeld entered, and after a few gay Avords of greeting, threw aside his hussar cap, gloves, sabre, and rich pelisse, and with an exclamation of pleasure, satisfaction, and weariness, stretched himself on the same place and the same pillow where the vicomte had lain but a moment before ! " Trembling with apprehension, and paler than ever, the poor little countess sat near a mirror, dread- ing even the expression of her own face, and scarcely trusting herself to speak. "And now scarcely a long, tedious, and terrible hour had elapsed, when a casual sound, or some vague suspicion excited by her peculiar manner, prompted Hatzfeld suddenly to unclose the long panel of the alcove, wherein lay the stranger almost side by side with himself. With a shout of angry astonishment, the count leaped up, and sprang to his lately re- linquished sabre. " ' Stay/ exclaimed the countess, throwing herself upon his sword-arm ; ' he is only a poor wounded man, whom I have saved and concealed.' " ' In my bed or beyond it could you find no more fitting place, madam ?' exclaimed her husband, endeavouring to free himself from her impetuous grasp, while sombre fury and fierce suspicion sparkled in his eyes. "'Hatzfeld believe me Hatzfeld, I speak the truth !' Tin: i ; i : K v MOUSQU ETA 1 ; :M ." " ' Swear that you do.' said ho, menacing her white with til-- gleaming weapon. " ' I su ear it/ she exclaimed, ' by our Lady of Oetingon, I swear ' "'What,?' " ' That he is only a poor stranger.' " ' And that you never saw him before ?' " ' Never bef< re the night of the ambush/ " ' Ami that he is who ?* queried the count, ;!y. "'A mouaquetalre of King Louis/ "'O Christi Kreutz ! a soldier of King Louis!' rated the count; 'what matters it Frenchman or Austrian one can reach hell as soon as the other f ' : lie made a thrust atChateaunoir,who though weak t'n.ni his l.niis, s, sprang from the alcove, and would infallibly have been slain had not the countess hung i her fiery husband's sword-arm, praying him by all he la-Id sai-ivd and dear to spare her the horror, th. disgrace, and lifelong reproach of an act so cruel as this man's slaughter in her chamber; but she sjxiko to one who heeded and who heard her not. " In his blind fury or suspicion, the count disdained to hear her, and coarsely strove to thrust her from him, l.n.M:;^ her tender breasts and hands, as she riling about him wildly. Though so faint that he could scarcely stand, Chateaunoir had now reached and drawn his sword; and how this matter might have 1, there are no means of knowing, had it not at this crisis been cut short by the ball of a field- piece passing through the house with a frightful crash, and then they heard the sh:\ip shrill notes of the IVu.-.-sian trumjirts sounding t Inn-tte, as a party of the Due de Broglio's Cavalry, who were again advanc- 246 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. ing towards Munden, approached the mansion, and seeing a squadron of Blue Hussars in the lawn with a standard displayed, had suddenly opened a fire on them from three pieces of flying artillery. " Leaving our colonel to the care of his advancing friends, Hatzfeld had to depart on the spur for Mun- den, which was his head-quarters and nearest fortified post, while his fair young countess became the lawful prisoner of the Mousquetaires Gris. The vicomte treated her with every courtesy, and she was escorted with all honour to the quarters of the Due de Broglio, whose timely approach had arrested an act of assassi- nation. " In his anger at Count Hatzfeld, and anxiety to remain with us, Chateaunoir, immediately on procur- ing a new horse, assumed once more the command of the Grey Musketeers, and marched at our head, on the expedition against the town of Munden. " The sun was setting when we, who formed the advanced guard, came in sight of Munden, at the confluence of two streams, which there unite and are named the Weser ; and its current rippled in pink and gold as the tints of evening deepened on the laden barges that floated by the quays, on the spires of the churches, and the quaint architecture of the streets. The scenery was neither bold nor striking ; but the sun seemed to linger for a time ' at the gates of the west/ casting upward his rays through cloud and sky, diverging like the fiery spokes of a mighty wl\eel, and these continued to waver and play, to fade and gleam again from below the dark line of the horizon, long after the sun himself had disappeared from our eyes. " As the last bright vestige of his flaming disc went down, a cannon the solitary evening gun boomed THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRi:. 247 from tho fortifications of Munden, and the Pru> standard was slowly lowered for the night; and this to us a significant notice that as yet our approach was unseen. " Munden we considered one of the most important places on tho Weser. On one side it had eight solid ons faced with stone, full of earth and impene- trable to cannon-shot. A half-moon lay before every curtain and the ditch was broad. The counterscarp, covered way and palisadoes were all in the best order, the town was garrisoned by three thousand men, hundred of whom were Irish, whose backs had never been seen by an enemy. Count Hatzfeld commanded the whole, and his second was the Baron illy, a soldier as resolute and determined as himself, consequently we had every reason to expect that broken heads would be numerous enough. " If my warlike friends expect a detail of the siege and capture of Munden, I regret that I can afford i but a brief note of the operations, which were sed by M. de Broglio with great vigour. Tho battalions de Picardie blockaded it on one side, while those of Normandie enclosed it on the other. M. de (Joutades broke ground before the strongest bastions, ami .M. de Broglio undertook to storm and destroy the works and bridges on the Weser, while the Vicomte de L'hateaunoir, with the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges and the cavalry, covered the roada and collected supplies. " The fire of our artillery, which was heavy, .was neutralized by the elevation at which they were dis- charged, aud by the compactness of the earthen para- ju-ls ; but ultimately a breach was effected in t\\> , and a lu..-,t of bravo fellows volunteered for the assault. Among these were all the Grey Mousque- 243 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. taires and about a hundred of the Dragoons of Brissac, dismounted. The honour of leading the stormors at midnight was assigned to the vicomte, who appeared in his brilliant state uniform, with all his orders sparkling on his breast. " ' Is this wise, vicomte ?' asked the old Due de Broglio. " ' Wherefore, mardchal ?' " ' You will be the mark of every musket to-night/ " ' So much the better for others/ replied the gay noble ' Allow me to please myself, Monseigneur le Dae. I may as well be killed in my best coat to-night as have it sold at the drum-head to- morrow/ " The second volunteer for the storming party was a mere child a son of the Comte de Brille, who had been unjustly executed for losing a military post under General Lally, in India. The boy was serving as a private soldier under M. de Contades, and was burning for an opportunity to distinguish himself; thus when we advanced towards the breach mingling together pell-mell, men of all ranks and arms united in a mass, and falling fast on every side, with shot of every sort and size passing us with an incessant hum or whistle, tearing up the turf, shattering stones, and rending huge branches off the trees that grew on the banks of the river, the vicomte turned, with an emo- tion of pity, and said to the boy "'M. de Brille, my young brave, return while there is yet time/ " ' My father perished innocently on the scaffold in the Place de Greve, vicomte/ replied the boy, on whose pale cheek glowed the light of the fireballs, which filled the air above and sputtered in the muddy ditches below ; ' and I shall to-night redeem his Tin-: <;I:KY M had served under Clive in the East ; and on the Uth of April, 1751, when an ensign, led the attack on the strong pagoda named the Devil's Rock, when six months' stores of AH Khan's army were taken with all their guanls. Like many others who were ordered on the Ani'TK-an campaign, Adam White had loft his love behind him ; for in those days a lieutenant's pay only a triHe more than that of the poor ensigns for they (Lord help them !) when carrying the British colours on the frozen plains of Minden, and up the bloody heights of Abraham, had only three skill tl'r2>cnce per diem. LEGENDS OF Till-; ULACK WATCH. Thus, for White to marry would have been mad- ness ; and as lie had only his sword, and that poor inheritance of pride, high spirit, and pedigree, which falls to the lot of most Scottish gentlemen for he was descended from that Quhyt, to whom King Robert I. gifted the lands of Stayhr, in the county of Ayr poor Lucy Fleming and he had agreed to wait, in hope that his promotion could not be far distant now, when he had served six years as a subaltern, and the army had every prospect of a long and severe war with France for the conquest of North America. With the minstrel he had said " Have I not spoke the live-long day, And will not Lucy deign to say One word her irieud to bless ? I ask but one a simple sound, Within three little letters bound, Oh let that word be YES." Lucy answered in the affirmative, and so they parted Lucy Fleming, the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scottish Church, lived at her father's secluded manse in Berwickshire, among woods that lie on the margin of the Tweed, in a beautiful and sequestered glen, where tidings of the distant strife came but sel- dom, save when the Laird of Overmains, and Row- chester, or some other neighbouring proprietor, t^ent " with his compliments to the minister" an old and well-read copy of the London Gazette, or more pro- bably the Edinburgh Evening Courant, "sair thumbed by ilka coof and bairn ;" for newspapers were few and scarce in those days, and the tidings they contained were often vague, marvellous, or un- satisfactory. But Lucy was only eighteen ; and she Tin: CACiiKr. 1 in liopo, while her lover in a crowded and ruble transport was ploughing clown the North Channel, making a vain attempt to remedy sea-sick- ii\ brandy anil water, endeavouring to forget his ncholy among comrades who were full of bilious recollections of the last night's hock and champagne, and v.i re seeking to drown their sense of discomfort in rough practical jokes, mad fun, and fresh jorums of Done in the best style of Sir John de Medina, a f;n nous foreign artist, who in those days resided in Edinburgh, and who now sleeps there in a quiet cor- of the old Greyfriars Kirk-yard, a miniature of Lucy in a gold locket, with a braid of her black hair, w;us White's best solace ; and for many an hour he lay in his swinging hammock, apart from all, gazing iij ion the soft features Medina's hand had traced. This miniature cost our poor subaltern half-a-year's pay ; but the prize-money of Trichinopoli had paid for it ; and now when rocking far, far at sea, oblivious of the ship's creaking timbers, the groaning of blocks, and jarring sounds of the main-deck guns, as they strained in their lashings ; the whistling of the wind through the rigging ; and the varied din of laughter, occasional oaths and hoarse orders bellowed from tho poop, he abandoned himself, lover-like, to the sad and 4ng employment of poring over that little me- mento, until the dark hazel eyes seemed to smile, the red lips to unclose, the light of love and joy to spread : all her features, and her parting tears seemed to f;ill ii^ain, hot and bitterly from her cheek upon the last recollection of his dear little Lucy her pule, wan face, with eyes red and swollen by werp- iiiu r , as she stood on the stone stile of tho old kirk- yard wall, when he l'iid: her farewell, just as the 260.. LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. lumbering stage from Berwick bore him away, per- haps for ever. In the same spirit did he brood over the thousand trifles that the lover treasures up in memory, and on none more than the love-music of Lucy's voice, which he might never hear again. Never again ! he shrank from those terrible words, and, trusting through God's grace to escape the chances of the war that were before him, he en- deavoured to reckon over the days, the weeks, the months, and it might be the years (oh what a prospect for a newly separated lover !) that must pass, before he should again see the little secluded kirk-hamlet, with its blue-slated manse, half buried among the coppice ; the Tweed brawling over its pebbled bed in front, under the white-blossomed hawthorns and green bourtree foliage ; the ancient church with its stone spire, its old sepulchral yews, and black oak pulpit, where for more than forty years the father of his Lucy had ministered unto a poor but pious flock. He was an old and white-haired pastor, whose memory went back to those terrible times, when Scotland drew her sword for an oppressed kirk and broken covenant " When the ashes of that covenant were scattered far and near, And the voice spoke loud in judgment, which in love she would not hear." Adam White saw in fancy the dark oak pew, where on Sunday Lucy sat near her father's pulpit, and close to a gothic window, from which the sun, each morn- ing in the year, cast the red glow of a painted cross on her pure and snow-white brow ; and so, with his mind full of these things, with a tear in his eye and a prayer of hope on his lip, " rocked on the stormy Tin: i.r.m:i: in-: CACIIKT. in of the deep," our military pilgrim went to sleep in his <_>(, as tin- Li/ard light faded away, and word round from ship to ship that Old England had Mink into the waste of sky and water, far, far astern. By the many casualties of foreign service, Adam White, on joining the regiment in America, found If junior captain. It w:is now the spring of 1758, and George II. was King. Lieutenant-General Sir Jeffry Amherst, K.C.B., was proceeding on the second expedition against L'Isle Royale, now named Cape Breton, which had belonged t<> the French since 1713, and was deemed by King Louis the key to Canada and the Gulf of St. Law- Meanwhile, Major-General James Abercrombie of Glassa, a gallant Scottish officer, with the 1st Scots i Is, the Black Watch, the 55th, or Westmoreland inent, the 62nd, or Royal North Americans, and nher troops, to the number of seven thousand regu- lars and ten thousand provincials, landed from nine hundred batteaux, and one hundred and thirty-five whale-boats, with all their cannon, provisions, and ammunition, on the 6th of July, at the foot of Lake George, a clear and beautiful sheet of water thirty - three miles long, and surrounded by high and verdant mountains. That district, now so busy and populous, \vas then silent and savage. No sound broke the still- of the romantic scenery, or the depths of the American forest, but the British drum or Scottish pipe, as the troops formed in four columns of attack, and advanced against the Fort of Ticonderoga. Our regiment, then styled " Lord John Murray's Highlanders," was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Grant ; his second was Major Duncan Camp- bell of Inveraw, and never did two better or braver 262 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. officers wear the tartan of the old 42nd. Viscount Howe, a brilliant officer of the old school of puffs, pigtails, knee-breeches, and Ramilie wigs, led the 55th. Ticonderoga is situated on a tongue of land extend- ing between Lake George and the narrow fall of water that pours with the roar of thunder into Lake Cham- plain, a hundred feet below. Its ramparts were thirty feet high, faced with stone, surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by a dangerous morass that was swept by the range of its cannon and mortars. The approach to this morass the only avenue to the fort was covered by a dense abattis of felled trees of enormous size, secured by stakes to the ground, and having all their branches pointed outward. The garrison, which consisted of eight battalions, was five thousand six hundred strong ; and as the assailants advanced, it was the good fortune of our hero, Adam White, to learn from an Indian scout that three thousand French, from the banks of the Mohawk river, were advancing to reinforce Ticon- deroga. These tidings he at once communicated to General Abercrombie, and orders were given to push on without delay. The praise he obtained for his diligence made the breast of our poor " sub" expand with hope ; and with a last glance at his relic of Lucy Fleming, he shouldered his spontoon, and hurried with his company into the matted jungle. The officer who commanded in Ticonderoga was brave, resolute, and determined. Twenty-four years before he had been a grenadier of the Regiment de Normandie, and served with the army of the Rhine under the famous Mardchal the Duke of Berwick. At the siege of Philipsburg in 1734, the Prince of Conti was so pleased by his intrepid bearing, that he placed Tin: u:m:i: DK c'.vcurr. ;i pui M. iii liis hand, apologizing for the srnallness of -um it contained; " but wo soldiers, mon cam a- r:ulu," continued the prince, "have the privilege to plead that we are poor." Next morning the young grenadier appeared at the tent of Conti, with two diamond rings and a jewel of great value. " Monseigneur le Prince," said he, " the louis in your purse I presume you intended for me, and I have* sent them to my mother, poor old woman ! at Lillebonne ; hut these I bring back to you, as having no claim to them." " My noble comrade," replied the prince, placing an epaulette on his left .shoulder, "you have doubly deserved them by your integrity, which equals your bravery ; they are yours, with this commission in the ment de Conti, which, in the name of King Louis, I have the power to bestow/' " .Bravo, prince, this is noble !" " Bravo 1 it equals anything in Scuderi !" ox- claimed two officers, who were at breakfast with the prince. Tim first of these was Maurice Count Saxc, general of the cavalry ; the second was the famous Victor Marquis de Mirabeau, the future political economist, who was then a captain in the French line. In twenty-four years this grenadier became a gene- ral officer and peer of France by the title of Comto de Montmorin ; and in 1758, he commanded the French garrison in Ticonderoga, where he left nothing undone to render that post impregnable. Thus a des- perate encounter was expected. Formed with the grenadiers in the reserve, the 42nd marched with muskets slung, and their thirteen 264 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. pipers, led by Deors MacCrimmon their pipe-major, made the deep dark forests ring to that harsh but wild music, which speaks a language Scotsmen only feel ; and the air they played was that old march, now so well known in Scotland as the " Black Watch ;" and loudly it rang, rousing vast flocks of wild birds from the lakes and tarns, and scaring the Red men from their wigwams and camps in the dense forests of pine that covered all the then unbroken wil- derness. The day was hot the sun being 96 in the shade ; the shrubs were all in blossom, and the wild plum and cherries grew in masses and clusters in the jungle, through which the heavily-laden columns of attack forced a passage towards Ticonderoga, leaving their artillery in the rear, as the officer commanding the engineers had reported, that without employing that arm, the works might be carried by storm. While the reflection of all Lucy might suffer, should he fall, cost poor White a severe pang, he was the first man who sent his name to the brigade-major, as a volunteer to lead the escalade. " But," thought he, " if successful, my promotion is insured ; and if I miss death, I shall, at least, be one step nearer Lucy." Jack Oswald, who volunteered next, consoled him- self by some trite quotation from Bossuet (he was always quoting French writers), that he had not a rela- tion to regret in the world. The country was thickly wooded, and the guide having lost the track through those hitherto almost untrodden wastes, the greatest confusion ensued. Brigadier-General Viscount Howe, who was at the heud of the right centre column, suddenly came upon a French battalion led by the Marquis de Lauuay, Tin: i.::Tn:i: DK CACHET. who was in full retreat, and a severe conflict ensued. Tin' viscount, a young and gallant officer, whom Aliercrombie styles "the Idol of the Soldiers," fell at the head of his own regiment, the 55th, as he was calling upon the French to surrender. A chevalier of St. Louis rushed forward and shot him by a pistol ball, which pierced his left breast. The chevalier was shot by Captain Monipennie, and received three musket balls as he fell The French were routed ; many were slain, and five officers with one hundred and forty- iglit privates were taken. Meanwhile, the column of which the Black Watch tunned a part, had been brought to a complete halt in a dense forest, where the rays of the sun were inter- d by the lofty trees ; the guides had deserted, and the officer in command was at a loss whether to julvanct; or retreat, when Adam White, who had been famous for beating the jungle and tigerhtfflting in India, found a war-path, and boldly taking upon him the arduoii.-; and responsible office of guide, conducted the troops through the wilderness; and thus, on the morning of the 8th July, the waters of Lake Cham- plain, long, deep, and narrow, appeared before them, shining in the clear sunrise, between the stems of the opening forest. Beyond rose the solid ramparts of that Ticomlcroga which had proved so fatal to the liritish arms in the last campaign, faced with polished stones, grim with sh: dy embrasures and pointed cannon, peering over trench and palisade; ami over all waved slowly in the morning wind the white ban- ner, with tin; three fleurs de lis of old France. Fire Hashed from the massive bastion, and then the alarm-gun pealed across tin- water, waking a th ;i~and chocs in the lonely woods; and the drum beat hoarsely and rapidly the call to arms, as the heads of 2GG LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. the four British columns in scarlet, with colours waving and bayonets fixed, debouched in succession upon the margin of that beautiful lake ; and there a second time Captain White of Ours was warmly complimented by General Abercrombie for his skill in conducting his comrades through a country of which he was totally ignorant. " And if I live to escape the dangers of the assault, believe me, sir," continued the general, <( this second service shall be recorded to your advantage and honour." But poor White thought only of his betrothed wife, and far away from the shores of that lone American lake, from its guarded fortress and woods, where tho stealthy Red man glided with his poisoned shafts, and from the columns of bronzed infantry, wearied by toil and stained by travel, his memory wandered to that sweet sequestered valley, where the pastoral Tweed was brawling past the windows of the old manse ; and to the honeysuckle bower, where, at that moment, perhaps, Lucy Fleming, with pretty foot and rapid hand, urged round her ivory-mounted spinning- wheel ; for, in those days of old simplicity, every Scottish lady spun, like the stately Duchess pf Lau- derdale, so famous for her diamonds and her imperious beauty. But now the snapping of flints, the springing of iron ramrods that rang in the polished barrels, the opening of pouches and careful inspection of ammu- nition by companies at open order, gave token of the terrors about to ensue ; and old friends as they passed to and fro with swords drawn to take their places in the ranks, shook each other* warmly by the hand, or exchanged a kindly smile, for the hour had come when many were to part, and many to Tin: I.KTTI:;: m: CACHKT. 2C.7 take their last repose before the ramparts of Ticon- deroga. io the front !" was now the order that passed along tlie columns, as the arms were shouldered, juul tht; companies closed up to half-distance, while the grenadn-r companies of the different corps v. formed witli the Highlanders, as a reserve column of attack ; for on them, more than all his other troops, did the general depend ; and a fine-looking body of men they wen-, those old British Grenadiers, whom Wolfe ever considered the flower of his army, though they \\uiv those quaint, sugar-loaf Prussian caps, which we adnptrd with the Prussian tactics, and though their heads were all floured and pomatumed, with a .smart pigtail trimmed straight to the seam of the coat nd, their large-skirted coats buttoned back for u>e and to display their white breeches and black ings their officers with triple-cocked hats and Bleeve-rufHes, just as we see them in the old pictures of Oudenarde and Fonteuoy. As Colonel Grant had been wounded by a random shot, Major Duncan Campbell of Inveraw, a veteran otlicor of great worth and bravery, led the regiment, and Adam White was by his side. The cracking roar of musketry, and the rapid boom- In^ mi-booming of cannon, with the whistle and ex- plosion of mortars, shook the echoes of the hitherto silent, waste of wood and water, and pealed away with a thousand reverberations among the beautiful moun- tains that overlook Lake Champlain, as the British columns rushed to the assault ; but alas ! the en- tivnrhments of the French were soon found to bo altogether impregnable. The first cannon-shot tore up the earth under the fet of Ensign Oswald, and hurled him to the ground ; "208 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. but lie rose unhurt, and rushed forward sword in hand. The leading files fell into the abattis before the breastwork, and on becoming entangled among the branches, were shot down from the glacis, which was lofty, and there perished helplessly in scores. The Inniskillings, the East Essex, the 46th, the 55tb, the 1st and 4th battalions of the Royal Ameri- cans, and the provincial corps, were fearfully cut up. Every regiment successively fell back in disorder, though their officers fought bravely to encourage them, waving their swords and spontoons ; but the French held the post with desperate suc- cess. Proud of their name, their remote antiquity and ancient spirit, the Scots Royals fought well and valiantly. At last even they gave way ; and then the Grenadiers and Highlanders were ordered to ADVANCE. While the drums of the former beat the " point of war," and the pipes of the latter yelled an onset, the reserve column, led by Inveraw, rushed with a wild cheer to the assault, overground encumbered by piles of dead and wounded men, writhing and shrieking in the agonies of death and thirst. Impetuously the Grenadiers with levelled bayonets, and the Black Watch, claymore in hand, broke through a bank of smoke, and fell among the branches and bloody entanglements of the fatal abattis. " Hew !" cried White, " hew down the branches with your swords, my lads, and we will soon be close enough." " Shoulder to shoulder ! Clann nan Gael an guillan a chiele," cried old Duncan of Inveraw ; but at that instant a ball pierced his brain, he fell dead, and on White devolved the terrible task of conducting the THE LETTKE DE CACIIKT. 269 finnl assault. Oswald was by his side, with the King's colours brandished aloft Hewing ;i passage through the dense branches of tin; :il>;ittis by their broadswords, the Black Watch made ;i gallant effort to cross the wet morass and storm tho breastwork by climbing on each other's shoulders, and by placing their feet on bayonets and dirk-blades inserted in the joints of the masonry. in the thicket, and prayed to God and Madonna for her lover. She covered her beautiful head with that thick mantle usually worn by the women of Leon, to shut out every sound ; but lo ! there en; loud, yet distinct shout from the river's bank, and 300 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. then a confused discharge of firearms that rang sharply in the clear morning air. " O Madonna mia !" exclaimed the Spanish girl, and with a shriek she threw herself upon her face among the grass. Meanwhile Grant had proceeded in rear of the tile- works, close by where the French regiment was paraded in close column at quarter distance, and so near was he, that he could hear the sergeants of com- panies calling the roll; but a group of peasants assembled by Domingo, remained around his horse, with their broad sombreros and brown cloaks, to con- ceal it from the French, along whose front he had to pass to reach the ford. From the gable of a cottage, he had a full view of the latter the Tormes brawling over its bed of rocks and pebbles, with the open plain that lay beyond, and the two French videttes, hel- meted and cloaked, with carbine on thigh, patrolling to and fro, to the distance of three hundred yards apart, but meeting at the ford. "Their figures seem dark and indistinct, in the starry light of the morning/' said Grant. "But we know them to be dragoons," said Domingo. "Si, senores," added the brother of Manrico el Barbado ; " from this you may perceive that their hel- mets and horses are afrancesado." " Frenchified yes ; now when I whistle, let go my horse's head, and do you, my good friends in front, withdraw to give me space, for now the videttes are about to part, and I must make at dash at it I" Atf the moment when the patrols were separated to their fullest extent, and each was one hundred and fifty yards from the ford, Grant dashed spurs into his horse, and with his sword in his teeth and a cocked ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT. 301 pistol in each hand, crossed the river by three furious bounds of his horse. Receiving without damage the fire of both carbines, he replied with his pistols, giving each of the dragoons a flying-shot to the rear, but without injuring either of them. There was an in- stantaneous and keen pursuit ; but he completely baffled it by his great knowledge of the country, and reached a cork-wood in safety, where he was soon joined by Domingo de Leon, who, being attired as a peasant, and unknown to the French, was permitted to pass their lines unquestioned. Marmont's rage on Grant's escape was great ; the sentinels at the ford were severely punished, and the officer commanding the regiment in HuertA was deprived of his cross of the Legion of Honour. Grant was not satisfied with the extent of his observations, for he became desirous of furnishing Lord Wellington with still further intelligence. From the conversations of French officers whom he had overheard, he made ample notes, and proved that means to storm Ciudad Rodrigo were prepared ; but he was resolved to judge for himself of the direction in which Marmont meant to move, and also to see his whole division on the line of march. For this pur- pose he daringly concealed himself among some cop- pice on the brow of a hill near the secluded village of Tamames, which is celebrated for its mineral springs, and lit s thirty-two miles south-west of Salamanca, There he sat, note-book in hand, with Leon, smoking a cigar, and lounging on the grass, while his jennet, un- billed, was quietly grazing close by, and the whole of Marmont's brilliant division, cuirassiers, lancers, in- fanlry, artillery, and voltigeurs defiled with drums beat- ing, tricolours waving, and eagles glittering through llio pass below ; and Grant's skilful eye counted every cannon. U 802 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. and reckoned over every horse and man, with a cor- rectness which astonished even Lord Wellington. The moment the rear-guard had passed, he mounted, and although in his uniform, rode boldly into the village of Tamames, where he found all the scaling ladders left behind. With tidings of this fact, and the strength of Marmont's army, he at once despatched a letter to Wellington, by Manrico el Barbado, who, as before, concealed it under his nether jaw ; and this letter, which informed the allies that the preparations to storm Rodrigo were, after all, a pompous feint, allayed their leader's fear for that fortress, and to Marmont's inexpressible annoyance, enabled him to turn atten- tion to other quarters, Fearless, indefatigable, and undeterred by the dangers he had undergone, Grant preceded Marmont (when that officer passed the Coa) and resolved to discover whether his march would be by the duchy of Guarda upon Coimbra, the land of Olives ; or by the small frontier town of Sabugal, upon Castello Branco, which stands upon the Lira, a tributary of the Tagus, and still displays the ruins of the Roman Albicastrum from which it takes its name. Castello Branco is a good military position ; but to reach it, a descent was necessary from one of those lofty sierras that run along the frontier of Portuguese Estramadura, and are jagged by bare and sunburned rocks, or dotted by stunted laurel bushes. From thence, he traversed a pass, at the lower end of which stands the town of Penamacor in the province of Beira, thirty-six miles north-east of Castello Branco. There, our adventurous Highlander, accompanied by Manrico el Barbado and the faithful Domingo de Leon, concealed himself in a thicket of dwarf-oaks ; and there a very remarkable adventure occurred to ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT. 303 him, whilo waiting the approach of the French, whose ad vane. (1 guard he hourly expected to see in the dark mountain pass below. Their horses were* beside ;n. Wrapped in their cloaks, the captain and his two Spanish comrades, after a supper of broiled eggs <-s estrallados sat by a fire of leaves and withered branches, and after sharing a bottle of vino de Alicant, composed themselves to sleep a state of oblivion soon obtained by the two sturdy paisanos ; but Grant remained unusually restless, thoughtful and awake. His mind was full of other times and past events of distant scenes and old familiar faces. He thought of his home, .of the regiment, and of Juanna, whom he had left at Huerta ; and as the red sunset deepened into night upon that lofty mass of rock which is washed by the Eljas and crowned by the picturesque houses, the strong fortifications, and the three churches of Penamacor, the light and shadow blended into one, and darkness came broadly and steadily on; then a strange and mysterious sensation of sadness stole over him a solemn melancholy which he strove in vain to account for and dispel. At last, when about to drop asleep, about ten o'clock, he started up, for a broad blaze of light illu- mined all the citadel of Penamacor. He saw its solid ramparts and the sharp spires of its three churches standing in black and bold relief against the unwonted glow that filled the sky above the city ; he heard the clanging of an alarm-bell, the hum of voices, and the treao of feet, as two vast and dark columns of in- fantry debouched from tho pass and began to descend the mountains towards the bridge of the Eljas. " The enemy the enemy !" he exclaimed. " Up, tip, Domingo Manrico, awake 1" u 2 304 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Roused by his voice they sprang to his side ; but lo ! at that moment, the light faded away from the citadel*; the sounds of the alarm-bell, the hum of dis- tant voices, and tread of marching feet died away ; the columns vanished, and the hollow way from the pass to the river was lonely and silent as before, in the clear light of the star-studded sky ! Of all these alarming sights and sounds, Manrico and Domingo had seen and heard nothing ! " It was a dream !" said Grant, as he threw him- self on the sward in alarm and perplexity, while his heart be'at wildly and strangely and for the remain- der of that night sleep never closed his eyes. The three wanderers passed the whole of the next day lurking in the oak woods that overhang the pass of Penamacor, and Domingo, who, after sunset, ventured into the town for some provisions for supper, returned to say that no lights had been burned, and no alarm had been given last night, as no fear was entertained of the approach of Marmont. Night again drew on, and the three companions were all alike watchful and awake. The hour of ten began to toll from the bells of Penamacor. At the first stroke Grant felt a nervous sensation thrill over his whole body, while the same solemn melancholy of the same time last night again weighed down his heart At the tenth stroke, lo ! a brilliant light flashed across the sky. It shot upward from the citadel of Penamacor ! Again, as before, the crenelated battle- ments and the sharp spires of the three churches stood darkly out from the blaze, which was streaked by the ascent of hissing rockets ; again the alarm-bell sent its iron clangour on the wind, but mingled with the boom of cannon ; again came the hum of voices, ADVKXTURES OV CAPTAIN GRANT. 305 and a.^-xin two dark and shadowy columns debouched from thtj black jaws of the mountain gorge and de- scended towards the bridge of the Eljas ; but this time there came horse and artillery ; the uplifted lances and the fixed bayonets gleamed back the star- light, while the rumble of the shot-laden tumbrils rang in the echoing valley. " Madre de Dios ! the enemy !" exclaimed the two Spaniards, starting to their muskets. " What ! do you, too, see all this ?" exclaimed Grant, wildly, as he smote his forehead ; for now he had begun to distrust the evidence of his own senses, and a horror that these mysterious visions, known in Scotland as the second sight, were about to haunt him, made his head reel " See them yes, senor, plain as if 'twas day," said Domingo. " O ! senor capitano, 'tis the French the French ! the ladrones los perros !" exclaimed Manrico, rashly firing his musket at three or four soldiers, whose out- lin< , with shako and knapsack, appeared on a little ridge close by. Four muskets, discharged at random, replied, and in a moment the three scouts found themselves fighting hand to hand with a mob of active little French voltigeurs. The latter recognised the Highland uniform of Grant, and finding him with two Spaniards, knew him at once to be the famous scouting officer, for whose arrest, dead or alive, Marmont had offered such a princely reward, and uttering loud shouts, tlu-y pressed upon him with bayonets fixed, and musketa clubbed. Strong, active, and fearless, he hewed them down with his claymore on all sides. He shot two with his pistols, and then hurled the empty weapons at the 306 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. heads of others, and, with Leon, succeeded in mounting and galloping off ; but Manrico was beaten down, and left insensible on the mountain side. " Grant and his follower," says General Napier, " darted into the wood for a little space, and then, suddenly wheeling, rode off in different directions ; but at every turn new enemies appeared, and at last the hunted men, dismounting, fled on foot, through the thickest part of the low oaks, until they were again met by infantry detached in small parties down the sides of the pass, and directed in their chase by the waving of the French officers' hats on the ridge above. (Day had now broken). Leon fell exhausted, and the barbarians who first came up killed him, in spite of his companion's entreaties." " My poor Juanna, what will now become of you ?" exclaimed Grant, on seeing his faithful Domingo ex- piring under the reeking bayonets of the voltigeurs ; and now, totally incapable of further resistance, he gave up his sword to an officer, who protected him from the fury of his captors. He was at last a prisoner ! A few days after this, Manrico, covered with wounds and with one arm in a sling, appeared sorrowfully before Lord Wellington, to announce that Grant, " el valoroso capitano," had been taken, after a desperate conflict in the pass of Penamacor. Lord Wellington was greatly concerned for the safety of his favourite officer, and the greatest excitement prevailed in the ranks of his regiment, for Colquhoun Grant was well beloved by the soldiers of the Black Watch. To the guerilla chiefs Wellington offered a thousand dollars for the rescue of Grant, and his letters proclaiming this reward were borne by Manrico and the broken- hearted Juanna through some of the wildest and most ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRAM. 307 dangerous parts of the frontier ; but Marmont took measures too well, and kept his valuable prisoner too securely guarded, for rescue or escape to be thought o The officer who had captured him, M. Armand, was a young sous-lieutenant of the 3rd Voltigeurs (the same who had destroyed the granja of Leon the farmer) ; but he had a heart that would have done honour to a marshal of the empire; and, with all kindness and respect, he conducted him to the quar- ters of the Marshal Due de Raguse. The latter invited the captive to dinner, and chatted with him in a friendly way about his bold and remarkable adventures, saying that he (Marmont) had been long on the watch for him ; that he knew his companions, Manrico the Bearded, Leon and his sister Juanna (here Grant trembled), and that all his haunts and disguises were known too. " Disguises pardon me, M. lu Mare'chal/' said Grant, warmly " disguises are worn by spies ; I have never worn other dress than the uniform and tartan of my regiment/' " Vrai Dieu ! the bolder fellow you 1" exclaimed the Due de Raguse. " You are aware that I might hang you ; but I love a brave spirit, and shall only exact from you a special parole, that you will not consent to be released by any partida or guerilla chief on your journey between this and France." " Monseigneur le Due, the exaction of this parole is the greatest compliment you can pay me," replied Grant, who, on finding matters desperate, gave liis word of honour, and was next day sent towards the Pyrenees with a French guard, under M. Armand, his captor. Grunt, without suspicion, was bearer of a treacherous letter to the Governor of Bayonne, in 308 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. which he was designated by Marmont " a treacherous spy, who had done infinite mischief to the French army, and who was not executed on the spot out of respect for something resembling a uniform (i.e., the Scottish dress) which he wore ; but he (Marmont) desired that at Bayonne Grant should be placed IN IRONS, and sent up to Paris." (Peninsular War, vol. iv.) On the first night of his march to the rear, M. Armand halted in a grove of cork and beech-trees, within a mile of Medellin, on the Guadiana the birth-place of Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico ; but as a guerilla chief with 5000 desperadoes held pos- session of the town and bridge, our lieutenant of Vol- tigeurs, with his prisoner and escort, were forced to content themselves with such shelter as the light foliage of the wood afforded. The night was pitchy dark ; the blackness that in- volved the sky, the mountains, the vale through which the Guadiana wound, and the wood where our travellers bivouacked, was palpable, painful, and oppressive ; but at times it was varied by the red sheet lightning which shot across the southern quarter of the sky, revealing the lofty Sierra, whose sharp peaks arose afar off like the waves of a black sea, and the stems and foliage of the cork and beech-trees in the foreground. On this night occurred the most horrible episode of Grant's military adventures. After having drained their canteens of Lisbon wine, and discussed their ration of cold beef and commis- sariat biscuit, Grant and Armand, the voltigeur, lay down fraternally side by side in their cloaks to repose ; their escort lay close by, long since asleep ; for Grant had given his parole that he " would not attempt to escape," and such were their ideas of mill- ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT. 309 tary honour and value for a soldier's word, that these brave Frenchmen never doubted him. Just as the two officers were about to sleep, they became aware of various cold and dewy drops, or clammy creeping things, that continued to fall upon them from the beech trees overhead. " Sangbleu !" exclaimed the lieutenant of Volti- geurs ; " we are all over creepers or cockroaches, and they drop like rain from this old beech upon us." " Let us seek another tree, my friend," said Grant, drowsily ; " one place is the same as another to me now." " Diable ! let us shift our camp then but do you smell the lightning? It must have scorched the grass." " There is a stench so overpowering here on every breath of wind." Moving a few paces to their left, they lay down at the root of another beech tree ; but there the same cold dewy drops seemed to distil upon them like rain ; yet the night was hot, dry, and sultry ; and ever and anon there fell those hideous creepers, whose slimy touch caused emotions of horror. " Tudieu \" shouted the Frenchman, springing up again ; " I cannot stand this ! We had better have beaten up the guerillas in their quarters at Medellin. Holo, Corporal Touchet flash off your musket, and let us see what the devil is in these trees \" Roused thus, the corporal of the escort cocked his piece; and as he fired, the two officers watched tliu beeches in the sudden and lightning-like gleam that flashed from the muzzle. Lo ! the dark figure of a dead man swung from a branch, about twelve feet above them I 310 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. "Ouf!" said the voltigeur, with a shudder of horror. " These beeches bear strange nuts," said Grant, as they hastily left the wood, and passed the remainder of the night on the open sward in front of it. When day dawned, Grant went back to examine the places where they had first attempted to sleep. The corpses of a man having a voluminous beard, and a woman with a profusion of long and silky hair, were sus- pended from the branches ; and, as they swung mournfully and fearfully round in the morning wind, the crows flew away with an angry croak, and a cry of horror burst from the lips of Grant on recognising Manrico el Barbado and Juanna de Leon ! * * * * Three weeks after this, Colquhoun Grant saw the long blue outline of the Pyrenees undulating before him, as he approached the frontier of France, a country for which he had now the greatest horror ; and during the whole march from Medellin towards Bayonne, the young subaltern of Voltigeurs experi- enced the greatest trouble with his prisoner, on whom that frightful episode in the cork wood had left a dreadful impression. In his hatred and animosity to France and every- thing French, Grant, from that hour had resolved, that though he could not with honour attempt to escape while in Spain, he would spare no exertion or trouble, no cunning or coin, to leave France, and re- turn once more to find himself sword in hand before the ranks of Marshal Marmont, whom he now viewed as the assassin of that poor maiden of Leon. As they approached Bayonne, he took an early op- portunity of deliberately tearing open the sealed letter which the marshal had given him for the Governor of ADVENTURES OP CAPTAIN GRANT. 311 that fortress, and made himself master of its contents. Instead of finding its tenor complimentary and re- commendatory as he had been told, he saw himself tlu r. in designated as a " dangerous spy who had done infinite ini.-chief to the French army/ and who should be marched in fetters to Paris, where no doubt tor- tures such as those to which Captain Wright was sub- jected in the Temple, or a death on the scaffold awaited him ! The contents of this letter more than released him from any parole. " Oho, M. le Due de Raguse, is this your game V said Grant, as he tore the letter into the smallest bits, and buried them in a hole. " Let me see if I cannot make a Highland head worth a pair of French heels." Arrived at Bayonne, Lieutenant Armand presented him to the governor and bade him adieu. Then Grant confidently requested, in the usual way, to be furnished with a passport for Verdun, the greatest military prison in France. This the governor at once granted him, little suspecting that he meant to com- mence an escape the moment he left the garrison, A \\are that, guarded as all the avenues from Bayonne aud the Pyrenean passes were by French troops of every kind, flight towards Spain was impossible, he resolved to make the attempt in the opposite, and consequently less to be susr>ected, direction. The moment he left the governor's quarters, Grant quietly put the passport in the fire, and repairing to the suburb of St. Esprit, which, from time immemorial has been the quarter of the Portuguese Jews, he sold his silver epaulettes and richly-laced Highland uni- form, to a dealer in old garments, and received in lieu the plain frogged surtout, forage cap, and sabre of a French staff-officer ; he stuck the cross of the Legion 312 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. of Honour at his button-hole, and after promenading along the superb quay, after repairing boldly to the " Eagle of France/' an hotel in the Place de Gram- mont, he ordered an omelette and a bottle of vin ordi- naire with all the air of a Garde Imperiale and sat down to dinner. Inquiring of the waiter " if there were any officers in the house about to proceed to Paris ?" he was told that " M. le General Souham was about to leave that very night." Grant procured a card, and writing thereon Captain O'Reilly, Imperial Service, sent it up, and was at once introduced to old Souham, who was just about to start, and was in the act of buckling on his sabre. " Captain O'Reilly," said he, frowning at the name, and glancing round for a French Army List, but for- tunately none was at hand. " Of what regiment ?" " Lacy's disbanded battalion of the Irish Brigade." " Ah ! And in what can I serve you, monsieur ?" " Allowing me to join your party about to proceed to Paris." " You do me infinite honour, M. O'Reilly." "Thanks, general" " From whence have you come ?" "The banks of the'Coa," " Sacre ! the banks of the Coa !" " Yes ; I am attached to the staff of M. le Due de Raguse." " Ah ! old Harmont. Peste ! he is my greatest friend. M. Armand of the 3rd Voltigeurs brought me a letter from him, in which he says that a dear friend of his would join me on my way to Paris." " How kind of brave Harmont," said Grant ; " he never forgets me." ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT. 313 " So he has captured the notorious Scaramouche, Captain Grant ?" " Yes ; a wonderful fellow that !" " Quite a devil of a man ; allons, let us go ; you have a horse of course V "No, M. le General." " One of mine is at your service." " Mille baionettes ! You quite overwhelm me." In half an hour after this, Grant, with Souhain and two other French officers had crossed the wooden draw- bridge of Bayonne, and left the citadel of M. Vauban with all its little redoubts in their rear, as they all rode merrily en route to Paris ; Souham by the way telling twenty incredible stories of Wellington's prince of scouts, the Scottish Captain Grant. In a house of en- tertainment in the Rue Royale at Orleans, Grant fortu- nately made the acquaintance of a man who proved to be an agent in the secret service of the British Govern- ment This person furnished him with money and a letter to another secret agent who lived in an obscure part of Paris, where he arrived, still disguised as an officer in the suite of General Souham, and as such, for a time, he visited all the theatres, the gardens, the operas ; and all splashed and travel-stained, as fresh from the seat of war, was presented to the great Emperor, who patronizingly spoke to him of the probability of restoring Lacy 'a Irish Regiment, " by recruiting for it among the Irish in the prisons of Bitche and Verdun, in which case his sen would not be forgott< . "and his promotion to a majority would be duly remembered," &c. &c. Grant could not foresee that in three years after this, the old Black Watch, after raising the cry of "Scotland for ever" at Waterloo, would make the Tuileries ring to their Highland 314 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. pipes, and that he would actually compose the well- known parody "Wha keep guard at Versailles and Marli, Wha, but the lads wi' the bannocks of barley ?" He spoke French with fluency, having been a pupil of the famous Jean Paul Marat, when that notable ruffian taught French in Edinburgh, where, in 177-4 he published a work entitled "The Chains of Slavery." Grant thanked the Emperor, and thinking that the daring joke had been carried quite far enough, he doffed his French uniform, sabre and all, and making a bundle thereof, flung the whole into the Seine one night. Then, attiring himself in an unpretending blouse, he repaired to the house of the secret agent, presented his letter, and obtained more money to en- able him to reach Britain. "Monsieur is in luck/' said the agent; "I have just ascertained that a passport is lying at the foreign office for an American who died, or was found dead this morning/' " How is your American named ?" " Monsieur Jonathan Buck." " Very good thanks ! From this very hour I am Jonathan Buck," said the reckless Grant. He re- loaded his pistols, concealed them in his breast, and repairing to the Foreign Office, demanded his passport with the coolness of a prince incog. " Your name, monsieur ?" " M. Jonathan Buck," drawled Grant through his nose. The passport was handed to him at once, and long before the police could ascertain that Monsieur Buck had departed this life at 9 A.M., and yet had received his papers at 9 P.M., on the same day, our hero had ADVENTURES OP CAPTAIN GRANT. 315 left Paris far behind him, and was travelling post towards the mouth of the Loire. On reaching Nantes, he repaired at once to Paim- bceuff, twenty miles further down the river, where all vessels, whose size was above ninety tons, usually un- loaded their cargoes ; and there he boarded the first vessel which had up the stars and stripes of America, and seemed ready for sea. She proved to be the (Jli. 'O, a fine bark of Boston, Jeremiah Buck, master. " Tis fortunate," said Grant through his nose, as he was ushered into the cabin of the Yankee ; " I am a namesake of yours, captain Jonathan Buck, of Capo Cod, seeking a cabin passage to Boston." "All right let me see your passport, stranger?" " Here it is, skipper." " Well, for a hundred and fifty dollars, I am your man," drawled the Boston captain, who was smoking a long Cuba ; " but it is darned odd, stranger, that I have been expecting another Jonathan Buck, my own nephew, from Paris ; he is in the fish and timber trade, and hangs out at old Nantucket ; but he took a run up by the dilly to see the Toolerie, the Loover, and all that Well, darn my eyes, if this is not my nephew's passport!" exclaimed the American sud- denly, while his eyes flashed with anger and suspicion. " Stranger, how is this ?" In some anxiety, Grant frankly related how the document came into his possession, and produced the letters of the secret agent, proving who he was, beseech- ing the captain, as a man come of British blood and kindred, to assist him ; for, if taken by the French, the dungeon of Verdun or Bitche, or worse, perhaps, awaited him. The Yankee paused, and chewed a quid by which li- had replaced his cigar. Full of anxiety, yet with- out fear, Grant summoned all his philosophy, and 316 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. recalled the words of Bossuet, "That human life resembles a road which ends in frightful precipices. We are told of this at the first step we take ; but our destiny is fixed, and we must proceed/' Natural sorrow for the loss of his relative, and the native honesty of an American seaman, united to open the heart of the captain to our wanderer, and he agreed to give him a passage in the Ohio to Boston, from whence he could reach Britain more readily than from the coast of France, watched and surrounded as it was by ships and gunboats, troops and gens d'armes, police, spies, passports, &c. Believing all arranged at last, Grant never left the ship, but counted every hour until he should again find himself in Leon, the land of his faithful Juanna, with his comrades of the Black Watch around him, and the eagles of Marmont in front. At last came the important hour, when the anchor of the Ohio was fished ; when her white canvas filled, and the stars and stripes of America swelled proudly from her gaff-peak, as she bore down the sun-lit Loire with the evening tide ; but now an unlooked-for mis- fortune took place. A French privateer, the famous Jean Bart, ran foul of her, and, by carrying away her bowsprit and foremast, brought down her maintop- mast too. Thus she was forced to run back to Paim- bceuff and haul into dock. For our disguised captain of the 42nd Highlan- ders to remain in the docks, guarded as they were by watchful gens- d'armes, was impossible ; thus, on being furnished by the skipper of the Ohio with the coarse clothes of a mariner, and a written character, stating that he was " Nathan Prowse, a native of Nantucket, in want of a ship/' he stained his face and hands with tobacco-juice, shaved off his moustache, and repaired ADVENTURES OP CAPTAIN GRANT. 317 toan obscuretavern in tho suburbs of Paimbceuff,tofmd a lodging until an opportunity offered for his escape. Under his peajacket he carried a pair of excellent pis- tols, which he kept constantly loaded ; and a fine dagger or Albacete knife, a gift of poor Domingo de Leon. As he sat in the kitchen of this humble house of entertainment, his eye was caught by a printed placard above the mantelpiece. It bore the imperial arms, with the cipher of the Emperor, and stated that " the notorious spy Colquhoun Grant, a captain in a Scot- tish regiment of the British army, who had wrought so much mischief behind the lines of le Mart-dial Due de Raguse, in Leon, and who had been brought prisoner to France, where he had broken his parole, was wandering about, maintaining a system of espio- nage and Protean disguises; that he had, lastly, assumed the name, character, and passport of an American citizen, named Jonathan Buck, whom he had wickedly and feloniously murdered and robbed in the Rue de Rivoli at Paris ; that the sum of 2,000 francs was hereby offered for him dead or alive ; and that all prefects, officers, civil and military, gens- d'armes. and loyal subjects of the Emperor, by sea and land, \\cro hereby authorized to seize or kill tho said Colquhoun Grant wherever and whenever they found him." With no small indignation and horror, tho High- lander read this obnoxious placard, which contained so much that wore the face of truth, with so much that was unquestionably false. " So Buck, whose papers I have appropriated, has been murdered poor devil !" was his ii ; " what if the honest skipper of the Ohio should see this precious document and suspect me ? In that case I should be altogether lost." X 318 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. He retired from the vicinity of this formidable placard, fearing that some watchful eye might com- pare his personal appearance with the description it contained ; though his costume, accent, and the fashion of his whiskers and beard altered his appear- ance so entirely that his oldest friends at the mess would not have recognised him. He hastily retired upstairs to a miserable garret, to think and watch, but not to sleep. When loitering on the beach next evening, he entered into conversation with a venerable boatman, named Raoul Senebier, and an exchange of tobacco pouches at once established their mutual good-will. Grant said that " he was an American seaman out of a berth, and anxious to reach Portsmouth in England, where he had left his wife and children/' The boatman, an honest and unsuspicious old fellow, seemed touched by his story, and offered to row him to a small island at the mouth of the Loire, where British vessels watered unmolested, and in return allowed the poor inhabitants to fish and traffic without interruption. " I can feel for you, my friend," said old Senebier ; " for I was taken prisoner at the battle of Trafalgar, and was seven years in the souterratns of the Chateau^ d'Edimbourg, separated from my dear wife and little ones, and when I returned, I found them all lying in the churchyard of Paimbceuff." 11 Dead what, all V " All, all, save one the plague, the plague I" " Land me on the isle, then, and ten Napoleons shall be yours," said Grant, joyfully, and in twenty minutes after, they had left the crowded wharves, the glaring salt-pans which gleam on the left bank of the Loire, and all its maze of masts and laden lighters, as ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT. 319 they pulled down, with the flow of the stream and the ebb-tide together. The fisherman had his nets, floats, and fortunately some fish on board ; so, if over- hauled by any armed authority, he could pretend to have been at his ordinary avocation. They touched at the island, and were told by some of the inhabi- tants that not a British ship was in the vicinity, but that a French privateer, the terrible Jean Bart, was prowling about iu these waters, and that the isle was consequently unsafe for any person who might be suspected of being a British subject ; so, with a heart that began to sink, Grant desired old Raoul Senebier to turn his prow towards PaimboeufE Morning was now at hand, and the sun as he rose reddened with a glow of Italian brilliancy the tranquil banks of the Loire, and the sails of the fisher-craft that were running up the stream. No vessels were in sight, for terror of the British cruisers kept every French keel close in shore; but suddenly a large white sail appeared to the southward, and in the lingering and ardent hope that she was one of our Channel squadron, Grant prevailed upon Raoul to bear towards her. The wind became light, and all day the two men tugged at their oars, but still the ship was far off, and yet not so distant but that Grant, with a glistening eye and beating heart, could make out her scarlet ensign ; when evening came on, and a strong current, which ran towards the Loire, gradually swept the boat towards the coast of France, and just as the sun set, old Raoul and the fugitive found themselves suddenly close to a low battery, a shot from which boomed across the water, i like a spout beyond them. Another and another followed, tearing the waves into foam close by. " Wo must surrender, monsieur," said Raoul, wring- x 2 320 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. ing his hands ; " and I shall be brought in irons before M. le Prefect for aiding the escape of a prisoner of war." " Call me your son," said Grant ; " say we were fishing, and leave the rest to me/' " I have a son," said Raoul ; " he escaped the plague by being where he is now, on board the Jean Bart." They landed under the battery ; a little corporal in the green uniform of a Voltigeur, with six men, con- ducted them with fixed bayonets before the officer in command. He was a handsome young man, and Grant in a moment recognised his former captor and companion, M. Armand, the sous-lieutenant of the 3rd Voltigeur Regiment. " Milles demons ! is this you, monsieur ?" exclaimed Armand, who knew Grant at once. " Exactly, Monsieur le Lieutenant," replied Grant, with admirable presence of mind ; " 'tis I, your old companion, Louis Senebier, captain of a gun aboard the Jean Bart, from which I have a day's liberty to fish with my father, old Raoul of Paimbceuff, whom you see before you here ; but understanding that a rascally British cruiser is off the coast, we were just creeping close to the battery when monsieur fired at us." " Is this true, M. Senebier ?" asked Armand, with a knowing smile. " All true ; my son is said to be very like me," re- plied the old fisherman, astounded by the turn mat- ters had taken. " Like you ? Not very, bon ! But you may thank heaven that I am not M. le Prefect of the Loire. Leave us your fish, M. Senebier, and be off before darkness sets in. See," he added, with a furtive but AD\ : . | OP CAPTAIN GRANT. 821 expressive glance at Grant ; " see that you keep your worthy father clear of yonder British ship, which will ju>' be .- 1 breast of the battery and two miles off about midni Armand placed a bottle of brandy in the boat, and, while pivt'iit, and Holland ; and was wont to boast that he had acquired the whole vocabulary of oaths. This was highly necessary, Dick was wont to allege, " lest in a casual war of words with any ragamuffin on whom one might chance to be billeted, an officer and gen- tleman should have the disgrace of being put down by the sauce piquant of a rascally foreigner." Dick had joined the service as a full private in the year 1800, having been forced into the ranks by his chief or landlord. He was the second son of a respectable sheep fanner on the mountains of Mull, whore his fore- fathers had resided for ages. His elder brother, 324 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. Hamish, when a child, had been swept out to sea (while playing among the fisher-boats on the beach), and was drowned, to the grief and dismay of his pa- rents, to whom a wandering Scottish priest, Father John of Douay, had foretold his birth, and predicted his future usefulness and greatness in the church. His mother, an old Catholic of the house of Kep- poch, looked upon this elder child as blessed by Heaven, and in the fulness of her heart she gladly dedicated it to the then oppressed church of her forefathers, in token of which she had unavailingly tied to his neck a valuable amulet. Their landlord, like many other Scottish feuda- tories in the year 1800, became desirous of appearing a person of importance in the eyes of the Govern- ment ; to this end he resolved to raise a kilted regi- ment among his tenants, and on procuring a letter of service, immediately called upon them for their sons. These tidings caused some consternation in Argyleshire, a county from which every war, prior to 1800, had swept at least four thousand of its best men, few of whom ever survived to return. The aged father of Dick appeared with others before their feudal tyrant, who threatened to deprive every parent of his farm, if his sons delayed or de- clined to volunteer for service ; and this can easily be done, as the Highland crofter has seldom a written lease to show, believing that the old hereditary cabin of his forefathers is his, as much as the air he breathes or the heather he treads on. : Duncan Duff/' said the laird, who had already donned the uniform of colonel, " I am raising a regi- ment for the King's service, and must have your son Dick ; he is a stout, active fellow, and here is the bounty." THE STORY OP DICK Dt The old man wrung his hands, and said " Sir, my sou is the only prop of my last days. I am getting old, and may not be able to work long at my little croft." "Oh, don't trouble yourself about your croft," sneered the lairtl. "If my only son goes to battle, what will become of me ?" "The parish will attend to tJuit," was the cruel reply. The eyes of the old Highlander flashed fire, but reverence for his chief repressed the mingled threat and curse that rose to his tongue. " Please yourself, Duncan," resumed the feudatory ; " I have only to warn you that another person has made my factor an advantageous offer for your farm, and your son's enlistment or his disobedience will materially influence me in considering the said offer." " My croft, sir ! have not I and my fathers been here under your family for four hundred years and more; and is not our blood the same ?" "Stuff! I tell you that I must have a thousand men, and cannot spare your son." " I had another son, sir a poor child who was drowned in his infancy ; had he lived, one should have gone to battle and one remained but God deals hardly with me." " I care not," was the dogged reply ; " men I want, and men I shall have 1" for the letter of service gave the laird an opportunity to nominating all his ;>, nearly fifty in number. So Dick became a soldier in the laird's regiment, and as the old man could not remain on his little farm alone, he became a soldier too, in his sixtieth year, and on the long dusty marches in Holland, poor 326 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. Dick was often seen carrying the knapsack, firelock, and canteen of his brave old father, whom he buried with his own hands after he was killed by the French at the battle of Alexandria, where he, and twenty others, perished in a rash attempt to rescue their chief, the colonel, who was there wounded and taken prisoner. Dick's promotion was rapid, and after passing through the intermediate ranks, he found himself, by his own merit, a lieutenant in the High- land regiment of this obnoxious laird in the year 1808 ; and his reason for leaving it and exchanging into ours, was a mishap that occurred to him in Glas- gow. His corps had been quartered for a year in the barracks of the Gallowgate in the capital of the west, and Dick, who was decidedly of convivial, and scandal whispered of somewhat nocturnal, habits, and having, moreover, a high appreciation of the virtues of Glas- gow punch, was in the habit of going home every night in the happiest mood of mind ; and on more than one occasion was assisted by the friendly arm of the watchers and warders of the civic guard, or of the corporal of the patrol. The regiment marched for Edinburgh, changing quarters with the brave old Pompadours, who were so called from the colour of their facings resembling Madame's gown ; but Dick, having obtained a month's leave between returns, resolved to enjoy himself a little longer among his old haunts, and remained behind, exulting in freedom from duty and the seclusion of mufti. A week after the regiment marched, Dick Duff found himself about midnight propped against a lamp- post in the High-street, with very vague ideas of his own name, rank, and residence, and seriously weigh- ing in his own mind whether the pavement and row THE STORY OP DICK DUFF. of lamps extending to the right, or those that lay to the left, led to the barracks ; for his faculties were so cloudy, that he had become utterly oblivious as to ( ircumstance of his being on leave, in plain clothes, and living at a west-end hotel After long and serious pondering, Dick instinctively discovered the right way by old habit, and proceeded, somewhat deviously, of course, through the delightful locality known as " the Sautmarket," and along the Gullowgate, until he found himself before the dark gate of the barracks, and heard the familiar step of the great- coated sentry pacing slowly to and fro in- side. Here he kicked with vigour, and struck up his favourite mess-room song " Who knows but our girls (We have known stranger things!) When once they've got leathers, May make themselves wings ; And like swallows in winter, May soon take their flight ; And for lovers of ' ours,' Bid their husbands good-night." " Hallo ! gate gate !" shouted Dick, sprawling against it with outstretched hands. " Who comes there ?" "Friend particular friend of yours, my boy very." The drowsy sergeant of the guard unfastened the barrier, and sulkily passed a lantern once or i across the face of the visitor, till it was knocked out of his hand by Dick, who exclaimed " D n it, sir, what d'ye mean ? light me to my quarters." " I beg pardon, sir," said the sergeant, who thought Dick might be one of the staff; but the lantern was 328 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. extinguished, so our friend resumed his song, and stumbled on alone to the old staircase, with which he was quite familiar ; and ascending "by mere force of habit to his room, found the door-handle on the right as usual, and entered. "All right," muttered Dick, "all right. Here's the bed-post and the candlestick should be here." But he could neither find candle nor matches, and resolving to " row" his man in the morning, he threw off his clothes, tumbled headlong into bed, and was soon sound asleep. Now it happened that the proprietor of the afore- said quarters was the officer of the main-guard, who as the next day proved Sunday, was to come off duty at eight o'clock a.m., and duly at the hour of seven his servant entered to prepare a fire and lay break- fast. Hearing a vehement snore proceed from his master's bed, the servant drew back the curtains, and, to his no small surprise, discovered the dark, sun- burned, and well-whiskered visage of a stranger, whom he immediately awoke ; but not without con- siderable difficulty and after reiterated efforts. " Who are you," grumbled Dick ; " and what the devil do you want ?" " What do you want here ?" " Where, old fellow ?" " In my master's bed." " Master's bed, you scoundrel !" stuttered Dick ; " how dare you intrude into an officer's room ? be off, or I shall send you to the shop in a minute." And so, Dick Duff, believing that he had settled the little mistake satisfactorily, again composed himself to sleep, while the servant hurried to the main guard to acquaint his master that " a thief was in possession of THE STORY OF DICK DV. his bod and quarters." These tidings promptly brought up the officer with his sword in his hand, and a file of the guard at his heels. Dick was once more roused, and wrathfully, too, from his slumbers, to find by his bedside two soldiers and an officer cap-/, and Salamanca, his battalion, with Stirling's old .iaml Brigade, endured all the horrors of the retreat from Burgos. At the siege of the latter, the task of storming the famous hornwork, which had a hard sloping scarp of twenty-five feet, and a counter-scarp of ten, was specially confided to the 42nd Highlanders, led the bastion after darkness had set in. niched on with great gallantry. Dick Duff was first man up on the first ladder ; and his feather bonnet was literally blown off his head by a volley of 332 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. balls ; every man by his side was bayonetted ; and as each poor fellow in his fall knocked down others, the loss was terrible ! Sword in hand, Major Cox entered the gorge ; Major (afterwards General Sir Robert) Dick led the regiment on en masse, and the hornwork was im- mediately captured ; but two lieutenants and thirty- two rank and file were killed ; four officers, one volunteer, and one hundred and sixty-four High- landers were wounded. Captain Donald Williamson expired that night of his wounds. Lane, the poor gentleman volunteer, was severely wounded and became senseless ; but revived, on finding two of the Cameron Highlanders gently abstracting a gold watch worth fifty guineas from his pocket. " I beg your pardon, my lads," said he ; " but I am not quite done with this." " We beg yours, sir," answered they ; " but we thought you dead, and supposed we might take it, as well as others." They carried him carefully to the rear ; and as they were returning, two stray shots killed them both. Lieutenant Gregorson was killed, and found stripped naked, by Lieutenant Orr, who buried him in a trench. In the gorge of this hornwork, so fatal to the Black Watch, their old Quartermaster Blanket, had both his legs carried away ; so he might fairly have sung, " O now let others shoot, For here I leave my second legs, And the Forty-second Foot." He lived long a prisoner at Bitche and Verdun, and by his fiery temper and wooden pins was named by the French le Diable Boiteux. THE STOKY OP DICK DUIT. 333 In tliis Mr--e the regiment had other losses; but til-- ronct -ntratii.il of the enemy's forces, and the ad- vance of superior numbers, obliged tin- Duke of Wellington to retire into winter quarters on the frontiers of Portugal ; and the fatigues and privations to this retrograde movement, fell on no UK -re heavily than on our friends of the Black h. On a gloomy afternoon in the month of November, by the enemy's cavalry, who were vastly superior to the British, the brigade of which the 42nd formed a part, entered the ancient and pleasant city of Valladolid, all drenched and bedraggled by ford ing the swift Pisuerga; for the French, to impede our previous advance, had blown up the principal arch of the bridge. Dick Dun" was taken prison- T ly the French hussars in a taberna, at Villahoz, by the treachery of the keeper, a well-known Spanish rogue, named Antonio Morello. By his captors and the hostalero he had been stripped nude, but made his escape and rejoined the regiment (just as it was entering Valloria) clad only in a pair of short scarlet pantaloons, which he had taken from a dead Frenchman of the line, and his aspect created no small surpri-e in the ranks but I cannot add merriment, for our soldiers were then at tin- lowest ebb of misery and desperation. During this terrible retreat the rain had been incessant, and poured pitilessly down on the wet, dripping sierras and rou^h muddy mule roads traversed by our troops, whose sufterings and privations wen- indescribable. The baggage was generally far in the rear, and the troops were without tents or other m ans of shelter from the inelemency of tlio weather. The- vivas that greeted the British advance were no longer heard y 834 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. gloom, sombre desperation, and scowling famine were in every eye. The arrears of pay were in many in- stances beyond parallel. Many regiments had not re- ceived a penny for nine months nine months of constant fighting ! (How many tradesmen in 1 land would have worked for that period without wages ?) The officers were reduced to about a shirt each ; most of the men had only the collars or wrists of their linen remaining many had not a vestige. "Their jackets were so patched," says an officer of the Gordon Highlanders, in his narrative, "that I know nothing to which I can so aptly compare them as parti- coloured bed-covers ; for there were not fifty in my own regiment but had been repaired with cloth of every colour under the sun/' So admirably is the kilt adapted for marching and activity, that the Highland corps were the only batta- lions without stragglers. Hollow-eyed and gaunt, bearded and grisly, ema- ciated and miserable in aspect, footsore and shoeless, their jackets turned to black and purple, their feather bonnets reduced to quills, and all trace of pipeclay long since washed out of their belts, yet heavily laden with knapsacks, great- coat, blanket, havresack, wooden canteen, camp-kettle, sixty rounds of ball-cartridge, their arms and accoutrements covered with mud and mire after many days' of incessant alarm, halting and forming square to repel the enemy's cavalry, who at times charged into the rivers up to their very-hol- sters^ the Black Watch defiled along the quaint old streets of Valladolid, with their pipes playing a fiery spaidsearach Gaclhealach, or Highland march ; but it failed to rouse either the spirit or bearing of the men. THE STORY OP DICK DI As our troops were retreating, their entrance no enthusiasm in the sullen and ungrateful Spa- niards. They gazed apathetically from under their heavy eyebrows and broad sombreros, as battalion after battalion defiled past, nor manifested the smallest interest until some Highland regiment approached, when cries of :< Look at the Scots," broke from < quarter. " M iivt Ion fiscosaes ! Viva loa valiant ea ! 1 los Escosacft Ion hoinbres valerosos." Others, who knew the number of the Black Watch, 1 the cry with Viva la Regiment o Quarenta Dos /" Through streets of old and decaying houses the nent defiled to the Plaza Mayor, while the bells -an Benito, St. Paul, and the Scottish College were tolled mournfully. All the balconies there were covered with tapestry; and amid a profusion <>}' crimson velvet, a portrait of Ferdinand VII. hung in the great Plaza. There the battalion dis- persed in search of billets; the officers to inquire it the baggage had come up; to sigh for camp-beds and portmanteaux, that might be stuck in the mud twenty miles off; or to swear at stupid servants or drunken bat-men, who had let them fall into the hands of pillagers and paisanos. Wellington and his aides-de-camp had taken up their quarters in the Scottish College, the rector of whii-h, un old Highlander, though sick and dying, omed them warmly. Dick Duff, Garriehorne, the captain of Grenadiers, ami Ci'lquhoun Grant, the famous scouting ofi: whose adventures are already, we hope, familiar to the read. r. made tin ir way straight to a posada, pre- vious to entering which an " examination of ammu- Y 2 336 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. nition" took place, and among four purses two duros could only be mustered. At this time, many officers actually sold their silver epaulettes to the Jews of El Campo for bread. " Ugh \" said Dick ; " this comes of one's paymaster being nine months in arrear ! and yet, though we have scarcely a tester among us, we are fighting for an island which, according to the learned Bochart, was named by the Phoenicians emphatically the land of tin!" An arched door gave admittance from the street to the lower story of the posada, where the horses and mules were* generally stabled ; from this, an open ladder gave access to the common hall; a second ladder led to the sleeping apartments, which were minus carpets, bells, plaster, and almost without win- dows or furniture ; but, as Dick said to the grumbling captain of Grenadiers, no one looks for such things in a Spanish inn. Several Spanish officers were already in the public room, all travel-stained and splashed with mud, but wrapped in their cloaks, and all with their feet planted on the only brassero, round which they sat in a circle, smoking and making themselves as comfortable as cir- cumstances would admit ; while the host, an old and sour-visaged Asturiaii, with clumsy hands and enor- mous shoulders, superintended the cooking of various edibles, which simmered and sputtered in stone jars on the flat hearth, the fuel piled upon which cast a lurid glow from under the broad impending mantel- piece on his swarthy visage, his stealthy eyes, and black grisly beard. This fellow was repulsive in as- pect; but his wife, la patrona, was a pretty paisana, not much above eighteen years of age, dressed in the picturesque costume of the country, and having her THE STORY OP DICK DUFF. 3:57 handsome legs encased in the tightest and brightest of scarlet stockings. She welcomed us with smiles of the utmost good humour that two brilliant eyes and a mouth filled with the finest teeth could express. " All right, Garriehorne," said Dick, in his banter- ing way ; " here is one of the beautiful sex come esta senora, how handsome you look to-night ; 'pon my soul, I feel quite inclined to fall in love with you. Senor Patron what is in the crocs, old fellow V Displeased by Dick's mode of addressing his young wit'.-, the host affected not to hear. " What can you let us have for supper, senora ?" asked Garriehorne, unbuckling his sword , " hot cas- tanos and garlic, of course, with Xerez and ripe grapes." " Ripe grapes in November," growled the sulky patron ; " what the devil are you talking about, senor oficial? Ninas y vinas son mal deyuardar!" " Which means" ' " That ripe maidens and ripe grapes require vigi- lance to keep long," said the pretty patrona, with a waggish smile. " We have a fine guisado in this croc, senor." "A guisado!" exclaimed Dick. "By Jove, the very thought of it makes me more hungry than ever." " What is it made of?" said the captain of Grena- diers, doubtfully. "Don't you know everything ! hare, rabbit, chicken, pheasant, claret and water, oacon, salt, garlic, onions, pepper, pimentos, Valdepenas butter, a bunch of wild thyme " " The deuce ! what more ?" "A little oil, and then it would add glory to the wedding of Camacho," said Dick. "The senor cabal Icro is quite a Spanish cook," 338 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. said the pretty patrona ; " but," she added, with a- furtive glance at Dick's pair of French pantaloons, " I hope we shall not lose " " Lose not at all, my dear senora. You shall be paid in gold as pure as your wedding ring/' " If we have it," added Garriehorne, aside. " So serve up the guisado. Its odour is exquisite ! By Jove, we four Hannibals have here found our Capua ! But, Senor Patron," continued Dick, speak- ing with his mouth very full, " you are singularly like an ugly fellow whom I met yesterday what is your name ?" "Moreno." " The devil it is ! that name proved an unlucky one to me lately." " Where, senor ?" "AtVillahoz." " I have a son there " " Keeper of a venta ?" " Si, senor." " The villain ! he betrayed me to the French for ten dollars." " Likely enough of Antonio," said the young wife ; " he is my step-son, and proves mala, mala very bad." " Step-sons frequently do in a step-mother's eyes, my dear patrona." " He hates his father" " The unnatural wretch I" " Hates him for having married me." " In that I almost agree with him," said Dick. " But he hates me, too." " Hates you so young, so charming 1" "Yes, senor, and daily vows to have revenge ; be- lieving that I have cheated him out of his birthright." THK STOKV OP DICK Dl, . " Dick, what are those fellows round the brassero rin^ about?" askf.l the grenadier. " Oil, they are mere cazadores, who say wo should not ! 11 up .Madrid, or Burgos either, without " Faugh ! don't speak of Burgos ; I am sick of shelling, storming, and mining. A battle, indeed ! but, perhaps, they know better than Lord "Welling- " A pretty woman that patrona is, ugh !" added Dick, as he drew oft' his boots. " See how muddy and rrence of gaiety and military uproar, with a love . 346 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. ment and of cloistral seclusion, ice. &c., had brought him and his companions, Captain Garriehorne and Colquhoun Grant, the famous scout who so tormented the Due de Raguse, to visit them;" but he added, " what the devil is the matter? Is any one dead or hidden here what's the row, that you all speak in whispers, as if the walls had ears ?" " It is a strange story," said the old priest, Father Cameron ; " our beloved rector, without an apparent ailment, believes himself at the point of death. It is a sad narrative to me, for I loved the rector as a younger brother ; although many years his senior (more than I dare reckon now), his talents and his piety made him superior to us all. He believes that the day, the hour yea, the moment of his departure is fixed : it is a solemn, a terrible presentiment but you, as soldiers, will be inclined to smile at it and me." " Nay, sir/' replied Dick, " you wrong us there ; for on service we see every day the most terrible ful- filment of presentiments. I had a brother drowned upon the 1 6th of November my father ever said it was our fatal day, and had been so for ages. He was wounded by my side on the 16th of November, when our Highlanders stormed one of the West India Isles, and on the 1 6th of November he was killed near the city of Alexandria, and with my own hands I buried him the day before we marched towards the Nile. Poor old man !" " And there was poor old Major Wallace of Ours," said Grant, " who had always a presentiment that he would die on the 18th of March, the day he was wounded as an ensign at the blockade of Alexandria in 1801, and on the 18th of last March we found him dead in his tent, killed by a random shot, when we were covering the siege of Badajoz." TH; OF DICK nr :;!7 1 the priest. "there was poured forth int blood of many a gallant heart" -oe, my dear sir, that solemn presenti- iie found in the camp as well as in the cloister," added Dick, draining his wine-horn, with a tli..:i;Jitful smile. " Our reverend rector is powerfully possessed 1 me more strongly, mysteriously, and i inly upon him ; so that he could no longer attend to his duties as rector, but spent his whole time in and earnest prayer, as one prep: for a great change. He dismissed all the professors, students, servants, and other inmates to a country a which we possess, six miles from the city, telling us to enjoy ourselves for a brief space, as a dark day of iiKnirnii:'.; was at hand. " Impressed by the solemnity of his manner, we set out for the place, and remained there anxiously waiting to hear tidings from him, for he is d !ovd by us all, and by none more than me. A week elapsed, but w- ii- .1 i nothing from Yalladolid; at last, I turned back, being his dearest friend, and 348 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. moreover, the oldest priest in the college for I can remember the days when Charles of the Two Sicilies sat on the Spanish throne, and I was one of those who chanted the De Profundis by the grave of Charles Edward Stuart ; I can remember when the spires of seventy convents towered over Valladolid, for in El Campo every alternate house was a religious one ; and now there are but sixteen and only twenty-four convents. Well, gentlemen, I came back to inquire, and soon saw enough to fill me with alarm. In our absence the rector had hung the college chapel with black ; he had moreover raised the pavement before the shrine of St. Margaret, and after measuring his own height, had there dug a grave for himself, eight feet deep, and as I crossed the aisle, its ghastly depth in the black and bone-impregnated earth that lay piled on each side, struck me with awe and terror. I searched for the rector, but was unable to find him in any of the dormitories, refectory, library, or garden. At last, barefooted and bareheaded, clad in sackcloth, and girt by a cord of discipline, I found him kneeling near the grave he had dug ; he was praying earnestly, and never did the divine Murillo conceive a head more noble, or a face more expressive of piety, enthusiasm, worship, and prayer, in all its glory, than those of our rector as I saw him at that moment, with his eyes uplifted from a book of vespers towards the crowned statue of the Scottish Queen, around which twelve little lights were sparkling ; and I could hear the words that came from his pale lips, though they fell faintly and slowly, " ' Deus, qui beatam Margaritam, Scotorum Regi- nam, eximia in pauperes charitate mirabilem efTecisti : da, ut ejus intercessione et exemplo, tua in cordibus nostris charilas jugiter augeatur.' THK STnllY OF DICK DITF. :JIJ) " When I approached, he fainted. I had him at once conveyed to bed and applied restoratives ; but so low had his strength and system ebbed by exces- sive fatigue, prayer, and fasting, that we have scarcely a hope of recovering him, and the conviction that he shall die to morrow, on the 16th November, the anni- versary of his patron's death/seven hundred years ago, is so vividly impressed upon his mind, that knowing its breadth of thought and unyielding energy of pur- . a solemn sadness has come upon us all, and wo wait in (rmr the n-ue of this gloomy presentiment." The military visitors were deeply impressed by this strange and fantastic story ; and on Father Cameron requesting them to visit the couch where the rector lay, in the hope that their Highland garb might rouse some old or other emotions in his breast, they at once assented and followed in silence to his chamber. Under cloisters arched and old, they were led through the ancient chapel, where many a stern Jesuit who had heard Loyola preach, and where many a poor -t of the Scottish mission, were at rest from their labours ; and past the newly-dug grave where a stone already bore the name of the rector, cut by his own hand. Duff paused for a moment and read thereon, M.S. Don logo tic Santa Margareta; Hector h fathers of the ancient college hurri-y the next noon, that the Lieutenant of the Block Watch might lay his brother's lu-ad in the grave; and accordingly the rector was lowered into the tomb which his own hands had formed before the shrine of St. Margaret, the Patroness of Scotland ; and Dick Duff was a changed man, and a grave man too, during the remainder of that horrible retreat, on which so many of our brave soldiers perished of star- vat ion and fatigue ; and which Lord Wellington con- tinued without delay, until the Ebro and the Douro were far in his rear ; and his harassed army found winter quarters on the frontier of Portugal. Father John Cameron lived to a good old age, and died Catholic Bishop of Edinburgh, where he now lies interred before the altar of St. Mary's Chapel 354 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. X. THE FOREST OF GAICH; OE, THE CAPTAIN DHU. AFTER the Flemish campaign, under his Royal High- ness the Duke of York, and the terrible retreat to Deventer a retreat in which the sufferings of our troops rivalled those endured by the French after Moscow the 42nd Highlanders were encamped dur- ing the spring of 1795 at Hanbury, in England, under the command of General Sir William Meadows, when their strength, which had been weakened by their recent operations against the French republican armies, was greatly augmented by volunteers from various Highland fencible corps, which had been raised in the preceding year. Among others, they were joined by the two entire flank companies of the Grant Fencibles, or old 97th Regiment, which had been raised to the number of thirteen hundred men by Sir James Grant of Grant, Bart, (locally known as the Good Sir James), almost entirely among his own name and clan in Strathspey, a district which has long been famous for its stirring music and the mili- tary spirit of its people. These volunteers, in the month of September, set out on their march through Badenoch to join the 42nd, under the com- mand of Captain MacPherson of Ballychroan, who THE FORKS! OF GAICH. had been appointed to the corps, the colonel of which was then Maj<>r-( iimeral Sir Hector Munro, K.B. Kvan Mael'herson was generally known in that wild and mountainous district named Badenoch as the Captain J)hu t or Black Officer, in consequence of raven-coloured hair, his swarthy complexion, and dark eyes, and, perhaps also, from the peculiarities of his character, which, though brave to recklessness, was stern, severe in discipline, and at times myste- rious, savage, and vindictive. The captain swore high, drank deep, and gambled as if he had the mines of Peru among the glens of Ballychroan. These qualities, together with his great strength and stature, rendered him more feared than loved in the district of Badenoch, where it was cur- rently believed that he was in league with the devil, and where the story of his terrible end is yet remem- bered with a shudder by the people round the winter hearth. There are many yet alive in Strathspey who saw and knew Black Evan, and remember the events which I am about to record. From Speyside he marched his volunteers through Glentromie, and, following the course of the river which gives that valley its name, entered the wilder ami more romantic parts of Badenoch, between tlu> Stoney Mountain and Drum Ferrich, till about night- fall, when, to the great bodily discomfort and greater mental discomposure of the soldiers, who dared nut complain save in whispers to each other, he hulled in tin- haunted Forest of Qaich, a wild and uninhabited tract of country on the northern slope of the mighty Grampians. There he ordered them to pile arms, and have a fire lighted in a place which he imli< -at. !. near a well, deemed holy, as the water of it had been blessed 35G LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. by St. Eonaig of old. On this, a white-haired ser- geant, Hamish Grant, from Brae Laggan, respectfully ventured to suggest that the fire might burn equally well elsewhere. MacPherson, who was not accustomed to be trifled with or have his orders disputed, stormed and swore terribly, according to his wont, both in Gaelic and English. " Good will never come of it," said the sergeant, moodily. " Let evil come if it may, and welcome be it !" re- sponded MacPherson, scornfully ; " let the old fellow who. blessed the well come from his grave at Kil- maveonaig, and, if he chooses, I'll give him a jorum of its water flavoured with Ferintosh." Muffled in their grey great-coats, or in their plaids of the bright red Grant tartan, the soldiers sat or lay in groups near the fire, which burned cheerfully, and shed a wavering glare along the green mountain slope. The night was calm, and the stars shone brightly over- head ; no moon was visible yet, and scarcely a breath of wind stirred the light foliage of the silver birches. Attracted by the unwonted light of the fire, the dun deer were visible at times, but for a moment only, as they peered from their lair among the feathery bracken leaves, and then fled to distant parts of the forest. The soldiers sung Gaelic songs to while away the time, and each shared with his comrade the contents of his canteen and havresack; for, having just left their homes in Strathspey, all were amply provided with bread and cheese, beef, venison, and plenty of good usquebaugh ; thus, though the place of their halt was weird, wild, and all save the little runnel that THK FOREST OF GAICII. trickled down the heather slope unholy, the night seemed likely to pass merrily enough. Apart from all his men lay Evan MacPherson, of Ballychroan, who on this night was unusually sulK-n, gloomy, and taciturn ; so much so, that the soldiers, all of whom knew him well, remarked that a tu , or black cloud, was upon him ; for at times he had his dark or melancholy hour. " And how could he be otherwise ?' said old Ser- it Hamish, in a whisper, as he took a huge aneiahen from the silver-mounted mull of Corporal Shon Grant, his own cousin, " only seventeen times re- iinMed," as Bailie Jarvie has it "Oich! oich ! who but he would have halted in the Forest of Gaich, aul at night too V I'll sleep with one eye open, at all events," replied the corporal, impressively, with a wink. Ynr the former in tones of entreaty, and the latter in those of authority and fierce derision. Creeping on a few paces further, with a drawn bayonet in his band, he beheld a sight which, when he considered the proud and stern character of his leader, filled him with blank wonder. The waning moon was now visible ; it shone out for a moment from behind a mass of crapelike cloud. The dark figures of MacPherson and the stranger were distinctly seen. The place of their meeting was a green fairy ring, covered with rich grass, which waved solemnly in the breeze. Close by it towered three gigantic granite blocks, spotted' with green lichens, silent, grim, and lonely, for they were Druir' three hundred sail, put to sea ; but the flag- ship I in pregnable was stranded on a sand-bank, and unable to proceed ; other disasters succeeded ; the Mi7th Regiment on board, and caused the loss of several transports and many hundred lives. The admiral was driven back to Portsmouth, and his fleet, after being Mug tempi st-tossed, and scattered over the stormy winter sea, reached Barbadoes in detail. In the Black Watch, this strange series of disasters were secretly but unanimously Attributed to the male- volence and interference of the Devil The mysto- 370 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. rious meeting in the Forest of Gaich was remembered, and Evan of Ballychroan was viewed with anything but favour by the soldiers under his command ; yet he did his duty bravely and cheerfully, and was stern and severe as ever when any fault or dereliction of orders occurred. The superstitious dread with which his mountaineers regarded the events of the voyage need not excite surprise, when we remember that, about the same period, the crew of one of his Majesty's crack frigates flatly refused to sail until'the captain thereof sent his black tom-cat ashore, or had its ears and tail docked, to alter its feline aspect But this long succession of mishaps by sea, and upon the events which preceded the voyage, were for- gotten by the Strathspey men, when, on the 9th of February next year, the Middlesex ran into one of the harbours of Barbadoes, and the clear brilliant sky and blue waters of the Caribbean Sea were beaming around them ; and then the charming greenness and fertility of this place, the most eastern of these lovely Indian isles, made all long for the shore, eager to dis- embark, and to escape the vertical heat of a tropical sun blazing on the decks of a crowded transport. Brigades were now detailed to attack and reduce the principal isles of the West Indies. General Whyte, with the brave 39th ("Primus in Indix"), the Sutherland Highlanders, and the old 99th, sailed against Demerara and Berbice, which he captured almost without resistance; while Brigadier-General Moore (the future hero of Coruuna), with our old friends the 42nd and other troops, sailed to favour the French in Si Lucia with a visit, and found them- selves off the Pigeons' Isle on the 27th April, when they were ordered to land at a little sandy bay, into which the bright blue water ran in glittering ripples, THE FOREST OF C.AI 371 under shadowy foliage of the most luxuriant and bril- liant green. The landing was made by the troops in four divi- sions, at four different points; and the first man who leaped ashore was Evan MaoPherson of the Black h. His company followed with a loud hurrah ! and when the four united columns advanced against Morne Fortunee, the principal military post in the island, on officers desirous of leading the forlorn hope being requested " to enclose their cards to the brigade- major," the first on the list for this perilous work was the Captain Dim ! This 1 caused his men to consider and have serious doubts of the affair during the halt in Gaich ; for, as Sergeant Grant said, a man who had really sold him- self to the Devil would have chosen some less dan- gerous trade than soldiering ; and, moreover, would not have been in such a deuced hurry to ri>k promo- tion to a warmer climate than the West Indies. " But how if his life be charmed," suggested tho corporal, " and his skin proof to shot and steel ? we ha\e h. ard of such things in tho Highlands. Like Claverhome, lie may have his ajtpoiiUfil time." .il'h dhia sinn !" exclaimed tho sergeant; "so have we all." But the corporal's opinion was not given without iiii'lin^ du- weight; and it caused tho unfortunate captain to L< more closely watched than ever. Ere nightfall the troops were all under arms, and on tho march to assault the great fort of the isla. and \\ lien, as usual in such cases, old Rawlins tho ijiiartermaster was made custodier, pro temp., of all the rings, watches, and purses of the officers, that they might be safe with him in the ivar, it was re- marked that MacPherson retained hia own valu.-ibles. 372 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " Ballychroan is a cool fellow," said the offir " he has quite made up his mind to escape scathe- less/' The eve of the tropical sun is brief and beautiful ; in the forcible lines of Scott " Xo pale gradations quench his ray, No twilight dews his wrath allay ; With disc-like battle target red, He rushes to his burning bed ; Dyes the wild waves with bloody light, Then sinks at once and all is night ! " So sank the disc of the West Indian sun into the burning Caribbean sea, and sudden darkness veiled the march of the troops, while the pipes of Donald Bane, and other kilted minstrels of the Black Watch, woke the echoes of the fertile valleys and green cocoa- groves, as the corps formed the avant garde of the midnight movement, which brought the troops close to Morne Fortunee, in the attack on which Mac- Pherson charmed all by his rashness and headlong bravery. By a mistake of the black guide, General Moore found himself entangled with the French out- posts two hours before the other columns came up. An immediate encounter ensued. The 53rd Regi- ment drove back the enemy ; and here Evan Mac- Pherson, ever foremost in danger, leaving his own ranks, pushed on with the English corps, as the dis- patch of Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie, its com- mander, relates ; and after a hand-to-hand conflict, slew the French Republican general, piercing him through the body with such force that the long fluted blade of the Highland claymore would not come forth ; so that he had actually to place his feet upon THE FOREST OF OAICH. 373 corpse before he could withdraw his weapon. Spurning tin- liudy oft' his sword, he uttered one of his old ferocious oaths of passion and blind fury. The outpost was carried ; by daybreak the other columns came up, and with the loss of fifty grenadie is Morne Fortunes was completely invested. After this, five companies of the Black Watch, tin- Black Rangers under Malcolm of Lochore (a 1 shire gentleman, who had a powerful presentiment that he would that day close his earthly career), the ~>~>[h Regiment, and the Light Company of the 57th, \vt T<- ordered to assault the battery of Secke which 'lose to the outworks of Morne Fortune^, and, by a dangerous flank-fire, enfiladed the approach thereto. As they advanced to the attack, MacPherson, being >r volunteer for the forlorn hope, led the storn He seemed wild with excitement ; his cheek waa red, and his dark eyes sparkled with a fiery glow. Followed closely by six men carrying a scali: ladder, with his sword clenched in his teeth, and bearing in his arms one of those huge grass-bags which are often used in such affairs to prevent stormers from being hurt by falling into the tn-n and which, for this purpose, are filled with freshly cut grass, he rushed forward at the head of the forlorn - hope-men, nearly all of whom were swept away by a rolling lire of grape, canister, and musket-shot. II. tossed his grass bag into the trench, and seizin.: tin- ladder, shook off the dying men who clung to it, and with his own powerful hands he erected it at once against the slope of the stone bastion, uttering shouts re and triumph as he ascended. iVIl-mell a i-heerinj,' mass of the Black Watch and 55th men intermingled followed him. 374 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. The fire concentrated upon this point was terrible ; it seemed the very crater of a volcano, vomiting flame and missiles, and bristling with points of steel. Lieutenant James Frazer of the Black Watch, and Donald Bane, now the pipe-major, fell dead. The former was caught in the arms of Sergeant Grant just as he was falling over the bastion, and many more were killed and wounded. MacPherson re- ceived several cuts and scars ; but he seemed to be regardless alike of danger and pain. On the old ser- geant falling in the embrasure stunned by a blow from a musket-butt, the captain snatched the halbert from his hand to replace his claymore which, had been broken on a musket-barrel, and armed anew, he hewed a passage into the battery, which was carried in triumph ; but not until the brave Malcolm of Lochore was slain by a grape-shot (thus fulfilling his solemn presentiment) and many of his Rangers had perished by his side. MacPherson's bonnet had been denuded of its gay plumage by musket-shot, his plaid and uniform had been cut and pierced by sabres and bayonets ; yet he had but three wounds of consequence, and when he presented to General Moore the tricolour which he had pulled down from the battery, the brigadier said, " By my soul, Captain MacPherson, you seem to bear a charmed life/' To this the captain replied only by one of his strange laughs, as he tore a Frenchman's tricoloured sash into strips to bind up the wounds in his sword arm, for he had received two bayonet-stabs and a sword-cut in the affair. But though the battery of Secke had thus fallen, Morne Fortunee was yet untaken ; and when the THE FOREST OP OAICH. 875 Vizie, a fortified ridge under its guns was to be mined and carried by assault, MacPherson again volunteered for service in the front The local features and scenery of these isles, torn as they were by convulsions of nature into deep gorges covered with bosky thickets, or invaded by abrupt cliffs and bluffs, made the operations of the troops, who were cross-belted for weeks consecu- tively, severe and harassing. The hardihood ami r of endurance which are characteristic of the ' ish Highlanders, rendered the Black Watch of greatest service, while, on the other hand, the cavalry of the expedition were soon totally unfit for duty, and the 26th Light Dragoons gradually disap- peared altogether. " St. Lucia presents a chequered scene of sombre forests and fertile valleys, smiling plains and towering i pices, shallow rivers and deep ravines ;" but chief of all its hills are the huge pyramidal Pitons, two sugar-loaf shaped masses of rock, which frmn tin ir base in the blue ocean to their summit- in ;ire ever covered with waving foliage of the most brilliant green. The steep and rugged nature of the country and its pathless woods, where of old tin- painted Carib lurked, presented innumerable difficul- ties to the soldiers and seamen, who had to drag the battering guns from the beach into position against Morne Fortunee ; but on the 17th Maya sum\ number were in readiness to open a fire against the Vi/.io, or fortified ridge, which had been strengthened by palisades, earthworks, and bastions of stone which the French had mounted some of t heaviest guns. It was proposed to mult -ruiine one of these bas- tions, and Evan MacPhurson, who had volunteered for 376 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. the engineering department, discovered no one knew how an arched place almost immediately under it ; and he at once resolved to turn this vault to the best advantage. It was small and domed with stone, having been an oratory hewn out of the hill-side in the days of the Sieur de Rousselan, a French Go- vernor of St. Lucia, who died in 1654, and who was much beloved for his gentleness even by the fierce Caribs, one of whose women he had married. Here, for three nights preceding the seventeenth of May, the Captain Dhu, with ten soldiers of the 27th Regiment, worked to lay a mine, which, when fired, would blow the whole upper work, with its men, cannon and shot into the air. In the dark they crept to and fro on their hands and knees, reaching the place unmolested it is true, but not unseen ; for on the third night they were attacked by the French, and a terrible close combat with bayonets and pistols took place in the dark. Most of MacPherson's men were slain and cruelly butchered by the infuriated French ; but him they could neither kill, capture, overcome, or drive out of the vault. Plying his broadsword with both hands, he swept aside the charged bayonets and clubbed muskets like dry reeds by a winter brook ; the wounds he inflicted were terrible ! Lights were now brought, and in the red blaze of torches, and the ghastly green glare of fire-balls, his tall and muscular form was seen tower- ing over a pile of fallen men who encumbered the slippery and gory floor, towering like an infernal spirit or destroying angel, his sword-blade and his eyes flashing together, his swarthy cheek a deep red, and his black hair waving in elf-like locks. " C'est le (Liable !'' exclaimed the French, and pre- cipitately retired, leaving the vault, but only to adopt Tin; rouKsT or C,M 377 measures more surely to destroy him. Piles of straw, damp hemp, tar-barrels, and powder were flung in. Turn fire was applied, and thus all the miserable wounded were suffocated or burned alive, with the corpses of the dead. Even the Captain Dim did not come forth after this ; and at midnight his regiment, with the tilth or Inniskillings, and the Slst or Hunt- ingdonshire Foot, commenced the attack on the forti- fied ridge of the Vizie without him ; and his company was led by Lieutenant Simon Frazer, who was aft r- w;irds so severely wounded at the capture oi Vincent Six days the fighting continued, and an unceasing fire was exchanged between the British battery and the f >rt. until the 27th Regiment, by a desperate ex- ertion of bravery, effected a lodgment within five hundred yards of the French works, where they re- pulsed a furious sortie of the enemy, and maintain. -d their ground almost over the very place where the miners had been destroyed. This movement proving successful, the French capitulated on the twenty- sixth May, and from that day the Isle of St Ltu-ia became a British colony, after the loss of one hundred and ninety-four officers and men killed, and five hundred and fifty-four wounded, according to the nominal return ; but that document was in error by , for among those returned as slain six days be- fore the capitumtion, was the Captain Dim. When the interment of the dead took pla< fatal mine was explored, and it presented a dread ml scene, being full of dead soldiers, half score roasted, decomposed, and covered with black fest< wounds, while tin 4 pavement was so slippery with blood and hideous slime, that the fatigue party could scarcely bear out the remains of their comrades to 378 LEGENDS OP THE BLACK WATCH. their hastily- made graves under the fatal guns of Morne Fortunee. The 27th found old Bill Hook, the corporal of their Pioneers, literally burned to a mere piece of charcoal ; and the remains were alone identified by a brass tobacco-box which the deceased was known to possess. One body, fearfully blackened by smoke, and hav- ing the uniform scorched off it, a sword in its fingers calcined by the fire to a mere stripe of rusty iron, was borne out and laid upon the grass in the bright sun- shine ; and then with a shout of astonishment old Hamish Grant and others recognised the famous Captain Dhu ! " It is MacPherson, Black Evan of Ballychroan 1" they exclaimed ; and the whole regiment crowded to gaze on what they believed to be the remains of this brave but terrible fellow. " Quick let us bury him I" said some of the soldiers. But louder cries of astonishment rose from all, when he began to move and breathe ; and then, like one awakening from a long trance, opened his eyes and gazed wildly about him. For six days he had survived the horrors of that dark and terrible vault i The surgeons were promptly on the spot, and no means were left untried to restore MacPherson. " Oich ! oich I" muttered the Strathspey men ; "leave him to himself the hour of his end is not yet come." Sergeant Grant, who was ordered to see if the vault was now cleared of dead bodies, entered it slowly and with some reluctance; but in a moment after he came forth with a bound, as if he had been shot from a mortar, leaving his bonnet behind him ; his grey THE FOREST OF GAICII. 379 hair was on end, his eyes dilated, and his usually nut- brown and weather-beaten cheek was deadly pale with trrror. " What the devil is the matter now?" asked several officers. "The Devil himself is the matter," gasped the ant. How what have you seen?" asked General Moore, laughing. Hamish could not explain himself in English ; but to the Black Watch who crowded about him he re- lated that, on entering the bUick-ltole for so they named the mine he had seen in the further end thereof the figure of a man, and believing he was some Frenchman who had found concealment there, he drew his sword and approached. Then a pair of bright, tierce, and terrible eyes, glaring like those of an owl or snake, met his gaze ; and while secret awe and horror filled his soul, he found himself confronted by a man who was of giant stature, and whose facewasdurkt r than that of a mulatto, with a beard of raven black- ness, and wearing a grey plaid and Lowland bom He was the stranger whom they had seen in the Forest of Gaich ! He uttered a shrill laugh, which rung round the vault, and for a moment rooted the poor sergeant to the bloody pavement; then the soldier, wild with terror, rushed into the light of day. The story that a Scottish sergeant had seen th* Devil in the mine occasioned great laughter in the camp, for no trace of his Satanic majesty not even the print of a cloven hoof could be found, when the 31st Regiment demolished the whole fabric next day, after dismantling the Vizie. 380 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. After the capture of Home Fortunee, a marked change came over the Captain Dhu. He was sub- ject to fits of profound melancholy and abstraction, and to gusts of passion and firry, when he drank deep and became almost mad, exclaiming that he was tor- mented by fiends that the atmosphere was full of flame that hell was yawning under his feet, and so forth. His excesses soon impaired his health so severely, that he was sent home with invalids, on a year's leave of absence, with a constitution broken by war, wounds, and the wine-bottle ; and with a temper soured and furious, none knew by what The transport Queen Charlotte, in which he sailed from St. Vincent, was wrecked in the Irish Channel ; and of three hundred souls who were on board, theCap- tain Dhu though but the ruins of what he had been in bodily strength alone escaped, being cast ashore, lashed to a spar ; and after many strange and perilous adventures among the Irish, who were then in arms against the government, in the winter of 1799, he found himself at home in his native place, the beau- tiful valley of the Spey : and now we have reached the last chapter in his mysterious history an event which is still locally remembered by the Grants and others in Strathspey as the DARK DEED in the Forest of Gaich. On the llth of January, 1800, being the day pro- ceeding Yule, he summoned a party of gillies, and announced his intention of proceeding up the moun- tains to hunt the red deer in that place. The Badenoch men looked at each other with per- plexity and fear as, from time immemorial, the Eve of Yule has been the epoch for all mischief, devilry, and witchcraft in the Highlands ; and the scene of the proposed hunting was just the THE FOKKST OP OA1CII. 381 place that men might be supposed to avoid at such a tii. To hunt on Yulo Eve and in the Forest of h :" Jnvsolute ami unwilling alike to offend or obey, 1 at each other in silence. "Go not forth to hunt to-day," said old IfaniUh r, the serx'-aut, who. b.-ing discharged after l<.n^ si-rvice. was an occa-sional visitor at the house of his \ud why not to-day?" thundered Black E\ with a terrible oath. " Can you ask ?" \Vh.-it day is it in particular?" "The Eve of Yule." \Voiild you refuse to fight the enemy on Yulo Eve?" asked the captain, scornfully. " No, Ballychroan," replied the sergeant, proudly ; "for on that day in tin- year '76 I fought with the Ani-TH anson the Delav. "And what is Yuli; to me ?" exclaimed thecapt.i as he drank a deep draught "H what is that to me? Go I shall, though the tit-mi the ac- cursed tiend came up from la-11 with all his legions to bar the way. Go I shall, Hamish ; and go I must?" "This is most strange !" " Fatality compels me," said the captain, mourn- fully and wildly. "Oh, how few OOQM r,->:nj.rri. tin- in i-ry of a conviction like this : Fain wot; if I nuild receive oblivion in ex- ehani;.-. hut not life thi* life at least. Fain would I inmygra\<. llau.i-h; but in the grave, even of a saint yea, under the altar-stum- of lona I could not find ' DD 382 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. " I do not understand all this," said the old ser- geant, solemnly; "so let us consult the minister about it" " The minister bah !" "You never feared death, Bally chroan?" " Death no ! for he has everywhere eluded me. You have seen me rush into the breach amid a thou- sand dangers, and escape them all. I have flung myself upon the levelled bayonets, and among the uplifted swords of the enemy ; but the bayonets be- came pointless, the swords blunted, the bullets harm- less as snow-flakes ! In the dark vault of the Vizie, the flames spared me ; even the ocean itself repelled me, when three hundred brave men went down into its greedy gulf ; and, like he who wanders for ever he who mocked his Saviour on the ascent to Calvary I seem to bear a charmed life ; but yet, like that more happy wretch, I cannot live for ever. No, Hamish, no my days are numbered !" " Go not forth to-day," reiterated the old soldier, grasping the arm of the excited captain. "Bah!" he responded, and drained another glass of whiskey. " What did Kenneth Ower foretel two hundred years ago ?" " That when a black Yule overtook a black Laird of Ballychroan, the race would cease." " Wellyou are the first of your family who have the name of Evan Dhu and you have no son." " Thank Heaven, no ! I care not for predictions, and Kenneth Ower Mackenzie, the Brahn prophet, was a fool." " He foretold strange things though." " Such as, tfyat oats would replace the fairies on the hill of Tomnahourich, and that ships with sails THK FOREST OF OAICH. unfurled would pa.<3 and repass it; but the ;: :>'ii and the purple heather wave yet on the Fairies' Hill, and we have heard nothing of the hipa."* Kenneth Ower never spoke in vain," said tho white-haired sergeant. " 1 am too old a soldier to be terrified by silly i dictions/'exclaimedthe captain, wrathfully ; ". of this. Set forward, men away to th< 1. us .It ink, dance, and hunt while we may !" d quailing off a huge jug of alcohol, with a party of gillies, whom he had rnnde half tipsy, ho departed tow.-.rds tl.e Forest of Gaich. Of all that band of hunters, not a man ever came down from the Grampians again ! On that night, when the whole atmosphere seemed ralm and still, a terrific tempest, sudden as the dis- charge of a cannon, swept over the mountains. For hours the forked lightning played and flashed over -Va and the haunted Forest of G. while the thunder-peals made the old women in e cottage and clachan totter down on their knees to mutter a prayer for deliverance from evil and danger, as the electric salvos hurtled over the great wooded * 1 .spoke in 1ROO. " Tomnahouriclj, the far-famed Fairies' Hill, has been sown with oaU," tati the i-tisrr ,,r 1850| " According to tradition, the '.' jironhft, who lived 200 yean ago, predicted that nhijM with mi- lurli'.l sails w..;il.l ; .ISA and repays Tom nuhou rich ; anil In that it wmiM yet be placed under lock an : nt 1 lie prediction was verified lv Canal, and we teem to be on the ere of acv tin- n->t by tlu- linal flosiiiff up of tii what ii.ivi< closely followed local and oral traditi<>: blai-i liiii race, as he leli a duu. who, I believe, WM marrii\l in I BB? 384 LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. valley, through which the swollen Spey, the most furious of the Scottish rivers, laden with the spoil of a hundred forests, swept with a ceaseless roar to the German Ocean. Over Gaich, the sky seemed all on fire. It was an expanse of crimson flame streaked with forky green flashes ; and against this steady flush the huge Gram- pians stood strongly forth in sombre outline. With night this storm passed away. Three days after, some shepherds who, in pursuit of their scattered flocks, ventured into the wilderness of Gaich, saw a sight, the memory of which causes many yet to shudder, as they tell to their grandchil- dren around the winter hearth the story of the Cap- tain Dhu. A lonely shieling, in which he and his twenty gil- lies took refuge, had been destroyed by a thunder- bolt. Its rafters and stones were scattered over the forest, with the corpses of its inmates every man of whom had been torn limb from limb, and scattered far apart, as if by the hands of some mighty^jend ! Such was the startling end of the Black Captain and his companions. His evil reputation, the weird locality of his hunting, and the equally weird character of this tempestuous night, have fixed the idea deeply in the minds of the peasantry that Evan Dhu, of Ballychroan, decoyed these twenty Badenoch men into Gaich Forest for the sole purpose of delivering them to the fiend, in con- formity with some terrible compact ; for the whole scene of the catastrophe bore evidence of their destruc- tion by some infernal agency, rather than, as others averred, the levin brand of Heaven. At times, on the returning Eve of Yule, those who have been belated in the forest suddenly find them- THK FOREST OP GAIClf. selves in the midst of an invisible company of roi- t'T>-rs, wlio.si- laughter, shouts, impn and iiujiiou- songs, fill the poor loiterers with affright ; for though the voices s t-m close to the ear, no on vi>ille: and these unearthly bacchanalians are d to be the spirits of the doomed captain and In-, companions. On other occasions, screams, yells and nd. ; for mercy wild, and thrilling, and heartrending with the hoarse, deep baying of infernal dogs, are I it over the waste on the wind. But since that Me catastrophe on Yule Eve, 1800, none pass willingly through the Forest of Gaich alone ! NOTES. Tttn LETTER OP 8ERTTCE. Iw the story of Fanjuhar Shaw, the formation of the land Watch has been fully detailed ; but the follow- ing is the Letter of Service by which the Independent Companies of the JfeicuJan Dhu became the 43rd, and afterwards the 12nd Regiment of the Line : "GiOBOB R. Whereas, we have thought fit that a Regiment of Foot be forthwith funned under your coin- mand, and to consist of ten companies, each to contain ouo captain, one lieutenant, one ensign, three sergeant*, three corporals, two drummers, and one hundred effective private men; which said regiment shall be formed out of six In- dependent Companies of Foot in the Highlands of North Britain, three of which are now commanded by captains, and three by captain-lieutenants : " Our will and pleasure therefore is, that one sorg one corporal, and fifty private men, be forthwith taken out of the three companies commanded by captains, and ten private men from the three commanded by captain tenants, making one hundred and eighty men, who are to be equally distributed into the four companies hereby to be raised ; and tho three sergeant* and three eorporab 388 NOTES. draughted as aforesaid, to be placed to such of the four companies as you shall judge proper ; and the remainder of the non-commissioned officers and private men, wanting to complete them to the above number, to be raised in the Highlands with all possible speed, the men to le natives of the country, and none other to be taken. " This regiment shall commence and take place accord- ing to the establishment thereof. And of these our orders and commands, you and the said three captains and the three captain-lieutenants, commanding at present the six Independent Highland Companies, and all others con- cerned, are to take notice, and yield obedience thereunto accordingly. " Given at 'our Court of St. James's this 7th day of November, 1739, and in the 13th year of our reign. By His Majesty's command. (Signed) " WM. YONGE. " To our right-trusty and well-beloved cousin John Earl of Craufurd and Lindsay." Letters of service usually contain the special conditions under which troops are levied. It is worthy of remark that such are carefully omitted in the foregoing. II. HIGHLAND SOLDIEES. In the war between 1755 and 1762, sixty-five thousand Scotsmen were enlisted, according to the " Scots Maga- zine" for 1763, and of these a great proportion were Highlanders, whose services were extremely ill-requited. NO'i " Were nut tin- Highlanders put upon every hazardous ]>riso when- nothing was to be got but broken bones, and are not all these regiments tlisrnnlt'il n >\v, but the ! r" says a writer in the Edinburgh Adcertuer of 6th .Inly. L764. 'The Scots colonel who ent Castle* is now reduced to half-pay; while an En em' Tal. whose avarice was the occasion of the death of many thousands of brave men, i< not only on full pay, but in possession of one-fifth of the whole money gained at the Havannah what projx>rtion does the service of tins general, who received 86,000, bear to a private soldier who got about tii'tv shillings, or an officer who received about 80 Pf "The 42nd regiment consisted of two battalions and t companies, in all 2300 men, and now (in 1701) there remain only about ninety privates alive of the whole." A passion for military glory and adventure, with the old patriarchal love of the chiefs and gentlemen who officered the Highland regiments, drew our mountain peasantry in great numbers into their ranks. " Thus we find," according to General Stewart, whose work has been quoted in the text, "that the whole corps embodied in the lands amounted to twenty-six battalions of fenciblc infantry, which, in addition to l\\e fifty battalion* of the li/if, three of reserve and seven of militia, formed alto- gether a force of EIGHTY-SIX HM.HLAND RBoiiovrt embodied in the course of the four wars in which Britain had been engaged since the Black Watch was regimented in 1740. From a first glance, allowing 1000 men to each * Lieutenant-Colonel June* Stuart, who aftcrwanli commanded atCiul.laU.n-, in 1789. f I.i,-.n..(;.-.:.-i-.il the Karl of Albenurta racttod 1122,097 1 (to. The writer is in error. 390 NOTES. of these eighty-six regiments, would appear to come near the truth ; but on a closer view it will be found to be far short of the actual number several of the regiments had in the course of their service treble or quadruple their original number in their ranks. Thus the 71st, the 72nd and the 73rd, during the thirty-one years they were High- land (i.e. kilted), had at least 3000 Highlanders each, and other regiments had numbers in proportion to the length and nature of their service, both in tropical and temperate climat " From the commencement of the late war," according to another and equally careful writer, " the Island of Skyc alone had furnished no fewer than 21 Lieutenant-Generals and Major- Generals ; 48 Lieutenant- Colonels ; GOO other commissioned officers and 10,000 foot soldiers ; 4 Governors of British colonies ; 1 Governor-General ; 1 Adjutant- General ; 1 Chief Baron of England ; and 1 Judge of the Supreme Court of Scotland." The game laws and expatriation of the people have now reduced the Highlands and Isles to a wilderness, or nearly so ; the clans, whose memory is so inseparably connected with the military history of Scotland in modern times, and with the memory of days gone by, are swept to Australia, or the wilds of that Far West which is now th'e new home of the Celtic race. According to Wilson Time and tide Have washed away like weeds upon the sands, Crowds of the olden life's memorials ; And mid the mountains you might as well seek For the lone site of fancy's filmy dream. NO-I 391 III. THE LETTBE DE CACHZT. Of Major White's companion in misfortune, referred to in the legend bearing the above title, the Edinburgh Magazine for 1789 supplies the following information : " The Earl of Mazarine is an Irish peer ; he was nearly stopped at Calais, on Friday, on his way here. He wa with two other gentlemen, his companions in misfor- tune, and being all extremely mean and shabbily dressed, were suspected of being bad persons, and no one seemed ms of embarking in the packet with tlu-m. was at length obliged to declare himself. The people in the packet thought him mad. On landing at 1 ' his lordship was the first to jump out of the boat, and in gratitude to Heaven for his deliverance, immediately fell on his knees, and kissing the ground thrice, exclaimed "God bless this land of liberty !" This was one of the last episodes in the history of tin; terrible Bastille. TUE END. LONDON: FAJUUNCDON STRICT. ROUTLEDGE, WARNE. & ROUTLEDG1 NEW AND CHEAP EDITIONS anb popul ar To be obtained by Order of all Booktcllert, Home or Colonial. THB STAJTBAKB ZDITIOW OT TKZ NOVELS AND ROMANCES OF SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART., M.P. Cniformlj printed in crown 8vo, corrected and revised throughout, with new Preface*. 20 Tola, in 10, price 3 3s. cloth extra ; or any Yolnmos separately, in cloth binding, as under : RIF.NZI : Tor Lrr or TBB TBI- t.d. a e PAUL CLIFFORD 3 6 PH. HAM: oa, TUB ADVSMTI-BES I DKVRRKUX . MALTRAVERf >. TUB MTtTiBi THK or A CKMTLKMAN a A TALI . . .36 LEILA i OB. Tu Sites or GEA .IK i: \KI.\S s LAST DAYS oF I'uMPKII . . .an 1 HAROLD J. 3 a a a 6 a a o I'll. (. RIMS ol- 1 THK KUINK . . J6 N1GUT AM) MOUSING ....40 LUCRKTIA 4 THK CAXTONS 40 MY NOVEL (J roU.) . . . Or the Set complete in 20 rols .3 11 C half-calf extra . . 5 5 O iuUf-maroeco . . 5 11 6 "No collection of prose Actions, by any single author, omrtalne UM eame variety of tperienee the fame amplitude of knowledge and thought the MJM enwiMaaitesi of opposite extremes, harmonized by an equal Sisnireiir> ef an ; her* U*ei* aud i.arklin (aaetes i there. TMOMM sssMn or practical tados theae weras aisaiid or practical wtrfoai >ai W UM rtok. ad earai I* UM In Illuitratlunt that traeh bMMTolM to UM rtok. ad earai I* UM p*or; ta*y tteytMak a i/mpathy with att h%k aptnttMM,atf II manly trutgle; and wher. In tMr man Irafto portraluirM. they dtfwt UM R l,.w wuh ti,.. lot* of freedom ; II manly trutgle; and wher. dread Inugei or guilt and wo. they to clear oar JadfWMt by while they mo our bearu by terror or canpaMMA. that w Mara I* Mct titte In ourtelTM the .ril thought which w MO iradMlly wMdtag luatf IMO UM guilty Jd."*/r*/ /rom O*tterr Lgllun a~t kti H'vrii, The aboTe are printed on superior paper, bound la cloth. is embellished with an illustr. thU Standard Edition is admi- rably suiu-d f-r i>ri\.ito, select, and public Libraries. The o.l.l Nuinlrs and Parts to complete rolanes may U obtia*d; an.l ilio -..inj.U-u- wru-s i.i i...w in oonrae of ismt in ThrM-halfpMA/ Wctkly Number, or in Muuthly Parta, ScTenpenot each. 14 Standard and Popular Works. A CHEAP RE-ISSUE OF THE LIBRARY EDITION OF nULWER LYTTON'S (SIR E.) NOVELS AND U TALES. Uniformly printed iu crown Svo, and bound, with printed cloth covers and Illustrations. LIST OP THE SERIES: Price 2s. 6d. each. RIENZI. PAUL CLIFFORD. PELHAM. EUGENE AEAM. ZANONI. EKNEST MALTRAVERS. ALICE. DISOWNED. DEVEKEUX. LUCfiEIIA. LAST 1UY3 OP POMPEII. Price 3s. each. NIGHT AND MORNING. I HAROLD. CAXTOXS. I MY NOVEL (3 Tola.) Price Is. 6d. each. PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. | LEILA. Price 3s. 6d. boards. Price 2s. boards. THE LAST OF THE BARONS. | dODOLPHIX. " England's greatest novelist." ltfacfc*o<>r rather. w should Mf , PrbaM mow eorrwcllir, canwlr Urn *d OMI m the choice of D*W tl.rm*. in th iotUoe* of on* of hU UIM Utwarr dootioM. vis., tho ' Star Chamber.' But lh radra of Mr. AJaaworth aaj aaad* upon thooaanda-aMd hardly U iarfbnMd of UOti wa jiratod tdilion of hit worka U publUhl. do aot doh4 kit of readen etcn will b* conakUrmWy iaawMid." . thu large numb of readen etcn will b* conakUrmWy iaawMid." In 1 rol. demy 8vo, prioo 1*. cloth gilt. MERVYN CLITHEROR With Twvnty-four Steel ravingt, from decigM by Habloi K. Browne. vrnClitherws'HkeaHMr. Aiaaworth'* tala*. aoomaA ia atrtJoB , Qmatf r.-r ; and c^rtainlr, in noM of tha looj U*l of oraatioM that br hia BMM, h* Lo produced more MMJ icvno* or .* ja lt rrj-mct-aii. u> ( I..' . -/ -/. -y 1 6 Standard and Popular Wo7-h. GENERAL SIR CHARLES NAPIER'S ROMANCE. In 1 vol. post Svo, price "7s. 6d. cloth extra. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR; a Historical Romance. By General Sir CHAHLES NAPIKE ; edited by his brother, Sir WILLIAM NAPIER. " The real hero of the book is Harold, and the real moral of his fate is one illustra- tive of the consequences of leaving England comparatively defenceless, not because she had not, when AVilliam landed at Peyensey, plenty of stout hearts to defend her, but because those stout hearts were not incased in well-disciplined bodies. Had Sir Charles Napier seriously entered the field of literature as a rival of our best novelists, he would have taken rank very near to Sir Walter Scott." Glole. " There is a fine manly spirit in Sir Charles Napier's romance, which raises it above the level of ordinary fiction; it breathes of war and adventure ; iu a word, it displays that genuine sympathy with action which is the true foundation of romance, and which certainly does not appear with any surpassing strength in the imaginative literature of the day." The Times. " This is precisely the sort of romance we should have expected from a Napier full of fierce contests and bold encounters, impetuous, graphic, and concise ; every age tells of a battle-field or feat of arms of high emprise, not unmingled as in the eeds of ancient chivalry, with the softening influence of woman's love." Examiner. In 1 vol. price 5s. cloth extra, or 5s. 6d. in 2 vols. SIR GUY D'ESTERRE. By SELINA BUXBURY, Author of "Coombe Abbey," "Our Own Story," &c. "All romance is the story of ' Sir Guy d'Esterre,' by Miss Selina Bunbnry. It is a tale of the time of Irish war and tumult, in the reign of Elizabeth ; of the Ireland from which Spenser fled to die. The period is well chosen, and Miss Bunbury has a quick fancy at command. Her romance will give pleasure to many readers." Examiner. In post Svo, price 7s. 6d. cloth extra. THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW; or, Fata Morgana. Edited by WILLIAM DE TYNE (of the Inner Temple). CONTENTS: Prologue Carberry Lodge The World's Workshop Government by Representatives The Commons' House The House of Peers The Throne The Printing House The Church The Law The Centres and the Great Centre The Foreign States The Inner Life The Public Service India The Earth as seen from the Moon. " This is a remarkable book, and will make a sensation." Newcattle Chronicle. In 1 vol. demy Svo, price 6s. cloth. p OUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. ^-' Comprising the Chateau d'lf, with Twenty Illustrations, drawn on Wood by M. Valentin, and executed by the best English engravers. " ' Monte Cristo* is Dumas' best production, and the work that will convey hit name to the remembrance of future generations as a writer." In Svo, cloth extra, price 2s. 6d. gilt back. -pANNY, THE LITTLE MILLINER ; or, The Rich and the Poor. By CHARLES KOWCUOFT, Author of "Tales of the Colonies," &c. With Twenty-seven Illustrations by Phiz, 17 In 2 vols. 8vo, 12s. 6.1. cloth, emblematically gilt ; or the 2 Tola, in 1, price 10s. 6<1. doth extra, gilt. pAl!L'-T01TS TRAITS A \ ! . STORIES OF THK ^ I! M'UV. A New Pictorial Edition, Autobiographical Introduction, Explanatory Note*, and numerous Illus- trations on Wood and Steel, by 1'liiz, &C. aro comprise.! in this Edition : The Donah, or the Hone Stealw*. Phil Purcell, the Pig Di Geography of an Iruh Oath. The Llanham Shee. to Maynooth. Phelim OToole's CourUhip. The Poor Scholar. Wildgoone Lodge. Tubl>er Derg, or the Red Well. IfaloM. The following Tales and Sketches N' il M 'Keown. Th.- Three Tasks. Shane Fadh's Welding. T* \Vake. of the Factions. The Station. The Party Fight and Funeral The Lough Derg Pilgrim. Hedge School. The Mi.lni-lit Mass. " Unless another master-hand like Carleton's should appear, it is in his page*, and his alone, that future generations must look for the tmeat and fulled picture of UM Irish peasantry, who will ere long have passed away from the troubled land, and from the record* of history." Edtnburgk Snitw. " Truly intensely Irish." JHackmood. In fcap ICmo, price Is. sowed wrapper. THE NEW TALE OF A TUB. By F. W. N. BAYLBT. Illustrated by Engravings reduced from the original Drawings by Aubrey. " Fun and humour from beginning to end." Atlitn+um. a. P. R. JAIWCES'S NOVELS AND TALES. Price Is. each, board*. Eva St. Clair. | Margaret Graham. Price Is. 6d. each, boards. Agincou*t. Arabella Stuart Arrah Neil. Attila. Beauchamp. Casteliieau. Castle of Ehrcnstein. Delaware. Do L'Orme. False Heir. Forest Dayi. Forgery. Gentleman of Old School. Heidelberg. Jacquerie. King's Highway. Man-at-Arms. Mary of Burgundy. My Aunt Pontypool. One in a Thousand. Bobber. RoseD'Albwt Russell. Sir Theodore Broof b> ton. Btepmother. Whim and iU COM*. qncnces. Charles Tyrrell. 18 Standard and Popular WorTcs. G. P. R. JAMES'S NOVELS & TALES continued. Price 2s. each, boards ; or in cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. Brigand. Convict. Dafnley. Gowrie. Morley Ernstein. Eicheliau. Henry Masterton. Henry of Guise. Huguenot. John Marston Hall. Philip Augustus. Smuggler. Woodman. Gipsy. Leonora D'Orco. Old Dominion. The Black Eagle ; or Ticonderoga. *#* Mr. James's Novels enjoy a world-wide reputation, and, wita the exception of Bulwer Lytton, no author is so extensively read. Eis works, from the purity of their style, are universally admitted into Book Clubs, Mechanics' Institutions, and private families. STANDARD NOVELS. In fcap 8vo, price 2s. 6d. each, cloth gilt. This Collection now comprises the best Novels of our more celebrated Authors. The volumes are all printed on good paper, with an Illustra- tion, and form, without exception, the best and cheapest collection of light reading that is anywhere to be obtained. The following are now ready : 1. Eomance of War. By James Grant. 2. Peter Simple. By Captain Marryat. 3. Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp. By James Grant. 4. Whitefriars. By the Author of "Whitehall" 5. Stories of Waterloo. By W. H. Maxwell. 6. Jasper Lyle. By Mrs. Ward. 7. Mothers and Daughters. By Mrs. Gore. 8. Scottish Cavalier. By James Grant. 9. The Country Curate. By Gleig. 10. Trevelyan, By Lady Scott. 11. Captain Blake ; or, My Life. By W. H. Maxwell. 13. Tylney Hall. By Thomas Hood. 14. Whitehall. By the Author of " Whitefriars." 15. Clan Albyn. By Mrs. Johnstone. 16. Caesar Borgia. By the Author of " Whitefriars." 17. The Scottish Chiefs. By Miss Porter. 18. Lancashire Witches. By W. H. Ainsworth. 19. Tower of London. By W. H. Ainsworth. 20. The Family Feud. By the Author of "Alderman Kalph.*' 21. Frank Hilton; or, The Queen's Own. By James Grant. 22. The Yellow Frigate. By James Grant. 24. The Three Musketeers. By Alexandre Dumas. 25. The Bivouac. By W. H. Maxwell. 26. The Soldier of Lyons. By Mrs. Gore. 27. Adventures of Mr. Ledbury. By Albeit Smith. on. 19 ROUT-LEDGE'S STANDARD NOVELS unrfiuMgrf. 28. Jacob Faithful. By Captain Mnrryat 29. Japhct in Search of a Father. By Captain Marryat 30. The King's Own. By Captain Marryat. 81. Mr. Midshipman Easy. By Captain Marryat. 82. Newton Forster. By Captain Marryat. 33. The Pacha of Many Tales. By Captain Marryat 84. Rattlin the Reefer. Ivlitc-i by Captain Marryat. 35. The Poacher. By Captain Marryat. 36. The Phantom Ship. By Captain Marryat. 37. The Dog Fiend. By Captain Marryat. 88. Percival Keene. By Captain Marryat. 39. Hector O'Halloran. By W. H. Maxwell. 40. The Pottleton Legacy. By Albert Smith. 41. The Pastor's Fireside. By Miss Porter. ;-j. My Cousin Nicholas. By Ingold 43. The Black Dragoons. By James Grant. 44. Arthur O'Leary. By Charles Lever. 45. Scattergood Family. By Albert Smith. 46. Lack is Everything ; or, Brian O'Linn. By W. IT. MazweD. 47. Bothu-cll ; or, the Days of Mary of Scotland. By James Grant, 48. Christopher Tadpole. l;y AlK.n Smith. 49. Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist By Henry Cockton. 0. Sir Roland Ashton. By Lady Catharine Long. 51. Twenty Tears After. By Alexandra Dumas. 2. The First Lieutenant's Story. By Lady Catharine Long. 3. Marguerite de Valois. J'.y Alexandra Duma*. 54. Owen Tudor. By the Author of " \V hitefriara." 55. Jane Seton ; or, the Queen's Advocate. By James Grant 6. Philip Rollo ; or, the Scottish Musketeer*. By James Grant 57. Per kin War beck, i p.keiwteiu,' 8. The Two Convicts. By Frederick Uerstaeckcr. 9. Deeds, not Words. By M. Bell. 60. Feathered Arrow. By F. GersUecker. 61. Con Cregan ; or, the Irish Oil Bias. 62. Old St. Paul's. By W. Harris..!, '.insworth. 63. Prairie Bird. I5y lion. ( . H. .Murray. 64. Petticoat Government. By Mrs. Trollopc. 65. Ladder of Oold. By II. ' 6C. Maid of Orleans. By U>o Author of ' WuiU&ian.* 67. The Greatest Plague of Life. w. 68. The Millionaire. By I). CotteUo. 69. Colin Clink. By < 70. Brigand. By (J. P. K. James. 71. The Convict. By G. P. U. James. 72. Darnley. By G. P. R. James. 73. Oowrie. By G. P. R. James. 74. Morley Ernstoin. By G. P. R. James. 7.". Richelieu. By G. P. R. James. 76. Henry Masterton. By G. 1\ R. Jamca. i 20 Standard and Popular Works. ROUTLEDGE'S STANDARD NOVELS continued. 77. Henry of Guise. By G. P. R. James. 78. Huguenot. By G. P. R. James. 79. John Marston Hall. By G. P. R. James. 80. Philip Augustus. By G. P. R. James. 81. The Smuggler. By G. P. R. James. 82. Woodman. By G. P. R. James. 83. The Gipsy. By G. P. R. James. 84. Henrietta Temple. By Disraeli. 85. Vivian Grey. By Disraeli. 86. Will He Marry Her ? By John Lang. 87. Leonora D'Orco. By G. P. R. James. 88. One Fault. By Mrs. Trollope. 89. Salathiel. By Dr. Croly. 90. Secret of a Life. By M. M. Bell. 91. Old Dominion (The). By G. P. R. James. 92. Eory O'More. By Samuel Lover. 93. The Manoeuvring Mother. By the Author of " The Flirt." 94. The Half-Brothers. By Alexandra Dumas. 95. The Ex- Wife. By John Lang. 96. The Two Frigates. By the Author of " The Green Hand." AZNSWOHTK'S (W. Harrison) WORKS. In fcap 8vo, price Is. each, boards. St. James's. | James II. (Edited by.) Price Is. ,6d. each, boards. The Miser's Daughter. Rookwood. Spendthrift. Windsor Castle. Crichton. Guy Fawkes. Price 2s. each, boards. Tower of London. Lancashire Witches. . Old St. Paul's. Flitch of Bacon. " A cheap edition of Mr. Ainsworth's novels is now being published, and that fact we doubt not will enable thousands to possess what thousands have before been only able to admire and covet." AUSTEN'S (Miss) WORKS. In fcap 8vo, price Is. 6d. each, boards. Mansfield Park. Emma. Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. " Miss Austen has a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, nd characters of every-day life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." Sir WMer Scott. 'on. 21 Z,YTTON'S (Sir Sdward> WORKS. In fcap Svo, price 1*. each, boarda. Leila ; or, the Siege of Granada. | Pilgrim* of the Rhine The) In fcap Svo, price If. d. each, boards. Lucrctia. Polham. Devereuz. Disovroed (The). Last Days of Pompeii (The). Eugene Aram. Zanoni. Godolphin. Paul Clifford. Alice ; or, the Xystaritt. Ernest Maltravers. In fcap Svo, price 2a each, board*. My Novel. 2 vols. Harold. Ri.-izi. Caztoni (The). Last of the Barons. Hight and Morning. tUt the work* of England's gn*lt*t noreli* CM tw obtaia*! for a fcv hillinjp, we can hardly imagine them will be any library, howmr BBaM, wiifcmt tin :.!. " CAnLETON'S (W.) TALES AND STOHIES. In fcap 8ro, price la. 6d. each, or in cloth, 2a. Three Tasks, Shane Fadh't Wed- ding, ftc. (The). Fardarougha the Miser. Poor Scholar, WUdgooM Lodge, *e. (The). Titho Proctor (The). Emigrants (The). I Hke CarUton's abotib a* moat look forth* If Irinh peasantry, nbo will ere loof bar* paasii .way from UM troubkd Uad aad la* records of history ."LJaUtm ' " UnleM anotbm* raafUr-hwid Uka Carirtoe't *bovJd appMr. U is to hb paM. Md bU *lone. tht futoro (MMratioM * look for UM triMM mad felbrt Mwo> UM tnwbMtoa4 CROWE'S (Mrs.) WO&&S. In fcap Svo, Is. 6<1. each, bda. Light and Darkness. Lilly Dawson. In fcap STO, Z*. each, bda. Susan Hopley. Hight Bide of Haturt (Tne>. Linny Lockwood. " Mrs. Crowe has a elarMM aad plain force of rtyU. and a 40 a scene, by accumulating a number of miuut* deUiu, that Aberdttu B**atr. 22 Standard and Popular Works. COOPS2VS (J. P.) WORKS. In fcap Svo, price Is. 6d. each, boards, or in cloth, 2,8. Last of the Mohicans (The). Spy (The). Lionel Lincoln. Pilot (The). Pioneers (The). Sea Lions (The). Borderers, or Heathcotes (The). Bravo (The). Homeward Bound. Afloat and Ashore. Satanstoe. Wyandotte. Mark's Keef. Deerslayer (The). Oak Openings (The). Pathfinder (The). Headsman (The). Water Witch (The). Two Admirals (The). Miles Wallingford. Prairie (The) Red Hover (The). Eve Effingham. Heidenmauer (The). Precaution. Ned Myers. *' Cooper constructs enthralling stories, which hold us in breathless suspense, and mate our brows alternately pallid with awe and terror, or flushed with powerful emotion : when once taken up, they are so fascinating, that we must perforce read on from beginning to end, panting to arrive at the thrilling denouement." Dublin University Magazine. i ' (Alexandra) WORKS. In fcap Svo, price 2s. 6d. each volume, cloth boards. The Vicomte de Bragelonne. 2 vols. Count of Monte Cristo. 1 vol. "The 'Vicomte de Bragelonne,' which has been much inquired for, is the com- letion of those celebrated tules, the ' Three Musketeers' and ' Twenty Tears After.* n this series of works, A. Dumas has selected a most eventful period in the history of Prance the days of Richelieu, Mazarin, and the early manhood of Louis the Four- teenth. The author's principal aim has been to develop a personage particularly belonging to this period. The Gascon soldier and adventurer, D'Artagnan, is but what a Kaleigh was in history and a Quintin Durward in fiction. Rashly brave, astute, shrewd, indefatigable, almost invincible before his various qualities diffi- culties are but chimeras, obstacles thin air. In a word, the ' Vicomte de Brage- lonne' maintains the character of its two predecessors, and the three form the most interesting and suggestive works we have read for many years." Price 2s. each, boards, or in cloth, gilt, 2s. 6d. Three Musketeers (The). Twenty Years After. Marguerite de Valoi*. The Half-Brothers. EDCEWORTH'S (Bliss) WORKS. In fcap Svo, price Is. each, boards, or in cloth, Is. 6d, The Absentee. Ennui. Manoeuvring. Vivian. path chiir country of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth fortunately achieved fo hers." QERSTAECKER'S WORKS. In fcaj) 8 vo, price IK. 6d. each, boards, or In cloth, it. Wild Sports of the Far West (The}. | PiraUs of the Mississippi (Tbt> Price Is. boards. Haunted House (The). Price 2s. boards or 2s. fid. cloth. Two Convicts (The). The Feathered Arrow. "Oar author appeal* to d>hgbt in recounting tk* ttimnf and il.l prairie, When nature *oan in ker grandest mood*, tk* spirit of man par. take* of someihinc of tk* illimitable. It is iMt frattac, oombcaed with tk* to** of hat prompt* many to quit tk* home of their lktfc*ra, and to goiortkm quest of the .trance, 4* wonderful, and tk* wild." T CORE'S (Mrs.) WORKS. In fcap 8vo, price Is. 6d. each, boards, or in cloth, Heir of Selwood (The). Dowager (The). Fin Money. Self; or, the Harrow, Narrow World. Money Leader (The). " Mr*. Gore t* one of the most popular writer* of the day ; ker work* aro all pi*. tnraiof jitlinglifoandi GRANT'S (James) WOR3 In fcap Svo, price 2s. each, board*, or in cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. Harry Ogilvie. Frank Hilton. Yellow Frigate (The). Romance of War (The). Scottish Cavalier (The). BothwelL Jane Seton. Philip Bollo. Adventures of an Aiditfr Camp (The). The author of' The Bomano* of War* deeerr** Ik* popaW*/ wktok ka* i him, perhaps, the most read of living noTttiaU. Hi* (nb* are full of Hi* hi* soldier spirit and turn for adTrature onrrr kte , Price U. V. each. board*. MimiT* lUl-OHTKIl. I Wlf KAWKK*. CKICHTON. FLITCH or BACOX. !< >> <.<>D. Price 2*. each, board*; or In c'.oth (ilt, St. 64. TOWBR or LONOOIT. | I.AWCAIIIIHI WITCMB*. OLD ST. PAI-L'H. " It li tcurrrlT urpnin * that H.iiriuin Amtworth ihould have reared In him- *elf a very . when we cufifiitcr hos. -n hi* theme*. .-omctimc*. by tl thrallin . Sorne- timn the *ccne ami the vrry title of oroe renowned ftructure. pabcv. a prUon. or a fortivn. It i thut with the Tower of London.' VVimlwu Catle. Old '. -. Hut the rr.vl rt nf Mr Ainiworth who number thouwndt upon thoutatvU nerd hardly be inform i now that a uniform edi- tion of tn> w<>rk IN . :. he on the Continent. | bemf NUUlta* Irooi Life. 11 \\ ho I* unfamiliar with tho*e brilliant iketrhe* of naval. partiruUrlv the pie- .ml mannrn, from the pen of the Roving l*"~ ami ho itoc* not hall their collection tola eoapaatooable aiard BY W. H. PRESCOTT. ID fcap. 8ro. price J*. each volume, board* t or cloth, t*. Otf. Hirronv or THR Rcio* or KumnxAxt. AXH IIABKLUI. t rola, HIHTOKY or TM ConjrKT ur \1 r \:i .1. $ volt. HIMIIIIY nr T -r 1'r.u. . vurTiiBli' PTMI S>COD. ffrob. HlnroHY or THB Hi rim. X Tola. BlOOMAI'IIICAl AM' < HiaioHY or TMB HKK..H or I'MILIT TH .SCUMD. VoL X ROUTLEDGE'S CHEAP LITERATURE. ZIOUTLEDGE'S ORIGINAL NOVELS. In Fancy Boarded Covers. 1 THE CURSE of GOLD. <1.) Bv R. W. Jameson. 2 THE FAMILY FEUD. (2..) By Thomas Cooper.* 3 THK SKRF SISTERS. (Is.) By John Harwood. 4 PRIDK OF THE MESS. Us. 6d.) By the Author of "Cavendish.* 5 FRANK HILTON. (2*.) By James Grant. C MY BROTHER'S WIFE. (Is. 6d.) By Miss Edwards. 7 ADRIEN. (1*. (W.) By the Author of " Zin^ra the Gipsy." H YELLOW FRIGATE. (2.?.) By James Grant. fl EVKLYN FORESTER, tit. fia.) By Mnr^ueritc A. Power. 10 HARRY OOILVIE. (2.8.) By James Grant. 11 LADDER OP LIFK. (1*. 6rf.) By Miss Edwards. 12 THE Two CONVICTS. (2j.) By Frederick Gerstaecker. 13 DKEDS, NOT WORDS. (2*.) By M. Bell. 14 THE FEATHERED ARROW. (2s.) By Frederick Gerstaecker. 15 TII:S OK KINDRED. '.l*.6d.) By Owen Wynn. 1C WILL HE MARRY HER? (2.?.) By Jchn Lang. 17 SECRET OF A LIFE. (2*.) By M. M. Bell. 18 LOVAL HEART; or, the Trappers. (U. (id.) 19 THE EX-WIFE. (2s.) By John Lang. 20. ARTHUR BLANK. (2s.) By James Grant. 21. HIGHLANDERS OF GLEN ORA. (2s) By James Grant. BV MISS EDGSWORTH. In fcap. 8vo, price One Shilling each, boards ; or, in cloth, Is. Gd. THK ABSENTEE. I MANan. M of m PtiTticUn. M OMH 47 KII. .u .1- 4!) *The Lamplighter. i<-.. S. PHJlifl. . nr African Ad N forlbe People _ ; i ..:;:. .MJK . Mountainetr. .h and Hum hi lidaya. ..f^llcraturr. K~d W&matt. \\ I (. ( i'.mcm. >i>aln. H-ruriomt. \mrriraamlthe \ 'irrat Ilighwiy ib.) Fn/Ju* Watchman. ISO Sebotopol, the Story of It* Fall. KtantiM. IM Rtil; . UarkncM. mark > Hi Kin* Dobb*, 144 Dtaftt for ? 148 IM ManruertttdeVaW... . ' '. " ! .' I .. (.:;. l.\4 H.-rncan-llhc World. 1 ' " * \ * - - " ' ' \ t M M ., ,1 i. .:. Ite. 163. Vleomu,.) l^.rf. i ... U. : t .... ttOMflaJ MI EvanceliM -,.:.. 189 MarrrbolSeirtK* (1*.) M it-.t .!, . .-,. , >.., A...1 land(U.M. 191 A Lady. CaptUky IMratei. K,-.-., ;,... r. : pi M...-K r<- UO Derby Minktry (U M.) IM Mtle SUndUhaad other 198 IM PrteoCfkPhUtpdMSMoa. VotX ! 7 U..r' : .Tot:.tAl WorU :, ) ROUTLEDGE S STANDARD NOVELS, Price Two Shillings ind Sixpence each. YOL. AUTHOK. 52 THE FIRST LIEUTENANT'S STORY .... Lady Catharine Long. 53 MARGUERITE DE VALOIS Alexandra Dumas. 54 OWEN TUDOR . By the author of " Whitefriars. 55 JANE SETON; or, the Queen's Advocate .... James Grant. 56 PHILIP ROLLO ; or, the Scottish Musketeers . , . . . " James Grant. 57 PERKIN WARBECK By the author of " Frankenstein.'* 58 THE TWO CONVICTS. . Frederick Gerstaecker. 59 DEEDS NOT WORDS . . M. M. Bell. 60 FEATHERED ARROW (THE) Gerstaecker. 61 CON CREGAN .... Lever. 62 OLD ST. PAULS' . . . Ainsworth. 63 PRAIRIE BIRD .... Hon. C. A. Murray. 64 PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT Mrs. Trollope. 65 LADDER OF GOLD . R. Bell. 66 MAID OF ORLEANS By the author of" Whitefriars. ' 67 THE GREATEST PLAGUE OF LIr E . . . . . . Mayhew. 68 THE MILLIONAIRE . . D. Costello. 69 COLIN CLINK . . . . C. Hooton. 70 BRIGAND .... G. P. R. James. 71 THE CONVICT .... Ditto. 72 DARNLEY .... Ditto. 73 COWRIE Ditto. 74 MORLEY ERNSTEIN . . Ditto. 75 RICHELIEU .... Ditto. 76 HENRY MASTERTON . Ditto. 77 HENRY OF GUISE . . . Ditto. 78 HUGUENOT .... Ditto. 79 JOHN MARSTON HALL . . Ditto. 80 PHILIP AUGUSTUS . . Ditto. 81 THE SMUGGLER . . . Ditto. 82 WOODMAN .... Ditto. 83 THE GIPSY .... Ditto. 84 HENRIETTA TEMPLE . Disraeli. 85 VIVIAN GREY . . Ditto. ROUT-LEDGE'S ST I'rice Two SAtllingi and Sirpfmft tark. VOL. 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 WILL UK MAKRY HER?. LEONORA D'ORCO. ONE FAULT RORY O'MOKi: SALATI11KI TI1H SECRET OF A LI! i; THE OLD DOMINION MAN(EUVRING MOTHER . HALF BROTHERS . EX-WIFE .... THE TWO FRIGATES . BLACK EAGLE . MONTE CRISTO (3s.) . TOP SAIL SHEET BLOCKS A I TMO*. John Lan;.'. (,. 1'. K. .J.unes. Mr*. TrolInjH.-. Lover. CMgr. M. M. Bell. G. P. R. James. {By the author