AN UNEXPECTED ALLY APPEARS
The Baron returned at the dinner-hour, and had in a great measure
recovered his composure and good-humour. He not only confirmed
the stories which Edward had heard from Rose and Bailie
Macwheeble, but added many anecdotes from his own experience,
concerning the state of the Highlands and their inhabitants. The
chiefs he pronounced to be, in general, gentlemen of great honour
and high pedigree, whose word was accounted as a law by all those
of their own sept, or clan. 'It did not indeed,' he said, 'become
them, as had occurred in late instances, to propone their
prosapia, a lineage which rested for the most part on the vain and
fond rhymes of their seannachies or bhairds, as aequiponderate
with the evidence of ancient charters and royal grants of
antiquity, conferred upon distinguished houses in the Low Country
by divers Scottish monarchs; nevertheless, such was their
outrecuidance and presumption, as to undervalue those who
possessed such evidents, as if they held their lands in a sheep's
skin.'
This, by the way, pretty well explained the cause of quarrel
between the Baron and his Highland ally. But he went on to state
so many curious particulars concerning the manners, customs, and
habits of this patriarchal race that Edward's curiosity became
highly interested, and he inquired whether it was possible to make
with safety an excursion into the neighbouring Highlands, whose
dusky barrier of mountains had already excited his wish to
penetrate beyond them. The Baron assured his guest that nothing
would be more easy, providing this quarrel were first made up,
since he could himself give him letters to many of the
distinguished chiefs, who would receive him with the utmost
courtesy and hospitality.
While they were on this topic, the door suddenly opened, and,
ushered by Saunders Saunderson, a Highlander, fully armed and
equipped, entered the apartment. Had it not been that Saunders
acted the part of master of the ceremonies to this martial
apparition, without appearing to deviate from his usual composure,
and that neither Mr. Bradwardine nor Rose exhibited any emotion,
Edward would certainly have thought the intrusion hostile. As it
was, he started at the sight of what he had not yet happened to
see, a mountaineer in his full national costume. The individual
Gael was a stout, dark, young man, of low stature, the ample folds
of whose plaid added to the appearance of strength which his
person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy
and clean-made limbs; the goatskin purse, flanked by the usual
defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his
bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be
treated as a duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; a broadsword
dangled by his side, a target hung upon his shoulder, and a long
Spanish fowling-piece occupied one of his hands. With the other
hand he pulled off his bonnet, and the Baron, who well knew their
customs, and the proper mode of addressing them, immediately said,
with an air of dignity, but without rising, and much, as Edward
thought, in the manner of a prince receiving an embassy, 'Welcome,
Evan Dhu Maccombich; what news from Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich lan
Vohr?'
'Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich lan Vohr,' said the ambassador, in good
English, 'greets you well, Baron of Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan,
and is sorry there has been a thick cloud interposed between you
and him, which has kept you from seeing and considering the
friendship and alliances that have been between your houses and
forebears of old; and he prays you that the cloud may pass away,
and that things may be as they have been heretofore between the
clan Ivor and the house of Bradwardine, when there was an egg
between them for a flint and a knife for a sword. And he expects
you will also say, you are sorry for the cloud, and no man shall
hereafter ask whether it descended from the bill to the valley, or
rose from the valley to the hill; for they never struck with the
scabbard who did not receive with the sword, and woe to him who
would lose his friend for the stormy cloud of a spring morning.'
To this the Baron of Bradwardine answered with suitable dignity,
that he knew the chief of Clan Ivor to be a well-wisher to the
King, and he was sorry there should have been a cloud between him
and any gentleman of such sound principles, 'for when folks are
banding together, feeble is he who hath no brother.'
This appearing perfectly satisfactory, that the peace between
these august persons might be duly solemnised, the Baron ordered a
stoup of usquebaugh, and, filling a glass, drank to the health and
prosperity of Mac-Ivor of Glennaquoich; upon which the Celtic
ambassador, to requite his politeness, turned down a mighty bumper
of the same generous liquor, seasoned with his good wishes to the
house of Bradwardine.
Having thus ratified the preliminaries of the general treaty of
pacification, the envoy retired to adjust with Mr. Macwheeble some
subordinate articles with which it was not thought necessary to
trouble the Baron. These probably referred to the discontinuance
of the subsidy, and apparently the Bailie found means to satisfy
their ally, without suffering his master to suppose that his
dignity was compromised. At least, it is certain, that after the
plenipotentiaries had drunk a bottle of brandy in single drams,
which seemed to have no more effect upon such seasoned vessels
than if it had been poured upon the two bears at the top of the
avenue, Evan Dhu Maccombich, having possessed himself of all the
information which he could procure respecting the robbery of the
preceding night, declared his intention to set off immediately in
pursuit of the cattle, which he pronounced to be 'no that far off;
they have broken the bone,' he observed, 'but they have had no
time to suck the marrow.'
Our hero, who had attended Evan Dhu during his perquisitions, was
much struck with the ingenuity which he displayed in collecting
information, and the precise and pointed conclusions which he drew
from it. Evan Dhu, on his part, was obviously flattered with the
attention of Waverley, the interest he seemed to take in his
inquiries, and his curiosity about the customs and scenery of the
Highlands. Without much ceremony he invited Edward to accompany
him on a short walk of ten or fifteen miles into the mountains,
and see the place where the cattle were conveyed to; adding, 'If
it be as I suppose, you never saw such a place in your life, nor
ever will, unless you go with me or the like of me.'
Our hero, feeling his curiosity considerably excited by the idea
of visiting the den of a Highland Cacus, took, however, the
precaution to inquire if his guide might be trusted. He was
assured that the invitation would on no account have been given
had there been the least danger, and that all he had to apprehend
was a little fatigue; and, as Evan proposed he should pass a day
at his Chieftain's house in returning, where he would be sure of
good accommodation and an excellent welcome, there seemed nothing
very formidable in the task he undertook. Rose, indeed, turned
pale when she heard of it; but her father, who loved the spirited
curiosity of his young friend, did not attempt to damp it by an
alarm of danger which really did not exist, and a knapsack, with a
few necessaries, being bound on the shoulders of a sort of deputy
gamekeeper, our hero set forth with a fowling-piece in his hand,
accompanied by his new friend Evan Dhu, and followed by the
gamekeeper aforesaid, and by two wild Highlanders, the attendants
of Evan, one of whom had upon his shoulder a hatchet at the end of
a pole, called a Lochaber-axe, [Footnote: See Note 14] and the
other a long ducking-gun. Evan, upon Edward's inquiry, gave him to
understand that this martial escort was by no means necessary as a
guard, but merely, as he said, drawing up and adjusting his plaid
with an air of dignity, that he might appear decently at Tully-
Veolan, and as Vich Ian Vohr's foster-brother ought to do. 'Ah!'
said he, 'if you Saxon duinhe-wassel (English gentleman) saw but
the Chief with his tail on!'
'With his tail on?' echoed Edward in some surprise.
'Yes--that is, with all his usual followers, when he visits those
of the same rank. There is,' he continued, stopping and drawing
himself proudly up, while he counted upon his fingers the several
officers of his chief's retinue; 'there is his hanchman, or right-
hand man; then his bard, or poet; then his bladier, or orator, to
make harangues to the great folks whom he visits; then his gilly-
more, or armour-bearer, to carry his sword and target, and his
gun; then his gilly-casfliuch, who carries him on his back through
the sikes and brooks; then his gilly-comstrian, to lead his horse
by the bridle in steep and difficult paths; then his gilly-
trushharnish, to carry his knapsack; and the piper and the piper's
man, and it may be a dozen young lads beside, that have no
business, but are just boys of the belt, to follow the Laird and
do his honour's bidding.'
'And does your Chief regularly maintain all these men?' demanded
Waverley.
'All these?' replied Evan; 'ay, and many a fair head beside, that
would not ken where to lay itself, but for the mickle barn at
Glennaquoich.'
With similar tales of the grandeur of the Chief in peace and war,
Evan Dhu beguiled the way till they approached more closely those
huge mountains which Edward had hitherto only seen at a distance.
It was towards evening as they entered one of the tremendous
passes which afford communication between the high and low
country; the path, which was extremely steep and rugged, winded up
a chasm between two tremendous rocks, following the passage which
a foaming stream, that brawled far below, appeared to have worn
for itself in the course of ages. A few slanting beams of the sun,
which was now setting, reached the water in its darksome bed, and
showed it partially, chafed by a hundred rocks and broken by a
hundred falls. The descent from the path to the stream was a mere
precipice, with here and there a projecting fragment of granite,
or a scathed tree, which had warped its twisted roots into the
fissures of the rock. On the right hand, the mountain rose above
the path with almost equal inaccessibility; but the hill on the
opposite side displayed a shroud of copsewood, with which some
pines were intermingled.
'This,' said Evan, 'is the pass of Bally-Brough, which was kept in
former times by ten of the clan Donnochie against a hundred of the
Low-Country carles. The graves of the slain are still to be seen
in that little corrie, or bottom, on the opposite side of the
burn; if your eyes are good, you may see the green specks among
the heather. See, there is an earn, which you Southrons call an
eagle. You have no such birds as that in England. He is going to
fetch his supper from the Laird of Bradwardine's braes, but I 'll
send a slug after him.'
He fired his piece accordingly, but missed the superb monarch of
the feathered tribes, who, without noticing the attempt to annoy
him, continued his majestic flight to the southward. A thousand
birds of prey, hawks, kites, carrion-crows, and ravens, disturbed
from the lodgings which they had just taken up for the evening,
rose at the report of the gun, and mingled their hoarse and
discordant notes with the echoes which replied to it, and with the
roar of the mountain cataracts. Evan, a little disconcerted at
having missed his mark, when he meant to have displayed peculiar
dexterity, covered his confusion by whistling part of a pibroch as
he reloaded his piece, and proceeded in silence up the pass.
It issued in a narrow glen, between two mountains, both very lofty
and covered with heath. The brook continued to be their companion,
and they advanced up its mazes, crossing them now and then, on
which occasions Evan Dhu uniformly offered the assistance of his
attendants to carry over Edward; but our hero, who had been always
a tolerable pedestrian, declined the accommodation, and obviously
rose in his guide's opinion, by showing that he did not fear
wetting his feet. Indeed he was anxious, so far as he could
without affectation, to remove the opinion which Evan seemed to
entertain of the effeminacy of the Lowlanders, and particularly of
the English.
Through the gorge of this glen they found access to a black bog,
of tremendous extent, full of large pit-holes, which they
traversed with great difficulty and some danger, by tracks which
no one but a Highlander could have followed. The path itself, or
rather the portion of more solid ground on which the travellers
half walked, half waded, was rough, broken, and in many places
quaggy and unsound. Sometimes the ground was so completely unsafe
that it was necessary to spring from one hillock to another, the
space between being incapable of bearing the human weight. This
was an easy matter to the Highlanders, who wore thin-soled brogues
fit for the purpose, and moved with a peculiar springing step; but
Edward began to find the exercise, to which he was unaccustomed,
more fatiguing than he expected. The lingering twilight served to
show them through this Serbonian bog, but deserted them almost
totally at the bottom of a steep and very stony hill, which it was
the travellers' next toilsome task to ascend. The night, however,
was pleasant, and not dark; and Waverley, calling up mental energy
to support personal fatigue, held on his march gallantly, though
envying in his heart his Highland attendants, who continued,
without a symptom of abated vigour, the rapid and swinging pace,
or rather trot, which, according to his computation, had already
brought them fifteen miles upon their journey.
After crossing this mountain and descending on the other side
towards a thick wood, Evan Dhu held some conference with his
Highland attendants, in consequence of which Edward's baggage was
shifted from the shoulders of the gamekeeper to those of one of
the gillies, and the former was sent off with the other
mountaineer in a direction different from that of the three
remaining travellers. On asking the meaning of this separation,
Waverley was told that the Lowlander must go to a hamlet about
three miles off for the night; for unless it was some very
particular friend, Donald Bean Lean, the worthy person whom they
supposed to be possessed of the cattle, did not much approve of
strangers approaching his retreat. This seemed reasonable, and
silenced a qualm of suspicion which came across Edward's mind when
he saw himself, at such a place and such an hour, deprived of his
only Lowland companion. And Evan immediately afterwards
added,'that indeed he himself had better get forward, and announce
their approach to Donald Bean Lean, as the arrival of a sidier roy
(red soldier) might otherwise be a disagreeable surprise.' And
without waiting for an answer, in jockey phrase, he trotted out,
and putting himself to a very round pace, was out of sight in an
instant.
Waverley was now left to his own meditations, for his attendant
with the battle-axe spoke very little English. They were
traversing a thick, and, as it seemed, an endless wood of pines,
and consequently the path was altogether indiscernible in the
murky darkness which surrounded them. The Highlander, however,
seemed to trace it by instinct, without the hesitation of a
moment, and Edward followed his footsteps as close as he could.
After journeying a considerable time in silence, he could not help
asking, 'Was it far to the end of their journey?'
'Ta cove was tree, four mile; but as duinhe-wassel was a wee
taiglit, Donald could, tat is, might--would--should send ta
curragh.'
This conveyed no information. The curragh which was promised might
be a man, a horse, a cart, or chaise; and no more could be got
from the man with the battle-axe but a repetition of 'Aich ay! ta
curragh.'
But in a short time Edward began to conceive his meaning, when,
issuing from the wood, he found himself on the banks of a large
river or lake, where his conductor gave him to understand they
must sit down for a little while. The moon, which now began to
rise, showed obscurely the expanse of water which spread before
them, and the shapeless and indistinct forms of mountains with
which it seemed to be surrounded. The cool and yet mild air of the
summer night refreshed Waverley after his rapid and toilsome walk;
and the perfume which it wafted from the birch trees, [Footnote:
It is not the weeping birch, the most common species in the
Highlands, but the woolly-leaved Lowland birch, that is
distinguished by this fragrance.] bathed in the evening dew, was
exquisitely fragrant.
He had now time to give himself up to the full romance of his
situation. Here he sate on the banks of an unknown lake, under the
guidance of a wild native, whose language was unknown to him, on a
visit to the den of some renowned outlaw, a second Robin Hood,
perhaps, or Adam o' Gordon, and that at deep midnight, through
scenes of difficulty and toil, separated from his attendant, left
by his guide. What a variety of incidents for the exercise of a
romantic imagination, and all enhanced by the solemn feeling of
uncertainty at least, if not of danger! The only circumstance
which assorted ill with the rest was the cause of his journey--the
Baron's milk-cows! this degrading incident he kept in the
background.
While wrapt in these dreams of imagination, his companion gently
touched him, and, pointing in a direction nearly straight across
the lake, said, 'Yon's ta cove.' A small point of light was seen
to twinkle in the direction in which he pointed, and, gradually
increasing in size and lustre, seemed to flicker like a meteor
upon the verge of the horizon. While Edward watched this
phenomenon, the distant dash of oars was heard. The measured sound
approached near and more near, and presently a loud whistle was
heard in the same direction. His friend with the battle-axe
immediately whistled clear and shrill, in reply to the signal, and
a boat, manned with four or five Highlanders, pushed for a little
inlet, near which Edward was sitting. He advanced to meet them
with his attendant, was immediately assisted into the boat by the
officious attention of two stout mountaineers, and had no sooner
seated himself than they resumed their oars, and began to row
across the lake with great rapidity.