A STAG-HUNT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Shall this be a long or a short chapter? This is a question in
which you, gentle reader, have no vote, however much you may be
interested in the consequences; just as you may (like myself)
probably have nothing to do with the imposing a new tax, excepting
the trifling circumstance of being obliged to pay it. More happy
surely in the present case, since, though it lies within my
arbitrary power to extend my materials as I think proper, I cannot
call you into Exchequer if you do not think proper to read my
narrative. Let me therefore consider. It is true that the annals
and documents in my hands say but little of this Highland chase;
but then I can find copious materials for description elsewhere.
There is old Lindsay of Pitscottie ready at my elbow, with his
Athole hunting, and his 'lofted and joisted palace of green
timber; with all kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as
ale, beer, wine, muscadel, malvaise, hippocras, and aquavitae;
with wheat-bread, main-bread, ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb,
veal, venison, goose, grice, capon, coney, crane, swan, partridge,
plover, duck, drake, brisselcock, pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl,
and capercailzies'; not forgetting the 'costly bedding, vaiselle,
and napry,' and least of all the 'excelling stewards, cunning
baxters, excellent cooks, and pottingars, with confections and
drugs for the desserts.' Besides the particulars which may be
thence gleaned for this Highland feast (the splendour of which
induced the Pope's legate to dissent from an opinion which he had
hitherto held, that Scotland, namely, was the--the--the latter end
of the world)--besides these, might I not illuminate my pages
with Taylor the Water Poet's hunting in the Braes of Mar, where,--
Through heather, mosse,'mong frogs, and bogs, and fogs,
'Mongst craggy cliffs and thunder-batter'd hills,
Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chased by men and dogs,
Where two hours' hunting fourscore fat deer kills.
Lowland, your sports are low as is your seat;
The Highland games and minds are high and great?
But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the
extent of my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a
single incident from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated
in the ingenious Mr. Gunn's essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so
proceed in my story with all the brevity that my natural style of
composition, partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and
ambagitory, and the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me.
The solemn hunting was delayed, from various causes, for about
three weeks. The interval was spent by Waverley with great
satisfaction at Glennaquoich; for the impression which Flora had
made on his mind at their first meeting grew daily stronger. She
was precisely the character to fascinate a youth of romantic
imagination. Her manners, her language, her talents for poetry and
music, gave additional and varied influence to her eminent
personal charms. Even in her hours of gaiety she was in his fancy
exalted above the ordinary daughters of Eve, and seemed only to
stoop for an instant to those topics of amusement and gallantry
which others appear to live for. In the neighbourhood of this
enchantress, while sport consumed the morning and music and the
dance led on the hours of evening, Waverley became daily more
delighted with his hospitable landlord, and more enamoured of his
bewitching sister.
At length the period fixed for the grand hunting arrived, and
Waverley and the Chieftain departed for the place of rendezvous,
which was a day's journey to the northward of Glennaquoich. Fergus
was attended on this occasion by about three hundred of his clan,
well armed and accoutred in their best fashion. Waverley complied
so far with the custom of the country as to adopt the trews (he
could not be reconciled to the kilt), brogues, and bonnet, as the
fittest dress for the exercise in which he was to be engaged, and
which least exposed him to be stared at as a stranger when they
should reach the place of rendezvous. They found on the spot
appointed several powerful Chiefs, to all of whom Waverley was
formally presented, and by all cordially received. Their vassals
and clansmen, a part of whose feudal duty it was to attend on
these parties, appeared in such numbers as amounted to a small
army. These active assistants spread through the country far and
near, forming a circle, technically called the tinchel, which,
gradually closing, drove the deer in herds together towards the
glen where the Chiefs and principal sportsmen lay in wait for
them. In the meanwhile these distinguished personages bivouacked
among the flowery heath, wrapped up in their plaids, a mode of
passing a summer's night which Waverley found by no means
unpleasant.
For many hours after sunrise the mountain ridges and passes
retained their ordinary appearance of silence and solitude, and
the Chiefs, with their followers, amused themselves with various
pastimes, in which the joys of the shell, as Ossian has it, were
not forgotten. 'Others apart sate on a hill retired,' probably as
deeply engaged in the discussion of politics and news as Milton's
spirits in metaphysical disquisition. At length signals of the
approach of the game were descried and heard. Distant shouts
resounded from valley to valley, as the various parties of
Highlanders, climbing rocks, struggling through copses, wading
brooks, and traversing thickets, approached more and more near to
each other, and compelled the astonished deer, with the other wild
animals that fled before them, into a narrower circuit. Every now
and then the report of muskets was heard, repeated by a thousand
echoes. The baying of the dogs was soon added to the chorus, which
grew ever louder and more loud. At length the advanced parties of
the deer began to show themselves; and as the stragglers came
bounding down the pass by two or three at a time, the Chiefs
showed their skill by distinguishing the fattest deer, and their
dexterity in bringing them down with their guns. Fergus exhibited
remarkable address, and Edward was also so fortunate as to attract
the notice and applause of the sportsmen.
But now the main body of the deer appeared at the head of the
glen, compelled into a very narrow compass, and presenting such a
formidable phalanx that their antlers appeared at a distance, over
the ridge of the steep pass, like a leafless grove. Their number
was very great, and from a desperate stand which they made, with
the tallest of the red-deer stags arranged in front, in a sort of
battle-array, gazing on the group which barred their passage down
the glen, the more experienced sportsmen began to augur danger.
The work of destruction, however, now commenced on all sides. Dogs
and hunters were at work, and muskets and fusees resounded from
every quarter. The deer, driven to desperation, made at length a
fearful charge right upon the spot where the more distinguished
sportsmen had taken their stand. The word was given in Gaelic to
fling themselves upon their faces; but Waverley, on whose English
ears the signal was lost, had almost fallen a sacrifice to his
ignorance of the ancient language in which it was communicated.
Fergus, observing his danger, sprung up and pulled him with
violence to the ground, just as the whole herd broke down upon
them. The tide being absolutely irresistible, and wounds from a
stag's horn highly dangerous, the activity of the Chieftain may be
considered, on this occasion, as having saved his guest's life. He
detained him with a firm grasp until the whole herd of deer had
fairly run over them. Waverley then attempted to rise, but found
that he had suffered several very severe contusions, and, upon a
further examination, discovered that he had sprained his ankle
violently.
[Footnote: The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the stag's
horns was accounted far more dangerous than those of the boar's
tusk:--
If thou be hurt with horn of stag,
it brings thee to thy bier,
But barber's hand shall boar's hurt heal,
thereof have thou no fear.]
This checked the mirth of the meeting, although the Highlanders,
accustomed to such incidents, and prepared for them, had suffered
no harm themselves. A wigwam was erected almost in an instant,
where Edward was deposited on a couch of heather. The surgeon, or
he who assumed the office, appeared to unite the characters of a
leech and a conjuror. He was an old smoke-dried Highlander,
wearing a venerable grey beard, and having for his sole garment a
tartan frock, the skirts of which descended to the knee, and,
being undivided in front, made the vestment serve at once for
doublet and breeches. [Footnote: This garb, which resembled the
dress often put on children in Scotland, called a polonie (i. e.
polonaise), is a very ancient modification of the Highland garb.
It was, in fact, the hauberk or shirt of mail, only composed of
cloth instead of rings of armour.] He observed great ceremony in
approaching Edward; and though our hero was writhing with pain,
would not proceed to any operation which might assuage it until he
had perambulated his couch three times, moving from east to west,
according to the course of the sun. This, which was called making
the deasil, [Footnote: Old Highlanders will still make the deasil
around those whom they wish well to. To go round a person in the
opposite direction, or withershins (German wider-shins), is
unlucky, and a sort of incantation.] both the leech and the
assistants seemed to consider as a matter of the last importance
to the accomplishment of a cure; and Waverley, whom pain rendered
incapable of expostulation, and who indeed saw no chance of its
being attended to, submitted in silence.
After this ceremony was duly performed, the old Esculapius let his
patient's blood with a cupping-glass with great dexterity, and
proceeded, muttering all the while to himself in Gaelic, to boil
on the fire certain herbs, with which he compounded an
embrocation. He then fomented the parts which had sustained
injury, never failing to murmur prayers or spells, which of the
two Waverley could not distinguish, as his ear only caught the
words Gaspar-Melchior-Balthazar-max-prax-fax, and similar
gibberish. The fomentation had a speedy effect in alleviating the
pain and swelling, which our hero imputed to the virtue of the
herbs or the effect of the chafing, but which was by the
bystanders unanimously ascribed to the spells with which the
operation had been accompanied. Edward was given to understand
that not one of the ingredients had been gathered except during
the full moon, and that the herbalist had, while collecting them,
uniformly recited a charm, which in English ran thus:--
Hail to thee, thou holy herb,
That sprung on holy ground!
All in the Mount Olivet
First wert thou found.
Thou art boot for many a bruise,
And healest many a wound;
In our Lady's blessed name,
I take thee from the ground.
[Footnote: This metrical spell, or something very like it, is
preserved by Reginald Scott in his work on Witchcraft.]
Edward observed with some surprise that even Fergus,
notwithstanding his knowledge and education, seemed to fall in
with the superstitious ideas of his countrymen, either because he
deemed it impolitic to affect scepticism on a matter of general
belief, or more probably because, like most men who do not think
deeply or accurately on such subjects, he had in his mind a
reserve of superstition which balanced the freedom of his
expressions and practice upon other occasions. Waverley made no
commentary, therefore, on the manner of the treatment, but
rewarded the professor of medicine with a liberality beyond the
utmost conception of his wildest hopes. He uttered on the occasion
so many incoherent blessings in Gaelic and English that Mac-Ivor,
rather scandalised at the excess of his acknowledgments, cut them
short by exclaiming, Ceud mile mhalloich ort! i.e. 'A hundred
thousand curses on you!' and so pushed the helper of men out of
the cabin.
After Waverley was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue
--for the whole day's exercise had been severe--threw him into a
profound, but yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an
opiate draught administered by the old Highlander from some
decoction of herbs in his pharmacopoeia.
Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over,
and their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus
and all his friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a
question how to dispose of the disabled sportsman. This was
settled by Mac-Ivor, who had a litter prepared, of 'birch and
hazel-grey,'
[FOOTNOTE:
On the morrow they made their biers
Of birch and hazel grey. Chevy Chase.]
which was borne by his people with such caution and dexterity as
renders it not improbable that they may have been the ancestors of
some of those sturdy Gael who have now the happiness to transport
the belles of Edinburgh in their sedan-chairs to ten routs in one
evening. When Edward was elevated upon their shoulders he could
not help being gratified with the romantic effect produced by the
breaking up of this sylvan camp. [Footnote: See Note 25.]
The various tribes assembled, each at the pibroch of their native
clan, and each headed by their patriarchal ruler. Some, who had
already begun to retire, were seen winding up the hills, or
descending the passes which led to the scene of action, the sound
of their bagpipes dying upon the ear. Others made still a moving
picture upon the narrow plain, forming various changeful groups,
their feathers and loose plaids waving in the morning breeze, and
their arms glittering in the rising sun. Most of the Chiefs came
to take farewell of Waverley, and to express their anxious hope
they might again, and speedily, meet; but the care of Fergus
abridged the ceremony of taking leave. At length, his own men
being completely assembled and mustered, Mac-Ivor commenced his
march, but not towards the quarter from which they had come. He
gave Edward to understand that the greater part of his followers
now on the field were bound on a distant expedition, and that when
he had deposited him in the house of a gentleman, who he was sure
would pay him every attention, he himself should be under the
necessity of accompanying them the greater part of the way, but
would lose no time in rejoining his friend.
Waverley was rather surprised that Fergus had not mentioned this
ulterior destination when they set out upon the hunting-party; but
his situation did not admit of many interrogatories. The greater
part of the clansmen went forward under the guidance of old
Ballenkeiroch and Evan Dhu Maccombich, apparently in high spirits.
A few remained for the purpose of escorting the Chieftain, who
walked by the side of Edward's litter, and attended him with the
most affectionate assiduity. About noon, after a journey which the
nature of the conveyance, the pain of his bruises, and the
roughness of the way rendered inexpressibly painful, Waverley was
hospitably received into the house of a gentleman related to
Fergus, who had prepared for him every accommodation which the
simple habits of living then universal in the Highlands put in his
power. In this person, an old man about seventy, Edward admired a
relic of primitive simplicity. He wore no dress but what his
estate afforded; the cloth was the fleece of his own sheep, woven
by his own servants, and stained into tartan by the dyes produced
from the herbs and lichens of the hills around him. His linen was
spun by his daughters and maidservants, from his own flax; nor did
his table, though plentiful, and varied with game and fish, offer
an article but what was of native produce.
Claiming himself no rights of clanship or vassalage, he was
fortunate in the alliance and protection of Vich Ian Vohr and
other bold and enterprising Chieftains, who protected him in the
quiet unambitious life he loved. It is true, the youth born on his
grounds were often enticed to leave him for the service of his
more active friends; but a few old servants and tenants used to
shake their grey locks when they heard their master censured for
want of spirit, and observed, 'When the wind is still, the shower
falls soft.' This good old man, whose charity and hospitality were
unbounded, would have received Waverley with kindness had he been
the meanest Saxon peasant, since his situation required
assistance. But his attention to a friend and guest of Vich Ian
Vohr was anxious and unremitted. Other embrocations were applied
to the injured limb, and new spells were put in practice. At
length, after more solicitude than was perhaps for the advantage
of his health, Fergus took farewell of Edward for a few days,
when, he said, he would return to Tomanrait, and hoped by that
time Waverley would be able to ride one of the Highland ponies of
his landlord, and in that manner return to Glennaquoich.
The next day, when his good old host appeared, Edward learned that
his friend had departed with the dawn, leaving none of his
followers except Callum Beg, the sort of foot-page who used to
attend his person, and who had now in charge to wait upon
Waverley. On asking his host if he knew where the Chieftain was
gone, the old man looked fixedly at him, with something mysterious
and sad in the smile which was his only reply. Waverley repeated
his question, to which his host answered in a proverb,--
What sent the messengers to hell,
Was asking what they knew full well.
[Footnote: Corresponding to the Lowland saying, 'Mony ane speirs
the gate they ken fu' weel.']
He was about to proceed, but Callum Beg said, rather pertly, as
Edward thought, that 'Ta Tighearnach (i.e. the Chief) did not like
ta Sassenagh duinhe-wassel to be pingled wi' mickle speaking, as
she was na tat weel.' From this Waverley concluded he should
disoblige his friend by inquiring of a stranger the object of a
journey which he himself had not communicated.
It is unnecessary to trace the progress of our hero's recovery.
The sixth morning had arrived, and he was able to walk about with
a staff, when Fergus returned with about a score of his men. He
seemed in the highest spirits, congratulated Waverley on his
progress towards recovery, and finding he was able to sit on
horseback, proposed their immediate return to Glennaquoich.
Waverley joyfully acceded, for the form of its fair mistress had
lived in his dreams during all the time of his confinement.
Now he has ridden o'er moor and moss,
O'er hill and many a glen,
Fergus, all the while, with his myrmidons, striding stoutly by his
side, or diverging to get a shot at a roe or a heath-cock.
Waverley's bosom beat thick when they approached the old tower of
Ian nan Chaistel, and could distinguish the fair form of its
mistress advancing to meet them.
Fergus began immediately, with his usual high spirits, to exclaim,
'Open your gates, incomparable princess, to the wounded Moor
Abindarez, whom Rodrigo de Narvez, constable of Antiquera, conveys
to your castle; or open them, if you like it better, to the
renowned Marquis of Mantua, the sad attendant of his half-slain
friend Baldovinos of the Mountain. Ah, long rest to thy soul,
Cervantes! without quoting thy remnants, how should I frame my
language to befit romantic ears!'
Flora now advanced, and welcoming Waverley with much kindness,
expressed her regret for his accident, of which she had already
heard particulars, and her surprise that her brother should not
have taken better care to put a stranger on his guard against the
perils of the sport in which he engaged him. Edward easily
exculpated the Chieftain, who, indeed, at his own personal risk,
had probably saved his life.
This greeting over, Fergus said three or four words to his sister
in Gaelic. The tears instantly sprung to her eyes, but they seemed
to be tears of devotion and joy, for she looked up to heaven and
folded her hands as in a solemn expression of prayer or gratitude.
After the pause of a minute, she presented to Edward some letters
which had been forwarded from Tully-Veolan during his absence, and
at the same time delivered some to her brother. To the latter she
likewise gave three or four numbers of the Caledonian Mercury, the
only newspaper which was then published to the north of the Tweed.
Both gentlemen retired to examine their despatches, and Edward
speedily found that those which he had received contained matters
of very deep interest.