PHILIP ROLLO;
OR,
THE SCOTTISH MUSKETEERS.
BY
JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF "ROMANCE OF WAR," "JANE SETON," &c. &c.
"'Tis a tale of campaigning, of love, and invading,
Of marches, of routes, bivouacs, enfilading;
Of batteries and breaches, howitzers and mortars,
Of posts and intrenchments; of in and out quarters;
Of advancing in line, by columns, divisions,
And fighting whole days without rum or provisions."
IN TWO VOLUMES,
VOL. I.
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET.
1854.
M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON.--WORKS, NEWTON.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
Book the First.
CHAPTER
I.--Of my Family, and the Misfortune of not having a Large Mouth
II.--How I became a Soldier of Fortune
III.--Sir Donald and his Regiment
IV.--We Sail for the Elbe
V.--Glückstadt
VI.--After escaping a fall into the Elbe, I am in danger of
falling in Love
VII.--The Repast
VIII.--Our Cantonment
IX.--The Mysterious Door--a Discourse on Nymphs
Book the Second.
X.--Full effect of a Spanish Petticoat
XI.--My First Guard
XII.--Who Prudentia's Spouse proved to be
XIII.--Two Kisses for ten Doubloons
XIV.--I prevail on Prudentia to accept of a Ring
XV.--My Goddess deceives me. I quarrel with the Haüsmeister,
and run him through the body
Book the Third.
XVI.--The Scottish Standard
XVII--The Sconce of Boitzenburg
XVIII.--How our old Scottish blades pommeled the Imperialists
XIX.--The Crown of Fire
XX.--Rupert-with-the-Red-plume
XXI.--The Fair Hair and the Dark Hair
Book the Fourth.
XXII.--Dandy Dreghorn
XXIII.--Ernestine and Gabrielle
XXIV.--Probability of escaping, and leaving my Heart behind me
XXV.--A serious Mistake, and a learned Discussion on Women
XXVI.--The Scout, and the Effect of a Sneeze
XXVII.--The March towards Lauenburg
XXVIII.--Count Tilly's Opinion of the Presbyterians
XXIX.--_Cairn na Cuimhne!_
XXX.--The Jesuit
XXXI.--Of the Good Deeds our Musketeers were undoing
Book the Sixth.
XXXII.--The Merodeurs
XXXIII.--The Hunter's Cot
XXXIV.--I obtain a Company of Musketeers
XXXV.--Proteus again!
XXXVI.--A Forest on Fire
XXXVII.--The Prisoners of the Pistoliers
Book the Seventh.
XXXVIII.--The Pass of Oldenburg
XXXIX.--The Night of Horrors at Heilinghafen
XL.--We sail for the Isles of Denmark
XLI.--On Board the good ship _Anna Catharina_
XLII.--The Rittersaal
XLIII.--March for the Castle of Nyekiöbing
INTRODUCTION.
At a sale of the effects of an eminent antiquary lately deceased, it
was our happiness and good fortune to become the possessor of a
certain little MS. volume, closely written, in a neat small hand of
the 17th century. It is very thick, contains nearly a thousand
pages, is bound in black leather, and is fastened by two brass
clasps. On the title-page was written, "The Storie of my Lyffe,
concludit to this year 1660."
On examining our literary and antiquarian treasure, which we did with
ardour, we found that it was the adventures of a Scottish gentleman,
of that stirring period indicated by the date, who had served for a
time, as a soldier of fortune, in the armies of Denmark. We found
the book interesting, from the glimpses of wild adventure,
hair-breadth escapes, high military courage, and raciness it
exhibited; thus, the more we read, the more pleased did we become.
Philip Rollo, for such was the name of the writer, seemed to be
beside us relating his own startling adventures; and we were upon the
point of handing over the MS. to our enterprising friends of the
Bannatyne Club, when, lo! we discovered that there were two serious
gaps in it. Though having little doubt that the archaeologists would
gladly publish these curious memoirs even in their mutilated state,
we preferred to restore the thread of the narrative, so far as we
could do so, from the quaint pages of the _Amsterdam Courant_, the
_Swedish Intelligencer_, the warlike story of Colonel Monro and
others, and, after modernising the spelling and language of the
whole, so as to make it more generally readable, handed over our
transcript to our friend Mr. Routledge, of London.
Those portions of the work which have been made up from contemporary
authority, we are much too cunning to point out; though we have
little doubt that the critical reader will easily recognise them.
But we may add that, historically considered, we have found the
military details to tally so closely with those given in the Low
Dutch "Relation," "Ye Danish Warres," and other works, that our
soldier of fortune may defy the closest scrutiny.
When we read the memoirs of any eminent man of whom no portrait is
extant, we are naturally curious to know what like he was--the colour
of his eyes, of his hair, and so forth; and, most fortunately, before
entering upon the adventures of Philip Rollo, we are enabled to
afford the reader a pretty good idea of these matters; for at the
same extensive sale, where it was our fortune to find the MS., a
portrait of the cavalier was "knocked down" to us for a comparative
trifle--nothing, absolutely, when we consider that it was a real and
well-authenticated _Jamesone_, an artist, so justly esteemed the
Vandyke of Scotland, and who studied with Sir Anthony under Rubens at
Antwerp.
This portrait, which appears, by a date inscribed thereon, to have
been painted about the year 1630, exhibits an eminently handsome
cavalier in the gallant and picturesque costume of that time. The
face is oval--the forehead white and high--the mustaches and imperial
well pointed--the eyes are dark--the hair long and of the deepest
brown. The left hand rests in the bowl hilt of a long Spanish
rapier, which hangs in a magnificent baldric, worn sash-wise over the
right shoulder; the right hand rests on a helmet, to show that it is
the portrait of a gentleman and soldier. We have also an admirable
example of the Scottish costume of the period. This cavalier's
doublet having loose sleeves, slashed with white, the collar being
covered by a falling band of the richest point lace; a short crimson
cloak hangs jauntily on the left shoulder; the breeches are of blue
velvet, fringed with point lace, and meet the long riding boots,
which have tops of ruffled lace. A military order sparkles on his
breast, and a dagger dangles at his right side. Under the helmet
there peeps out a slip of paper, on which is written, _Philip Rollo,
hys portraitoure_.
There is a proud and lofty expression in the face of this old
portrait (which is now hanging above my writing-table), that is
remarkably pleasing and impressive. While gazing at it, the dark
eyes seem to fill with dusky fire--the proud lips to curl, and the
manly breast to expand with the high military spirit the original
once possessed, while the clouds of battle, which envelope the
background, seem once more to roll around him on the wind. This is
power of the Jamesone's pencil--that magic power which the lapse of
more than two hundred years has failed to obliterate; and we hope
that the reader will, erelong, be as interested as we are ourselves
in the fortunes and misfortunes, loves and adventures, of Philip
Rollo, whose personal memoirs appear to have been compiled by himself
for his own amusement, rather than for that of others.
PHILIP ROLLO.
Book the First.
CHAPTER I.
OF MY FAMILY, AND THE MISFORTUNE OF NOT HAVING A LARGE MOUTH.
I was born in the year after King James VI. acquired the dominion of
England, at my father's tower of Craigrollo, which overlooks the
great bay of Cromartie. The youngest of four sons, I was (God knows
why) a child of ill-omen from my birth; for, before that event came
to pass, my mother had various remarkable dreams, which were darkly
and mysteriously construed by certain Highland crones of the
district; and the whole family made up their minds to expect that I
should never be the source of aught else but discomfort and disgrace
to them.
All unconscious of the disagreeable impressions regarding me, I was
ushered (poor little devil!) into this world on a Friday, the most
ominous day of the week for such an arrival; when a furious storm of
wind was rolling the waves of the North Sea against the Sutors of
Cromartie; and a tempest of rain was lashing the walls and windows of
the old tower, and drenching the older pine-woods that surrounded it.
A knife and spade had been placed below my mother's bed, a Bible
below her pillow, and the room was plentifully sprinkled with salt,
to avert the mal-influence of the fairies, and every way the old
fashions of the Highlands were complied with strictly.
My father had been particularly anxious for a daughter, that he might
marry her to his nephew, M'Farquhar of that Ilk, to whom he was tutor
or guardian; and various wise women, who had been solemnly convened
in council before I was born, had all been morally certain that my
mother would have a daughter.
"You have long loved French apples," said old Mhona Toshach; "your
ladyship is sure to have a daughter."
My sudden appearance upset all their calculations, and none more than
those of my father.
"The devil's in the brat!" said he. "There goes the estate of
M'Farquhar, with its five hundred broadswords;" for, in our Scottish
fashion, he was what we call the tutor of the property.
As if to increase the general prejudice against me, I squalled right
lustily, which made all the old crones of the household, and the wise
women of the parish, with Mhona Toshach, my mother's nurse, at their
head, tremble and predict that, through life, "sore trials and evil
would attend the course of the _Friday's bairn_." All the crickets
in the bakehouse disappeared that day for ever, a surer foreboding of
dire calamity.
Though we were a branch of a Lowland or Perthshire family, the
gallant Rollos of Duncruib, my father, partly to humour my mother,
who was a daughter of the race of M'Farquhar, and partly to please
his Highland neighbours, resolved to celebrate my arrival in the old
country fashion. The old family banner, with its azure chevrons, on
which the spiders had been spinning their webs since it had been last
unfurled on the birth of my brother Ewen, (for my father was
eminently a peaceful man,) was displayed on the old tower; and more
than one gallant puncheon of ale, and bombarde of Flemish wine were
set abroach in the yard. I was baptized over a broadsword. Then
came the solemn and important ceremony of placing in my mouth "the
Rollo spoon," which was done in presence of the whole household; and
which, from the consternation it occasioned, requires some
explanation.
An ancestor of ours, Sir Bingan Rollo of that Ilk, who had
accompanied Earl Douglas (afterwards Marshal of France and Duke of
Touraine) on his successful invasion of England, in the year of God
1420, when sacking the manor-house of a certain English squire, found
therein a silver spoon of great size and curious workmanship, which
he brought home with him to Cromartie, leaving in place thereof his
right eye, which he lost by an English arrow in the assault. This
spoon, doubtless the palladium of a long race of well-fed Saxons,
became the heirloom of the house of Rollo, on which it produced a
very remarkable effect--not unlike that which Rigord tells us the
loss of the true cross at Tiberiade, had upon all children born
afterwards in Christendom--for instead of thirty teeth they had but
twenty. So all the future Rollos of the Craig, came in time to be
distinguished by the unusual size of their mouths from the first year
after this spoon was deposited in the oak charter-chest of the
family. I had a great-uncle whose mouth, when born, extended from
ear to ear; but still it was almost insufficient to contain this
capacious English spoon, which was quite round, measured three inches
in diameter, and on which our valiant ancestor had engraved his
crest, a stag's head, with the legend,
"This spune I leave in legacie
To the maist mouthed Rollo, after me.
RINGAN ROLLO, 1421."
Thus, whenever a son or daughter of the family was born, the
insertion of this remarkable heirloom into their mouths was one of
the usual ceremonies, and was considered as indispensable as marriage
or christening. Such a trophy was considered something to be vain
of, by the Rollos of the Craig, who were sorely jealous of their
neighbours, the Urquharts of Cromartie, who deduced their descent
from Alcibiades the Athenian!*
* See Sir Thomas Urquhart's Works.
It had been remarked that every Rollo of the Craig, whose mouth would
not admit this spoon, or at least a portion of it, was remarkably
unfortunate; thus, of my father's ten brothers, three, who were so
unhappy as to have mouths like other people, after being
distinguished for their facility in getting into quarrels and
turmoils, were all cut off, early in life; one being slain by the
English at the Raid of the Redswire; a second with Buccleuch in the
Lowlands of Holland; and the third, who had become an officer in a
Scottish frigate, being taken by the cruel pirates of Barbary, who
basely murdered him. Most happily for themselves, my three elder
brothers were blessed with enormously wide mouths--in fact, they were
like nothing that I can remember but the mouth of a cannon, or the
stone gutters of a cathedral; but I--poor little wretch!--had a mouth
so remarkably small, that no part of this capacious spoon would enter
therein--not even a segment of it; and from that moment I was
unanimously considered as a lost, an untrue Rollo. My father turned
his back upon me from that day, and vowed there was less of the Rollo
than the M'Farquhar about me; so, from thenceforward, I was, as it
were, delivered into the hands of mischance and misfortune.
A goodly volume would be required to narrate all the heart-burnings
and sore taunts I endured in boyhood, for the smallness of my mouth;
the studied coldness of my father; the gibes and laughter of my
brothers; the ominous forebodings and doleful anticipations of the
old nurse, Mhona Toshach; and the equivocal taunts of the
good-natured friends and tenantry, among whom I seemed to be viewed
like the poor dog, that should be hung after acquiring the bad name,
the mob and their misdeeds, have given him. That diabolical old
spoon was the bane of my existence; and, influenced by certain hints
from my poor mother, who, having a very small and very pretty mouth
herself, sympathised with me, I made more than one essay, to obtain
possession of it, for the purpose of throwing it into the deepest
part of Cromartie bay, with a pretty heavy stone attached thereto.
But the ancient charter-chest, with its iron bands and triple locks,
defied all my efforts; and many a hearty kick I gave it, in pure rage
and despite, after every attempt of myself and Mhona had failed to
widen my mouth to the family size, by the simple mode of inserting
our fingers therein, and pulling the corners in contrary directions.
Had my father (worthy man!) been of a jealous disposition, I doubt
not that it might have occasioned some dispeace between him and my
mother, who told him often, that "he ought to love my mouth the more
for being so like her own;" but, wedded to his own opinions, based as
they were on the traditions and predictions of two hundred years, the
old gentleman, who had himself a singularly open countenance, was
inexorable, and sorely dreaded that little Philip was foredoomed to
bring disgrace, or at least mischance, on the Rollos of the Craig.
Save this peculiar prejudice, he was one of the best men in the
county; and was one of those old gentlemen who are always looking
back and never forward: he stuck manfully to the bombasted doublets
and fashions of his father's days, and never allowed a Michaelmas to
pass without eating a St. Michael's bannock, or a Christmas without
seeing the yule log laid on the hearth, and never was known to kill a
spider, in memory of the good service once rendered to Scotland and
the Bruce in the days of old.
Though I suffered severely from his strange pique, it was perhaps the
source of good to me ultimately. Instead of being retained at home,
like my brothers, spelling over the _Auld Prymar_, and trembling
under the ferrule of Domine Daidle, the tutor, fiddler, and factor of
the family, and spending three parts of the day in hunting, shooting
with the bow, banqueting, dancing, and learning to handle the
claymore and target, I was despatched to the King's College at
Aberdeen, where I was duly matriculated in 1621, about the time when
the battle was fought in Leith Roads between the Spaniards and the
Admiral of Zealand; for I remember well that it formed the constant
topic of conversation among my brother students, many of whom were
from the south country.
Here my usual mischance accompanied me, for I was always involved in
quarrels with the ruffling gallants of the Brave City, or lost my
money among cheats and sharpers at post and pair, or the old game of
trumps. Lord knows! I never had much to lose, and I nearly reached
the end of my wits and my purse together. Then, to crown all, I fell
deadly sick of that terrible pestilence which has so frequently
desolated Aberdeen, having swept away its citizens no less than ten
times between the years 1401 and 1647. So great was the panic
latterly, that the classes of the universities were removed to
Peterhead; but I, unable to accompany them, was borne to the huts
erected for the sick on the Links, where we were strictly guarded by
soldiers, to prevent the infection spreading.
While there, I received a letter from my father condoling with me on
my doleful case, and hinting broadly, that, had my mouth been larger,
I could have eaten more, and should assuredly have escaped, like my
brothers, who were strong and well. As I had been robbed of my last
plack by the cruel nurses, a few silver crowns had been more welcome,
and I crushed up the poor man's letter, for the least mention of my
"small mouth" was sufficient to make me tremble with rage. My dear
mother sent me two jars, one filled with usquebaugh, and the other
with honey; but as the soldiers drank the first, and the nurses eat
the second, I got no use of either. There, among the pest-stricken,
I lingered long, hovering, as it were, between life and death,
sighing to be beside my mother, to feel her gentle hand on my hot and
throbbing brow, and to hear her kind voice whispering in my ear; for,
boy like, I thought if I were only once again beside that kind
parent, and she touched me, I should become whole and well.
I thought of the old tower too, though, save one, none loved me
there; I saw the dark pines that shaded its old grey walls; the whin
rocks, the heath-clad hills, and the blue bay of Cromartie, with the
great Sutors, like two Cyclopean towers, that overhang its narrow
entrance; and sorely I longed to see them all once again, before I
died.
Weary, weak and feeble, I hoped to die soon; but by the blessing of
God, and the strength of my own constitution, I recovered; nor must I
omit to make honourable mention of that worthy chirurgeon, Donald
Gordon, author of the learned "_Pharmaco-pinæ_, or Table and Taxe of
the Vsual Medicaments contayned in his Apothecarie and Chymicall
shope, in New Aberdene;" and but for whose skill and kindness, I had
never lived to write these my memoirs.
I recovered, the plague passed away, the Senatus Academicus once more
returned to the King's College, and the classes were resumed. I
commenced my studies again with renewed ardour, and again became
immersed in the classic pages of Plutarch, of Sallust, and of Nepos.
I longed to become a great scholar, a renowned statesman, or a
gallant soldier--any thing famous and lofty, that I might cast from
myself the slur that hateful heirloom of the Rollos had fixed upon
me; that I might leave for ever the atmosphere of ill omens with
which it had surrounded me, and the dark predictions that were ever
grating in my ears and rankling in my memory. I perfected myself in
mathematics and the humanities, and spent my whole spare time in
acquiring the use of arms; thus, before I completed a year at King's
College, I could handle the bow and the arquebuse, toss the pike and
throw the bar, vault and ride, use pistolette, rapier, and backsword
to perfection, so that the oldest and stoutest--yea, and the
boldest--of our students were somewhat wary of offending me; for on
the shortest notice, off went my gown, and out came bilbo and poniard.
I know not whether it was the nature of my studies, the force of
circumstances, or my natural inclination towards high enterprise,
that have guided me; but _this_ I may boldly aver, that never, to my
knowledge, have I swerved from the proper path which a gentleman of
honour and cavalier of spirit ought to pursue in his intercourse with
society.