CHAPTER VII. MRS. BALIOL ASSISTS MR. CROFTANGRY IN HIS LITERARY

SPECULATIONS.

Such as I have described Mrs. Bethune Baliol, the reader will easily

believe that, when I thought of the miscellaneous nature of my work,

I rested upon the information she possessed, and her communicative

disposition, as one of the principal supports of my enterprise.

Indeed, she by no means disapproved of my proposed publication, though

expressing herself very doubtful how far she could personally assist

it--a doubt which might be, perhaps, set down to a little ladylike

coquetry, which required to be sued for the boon she was not unwilling

to grant. Or, perhaps, the good old lady, conscious that her unusual

term of years must soon draw to a close, preferred bequeathing the

materials in the shape of a legacy, to subjecting them to the judgment

of a critical public during her lifetime.

Many a time I used, in our conversations of the Canongate, to resume my

request of assistance, from a sense that my friend was the most valuable

depository of Scottish traditions that was probably now to be found.

This was a subject on which my mind was so much made up that, when I

heard her carry her description of manners so far back beyond her

own time, and describe how Fletcher of Salton spoke, how Graham of

Claverhouse danced, what were the jewels worn by the famous Duchess of

Lauderdale, and how she came by them, I could not help telling her I

thought her some fairy, who cheated us by retaining the appearance of a

mortal of our own day, when, in fact, she had witnessed the revolutions

of centuries. She was much diverted when I required her to take some

solemn oath that she had not danced at the balls given by Mary of Este,

when her unhappy husband occupied Holyrood in a species of honourable

banishment; [The Duke of York afterwards James II., frequently resided

in Holyrood House when his religion rendered him an object of suspicion

to the English Parliament.] or asked whether she could not recollect

Charles the Second when he came to Scotland in 1650, and did not possess

some slight recollections of the bold usurper who drove him beyond the

Forth.

“BEAU COUSIN,” she said, laughing, “none of these do I remember

personally, but you must know there has been wonderfully little change

on my natural temper from youth to age. From which it follows, cousin,

that, being even now something too young in spirit for the years which

Time has marked me in his calendar, I was, when a girl, a little too

old for those of my own standing, and as much inclined at that period

to keep the society of elder persons, as I am now disposed to admit the

company of gay young fellows of fifty or sixty like yourself, rather

than collect about me all the octogenarians. Now, although I do not

actually come from Elfland, and therefore cannot boast any personal

knowledge of the great personages you enquire about, yet I have seen

and heard those who knew them well, and who have given me as distinct

an account of them as I could give you myself of the Empress Queen, or

Frederick of Prussia; and I will frankly add,” said she, laughing and

offering her BONBONNIERE, “that I HAVE heard so much of the years which

immediately succeeded the Revolution, that I sometimes am apt to confuse

the vivid descriptions fixed on my memory by the frequent and animated

recitation of others, for things which I myself have actually witnessed.

I caught myself but yesterday describing to Lord M--the riding of the

last Scottish Parliament, with as much minuteness as if I had seen it,

as my mother did, from the balcony in front of Lord Moray’s Lodging in

the Canongate.”

“I am sure you must have given Lord M-- a high treat.”

“I treated him to a hearty laugh, I believe,” she replied; “but it is

you, you vile seducer of youth, who lead me into such follies. But I

will be on my guard against my own weakness. I do not well know if the

Wandering Jew is supposed to have a wife, but I should be sorry a decent

middle-aged Scottish gentlewoman should be suspected of identity with

such a supernatural person.”

“For all that, I must torture you a little more, MA BELLE COUSINE,

with my interrogatories; for how shall I ever turn author unless on the

strength of the information which you have so often procured me on the

ancient state of manners?”

“Stay, I cannot allow you to give your points of enquiry a name so

very venerable, if I am expected to answer them. Ancient is a term for

antediluvians. You may catechise me about the battle of Flodden, or ask

particulars about Bruce and Wallace, under pretext of curiosity after

ancient manners; and that last subject would wake my Baliol blood, you

know.”

“Well, but, Mrs. Baliol, suppose we settle our era: you do not call the

accession of James the Sixth to the kingdom of Britain very ancient?”

“Umph! no, cousin; I think I could tell you more of that than folk

nowadays remember. For instance, that as James was trooping towards

England, bag and baggage, his journey was stopped near Cockenzie by

meeting the funeral of the Earl of Winton, the old and faithful servant

and follower of his ill-fated mother, poor Mary! It was an ill omen

for the INFARE, and so was seen of it, cousin.” [See Note 5.--Earl of

Winton.]

I did not choose to prosecute this subject, well knowing Mrs. Bethune

Baliol did not like to be much pressed on the subject of the Stewarts,

whose misfortunes she pitied, the rather that her father had espoused

their cause. And yet her attachment to the present dynasty being very

sincere, and even ardent, more especially as her family had served

his late Majesty both in peace and war, she experienced a little

embarrassment in reconciling her opinions respecting the exiled family

with those she entertained for the present. In fact, like many an old

Jacobite, she was contented to be somewhat inconsistent on the subject,

comforting herself that NOW everything stood as it ought to do, and that

there was no use in looking back narrowly on the right or wrong of the

matter half a century ago.

“The Highlands,” I suggested, “should furnish you with ample subjects

of recollection. You have witnessed the complete change of that primeval

country, and have seen a race not far removed from the earliest period

of society melted down into the great mass of civilization; and that

could not happen without incidents striking in themselves, and curious

as chapters in the history of the human race.”

“It is very true,” said Mrs. Baliol; “one would think it should have

struck the observers greatly, and yet it scarcely did so. For me, I

was no Highlander myself, and the Highland chiefs of old, of whom I

certainly knew several, had little in their manners to distinguish them

from the Lowland gentry, when they mixed in society in Edinburgh, and

assumed the Lowland dress. Their peculiar character was for the clansmen

at home; and you must not imagine that they swaggered about in plaids

and broadswords at the Cross, or came to the Assembly Rooms in bonnets

and kilts.”

“I remember,” said I, “that Swift, in his Journal, tells Stella he had

dined in the house of a Scots nobleman, with two Highland chiefs, whom

he had found as well-bred men as he had ever met with.” [Extract

of Journal to Stella.--“I dined to-day (12th March 1712) with Lord

Treasurer and two gentlemen of the Highlands of Scotland, yet very

polite men.” SWIFT’S WORKS, VOL. III. p.7. EDIN. 1824.]

“Very likely,” said my friend. “The extremes of society approach much

more closely to each other than perhaps the Dean of Saint Patrick’s

expected. The savage is always to a certain degree polite. Besides,

going always armed, and having a very punctilious idea of their own

gentility and consequence, they usually behaved to each other and to the

Lowlanders with a good deal of formal politeness, which sometimes even

procured them the character of insincerity.”

“Falsehood belongs to an early period of society, as well as the

deferential forms which we style politeness,” I replied. “A child does

not see the least moral beauty in truth until he has been flogged half a

dozen times. It is so easy, and apparently so natural, to deny what you

cannot be easily convicted of, that a savage as well as a child lies to

excuse himself almost as instinctively as he raises his hand to protect

his head. The old saying, ‘Confess and be hanged,’ carries much argument

in it. I observed a remark the other day in old Birrel. He mentions that

M’Gregor of Glenstrae and some of his people had surrendered themselves

to one of the Earls of Argyle, upon the express condition that they

should be conveyed safe into England. The Maccallum Mhor of the day

kept the word of promise, but it was only to the ear. He indeed sent his

captives to Berwick, where they had an airing on the other side of the

Tweed; but it was under the custody of a strong guard, by whom they

were brought back to Edinburgh, and delivered to the executioner. This,

Birrel calls keeping a Highlandman’s promise.” [See Note 6.--M’Gregor of

Glenstrae.]

“Well,” replied Mrs. Baliol, “I might add that many of the Highland

chiefs whom I knew in former days had been brought up in France, which

might improve their politeness, though perhaps it did not amend their

sincerity. But considering that, belonging to the depressed and

defeated faction in the state, they were compelled sometimes to use

dissimulation, you must set their uniform fidelity to their friends;

against their occasional falsehood to their enemies, and then you will

not judge poor John Highlandman too severely. They were in a state of

society where bright lights are strongly contrasted with deep shadows.”

“It is to that point I would bring you, MA BELLE COUSINE; and therefore

they are most proper subjects for composition.”

“And you want to turn composer, my good friend, and set my old tales to

some popular tune? But there have been too many composers, if that be

the word, in the field before. The Highlands WERE indeed a rich mine;

but they have, I think, been fairly wrought out, as a good tune is

grinded into vulgarity when it descends to the hurdy-gurdy and the

barrel-organ.”

“If it be really tune,” I replied, “it will recover its better qualities

when it gets into the hands of better artists.”

“Umph!” said Mrs. Baliol, tapping her box, “we are happy in our own good

opinion this evening, Mr. Croftangry. And so you think you can restore

the gloss to the tartan which it has lost by being dragged through so

many fingers?”

“With your assistance to procure materials, my dear lady, much, I think,

may be done.”

“Well, I must do my best, I suppose, though all I know about the Gael

is but of little consequence. Indeed, I gathered it chiefly from Donald

MacLeish.”

“And who might Donald MacLeish be?”

“Neither bard nor sennachie, I assure you, nor monk nor hermit, the

approved authorities for old traditions. Donald was as good a postilion

as ever drove a chaise and pair between Glencroe and Inverary. I assure

you, when I give you my Highland anecdotes, you will hear much of Donald

MacLeish. He was Alice Lambskin’s beau and mine through a long Highland

tour.”

“But when am I to possess these anecdotes? you answer me as Harley did

poor Prior--

‘Let that be done which Mat doth say--

Yea, quoth the Earl, but not to-day.’”

“Well, MON BEAU COUSIN, if you begin to remind me of my cruelty, I must

remind you it has struck nine on the Abbey clock, and it is time you

were going home to Little Croftangry. For my promise to assist your

antiquarian researches, be assured I will one day keep it to the utmost

extent. It shall not be a Highlandman’s promise, as your old citizen

calls it.”

I by this time suspected the purpose of my friend’s procrastination; and

it saddened my heart to reflect that I was not to get the information

which I desired, excepting in the shape of a legacy. I found

accordingly, in the packet transmitted to me after the excellent lady’s

death, several anecdotes respecting the Highlands, from which I have

selected that which follows, chiefly on account of its possessing great

power over the feelings of my critical housekeeper, Janet M’Evoy, who

wept most bitterly when I read it to her.

It is, however, but a very simple tale, and may have no interest for

persons beyond Janet’s rank of life or understanding.

*****

THE HIGHLAND WIDOW

CHAPTER I.

It wound as near as near could be,

But what it is she cannot tell;

On the other side it seemed to be

Of the huge broad-breasted old oak-tree. COLERIDGE.

Mrs. Bethune Baliol’s memorandum begins thus:--

It is five-and-thirty, or perhaps nearer forty years ago, since, to

relieve the dejection of spirits occasioned by a great family loss

sustained two or three months before, I undertook what was called the

short Highland tour. This had become in some degree fashionable; but

though the military roads were excellent, yet the accommodation was so

indifferent that it was reckoned a little adventure to accomplish it.

Besides, the Highlands, though now as peaceable as any part of King

George’s dominions, was a sound which still carried terror, while so

many survived who had witnessed the insurrection of 1745; and a vague

idea of fear was impressed on many as they looked from the towers of

Stirling northward to the huge chain of mountains, which rises like a

dusky rampart to conceal in its recesses a people whose dress, manners,

and language differed still very much from those of their Lowland

countrymen. For my part, I come of a race not greatly subject to

apprehensions arising from imagination only. I had some Highland

relatives; know several of their families of distinction; and though

only having the company of my bower-maiden, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, I went

on my journey fearless.

But then I had a guide and cicerone, almost equal to Greatheart in

the Pilgrim’s Progress, in no less a person than Donald MacLeish, the

postilion whom I hired at Stirling, with a pair of able-bodied horses,

as steady as Donald himself, to drag my carriage, my duenna, and myself,

wheresoever it was my pleasure to go.

Donald MacLeish was one of a race of post-boys whom, I suppose,

mail-coaches and steamboats have put out of fashion. They were to be

found chiefly at Perth, Stirling, or Glasgow, where they and their

horses were usually hired by travellers, or tourists, to accomplish such

journeys of business or pleasure as they might have to perform in the

land of the Gael. This class of persons approached to the character

of what is called abroad a CONDUCTEUR; or might be compared to the

sailing-master on board a British ship of war, who follows out after

his own manner the course which the captain commands him to observe. You

explained to your postilion the length of your tour, and the objects you

were desirous it should embrace; and you found him perfectly competent

to fix the places of rest or refreshment, with due attention that those

should be chosen with reference to your convenience, and to any points

of interest which you might desire to visit.

The qualifications of such a person were necessarily much superior to

those of the “first ready,” who gallops thrice-a-day over the same

ten miles. Donald MacLeish, besides being quite alert at repairing all

ordinary accidents to his horses and carriage, and in making shift to

support them, where forage was scarce, with such substitutes as bannocks

and cakes, was likewise a man of intellectual resources. He had acquired

a general knowledge of the traditional stories of the country which he

had traversed so often; and if encouraged (for Donald was a man of the

most decorous reserve), he would willingly point out to you the site of

the principal clan-battles, and recount the most remarkable legends by

which the road, and the objects which occurred in travelling it, had

been distinguished. There was some originality in the man’s habits of

thinking and expressing himself, his turn for legendary lore strangely

contrasting with a portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging to

his actual occupation, which made his conversation amuse the way well

enough.

Add to this, Donald knew all his peculiar duties in the country which

he traversed so frequently. He could tell, to a day, when they would “be

killing” lamb at Tyndrum or Glenuilt; so that the stranger would have

some chance of being fed like a Christian; and knew to a mile the last

village where it was possible to procure a wheaten loaf for the guidance

of those who were little familiar with the Land of Cakes. He was

acquainted with the road every mile, and could tell to an inch which

side of a Highland bridge was passable, which decidedly dangerous. [This

is, or was at least, a necessary accomplishment. In one of the most

beautiful districts of the Highlands was, not many years since, a bridge

bearing this startling caution, “Keep to the right side, the left

being dangerous.”] In short, Donald MacLeish was not only our faithful

attendant and steady servant, but our humble and obliging friend; and

though I have known the half-classical cicerone of Italy, the talkative

French valet-de-place, and even the muleteer of Spain, who piques

himself on being a maize-eater, and whose honour is not to be questioned

without danger, I do not think I have ever had so sensible and

intelligent a guide.

Our motions were of course under Donald’s direction; and it frequently

happened, when the weather was serene, that we preferred halting to rest

his horses even where there was no established stage, and taking our

refreshment under a crag, from which leaped a waterfall, or beside

the verge of a fountain, enamelled with verdant turf and wild-flowers.

Donald had an eye for such spots, and though he had, I dare say, never

read Gil Blas or Don Quixote, yet he chose such halting-places as Le

Sage or Cervantes would have described. Very often, as he observed the

pleasure I took in conversing with the country people, he would manage

to fix our place of rest near a cottage, where there was some old Gael

whose broadsword had blazed at Falkirk or Preston, and who seemed the

frail yet faithful record of times which had passed away. Or he

would contrive to quarter us, as far as a cup of tea went, upon the

hospitality of some parish minister of worth and intelligence, or some

country family of the better class, who mingled with the wild simplicity

of their original manners, and their ready and hospitable welcome,

a sort of courtesy belonging to a people, the lowest of whom are

accustomed to consider themselves as being, according to the Spanish

phrase, “as good gentlemen as the king, only not quite so rich.”

To all such persons Donald MacLeish was well known, and his introduction

passed as current as if we had brought letters from some high chief of

the country.

Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality, which welcomed us

with all the variety of mountain fare, preparations of milk and eggs,

and girdle-cakes of various kinds, as well as more substantial dainties,

according to the inhabitant’s means of regaling the passenger, descended

rather too exuberantly on Donald MacLeish in the shape of mountain dew.

Poor Donald! he was on such occasions like Gideon’s fleece--moist with

the noble element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only

fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship’s good

health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the pledge; nor was

he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I repeat, his only fault. Nor

had we any great right to complain; for if it rendered him a little more

talkative, it augmented his ordinary share of punctilious civility, and

he only drove slower, and talked longer and more pompously, than when he

had not come by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we remarked, only on such

occasions that Donald talked with an air of importance of the family of

MacLeish; and we had no title to be scrupulous in censuring a foible,

the consequences of which were confined within such innocent limits.

We became so much accustomed to Donald’s mode of managing us, that we

observed with some interest the art which he used to produce a little

agreeable surprise, by concealing from us the spot where he proposed our

halt to be made, when it was of an unusual and interesting character.

This was so much his wont that, when he made apologies at setting off

for being obliged to stop in some strange, solitary place till the

horses should eat the corn which he brought on with them for that

purpose, our imagination used to be on the stretch to guess what

romantic retreat he had secretly fixed upon for our noontide

baiting-place.

We had spent the greater part of the morning at the delightful village

of Dalmally, and had gone upon the lake under the guidance of the

excellent clergyman who was then incumbent at Glenorquhy, [This

venerable and hospitable gentleman’s name was MacIntyre.] and had heard

a hundred legends of the stern chiefs of Loch Awe, Duncan with the thrum

bonnet, and the other lords of the now mouldering towers of Kilchurn.

[See Note 7.--Loch Awe.] Thus it was later than usual when we set out

on our journey, after a hint or two from Donald concerning the length

of the way to the next stage, as there was no good halting-place between

Dalmally and Oban.

Having bid adieu to our venerable and kind cicerone, we proceeded on our

tour, winding round the tremendous mountain called Cruachan Ben, which

rushes down in all its majesty of rocks and wilderness on the lake,

leaving only a pass, in which, notwithstanding its extreme strength, the

warlike clan of MacDougal of Lorn were almost destroyed by the sagacious

Robert Bruce. That King, the Wellington of his day, had accomplished,

by a forced march, the unexpected manoeuvre of forcing a body of troops

round the other side of the mountain, and thus placed them in the flank

and in the rear of the men of Lorn, whom at the same time, he attacked

in front. The great number of cairns yet visible as you descend the

pass on the westward side shows the extent of the vengeance which Bruce

exhausted on his inveterate and personal enemies. I am, you know,

the sister of soldiers, and it has since struck me forcibly that the

manoeuvre which Donald described, resembled those of Wellington or of

Bonaparte. He was a great man Robert Bruce, even a Baliol must admit

that; although it begins now to be allowed that his title to the crown

was scarce so good as that of the unfortunate family with whom he

contended. But let that pass. The slaughter had been the greater, as the

deep and rapid river Awe is disgorged from the lake just in the rear

of the fugitives, and encircles the base of the tremendous mountain; so

that the retreat of the unfortunate fleers was intercepted on all

sides by the inaccessible character of the country, which had seemed to

promise them defence and protection. [See Note 8.--Battle betwixt the

armies of the Bruce and MacDougal of Lorn.]

Musing, like the Irish lady in the song, “upon things which are long

enough a-gone,” [This is a line from a very pathetic ballad which I

heard sung by one of the young ladies of Edgeworthstown in 1825. I do

not know that it has been printed.] we felt no impatience at the slow

and almost creeping pace with which our conductor proceeded along

General Wade’s military road, which never or rarely condescends to turn

aside from the steepest ascent, but proceeds right up and down hill,

with the indifference to height and hollow, steep or level, indicated by

the old Roman engineers. Still, however, the substantial excellence

of these great works--for such are the military highways in the

Highlands--deserved the compliment of the poet, who, whether he came

from our sister kingdom, and spoke in his own dialect, or whether he

supposed those whom he addressed might have some national pretension to

the second sight, produced the celebrated couplet,--

“Had you but seen these roads BEFORE they were made,

You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade.”

Nothing, indeed, can be more wonderful than to see these wildernesses

penetrated and pervious in every quarter by broad accesses of the best

possible construction, and so superior to what the country could have

demanded for many centuries for any pacific purpose of commercial

intercourse. Thus the traces of war are sometimes happily accommodated

to the purposes of peace. The victories of Bonaparte have been without

results but his road over the Simplon will long be the communication

betwixt peaceful countries, who will apply to the ends of commerce

and friendly intercourse that gigantic work, which was formed for the

ambitious purpose of warlike invasion.

While we were thus stealing along, we gradually turned round the

shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and descending the course of the foaming and

rapid Awe, left behind us the expanse of the majestic lake which gives

birth to that impetuous river. The rocks and precipices which stooped

down perpendicularly on our path on the right hand exhibited a few

remains of the wood which once clothed them, but which had in later

times been felled to supply, Donald MacLeish informed us, the iron

foundries at the Bunawe. This made us fix our eyes with interest on one

large oak, which grew on the left hand towards the river. It seemed a

tree of extraordinary magnitude and picturesque beauty, and stood just

where there appeared to be a few roods of open ground lying among huge

stones, which had rolled down from the mountain. To add to the romance

of the situation, the spot of clear ground extended round the foot of a

proud-browed rock, from the summit of which leaped a mountain stream in

a fall of sixty feet, in which it was dissolved into foam and dew. At

the bottom of the fall the rivulet with difficulty collected, like a

routed general, its dispersed forces, and, as if tamed by its descent,

found a noiseless passage through the heath to join the Awe.

I was much struck with the tree and waterfall, and wished myself nearer

them; not that I thought of sketch-book or portfolio--for in my younger

days misses were not accustomed to black-lead pencils, unless they

could use them to some good purpose--but merely to indulge myself with a

closer view. Donald immediately opened the chaise door, but observed it

was rough walking down the brae, and that I would see the tree better by

keeping the road for a hundred yards farther, when it passed closer to

the spot, for which he seemed, however, to have no predilection. “He

knew,” he said, “a far bigger tree than that nearer Bunawe, and it was

a place where there was flat ground for the carriage to stand, which it

could jimply do on these braes; but just as my leddyship liked.”

My ladyship did choose rather to look at the fine tree before me than to

pass it by in hopes of a finer; so we walked beside the carriage till we

should come to a point, from which, Donald assured us, we might, without

scrambling, go as near the tree as we chose, “though he wadna advise us

to go nearer than the highroad.”

There was something grave and mysterious in Donald’s sun-browned

countenance when he gave us this intimation, and his manner was so

different from his usual frankness, that my female curiosity was set in

motion. We walked on the whilst, and I found the tree, of which we had

now lost sight by the intervention of some rising ground, was really

more distant than I had at first supposed. “I could have sworn now,”

said I to my cicerone, “that yon tree and waterfall was the very place

where you intended to make a stop to-day.”

“The Lord forbid!” said Donald hastily.

“And for what, Donald? Why should you be willing to pass so pleasant a

spot?”

“It’s ower near Dalmally, my leddy, to corn the beasts; it would bring

their dinner ower near their breakfast, poor things. An’ besides, the

place is not canny.”

“Oh! then the mystery is out. There is a bogle or a brownie, a witch or

a gyre-carlin, a bodach or a fairy, in the case?”

“The ne’er a bit, my leddy--ye are clean aff the road, as I may say. But

if your leddyship will just hae patience, and wait till we are by the

place and out of the glen, I’ll tell ye all about it. There is no much

luck in speaking of such things in the place they chanced in.”

I was obliged to suspend my curiosity, observing, that if I persisted

in twisting the discourse one way while Donald was twining it another, I

should make his objection, like a hempen cord, just so much the tougher.

At length the promised turn of the road brought us within fifty paces of

the tree which I desired to admire, and I now saw to my surprise, that

there was a human habitation among the cliffs which surrounded it. It

was a hut of the least dimensions, and most miserable description that

I ever saw even in the Highlands. The walls of sod, or DIVOT, as the

Scotch call it, were not four feet high; the roof was of turf, repaired

with reeds and sedges; the chimney was composed of clay, bound round by

straw ropes; and the whole walls, roof, and chimney, were alike covered

with the vegetation of house-leek, rye-grass, and moss common to decayed

cottages formed of such materials. There was not the slightest vestige

of a kale-yard, the usual accompaniment of the very worst huts; and of

living things we saw nothing, save a kid which was browsing on the roof

of the hut, and a goat, its mother, at some distance, feeding betwixt

the oak and the river Awe.

“What man,” I could not help exclaiming, “can have committed sin deep

enough to deserve such a miserable dwelling!”

“Sin enough,” said Donald MacLeish, with a half-suppressed groan; “and

God he knoweth, misery enough too. And it is no man’s dwelling neither,

but a woman’s.”

“A woman’s!” I repeated, “and in so lonely a place! What sort of a woman

can she be?”

“Come this way, my leddy, and you may judge that for yourself,” said

Donald. And by advancing a few steps, and making a sharp turn to the

left, we gained a sight of the side of the great broad-breasted oak, in

the direction opposed to that in which we had hitherto seen it.

“If she keeps her old wont, she will be there at this hour of the day,”

said Donald; but immediately became silent, and pointed with his finger,

as one afraid of being overheard. I looked, and beheld, not without some

sense of awe, a female form seated by the stem of the oak, with her head

drooping, her hands clasped, and a dark-coloured mantle drawn over her

head, exactly as Judah is represented in the Syrian medals as seated

under her palm-tree. I was infected with the fear and reverence which my

guide seemed to entertain towards this solitary being, nor did I think

of advancing towards her to obtain a nearer view until I had cast an

enquiring look on Donald; to which he replied in a half whisper, “She

has been a fearfu’ bad woman, my leddy.”

“Mad woman, said you,” replied I, hearing him imperfectly; “then she is

perhaps dangerous?”

“No--she is not mad,” replied Donald; “for then it may be she would be

happier than she is; though when she thinks on what she has done, and

caused to be done, rather than yield up a hair-breadth of her ain wicked

will, it is not likely she can be very well settled. But she neither

is mad nor mischievous; and yet, my leddy, I think you had best not go

nearer to her.” And then, in a few hurried words, he made me acquainted

with the story which I am now to tell more in detail. I heard the

narrative with a mixture of horror and sympathy, which at once impelled

me to approach the sufferer, and speak to her the words of comfort, or

rather of pity, and at the same time made me afraid to do so.

This indeed was the feeling with which she was regarded by the

Highlanders in the neighbourhood, who looked upon Elspat MacTavish,

or the Woman of the Tree, as they called her, as the Greeks considered

those who were pursued by the Furies, and endured the mental torment

consequent on great criminal actions. They regarded such unhappy beings

as Orestes and OEdipus, as being less the voluntary perpetrators of

their crimes than as the passive instruments by which the terrible

decrees of Destiny had been accomplished; and the fear with which they

beheld them was not unmingled with veneration.

I also learned further from Donald MacLeish, that there was some

apprehension of ill luck attending those who had the boldness to

approach too near, or disturb the awful solitude of a being so

unutterably miserable--that it was supposed that whosoever approached

her must experience in some respect the contagion of her wretchedness.

It was therefore with some reluctance that Donald saw me prepare to

obtain a nearer view of the sufferer, and that he himself followed to

assist me in the descent down a very rough path. I believe his regard

for me conquered some ominous feelings in his own breast, which

connected his duty on this occasion with the presaging fear of lame

horses, lost linch-pins, overturns, and other perilous chances of the

postilion’s life.

I am not sure if my own courage would have carried me so close to Elspat

had he not followed. There was in her countenance the stern abstraction

of hopeless and overpowering sorrow, mixed with the contending feelings

of remorse, and of the pride which struggled to conceal it. She guessed,

perhaps, that it was curiosity, arising out of her uncommon story, which

induced me to intrude on her solitude; and she could not be pleased that

a fate like hers had been the theme of a traveller’s amusement. Yet

the look with which she regarded me was one of scorn instead of

embarrassment. The opinion of the world and all its children could not

add or take an iota from her load of misery; and, save from the half

smile that seemed to intimate the contempt of a being rapt by the very

intensity of her affliction above the sphere of ordinary humanities, she

seemed as indifferent to my gaze, as if she had been a dead corpse or a

marble statue.

Elspat was above the middle stature. Her hair, now grizzled, was still

profuse, and it had been of the most decided black. So were her eyes,

in which, contradicting the stern and rigid features of her countenance,

there shone the wild and troubled light that indicates an unsettled

mind. Her hair was wrapt round a silver bodkin with some attention to

neatness, and her dark mantle was disposed around her with a degree of

taste, though the materials were of the most ordinary sort.

After gazing on this victim of guilt and calamity till I was ashamed to

remain silent, though uncertain how I ought to address her, I began

to express my surprise at her choosing such a desert and deplorable

dwelling. She cut short these expressions of sympathy, by answering in

a stern voice, without the least change of countenance or posture,

“Daughter of the stranger, he has told you my story.” I was silenced

at once, and felt how little all earthly accommodation must seem to

the mind which had such subjects as hers for rumination. Without again

attempting to open the conversation, I took a piece of gold from my

purse, (for Donald had intimated she lived on alms), expecting she would

at least stretch her hand to receive it. But she neither accepted nor

rejected the gift; she did not even seem to notice it, though twenty

times as valuable, probably, as was usually offered. I was obliged to

place it on her knee, saying involuntarily, as I did so, “May God pardon

you and relieve you!” I shall never forget the look which she cast up to

Heaven, nor the tone in which she exclaimed, in the very words of my old

friend John Home,--

“My beautiful--my brave!”

It was the language of nature, and arose from the heart of the deprived

mother, as it did from that gifted imaginative poet while furnishing

with appropriate expressions the ideal grief of Lady Randolph.

CHAPTER II.

Oh, I’m come to the Low Country,

Och, och, ohonochie,

Without a penny in my pouch

To buy a meal for me.

I was the proudest of my clan,

Long, long may I repine;

And Donald was the bravest man,

And Donald he was mine. OLD SONG.

Elspat had enjoyed happy days, though her age had sunk into hopeless and

inconsolable sorrow and distress. She was once the beautiful and happy

wife of Hamish MacTavish, for whom his strength and feats of prowess

had gained the title of MacTavish Mhor. His life was turbulent and

dangerous, his habits being of the old Highland stamp which esteemed it

shame to want anything that could be had for the taking. Those in the

Lowland line who lay near him, and desired to enjoy their lives and

property in quiet, were contented to pay him a small composition, in

name of protection money, and comforted themselves with the old proverb

that it was better to “fleech the deil than fight him.” Others, who

accounted such composition dishonourable, were often surprised by

MacTavish Mhor and his associates and followers, who usually inflicted

an adequate penalty, either in person or property, or both. The creagh

is yet remembered in which he swept one hundred and fifty cows from

Monteith in one drove; and how he placed the laird of Ballybught naked

in a slough, for having threatened to send for a party of the Highland

Watch to protect his property.

Whatever were occasionally the triumphs of this daring cateran, they

were often exchanged for reverses; and his narrow escapes, rapid

flights, and the ingenious stratagems with which he extricated himself

from imminent danger, were no less remembered and admired than the

exploits in which he had been successful. In weal or woe, through every

species of fatigue, difficulty, and danger, Elspat was his faithful

companion. She enjoyed with him the fits of occasional prosperity; and

when adversity pressed them hard, her strength of mind, readiness of

wit, and courageous endurance of danger and toil, are said often to have

stimulated the exertions of her husband.

Their morality was of the old Highland cast--faithful friends and

fierce enemies. The Lowland herds and harvests they accounted their own,

whenever they had the means of driving off the one or of seizing upon

the other; nor did the least scruple on the right of property interfere

on such occasions. Hamish Mhor argued like the old Cretan warrior:

“My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,

They make me lord of all below;

For he who dreads the lance to wield,

Before my shaggy shield must bow.

His lands, his vineyards, must resign,

And all that cowards have is mine.”

But those days of perilous, though frequently successful depredation,

began to be abridged after the failure of the expedition of Prince

Charles Edward. MacTavish Mhor had not sat still on that occasion, and

he was outlawed, both as a traitor to the state and as a robber and

cateran. Garrisons were now settled in many places where a red-coat had

never before been seen, and the Saxon war-drum resounded among the most

hidden recesses of the Highland mountains. The fate of MacTavish became

every day more inevitable; and it was the more difficult for him to make

his exertions for defence or escape, that Elspat, amid his evil days,

had increased his family with an infant child, which was a considerable

encumbrance upon the necessary rapidity of their motions.

At length the fatal day arrived. In a strong pass on the skirts of Ben

Crunchan, the celebrated MacTavish Mhor was surprised by a detachment

of the Sidier Roy. [The Red Soldier.] His wife assisted him heroically,

charging his piece from time to time; and as they were in possession of

a post that was nearly unassailable, he might have perhaps escaped

if his ammunition had lasted. But at length his balls were expended,

although it was not until he had fired off most of the silver buttons

from his waistcoat; and the soldiers, no longer deterred by fear of the

unerring marksman, who had slain three and wounded more of their number,

approached his stronghold, and, unable to take him alive, slew him after

a most desperate resistance.

All this Elspat witnessed and survived; for she had, in the child which

relied on her for support, a motive for strength and exertion. In what

manner she maintained herself it is not easy to say. Her only ostensible

means of support were a flock of three or four goats, which she fed

wherever she pleased on the mountain pastures, no one challenging

the intrusion. In the general distress of the country, her ancient

acquaintances had little to bestow; but what they could part with from

their own necessities, they willingly devoted to the relief of others,

From Lowlanders she sometimes demanded tribute, rather than requested

alms. She had not forgotten she was the widow of MacTavish Mhor, or that

the child who trotted by her knee might, such were her imaginations,

emulate one day the fame of his father, and command the same influence

which he had once exerted without control. She associated so little with

others, went so seldom and so unwillingly from the wildest recesses

of the mountains, where she usually dwelt with her goats, that she

was quite unconscious of the great change which had taken place in

the country around her--the substitution of civil order for military

violence, and the strength gained by the law and its adherents over

those who were called in Gaelic song, “the stormy sons of the sword.”

Her own diminished consequence and straitened circumstances she indeed

felt, but for this the death of MacTavish Mhor was, in her apprehension,

a sufficing reason; and she doubted not that she should rise to her

former state of importance when Hamish Bean (or fair-haired James)

should be able to wield the arms of his father. If, then, Elspat was

repelled, rudely when she demanded anything necessary for her wants, or

the accommodation of her little flock, by a churlish farmer, her threats

of vengeance, obscurely expressed, yet terrible in their tenor, used

frequently to extort, through fear of her maledictions, the relief which

was denied to her necessities; and the trembling goodwife, who gave meal

or money to the widow of MacTavish Mhor, wished in her heart that the

stern old carlin had been burnt on the day her husband had his due.

Years thus ran on, and Hamish Bean grew up--not, indeed, to be of his

father’s size or strength, but to become an active, high-spirited,

fair-haired youth, with a ruddy cheek, an eye like an eagle’s, and all

the agility, if not all the strength, of his formidable father, upon

whose history and achievements his mother dwelt, in order to form her

son’s mind to a similar course of adventures. But the young see the

present state of this changeful world more keenly than the old. Much

attached to his mother, and disposed to do all in his power for her

support, Hamish yet perceived, when he mixed with the world, that the

trade of the cateran was now alike dangerous and discreditable, and that

if he were to emulate his father’s progress, it must be in some other

line of warfare more consonant to the opinions of the present day.

As the faculties of mind and body began to expand, he became more

sensible of the precarious nature of his situation, of the erroneous

views of his mother, and her ignorance respecting the changes of the

society with which she mingled so little. In visiting friends and

neighbours, he became aware of the extremely reduced scale to which his

parent was limited, and learned that she possessed little or nothing

more than the absolute necessaries of life, and that these were

sometimes on the point of failing. At times his success in fishing and

the chase was able to add something to her subsistence; but he saw no

regular means of contributing to her support, unless by stooping to

servile labour, which, if he himself could have endured it, would, he

knew, have been like a death’s-wound to the pride of his mother.

Elspat, meanwhile, saw with surprise that Hamish Bean, although now tall

and fit for the field, showed no disposition to enter on his father’s

scene of action. There was something of the mother at her heart, which

prevented her from urging him in plain terms to take the field as a

cateran, for the fear occurred of the perils into which the trade must

conduct him; and when she would have spoken to him on the subject, it

seemed to her heated imagination as if the ghost of her husband arose

between them in his bloody tartans, and laying his finger on his lips,

appeared to prohibit the topic. Yet she wondered at what seemed his want

of spirit, sighed as she saw him from day to day lounging about in the

long-skirted Lowland coat which the legislature had imposed upon the

Gael instead of their own romantic garb, and thought how much nearer he

would have resembled her husband had he been clad in the belted plaid

and short hose, with his polished arms gleaming at his side.

Besides these subjects for anxiety, Elspat had others arising from the

engrossing impetuosity of her temper. Her love of MacTavish Mhor had

been qualified by respect and sometimes even by fear, for the cateran

was not the species of man who submits to female government; but over

his son she had exerted, at first during childhood, and afterwards in

early youth, an imperious authority, which gave her maternal love a

character of jealousy. She could not bear when Hamish, with advancing

life, made repeated steps towards independence, absented himself from

her cottage at such season and for such length of time as he chose,

and seemed to consider, although maintaining towards her every possible

degree of respect and kindness, that the control and responsibility

of his actions rested on himself alone. This would have been of little

consequence, could she have concealed her feelings within her own bosom;

but the ardour and impatience of her passions made her frequently show

her son that she conceived herself neglected and ill-used. When he was

absent for any length of time from her cottage without giving intimation

of his purpose, her resentment on his return used to be so unreasonable,

that it naturally suggested to a young man fond of independence, and

desirous to amend his situation in the world, to leave her, even for the

very purpose of enabling him to provide for the parent whose egotistical

demands on his filial attention tended to confine him to a desert, in

which both were starving in hopeless and helpless indigence.

Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty of some independent

excursion, by which the mother felt herself affronted and disobliged,

she had been more than usually violent on his return, and awakened in

Hamish a sense of displeasure, which clouded his brow and cheek. At

length, as she persevered in her unreasonable resentment, his patience

became exhausted, and taking his gun from the chimney corner, and

muttering to himself the reply which his respect for his mother

prevented him from speaking aloud, he was about to leave the hut which

he had but barely entered.

“Hamish,” said his mother, “are you again about to leave me?” But Hamish

only replied by looking at and rubbing the lock of his gun.

“Ay, rub the lock of your gun,” said his parent bitterly. “I am glad you

have courage enough to fire it? though it be but at a roe-deer.” Hamish

started at this undeserved taunt, and cast a look of anger at her in

reply. She saw that she had found the means of giving him pain.

“Yes,” she said, “look fierce as you will at an old woman, and your

mother; it would be long ere you bent your brow on the angry countenance

of a bearded man.”

“Be silent, mother, or speak of what you understand,” said Hamish, much

irritated, “and that is of the distaff and the spindle.”

“And was it of spindle and distaff that I was thinking when I bore you

away on my back through the fire of six of the Saxon soldiers, and you

a wailing child? I tell you, Hamish, I know a hundredfold more of swords

and guns than ever you will; and you will never learn so much of noble

war by yourself, as you have seen when you were wrapped up in my plaid.”

“You are determined, at least, to allow me no peace at home, mother;

but this shall have an end,” said Hamish, as, resuming his purpose of

leaving the hut, he rose and went towards the door.

“Stay, I command you,” said his mother--“stay! or may the gun you carry

be the means of your ruin! may the road you are going be the track of

your funeral!”

“What makes you use such words, mother?” said the young man, turning a

little back; “they are not good, and good cannot come of them. Farewell

just now! we are too angry to speak together--farewell! It will be long

ere you see me again.” And he departed, his mother, in the first burst

of her impatience, showering after him her maledictions, and in the next

invoking them on her own head, so that they might spare her son’s. She

passed that day and the next in all the vehemence of impotent and yet

unrestrained passion, now entreating Heaven, and such powers as were

familiar to her by rude tradition, to restore her dear son, “the calf

of her heart;” now in impatient resentment, meditating with what bitter

terms she should rebuke his filial disobedience upon his return, and now

studying the most tender language to attach him to the cottage,

which, when her boy was present, she would not, in the rapture of her

affection, have exchanged for the apartments of Taymouth Castle.

Two days passed, during which, neglecting even the slender means of

supporting nature which her situation afforded, nothing but the strength

of a frame accustomed to hardships and privations of every kind could

have kept her in existence, notwithstanding the anguish of her mind

prevented her being sensible of her personal weakness. Her dwelling at

this period was the same cottage near which I had found her, but then

more habitable by the exertions of Hamish, by whom it had been in a

great measure built and repaired.

It was on the third day after her son had disappeared, as she sat at

the door rocking herself, after the fashion of her countrywomen when in

distress, or in pain, that the then unwonted circumstance occurred of a

passenger being seen on the highroad above the cottage. She cast but one

glance at him. He was on horseback, so that it could not be Hamish; and

Elspat cared not enough for any other being on earth to make her turn

her eyes towards him a second time. The stranger, however, paused

opposite to her cottage, and dismounting from his pony, led it down the

steep and broken path which conducted to her door.

“God bless you, Elspat MacTavish!” She looked at the man as he addressed

her in her native language, with the displeased air of one whose reverie

is interrupted; but the traveller went on to say, “I bring you tidings

of your son Hamish.” At once, from being the most uninteresting object,

in respect to Elspat, that could exist, the form of the stranger

became awful in her eyes, as that of a messenger descended from heaven,

expressly to pronounce upon her death or life. She started from her

seat, and with hands convulsively clasped together, and held up to

Heaven, eyes fixed on the stranger’s countenance, and person stooping

forward to him, she looked those inquiries which her faltering tongue

could not articulate. “Your son sends you his dutiful remembrance, and

this,” said the messenger, putting into Elspat’s hand a small purse

containing four or five dollars.

“He is gone! he is gone!” exclaimed Elspat; “he has sold himself to be

the servant of the Saxons, and I shall never more behold him! Tell me,

Miles MacPhadraick--for now I know you--is it the price of the son’s

blood that you have put into the mother’s hand?”

“Now, God forbid!” answered MacPhadraick, who was a tacksman, and

had possession of a considerable tract of ground under his chief, a

proprietor who lived about twenty miles off--“God forbid I should do

wrong, or say wrong, to you, or to the son of MacTavish Mhor! I swear

to you by the hand of my chief that your son is well, and will soon see

you; and the rest he will tell you himself.” So saying, MacPhadraick

hastened back up the pathway, gained the road, mounted his pony, and

rode upon his way.

CHAPTER III.

Elspat MacTavish remained gazing on the money as if the impress of the

coin could have conveyed information how it was procured.

“I love not this MacPhadraick,” she said to herself. “It was his race

of whom the Bard hath spoken, saying, Fear them not when their words are

loud as the winter’s wind, but fear them when they fall on you like the

sound of the thrush’s song. And yet this riddle can be read but one way:

My son hath taken the sword to win that, with strength like a man, which

churls would keep him from with the words that frighten children.” This

idea, when once it occurred to her, seemed the more reasonable, that

MacPhadraick, as she well knew, himself a cautious man, had so far

encouraged her husband’s practices as occasionally to buy cattle of

MacTavish, although he must have well known how they were come by,

taking care, however, that the transaction was so made as to be

accompanied with great profit and absolute safety. Who so likely as

MacPhadraick to indicate to a young cateran the glen in which he could

commence his perilous trade with most prospect of success? Who so likely

to convert his booty into money? The feelings which another might have

experienced on believing that an only son had rushed forward on the same

path in which his father had perished, were scarce known to the Highland

mothers of that day. She thought of the death of MacTavish Mhor as that

of a hero who had fallen in his proper trade of war, and who had not

fallen unavenged. She feared less for her son’s life than for his

dishonour. She dreaded, on his account, the subjection to strangers, and

the death-sleep of the soul which is brought on by what she regarded as

slavery.

The moral principle which so naturally and so justly occurs to the mind

of those who have been educated under a settled government of laws that

protect the property of the weak against the incursions of the strong,

was to poor Elspat a book sealed and a fountain closed. She had been

taught to consider those whom they call Saxons as a race with whom the

Gael were constantly at war; and she regarded every settlement of theirs

within the reach of Highland incursion as affording a legitimate object

of attack and plunder. Her feelings on this point had been strengthened

and confirmed, not only by the desire of revenge for the death of

her husband, but by the sense of general indignation entertained, not

unjustly, through the Highlands of Scotland, on account of the barbarous

and violent conduct of the victors after the battle of Culloden. Other

Highland clans, too, she regarded as the fair objects of plunder, when

that was possible, upon the score of ancient enmities and deadly feuds.

The prudence that might have weighed the slender means which the times

afforded for resisting the efforts of a combined government, which had,

in its less compact and established authority, been unable to put down

the ravages of such lawless caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to

a solitary woman whose ideas still dwelt upon her own early times.

She imagined that her son had only to proclaim himself his father’s

successor in adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men, as

gallant as those who had followed his father’s banner, would crowd

around to support it when again displayed. To her Hamish was the eagle

who had only to soar aloft and resume his native place in the skies,

without her being able to comprehend how many additional eyes would have

watched his flight--how many additional bullets would have been directed

at his bosom. To be brief, Elspat was one who viewed the present state

of society with the same feelings with which she regarded the times that

had passed away. She had been indigent, neglected, oppressed since the

days that her husband had no longer been feared and powerful, and she

thought that the term of her ascendence would return when her son had

determined to play the part of his father. If she permitted her eye to

glance farther into futurity, it was but to anticipate that she must be

for many a day cold in the grave, with the coronach of her tribe cried

duly over her, before her fair-haired Hamish could, according to her

calculation, die with his hand on the basket-hilt of the red claymore.

His father’s hair was grey, ere, after a hundred dangers, he had fallen

with his arms in his hands. That she should have seen and survived the

sight was a natural consequence of the manners of that age. And better

it was--such was her proud thought--that she had seen him so die, than

to have witnessed his departure from life in a smoky hovel on a bed

of rotten straw like an over-worn hound, or a bullock which died of

disease. But the hour of her young, her brave Hamish, was yet far

distant. He must succeed--he must conquer--like his father. And when he

fell at length--for she anticipated for him no bloodless death--Elspat

would ere then have lain long in the grave, and could neither see his

death-struggle nor mourn over his grave-sod.

With such wild notions working in her brain, the spirit of Elspat rose

to its usual pitch, or, rather, to one which seemed higher. In the

emphatic language of Scripture, which in that idiom does not greatly

differ from her own, she arose, she washed and changed her apparel, and

ate bread, and was refreshed.

She longed eagerly for the return of her son, but she now longed not

with the bitter anxiety of doubt and apprehension. She said to herself

that much must be done ere he could in these times arise to be an

eminent and dreaded leader. Yet when she saw him again, she almost

expected him at the head of a daring band, with pipes playing and

banners flying, the noble tartans fluttering free in the wind, in

despite of the laws which had suppressed, under severe penalties, the

use of the national garb and all the appurtenances of Highland chivalry.

For all this, her eager imagination was content only to allow the

interval of some days.

From the moment this opinion had taken deep and serious possession of

her mind, her thoughts were bent upon receiving her son at the head of

his adherents in the manner in which she used to adorn her hut for the

return of his father.

The substantial means of subsistence she had not the power of providing,

nor did she consider that of importance. The successful caterans would

bring with them herds and flocks. But the interior of her hut was

arranged for their reception, the usquebaugh was brewed or distilled in

a larger quantity than it could have been supposed one lone woman could

have made ready. Her hut was put into such order as might, in some

degree, give it the appearance of a day of rejoicing. It was swept and

decorated, with boughs of various kinds, like the house of a Jewess upon

what is termed the Feast of the Tabernacles. The produce of the milk of

her little flock was prepared in as great variety of forms as her skill

admitted, to entertain her son and his associates whom she, expected to

receive along with him.

But the principal decoration, which she sought with the greatest toil,

was the cloud-berry, a scarlet fruit, which is only found on very high

hills; and these only in small quantities. Her husband, or perhaps one

of his forefathers, had chosen this as the emblem of his family, because

it seemed at once to imply, by its scarcity, the smallness of their

clan, and, by the places in which it was found, the ambitious height of

their pretensions.

For the time that these simple preparations of welcome endured, Elspat

was in a state of troubled happiness. In fact, her only anxiety was that

she might be able to complete all that she could do to welcome Hamish

and the friends who she supposed must have attached themselves to

his band, before they should arrive and find her unprovided for their

reception.

But when such efforts as she could make had been accomplished, she once

more had nothing left to engage her save the trifling care of her goats;

and when these had been attended to, she had only to review her little

preparations, renew such as were of a transitory nature, replace decayed

branches and fading boughs, and then to sit down at her cottage-door and

watch the road as it ascended on the one side from the banks of the Awe,

and on the other wound round the heights of the mountain, with such a

degree of accommodation to hill and level as the plan of the military

engineer permitted. While so occupied, her imagination, anticipating the

future from recollections of the past, formed out of the morning mist or

the evening cloud the wild forms of an advancing band, which were then

called “Sidier Dhu” (dark soldiers), dressed in their native tartan, and

so named to distinguish them from the scarlet ranks of the British army.

In this occupation she spent many hours of each morning and evening.

CHAPTER IV.

It was in vain that Elspat’s eyes surveyed the distant path by the

earliest light of the dawn and the latest glimmer of the twilight. No

rising dust awakened the expectation of nodding plumes or flashing arms.

The solitary traveller trudged listlessly along in his brown lowland

greatcoat, his tartans dyed black or purple, to comply with or evade

the law which prohibited their being worn in their variegated hues.

The spirit of the Gael, sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps

necessary laws, that proscribed the dress and arms which he considered

as his birthright, was intimated by his drooping head and dejected

appearance. Not in such depressed wanderers did Elspat recognise the

light and free step of her son, now, as she concluded, regenerated from

every sign of Saxon thraldom. Night by night, as darkness came, she

removed from her unclosed door, to throw herself on her restless pallet,

not to sleep, but to watch. The brave and the terrible, she said, walk

by night. Their steps are heard in darkness, when all is silent save the

whirlwind and the cataract. The timid deer comes only forth when the sun

is upon the mountain’s peak, but the bold wolf walks in the red light of

the harvest-moon. She reasoned in vain; her son’s expected summons

did not call her from the lowly couch where she lay dreaming of his

approach. Hamish came not.

“Hope deferred,” saith the royal sage, “maketh the heart sick;” and

strong as was Elspat’s constitution, she began to experience that it

was unequal to the toils to which her anxious and immoderate affection

subjected her, when early one morning the appearance of a traveller on

the lonely mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to sink into

listless despair. There was no sign of Saxon subjugation about the

stranger. At a distance she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid

that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed

in the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over

his shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side with its usual

appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the SPORRAN MOLLACH. [The

goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round their waist.] Ere yet her

eye had scanned all these particulars, the light step of the traveller

was hastened, his arm was waved in token of recognition--a moment more,

and Elspat held in her arms her darling son, dressed in the garb of

his ancestors, and looking, in her maternal eyes, the fairest among ten

thousand!

The first outpouring of affection it would be impossible to describe.

Blessings mingled with the most endearing epithets which her energetic

language affords in striving to express the wild rapture of Elspat’s

joy. Her board was heaped hastily with all she had to offer, and the

mother watched the young soldier, as he partook of the refreshment, with

feelings how similar to, yet how different from, those with which she

had seen him draw his first sustenance from her bosom!

When the tumult of joy was appeased, Elspat became anxious to know her

son’s adventures since they parted, and could not help greatly censuring

his rashness for traversing the hills in the Highland dress in the broad

sunshine, when the penalty was so heavy, and so many red soldiers were

abroad in the country.

“Fear not for me, mother,” said Hamish, in a tone designed to relieve

her anxiety, and yet somewhat embarrassed; “I may wear the BREACAN [That

which is variegated--that is, the tartan.] at the gate of Fort-Augustus,

if I like it.”

“Oh, be not too daring, my beloved Hamish, though it be the fault which

best becomes thy father’s son--yet be not too daring! Alas! they fight

not now as in former days, with fair weapons and on equal terms, but

take odds of numbers and of arms, so that the feeble and the strong are

alike levelled by the shot of a boy. And do not think me unworthy to be

called your father’s widow and your mother because I speak thus; for

God knoweth, that, man to man, I would peril thee against the best in

Breadalbane, and broad Lorn besides.”

“I assure you, my dearest mother,” replied Hamish, “that I am in no

danger. But have you seen MacPhadraick, mother? and what has he said to

you on my account?”

“Silver he left me in plenty, Hamish; but the best of his comfort was

that you were well, and would see me soon. But beware of MacPhadraick,

my son; for when he called himself the friend of your father, he better

loved the most worthless stirk in his herd than he did the life-blood of

MacTavish Mhor. Use his services, therefore, and pay him for them, for

it is thus we should deal with the unworthy; but take my counsel, and

trust him not.”

Hamish could not suppress a sigh, which seemed to Elspat to intimate

that the caution came too late. “What have you done with him?” she

continued, eager and alarmed. “I had money of him, and he gives not that

without value; he is none of those who exchange barley for chaff. Oh, if

you repent you of your bargain, and if it be one which you may break off

without disgrace to your truth or your manhood, take back his silver,

and trust not to his fair words.”

“It may not be, mother,” said Hamish; “I do not repent my engagement,

unless that it must make me leave you soon.”

“Leave me! how leave me? Silly boy, think you I know not what duty

belongs to the wife or mother of a daring man? Thou art but a boy yet;

and when thy father had been the dread of the country for twenty years,

he did not despise my company and assistance, but often said my help was

worth that of two strong gillies.”

“It is not on that score, mother, but since I must leave the country--”

“Leave the country!” replied his mother, interrupting him. “And think

you that I am like a bush, that is rooted to the soil where it grows,

and must die if carried elsewhere? I have breathed other winds than

these of Ben Cruachan. I have followed your father to the wilds of Ross

and the impenetrable deserts of Y Mac Y Mhor. Tush, man! my limbs, old

as they are, will bear me as far as your young feet can trace the way.”

“Alas, mother,” said the young man, with a faltering accent, “but to

cross the sea--”

“The sea! who am I that I should fear the sea? Have I never been in

a birling in my life--never known the Sound of Mull, the Isles of

Treshornish, and the rough rocks of Harris?”

“Alas, mother, I go far--far from all of these. I am enlisted in one of

the new regiments, and we go against the French in America.”

“Enlisted!” uttered the astonished mother--“against MY will--without MY

consent! You could not! you would not!” Then rising up, and assuming a

posture of almost imperial command, “Hamish, you DARED not!”

“Despair, mother, dares everything,” answered Hamish, in a tone of

melancholy resolution. “What should I do here, where I can scarce get

bread for myself and you, and when the times are growing daily worse?

Would you but sit down and listen, I would convince you I have acted for

the best.”

With a bitter smile Elspat sat down, and the same severe ironical

expression was on her features, as, with her lips firmly closed, she

listened to his vindication.

Hamish went on, without being disconcerted by her expected displeasure.

“When I left you, dearest mother, it was to go to MacPhadraick’s house;

for although I knew he is crafty and worldly, after the fashion of the

Sassenach, yet he is wise, and I thought how he would teach me, as it

would cost him nothing, in which way I could mend our estate in the

world.”

“Our estate in the world!” said Elspat, losing patience at the word;

“and went you to a base fellow with a soul no better than that of a

cowherd, to ask counsel about your conduct? Your father asked none, save

of his courage and his sword.”

“Dearest mother,” answered Hamish, “how shall I convince you that you

live in this land of our fathers as if our fathers were yet living? You

walk as it were in a dream, surrounded by the phantoms of those who

have been long with the dead. When my father lived and fought, the great

respected the man of the strong right hand, and the rich feared him. He

had protection from Macallum Mhor, and from Caberfae, and tribute from

meaner men. [Caberfae--ANGLICE, the Stag’s-head, the Celtic designation

for the arms of the family of the high Chief of Seaforth.] That is

ended, and his son would only earn a disgraceful and unpitied death by

the practices which gave his father credit and power among those

who wear the breacan. The land is conquered; its lights are

quenched--Glengarry, Lochiel, Perth, Lord Lewis, all the high chiefs are

dead or in exile. We may mourn for it, but we cannot help it. Bonnet,

broadsword, and sporran--power, strength, and wealth, were all lost on

Drummossie Muir.”

“It is false!” said Elspat, fiercely; “you and such like dastardly

spirits are quelled by your own faint hearts, not by the strength of the

enemy; you are like the fearful waterfowl, to whom the least cloud in

the sky seems the shadow of the eagle.”

“Mother,” said Hamish proudly, “lay not faint heart to my charge. I go

where men are wanted who have strong arms and bold hearts too. I leave a

desert, for a land where I may gather fame.”

“And you leave your mother to perish in want, age, and solitude,” said

Elspat, essaying successively every means of moving a resolution which

she began to see was more deeply rooted than she had at first thought.

“Not so, neither,” he answered; “I leave you to comfort and certainty,

which you have yet never known. Barcaldine’s son is made a leader, and

with him I have enrolled myself. MacPhadraick acts for him, and raises

men, and finds his own in doing it.”

“That is the truest word of the tale, were all the rest as false as

hell,” said the old woman, bitterly.

“But we are to find our good in it also,” continued Hamish; “for

Barcaldine is to give you a shieling in his wood of Letter-findreight,

with grass for your goats, and a cow, when you please to have one, on

the common; and my own pay, dearest mother, though I am far away, will

do more than provide you with meal, and with all else you can want. Do

not fear for me. I enter a private gentleman; but I will return, if hard

fighting and regular duty can deserve it, an officer, and with half a

dollar a day.”

“Poor child!” replied Elspat, in a tone of pity mingled with contempt,

“and you trust MacPhadraick?”

“I might mother,” said Hamish, the dark red colour of his race crossing

his forehead and cheeks, “for MacPhadraick knows the blood which flows

in my veins, and is aware, that should he break trust with you, he might

count the days which could bring Hamish back to Breadalbane, and number

those of his life within three suns more. I would kill him at his own

hearth, did he break his word with me--I would, by the great Being who

made us both!”

The look and attitude of the young soldier for a moment overawed Elspat;

she was unused to see him express a deep and bitter mood, which reminded

her so strongly of his father. But she resumed her remonstrances in the

same taunting manner in which she had commenced them.

“Poor boy!” she said; “and you think that at the distance of half the

world your threats will be heard or thought of! But, go--go--place your

neck under him of Hanover’s yoke, against whom every true Gael fought to

the death. Go, disown the royal Stewart, for whom your father, and his

fathers, and your mother’s fathers, have crimsoned many a field with

their blood. Go, put your head under the belt of one of the race of

Dermid, whose children murdered--Yes,” she added, with a wild shriek,

“murdered your mother’s fathers in their peaceful dwellings in Glencoe!

Yes,” she again exclaimed, with a wilder and shriller scream, “I was

then unborn, but my mother has told me--and I attended to the voice

of MY mother--well I remember her words! They came in peace, and were

received in friendship--and blood and fire arose, and screams and

murder!” [See Note 9.--Massacre of Glencoe.]

“Mother,” answered Hamish, mournfully, but with a decided tone, “all

that I have thought over. There is not a drop of the blood of Glencoe

on the noble hand of Barcaldine; with the unhappy house of Glenlyon the

curse remains, and on them God hath avenged it.”

“You speak like the Saxon priest already,” replied his mother; “will you

not better stay, and ask a kirk from Macallum Mhor, that you may preach

forgiveness to the race of Dermid?”

“Yesterday was yesterday,” answered Hamish, “and to-day is to-day. When

the clans are crushed and confounded together, it is well and wise that

their hatreds and their feuds should not survive their independence and

their power. He that cannot execute vengeance like a man, should not

harbour useless enmity like a craven. Mother, young Barcaldine is true

and brave. I know that MacPhadraick counselled him that he should not

let me take leave of you, lest you dissuaded me from my purpose; but he

said, ‘Hamish MacTavish is the son of a brave man, and he will not break

his word.’ Mother, Barcaldine leads an hundred of the bravest of

the sons of the Gael in their native dress, and with their fathers’

arms--heart to heart--shoulder to shoulder. I have sworn to go with him.

He has trusted me, and I will trust him.”

At this reply, so firmly and resolvedly pronounced, Elspat remained

like one thunderstruck, and sunk in despair. The arguments which she had

considered so irresistibly conclusive, had recoiled like a wave from a

rock. After a long pause, she filled her son’s quaigh, and presented it

to him with an air of dejected deference and submission.

“Drink,” she said, “to thy father’s roof-tree, ere you leave it for

ever; and tell me--since the chains of a new King, and of a new chief,

whom your fathers knew not save as mortal enemies, are fastened upon the

limbs of your father’s son--tell me how many links you count upon them?”

Hamish took the cup, but looked at her as if uncertain of her meaning.

She proceeded in a raised voice. “Tell me,” she said, “for I have a

right to know, for how many days the will of those you have made your

masters permits me to look upon you? In other words, how many are the

days of my life? for when you leave me, the earth has nought besides

worth living for!”

“Mother,” replied Hamish MacTavish, “for six days I may remain with

you; and if you will set out with me on the fifth, I will conduct you in

safety to your new dwelling. But if you remain here, then I will depart

on the seventh by daybreak--then, as at the last moment, I MUST set out

for Dunbarton, for if I appear not on the eighth day, I am subject

to punishment as a deserter, and am dishonoured as a soldier and a

gentleman.”

“Your father’s foot,” she answered, “was free as the wind on the

heath--it were as vain to say to him, where goest thou? as to ask that

viewless driver of the clouds, wherefore blowest thou? Tell me under

what penalty thou must--since go thou must, and go thou wilt--return to

thy thraldom?”

“Call it not thraldom, mother; it is the service of an honourable

soldier--the only service which is now open to the son of MacTavish

Mhor.”

“Yet say what is the penalty if thou shouldst not return?” replied

Elspat.

“Military punishment as a deserter,” answered Hamish, writhing, however,

as his mother failed not to observe, under some internal feelings, which

she resolved to probe to the uttermost.

“And that,” she said, with assumed calmness, which her glancing eye

disowned, “is the punishment of a disobedient hound, is it not?”

“Ask me no more, mother,” said Hamish; “the punishment is nothing to one

who will never deserve it.”

“To me it is something,” replied Elspat, “since I know better than thou,

that where there is power to inflict, there is often the will to do so

without cause. I would pray for thee, Hamish, and I must know against

what evils I should beseech Him who leaves none unguarded, to protect

thy youth and simplicity.”

“Mother,” said Hamish, “it signifies little to what a criminal may be

exposed, if a man is determined not to be such. Our Highland chiefs used

also to punish their vassals, and, as I have heard, severely. Was it not

Lachlan MacIan, whom we remember of old, whose head was struck off by

order of his chieftain for shooting at the stag before him?”

“Ay,” said Elspat, “and right he had to lose it, since he dishonoured

the father of the people even in the face of the assembled clan. But the

chiefs were noble in their ire; they punished with the sharp blade, and

not with the baton. Their punishments drew blood, but they did not infer

dishonour. Canst thou say, the same for the laws under whose yoke thou

hast placed thy freeborn neck?”

“I cannot, mother--I cannot,” said Hamish mournfully. “I saw them

punish a Sassenach for deserting as they called it, his banner. He was

scourged--I own it--scourged like a hound who has offended an imperious

master. I was sick at the sight--I confess it. But the punishment of

dogs is only for those worse than dogs, who know not how to keep their

faith.”

“To this infamy, however, thou hast subjected thyself, Hamish,” replied

Elspat, “if thou shouldst give, or thy officers take, measure of offence

against thee. I speak no more to thee on thy purpose. Were the sixth

day from this morning’s sun my dying day, and thou wert to stay to close

mine eyes, thou wouldst run the risk of being lashed like a dog at a

post--yes! unless thou hadst the gallant heart to leave me to die alone,

and upon my desolate hearth, the last spark of thy father’s fire, and

of thy forsaken mother’s life, to be extinguished together!”--Hamish

traversed the hut with an impatient and angry pace.

“Mother,” he said at length, “concern not yourself about such things.

I cannot be subjected to such infamy, for never will I deserve it; and

were I threatened with it, I should know how to die before I was so far

dishonoured.”

“There spoke the son of the husband of my heart!” replied Elspat,

and she changed the discourse, and seemed to listen in melancholy

acquiescence, when her son reminded her how short the time was which

they were permitted to pass in each other’s society, and entreated

that it might be spent without useless and unpleasant recollections

respecting the circumstances under which they must soon be separated.

Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some of his father’s other

properties, preserved the haughty masculine spirit which rendered it

impossible to divert him from a resolution which he had deliberately

adopted. She assumed, therefore, an exterior of apparent submission

to their inevitable separation; and if she now and then broke out into

complaints and murmurs, it was either that she could not altogether

suppress the natural impetuosity of her temper, or because she had the

wit to consider that a total and unreserved acquiescence might have

seemed to her son constrained and suspicious, and induced him to watch

and defeat the means by which she still hoped to prevent his leaving

her. Her ardent though selfish affection for her son, incapable of being

qualified by a regard for the true interests of the unfortunate object

of her attachment, resembled the instinctive fondness of the animal race

for their offspring; and diving little farther into futurity than one of

the inferior creatures, she only felt that to be separated from Hamish

was to die.

In the brief interval permitted them, Elspat exhausted every art which

affection could devise, to render agreeable to him the space which they

were apparently to spend with each other. Her memory carried her far

back into former days, and her stores of legendary history, which

furnish at all times a principal amusement of the Highlander in his

moments of repose, were augmented by an unusual acquaintance with the

songs of ancient bards, and traditions of the most approved

seannachies and tellers of tales. Her officious attentions to her son’s

accommodation, indeed, were so unremitted as almost to give him pain,

and he endeavoured quietly to prevent her from taking so much personal

toil in selecting the blooming heath for his bed, or preparing the meal

for his refreshment. “Let me alone, Hamish,” she would reply on such

occasions; “you follow your own will in departing from your mother,

let your mother have hers in doing what gives her pleasure while you

remain.”

So much she seemed to be reconciled to the arrangements which he had

made in her behalf, that she could hear him speak to her of her removing

to the lands of Green Colin, as the gentleman was called, on whose

estate he had provided her an asylum. In truth, however, nothing could

be farther from her thoughts. From what he had said during their first

violent dispute, Elspat had gathered that, if Hamish returned not by the

appointed time permitted by his furlough, he would incur the hazard

of corporal punishment. Were he placed within the risk of being thus

dishonoured, she was well aware that he would never submit to the

disgrace by a return to the regiment where it might be inflicted.

Whether she looked to any farther probable consequences of her unhappy

scheme cannot be known; but the partner of MacTavish Mhor, in all

his perils and wanderings, was familiar with an hundred instances of

resistance or escape, by which one brave man, amidst a land of rocks,

lakes, and mountains, dangerous passes, and dark forests, might baffle

the pursuit of hundreds. For the future, therefore, she feared nothing;

her sole engrossing object was to prevent her son from keeping his word

with his commanding officer.

With this secret purpose, she evaded the proposal which Hamish

repeatedly made, that they should set out together to take possession of

her new abode; and she resisted it upon grounds apparently so natural to

her character that her son was neither alarmed nor displeased. “Let me

not,” she said, “in the same short week, bid farewell to my only son,

and to the glen in which I have so long dwelt. Let my eye, when dimmed

with weeping for thee, still look around, for a while at least, upon

Loch Awe and on Ben Cruachan.”

Hamish yielded the more willingly to his mother’s humour in this

particular, that one or two persons who resided in a neighbouring glen,

and had given their sons to Barcaldine’s levy, were also to be provided

for on the estate of the chieftain, and it was apparently settled that

Elspat was to take her journey along with them when they should remove

to their new residence. Thus, Hamish believed that he had at once

indulged his mother’s humour, and ensured her safety and accommodation.

But she nourished in her mind very different thoughts and projects.

The period of Hamish’s leave of absence was fast approaching, and more

than once he proposed to depart, in such time as to ensure his gaining

easily and early Dunbarton, the town where were the head-quarters of his

regiment. But still his mother’s entreaties, his own natural disposition

to linger among scenes long dear to him, and, above all, his firm

reliance in his speed and activity, induced him to protract his

departure till the sixth day, being the very last which he could

possibly afford to spend with his mother, if indeed he meant to comply

with the conditions of his furlough.

CHAPTER V.

But for your son, believe it--oh, believe it--

Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,

If not most mortal to him. CORIOLANUS.

On the evening which preceded his proposed departure, Hamish walked down

to the river with his fishing-rod, to practise in the Awe, for the last

time, a sport in which he excelled, and to find, at the same time, the

means for making one social meal with his mother on something better

than their ordinary cheer. He was as successful as usual, and soon

killed a fine salmon. On his return homeward an incident befell him,

which he afterwards related as ominous, though probably his heated

imagination, joined to the universal turn of his countrymen for the

marvellous, exaggerated into superstitious importance some very ordinary

and accidental circumstance.

In the path which he pursued homeward, he was surprised to observe a

person, who, like himself, was dressed and armed after the old Highland

fashion. The first idea that struck him was, that the passenger belonged

to his own corps, who, levied by government, and bearing arms under

royal authority, were not amenable for breach of the statutes

against the use of the Highland garb or weapons. But he was struck on

perceiving, as he mended his pace to make up to his supposed comrade,

meaning to request his company for the next day’s journey, that the

stranger wore a white cockade, the fatal badge which was proscribed in

the Highlands. The stature of the man was tall, and there was something

shadowy in the outline, which added to his size; and his mode of motion,

which rather resembled gliding than walking, impressed Hamish with

superstitious fears concerning the character of the being which thus

passed before him in the twilight. He no longer strove to make up to

the stranger, but contented himself with keeping him in view, under

the superstition common to the Highlanders, that you ought neither to

intrude yourself on such supernatural apparitions as you may witness,

nor avoid their presence, but leave it to themselves to withhold or

extend their communication, as their power may permit, or the purpose of

their commission require.

Upon an elevated knoll by the side of the road, just where the pathway

turned down to Elspat’s hut, the stranger made a pause, and seemed to

await Hamish’s coming up. Hamish, on his part, seeing it was necessary

he should pass the object of his suspicion, mustered up his courage,

and approached the spot where the stranger had placed himself; who

first pointed to Elspat’s hut, and made, with arm and head, a gesture

prohibiting Hamish to approach it, then stretched his hand to the road

which led to the southward, with a motion which seemed to enjoin his

instant departure in that direction. In a moment afterwards the plaided

form was gone--Hamish did not exactly say vanished, because there were

rocks and stunted trees enough to have concealed him; but it was his own

opinion that he had seen the spirit of MacTavish Mhor, warning him to

commence his instant journey to Dunbarton, without waiting till morning,

or again visiting his mother’s hut.

In fact, so many accidents might arise to delay his journey, especially

where there were many ferries, that it became his settled purpose,

though he could not depart without bidding his mother adieu, that he

neither could nor would abide longer than for that object; and that

the first glimpse of next day’s sun should see him many miles advanced

towards Dunbarton. He descended the path, therefore, and entering the

cottage, he communicated, in a hasty and troubled voice, which indicated

mental agitation, his determination to take his instant departure.

Somewhat to his surprise, Elspat appeared not to combat his purpose, but

she urged him to take some refreshment ere he left her for ever. He did

so hastily, and in silence, thinking on the approaching separation, and

scarce yet believing it would take place without a final struggle with

his mother’s fondness. To his surprise, she filled the quaigh with

liquor for his parting cup.

“Go,” she said, “my son, since such is thy settled purpose; but first

stand once more on thy mother’s hearth, the flame on which will be

extinguished long ere thy foot shall again be placed there.”

“To your health, mother!” said Hamish; “and may we meet again in

happiness, in spite of your ominous words.”

“It were better not to part,” said his mother, watching him as he

quaffed the liquor, of which he would have held it ominous to have left

a drop.

“And now,” she said, muttering the words to herself, “go--if thou canst

go.”

“Mother,” said Hamish, as he replaced on the table the empty quaigh,

“thy drink is pleasant to the taste, but it takes away the strength

which it ought to give.”

“Such is its first effect, my son,” replied Elspat. “But lie down upon

that soft heather couch, shut your eyes but for a moment, and, in the

sleep of an hour, you shall have more refreshment than in the ordinary

repose of three whole nights, could they be blended into one.”

“Mother,” said Hamish, upon whose brain the potion was now taking rapid

effect, “give me my bonnet--I must kiss you and begone--yet it seems as

if my feet were nailed to the floor.”

“Indeed,” said his mother, “you will be instantly well, if you will sit

down for half an hour--but half an hour. It is eight hours to dawn, and

dawn were time enough for your father’s son to begin such a journey.”

“I must obey you, mother--I feel I must,” said Hamish inarticulately;

“but call me when the moon rises.”