He sat down on the bed, reclined back, and almost instantly was fast

asleep. With the throbbing glee of one who has brought to an end a

difficult and troublesome enterprise, Elspat proceeded tenderly to

arrange the plaid of the unconscious slumberer, to whom her extravagant

affection was doomed to be so fatal, expressing, while busied in her

office, her delight, in tones of mingled tenderness and triumph. “Yes,”

she said, “calf of my heart, the moon shall arise and set to thee, and

so shall the sun; but not to light thee from the land of thy fathers, or

tempt thee to serve the foreign prince or the feudal enemy! To no son of

Dermid shall I be delivered, to be fed like a bondswoman; but he who is

my pleasure and my pride shall be my guard and my protector. They say

the Highlands are changed; but I see Ben Cruachan rear his crest as high

as ever into the evening sky; no one hath yet herded his kine on the

depths of Loch Awe; and yonder oak does not yet bend like a willow.

The children of the mountains will be such as their fathers, until the

mountains themselves shall be levelled with the strath. In these wild

forests, which used to support thousands of the brave, there is still

surely subsistence and refuge left for one aged woman, and one gallant

youth of the ancient race and the ancient manners.”

While the misjudging mother thus exulted in the success of her

stratagem, we may mention to the reader that it was founded on the

acquaintance with drugs and simples which Elspat, accomplished in all

things belonging to the wild life which she had led, possessed in an

uncommon degree, and which she exercised for various purposes. With the

herbs, which she knew how to select as well as how to distil, she

could relieve more diseases than a regular medical person could easily

believe. She applied some to dye the bright colours of the tartan;

from others she compounded draughts of various powers, and unhappily

possessed the secret of one which was strongly soporific. Upon

the effects of this last concoction, as the reader doubtless has

anticipated, she reckoned with security on delaying Hamish beyond the

period for which his return was appointed; and she trusted to his horror

for the apprehended punishment to which he was thus rendered liable, to

prevent him from returning at all.

Sound and deep, beyond natural rest, was the sleep of Hamish MacTavish

on that eventful evening, but not such the repose of his mother. Scarce

did she close her eyes from time to time, but she awakened again with

a start, in the terror that her son had arisen and departed; and it was

only on approaching his couch, and hearing his deep-drawn and regular

breathing, that she reassured herself of the security of the repose in

which he was plunged.

Still, dawning, she feared, might awaken him, notwithstanding the

unusual strength of the potion with which she had drugged his cup. If

there remained a hope of mortal man accomplishing the journey, she was

aware that Hamish would attempt it, though he were to die from fatigue

upon the road. Animated by this new fear, she studied to exclude the

light, by stopping all the crannies and crevices through which, rather

than through any regular entrance, the morning beams might find access

to her miserable dwelling; and this in order to detain amid its wants

and wretchedness the being on whom, if the world itself had been at her

disposal, she would have joyfully conferred it.

Her pains were bestowed unnecessarily. The sun rose high above the

heavens, and not the fleetest stag in Breadalbane, were the hounds at

his heels, could have sped, to save his life, so fast as would have

been necessary to keep Hamish’s appointment. Her purpose was fully

attained--her son’s return within the period assigned was impossible.

She deemed it equally impossible, that he would ever dream of returning,

standing, as he must now do, in the danger of an infamous punishment.

By degrees, and at different times, she had gained from him a full

acquaintance with the predicament in which he would be placed by

failing to appear on the day appointed, and the very small hope he could

entertain of being treated with lenity.

It is well known, that the great and wise Earl of Chatham prided himself

on the scheme, by which he drew together for the defence of the colonies

those hardy Highlanders, who, until his time, had been the objects

of doubt, fear, and suspicion, on the part of each successive

administration. But some obstacles occurred, from the peculiar habits

and temper of this people, to the execution of his patriotic project.

By nature and habit, every Highlander was accustomed to the use of arms,

but at the same time totally unaccustomed to, and impatient of, the

restraints imposed by discipline upon regular troops. They were a

species of militia, who had no conception of a camp as their only home.

If a battle was lost, they dispersed to save themselves, and look out

for the safety of their families; if won, they went back to their glens

to hoard up their booty, and attend to their cattle and their farms.

This privilege of going and coming at pleasure, they would not be

deprived of even by their chiefs, whose authority was in most other

respects so despotic. It followed as a matter of course, that the

new-levied Highland recruits could scarce be made to comprehend the

nature of a military engagement, which compelled a man to serve in the

army longer than he pleased; and perhaps, in many instances, sufficient

care was not taken at enlisting to explain to them the permanency of the

engagement which they came under, lest such a disclosure should induce

them to change their mind. Desertions were therefore become numerous

from the newly-raised regiment, and the veteran general who commanded

at Dunbarton saw no better way of checking them than by causing an

unusually severe example to be made of a deserter from an English corps.

The young Highland regiment was obliged to attend upon the punishment,

which struck a people, peculiarly jealous of personal honour, with equal

horror and disgust, and not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the

service. The old general, however, who had been regularly bred in the

German wars, stuck to his own opinion, and gave out in orders that

the first Highlander who might either desert, or fail to appear at the

expiry of his furlough, should be brought to the halberds, and punished

like the culprit whom they had seen in that condition. No man doubted

that General -- would keep his word rigorously whenever severity was

required, and Elspat, therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived

that due compliance with his orders was impossible, must at the same

time consider the degrading punishment denounced against his defection

as inevitable, should he place himself within the general’s power. [See

Note 10.--Fidelity of the Highlanders.]

When noon was well passed, new apprehensions came on the mind of the

lonely woman. Her son still slept under the influence of the draught;

but what if, being stronger than she had ever known it administered, his

health or his reason should be affected by its potency? For the first

time, likewise, notwithstanding her high ideas on the subject of

parental authority, she began to dread the resentment of her son, whom

her heart told her she had wronged. Of late, she had observed that his

temper was less docile, and his determinations, especially upon this

late occasion of his enlistment, independently formed, and then boldly

carried through. She remembered the stern wilfulness of his father when

he accounted himself ill-used, and began to dread that Hamish, upon

finding the deceit she had put upon him, might resent it even to the

extent of cutting her off, and pursuing his own course through the world

alone. Such were the alarming and yet the reasonable apprehensions which

began to crowd upon the unfortunate woman, after the apparent success of

her ill-advised stratagem.

It was near evening when Hamish first awoke, and then he was far from

being in the full possession either of his mental or bodily powers. From

his vague expressions and disordered pulse, Elspat at first experienced

much apprehension; but she used such expedients as her medical knowledge

suggested, and in the course of the night she had the satisfaction to

see him sink once more into a deep sleep, which probably carried off the

greater part of the effects of the drug, for about sunrising she heard

him arise, and call to her for his bonnet. This she had purposely

removed, from a fear that he might awaken and depart in the night-time,

without her knowledge.

“My bonnet--my bonnet,” cried Hamish; “it is time to take farewell.

Mother, your drink was too strong--the sun is up--but with the next

morning I will still see the double summit of the ancient Dun. My

bonnet--my bonnet, mother; I must be instant in my departure.” These

expressions made it plain that poor Hamish was unconscious that two

nights and a day had passed since he had drained the fatal quaigh, and

Elspat had now to venture on what she felt as the almost perilous, as

well as painful, task of explaining her machinations.

“Forgive me, my son,” she said, approaching Hamish, and taking him

by the hand with an air of deferential awe, which perhaps she had not

always used to his father, even when in his moody fits.

“Forgive you, mother!--for what?” said Hamish, laughing; “for giving me

a dram that was too strong, and which my head still feels this morning,

or for hiding my bonnet to keep me an instant longer? Nay, do YOU

forgive ME. Give me the bonnet, and let that be done which now must

be done. Give me my bonnet, or I go without it; surely I am not to be

delayed by so trifling a want as that--I, who have gone for years with

only a strap of deer’s hide to tie back my hair. Trifle not, but give it

me, or I must go bareheaded, since to stay is impossible.”

“My son,” said Elspat, keeping fast hold of his hand, “what is done

cannot be recalled. Could you borrow the wings of yonder eagle, you

would arrive at the Dun too late for what you purpose--too soon for what

awaits you there. You believe you see the sun rising for the first

time since you have seen him set; but yesterday beheld him climb Ben

Cruachan, though your eyes were closed to his light.”

Hamish cast upon his mother a wild glance of extreme terror, then

instantly recovering himself, said, “I am no child to be cheated out

of my purpose by such tricks as these. Farewell, mother! each moment is

worth a lifetime.”

“Stay,” she said, “my dear, my deceived son, run not on infamy and ruin.

Yonder I see the priest upon the high-road on his white horse. Ask him

the day of the month and week; let him decide between us.”

With the speed of an eagle, Hamish darted up the acclivity, and stood by

the minister of Glenorquhy, who was pacing out thus early to administer

consolation to a distressed family near Bunawe.

The good man was somewhat startled to behold an armed Highlander, then

so unusual a sight, and apparently much agitated, stop his horse by

the bridle, and ask him with a faltering voice the day of the week and

month. “Had you been where you should have been yesterday, young man,”

replied the clergyman, “you would have known that it was God’s Sabbath;

and that this is Monday, the second day of the week, and twenty-first of

the month.”

“And this is true?” said Hamish.

“As true,” answered the surprised minister, “as that I yesterday

preached the word of God to this parish. What ails you, young man?--are

you sick?--are you in your right mind?”

Hamish made no answer, only repeated to himself the first expression of

the clergyman, “Had you been where you should have been yesterday;” and

so saying, he let go the bridle, turned from the road, and descended

the path towards the hut, with the look and pace of one who was going to

execution. The minister looked after him with surprise; but although

he knew the inhabitant of the hovel, the character of Elspat had

not invited him to open any communication with her, because she was

generally reputed a Papist, or rather one indifferent to all religion,

except some superstitious observances which had been handed down from

her parents. On Hamish the Reverend Mr. Tyrie had bestowed instructions

when he was occasionally thrown in his way; and if the seed fell among

the brambles and thorns of a wild and uncultivated disposition, it

had not yet been entirely checked or destroyed. There was something so

ghastly in the present expression of the youth’s features that the

good man was tempted to go down to the hovel, and inquire whether any

distress had befallen the inhabitants, in which his presence might be

consoling and his ministry useful. Unhappily he did not persevere in

this resolution, which might have saved a great misfortune, as he would

have probably become a mediator for the unfortunate young man; but a

recollection of the wild moods of such Highlanders as had been educated

after the old fashion of the country, prevented his interesting himself

in the widow and son of the far-dreaded robber, MacTavish Mhor, and

he thus missed an opportunity, which he afterwards sorely repented, of

doing much good.

When Hamish MacTavish entered his mother’s hut, it was only to throw

himself on the bed he had left, and exclaiming, “Undone, undone!” to

give vent, in cries of grief and anger, to his deep sense of the deceit

which had been practised on him, and of the cruel predicament to which

he was reduced.

Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son’s passion, and

said to herself, “It is but the mountain torrent, swelled by the thunder

shower. Let us sit and rest us by the bank; for all its present tumult,

the time will soon come when we may pass it dryshod.” She suffered his

complaints and his reproaches, which were, even in the midst of his

agony, respectful and affectionate, to die away without returning any

answer; and when, at length, having exhausted all the exclamations of

sorrow which his language, copious in expressing the feelings of the

heart, affords to the sufferer, he sunk into a gloomy silence, she

suffered the interval to continue near an hour ere she approached her

son’s couch.

“And now,” she said at length, with a voice in which the authority of

the mother was qualified by her tenderness, “have you exhausted your

idle sorrows, and are you able to place what you have gained against

what you have lost? Is the false son of Dermid your brother, or the

father of your tribe, that you weep because you cannot bind yourself

to his belt, and become one of those who must do his bidding? Could

you find in yonder distant country the lakes and the mountains that

you leave behind you here? Can you hunt the deer of Breadalbane in

the forests of America, or will the ocean afford you the silver-scaled

salmon of the Awe? Consider, then, what is your loss, and, like a wise

man, set it against what you have won.”

“I have lost all, mother,” replied Hamish, “since I have broken my word,

and lost my honour. I might tell my tale, but who, oh, who would believe

me?” The unfortunate young man again clasped his hands together, and,

pressing them to his forehead, hid his face upon the bed.

Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps wished the fatal deceit had

been left unattempted. She had no hope or refuge saving in the eloquence

of persuasion, of which she possessed no small share, though her total

ignorance of the world as it actually existed rendered its energy

unavailing. She urged her son, by every tender epithet which a parent

could bestow, to take care for his own safety.

“Leave me,” she said, “to baffle your pursuers. I will save your life--I

will save your honour. I will tell them that my fair-haired Hamish fell

from the Corrie Dhu (black precipice) into the gulf, of which human eye

never beheld the bottom. I will tell them this, and I will fling your

plaid on the thorns which grow on the brink of the precipice, that they

may believe my words. They will believe, and they will return to the Dun

of the double-crest; for though the Saxon drum can call the living to

die, it cannot recall the dead to their slavish standard. Then will we

travel together far northward to the salt lakes of Kintail, and place

glens and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid. We will visit the

shores of the dark lake; and my kinsmen--for was not my mother of

the children of Kenneth, and will they not remember us with the old

love?--my kinsmen will receive us with the affection of the olden time,

which lives in those distant glens, where the Gael still dwell in their

nobleness, unmingled with the churl Saxons, or with the base brood that

are their tools and their slaves.”

The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, even in its

most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too weak to afford Elspat

the means of bringing out the splendid picture which she presented to

her son of the land in which she proposed to him to take refuge. Yet the

colours were few with which she could paint her Highland paradise.

“The hills,” she said, “were higher and more magnificent than those of

Breadalbane--Ben Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. The lakes

were broader and larger, and abounded not only with fish, but with the

enchanted and amphibious animal which gives oil to the lamp. [The seals

are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted princes.] The deer were

larger and more numerous; the white-tusked boar, the chase of which the

brave loved best, was yet to be roused in those western solitudes; the

men were nobler, wiser, and stronger than the degenerate brood who lived

under the Saxon banner. The daughters of the land were beautiful, with

blue eyes and fair hair, and bosoms of snow; and out of these she would

choose a wife for Hamish, of blameless descent, spotless fame, fixed

and true affection, who should be in their summer bothy as a beam of the

sun, and in their winter abode as the warmth of the needful fire.”

Such were the topics with which Elspat strove to soothe the despair of

her son, and to determine him, if possible, to leave the fatal spot,

on which he seemed resolved to linger. The style of her rhetoric was

poetical, but in other respects resembled that which, like other fond

mothers, she had lavished on Hamish, while a child or a boy, in order

to gain his consent to do something he had no mind to; and she spoke

louder, quicker, and more earnestly, in proportion as she began to

despair of her words carrying conviction.

On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no impression. He knew far

better than she did the actual situation of the country, and was

sensible that, though it might be possible to hide himself as a fugitive

among more distant mountains, there was now no corner in the Highlands

in which his father’s profession could be practised, even if he had not

adopted, from the improved ideas of the time when he lived, the opinion

that the trade of the cateran was no longer the road to honour and

distinction. Her words were therefore poured into regardless ears, and

she exhausted herself in vain in the attempt to paint the regions of her

mother’s kinsmen in such terms as might tempt Hamish to accompany her

thither. She spoke for hours, but she spoke in vain. She could extort no

answer, save groans and sighs and ejaculations, expressing the extremity

of despair.

At length, starting on her feet, and changing the monotonous tone

in which she had chanted, as it were, the praises of the province of

refuge, into the short, stern language of eager passion--“I am a fool,”

she said, “to spend my words upon an idle, poor-spirited, unintelligent

boy, who crouches like a hound to the lash. Wait here, and receive your

taskmasters, and abide your chastisement at their hands; but do not

think your mother’s eyes will behold it. I could not see it and live. My

eyes have looked often upon death, but never upon dishonour. Farewell,

Hamish! We never meet again.”

She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the moment

actually entertained the purpose which she expressed, of parting with

her son for ever. A fearful sight she would have been that evening

to any who might have met her wandering through the wilderness like a

restless spirit, and speaking to herself in language which will endure

no translation. She rambled for hours, seeking rather than shunning the

most dangerous paths. The precarious track through the morass, the dizzy

path along the edge of the precipice or by the banks of the gulfing

river, were the roads which, far from avoiding, she sought with

eagerness, and traversed with reckless haste. But the courage arising

from despair was the means of saving the life which (though deliberate

suicide was rarely practised in the Highlands) she was perhaps desirous

of terminating. Her step on the verge of the precipice was firm as that

of the wild goat. Her eye, in that state of excitation, was so keen as

to discern, even amid darkness, the perils which noon would not have

enabled a stranger to avoid.

Elspat’s course was not directly forward, else she had soon been far

from the bothy in which she had left her son. It was circuitous, for

that hut was the centre to which her heartstrings were chained, and

though she wandered around it, she felt it impossible to leave the

vicinity. With the first beams of morning she returned to the hut.

Awhile she paused at the wattled door, as if ashamed that lingering

fondness should have brought her back to the spot which she had left

with the purpose of never returning; but there was yet more of fear

and anxiety in her hesitation--of anxiety, lest her fair-haired son had

suffered from the effects of her potion--of fear, lest his enemies had

come upon him in the night. She opened the door of the hut gently, and

entered with noiseless step. Exhausted with his sorrow and anxiety, and

not entirely relieved perhaps from the influence of the powerful opiate,

Hamish Bean again slept the stern, sound sleep by which the Indians are

said to be overcome during the interval of their torments. His mother

was scarcely sure that she actually discerned his form on the bed,

scarce certain that her ear caught the sound of his breathing. With a

throbbing heart, Elspat went to the fireplace in the centre of the hut,

where slumbered, covered with a piece of turf, the glimmering embers of

the fire, never extinguished on a Scottish hearth until the indwellers

leave the mansion for ever.

“Feeble greishogh,” [Greishogh, a glowing ember.] she said, as she

lighted, by the help of a match, a splinter of bog pine which was to

serve the place of a candle--“weak greishogh, soon shalt thou be put out

for ever, and may Heaven grant that the life of Elspat MacTavish have no

longer duration than thine!”

While she spoke she raised the blazing light towards the bed, on which

still lay the prostrate limbs of her son, in a posture that left it

doubtful whether he slept or swooned. As she advanced towards him, the

light flashed upon his eyes--he started up in an instant, made a stride

forward with his naked dirk in his hand, like a man armed to meet a

mortal enemy, and exclaimed, “Stand off!--on thy life, stand off!”

“It is the word and the action of my husband,” answered Elspat; “and I

know by his speech and his step the son of MacTavish Mhor.”

“Mother,” said Hamish, relapsing from his tone of desperate firmness

into one of melancholy expostulation--“oh, dearest mother, wherefore

have you returned hither?”

“Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn,” said Elspat, “why the cat of

the mountain returns to her lodge and her young. Know you, Hamish, that

the heart of the mother only lives in the bosom of the child.”

“Then will it soon cease to throb,” said Hamish, “unless it can beat

within a bosom that lies beneath the turf. Mother, do not blame me. If

I weep, it is not for myself but for you; for my sufferings will soon be

over, but yours--oh, who but Heaven shall set a boundary to them?”

Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but almost instantly resumed her

firm and upright position and her dauntless bearing.

“I thought thou wert a man but even now,” she said, “and thou art again

a child. Hearken to me yet, and let us leave this place together. Have I

done thee wrong or injury? if so, yet do not avenge it so cruelly.

See, Elspat MacTavish, who never kneeled before even to a priest, falls

prostrate before her own son, and craves his forgiveness.” And at once

she threw herself on her knees before the young man, seized on his hand,

and kissing it an hundred times, repeated as often, in heart-breaking

accents, the most earnest entreaties for forgiveness. “Pardon,” she

exclaimed, “pardon, for the sake of your father’s ashes--pardon, for the

sake of the pain with which I bore thee, the care with which I nurtured

thee!--Hear it, Heaven, and behold it, Earth--the mother asks pardon of

her child, and she is refused!”

It was in vain that Hamish endeavoured to stem this tide of passion, by

assuring his mother, with the most solemn asseverations, that he forgave

entirely the fatal deceit which she had practised upon him.

“Empty words,” she said, “idle protestations, which are but used to hide

the obduracy of your resentment. Would you have me believe you, then

leave the hut this instant, and retire from a country which every hour

renders more dangerous. Do this, and I may think you have forgiven me;

refuse it, and again I call on moon and stars, heaven and earth, to

witness the unrelenting resentment with which you prosecute your mother

for a fault, which, if it be one, arose out of love to you.”

“Mother,” said Hamish, “on this subject you move me not. I will fly

before no man. If Barcaldine should send every Gael that is under his

banner, here, and in this place, will I abide them; and when you bid

me fly, you may as well command yonder mountain to be loosened from

its foundations. Had I been sure of the road by which they are coming

hither, I had spared them the pains of seeking me; but I might go by the

mountain, while they perchance came by the lake. Here I will abide my

fate; nor is there in Scotland a voice of power enough to bid me stir

from hence, and be obeyed.”

“Here, then, I also stay,” said Elspat, rising up and speaking with

assumed composure. “I have seen my husband’s death--my eyelids shall not

grieve to look on the fall of my son. But MacTavish Mhor died as became

the brave, with his good sword in his right hand; my son will perish

like the bullock that is driven to the shambles by the Saxon owner who

had bought him for a price.”

“Mother,” said the unhappy young man, “you have taken my life. To that

you have a right, for you gave it; but touch not my honour! It came to

me from a brave train of ancestors, and should be sullied neither by

man’s deed nor woman’s speech. What I shall do, perhaps I myself yet

know not; but tempt me no farther by reproachful words--you have already

made wounds more than you can ever heal.”

“It is well, my son,” said Elspat, in reply. “Expect neither farther

complaint nor remonstrance from me; but let us be silent, and wait the

chance which Heaven shall send us.”

The sun arose on the next morning, and found the bothy silent as the

grave. The mother and son had arisen, and were engaged each in their

separate task--Hamish in preparing and cleaning his arms with the

greatest accuracy, but with an air of deep dejection. Elspat, more

restless in her agony of spirit, employed herself in making ready the

food which the distress of yesterday had induced them both to dispense

with for an unusual number of hours. She placed it on the board before

her son so soon as it was prepared, with the words of a Gaelic poet,

“Without daily food, the husbandman’s ploughshare stands still in the

furrow; without daily food, the sword of the warrior is too heavy for

his hand. Our bodies are our slaves, yet they must be fed if we would

have their service. So spake in ancient days the Blind Bard to the

warriors of Fion.”

The young man made no reply, but he fed on what was placed before him,

as if to gather strength for the scene which he was to undergo. When

his mother saw that he had eaten what sufficed him, she again filled the

fatal quaigh, and proffered it as the conclusion of the repast. But he

started aside with a convulsive gesture, expressive at once of fear and

abhorrence.

“Nay, my son,” she said, “this time surely, thou hast no cause of fear.”

“Urge me not, mother,” answered Hamish--“or put the leprous toad into

a flagon, and I will drink; but from that accursed cup, and of that

mind-destroying potion, never will I taste more!”

“At your pleasure, my son,” said Elspat, haughtily, and began, with

much apparent assiduity, the various domestic tasks which had been

interrupted during the preceding day. Whatever was at her heart, all

anxiety seemed banished from her looks and demeanour. It was but from an

over-activity of bustling exertion that it might have been perceived, by

a close observer, that her actions were spurred by some internal cause

of painful excitement; and such a spectator, too, might also have

observed how often she broke off the snatches of songs or tunes which

she hummed, apparently without knowing what she was doing, in order to

cast a hasty glance from the door of the hut. Whatever might be in the

mind of Hamish, his demeanour was directly the reverse of that adopted

by his mother. Having finished the task of cleaning and preparing his

arms, which he arranged within the hut, he sat himself down before

the door of the bothy, and watched the opposite hill, like the fixed

sentinel who expects the approach of an enemy. Noon found him in the

same unchanged posture, and it was an hour after that period, when his

mother, standing beside him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said, in

a tone indifferent, as if she had been talking of some friendly visit,

“When dost thou expect them?”

“They cannot be here till the shadows fall long to the eastward,”

replied Hamish; “that is, even supposing the nearest party, commanded by

Sergeant Allan Breack Cameron, has been commanded hither by express from

Dunbarton, as it is most likely they will.”

“Then enter beneath your mother’s roof once more; partake the last time

of the food which she has prepared; after this, let them come, and thou

shalt see if thy mother is an useless encumbrance in the day of strife.

Thy hand, practised as it is, cannot fire these arms so fast as I can

load them; nay, if it is necessary, I do not myself fear the flash or

the report, and my aim has been held fatal.”

“In the name of Heaven, mother, meddle not with this matter!” said

Hamish. “Allan Breack is a wise man and a kind one, and comes of a good

stem. It may be, he can promise for our officers that they will touch

me with no infamous punishment; and if they offer me confinement in the

dungeon, or death by the musket, to that I may not object.”

“Alas, and wilt thou trust to their word, my foolish child? Remember the

race of Dermid were ever fair and false; and no sooner shall they have

gyves on thy hands, than they will strip thy shoulders for the scourge.”

“Save your advice, mother,” said Hamish, sternly; “for me, my mind is

made up.”

But though he spoke thus, to escape the almost persecuting urgency of

his mother, Hamish would have found it, at that moment, impossible to

say upon what course of conduct he had thus fixed. On one point alone he

was determined--namely, to abide his destiny, be what it might, and not

to add to the breach of his word, of which he had been involuntarily

rendered guilty, by attempting to escape from punishment. This act of

self-devotion he conceived to be due to his own honour and that of his

countrymen. Which of his comrades would in future be trusted, if

he should be considered as having broken his word, and betrayed the

confidence of his officers? and whom but Hamish Bean MacTavish would the

Gael accuse for having verified and confirmed the suspicions which the

Saxon General was well known to entertain against the good faith of

the Highlanders? He was, therefore, bent firmly to abide his fate. But

whether his intention was to yield himself peaceably into the bands of

the party who should come to apprehend him, or whether he purposed, by

a show of resistance, to provoke them to kill him on the spot, was a

question which he could not himself have answered. His desire to see

Barcaldine, and explain the cause of his absence at the appointed time,

urged him to the one course; his fear of the degrading punishment, and

of his mother’s bitter upbraidings, strongly instigated the latter and

the more dangerous purpose. He left it to chance to decide when the

crisis should arrive; nor did he tarry long in expectation of the

catastrophe.

Evening approached; the gigantic shadows of the mountains streamed in

darkness towards the east, while their western peaks were still glowing

with crimson and gold. The road which winds round Ben Cruachan was

fully visible from the door of the bothy, when a party of five Highland

soldiers, whose arms glanced in the sun, wheeled suddenly into sight

from the most distant extremity, where the highway is hidden behind the

mountain. One of the party walked a little before the other four, who

marched regularly and in files, according to the rules of military

discipline. There was no dispute, from the firelocks which they carried,

and the plaids and bonnets which they wore, that they were a party of

Hamish’s regiment, under a non-commissioned officer; and there could be

as little doubt of the purpose of their appearance on the banks of Loch

Awe.

“They come briskly forward”--said the widow of MacTavish Mhor;--“I

wonder how fast or how slow some of them will return again! But they

are five, and it is too much odds for a fair field. Step back within the

hut, my son, and shoot from the loophole beside the door. Two you may

bring down ere they quit the highroad for the footpath--there will

remain but three; and your father, with my aid, has often stood against

that number.”

Hamish Bean took the gun which his mother offered, but did not stir from

the door of the hut. He was soon visible to the party on the highroad,

as was evident from their increasing their pace to a run--the files,

however, still keeping together like coupled greyhounds, and advancing

with great rapidity. In far less time than would have been accomplished

by men less accustomed to the mountains, they had left the highroad,

traversed the narrow path, and approached within pistol-shot of the

bothy, at the door of which stood Hamish, fixed like a statue of stone,

with his firelock in his band, while his mother, placed behind him, and

almost driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions, reproached

him in the strongest terms which despair could invent, for his want of

resolution and faintness of heart. Her words increased the bitter gall

which was arising in the young man’s own spirit, as he observed the

unfriendly speed with which his late comrades were eagerly making

towards him, like hounds towards the stag when he is at bay. The untamed

and angry passions which he inherited from father and mother, were

awakened by the supposed hostility of those who pursued him; and the

restraint under which these passions had been hitherto held by his sober

judgment began gradually to give way. The sergeant now called to him,

“Hamish Bean MacTavish, lay down your arms and surrender.”

“Do YOU stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and command your men to stand, or

it will be the worse for us all.”

“Halt, men,” said the sergeant, but continuing himself to advance.

“Hamish, think what you do, and give up your gun; you may spill blood,

but you cannot escape punishment.”

“The scourge--the scourge--my son, beware the scourge!” whispered his

mother.

“Take heed, Allan Breack,” said Hamish. “I would not hurt you willingly,

but I will not be taken unless you can assure me against the Saxon

lash.”

“Fool!” answered Cameron, “you know I cannot. Yet I will do all I can. I

will say I met you on your return, and the punishment will be light; but

give up your musket--Come on, men.”

Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm as if to push aside the

young man’s levelled firelock. Elspat exclaimed, “Now, spare not your

father’s blood to defend your father’s hearth!” Hamish fired his piece,

and Cameron dropped dead. All these things happened, it might be said,

in the same moment of time. The soldiers rushed forward and seized

Hamish, who, seeming petrified with what he had done, offered not the

least resistance. Not so his mother, who, seeing the men about to put

handcuffs on her son, threw herself on the soldiers with such fury,

that it required two of them to hold her, while the rest secured the

prisoner.

“Are you not an accursed creature,” said one of the men to Hamish, “to

have slain your best friend, who was contriving, during the whole march,

how he could find some way of getting you off without punishment for

your desertion?”

“Do you hear THAT, mother?” said Hamish, turning himself as much towards

her as his bonds would permit; but the mother heard nothing, and saw

nothing. She had fainted on the floor of her hut. Without waiting for

her recovery, the party almost immediately began their homeward march

towards Dunbarton, leading along with them their prisoner. They thought

it necessary, however, to stay for a little space at the village of

Dalmally, from which they despatched a party of the inhabitants to

bring away the body of their unfortunate leader, while they themselves

repaired to a magistrate, to state what had happened, and require his

instructions as to the farther course to be pursued. The crime being

of a military character, they were instructed to march the prisoner to

Dunbarton without delay.

The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for a length of time--the

longer perhaps that her constitution, strong as it was, must have been

much exhausted by her previous agitation of three days’ endurance. She

was roused from her stupor at length by female voices, which cried

the coronach, or lament for the dead, with clapping of hands and loud

exclamations; while the melancholy note of a lament, appropriate to the

clan Cameron, played on the bagpipe, was heard from time to time.

Elspat started up like one awakened from the dead, and without any

accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before her eyes.

There were females in the hut who were swathing the corpse in its

bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal spot. “Women,” she said,

starting up and interrupting their chant at once and their labour--“Tell

me, women, why sing you the dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of

MacTavish Mhor?”

“She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell,” answered one of the

females, a relation of the deceased, “and let us do our duty to our

beloved kinsman. There shall never be coronach cried, or dirge played,

for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd. [Wolf-brood--that is, wolf-cub.] The

ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and the foxes and wild-cats shall

tear thy corpse upon the hill. Cursed be he that would sain [Bless.]

your bones, or add a stone to your cairn!”

“Daughter of a foolish mother,” answered the widow of MacTavish Mhor,

“know that the gibbet with which you threaten us is no portion of our

inheritance. For thirty years the Black Tree of the Law, whose apples

are dead men’s bodies, hungered after the beloved husband of my heart;

but he died like a brave man, with the sword in his hand, and defrauded

it of its hopes and its fruit.”

“So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress,” replied the

female mourner, whose passions were as violent as those of Elspat

herself. “The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line their nests,

before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish islands.”

These words recalled to Elspat’s mind the whole history of the last

three dreadful days. At first she stood fixed, as if the extremity of

distress had converted her into stone; but in a minute, the pride and

violence of her temper, outbraved as she thought herself on her own

threshold, enabled her to reply, “Yes, insulting hag, my fair-haired boy

may die, but it will not be with a white hand. It has been dyed in the

blood of his enemy, in the best blood of a Cameron--remember that; and

when you lay your dead in his grave, let it be his best epitaph that

he was killed by Hamish Bean for essaying to lay hands on the son of

MacTavish Mhor on his own threshold. Farewell--the shame of defeat,

loss, and slaughter remain with the clan that has endured it!”

The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised her voice in reply; but

Elspat, disdaining to continue the objurgation, or perhaps feeling her

grief likely to overmaster her power of expressing her resentment, had

left the hut, and was walking forth in the bright moonshine.

The females who were arranging the corpse of the slaughtered man hurried

from their melancholy labour to look after her tall figure as it glided

away among the cliffs. “I am glad she is gone,” said one of the younger

persons who assisted. “I would as soon dress a corpse when the great

fiend himself--God sain us!--stood visibly before us, as when Elspat of

the Tree is amongst us. Ay, ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she had

with the enemy in her day.”

“Silly woman,” answered the female who had maintained the dialogue

with the departed Elspat, “thinkest thou that there is a worse fiend on

earth, or beneath it, than the pride and fury of an offended woman, like

yonder bloody-minded hag? Know that blood has been as familiar to her as

the dew to the mountain daisy. Many and many a brave man has she caused

to breathe their last for little wrong they had done to her or theirs.

But her hough-sinews are cut, now that her wolf-burd must, like a

murderer as he is, make a murderer’s end.”

Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as they watched the corpse of

Allan Breack Cameron, the unhappy cause of his death pursued her lonely

way across the mountain. While she remained within sight of the bothy,

she put a strong constraint on herself, that by no alteration of pace or

gesture she might afford to her enemies the triumph of calculating the

excess of her mental agitation, nay, despair. She stalked, therefore,

with a slow rather than a swift step, and, holding herself upright,

seemed at once to endure with firmness that woe which was passed, and

bid defiance to that which was about to come. But when she was beyond

the sight of those who remained in the hut, she could no longer suppress

the extremity of her agitation. Drawing her mantle wildly round her,

she stopped at the first knoll, and climbing to its summit, extended

her arms up to the bright moon, as if accusing heaven and earth for her

misfortunes, and uttered scream on scream, like those of an eagle whose

nest has been plundered of her brood. Awhile she vented her grief

in these inarticulate cries, then rushed on her way with a hasty

and unequal step, in the vain hope of overtaking the party which was

conveying her son a prisoner to Dunbarton. But her strength, superhuman

as it seemed, failed her in the trial; nor was it possible for her, with

her utmost efforts, to accomplish her purpose.

Yet she pressed onward, with all the speed which her exhausted frame

could exert. When food became indispensable, she entered the first

cottage. “Give me to eat,” she said. “I am the widow of MacTavish

Mhor--I am the mother of Hamish MacTavish Bean,--give me to eat, that

I may once more see my fair-haired son.” Her demand was never refused,

though granted in many cases with a kind of struggle between compassion

and aversion in some of those to whom she applied, which was in others

qualified by fear. The share she had had in occasioning the death of

Allan Breack Cameron, which must probably involve that of her own son,

was not accurately known; but, from a knowledge of her violent passions

and former habits of life, no one doubted that in one way or other she

had been the cause of the catastrophe, and Hamish Bean was considered,

in the slaughter which he had committed, rather as the instrument than

as the accomplice of his mother.

This general opinion of his countrymen was of little service to the

unfortunate Hamish. As his captain, Green Colin, understood the manners

and habits of his country, he had no difficulty in collecting from

Hamish the particulars accompanying his supposed desertion, and the

subsequent death of the non-commissioned officer. He felt the utmost

compassion for a youth, who had thus fallen a victim to the extravagant

and fatal fondness of a parent. But he had no excuse to plead which

could rescue his unhappy recruit from the doom which military discipline

and the award of a court-martial denounced against him for the crime he

had committed.

No time had been lost in their proceedings, and as little was interposed

betwixt sentence and execution. General -- had determined to make a

severe example of the first deserter who should fall into his power, and

here was one who had defended himself by main force, and slain in the

affray the officer sent to take him into custody. A fitter subject

for punishment could not have occurred, and Hamish was sentenced to

immediate execution. All which the interference of his captain in his

favour could procure was that he should die a soldier’s death; for there

had been a purpose of executing him upon the gibbet.

The worthy clergyman of Glenorquhy chanced to be at Dunbarton, in

attendance upon some church courts, at the time of this catastrophe. He

visited his unfortunate parishioner in his dungeon, found him ignorant

indeed, but not obstinate, and the answers which he received from him,

when conversing on religious topics, were such as induced him doubly

to regret that a mind naturally pure and noble should have remained

unhappily so wild and uncultivated.

When he ascertained the real character and disposition of the young man,

the worthy pastor made deep and painful reflections on his own shyness

and timidity, which, arising out of the evil fame that attached to the

lineage of Hamish, had restrained him from charitably endeavouring to

bring this strayed sheep within the great fold. While the good minister

blamed his cowardice in times past, which had deterred him from risking

his person, to save, perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved no longer to

be governed by such timid counsels, but to endeavour, by application to

his officers, to obtain a reprieve, at least, if not a pardon, for the

criminal, in whom he felt so unusually interested, at once from his

docility of temper and his generosity of disposition.

Accordingly the divine sought out Captain Campbell at the barracks

within the garrison. There was a gloomy melancholy on the brow of Green

Colin, which was not lessened, but increased, when the clergyman stated

his name, quality, and errand. “You cannot tell me better of the young

man than I am disposed to believe,” answered the Highland officer; “you

cannot ask me to do more in his behalf than I am of myself inclined,

and have already endeavoured to do. But it is all in vain. General --

is half a Lowlander, half an Englishman. He has no idea of the high and

enthusiastic character which in these mountains often brings exalted

virtues in contact with great crimes, which, however, are less offences

of the heart than errors of the understanding. I have gone so far as to

tell him, that in this young man he was putting to death the best and

the bravest of my company, where all, or almost all, are good and brave.

I explained to him by what strange delusion the culprit’s apparent

desertion was occasioned, and how little his heart was accessory to the

crime which his hand unhappily committed. His answer was, ‘These are

Highland visions, Captain Campbell, as unsatisfactory and vain as those

of the second sight. An act of gross desertion may, in any case, be

palliated under the plea of intoxication; the murder of an officer may

be as easily coloured over with that of temporary insanity. The example

must be made, and if it has fallen on a man otherwise a good recruit,

it will have the greater effect.’ Such being the general’s unalterable

purpose,” continued Captain Campbell, with a sigh, “be it your care,

reverend sir, that your penitent prepare by break of day tomorrow for

that great change which we shall all one day be subjected to.”

“And for which,” said the clergyman, “may God prepare us all, as I in my

duty will not be wanting to this poor youth!”

Next morning, as the very earliest beams of sunrise saluted the grey

towers which crown the summit of that singular and tremendous rock, the

soldiers of the new Highland regiment appeared on the parade, within

the Castle of Dunbarton, and having fallen into order, began to move

downward by steep staircases, and narrow passages towards the external

barrier-gate, which is at the very bottom of the rock. The wild wailings

of the pibroch were heard at times, interchanged with the drums and

fifes, which beat the Dead March.

The unhappy criminal’s fate did not, at first, excite that general

sympathy in the regiment which would probably have arisen had he been

executed for desertion alone. The slaughter of the unfortunate Allan

Breack had given a different colour to Hamish’s offence; for the

deceased was much beloved, and besides belonged to a numerous and

powerful clan, of whom there were many in the ranks. The unfortunate

criminal, on the contrary, was little known to, and scarcely connected

with, any of his regimental companions. His father had been, indeed,

distinguished for his strength and manhood; but he was of a broken clan,

as those names were called who had no chief to lead them to battle.

It would have been almost impossible in another case to have turned out

of the ranks of the regiment the party necessary for execution of

the sentence; but the six individuals selected for that purpose,

were friends of the deceased, descended, like him, from the race of

MacDhonuil Dhu; and while they prepared for the dismal task which their

duty imposed, it was not without a stern feeling of gratified revenge.

The leading company of the regiment began now to defile from the

barrier-gate, and was followed by the others, each successively moving

and halting according to the orders of the adjutant, so as to form three

sides of an oblong square, with the ranks faced inwards. The fourth, or

blank side of the square, was closed up by the huge and lofty precipice

on which the Castle rises. About the centre of the procession,

bare-headed, disarmed, and with his hands bound, came the unfortunate

victim of military law. He was deadly pale, but his step was firm and

his eye as bright as ever. The clergyman walked by his side; the coffin,

which was to receive his mortal remains, was borne before him. The looks

of his comrades were still, composed, and solemn. They felt for the

youth, whose handsome form and manly yet submissive deportment had, as

soon as he was distinctly visible to them, softened the hearts of many,

even of some who had been actuated by vindictive feelings.

The coffin destined for the yet living body of Hamish Bean was placed at

the bottom of the hollow square, about two yards distant from the foot

of the precipice, which rises in that place as steep as a stone wall to

the height of three or four hundred feet. Thither the prisoner was

also led, the clergyman still continuing by his side, pouring forth

exhortations of courage and consolation, to which the youth appeared

to listen with respectful devotion. With slow, and, it seemed, almost

unwilling steps, the firing party entered the square, and were drawn

up facing the prisoner, about ten yards distant. The clergyman was now

about to retire. “Think, my son,” he said, “on what I have told you, and

let your hope be rested on the anchor which I have given. You will then

exchange a short and miserable existence here for a life in which you

will experience neither sorrow nor pain. Is there aught else which you

can entrust to me to execute for you?”

The youth looked at his sleeve buttons. They were of gold, booty perhaps

which his father had taken from some English officer during the civil

wars. The clergyman disengaged them from his sleeves.

“My mother!” he said with some effort--“give them to my poor mother! See

her, good father, and teach her what she should think of all this. Tell

her Hamish Bean is more glad to die than ever he was to rest after the

longest day’s hunting. Farewell, sir--farewell!”

The good man could scarce retire from the fatal spot. An officer

afforded him the support of his arm. At his last look towards Hamish,

he beheld him alive and kneeling on the coffin; the few that were around

him had all withdrawn. The fatal word was given, the rock rung sharp to

the sound of the discharge, and Hamish, falling forward with a groan,

died, it may be supposed, without almost a sense of the passing agony.

Ten or twelve of his own company then came forward, and laid with solemn

reverence the remains of their comrade in the coffin, while the Dead

March was again struck up, and the several companies, marching in single

files, passed the coffin one by one, in order that all might receive

from the awful spectacle the warning which it was peculiarly intended to

afford. The regiment was then marched off the ground, and reascended the

ancient cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking lively

strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short a while as

possible be the tenant of the soldier’s bosom.

At the same time the small party, which we before mentioned, bore the

bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a corner of the

churchyard of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals. Here, among the

dust of the guilty, lies a youth, whose name, had he survived the ruin

of the fatal events by which he was hurried into crime, might have

adorned the annals of the brave.

The minister of Glenorquhy left Dunbarton immediately after he had

witnessed the last scene of this melancholy catastrophe. His reason

acquiesced in the justice of the sentence, which required blood

for blood, and he acknowledged that the vindictive character of his

countrymen required to be powerfully restrained by the strong curb of

social law. But still he mourned over the individual victim. Who may

arraign the bolt of Heaven when it bursts among the sons of the forest?

yet who can refrain from mourning when it selects for the object of

its blighting aim the fair stem of a young oak, that promised to be the

pride of the dell in which it flourished? Musing on these melancholy

events, noon found him engaged in the mountain passes, by which he was

to return to his still distant home.

Confident in his knowledge of the country, the clergyman had left the

main road, to seek one of those shorter paths, which are only used by

pedestrians, or by men, like the minister, mounted on the small, but

sure-footed, hardy, and sagacious horses of the country. The place which

he now traversed was in itself gloomy and desolate, and tradition had

added to it the terror of superstition, by affirming it was haunted

by an evil spirit, termed CLOGHT-DEARG--that is, Redmantle--who at all

times, but especially at noon and at midnight, traversed the glen, in

enmity both to man and the inferior creation, did such evil as her power

was permitted to extend to, and afflicted with ghastly terrors those

whom she had not license otherwise to hurt.

The minister of Glenorquhy had set his face in opposition to many of

these superstitions, which he justly thought were derived from the dark

ages of Popery, perhaps even from those of paganism, and unfit to be

entertained or believed by the Christians of an enlightened age. Some

of his more attached parishioners considered him as too rash in opposing

the ancient faith of their fathers; and though they honoured the moral

intrepidity of their pastor, they could not avoid entertaining and

expressing fears that he would one day fall a victim to his temerity,

and be torn to pieces in the glen of the Cloght-dearg, or some of

those other haunted wilds, which he appeared rather to have a pride

and pleasure in traversing alone, on the days and hours when the wicked

spirits were supposed to have especial power over man and beast.

These legends came across the mind of the clergyman, and, solitary as

he was, a melancholy smile shaded his cheek, as he thought of the

inconsistency of human nature, and reflected how many brave men, whom

the yell of the pibroch would have sent headlong against fixed bayonets,

as the wild bull rushes on his enemy, might have yet feared to encounter

those visionary terrors, which he himself, a man of peace, and in

ordinary perils no way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, was

now risking without hesitation.

As he looked around the scene of desolation, he could not but

acknowledge, in his own mind, that it was not ill chosen for the haunt

of those spirits, which are said to delight in solitude and desolation.

The glen was so steep and narrow that there was but just room for the

meridian sun to dart a few scattered rays upon the gloomy and precarious

stream which stole through its recesses, for the most part in silence,

but occasionally murmuring sullenly against the rocks and large stones

which seemed determined to bar its further progress. In winter, or in

the rainy season, this small stream was a foaming torrent of the most

formidable magnitude, and it was at such periods that it had torn open

and laid bare the broad-faced and huge fragments of rock which, at

the season of which we speak, hid its course from the eye, and seemed

disposed totally to interrupt its course. “Undoubtedly,” thought the

clergyman, “this mountain rivulet, suddenly swelled by a waterspout

or thunderstorm, has often been the cause of those accidents which,

happening in the glen called by her name, have been ascribed to the

agency of the Cloght-dearg.”

Just as this idea crossed his mind, he heard a female voice exclaim, in

a wild and thrilling accent, “Michael Tyrie! Michael Tyrie!” He looked

round in astonishment, and not without some fear. It seemed for an

instant, as if the evil being, whose existence he had disowned, was

about to appear for the punishment of his incredulity. This alarm did

not hold him more than an instant, nor did it prevent his replying in a

firm voice, “Who calls? and where are you?”

“One who journeys in wretchedness, between life and death,” answered the

voice; and the speaker, a tall female, appeared from among the fragments

of rocks which had concealed her from view.

As she approached more closely, her mantle of bright tartan, in which

the red colour much predominated, her stature, the long stride with

which she advanced, and the writhen features and wild eyes which

were visible from under her curch, would have made her no inadequate

representative of the spirit which gave name to the valley. But

Mr. Tyrie instantly knew her as the Woman of the Tree, the widow of

MacTavish Mhor, the now childless mother of Hamish Bean. I am not

sure whether the minister would not have endured the visitation of

the Cloght-dearg herself, rather than the shock of Elspat’s

presence, considering her crime and her misery. He drew up his horse

instinctively, and stood endeavouring to collect his ideas, while a few

paces brought her up to his horse’s head.

“Michael Tyrie,” said she, “the foolish women of the Clachan [The

village; literally, the stones.] hold thee as a god--be one to me, and

say that my son lives. Say this, and I too will be of thy worship; I

will bend my knees on the seventh day in thy house of worship, and thy

God shall be my God.”

“Unhappy woman,” replied the clergyman, “man forms not pactions with his

Maker as with a creature of clay like himself. Thinkest thou to chaffer

with Him, who formed the earth, and spread out the heavens, or that thou

canst offer aught of homage or devotion that can be worth acceptance

in his eyes? He hath asked obedience, not sacrifice; patience under the

trials with which He afflicts us, instead of vain bribes, such as man

offers to his changeful brother of clay, that he may be moved from his

purpose.”

“Be silent, priest!” answered the desperate woman; “speak not to me

the words of thy white book. Elspat’s kindred were of those who crossed

themselves and knelt when the sacring bell was rung, and she knows that

atonement can be made on the altar for deeds done in the field. Elspat

had once flocks and herds, goats upon the cliffs, and cattle in the

strath. She wore gold around her neck and on her hair--thick twists, as

those worn by the heroes of old. All these would she have resigned to

the priest--all these; and if he wished for the ornaments of a gentle

lady, or the sporran of a high chief, though they had been great as

Macallum Mhor himself, MacTavish Mhor would have procured them, if

Elspat had promised them. Elspat is now poor, and has nothing to give.

But the Black Abbot of Inchaffray would have bidden her scourge her

shoulders, and macerate her feet by pilgrimage; and he would have

granted his pardon to her when he saw that her blood had flowed, and

that her flesh had been torn. These were the priests who had indeed

power even with the most powerful; they threatened the great men of

the earth with the word of their mouth, the sentence of their book, the

blaze of their torch, the sound of their sacring bell. The mighty bent

to their will, and unloosed at the word of the priests those whom they

had bound in their wrath, and set at liberty, unharmed, him whom they

had sentenced to death, and for whose blood they had thirsted. These

were a powerful race, and might well ask the poor to kneel, since their

power could humble the proud. But you!--against whom are ye strong,

but against women who have been guilty of folly, and men who never wore

sword? The priests of old were like the winter torrent which fills

this hollow valley, and rolls these massive rocks against each other

as easily as the boy plays with the ball which he casts before him. But

you!--you do but resemble the summer-stricken stream, which is turned

aside by the rushes, and stemmed by a bush of sedges. Woe worth you, for

there is no help in you!”

The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that Elspat had lost the Roman

Catholic faith without gaining any other, and that she still retained

a vague and confused idea of the composition with the priesthood, by

confession, alms, and penance, and of their extensive power, which,

according to her notion, was adequate, if duly propitiated, even to

effecting her son’s safety. Compassionating her situation, and allowing

for her errors and ignorance, he answered her with mildness.

“Alas, unhappy woman! Would to God I could convince thee as easily

where thou oughtest to seek, and art sure to find, consolation, as I

can assure you with a single word, that were Rome and all her priesthood

once more in the plenitude of their power, they could not, for largesse

or penance, afford to thy misery an atom of aid or comfort--Elspat

MacTavish, I grieve to tell you the news.”

“I know them without thy speech,” said the unhappy woman. “My son is

doomed to die.”

“Elspat,” resumed the clergyman, “he WAS doomed, and the sentence has

been executed.”

The hapless mother threw her eyes up to heaven, and uttered a shriek so

unlike the voice of a human being, that the eagle which soared in middle

air answered it as she would have done the call of her mate.

“It is impossible!” she exclaimed--“it is impossible! Men do not condemn

and kill on the same day! Thou art deceiving me. The people call thee

holy--hast thou the heart to tell a mother she has murdered her only

child?”

“God knows,” said the priest, the tears falling fast from his eyes,

“that were it in my power, I would gladly tell better tidings. But these

which I bear are as certain as they are fatal. My own ears heard the

death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy son’s death--thy son’s funeral. My

tongue bears witness to what my ears heard and my eyes saw.”

The wretched female clasped her bands close together, and held them up

towards heaven like a sibyl announcing war and desolation, while, in

impotent yet frightful rage, she poured forth a tide of the deepest

imprecations. “Base Saxon churl!” she exclaimed--“vile hypocritical

juggler! May the eyes that looked tamely on the death of my fair-haired

boy be melted in their sockets with ceaseless tears, shed for those

that are nearest and most dear to thee! May the ears that heard his

death-knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds save the screech of

the raven, and the hissing of the adder! May the tongue that tells me of

his death and of my own crime, be withered in thy mouth--or better, when

thou wouldst pray with thy people, may the Evil One guide it, and give

voice to blasphemies instead of blessings, until men shall fly in terror

from thy presence, and the thunder of heaven be launched against thy

head, and stop for ever thy cursing and accursed voice! Begone, with

this malison! Elspat will never, never again bestow so many words upon

living man.”

She kept her word. From that day the world was to her a wilderness, in

which she remained without thought, care, or interest, absorbed in her

own grief, indifferent to every thing else.

With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is already as

far acquainted as I have the power of making him. Of her death, I can

tell him nothing. It is supposed to have happened several years after

she had attracted the attention of my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune

Baliol. Her benevolence, which was never satisfied with dropping a

sentimental tear, when there was room for the operation of effective

charity, induced her to make various attempts to alleviate the condition

of this most wretched woman. But all her exertions could only render

Elspat’s means of subsistence less precarious--a circumstance which,

though generally interesting even to the most wretched outcasts, seemed

to her a matter of total indifference. Every attempt to place any

person in her hut to take charge of her miscarried, through the extreme

resentment with which she regarded all intrusion on her solitude, or by

the timidity of those who had been pitched upon to be inmates with the

terrible Woman of the Tree. At length, when Elspat became totally unable

(in appearance at least) to turn herself on the wretched settle which

served her for a couch, the humanity of Mr. Tyrie’s successor sent two

women to attend upon the last moments of the solitary, which could not,

it was judged, be far distant, and to avert the possibility that she

might perish for want of assistance or food, before she sunk under the

effects of extreme age or mortal malady.

It was on a November evening, that the two women appointed for this

melancholy purpose arrived at the miserable cottage which we have

already described. Its wretched inmate lay stretched upon the bed, and

seemed almost already a lifeless corpse, save for the wandering of the

fierce dark eyes, which rolled in their sockets in a manner terrible to

look upon, and seemed to watch with surprise and indignation the motions

of the strangers, as persons whose presence was alike unexpected and

unwelcome. They were frightened at her looks; but, assured in each

other’s company, they kindled a fire, lighted a candle, prepared food,

and made other arrangements for the discharge of the duty assigned them.

The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the sick person

by turns; but, about midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for they had walked

far that morning), both of them fell fast asleep. When they awoke, which

was not till after the interval of some hours, the hut was empty, and

the patient gone. They rose in terror, and went to the door of the

cottage, which was latched as it had been at night. They looked out into

the darkness, and called upon their charge by her name. The night-raven

screamed from the old oak-tree, the fox howled on the hill, the hoarse

waterfall replied with its echoes; but there was no human answer. The

terrified women did not dare to make further search till morning should

appear; for the sudden disappearance of a creature so frail as Elspat,

together with the wild tenor of her history, intimidated them from

stirring from the hut. They remained, therefore, in dreadful terror,

sometimes thinking they heard her voice without, and at other times,

that sounds of a different description were mingled with the mournful

sigh of the night-breeze, or the dashing of the cascade. Sometimes,

too, the latch rattled, as if some frail and impotent hand were in vain

attempting to lift it, and ever and anon they expected the entrance of

their terrible patient, animated by supernatural strength, and in the

company, perhaps, of some being more dreadful than herself. Morning came

at length. They sought brake, rock, and thicket in vain. Two hours

after daylight, the minister himself appeared, and, on the report of

the watchers, caused the country to be alarmed, and a general and exact

search to be made through the whole neighbourhood of the cottage and

the oak-tree. But it was all in vain. Elspat MacTavish was never found,

whether dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the slightest

circumstance to indicate her fate.

The neighbourhood was divided concerning the cause of her disappearance.

The credulous thought that the evil spirit, under whose influence she

seemed to have acted, had carried her away in the body; and there are

many who are still unwilling, at untimely hours, to pass the oak-tree,

beneath which, as they allege, she may still be seen seated according to

her wont. Others less superstitious supposed, that had it been possible

to search the gulf of the Corri Dhu, the profound deeps of the lake, or

the whelming eddies of the river, the remains of Elspat MacTavish might

have been discovered--as nothing was more natural, considering her state

of body and mind, than that she should have fallen in by accident, or

precipitated herself intentionally, into one or other of those places

of sure destruction. The clergyman entertained an opinion of his own.

He thought that, impatient of the watch which was placed over her, this

unhappy woman’s instinct had taught her, as it directs various domestic

animals, to withdraw herself from the sight of her own race, that

the death-struggle might take place in some secret den, where, in all

probability, her mortal relics would never meet the eyes of mortals.

This species of instinctive feeling seemed to him of a tenor with the

whole course of her unhappy life, and most likely to influence her when

it drew to a conclusion.

End of THE HIGHLAND WIDOW.

*****

MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE.

Together both on the high lawns appeared.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn

They drove afield. ELEGY ON LYCIDAS.

I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite occupations and pastimes

of mankind go to the disturbance of that happy state of tranquillity,

that OTIUM, as Horace terms it, which he says is the object of all men’s

prayers, whether preferred from sea or land; and that the undisturbed

repose, of which we are so tenacious, when duty or necessity compels

us to abandon it, is precisely what we long to exchange for a state of

excitation, as soon as we may prolong it at our own pleasure. Briefly,

you have only to say to a man, “Remain at rest,” and you instantly

inspire the love of labour. The sportsman toils like his gamekeeper,

the master of the pack takes as severe exercise as his whipper-in, the

statesman or politician drudges more than the professional lawyer; and,

to come to my own case, the volunteer author subjects himself to the

risk of painful criticism, and the assured certainty of mental

and manual labour, just as completely as his needy brother, whose

necessities compel him to assume the pen.

These reflections have been suggested by an annunciation on the part

of Janet, “that the little Gillie-whitefoot was come from the

printing-office.”

“Gillie-blackfoot you should call him, Janet,” was my response, “for he

is neither more nor less than an imp of the devil, come to torment

me for COPY, for so the printers call a supply of manuscript for the

press.”

“Now, Cot forgie your honour,” said Janet; “for it is no like your

ainsell to give such names to a faitherless bairn.”

“I have got nothing else to give him, Janet; he must wait a little.”

“Then I have got some breakfast to give the bit gillie,” said Janet;

“and he can wait by the fireside in the kitchen, till your honour’s

ready; and cood enough for the like of him, if he was to wait your

honour’s pleasure all day.”

“But, Janet,” said I to my little active superintendent, on her return

to the parlour, after having made her hospitable arrangements, “I begin

to find this writing our Chronicles is rather more tiresome than I

expected, for here comes this little fellow to ask for manuscript--that

is, for something to print--and I have got none to give him.”

“Your honour can be at nae loss. I have seen you write fast and fast

enough; and for subjects, you have the whole Highlands to write about,

and I am sure you know a hundred tales better than that about Hamish

MacTavish, for it was but about a young cateran and an auld carlin, when

all’s done; and if they had burned the rudas quean for a witch, I am

thinking, may be they would not have tyned their coals--and her to gar

her ne’er-do-weel son shoot a gentleman Cameron! I am third cousin to

the Camerons mysel’--my blood warms to them. And if you want to write

about deserters, I am sure there were deserters enough on the top of

Arthur’s Seat, when the MacRaas broke out, and on that woeful day beside

Leith Pier--ohonari!”--

Here Janet began to weep, and to wipe her eyes with her apron. For my

part, the idea I wanted was supplied, but I hesitated to make use of it.

Topics, like times, are apt to become common by frequent use. It is

only an ass like Justice Shallow, who would pitch upon the over-scutched

tunes, which the carmen whistled, and try to pass them off as his

FANCIES and his GOOD-NIGHTS. Now, the Highlands, though formerly a rich

mine for original matter, are, as my friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol warned

me, in some degree worn out by the incessant labour of modern romancers

and novelists, who, finding in those remote regions primitive habits and

manners, have vainly imagined that the public can never tire of them;

and so kilted Highlanders are to be found as frequently, and nearly of

as genuine descent, on the shelves of a circulating library, as at a

Caledonian ball. Much might have been made at an earlier time out of

the history of a Highland regiment, and the singular revolution of ideas

which must have taken place in the minds of those who composed it, when

exchanging their native hills for the battle-fields of the Continent,

and their simple, and sometimes indolent domestic habits for the regular

exertions demanded by modern discipline. But the market is forestalled.

There is Mrs. Grant of Laggan, has drawn the manners, customs, and

superstitions of the mountains in their natural unsophisticated state;

[Letters from the Mountains, 3 vols.--Essays on the Superstitions of

the Highlanders--The Highlanders, and other Poems, etc.] and my friend,

General Stewart of Garth, [The gallant and amiable author of the History

of the Highland Regiments, in whose glorious services his own share

had been great, went out Governor of St Lucia in 1828, and died in that

island on the 18th of December 1829,--no man more regretted, or perhaps

by a wider circle of friends and acquaintance.] in giving the real

history of the Highland regiments, has rendered any attempt to fill up

the sketch with fancy-colouring extremely rash and precarious. Yet

I, too, have still a lingering fancy to add a stone to the cairn;

and without calling in imagination to aid the impressions of

juvenile recollection, I may just attempt to embody one or two scenes

illustrative of the Highland character, and which belong peculiarly to

the Chronicles of the Canongate, to the grey-headed eld of whom they

are as familiar as to Chrystal Croftangry. Yet I will not go back to the

days of clanship and claymores. Have at you, gentle reader, with a

tale of Two Drovers. An oyster may be crossed in love, says the gentle

Tilburina--and a drover may be touched on a point of honour, says the

Chronicler of the Canongate.

*****

THE TWO DROVERS.

CHAPTER I.

It was the day after Doune Fair when my story commences. It had been a

brisk market. Several dealers had attended from the northern and midland

counties in England, and English money had flown so merrily about as to

gladden the hearts of the Highland farmers. Many large droves were about

to set off for England, under the protection of their owners, or of the

topsmen whom they employed in the tedious, laborious, and responsible

office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles, from the market

where they had been purchased, to the fields or farmyards where they

were to be fattened for the shambles.

The Highlanders in particular are masters of this difficult trade

of driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade of war. It

affords exercise for all their habits of patient endurance and active

exertion. They are required to know perfectly the drove-roads, which lie

over the wildest tracts of the country, and to avoid as much as

possible the highways, which distress the feet of the bullocks, and the

turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the drover; whereas on the broad

green or grey track which leads across the pathless moor, the herd

not only move at ease and without taxation, but, if they mind their

business, may pick up a mouthful of food by the way. At night the

drovers usually sleep along with their cattle, let the weather be what

it will; and many of these hardy men do not once rest under a roof

during a journey on foot from Lochaber to Lincolnshire. They are paid

very highly, for the trust reposed is of the last importance, as it

depends on their prudence, vigilance, and honesty whether the cattle

reach the final market in good order, and afford a profit to the

grazier. But as they maintain themselves at their own expense, they are

especially economical in that particular. At the period we speak of, a

Highland drover was victualled for his long and toilsome journey with a

few handfulls of oatmeal and two or three onions, renewed from time to

time, and a ram’s horn filled with whisky, which he used regularly, but

sparingly, every night and morning. His dirk, or SKENE-DHU, (that is,

black-knife), so worn as to be concealed beneath the arm, or by the

folds of the plaid, was his only weapon, excepting the cudgel with which

he directed the movements of the cattle. A Highlander was never so happy

as on these occasions. There was a variety in the whole journey, which

exercised the Celt’s natural curiosity and love of motion. There were

the constant change of place and scene, the petty adventures incidental

to the traffic, and the intercourse with the various farmers, graziers,

and traders, intermingled with occasional merry-makings, not the less

acceptable to Donald that they were void of expense. And there was the

consciousness of superior skill; for the Highlander, a child amongst

flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his natural habits induce him to

disdain the shepherd’s slothful life, so that he feels himself nowhere

more at home than when following a gallant drove of his country cattle

in the character of their guardian.

Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the purpose

we have described, not a GLUNAMIE of them all cocked his bonnet more

briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over a pair of

more promising SPIOGS, (legs), than did Robin Oig M’Combich, called

familiarly Robin Oig, that is young, or the Lesser, Robin. Though small

of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not very strongly limbed,

he was as light and alert as one of the deer of his mountains. He had

an elasticity of step which, in the course of a long march, made many a

stout fellow envy him; and the manner in which he busked his plaid

and adjusted his bonnet argued a consciousness that so smart a John

Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed among the Lowland

lasses. The ruddy cheek, red lips, and white teeth set off a countenance

which had gained by exposure to the weather a healthful and hardy

rather than a rugged hue. If Robin Oig did not laugh, or even smile

frequently--as, indeed, is not the practice among his countrymen--his

bright eyes usually gleamed from under his bonnet with an expression of

cheerfulness ready to be turned into mirth.

The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in the little town, in and

near which he had many friends, male and female. He was a topping person

in his way, transacted considerable business on his own behalf, and was

entrusted by the best farmers in the Highlands, in preference to any

other drover in that district. He might have increased his business to

any extent had he condescended to manage it by deputy; but except a lad

or two, sister’s sons of his own, Robin rejected the idea of assistance,

conscious, perhaps, how much his reputation depended upon his attending

in person to the practical discharge of his duty in every instance. He

remained, therefore, contented with the highest premium given to persons

of his description, and comforted himself with the hopes that a few

journeys to England might enable him to conduct business on his own

account, in a manner becoming his birth. For Robin Oig’s father, Lachlan

M’Combich (or SON OF MY FRIEND, his actual clan surname being M’Gregor),

had been so called by the celebrated Rob Roy, because of the particular

friendship which had subsisted between the grandsire of Robin and that

renowned cateran. Some people even said that Robin Oig derived his

Christian name from one as renowned in the wilds of Loch Lomond as ever

was his namesake Robin Hood in the precincts of merry Sherwood. “Of such

ancestry,” as James Boswell says, “who would not be proud?” Robin Oig

was proud accordingly; but his frequent visits to England and to the

Lowlands had given him tact enough to know that pretensions which still

gave him a little right to distinction in his own lonely glen, might

be both obnoxious and ridiculous if preferred elsewhere. The pride of

birth, therefore, was like the miser’s treasure--the secret subject

of his contemplation, but never exhibited to strangers as a subject of

boasting.

Many were the words of gratulation and good-luck which were bestowed

on Robin Oig. The judges commended his drove, especially Robin’s own

property, which were the best of them. Some thrust out their snuff-mulls

for the parting pinch, others tendered the DOCH-AN-DORRACH, or parting

cup. All cried, “Good-luck travel out with you and come home with you.

Give you luck in the Saxon market--brave notes in the LEABHAR-DHU,”

(black pocket-book), “and plenty of English gold in the SPORRAN” (pouch

of goat-skin).

The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly, and more than one,

it was said, would have given her best brooch to be certain that it was

upon her that his eye last rested as he turned towards the road.

Robin Oig had just given the preliminary “HOO-HOO!” to urge forward the

loiterers of the drove, when there was a cry behind him:--

“Stay, Robin--bide a blink. Here is Janet of Tomahourich--auld Janet,

your father’s sister.”

“Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch and spaewife,” said a farmer

from the Carse of Stirling; “she’ll cast some of her cantrips on the

cattle.”

“She canna do that,” said another sapient of the same profession. “Robin

Oig is no the lad to leave any of them without tying Saint Mungo’s knot

on their tails, and that will put to her speed the best witch that ever

flew over Dimayet upon a broomstick.”

It may not be indifferent to the reader to know that the Highland

cattle are peculiarly liable to be TAKEN, or infected, by spells and

witchcraft, which judicious people guard against by knitting knots of

peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates the animal’s

tail.

But the old woman who was the object of the farmer’s suspicion seemed

only busied about the drover, without paying any attention to the drove.

Robin, on the contrary, appeared rather impatient of her presence.

“What auld-world fancy,” he said, “has brought you so early from the

ingle-side this morning, Muhme? I am sure I bid you good-even, and had

your God-speed, last night.”

“And left me more siller than the useless old woman will use till you

come back again, bird of my bosom,” said the sibyl. “But it is little I

would care for the food that nourishes me, or the fire that warms me,

or for God’s blessed sun itself, if aught but weel should happen to the

grandson of my father. So let me walk the DEASIL round you, that you may

go safe out into the far foreign land, and come safe home.”

Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing, and signing to those

around that he only complied with the old woman to soothe her humour.

In the meantime, she traced around him, with wavering steps, the

propitiation, which some have thought has been derived from the

Druidical mythology. It consists, as is well known, in the person who

makes the DEASIL walking three times round the person who is the object

of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun.

At once, however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in a voice of alarm

and horror, “Grandson of my father, there is blood on your hand.”

“Hush, for God’s sake, aunt!” said Robin Oig. “You will bring more

trouble on yourself with this TAISHATARAGH” (second sight) “than you

will be able to get out of for many a day.”

The old woman only repeated, with a ghastly look, “There is blood on

your hand, and it is English blood. The blood of the Gael is richer and

redder. Let us see--let us--”

Ere Robin Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have been by

positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she had

drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and

held it up, exclaiming, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in

the sun, “Blood, blood--Saxon blood again. Robin Oig M’Combich, go not

this day to England!”

“Prutt, trutt,” answered Robin Oig, “that will never do neither--it

would be next thing to running the country. For shame, Muhme--give me

the dirk. You cannot tell by the colour the difference betwixt the blood

of a black bullock and a white one, and you speak of knowing Saxon from

Gaelic blood. All men have their blood from Adam, Muhme. Give me my

skene-dhu, and let me go on my road. I should have been half way to

Stirling brig by this time. Give me my dirk, and let me go.”

“Never will I give it to you,” said the old woman--“Never will I quit

my hold on your plaid--unless you promise me not to wear that unhappy

weapon.”

The women around him urged him also, saying few of his aunt’s words fell

to the ground; and as the Lowland farmers continued to look moodily on

the scene, Robin Oig determined to close it at any sacrifice.

“Well, then,” said the young drover, giving the scabbard of the weapon

to Hugh Morrison, “you Lowlanders care nothing for these freats. Keep my

dirk for me. I cannot give it you, because it was my father’s; but your

drove follows ours, and I am content it should be in your keeping, not

in mine.--Will this do, Muhme?”

“It must,” said the old woman--“that is, if the Lowlander is mad enough

to carry the knife.”

The strong Westlandman laughed aloud.

“Goodwife,” said he, “I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, come of the Manly

Morrisons of auld lang syne, that never took short weapon against a man

in their lives. And neither needed they. They had their broadswords, and

I have this bit supple”--showing a formidable cudgel; “for dirking ower

the board, I leave that to John Highlandman.--Ye needna snort, none of

you Highlanders, and you in especial, Robin. I’ll keep the bit knife,

if you are feared for the auld spaewife’s tale, and give it back to you

whenever you want it.”

Robin was not particularly pleased with some part of Hugh Morrison’s

speech; but he had learned in his travels more patience than belonged to

his Highland constitution originally, and he accepted the service of the

descendant of the Manly Morrisons without finding fault with the rather

depreciating manner in which it was offered.

“If he had not had his morning in his head, and been but a Dumfriesshire

hog into the boot, he would have spoken more like a gentleman. But you

cannot have more of a sow than a grumph. It’s shame my father’s knife

should ever slash a haggis for the like of him.”

Thus saying, (but saying it in Gaelic), Robin drove on his cattle, and

waved farewell to all behind him. He was in the greater haste, because

he expected to join at Falkirk a comrade and brother in profession, with

whom he proposed to travel in company.

Robin Oig’s chosen friend was a young Englishman, Harry Wakefield by

name, well known at every northern market, and in his way as much famed

and honoured as our Highland driver of bullocks. He was nearly six feet

high, gallantly formed to keep the rounds at Smithfield, or maintain the

ring at a wrestling match; and although he might have been overmatched,

perhaps, among the regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel

or rustic, or a chance customer, he was able to give a bellyful to any

amateur of the pugilistic art. Doncaster races saw him in his glory,

betting his guinea, and generally successfully; nor was there a main

fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons of celebrity, at which he

was not to be seen if business permitted. But though a SPRACK lad, and

fond of pleasure and its haunts, Harry Wakefield was steady, and not

the cautious Robin Oig M’Combich himself was more attentive to the main

chance. His holidays were holidays indeed; but his days of work were

dedicated to steady and persevering labour. In countenance and temper,

Wakefield was the model of Old England’s merry yeomen, whose clothyard

shafts, in so many hundred battles, asserted her superiority over the

nations, and whose good sabres, in our own time, are her cheapest and

most assured defence. His mirth was readily excited; for, strong in limb

and constitution, and fortunate in circumstances, he was disposed to be

pleased with every thing about him, and such difficulties as he might

occasionally encounter were, to a man of his energy, rather matter of

amusement than serious annoyance. With all the merits of a sanguine

temper, our young English drover was not without his defects. He was

irascible, sometimes to the verge of being quarrelsome; and perhaps

not the less inclined to bring his disputes to a pugilistic decision,

because he found few antagonists able to stand up to him in the boxing

ring.

It is difficult to say how Harry Wakefield and Robin Oig first became

intimates, but it is certain a close acquaintance had taken place

betwixt them, although they had apparently few common subjects of

conversation or of interest, so soon as their talk ceased to be

of bullocks. Robin Oig, indeed, spoke the English language rather

imperfectly upon any other topics but stots and kyloes, and Harry

Wakefield could never bring his broad Yorkshire tongue to utter a single

word of Gaelic. It was in vain Robin spent a whole morning, during a

walk over Minch Moor, in attempting to teach his companion to utter,

with true precision, the shibboleth LLHU, which is the Gaelic for a

calf. From Traquair to Murder Cairn, the hill rung with the discordant

attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable monosyllable, and the

heartfelt laugh which followed every failure. They had, however, better

modes of awakening the echoes; for Wakefield could sing many a ditty to

the praise of Moll, Susan, and Cicely, and Robin Oig had a particular

gift at whistling interminable pibrochs through all their involutions,

and what was more agreeable to his companion’s southern ear, knew many

of the northern airs, both lively and pathetic, to which Wakefield

learned to pipe a bass. Thus, though Robin could hardly have

comprehended his companion’s stories about horse-racing, and

cock-fighting, or fox-hunting, and although his own legends of

clan-fights and CREAGHS, varied with talk of Highland goblins and

fairy folk, would have been caviare to his companion, they contrived,

nevertheless to find a degree of pleasure in each other’s company,

which had for three years back induced them to join company and travel

together, when the direction of their journey permitted. Each,

indeed, found his advantage in this companionship; for where could the

Englishman have found a guide through the Western Highlands like Robin

Oig M’Combich? and when they were on what Harry called the RIGHT side of

the Border, his patronage, which was extensive, and his purse, which was

heavy, were at all times at the service of his Highland friend, and on

many occasions his liberality did him genuine yeoman’s service.

CHAPTER II.

Were ever two such loving friends!--

How could they disagree?

Oh, thus it was, he loved him dear,

And thought how to requite him,

And having no friend left but he,

He did resolve to fight him. DUKE UPON DUKE.