it so fast, that I was obliged to twist it round ere I could make him
part with it. I took off his cartridge-box by pulling the belt over his
head. He had fired but two cartridges, and eighteen still remained. I
loaded and fired twice; and I was just in the act of biting off the
end of my third cartridge to fire again, when a musket ball took me
in the left cheek, and knocked me over as flat as a sixpence on the
ground. The captain of the company looked behind him, and seeing that
I was still able to move my hands, he very humanely ordered a file
of men to carry me to the rear. They lifted me up from the ground,
and the whole world seemed to be going round with me. They supported
me under the arms, and I staggered along like a drunk man. They took
me to a barn, where I lay insensible for some time, until coming to
myself somewhat, as I lay there, I saw two surgeons employed with the
wounded. "You will have little trouble with me, gentlemen," thought
I within myself; "I shall be dead before you can get at me." Just at
this moment I heard one of the surgeons say to the other,--
"I believe I shall die of hunger."
"I am like to faint from absolute want," said the other.
I could not speak, but I beckoned.
"By and bye," said one of the surgeons, shaking his head.
"Your turn is not come yet," said the other.
I beckoned again, and pointed to the wallet at my side.
"Oh ho!" said the first surgeon crossing the place, and rapidly
followed by the other,--"Oh ho! I comprehend you now. Let's see what
you have got in your larder."
He put his hand into the wallet, and found some balls of oatmeal,
which my wife, honest woman, had made by rolling them up with water,
and then giving them a roast among the ashes. The two gentlemen
devoured them with great glee. They then looked at my chafts, put
some lint into the wound, and bound it up.
"Well," thought I to myself, "a leaden ball made the wound, and
a ball of oatmeal has doctored it. Many thanks to my worthy wife,
God bless her!"
After the doctors left us, the place, which was pitch dark, became
hot and pestiferous, and the groans that came from some of the poor
wretches put me in mind of pandemonium. I was for some time feverish
and restless. I tried to stretch myself out at length, but I felt some
one at my feet who would not stir all I could do. Though I could not
speak, I was not sparing of my kicks, but still the person regarded
me not. Next to me was Serjeant Wilson with a broken leg, and he was
pressed upon by some one at his side. But the Serjeant had the full
use of his tongue.
"Sir," said he to his neighbour, for he was noted for being a very
polite man, "will you do me the favour to lie a little farther over,
and take your elbow out of my stomach."
His civil request was disregarded, and there was no reply.
"Oh!" said the serjeant, "perhaps the gentleman is a furreiner; but
all them furreiners understands French, so I'll try my hand at that
with him:--Moushee wooly wous have the goodness to takee your elbow
out of my guts. Confound the fellow, what an edification he has had
that he does not understand French. I've heard Ensign Flitterkin
say that it is the language of Europe. Pray, sir, may I ax if you
be a European? No answer,--by my soul then I may make bold to say
that you are any thing but a civilian. Sir," continued the serjeant,
beginning now to lose patience altogether, and to wax very wroth,
"I insist on your removing your elbow. I say, rascal! take your elbow
out of my stomach this moment!"
And so the serjeant went on from bad to worse, till he swore, and
went on to swear, at the poor man more and more bloodily the whole
night. But neither his swearing, nor my kicking, could rid either
of us of our troublesome companions. And it was no great wonder
indeed--for when the day-light came, we discovered that they were
two dead Russians!
"This is a horrible place!" exclaimed the principal surgeon when he
came back in the morning. "As near as I can guess, one hundred and
fifty-two men have died in this wretched barn since last night!--we
must have the wounded out of this."
Thanks to my wife's oatmeal balls, which the grateful surgeons had
not forgotten, my wounds were dressed the very first man. We were
soon afterwards carried on hand-barrows by a Russian party down to
the flat-bottomed boats, and so we were conveyed to the Texel. I bore
the bullet home in my chafts, and it was cut out by an English doctor
in Deal hospital. I was discharged on the 23d of June 1800. But my
pension was granted before pensions were so big as they are now-a-days,
so that I am but ill off compared to some who have come home from
the late wars. But, thank God, I am contented, since I cannot make
a better of it.
GALLANTRY OF THE SEVENTY-FIRST HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY.
Clifford.--How little known are the miseries to which the brave
defenders of Britain's glory are subjected!--and how meagre is
their reward, and how poor is their harvest of individual fame!--Our
Nelsons and our Wellingtons, to be sure, are as certainly, as they are
deservedly, destined to immortality of name. But is it not most painful
to think that so many of our bravest hearts have gallantly fallen,
to sleep in undistinguished oblivion? Your scene in the old barn,
Serjeant, reminds me of an anecdote which I had from an officer of the
Ninety-first Regiment.--It has never yet appeared in print, though it
well deserves to be so recorded, as being worthy of that distinguished
corps, the Seventy-first Highland Light Infantry, to which it belongs.
The circumstances took place in 1813, during the Peninsular War. The
Seventy-first were at that time stationed with the Fiftieth and the
Ninety-second, at St. Pierre, on the main road between Bayonne and
St. Jean-pied-de-Port.--This was the key of Lord Hill's position
on the river Adour, and the fire of musquetry brought against its
defenders on the 13th December, was such as the oldest veterans had
never before witnessed. The corps under Lord Hill, indeed, were on
that day attacked by Soult's whole force. But so nobly did those
fine regiments perform their duty, that the late Lieutenant-General
the Honourable William Stewart, next day gave out an order, which I
remember treasuring up in my memory as a masterpiece of soldier-like
diction. I think the very words were these:--"The second Division has
greatly distinguished itself, and its gallantry in yesterday's action
is fully felt by the Commander of the Forces, and the Allied Army."
And well indeed had they merited this highly creditable testimonial of
their good behaviour. But the carnage was great, and there were many
who, alas! did not survive to participate in the honour conferred
by it. Several of the wounded, belonging to the respective corps,
were huddled together in the lower storey of an old house, that stood
upon the very ground on which the thickest part of the contest had
taken place. Now it happened, that certain officers from different
regiments had taken shelter in a room in the floor above, where they
were refreshing themselves, after their fatigue, with such food and
other restoratives as they could command, and among them was that
officer of the Ninety-first who told me the facts to which he was
an ear-witness.
The conversation of these gentlemen, though mingled now and then with
many regrets for lost companions, had a certain temperate joy in it--a
joy arising from a conviction that they had behaved like men--and which
was tempered by strong feelings of gratitude to a kind Providence,
who had preserved them amidst all the perils of the fight. Suddenly
their talk was put an end to by the most heart-rending groans and
shrieks of agony, that came up from the room below, through the old
decayed floor. What mirth or joy there was among them, was altogether
banished by the frequency and intensity of the screams, that betokened
the mortal sufferings of a dying man. They sat for a time mutely,
though deeply sympathizing, with the poor unfortunate from whom they
came. At length they distinctly heard another faint, and apparently
expiring voice, say, in a tone of rebuke,--"Haud your tongue, James,
and bear your fate like a man. We'll soon be baith at ease.--But, in
the mean time, haud your tongue, for there are folk aboon us that may
be hearin' you; and if you have no respect for yoursell, recollect
what you owe to the gallant Seventy-first Hillant Light Infantry,
to which we baith belong."
This appeal had the desired effect. All that could now be heard, in
the stillness of the night, was a low murmur. A surgeon, who was of
the party, immediately went to administer what relief he might to the
wretched sufferers. But in one short hour these heroic men had ceased
to exist, and no one can now tell even the name of either of them.
Author.--A most touching anecdote!--What magnanimous fellows!
Grant.--Their names should have been written by the hand of Fame
herself, in letters of the purest and most imperishable gold!--Yet
they have been allowed to sink into the sea of forgetfulness, and,
"Like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever."
they have melted into oblivion--so far, at least, as this world
is concerned.
Clifford.--Yes; they sleep unremembered, whilst every lily-livered
cobler, or tailor, who has handled his awl, or his bodkin, with no
more peril to his person than may have lain on the point of one or
other of these formidable weapons, has his tombstone--his death's
head and cross-bones--and his attendant cherubims--as well as his
text and his epitaph.
Serjeant.--Very true, sir--very true. What have such chields as these
to do with fame? But for all that, we see fame arise to the silliest
men, and from the most trifling causes.
Grant.--Right, Archy. For instance, I remember a certain Highlander,
who gained his fame in a way that may perhaps make you envious--for
it is the tale of your unwhisperables that has brought him to my mind.
Serjeant.--Aye, sir!--What was his story?
Grant.--Why, the hero was a certain Rory Maccraw, who, despising
the kilt which he had worn all his life, resolved, at all risks,
to figure in a pair of those elegant emblems of civilization called
breeches. At the present day, one may travel from the Tweed to the
Pentland Firth without seeing such a thing as a kilt; but at the time
of which I am now speaking, anything in the shape of breeches was
just as rarely to be seen as the kilt is now. Rory had a pair made
for him in some distant town, where, as they would say in Ireland,
he had not been by when his measure was taken, and having put them on,
he left his glen to go to a market. It was observed by his neighbours,
that he never before took so long a time to walk the same distance,
and, from his strange and stately manner of strutting, they attributed
this circumstance to the pride he felt in his new garments. Arrived at
the market, the expectation he had indulged in, that he was to excite
the wonder and envy of all the people there, did not deceive him. He
was followed, and stared at, and admired, and questioned wherever he
went. If a dancing bear had waddled through the fair, he could not
have had half the number of people after him. But like most of those
who envy the lot of their neighbours, these good folks only saw the
outside of things, and knew not the misery which was covered by this
fair external show. In the midst of their admiration, poor Rory was in
torture. He would have given all he was worth, unmentionables and all,
to have got rid of the admiring crowds that followed him; and at last,
long before he had done half his business in the market--for as to
pleasure, he could taste none of it--he, the envied, the observed of
all observers, watched his opportunity to steal hobbling away down a
back lane, whence he went limping in agony into the country. There,
seating himself by the public way-side, regardless of what eyes
might behold him, he pulled off the instruments of his suffering, and
hanging them on the end of his staff, he placed it over his shoulder,
and so trudged his way homeward, in defiance of the taunts, gibes,
and laughter of the crowds which he fell in with by the way. But
his fame was established; and ever afterwards he went by the name of
Peter Breeks.
Clifford.--Capital!
Author.--Well, Archy, to return to your own story, and the
disappointment you have met with in the arrestment of your career of
glory, I would fain comfort you with the old proverb, that a contented
mind is better than riches.
Serjeant.--That is very true, sir; and I am very thankful that I am
blessed with that same. And although I got but little in the army but
hard knocks, yet I would take them all over again, rather than that I
should not have seen the many things I did see, as well as the heaps of
queer human beings I met with during the few years I served. What is
man, gentlemen, unless he gets the rust of home, and the reek of his
own fire-side rubbed off him by travel? He can never be expected to
speculate on any thing but the ducks in the dubbs, or the hens on the
midden-head. Though I had a tolerable education for the like of me,
what would I have been had I never been out of this valley? Not much
better, I trow, than one of the stirks that are bred in it. Bless you,
sirs, I saw a vast of human nature in my travels.
Grant.--And thought much and well on it too, Archy, if I mistake not.
Serjeant.--May be I did, sir,--and a very curious nature it is, I'll
assure you. But, gentlemen, we must cross the water at this wooden
bridge here.
Author.--If you had not seen so much by going into the world as you
have done, Archy, I have great doubts whether that curiosity, which
has since made you pick up that great store of your native legends
which you are said to possess, might not have lain entirely dormant.
Serjeant.--Oh, bless your honour, I should never have thought of
such things. It was the seeing so much that roused up the spirit of
enquiry within me. And so it happened, that after I came back from the
sodgering trade, this spirit could not rest till I had gathered up all
the curious stories I could get. And then I fell tooth and nail upon
books, so that, when I was not working, I was always reading histories,
novelles, magazines, newspapers, and such like, so that I am not just
altogether that ill informed. But stop a moment, gentlemen; do you see
yon bright green spot in the hollow of the hill-side yonder above us?
Grant.--Yes; but what is there wonderful about that, Archy?
Serjeant.--There is nothing very wonderful about itself, indeed,
but it is worth your remarking for all that. It is what we call in
this country a wallee, that is, the quaking bog out of which a spring
wells forth.
Clifford.--Tut, Archy! There are few grouse shooters who have not
experienced the treachery of these smooth-faced, flattering, but most
deceitful water-traps.
Serjeant.--Smooth-faced, flattering, and deceitful, indeed, sir. I've
heard them compared by some to the fair sex, beauteous and smiling
outside, and cruelly cold-hearted within. But I think any such
comparison is most unjust, for my old woman never deceived me; and,
as I have told you, if it had not been for her oatmeal balls I verily
believe I should not have been here at this moment.
Clifford.--It would ill become you, indeed, to slander the fair sex,
Mister Serjeant, and depend upon it, you will not catch me doing so.
Serjeant.--But about the wallee yonder; I was saying----
Clifford.--Aye, the wallee; I shall never forget the first cold-bath I
had up to the neck in one of them. It was all owing to the spite of a
cunning old moorcock, which I had severely wounded. Out of revenge,
I suppose, for the mortal injury I had done him, he chose to come
fluttering down into the very middle of what I conceived to be a
beautiful surface of hard green-sward. Being but a young sportsman at
the time, and very eager to secure my bird, who sat most provokingly
tock-tock-tocking at me, as if he had bid me defiance, I ran down
the bank, and made a bound towards him. In I went souse. I shiver
yet to think of it--my very senses were congealed--and for a moment I
verily believed that I had been suddenly transformed into the North
Pole, and that the cock-grouse that fluttered around me was Captain
Parry come to explore me. And, i' faith, if it had not been for the
light foot and strong arm of the gilly who was with me, I believe I
might have been sticking upright there, preserved in ice till this
moment. There was a moorish bath for you!
Serjeant.--They are most unchancy bits for strangers; that is certain,
sir.
Clifford.--Unchancy indeed! But if that is all you have to tell us
about yonder place in the hill-side, Mr. Archy, you may save yourself
the trouble of attempting to astonish me with your information;
for, Sassenach though I be, I promise you that I have been long ago
initiated into the full depth of the mystery.--Nymphs and Naiads of
the crystal Aven, what a beautiful stream there is for fishing!
Serjeant.--'Tis very good, indeed, sir. But yon wallee that I was
speaking about would swallow a horse, with you on the top of it. Many
a time have I thrust a long pole down into it without reaching any
thing the least like firm ground. It would swallow that fishing-wand
of yours, sir.
Clifford.--(Already employed in putting his rod together.)--Plague
choke it, I should be sorry indeed to see my rod go in any such way. It
is one of the best Bond ever made; and though adapted, by means of
these different pieces, to any size of stream, it was never intended
for such deep sea fishing as you would put it to. I shall apply it to
another purpose, my good serjeant. With this sky, the trouts there will
take a grey mallard's wing with a yellow silk body, in great style.
Serjeant.--But the wallee up yonder is worth your notice, because of
an ould auncient monumental stone, that once stood on the dry bank
beside it.
Grant.--Ha! a monumental stone!--let us hear about that.
Serjeant.--It was about seven feet high, sir, and the tradition
regarding it is, that it was set up there in memory of a sad story
that is connected with it.
Author.--A story, said you?
Clifford.--Then, my good fellow, Serjeant Stewart, just have the
kindness to sit down there, and tell us the particulars of your sad
story, while I give a few casts here over this most tempting stream.
Serjeant.--With all manner of pleasure, sir; I shall be happy to tell
your honours all I have gathered about it. It is the very legend for
which Mr. Clifford marked me down in his book.
Clifford immediately began to fish. Grant and I seated ourselves on the
daisied bank of the river, one on each side of the serjeant. The gilly
stretched himself at length on the grass, and was soon asleep--the
pony with the panniers grazed as far around him as the length of his
halter would let him, and my Newfoundland dog Bronte sat watching
the trouts leaping, whilst Archy proceeded with his narrative, as
nearly as I can recollect, in the following words; but if not always
precisely in the serjeant's own language, at least I shall give it
with a strict adherence to his facts.
LEGEND OF THE CLAN-ALLAN STEWARTS.
From the important correction which your honour has made upon my
genealogy, I think I may now venture to say, with some confidence,
that the time of my legend must be somewhere about the fifteenth
century--how early in it I cannot say; but it is pretty clear that my
ancestor, Sir Allan Stewart, must have lived about that period. As
I have already told you, the whole of this country, hill and glen,
was then covered with forests, except in such spots as were kept
open by the art of man for pasture or for tillage, but of the latter,
even of the rudest kind, I suspect there was but little hereaway in
those days. I take it for granted that the chief of the Clan-Allan
must have had his stronghold at the old tower of Drummin, though I
do not mean to say that it was identically the same building that
now exists there. It stands, as some of you perhaps know, gentlemen,
a good way down the country from where we now are, on a point of table
land considerably elevated above the valley, which is there rendered
wider by the junction of the river Livat with the river Aven, and just
in the angle between these two streams. When the noble old forests
waved over the surrounding hills, leaving the quiet meadows below
open in rich pasture, it must have been even yet a more beautiful
place for man to dwell in than it is now,--and, let me tell you,
that is saying a great deal.
My history begins towards the end of the life of Sir Allan Stewart,
whose term of existence had been long, and no doubt boisterous enough,
as you may very well guess. He was by this time so old as to be
confined to his big oak chair, which was generally placed for him
under the projection of the huge chimney of the ancient fire-place,
or lumm, as we call it in Scotland; and there he sat, propped up with
pillows, crooning over old ballads, and muttering old saws from morn
till night, as if he now cared for nothing in this life, but to drone
away the last dull measure of his time, like the end of some drowsy
ill-composed pibroch, if such a thing there can be. But the lively
interest which he took when any stirring event occurred, which in any
degree affected the honour or welfare of himself, his family or clan,
sufficiently showed that all his martial fire was not extinguished;
for then would it flash out from beneath his heavy eyelids--his bulky
form would move impatiently on his seat, and he would turn his eyes
restlessly towards his broadsword and targe, that hung conspicuously
among the deers' heads, wolfs' skins, and the numerous warlike weapons
that covered the walls, with an expression so animated, as very plainly
to speak the ardour of his decaying spirit, which still, like that
of the old war-horse, seemed thus to snuff up the battle from afar.
Sir Allan had two tall strapping sons by his first marriage--Walter and
Patrick, both of them pretty men. To Walter, as the elder of the two,
he looked as his successor, and, accordingly, he already acted in all
things, and on all occasions, as his father's representative. After
the death of their mother, Sir Allan had married a woman of lower
degree, by whom he had a third son, called Murdoch, whose naturally
bad dispositions had been fostered by the doting fondness of his old
father. Murdoch's mother, at the time we are speaking of, was what
we would call in our country phrase a handsome boardly-looking dame,
of some forty years of age or so, whose smooth tongue and deceitful
smile covered the blackest and most depraved heart.
"See, father!" said Walter Stewart to old Sir Allan, as he and his
brother Patrick entered the hall one evening, followed by some of
their people, with whom they had been all day engaged in the pursuit
of a wolf, whose grinning countenance, attached to his shaggy skin,
was borne triumphantly on the point of a hunting spear. "See here,
father! we have got him at last. We have at last taken vengeance on
the villain for his cruel slaughter of poor Isabel's child. Look at
the spoils of the murdering caitiff who devoured the little innocent."
"Hath he not been a fell beast, father?" said Patrick, holding up
the hunting spear before Sir Allan, and shaking the trophy.
"Ah!" said Sir Allan, rousing himself up, "a fell beast indeed!--aye,
aye--poor child, poor child!--bring his head nearer to me, boy! Would
I could have been with you! Aye, aye--dear me--age will come upon
us. But I have seen the day, boys--aye, aye--och, hey!"
"Ho, there!" cried Walter Stewart, "what means it that there are no
signs of supper? By St. Hubert, but we have toiled long enough and
hard enough to-day with legs, arms, spears, spades, and mattocks,
to have well earned our meal! Where is brother Murdoch?--where is
the Lady Stradawn?"
"Aye, aye," said the querulous old Sir Allan, "it is ever thus
now-a-days. I am always left to myself--weary, weary is my life I am
sure--and I am hungry--very hungry. Aye, aye."
"Thou shalt have thy supper very soon, father," said Patrick, kindly
taking his hand; "and Walter and I will leave you but for a brief
space, to rid us of these wet and soiled garments."
The two brothers then hastened from the hall to go to their respective
chambers.
"Whose draggle-tailed beast was that I saw tied up under the tree
beyond the outer gateway as we came in?" demanded Walter of his
attendant, Dugald Roy.
"I have seen the beast before," replied Dugald. "If I am not far
mista'en, it is the garron the proud Priest of Dalestie rides,--and a
clever beast it would need to be, I am sure, for many a long, and late,
and queer gate does it carry him, I trow."
"How came the animal there, Dugald?" demanded Walter quickly.
"If by your question, how the animal came there, you would ask what
road he took, Sir Knight," replied Dugald, "I must tell you that the
man that could answer you would need to deal with the devil, for no
one but the foul fiend himself could follow the Priest of Dalestie;
for, unless he be most wickedly belied, his ways follow those of the
Evil One, as much as our good father, Peter of Dounan, is known to
travel in the path of his blessed Master."
"Nay, but I would know from thee, in plain terms, where thou judgest
that the rider of the horse may be?" said Sir Walter, impatiently.