Highlanders (then known as the Black Watch) on the evening of the
28th April, 1745, previous to the Duke of Cumberland's attack on the
French outposts in front of Fontenoy. Our battalion (writes one of
our old officers) was to form the advanced guard on this occasion,
and had been ordered to the village of Veson, where a bivouac was
formed, while Ensign Campbell, of Glenfalloch, the same who was
afterwards wounded at Fontenoy, marched the baggage, with all the
sorrowing women of the corps, beyond Maulpré, as our operations were
for the purpose of relieving Tournay, then besieged by a powerful
French army under Marshal Count de Saxe, and valiantly defended by
eight thousand Dutchmen under the veteran Baron Dorth. It was the
will of Heaven in those days that we should fight for none but the
Dutch and Hanoverians.
I had been appointed captain-lieutenant to the Black Watch from the
old 26th, or Angus's Foot, and having overtaken the corps on its
march between the gloomy old town of Liege and the barrier fortress
of Maestricht, the aspect and bearing of the Highlanders--we had then
only one regiment of them in the service--seemed new and strange,
even barbaric to my eyes; for, as a Lowlander, I had been ever
accustomed to associate the tartan with fierce rapine and armed
insurrection. Yet their bearing was stately, free, and noble; for
our ranks were filled by the sons of Highland gentlemen, and of these
the most distinguished for stature, strength, and bravery were the
seven sons of Captain Maclean, a cadet of the house of Duairt, who
led our grenadiers. The very flower of these were the seven tall
Macleans, who, since the regiment had been _first_ mustered at the
beautiful Birks of Aberfeldy, in May, 1740, had shone foremost in
every encounter with the enemy.
Captain Campbell, of Finab, and I seated ourselves beside the Celtic
patriarch who commanded our grenadier company, and near him were his
seven sons lounging on the grass, all tall and muscular men, bearded
to the eyes, athletic, and weather-beaten by hunting and fighting in
the Highlands, and inured alike to danger and to toil. Though
gentlemen volunteers, they wore the uniform of the privates, a
looped-up scarlet jacket and waistcoat faced with buff and laced with
white,* a tartan plaid of twelve yards plaited round the body and
thrown over the left shoulder; a flat blue bonnet with the
fesse-chequé of the house of Stuart round it, and an eagle's feather
therein, to indicate the wearer's birth. The whole regiment carried
claymores in addition to their muskets, and to these weapons every
soldier added, if he chose, a dirk, skene, pair of pistols, and
target; in the fashion of the Highlands; thus our front rank men were
usually as fully equipped as any that stepped on the muir of
Culloden. Our sword-belts were black, and the cartouch-box was slung
in front by a waist-belt. In addition to all this warlike
paraphernalia, our grenadiers carried each a hatchet and pouch of
hand-grenades. The servicelike, formidable, and _cap-à-pie_ aspect
of the regiment had impressed me deeply; but Captain Maclean and his
seven sons more than all, as they lay grouped near the watchfire, in
the red light of which their bearded visages, keen eyes, and
burnished weapons were glinting and glowing.
* The regiment was not made royal until 1768.
The beard of old Maclean was white as snow, and flowed over his
tartan plaid and scarlet waistcoat, imparting to his appearance a
greater peculiarity, as all gentlemen were then closely shaven. As
Finab and I seated ourselves by his fire, he raised his bonnet and
bade us welcome with a courtly air, which consorted ill with his
sharp west Highland accent. His eye was clear and bold in
expression, his voice was commanding and loud, as in one whose will
had never been disputed. Close by was his inseparable henchman and
foster-brother Ronald MacAra, the colour-sergeant of his company, an
aged Celt of grim presence and gigantic proportions, whose face had
been nearly cloven by a blow from a Lochaber axe at the battle of
Dunblane.
"Welcome, gentlemen," said old Maclean, "a hundred thousand welcomes
to a share of our supper, a savoury _road collop_, as we call it at
home. It was a fine fat sheep that my son Dougal found astray in a
field near Maulpré; and here is a braw little demijohn of Belgian
wine, which Alaster borrowed from a boor close by. These other five
lads are also my sons, Dunacha, Deors, Findlay Bane, Farquhar Gorm,
and Angus Dhu, all grenadiers in the King's service, and hoping each
one to be like myself a captain and to cock their feathers among the
best in the Black Watch. Attend to our comrades, my braw lads."
The _lads_, the least of whom was six feet in height, assisted us to
a share of the sheep, which was broiling merrily on the glowing
embers, and from which their comrades, who crowded round, partook
freely, cutting off the slices, as they sputtered and browned, by
their long dirks and sharp skenes. The seven grenadiers were all
fine and hearty fellows, who trundled Alaster's demijohn of wine from
hand to hand round the red roaring fire, on which the grim henchman
or colour-sergeant heaped up, from time to time, the doors and
rafters of an adjacent house, and there we continued to carouse,
sing, and tell stories, until the night was far advanced.
The month was April, and the night was a glorious one; all our
bivouac was visible as if at noonday. The hum of voices, the scrap
of a song, a careless laugh, the neigh of a horse, or the jangle of a
bridle alone broke the silence of the moonlit sky; though at times we
heard the murmur of a stream that stole towards the Scheldt, like a
silver current through the fields of sprouting corn, and under banks
where the purple foxglove, the pink wild rose, and the green bramble
hung in heavy masses.
And could aught be more picturesque than our Highland bivouac,
lighted up by wavering watchfires and the brilliant queen of
night--the Celtic soldiers muffled in their dark-green plaids, their
rough bare knees, hardy as the stems of the mountain pine, and alike
impervious to the summer heat and winter cold, lying asleep upon
their "umbered arms," or seated in groups, singing old songs, or
telling wild stories of those distant glens from which, as _Seidaran
Dearg_ or "Red Soldiers," the chances of the Belgian war had brought
them here.
I was delighted with the old chief and his sons--they were so free
and gay in manner, so frank and bold in bearing, while there was
something alike noble and patriarchal in the circumstance of their
stately old father leading a company of brave hearts, nearly all of
whom were men of his own name and kindred. The fire had been freshly
heaped with billets and fagots, the demijohn still bled freely; we
had just concluded a merry chorus, which made the Uhlan videttes on
the distant plain prick up their ears and listen, and we had reached
that jovial point when a little wit goes a very long way, when
Sergeant Ronald MacAra, the old henchman, approached Captain Maclean,
and placing a hand upon his shoulder with that kind but respectful
familiarity which his relation as a foster-brother sanctioned, said
with impressive solemnity--
"For the love of the blessed God, see that ye do not fight the
stranger to-morrow with your stomach fasting."
The ruddy face of the old soldier grew pale.
"No, Ronald," said he; "our race has already paid dear for neglecting
that strange warning."
"God and Mary forbid!" muttered two of his sons, crossing themselves
devoutly.
"Keep something for me in your havresack, Ronald," said the captain,
"and call me before the drums beat for marching; keep something for
the laddies, too--for the Lord forfend that ever son of mine should
draw his blade with a fasting stomach under his belt."
"A wise precaution, Maclean," said old Captain Campbell of Finab;
"but Gude kens we have often had to draw our blades here in Low
Germanie, and fall on, without other breakfast than a tightened
waist-belt."
"True; but it was by omitting to break his fast that my worthy
ancestor Sir Lauchlan Maclean lost his life in Mull, and hence the
warning of Sergeant MacAra, my fosterer."
"How came that to pass?" I asked with surprise; for the impressive
manner of these Celts was strange and new to me.
"'Tis a story as well as any other, and I care not if I tell you,
gentlemen," said the old captain of grenadiers. "Dunacha, throw some
more sticks on the fire--Angus, pass round the black-jack, my son,
while I tell of the doleful battle of Groynard. The presence of the
Lord be about us, but that was a black day, and a dreary one for the
house of Duairt and the Clan Gillian to boot!"
After this preamble and collecting his thoughts a little, the captain
commenced the following strange story:--
History will tell you, gentlemen, that in the early part of the reign
of his Majesty James VI. there arose a deadly feud between my people,
the Clan Gillian in Mull, and the Clan Donald of Islay, concerning
the claim which, from times beyond the memory of man, we had, or
believed we had ('tis all one in the Highlands) to the Rhinns of
Islay. For many a year our people and the Macdonalds invaded,
harried, hacked, hewed, and shot each other; the axe and bow, the
pistol and claymore were never relinquished for one entire week, but
we were never nearer our end, for I must admit that our antagonists
were a brave tribe, though in boyhood--such is the absurdity of a
transmitted feud--I was taught to hate them more than death. I have
been told that there was not a man of either of the hostile tribes
but had lost his nearest and dearest kinsmen in that ungodly contest.
But now a crisis was coming.
My worthy ancestor, Sir Lauchlan Maclean of Duairt, was a soldier of
high renown and bravery--one whose skill in war was acknowledged by
all who saw him lead the Clan Gillian to victory at the great battle
of Benrinnes, where twelve thousand Scottish Protestants measured
swords with Lord Huntly's Catholics on the banks of the Livat, and
there decided their religious differences like pretty men. Well, Sir
Lauchlan, through the great favour in which he was held at court,
obtained from the King's own hand at Holyrood a charter or warrant
empowering him to take possession not only of those devilish Rhinns,
but of the whole island of Islay--the patrimony and home of the Lords
of the Isles--what think you of that, sirs? All Islay with
Eilan-na-Corlle, or the Island of Council, the great castle in Loch
Finlaggan, the Rock of the Silver Rent, the Rock of the Rent-in-Kind,
with everything that flew over Islay, walked on its hills, or swam in
its lakes, to him and his heirs for ever, heritably and irredeemably,
until the day of doom.
This seemed a severe stroke of fortune to the poor Clan Donald, the
more so as their chief, Angus of Kintyre, was aged and frail, and had
not drawn a sword since last he fought our people in his seventieth
year, and now he was eighty. His son, Sir James, was as yet unknown
as a soldier, while Sir Lauchlan was in the noon of his strength and
manhood--second to none that stepped on heather or ever wore the
tartan: hence, full of hope and confident of success, he rejected
with scorn the offers of mediation made by neighbouring chiefs; for
old Angus had many friends, and my forefathers' claims were, to say
the least of them, rather unjust. Sir Lauchlan summoned all the
clan, his friends and kinsmen, to meet him in arms and with their
galleys on a certain day to sail for Islay, when he hoped to crush
the Clan Donald for ever in one decisive battle.
On the evening before the muster, mounted and alone he rode from
Duairt to consult a witch who dwelt in an uncouth den known among us
as "the cave of the Grey Woman." It was not without some misgivings
that my ancestor paid this visit; but the advice and auguries of this
woman, Aileen Glas, had never failed our race in times of war and
peril.
As he drew near her dwelling, the night was closing in; the wind
shook the boughs of the forest, and as he looked back, they resembled
the long green waves of a sea of foliage rolling up the narrow glen.
The "gloaming" darkened fast, and the silent dew distilled from the
drooping leaves; the golden cups of the broom and the calices of the
heather-bells were shrinking with many a summer fly and honey-bee
concealed in their petals, for night was descending on the stormy
shores and boisterous hills of Mull--boisterous indeed, for there the
hollow winds rave and howl from peak to peak, and wreath up the mist
into many a strange and many a fearful shape, till the ghosts of
Ossian seem again to tower above Benmore and Bentaluidh.
Sir Lauchlan rode rapidly up the narrowing glen, till he found the
cave of the Grey Woman before him. It yawned dark, lofty, and
profound; so, dismounting, he tied his horse to a tree, and with his
target and claymore advanced boldly, but with no small trouble, as
the darkness was now intense, and the ascent to the cavern was rocky
and difficult. Above his head rose its capacious arch, fringed by
matted ivy and the light waving mountain ash that covered all the
upper rocks, the splintered peaks of which shot up against the
starless sky in abrupt and jagged outline. Clambering up, he entered
with a stately step, though his heart beat fast with anxiety; before
him lay a dark abyss of blackness and vacancy, opening into the
bowels of the mountain; and though lightly shod in cuarans of soft
deer hide, he could hear his footsteps echoing afar off.
At last a red light began to gleam before him, playing in fitful
flashes upon the wet slimy walls of the den, and on the huge
stalactites that hung like rough Gothic pendants from the roof, and
were formed by the filtrations of calcareous rills that stole
noiselessly down between the chasms and crannies in the walls of rock.
Aileen Glas was said to have been born in the mossy isle of
Calligrey, in a hut built among the stones of the temple of Annat,
the mined shrine of a Druidical goddess. Annat presided over the
young maidens of the Western Isles, and there still remains her well,
in which they are said to have purified themselves. In that well
Aileen was baptized by the Red Priest of Applecross, and hence her
magical power.
As Maclean stepped on, he perceived the Grey Woman, a withered,
shrivelled, and frightful hag, whose nose was hooked like an eagle's
beak, and on whose chin was a grey tuft, like a thistle's beard--a
mere anatomy of bones and skin--seated before a heap of blazing turf
and sticks, but asleep, and reclining against the wall of rock. A
tattered plaid of our clan tartan was over her head, the grey hair of
which hung in twisted elflocks round her bony visage. An urchin--a
hideous hedgehog--nestled in her fleshless bosom, and its diminutive
eyes shone like red beads in the light. On one side lay a heap of
withered herbs, a human skull cloven in battle, and the spulebane of
a sea-wolf; on the other side was an old iron three-legged pot used
in her incantations. Therein sat a huge, rough, and wild-eyed
polecat, which spat at the intruder, and woke up a large, sleepy bat
that swung by his tail from a withered branch which projected from a
fissure of the rock.
The Grey Woman awoke also, and, without moving, fixed her green
basilisk eyes on Sir Lauchlan's face, saying sharply--
"What want ye, Duairt?"
"Your advice, good Aileen Glas," replied the chief, meekly, for he
was awed by her aspect.
"Advice!" shrieked the Grey Woman. "Is it a spell you seek, to
insure success, that you may do a greater wrong unto the hapless and
guiltless Clan Donald of Islay?"
"I seek to do them no wrong, Aileen. The Rhinns are ours by right,
and Islay is ours by the King's own charter."
"The _people_ were there before kings or charters were known in the
land. God gave the hills and the isles to the children of the Gael,
and His curse will fall on all who seek to dispossess them by virtue
of sheepskins and waxen seals. Did not a Lord of the Isles say that
he little valued a right which depended on the possession of a scrap
of parchment? Beware, Lauchlan Maclean! beware! for the hand of fate
is upon you!"
Scared by her words and her fury, as her shrill voice awoke the
inmost recesses of the vault, Sir Lauchlan said--
"In the name of the mother of God, Aileen Glas, I beseech you to be
composed, and to tell me of what I must beware!"
She snatched up the spulebane of the wolf, and, after looking through
it by holding it between her and the fire, cast it aside with a
shriek, saying--
"Lauchlan of Duairt, listen to me, for never may you hear my voice
again!"
"It may be so, Aileen; we sail for Islay to-morrow!"
"Well, do not land upon a _Thursday_, and do not drink of the well
that flows at the head of Loch Groynard, for I can see that one
Maclean will be slain there, and _lie headless_! Away! leave me now!
In the glen you will meet those who will tell you more!" and she
muffled her face in her plaid as Sir Lauchlan left her.
"I can easily avoid a landing on Thursday, and a draught of that
devilish well too; but whom shall I meet in the glen?" thought he, as
he mounted and galloped homewards to Duairt, glad the horrid
interview was over. As he rode round the base of Benmore, the waning
moon began to show half her disc above the black shoulder of the
mighty mountain, and a pale light played along the broad waves of
Loch-na-keal, which lay on his left, and were rolled in foam against
the bold headlands and columnar ridges, which are covered with coats
of ivy and tufted by remains of oak and ash woods that overhung the
salt billows of that western sea, where the scart, the mew, and the
heron were screaming.
On, on rode our chief, treasuring the words of Grey Aileen in his
heart, and soon he saw the lights in his own castle of Duairt
glittering before him about a mile off, and anon he could perceive
the outline of the great keep as it towered in the pale moonlight on
its high cliff that breasts the Sound of Mull. But hark! the voice
of a woman made him pause.
He checked his horse and looked around him.
Under an old and blasted oak-tree, the leafless and gnarled branches
of which seemed white and ghastly in the cold moonlight, stood the
figure of a woman arrayed in a pale-coloured dress that shimmered and
gleamed as the moon's half-disc dipped behind the sharp rocky cone of
Bentaluidh. The figure, which was thin and tall, was enveloped in a
garment that resembled a shroud. It came forward with one lean arm
uplifted, as if to stay the onward progress of Maclean, whose rearing
horse swerved, trembled, and perspired with fear. Nearer she came,
and, as the starlight glinted on her features, they seemed pallid,
ghastly, hollow, and wasted; the lips were shrunken from the teeth,
the eyes shone like two pieces of glass, and, to his horror, Sir
Lauchlan recognised his old nurse Mharee, who had been buried in the
preceding year, and whom, with his own hands, he had laid in her
grave, close by the wall of Torosay Kirk, the bell of which at that
moment tolled the eleventh hour of the night. Gathering courage from
despair, he asked--
"In the name of Him who died for us, Mharee, what want you here
to-night?"
"Oh, my son!" said she, "for such indeed I may call you (for did not
these breasts, on which the worms are now preying, give you suck?)
this expedition against the men of Islay is full of mighty
consequences to you and all Clan Gillian!"
"I am sure of that, Mharee," replied Maclean, with a sinking heart;
"but we go to gather glory and triumph, to spread the honour and the
terror of our name, and to win a fairer patrimony to bequeath, with
our swords, to the children who succeed us."
"Lauchlan Maclean! by the bones of your father and the fame of your
mother, I conjure you to abandon this wicked war, to sheath your
sword, to burn the King's charter, and to leave the Clan Donald in
peace, for Islay is the land of their inheritance."
"To what disgrace would you counsel me, Mharee? to be a coward and a
liar in the face of the King, of my kindred and clansmen? Come weal,
come woe, to-morrow my birlinns shall spread their sails upon the sea
that leads to Islay, though I and all my people go but to their
graves: by the cross of Maclean I have sworn it!"
"So be it then; but if go you will, I warn you not to cross the
threshold of Duairt with a _fasting stomach_, or sore evil, Lauchlan,
will come of it to all thy kin and thee!"
With these strange words, the figure faded away like a moonbeam, and
nothing was seen but the bare, blasted tree stretching its naked anna
across the narrow way. Some time elapsed before Maclean recovered
from his terror and astonishment to find his horse dashing up the
ascent which led to the Castle of Duairt, where his pale face and
wild manner caused many questions and excited much comment; but he
kept his own counsel, resolving not to march on the morrow before
breakfast, not to land on a Thursday, and _not_ to drink of any well
in Islay, if other liquor could be found for love or money.
Next morning great were the hurry, din, and preparation in Duairt,
and long before cockcrow the shore of Loch Linnhe was covered by
armed men, with their brass targets and burnished claymores, axes,
bows, and Spanish muskets; their helmets and lurichs sparkled in the
dawn, and when the sun arose above the hills of Lorn, the white sails
of the birlinns, with banners flying and pipers playing at the prow,
covered all the sea around the Castle of Duairt. Sir Lauchlan in
person superintended the embarkation of his followers, and if there
was one, there were seven hundred good claymores among them--not a
bonnet less! Every man, as he left Duairt, had a ration of bannock,
cheese, and venison given to him, with a good dram to put under his
belt, for such is our Highland custom before setting out on an
expedition.
But such was the enthusiasm, such were the cheers, the
congratulations and hopes uttered aloud, the yelling of pipes, the
twangling of clairsachs and quaffing of toasts with blade and bicker
held aloft, that it was not until he was on board his great war
birlinn, with all her canvas spread to catch the northern gale which
blew towards the peaks of Jura, that the fated chieftain found that,
in attending to his people, he had forgotten to regale himself, and,
contrary to the solemn warning of the spirit, had actually commenced
his hazardous expedition with a "fasting stomach!"
"Dhia!" cried he to my grand-uncle Lauchlan Barroch; "I am lost,
nephew," and he related the vision of last night.
"If that be all," replied my grand-uncle, who was his brother's son,
"rest easy, for here have I and Ronald of the Drums marched too, with
nothing under our belts but the cold north wind."
Still my ancestor felt far from easy; but he forgot it before night,
when a heavy gale came on, and the birlinns were scattered on the
waters of the darkening deep like a flock of gulls; and it was in
vain that he fired his pateraroes as signals to keep together.
The storm increased, and while some of the little fleet narrowly
escaped being sucked (like the Danish prince of old) into the roaring
whirlpool of Coirvreckan, many were blown to the Isle of Colonsay and
others to the Sound of Jura. Many days--all days of storm with
nights of pitchy blackness--followed, and on the first _Thursday_ of
the next week the little fleet of birlinns made the low green shores
and sandy inlets of Islay, and saw the rising sun gild the woods and
hills that rise upon its eastern coast. Still the stormy wind
ploughed up the sea; the sun was enveloped in watery clouds, and the
tempest-tossed Clan Gillian gladly steered their vessels (oh,
fatality!) into the salt Loch of Groynard, a shallow bay on the
north-west of the isle, where, with a shout of triumph, they ran the
keels into the sand and leaped ashore with brandished swords, and
formed their ranks, all barelegged, in the water.
But long ere this the crian tarigh, or cross of fire, had blazed upon
the hills of Islay!
Under their young chief, Sir James, the whole Clan Donald, many of
whom had been trained to service in the Irish wars, were drawn up in
array of battle at the head of Loch Groynard; and there, with all
their weapons glittering from the purple heather, they hovered like a
cloud of battle. As the hostile bands drew near, some gentlemen of
the Clan Donald, to prevent the effusion of Christian blood,
prevailed upon Sir James to promise that he would resign one half of
Islay to Maclean during his life, provided he would acknowledge that
he held it for personal service to the Clan Donald, in the same
manner as our forefathers had held the Rhinns of Islay.
But, rendered furious on finding that he had doubly transgressed the
wizard warnings he received, Sir Lauchlan laughed the proposition to
scorn. Then the young chief offered to submit the matter in dispute
to any impartial umpires Duairt might choose, with the proviso that,
if _they_ should disagree, his Majesty the King should be their
arbiter.