objects became more distinct. The wide extent of yellow sandy beach, the
chalky cliffs, the light-houses, the buoys, were seen distinctly, and
the flags of all the world were flying around them. The little fleet of
galleys moved bravely; a light breeze bore them onward, and every stitch
of canvas was set. The shore soon seemed close at hand. The old
village spires, overhung with ivy, the lawns, the castles, the seats,
and every thing, from the black old towers of Dover to the boats on the
golden beach below, were all remarked and observed as objects of wonder.
"First on the shore! Hoigh!" cried a Highlander, plunging into the
water as the boats, containing some of the 42nd, grounded near the
beach. "Hurrah!" was the cry, and a hundred eager fellows leaped
overboard, knapsacks, accoutrements, and every thing; and, with their
kilts and sporrons floating on the surface of the water, waded ashore,
while shouts of welcome rose from a crowd of the Dover people collected
on the sands. The boats containing the Royals and part of the Gordon
Highlanders, took the matter more "cannily," and, entering the harbour,
landed their military passengers on the pier, where a gentleman stepped
forth from the immense concourse assembled to witness the
disembarkation, and formally welcomed them to England; he then waved his
hat as a signal to the people, and three hearty cheers were given, with
one more for the Duke of Wellington.
All the craft in the harbour were decorated with flags and boughs of
trees; standards and ribbons waved from every house-top and window. The
Waterloo medal, glancing on the breast of every purple coat, attracted
universal attention; the people were excited to the utmost pitch of
enthusiasm and loyalty, and every proud feeling that is truly British
was at its height. Each man vied with the other in the endeavour to
show the esteem he felt for those whose deeds had been attracting the
attention of the whole civilized world, and whose arms had arrested a
torrent which once threatened to subvert every State in Europe. The
brigade was billeted for that night in Dover.
"Now then, gentlemen, here we are, at last, in merry old England," cried
Campbell, in boisterous glee, as, with his officers, he ascended the
well-carpeted staircase of a handsome hotel in Dover. "Welcome roast
beef and plum-pudding, with other substantials, and a long farewell to
_castanos_ and garlic, to soup-maigre, _potage au choux_, and the
devil's broth. If the people would only grow wise and hang up all the
limbs of the law, England would be the happiest land on earth. Look
around you, gentlemen; here is comfort! Think on the wet tent, and the
wetter bivouac! But good-by to them all! for awhile at least."
The master of the hotel ushered them into a splendid drawing-room, where
the appearance of the rich carpet, and the coal-fire blazing in the
polished grate, attracted so much attention, and drew forth such
encomiums, that mine host of the St. George marvelled in what part of
the earth they had been campaigning. He knew not that a coal-fire and a
carpet are almost unknown on the Continent.
"We have been for some time strangers to this kind of luxury, landlord,"
said Ronald, observing his wonder. "Our couch and our carpet has long
been the green sod, and our covering the sky for many a year."
"England! merry old England!" exclaimed Campbell, throwing himself into
a chair, and stretching his long legs across the hearth-rug. "In spite
of all that demagogues may say to the contrary, I will uphold that it is
the happiest country in Europe; and, as we have seen the most of them,
we should be good judges. This is excellent! It reminds me of our
return from Egypt. Now then, monsieur,--pardon me, landlord; I forgot I
was out of the land of Johnny Crapaud. Ay, landlord, there is something
truly British and hospitable in that. Let us have the best dinner you
can get ready on the shortest notice; and tell the cooks they need not
be very particular, as we have not tasted a decent dinner since we
landed below the castle of Beleni in 1809, a few months in Paddy's land
excepted. Let it be prepared forthwith, and remember to provide lots of
pudding for the ensigns."
After dinner, the inhabitants of the hotel were astounded by the
ceremony of piping round the table, a practice which, since dinners had
become common with them, the Gordon Highlanders had revived in full
force. As soon as the dessert was removed, tall Ronald-dhu, the
piper-major, and eight pipers, entered the mess or dining-room, and
marched thrice round the table, and then down stairs, blowing with all
their force and power the tune usual on the occasion:
"Our ancient forefaithers agreed wi' the laird,
To buy a bit grundie to mak' a kail-yaud," &c.
and the reader may imagine the effect of seven and twenty drones of the
great Highland war-pipe on English ears, to which, for many reasons, its
strains are so discordant.
The hotel was surrounded by a dense crowd, who kept up an incessant
cheering, and in the streets the Highlanders were absolutely mobbed.
Perhaps it was the first time the Scottish garb had been seen so far
south in England, so that, as the London papers said, "the excitement
was tremendous."
In every town and village through which they marched on the long route
from Dover to Edinburgh, their reception was the same: they were
followed by mobs of shouting men and boys, while laurel boughs, and
flags adorned with complimentary mottoes, waved from the houses and
church steeples. Every inn or hotel at which the officers dined was
decorated with streamers and evergreens, and wreaths of laurel encircled
every plate and dish on the tables. Each day, during dinner, they were
regaled by a concert of thousands of tongues, shouting and screaming,
while the bells in every spire rang as for some great national jubilee.
At Lincoln was erected a triumphal arch, which spanned the highway at
the entrance of the city. It was composed of the usual
materials--evergreens, and such flowers as could be procured at that
season of the year,--and was surmounted by the arms of Scotland, of
England, and of the famous old ecclesiastical city, merry Lincoln
itself. St. George's red cross was waving from the summit of the
ruinous castle, and great Tom of Lincoln was sending forth his
tremendous ding-dong, deep, hoarse, and solemn, from the Gothic spire of
the cathedral, drowning the mingled din of every other bell in the city.
The streets were full of enthusiastic people; the windows were full of
faces, flags, and the branches of trees. All were in a state of
merriment and uproar, while the shrill fifes and hoarse brattling drums,
succeeding the fine brass band, made the streets re-echo with 'the
British Grenadiers,' the most inspiriting of all our national quick
steps.
Immediately within the triumphal arch stood a carriage filled with
ladies, two of whom, very beautiful girls, the perfect personification
of young English belles, with the cherry lips, and merry, bright blue
eyes of the south, held aloft bouquets of roses, procured probably from
some hot-house, for at that season of the year they could not have been
reared elsewhere. At the moment the ensigns were passing with the
colours, the ladies made some sign to Campbell, who lowered the point of
his sword in salute, and desired his orderly bugler to sound a halt.
Each of the fair English girls, with a white riband bound her roses to
the tops of the colour-poles, just below the spear-heads, but not
without blushes and hesitation, for the eyes of thousands were turned
upon them, and the hearts of the unshaven ensigns were captured on the
instant. The ladies managed to say part of some address prepared for
the occasion, "regretting that they had not a wreath of thistles to
offer, and requesting that the soldiers would carry the flowers home to
their own country."
Campbell returned thanks. The ensigns, who, luckily for the regiment,
were both very handsome fellows, bore each on his breast the Waterloo
medal. They raised their bonnets, and retired to their places in the
centre; the music struck up again, and the Highlanders moved forward
with the badge of England adorning the shot-splintered poles of their
colours.
Of the latter, nothing was left save the gold tassels and that part of
the silk which was stitched round the pole, with a few shreds and
remnants of embroidery. The rest had all been shot away, or torn to
pieces by the rain and wind, by the battles and storms of twenty-one
years of continual warfare, in which the corps had borne a distinguished
part, since it had been embodied by the Duchess of Gordon in 1794. The
appearance of the bare poles attracted universal attention in every town
and hamlet. The people were heard to exclaim with wonder, "Look at the
colours! look at the colours!" which perhaps they supposed had been
reduced by a single volley to the condition in which they then appeared.
The bouquets of the Lincoln ladies remained long attached to the poles,
but the first frosty day completed their destruction, and nothing but
the stalks were left; yet these still remained when the regiment, after
a march of many hundred miles, came in sight of their native country.
Who can describe the wild delight of the Highlandmen, when, from the
hills of Northumberland, they beheld afar off the snow-clad summits of
the Cheviots, whose sides have been the scene of so many gallant
conflicts? A thousand bonnets rose at once into the air, and the
"Hoigh, hurrah!" from a thousand tongues made the welkin ring. What a
joyous march had been theirs through all merry England! How different
in appearance were its cities, its villages, its vast extent of
cultivated land when compared with the ruined _pueblas_ and desolate
cities of Portugal, or the barren hills and desert plains of Spanish
Estremadura. In the former country the soldiers of Massena had scarcely
left one stone standing upon another. What a change to these scenes and
places seemed the comforts, the luxuries, the happiness of England,
especially to those who had been enduring the starvation, the toil, the
yearly, daily, hourly danger and misery of continental service! Truly
it was a merry march that from Dover to Scotland, and never did private
soldiers trudge with their burden of seventy-five pounds weight more
contentedly, than the Gordon Highlanders on that long but happy route.
*CHAPTER XIX.*
*EDINBURGH.*
"Edina! Scotia's darling seat,
All hail thy palaces and towers!
Where once, beneath a monarch's feet,
Sat legislation's sovereign powers."
At Musselburgh, on approaching the old Roman bridge, the venerable
arches of which have so often rung to the tread of a Scottish host, the
Highlanders, as they marched down the brae which ascends to the kirk of
Inveresk, perceived that some preparations had been made for their
reception by the men of the "honest toon,"--the honourable title
conferred by Earl Randolph on that ancient burgh. Between the parapet
walls of the bridge, on the spot where once stood an antique barrier
gate, a triumphal arch was erected, and on its summit sat a bluff old
tar in his tarpaulin hat and frieze coat, bearing aloft the standard of
the ancient town of Fisherow, of which he was no bad representative.
With a voice, which had grown hoarse and loud in outroaring the waves
and blasts of the German ocean, he welcomed them in the deep Doric
language of Scotia, which had so long been a stranger to their ears.
"The song sings truly, 'There's nae folk like our ain folk,'" said
Campbell, as he rode along the bridge at the head of the column. "We
are home at last, God be praised! This is our third day's march on
Scottish ground. Scotland for ever! Shout, my lads! Three cheers for
her people! They seem to vie with the English in giving us a kindly
reception."
Their cheers were answered with three-fold heartiness from the other
side of the Esk, where the crowd was immense; and the interest and
excitement which prevailed may be imagined from the fact, that the whole
line of road between the Esk and Edinburgh, a distance of seven miles,
was so densely crowded as to be almost impassable; and when the regiment
entered the street of Fisherow the cheers and uproar were deafening.
The pressure of the people forward was so great, that the march was
stopped, the ranks were broken, and the music ceased. Hearty greetings
and shakings of hands ensued between men who had never met before, and
strapping fish-women, in their picturesque blue jackets and yellow
petticoats, were seen clinging round the necks of the soldiers; while a
crowd of fishermen and peasantry, every man of them with a bottle in his
hand, had hemmed in Campbell against the wall of a house, shouting
vociferously, each one, that he must drink with them. The colonel
abandoned in despair any attempt to proceed, or to urge forward his
horse, and sinking back on his saddle, he burst into a hearty roar of
laughter at the confused appearance of his men, and the mirth, jollity,
and happiness which beamed so radiantly in every face. Stuart was in a
similar predicament. The people pressed close around his horse, to
every leg of which an urchin was clinging fearlessly, while the rabble
shook both hands of the rider without cessation.
After the first wild burst of welcome was over, some order was regained,
and the march was resumed; but four hours elapsed before the regiment
gained entrance into the High-street of Edinburgh, by crushing through
the dense masses which occupied the Abbey-hill and Watergate, where they
were again brought almost to a halt. The crowd had followed them in
from Musselburgh and increased as it rolled along, and one might have
supposed that the entire population of the three Lothians was wedged
into the High-street of Edinburgh. Every window of all those lofty
houses, which shoot up on both sides of the way, and have been for five
centuries a theme of wonder to every traveller, was crowded with eager
faces: every lamp-post, every sign-board and door-head bore its load of
shouting urchins, and the whole street, from the castle to the palace,
was crowded to an excess never before witnessed.
The colonel, who always loved to produce an effect, had sent forward, a
mile or two in advance of the regiment, a young drum-boy, who having
lost a leg at Waterloo, had had its place supplied by a wooden one; and
the appearance of the little fellow, stumping along in his bonnet and
kilt, drew immensely on the sympathy of the women of all ranks, from the
ladies of _ton_ down to the poor vender of edibles.
"Eh, sirs! Gude guide us! Look at the drummer-laddie! the puir bairn
wi' the tree leg!" was the cry on all sides, as the tambour of Waterloo
limped along. "Eh! saw ye ever the maik o' that? Oh, wae to the wars,
and dule to them that wrocht them! What will his puir mither think at
the sicht o' her sodger laddie?"
It was a cunning stroke of policy, sending the mutilated boy forward as
an advanced guard. His appearance increased the enthusiasm of the
modern Athenians; and when the long line of dark-plumed bonnets appeared
above the advancing masses, pressing slowly into the street at the foot
of the Canongate, the cries and cheers resembled, as Campbell said,
nothing he had ever heard before, except the 'roar of the cannon and
musketry at the battle of Alexandria, in Egypt.' So many open mouths,
so many arms, heads, hands, and hats in motion at once, presented a very
odd appearance, and Stuart, in consequence of being elevated on
horseback above the dense masses which crowded the way from wall to
wall, had a full view of the whole assemblage, and thus possessed an
advantage over the officers and soldiers who marched on foot. In some
places there might be seen a plumed bonnet floating above a sea of
heads, where some solitary Highlander, separated far from the rest of
his comrades, was struggling in vain to get forward,--a girl, perhaps,
hanging around his neck, two men grasping his hands, a third shouldering
his musket, while a fourth held a pint-stoup to his mouth, calling upon
him to 'drink to the health o' his ain folk.'
In other places appeared the long bayonets, the Lochaber axes and cocked
hats of the town guard. That ancient civic corps had been ordered to
line the streets, but being completely routed by the pressure of the
people, they had abandoned their posts and sought shelter behind the
long lines of carriages which were drawn up on each side of the street
as closely as they may be seen at a race-course.
Never before had Edinburgh witnessed such enthusiasm, such merriment,
noise, laughter, hubbub, such shaking of hands, such pressing, crushing,
and tumult, as that with which its hospitable inhabitants welcomed the
first-returning regiment of their countrymen; and even Campbell
himself--with many regrets that poor Fassifern was not there to share in
it--declared that he'd never met with any thing like it, 'even in
Egypt!'
To show their respect for their victorious countrymen, even the honest
Baillies of Edinburgh, headed by the Lord Provost, turned out in state
to welcome them; and upon this occasion, contrary to their usual wont,
they arrived on the ground--almost--in time. The Provost had prepared a
set speech, and would have delivered it, probably, if he hadn't been
frightened almost out of his wits at the outset, and forgotten it
besides. So a bold Baillie, in scarlet robe and beaver, got upon his
legs to welcome home the Highlandmen; and it is to be regretted that the
only part of his speech which has been preserved consists merely of an
apology on behalf of the Provost,--an assertion that all Scotland was
well assured 'no a rajment in the haill service had done sae muckle
mischief as the ninety-twa during the wars,' and an offer of an
unlimited pinch of snuff from a very handsome gold box which the Baillie
carried with him, and which the colonel took it for granted contained
the freedom of the city at the very least. To all of which Campbell
replied in a speech, which to this day may be seen, printed in small
capitals, in the _Edinburgh Journal_.
The bows, the sweet smiles, and pretty wreaths of real or artificial
flowers which the ladies tossed from the carriages lining the streets,
were far more agreeable tokens of admiration than the address of Baillie
Mucklewham; and those wounded officers who still bore their arms in
slings, found that such honourable badges of war attracted the utmost
attention and interest.
Having thus piloted back Ronald Stuart to the Scottish capital, the
place in which his military career began, and having brought him thither
safe and sound, wind and limb,--with the rank of major, and a moderate
fortune besides, the reader may suppose that his adventures are
finished. But pause awhile, dear reader! one or two of the most
interesting--to him at least--are yet to come. The regiment halted in
the gloomy old quadrangle of the castle, where they were wheeled into
line and closely inspected by the commander-in-chief, who complimented
Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, in the usual phraseology, on the efficiency
and discipline, &c. &c. &c. of the regiment. Campbell replied, that he
believed they were in as good trim as when they returned from Egypt,
some sixteen years before.
The moment this tedious ceremony was over, Ronald, who had been wishing
the whole North British staff at the bottom of the draw-well, found
himself seated in the 'Rob Roy' Perth stage, without having doffed his
trappings, and with no other encumbrances than his plaid and claymore.
In ten minutes Edinburgh, the city of the seven hills, was far behind
him, and the stage was bounding along the Queensferry road, past the
hills and woods of Corstorphin, as fast as four blood-horses and four
flying wheels could bear it. The heart of the gallant young Scot was
leaping with feelings of gladness and delight, which none can imagine
save those who have experienced the pleasure of returning home after a
long and weary absence. Five years had elapsed since he had travelled
that road before, and it seemed a very long time to look back upon. He
had seen so many strange scenes, places, and persons in that time, that
it seemed like a century.
"Five years ago! Alice was quite a girl then," he repeated to himself.
"Ah! Alice will be quite a woman now; but she is my beloved Alice
still." At times there flitted across his mind anticipations of
something unpleasant occurring, in consequence of his father's obstinate
and old-fashioned hostility to the Inchavon family; and he remembered,
with peculiar pain, his resentment when his passion for Alice Lisle
first became known to him.
It was nearly midnight when he alighted at the George Inn, and he had
yet a considerable distance to travel before he should reach Lochisla.
Having a stout saddle-horse, he took the road which led to Lochearn, and
as he perfectly remembered every by-way and sheep-track, he struck
across the mountains, taking a nearer way to Lochisla than the high
road; and as there was neither hedge, ditch, wall, or enclosure of any
kind, the way was free and open, and he galloped on by beetling craigs,
by corrie and rock, over ground from which the most heedless fox-hunter
would have recoiled with dismay.
*CHAPTER XX.*
*LOCHISLA.*
"They are gone! they are gone! the redoubted, the brave!
The sea breezes lone o'er their relics are sighing;
Dark weeds of oblivion shroud many a grave,
Where the unconquered foes of the Campbell are lying."
_The Stuarts of Appin._
The bright moon was shedding her lustre over hill and valley, and the
traveller soon saw the mountain Isla gleaming beneath her beams as
brightly as ever he had seen the Ebro or the Douro, and he listened with
delight to the murmur of its falling waters as they poured over the
shelving linn at Corrie-avon,--a fortunate ducking in the pool of which
had so suddenly changed the sentiments of Alice's father towards him.
Now he was on the old familiar road to his home. It was long past
midnight. "Such a joyful surprise they will have!" said he, communing
with himself, "and a merry new year it will be in the glen; but poor old
Donald Iverach, he will look in vain for his fair-haired Evan."
The road was closely bordered by pine and birch trees. The latter were
bare and leafless, and their stems and branches gleamed like a fairy
shrubbery of silver in the moonlight; but the former, the solemn black
pines of Caledonia, remained in all their rough unfading foliage, and
cast around them a gloomy horror. Steep rocks, where the bright-eyed
eagle and the giant glede looked forth from their eyrie, echoing caves,
whilom the residence of wild and wondrous beings, the cairns of
long-departed chiefs, rough obelisks, marking the ground of ancient
battles and covered with mossy figures grim and terrible, bordered the
devious way; but he hailed them all with delight, for they were the
well-known haunts of his childhood, and his terror of the mysterious
beings that were said to guard them had long since passed away. He set
up his old hunting halloo as he galloped along, to hear if they
re-echoed as of old, and in his glee he shouted fearlessly into a
yawning chasm called the Uamhachoralaich, an uncouth name, which means
'the cavern of the strange spirit.' He hallooed again and again, to
hear the voluminous echo which had so often stricken awe and horror into
his heart when he was a child; and anon he dashed up the glen, scaring
the deer in the thicket and the eagle on the rock, and causing the
colleys on the distant hills and moors to hearken and howl in alarm.
Now, Lochisla lay before him! The whole scene burst upon his view at
once, as his horse bounded up from the narrow gorge through which the
road-way wound. The lonely Highland lake lay sleeping at the foot of
the dark and wooded hills, which descended abruptly on all sides towards
it. Tall and spectral on its rock, with one side covered with dark ivy
and the other gleaming grey in the moonlight, the tower overhung the
loch. Far beyond rose Ben-more, dim and distant. The declining moon
was verging towards his ridgy back, behind which it would soon
disappear. In the tower, or the clachan beneath it, no light was
visible. Every loophole and window was dark.
"They are all a-bed; and the poor old watch-dog must be dead, or I
should have heard his honest bark before this," said Ronald aloud, as he
rode on towards the gate in the outer wall of the fortalice.