had been an intimate of the unfortunate Mary from her early years;
was educated with her in France, in the Catholic faith; and had left
her court to become the wife of Bruntfield. It was a time calculated
to change the natures of women, as well as of men. The severity with
which her religion was treated in Scotland, the wrongs of her royal
mistress, and finally the sufferings and death of her husband, acting
upon a mind naturally enthusiastic, all conspired to alter the
character of Marie Carmichael, and substitute for the rosy hues of
her early years, the gloom of the sepulchre and the penitentiary. She
continued, after the restoration of peace, to reside in the house of
her late husband; but though it was within two miles of the city, she
did not for many years re-appear in public. With no society but that
of her children, and the persons necessary to attend upon them, she
mourned in secret over past events, seldom stirring from a particular
apartment, which, in accordance with a fashion by no means uncommon,
she had caused to be hung with black, and which was solely illuminated
by a lamp. In the most rigorous observances of her faith, she was
assisted by a priest, whose occasional visits formed almost the only
intercourse which she maintained with the external world. One strong
passion gradually acquired a complete sway over her mind—REVENGE—a
passion which the practice of the age had invested with a conventional
respectability, and which no kind of religious feeling, then known,
was able either to check or soften. So entirely was she absorbed by
this fatal passion, that her very children, at length, ceased to have
interest or merit in her eyes, except in so far as they appeared
likely to be the means of gratifying it. One after another, as they
reached the age of fourteen, she sent them to France, in order to be
educated; but the accomplishment to which they were enjoined to direct
their principal attention was that of martial exercises. The eldest,
Stephen, returned, at eighteen, a strong and active youth, with a mind
of little polish or literary information, but considered a perfect
adept at sword-play. As his mother surveyed his noble form, a smile
stole into the desert of her wan and widowed face, as a winter sunbeam
wanders over a waste of snows. But it was a smile of more than motherly
pride: she was estimating the power which that frame would have in
contending with the murderous Moubray. She was not alone pleased with
the handsome figure of her first-born child; but she thought with a
fiercer and faster joy upon the appearance which it would make in
the single combat against the slayer of his father. Young Bruntfield,
who, having been from his earliest years trained to the purpose now
contemplated by his mother, rejoiced in the prospect, now lost no time
in preferring before the king a charge of murder against the laird of
Barnbougle, whom he at the same time challenged, according to a custom
then not altogether abrogated, to prove his innocence in single combat.
The king having granted the necessary licence, the fight took place in
the royal park, near the palace; and, to the surprise of all assembled,
young Bruntfield fell under the powerful sword of his adversary. The
intelligence was communicated to his mother at Craighouse, where she
was found in her darkened chamber, prostrate before an image of the
Virgin. The priest who had been commissioned to break the news, opened
his discourse in a tone intended to prepare her for the worst; but she
cut him short at the very beginning with a frantic exclamation—“I know
what you would tell—the murderer’s sword has prevailed, and there are
now but two instead of three, to redress their father’s wrongs!” The
melancholy incident, after the first burst of feeling, seemed only to
have concentrated and increased that passion by which she had been
engrossed for so many years. She appeared to feel that the death of
her eldest son only formed an addition to that debt which it was the
sole object of her existence to see discharged. “Roger,” she said,
“will have the death of his brother, as well as that of his father, to
avenge. Animated by such a double object, his arm can hardly fail to be
successful.”
Roger returned about two years after, a still handsomer, more athletic,
and more accomplished youth than his brother. Instead of being daunted
by the fate of Stephen, he burned but the more eagerly to wipe out the
injuries of his house with the blood of Moubray. On his application
for a licence being presented to the court, it was objected by the
crown lawyers, that the case had been already closed by _mal fortune_
of the former challenger. But while this was the subject of their
deliberation, the applicant caused so much annoyance and fear in the
court circle, by the threats which he gave out against the enemy of
his house, that the king, whose inability to procure respect either
for himself or for the law is well known, thought it best to decide
in favour of his claim. Roger Bruntfield, therefore, was permitted to
fight in barras with Moubray; but the same fortune attended him as that
which had already deprived the widow of her first child. Slipping his
foot in the midst of the combat, he reeled to the ground, embarrassed
by his cumbrous armour. Moubray, according to the barbarous practice
of the age, immediately sprang upon and despatched him. “Heaven’s will
be done!” said the widow, when she heard of the fatal incident; “but
_gratias Deo!_ there still remains another chance.”
Henry Bruntfield, the third and last surviving son, had all along been
the favourite of his mother. Though apparently cast in a softer mould
than his two elder brothers, and bearing all the marks of a gentler
and more amiable disposition, he in reality cherished the hope of
avenging his father’s death more deeply in the recesses of his heart,
and longed more ardently to accomplish that deed than any of his
brothers. His mind, naturally susceptible of the softest and tenderest
impressions, had contracted the enthusiasm of his mother’s wish in its
strongest shape; as the fairest garments are capable of the deepest
stain. The intelligence, which reached him in France, of the death of
his brothers, instead of bringing to his heart the alarm and horror
which might have been expected, only braced him to the adventure which
he now knew to be before him. From this period, he forsook the elegant
learning which he had heretofore delighted to cultivate. His nights
were spent in poring over the memoirs of distinguished knights—his days
were consumed in the tilt-yard of the sword-player. In due time he
entered the French army, in order to add to mere science that practical
hardihood, the want of which he conceived to be the cause of the death
of his brothers. Though the sun of chivalry was now declining far
in the occident, it was not yet altogether set: Montmorency was but
just dead; Bayard was still alive—Bayard, the knight of all others
who has merited the motto, “_sans peur et sans reproche_.” Of the
lives and actions of such men, Henry Bruntfield was a devout admirer
and imitator. No young knight kept a firmer seat upon his horse—none
complained less of the severities of campaigning—none cherished lady’s
love with a fonder, purer, or more devout sensation. On first being
introduced at the court of Henry the Third, he had signalised, as a
matter of course, Catherine Moubray, the disinherited niece of his
father’s murderer, who had been educated in a French convent by her
other relatives, and was now provided for in the household of the
queen. The connection of this young lady with the tale of his own
family, and the circumstance of her being a sufferer in common with
himself by the wickedness of one individual, would have been enough
to create a deep interest respecting her in his breast. But when, in
addition to these circumstances, we consider that she was beautiful,
was highly accomplished, and, in many other respects, qualified to
engage his affections, we can scarcely be surprised that _that_ was
the result of their acquaintance. Upon one point alone did these
two interesting persons ever think differently. Catherine, though
inspired by her friends from infancy with an entire hatred of her
cruel relative, contemplated, with fear and aversion, the prospect
of her lover being placed against him in deadly combat, and did all
in her power to dissuade him from his purpose. Love, however, was of
little avail against the still more deeply-rooted passion which had
previously occupied his breast. Flowers thrown upon a river might have
been as effectual in staying its course towards the cataract, as the
gentle entreaties of Catherine Moubray in withholding Henry Bruntfield
from the enterprise for which his mother had reared him—for which his
brothers had died—for which he had all along moved and breathed.
At length, accomplished with all the skill which could then be acquired
in arms, glowing with all the earnest feelings of youth, Henry returned
to Scotland. On reaching his mother’s dwelling, she clasped him, in
a transport of varied feeling, to her breast, and for a long time
could only gaze upon his elegant person. “My last and dearest,” she
at length said, “and thou too are to be adventured upon this perilous
course! Much have I bethought me of the purpose which now remains to be
accomplished. I have not been without a sense of dread lest I be only
doing that which is to sink my soul in flames at the day of reckoning;
but yet there has been that which comforts me also. Only yesternight
I dreamed that your father appeared before me. In his hand he held
a bow and three goodly shafts—at a distance appeared the fierce and
sanguinary Moubray. He desired me to shoot the arrows at that arch
traitor, and I gladly obeyed. A first and a second he caught in his
hand, broke, and trampled on with contempt. But the third shaft, which
was the fairest and goodliest of all, pierced his guilty bosom, and he
immediately expired. The revered shade at this gave me an encouraging
smile, and withdrew. My Henry, thou art that _third arrow_, which
is at length to avail against the shedder of our blood. The dream
seems a revelation, given especially that I may have comfort in this
enterprise, otherwise so revolting to a mother’s feelings.”
Young Bruntfield saw that his mother’s wishes had only imposed upon
her reason; but he made no attempt to break the charm by which she was
actuated, being glad, upon any terms, to obtain her sanction for that
adventure to which he was himself impelled by feelings considerably
different. He therefore began, in the most deliberate manner, to take
measures for bringing on the combat with Moubray. The same legal
objections which had stood against the second duel were maintained
against the third; but public feeling was too favourable to the object
to be easily withstood. The laird of Barnbougle, though somewhat past
the bloom of life, was still a powerful and active man, and, instead
of expressing any fear to meet this third and more redoubted warrior,
rather longed for a combat which promised, if successful, to make him
one of the most renowned swordsmen of his time. He had also heard of
the attachment which subsisted between Bruntfield and his niece; and,
in the contemplation of an alliance which might give some force to the
claims of that lady upon his estate, found a deeper and more selfish
reason for accepting the challenge of his youthful enemy. King James
himself protested against stretching the law of the _per duellum_ so
far; but, sensible that there would be no peace between either the
parties or their adherents till it should be decided in a fair combat,
he was fain to grant the required licence.
The fight was appointed to take place on Cramond Inch, a low grassy
island in the Frith of Forth, near the castle of Barnbougle. All the
preparations were made in the most approved manner by the young Duke
of Lennox, who had been the friend of Bruntfield in France. On a level
spot, close to the northern beach of the islet, a space was marked
off and strongly secured by a paling. The spectators, who were almost
exclusively gentlemen (the rabble not being permitted to approach),
sat upon a rising ground beside the enclosure, while the space towards
the sea was quite clear. At one end, surrounded by his friends, stood
the laird of Barnbougle, a huge and ungainly figure, whose features
displayed a mixture of ferocity and hypocrisy, in the highest degree
unpleasing. At the other, also attended by a host of family allies
and friends, stood the gallant Henry Bruntfield, who, if divested
of his armour, might have realised the idea of a winged Mercury. A
seat was erected close beside the barras for the Duke of Lennox and
other courtiers, who were to act as judges; and at a little distance
upon the sea lay a small decked vessel, with a single male figure on
board. After all the proper ceremonies which attended this strange
legal custom had been gone through, the combatants advanced into the
centre, and, planting foot to foot, each with his heavy sword in his
hand, awaited the command which should let them loose against each
other, in a combat which both knew would only be closed with the death
of one or other. The word being given, the fight commenced. Moubray,
almost at the first pass, gave his adversary a cut in the right limb,
from which the blood was seen to flow profusely. But Bruntfield was
enabled, by this mishap, to perceive the trick upon which his adversary
chiefly depended, and, by taking care to avoid it, put Moubray nearly
_hors de combat_. The fight then proceeded for a few minutes, without
either gaining the least advantage over the other. Moubray was able
to defend himself pretty successfully from the cuts and thrusts
of his antagonist, but he could make no impression in return. The
question then became one of time. It was evident that, if no lucky
stroke should take effect beforehand, he who first became fatigued
with the exertion would be the victim. Moubray felt his disadvantage
as the elder and bulkier man, and began to fight most desperately,
and with less caution. One tremendous blow, for which he seemed to
have gathered his last strength, took effect upon Bruntfield, and
brought him upon his knee, in a half-stupified state; but the elder
combatant had no strength to follow up the effort. He reeled towards
his youthful and sinking enemy, and stood for a few moments over him,
vainly endeavouring to raise his weapon for another and final blow.
Ere he could accomplish his wish, Bruntfield recovered sufficient
strength to draw his dagger, and thrust it up to the hilt beneath the
breastplate of his exhausted foe. The murderer of his race instantly
lay dead beside him, and a shout of joy from the spectators hailed him
as the victor. At the same instant, a scream of more than earthly note
arose from the vessel anchored near the island: a lady descended from
its side into a boat, and, rowing to the land, rushed up to the bloody
scene, where she fell upon the neck of the conqueror, and pressed him,
with the most frantic eagerness, to her bosom. The widow of Stephen
Bruntfield at length found the yearnings of twenty years fulfilled—she
saw the murderer of her husband, the slayer of her two sons, dead on
the sward before her, while there still survived to her as noble a
child as ever blessed a mother’s arms. But the revulsion of feeling
produced by the event was too much for her strength; or, rather,
Providence, in its righteous judgment, had resolved that so unholy a
feeling as that of revenge should not be too signally gratified. She
expired in the arms of her son, murmuring “_Nunc dimittis, Domine_,”
with her latest breath.
The remainder of the tale of Bruntfield may be easily told. After
a decent interval, the young laird of Craighouse married Catherine
Moubray; and as the king saw it right to restore that young lady to a
property originally forfeited for service to his mother, the happiness
of the parties might be considered as complete. A long life of
prosperity and peace was granted to them by the kindness of Heaven; and
at their death, they had the satisfaction of enjoying that greatest of
all earthly blessings, the love and respect of a numerous and virtuous
family.
THE PASSING CROWD.
“The Passing Crowd” is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference.
Yet, to a man of what Plato calls “universal sympathies,” and even to
the plain ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting
than “the passing crowd?” Does not this tide of human beings, which
we daily see passing along the ways of this world, consist of persons
animated by the same spark of the divine essence, and partaking of
the same high destinies with ourselves? Let us stand still but for a
moment in the midst of this busy and seemingly careless scene, and
consider what they are or may be whom we see around us. In the hurry
of the passing show, and of our own sensations, we see but a series of
unknown faces; but this is no reason why we should regard them with
indifference. Many of these persons, if we knew their histories, would
rivet our admiration by the ability, worth, benevolence, or piety,
which they have displayed in their various paths through life. Many
would excite our warmest interest by their sufferings—sufferings,
perhaps, borne meekly and well, and more for the sake of others than
themselves. How many tales of human weal and woe, of glory and of
humiliation, could be told by those beings, whom, in passing, we
regard not! Unvalued as they are by us, how many as good as ourselves
repose upon them the affections of bounteous hearts, and would not
want them for any earthly compensation! Every one of these persons, in
all probability, retains in his bosom the cherished recollections of
early happy days, spent in some scene which “they ne’er forget, though
there they are forgot,” with friends and fellows who, though now far
removed in distance and in fortune, are never to be given up by the
heart. Every one of these individuals, in all probability, nurses still
deeper in the recesses of feeling, the remembrance of that chapter
of romance in the life of every man, an early earnest attachment,
conceived in the fervour of youth, unstained by the slightest thought
of self, and for a time purifying and elevating the character far above
its ordinary standard. Beneath all this gloss of the world—this cold
conventional aspect, which all more or less present, and which the
business of life renders necessary—there resides for certain a fountain
of goodness, pure in its inner depths as the lymph rock-distilled,
and ready on every proper occasion to well out in the exercise of the
noblest duties. Though all may seem but a hunt after worldly objects,
the great majority of these individuals can, at the proper time, cast
aside all earthly thoughts, and communicate directly with the Being
whom their fathers have taught them to worship, and whose will and
attributes have been taught to man immediately by Himself. Perhaps many
of these persons are of loftier aspect than ourselves, and belong to a
sphere removed above our own. But, nevertheless, if the barrier of mere
worldly form were taken out of the way, it is probable that we could
interchange sympathies with these persons as freely and cordially as
with any of our own class. Perhaps they are of an inferior order; but
they are only inferior in certain circumstances, which should never
interpose to prevent the flow of feeling for our kind. The great common
features of human nature remain; and let us never forget how much
respect is due to the very impress of humanity—the type of the divine
nature itself! Even where our fellow creatures are degraded by vice and
poverty, let us still be gentle in our judging. The various fortunes
which we every day see befalling the members of a single family, after
they part off in their several paths through life, teach us that it is
not to every one that success in the career of existence is destined.
Besides, do not the arrangements of society at once necessitate the
subjection of an immense multitude to humble toil, and give rise to
temptations, before which the weak and uninstructed can scarcely escape
falling? But even beneath the soiled face of the poor artizan, there
may be aspirations after some vague excellence, which hard fate has
denied him the means of attaining, though the very wish to obtain it is
itself ennobling. The very mendicant was not always so; he, too, has
had his undegraded and happier days, upon the recollection of which,
some remnant of better feeling may still repose.
These, I humbly think, are reasons why we should not look with coldness
upon any masses of men with whom it may be our lot to mingle. It is the
nature of a good man to conclude that others are like himself; and if
we take the crowd promiscuously, we can never be far wrong in thinking
that there are worthy and well-directed feelings in it as well as in
our own bosoms.
A TALE OF THE FORTY-FIVE.
Never, perhaps, did any city, upon the approach of a foreign enemy,
betray such symptoms of consternation and disorder, as did Edinburgh,
on the 16th of September 1745, when it was understood that Prince
Charles Edward, with his army of Highlanders, had reached a village
three miles to the westward, unresisted by the civic corps in which
the hapless city had placed its last hopes of defence. A regiment of
dragoons, which had retreated on the previous day from Stirling, and
another which happened to be encamped near Edinburgh, having joined
their strengths to that of the town-guard and volunteers, had that
forenoon marched boldly out of town, with the determined purpose of
opposing the rebels, and saving the town; but after standing very
bravely for a few hours at Corstorphine, the spectacle of a single
Highlander, who rode up towards them and fired off his pistol, caused
the whole of these gallant cavaliers to turn and fly; nor did they
stop till they had left Edinburgh itself twenty miles behind. The
precipitate flight of regular troops was the worst possible example for
a body of raw, undisciplined citizens, who were too much accustomed
to the secure comforts of their firesides, to have any relish for the
horrors of an out-of-doors war with the unscrupulous mountaineers. The
consequence was, that all retreated in confusion back to the city,
where their pusillanimity was the subject of triumphant ridicule to the
Jacobite party, and of shame and fear to the rest of the inhabitants.
In this dilemma, as band after band poured through the West Port, and
filled the ample area of the Grassmarket, the magistrates assembled in
their council chamber, for the purpose of “wondering what was to be
done.” The result of their deliberations was, that a full meeting of
the inhabitants should be held, in order that they might be enabled
to shape their course according to the general opinion. Orders were
immediately given to this effect, and in the course of an hour, they
found a respectable assemblage of citizens, prepared, in one of the
churches of St Giles’s, to consider the important question of the
defensibility of the town.
The appearance of the city, on this dreadful afternoon, was very
remarkable, and such as we hope it will never again exhibit. All the
streets to the west of St Giles’s were crowded with citizen volunteers,
apparently irresolute whether to lay down their arms or to retain them,
and whose anxious and crest-fallen looks communicated only despair
to the trembling citizens. The sound of hammers was heard at the
opening of every lane, and at the bottoms of all important _turnpike_
stairs, where workmen were busied in mounting strong doors, studded
thickly with nails, moving on immense hinges, and bearing bolts and
bars of no ordinary strength—the well-known rapacious character of
the Highlanders, not less than their present hostile purpose, having
suggested this feeble attempt at security. The principal street was
encumbered with the large, tall, pavilion-roofed family carriages of
people of distinction, judges, and officers of the crown, which, after
being hastily crammed with their proper burdens of live stock, and
laden atop with as much baggage as they could carry, one after another
wheeled off down the High Street, through the Netherbow, and so out of
town. A few scattered groups of women, children, and inferior citizens,
stood near that old-accustomed meeting place, the Cross, round the
tall form of which they seemed to gather, like a Catholic population
clinging to a sacred fabric, which they suppose to be endowed with some
protecting virtue.
At the ordinary dinner hour, when the streets were as usual in a great
measure deserted, and while the assemblage of citizens were still
deliberating in the New Church aisle, the people of the High Street
were thrown into a state of dreadful agitation, by a circumstance which
they witnessed from their windows. The accustomed silence of “the
hollow hungry hour” was suddenly broken by the clatter of a horse’s
feet upon the pavement; and on running to their windows, they were
prodigiously alarmed at the sight of one of their anticipated foes
riding boldly up the street. Yet this alarm subsided considerably, when
they observed that his purpose seemed pacific, and that he was not
followed by any companions. The horseman was a youth apparently about
twenty years of age, with a remarkably handsome figure and gallant
carriage, which did not fail in their effect upon at least the female
part of the beholders. The most robust Highland health was indicated in
his fair countenance and athletic form: and, in addition to this, his
appearance expressed just enough of polish not to destroy the romantic
effect produced by his wild habiliments and striking situation. The
tight tartan trews showed well upon a limb, of which the symmetry was
never equalled by David Allan, the national painter, so remarkable
for his handsome Highland limbs, and of which the effect, instead of
being impaired by the clumsy boot, was improved by the neat brogue,
fastened as it was to the foot by sparkling silver buckles. He wore
a smart round bonnet, adorned with his family cognisance—a bunch of
ivy—and from beneath which, a profusion of light brown tresses, tied
with dark ribbons, flowed, according to the fashion of the time, about
half way down his back. He carried a small white flag in his hand, and
bore about his person the full set of Highland arms—broadsword, dirk,
and two silver-mounted pistols. Many a warm Jacobite heart, male and
female, palpitated at sight of his graceful figure, and a considerable
crowd of idle admirers, or wonderers, followed him up the broad noble
expanse of the High Street.