appearance was so formidable to his foes. He again applied himself
to the consideration of the question as to which way it was best for
him to fly. He cast his eyes all over the field of action around him;
and, much to his satisfaction, he perceived that the officer at the
head of the red regiment of Englishmen, which had previously given
him so much alarm, had been so very obliging as to determine this
difficult question for him. Some movement of the flying clans, who
had retreated on Strath Nairn, had induced the officer to alter his
line of march; and, in a very short time, John had the happiness of
seeing himself very much in the rear of the red battalion, instead of
being immediately in its front, as he had formerly been. Looking to
the north-eastward, he perceived that all was comparatively clear and
quiet, so far as he could see. There were now no longer any regular
masses of men on the field, neither were there any signs of flight or
pursuit in that direction. A few stragglers were to be seen, it is
true, moving about, like evil spirits among the killed, and perhaps
performing the office of messengers of death to the wounded. Strange,
indeed, was the change that had taken place, upon that which had
been so lately a scene of stormy and desperate conflict. A few large
birds of prey were soaring high in air, in eager contemplation of that
banquet which had been so liberally spread for them on the plain by
ferocious man. But, in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where
John Smith was, the terrified pewit had already settled down again
with confidence on her nest, the robin had again begun to chirp,
and to direct his sharp eye towards the earth in search of worms;
and the lark was again heaving herself up into the sky, giving forth
her innocent song as she rose,--all apparently utterly unconscious
that any such terrible and bloody turmoil had taken place between
different sections of the human race. John therefore made up his mind
at once; and, scrambling out of the peat-hag, he darted away over
the moor, and flying like a ghost across the very middle of the field
of battle, through the heaps of dead and dying, to the utter terror
and discomfiture of those wolves and hyenas in the shape of men--aye,
and of women too--who were preying, as well upon those who had life,
as upon those who were lifeless, he scattered them to right and left
in terror at his appalling appearance, and dived amid the thick woods
of Culloden.
Having once found shelter among the trees, John stopped to breathe
awhile, and then he again set forward to unravel his way. It so
happened, that, as he proceeded, he chanced to come upon the very spot
where he had feasted with MacTaggart and his comrades on his mistress
the Pensassenach's sow, and the other good things which the Highlanders
had taken from her. The gnawing demon of hunger that possessed him,
inserted his fell fangs more furiously into his stomach, from very
association with the scene. What would he not have now given for
the smallest morsel of that goodly beast, the long and ample side of
which arose upon his mind's eyes, as he had beheld her carcase hanging
from the bough of a tree, previous to the rapid subdivision which it
underwent. Alas! the very thought of it was now an unreal mockery. Yet
he could not help looking anxiously around, though in vain, among the
extinguished remains of the fires of the bivouacs; and he figured to
himself the joy and comfort and refreshment he would have experienced,
if his eyes could have lighted even on a half-broiled fragment of one
of the pettitoes, which he might have picked at as he fled. John's eyes
were so intently turned to the ground, that he saw not the unfortunate
Mr. Dallas, who still dangled from the bough of the fir tree above him.
Whilst John was poking about in this manner, earnestly turning over the
ashes, and looking amongst them as if he had been in search of a pin,
he suddenly heard the tramp of horses at some little distance. The
sound was evidently coming towards him; and he could distinguish
men's voices. He cast his eyes eagerly around him, to discover
some ready place of concealment; and now, for the first time, he
caught sight of the wasted figure of Mr. Dallas, swinging at some
distance above him, with the dull glassy eyeballs apparently fixed
upon him. His heart sank within him; for the corpse of the wretched
man seemed to typify his own immediate fate. He was paralyzed for a
moment. But the sound drew nearer; and, spying a holly-tree with a
reasonably tall stem, and a very thick and bushy head, which happened
to grow most fortunately near him, he ran towards it, reached up his
hands, seized hold of its lower branches, and, weak though he was,
the energy of self-preservation enabled him very quickly to coil
himself up amongst its dense foliage, where he sat as still as death,
and scarcely allowing himself to breathe. The holly-tree stood by the
side of a horse-track that led through the wood, and which crossed the
small open space where most of the fires of Captain M'Taggart's bivouac
had been kindled. Two troopers came riding leisurely up through the
wood along it, their horses considerably jaded by the work of the day.
"Ha!" said one of them to the other, reining up his steed as he spoke,
just on entering the open space,--"What have we here, Jack?"
"I should not wonder now if 'em 'ere should be the remains of the
fires of some of them rebel rascals," said Jack, with wonderful
acuteness. "Them is a proper set of waggabones, to be sure. How we
did lick the rascals! Didn't we, Bob?"
"To be sure we did, Jack," replied Bob.
"But you and I aint made much on it, arter all. I wish the captain
at the devil--so I do--for sendin' us a unting arter that officer he
was a wanting to ketch."
"Aye," said Jack; "so do I, from the bottom of my soul. But if we
had ketcht him, I think we should 'a gained a prize, seeing that he
wur walued at twenty golden pieces by his Highness the Duke. Whoy,
who the plague could he be? Not the chap they calls Prince Charles
Stuart himself surelye? I should think that his carcase would fetch
a deal more money."
"A deal more money indeed!" said Bob.
"Lord bless thee, I would not sell my share of him for an underd. But
why may we not ketch him yet, Jack? Look sharp; do--and see if you
can spy ere an oak in this wood, with a head so royal as to hide this
Prince Charles Stuart in it, as that 'ere one did King Charley the
Second arter the great battle of Worcester. Zounds! what a fortin
you and I should make, an' we could only ketch him!"
"Pooh!" replied Jack, moving so close to the little holly, that his
head and that of John Smith were within two yards of each other--"Pooh
man! there beant no oaks bigger than this here holly, in all this
blasted, cold, and wretched country." And, at the same time, he gave
its bushy head a thwack with the flat of his sword that set every
leaf of it in motion, and John's heart, body, muscles, and nerves,
shaking in sympathy with them.
"Beg your pardon," said Bob. "I was in a great big wood yesterday--that
same, I mean, that spreads abroad all over the country, above that
'ere ould castle wot they calls Cawdor Castle. And sitch oak trees
as I seed there! My heyes, some on 'em had heads as would cover half
a troop! But, hark ye, Jack! Is there no tree, think ye, fit to have
a man in't but an oak? Dost not think that a good stout fir-tree now
might support a man?"
"Oh," replied Jack, "surelye, surelye. This here holly, for instance,
might hide a man in its head;"--and, as he said so, he gave the holly
another thwack, that, for a few moments, banished every drop of blood
from the heart of John Smith. "But your oak is your only tree for
concealing your King or your Prince; for, as the old rhyme has it,
'The royal oak is not a joke.'
As for your firs, they may be well enough for affording a refuge to
your men of smaller mark."
"Then you don't think that 'ere feller, wot hangs from yonder fir
tree, can be a King or a Prince, do you, Jack?" demanded Bob, laughing
heartily at his own joke.
"My heyes!" exclaimed Jack, rubbing his optics, and looking
earnestly for some time at the corpse of Mr. Dallas; "sure I cannot
be mistaken? As I'm a soldier, that 'ere is the very face, figure,
clothes, and, above all, short leg and queer shoe, of the identical
feller wot sould me an ould watch, wot was of no use, because you know
it never went, and therefore it stands to reason that it could only
tell the hour twice in the twenty-four. I say surelye, surelye, that
'ere is the very feller as sould me this here ould useless watch,
for a bran new great goer. Well, if it be'ant some satisfaction to
see the feller hanging there, my name aint Jack Blunt!"
"Them rascally rebels has robbed and murdered the poor wretch,"
said Bob.
"Well," replied Jack, "I am a right soft arted Christine; and therefore
most surelye do I forgive 'em for that same hact, if they'd never ha'
done no worse. But come Bob, my boy; an' we would be ketching kings
or princes, I doubt we mun be stirrin'."
"Aye, aye, that's true--let's be joggin'," replied Bob.
You may believe, gentlemen, that it was with no small satisfaction
that John Smith beheld them apply their spurs to the sides of their
weary animals. He listened to their departing footsteps until they
were beyond the reach of his hearing; and then, conscious as he felt
himself, that he was in much too weak a state to have maintained
an unequal combat against two fresh and vigorous men, with the
most distant chance of success, he put up a fervent ejaculation of
thankfulness for their departure, and his own safety.
He was in the act of preparing himself to drop from the tree, that
he might continue his flight, and was just putting down his legs from
amid the thick foliage, when he met with a new alarm, that compelled
him to draw them up again with great expedition. Some one on foot
now came singing along up the path, and John had hardly more than
time to conceal himself again, when he beheld the person enter upon
the open space, near the holly tree where he was perched. And a very
remarkable and striking personage he was. He wore an old, soiled,
torn, and tarnished regimental coat, which, though now divested of
every shred of the lace that had once adorned it, seemed to have once
belonged to an English officer; and this was put on over a tattered
Highland kilt, from beneath which his raw-boned limbs and long horny
feet appeared uncased by any covering. A dirty canvas shirt was all
that showed itself where a waistcoat should have been, and that was
all loose at the collar, fully exhibiting a thin, long, scraggy neck,
that supported a head of extraordinary dimensions, and of the strangest
malconformation, having a countenance, in which the appearance of the
goggle eyes alone, would have been enough to have satisfied the most
transient observer of the insanity of the individual to whom they
belonged. An old worn-out drummer's cap completed his costume. He
came dancing along, with a large piece of cheese held up before him
with both hands, and he went on, singing, hoarsely and vehemently,--
"Troll de roll loll--troll de loll lay;
If I could catch a reybell, I would him flay--
Troll de roll lay--troll de roll lum--
And out of his skin I wud make a big drum.
Ho! ho; ho; that wud be foine. But stay; I mun halt here, and sit
doon, and munch up mye cheese that I took so cleverly from that ould
woman.--Ho! ho! ho! ho!--How nice it is to follow the sodgers! Take
what we like--take what we like!--Ho! ho!--This is livin' like
a man! They ca'ed me daft Jock in the streets o' Perth; but our
sarjeant says as hoo that I'm to be made a captain noo.--Ho! ho!--A
captain! and to have a lang swurd by my side!--Ho! ho! ho!--I'll
be grand, very grand--and I'll fecht, and cut off the heads o' the
reybel loons!--Ho! ho! ho!
Troll de roll loll--troll de roll lay--
If I could catch a reybell I wud him----"
"Hoch!"--roared out John Smith, his patience being now quite
exhausted, by the thought that his chance of escaping with life was
thus to be rendered doubly precarious, by the provoking delay of this
idiot.--"Hoch!" roared he again, in a yet more tremendous voice, whilst
at the same time he thrust his head--and nothing but his turf-covered
head--with his bloody countenance, partially streaked with the tiny
streams of the inky liquid that had oozed from the peat, and run down
here and there over his face;--this horrible head, I say, John thrust
forth from the foliage, and glared fearfully at the appalled songster,
who stopped dead in the midst of his stave.
"Ah--a-ach--ha--a-ah--ha!" cried the poor idiot, in a prolonged scream
of terror that echoed through the wood, and off he flew, and was out
of sight in a moment.
John Smith lost not another instant of time. Dropping down from the
tree, he hastily picked up a small fragment of the cheese which
the idiot had let fall in his terror and confusion, and this he
devoured with inconceivable rapacity. But although this refreshed
him a little, it stirred up his hunger to a most agonizing degree,
so that if he had had no other cause for running, he would have run
from the very internal torment he was enduring. Dashing down through
the thickest of the brakes of the wood, so as to avoid observation
as much as possible, he at last traversed the whole extent of it in
a north-easterly direction, and gained the low open country beyond
it, whence he urged on his way, until he fell into that very line of
road, in the parish of Petty, which he had so lately marched over in
an opposite direction, and under circumstances so different, with
Captain M'Taggart and his company, on the afternoon of the 14th,
just two days before.
Remembering the whole particulars of that march, and the cheers
and the benedictions with which they had been every where greeted,
John Smith flattered himself that he had now got into a country of
friends, and that he had only to show himself at any of their doors,
wounded, weary, an' hungered and athirst, as he was, to ensure the
most charitable, compassionate, and hospitable reception. But, in so
calculating, John was ignorant of the versatility and worthlessness
of popular applause. He forgot that when he was passing to Culloden,
with the bold Captain M'Taggart and his company, they had been looked
upon as heroes marching to conquest; whilst he was now to be viewed
as a wretched runaway from a lost field. But he still more forgot,
that the same bloody, haggard countenance, and horrible head-gear,
which had been already so great a protection to him by terrifying
his enemies, could not have much chance of favourably recommending
him to his friends.
John stumped on along the road, therefore, with comparative
cheerfulness, arising from the prospect which he now had of speedy
relief. At some little distance before him, he observed a nice,
trig-looking country girl, trudging away barefoot, in the same
direction he was travelling. He hurried on to overtake her, in order
to learn from her where he was most likely to have his raging hunger
relieved. The girl heard his footstep coming up behind her, whilst
she was yet some twenty paces a-head of him;--she turned suddenly
round to see who the person was that was about to join her, and
beholding the terrible spectre-looking figure which John presented,
she uttered a piercing shriek, and darted off along the highway, with
a speed that nothing but intense dread could have produced. Altogether
forgetful of the probable cause of her alarm, John imagined that it
must proceed from fear of the Duke of Cumberland's men, and, with
this idea in his head, he ran after her as fast as his weak state
of body would allow him, earnestly vociferating to her to stop. But
the more he ran, and the more he shouted, just so much the more ran
and screamed the terrified young woman. Another girl was seated,
with a boy, on the grassy slope of a broomy hillock, immediately
over the road, tending three cows and a few sheep. Seeing the first
girl running in the way she was doing, they hurried to the road side
to enquire the cause of her alarm, but ere they had time to ask, or
she to answer, she shot past them, and the hideous figure of John
Smith appeared. Horror-struck, and so bewildered that they hardly
knew what they were doing, both girl and boy leaped into the road,
and fled along it. A little farther on, two labourers were engaged
digging a ditch, in a mossy hollow below the road. Curiosity to know
what was the cause of all this shrieking and running, induced these
men to hasten up to the road-side. But ere they had half reached
it, they beheld John coming, and turning with sudden dismay, they
scampered off across the fields, never stopping to draw breath till
they reached their own homes. John minded them not,--but fancying
that he was gaining on the three fugitives before him, and perceiving
a small hamlet of cottages a little way on, he redoubled his exertions.
Some dozen of persons, men, women, and children, were assembled about
a well, at what we in Scotland would call the town-end. They were
talking earnestly over the many, and most contradictory rumours, that
had reached them of the events of that day's battle, their rustic and
unwarlike souls having been so sunk, with the trepidation occasioned
by the distant sound of the heavy cannonade, that they as yet hardly
dared to speak but in whispers. Suddenly the shrieking of the three
young persons came upon their ears. They pricked them up in alarm,
and turned every eye along the road. The shrieking increased, and
the two girls and the boy appeared, with the formidable figure of
John Smith in pursuit of them.
"The Duke's men! the Duke's men! with the devil at their head!" cried
the wise man of the hamlet in Gaelic. "Run! or we're all dead and
murdered!"
In an instant every human head of them had disappeared, each having
burrowed under its own proper earthen hovel, with as much expedition
as would be displayed by the rabbits of a warren, when scared by a
Highland terrier. So instantaneously, and so securely, was every
little door fastened, that it was with some difficulty that the
three fugitives found places of shelter, and that too, not until
their shrieks had been multiplied ten-fold. When John Smith came up,
panting and blowing like a stranded porpus, all was snug, and the
little hamlet so silent, that if he had not caught a glimpse of the
people alive, he might have supposed that they were all dead.
John knocked at the first door he came to.--Not a sound was returned
but the angry barking of a cur. He tried the next--and the next--and
the next--all with like success;--at last he knocked at one, whence
came a low, tremulous voice, more of ejaculation than intended for
the ear of any one without, and speaking in Gaelic.
"Lord be about us!--Defend us from Satan, and from all his evil
spirits and works!"
"Give me a morsel of bread, and a cup of water, for mercy's sake!" said
John, poking his head close against a small pane of dirty glass in
the mud wall, that served for a window.
"Avoid thee, evil spirit!" said the same voice.--"Avoid thee, Satan!--O
deliver us from Satan!--Deliver us from the Prince of Darkness and
all his wicked angels!"
"Have mercy upon me, and give me but a bit of bread, and a drop of
water, for the sake of Christ your Saviour!" cried John earnestly
again.
"Avoid, I say, blasphemer!" replied the voice, with more energy than
before. "Name not vainly the name of my Saviour, enemy as thou art
to him and his. Begone, and tempt us not!"
John Smith was preparing to answer and to explain, and to defend
himself from these absurd and unjust imputations against him, when
he heard the sound of a bolt drawn in the hovel immediately behind
him. Full of hope that some good and charitable Christian within,
melted by his pitiful petitions, had come to the resolution of opening
his door to relieve him, he turned hastily round. But what was his
mortification, when, instead of seeing the door opened, he beheld
the small wooden shutter of an unglazed hole in the wall, slowly and
silently pushed outwards on its hinges, until it fell aside, and then
the muzzle of a rusty fowling-piece was gradually projected, levelled,
and pointed at him. John waited not to allow him who held it to perfect
his aim. He sprang instantly aside towards the wall, and fortunately,
the tardy performance of the old and ill constructed lock enabled him
to do so, just in time to clear the way for the shower of swan-shot
which the gun discharged in a diagonal line across the way. Luckily
for John, he had thus no opportunity of judging of the weight of the
charge in his own person, but he was made sufficiently aware that it
was quite potent enough, by its effects on an unfortunate sheep-dog,
that happened to be at that moment lying peaceably gnawing a bone on
the top of a dunghill, some fifty yards down the road, on the opposite
side of the way to that where the hovel stood from which the shot had
been fired. The poor animal sprang up, and gave a loud and sharp yelp,
when he received the shot, and then followed a long and dismal howl,
after which he rolled over on his back and died. After such a hint as
this, John staid not to make farther experiments on the hospitality
of the little place, but, getting out at the farther end of its street
with all manner of expedition, he slowly proceeded on his way, weary,
faint, and heart-sunken.
Just as sunset was approaching, he came to the door of a small single
cottage, hard by the way-side. There he knocked gently, without saying
a word.
"Who is there?" asked a soft woman's voice in Gaelic, from within.
"A poor man like to die with hunger and thirst," replied John in
the same language. "For the love of God give me a piece of bread,
and a drink of water."
"You shant want that," said the good Samaritan woman within, who
promptly came to undo the door.
"Heaven reward you!" said John fervently, as she was fumbling with the
key in the key-hole, and with an astonishing rapidity of movement in
his ideas, he felt, by anticipation, as if he was already devouring
the food he had asked for.
"Preserve us, what's that?" cried the woman, the moment the half-opened
door had enabled her to catch a glimpse of his fearful head and
bloody features.
The door was shut and locked in an instant; and whether it was that
the poor young lonely widow, for such she was, had fainted or not, or
whether she had felt so frightened for herself and her young child,
that she dared not to speak, all John's farther attempts to procure
an answer from her were fruitless. It was probably from the cruel
and unexpected disappointment that he here had met with, just at the
time when his hopes of relief had been highest, that his faintness
came more overpoweringly upon him. He tottered away from the widow's
door, with his head swimming strangely round, and he had not proceeded
above two or three dozen of steps, when he sank down on a green bank
by the side of the road, where he lay almost unconscious as to what
had befallen him.
He had not lain long there, when the tender hearted widow, who
had reconnoitred him well through a single pane of glass in the
gable end of her house, began to have her fears overcome by her
compassion. Seeing that he was now at some distance from her dwelling,
she ventured again to open her door, and perceiving that he did not
stir, she retired for a minute, and then reappeared with a bottle
of milk and two barley cakes, with which she crept timorously, and
therefore slowly and cautiously, along the road. Her step became
slower and slower, as, with fear and trembling, she drew near to
John. At last, when within three or four yards of him, she halted,
and, looking back, as if to measure the distance that divided her
from her own door, she turned towards him, and ventured to address him.
"Here, poor man," said she, setting down the cakes and the bottle of
milk on the bank. "Here is some refreshment for you."
John Smith raised his eyes languidly as her words reached him, and
spying the food she had brought him, he started up and proceeded to
seize upon it with an energy which no one could have believed was
yet left in him; and, as the benevolent widow was flying back with a
beating heart to her cottage, she heard his thanks and benedictions
coming thickly and loudly after her. John devoured the barley cakes,
and drank the milk, and felt wonderfully refreshed, and then, placing
the bottle on the bank in view of the cottage, he knelt down and
offered up his thanks to God for his mercy, and prayed for blessings
on the head of her who had relieved him. He then arose, and having
waved his hand two or three times towards the cottage in token of his
gratitude, he proceeded with some degree of spirit on his journey. I
may here remark, gentlemen, that however those worthies who denied
John admittance to their houses may have passed the night, I may
venture to pronounce, and that with some probability of truth too,
that the sleep of that virtuous young widow, with her innocent child
in her arms, was as sweet and refreshing as the purity and balminess
of her previous reflections could make it.
John Smith had not gone far on his way till the sun went down;
but, as the moon was up, and he knew his road sufficiently well,
he continued to trudge on without fear, until he approached the
old walls of an ancient church, the burying yard of which had an
ugly reputation for being haunted, and then he began to walk with
somewhat more circumspection. As he drew nearer to it, he halted
under the shadow of a bank, and stood for a time somewhat aghast,
for, in the open part of the grave-yard, between the church and the
high-road, he beheld three figures standing in the moonlight which
then prevailed. At first John quaked with fear, lest they should
prove to be some of the uncanny spirits which were said to frequent
the place. But he soon became reassured, by observing enough of them
and of their motions to convince him that they were men of flesh and
blood, yea, and Highlanders too, like himself.