A STAG-HUNT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Shall this be a long or a short chapter?--This is a question in which
you, gentle reader, have no vote, however much you may be interested in
the consequences; just as you may (like myself) probably have nothing to
do with the imposing a new tax, excepting the trifling circumstance of
being obliged to pay it. More happy surely in the present case, since,
though it lies within my arbitrary power to extend my materials as
I think proper, I cannot call you into Exchequer if you do not think
proper to read my narrative. Let me therefore consider. It is true, that
the annals and documents in my hands say but little of this Highland
chase; but then I can find copious materials for description elsewhere.
There is old Lindsay of Pitscottie ready at my elbow, with his Athole
hunting, and his 'lofted and joisted palace of green timber; with all
kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as ale, beer, wine, muscadel,
malvaise, hippocras, and aquavitae; with wheat-bread, main-bread,
ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose, grice, capon,
coney, crane, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake, brissel-cock,
pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl, and capercailzies;' not forgetting the
'costly bedding, vaiselle, and napry,' and least of all the 'excelling
stewards, cunning barters, excellent cooks, and pottingars, with
confections and drugs for the desserts.' Besides the particulars which
may be thence gleaned for this Highland feast (the splendour of which
induced the Pope's legate to dissent from an opinion which he had
hitherto held, that Scotland, namely, was the--the--the latter end of
the world)--besides these, might I not illuminate my pages with Taylor
the Water Poet's hunting in the braes of Mar, where,
Through heather, mosse, 'mong frogs, and bogs, and fogs,
'Mongst craggy cliffs and thunder-battered hills,
Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chased by men and dogs,
Where two hours' hunting fourscore fat deer kills.
Lowland, your sports are low as is your seat;
The Highland games and minds are high and great.
But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent of
my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single incident
from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the ingenious Mr.
Gunn's Essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my story with
all the brevity that my natural style of composition, partaking of
what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and the vulgar the
circumbendibus, will permit me.
The solemn hunting was delayed, from various causes, for about three
weeks. The interval was spent by Waverley with great satisfaction at
Glennaquoich; for the impression which Flora had made on his mind at
their first meeting grew daily stronger. She was precisely the character
to fascinate a youth of romantic imagination. Her manners, her language,
her talents for poetry and music, gave additional and varied influence
to her eminent personal charms. Even in her hours of gaiety, she was in
his fancy exalted above the ordinary daughters of Eve, and seemed only
to stoop for an instant to those topics of amusement and gallantry which
others appear to live for. In the neighbourhood of this enchantress,
while sport consumed the morning, and music and the dance led on
the hours of evening, Waverley became daily more delighted with his
hospitable landlord, and more enamoured of his bewitching sister.
At length, the period fixed for the grand hunting arrived, and Waverley
and the Chieftain departed for the place of rendezvous, which was a
day's journey to the northward of Glennaquoich. Fergus was attended
on this occasion by about three hundred of his clan, well armed, and
accoutred in their best fashion. Waverley complied so far with the
custom of the country as to adopt the trews (he could not be reconciled
to the kilt), brogues, and bonnet, as the fittest dress for the exercise
in which he was to be engaged, and which least exposed him to be stared
at as a stranger when they should reach the place of rendez-vous. They
found, on the spot appointed, several powerful Chiefs, to all of whom
Waverley was formally presented, and by all cordially received. Their
vassals and clansmen, a part of whose feudal duty it was to attend on
these parties, appeared in such numbers as amounted to a small army.
These active assistants spread through the country far and near, forming
a circle, technically called the TINCHEL, which, gradually closing,
drove the deer in herds together towards the glen where the Chiefs
and principal sportsmen lay in wait for them. In the meanwhile, these
distinguished personages bivouacked among the flowery heath, wrapped up
in their plaids; a mode of passing a summer's night which Waverley found
by no means unpleasant.
For many hours after sunrise, the mountain ridges and passes retained
their ordinary appearance of silence and solitude; and the Chiefs, with
their followers, amused themselves with various pastimes, in which the
joys of the shell, as Ossian has it, were not forgotten. 'Others apart
sat on a hill retired;' probably as deeply engaged in the discussion of
politics and news, as Milton's spirits in metaphysical disquisition.
At length signals of the approach of the game were descried and heard.
Distant shouts resounded from valley to valley, as the various parties
of Highlanders, climbing rocks, struggling through copses, wading
brooks, and traversing thickets, approached more and more near to each
other, and compelled the astonished deer, with the other wild animals
that fled before them, into a narrower circuit. Every now and then the
report of muskets was heard, repeated by a thousand echoes. The baying
of the dogs was soon added to the chorus, which grew ever louder and
more loud. At length the advanced parties of the deer began to show
themselves; and as the stragglers came bounding down the pass by two
or three at a time, the Chiefs showed their skill by distinguishing the
fattest deer, and their dexterity in bringing them down with their guns.
Fergus exhibited remarkable address, and Edward was also so fortunate as
to attract the notice and applause of the sportsmen.
But now the main body of the deer appeared at the head of the glen,
compelled into a very narrow compass, and presenting such a formidable
phalanx, that their antlers appeared at a distance, over the ridge of
the steep pass, like a leafless grove. Their number was very great, and
from a desperate stand which they made, with the tallest of the red-deer
stags arranged in front, in a sort of battle array, gazing on the group
which barred their passage down the glen, the more experienced sportsmen
began to augur danger. The work of destruction, however, now commenced
on all sides. Dogs and hunters were at work, and muskets and fusees
resounded from every quarter. The deer, driven to desperation, made at
length a fearful charge right upon the spot where the more distinguished
sportsmen had taken their stand. The word was given in Gaelic to fling
themselves upon their faces; but Waverley, on whose English ears the
signal was lost, had almost fallen a sacrifice to his ignorance of the
ancient language in which it was communicated. Fergus, observing his
danger, sprang up and pulled him with violence to the ground, just
as the whole herd broke down upon them. The tide being absolutely
irresistible, and wounds from a stag's horn highly dangerous, the
activity of the Chieftain may be considered, on this occasion, as having
saved his guest's life. [The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the
stag's horns, was accounted far more dangerous than those of the boar's
tusk:--
If thou be hurt with horn of stag, it brings thee to thy bier,
But barber's hand shall boar's hurt heal; thereof have thou no
fear.]
He detained him with a firm grasp until the whole herd of deer had
fairly run over them. Waverley then attempted to rise, but found that
he had suffered several very severe contusions; and, upon a further
examination, discovered that he had sprained his ankle violently.
This checked the mirth of the meeting, although the Highlanders,
accustomed to such incidents, and prepared for them, had suffered no
harm themselves. A wigwam was erected almost in an instant, where Edward
was deposited on a couch of heather. The surgeon, or he who assumed the
office, appeared to unite the characters of a leech and a conjurer. He
was an old smoke-dried Highlander, wearing a venerable grey beard,
and having for his sole garment a tartan frock, the skirts of which
descended to the knee; and, being undivided in front, made the vestment
serve at once for doublet and breeches. [This garb, which resembled
the dress often put on children in Scotland, called a polonie (i.e.
polonaise), is a very ancient modification of the Highland garb. It was,
in fact, the hauberk or shirt of mail, only composed of cloth instead of
rings of armour.] He observed great ceremony in approaching Edward;
and though our hero was writhing with pain, would not proceed to any
operation which might assuage it until he had perambulated his couch
three times, moving from east to west, according to the course of the
sun. This, which was called making the DEASIL, [Old Highlanders will
still make the deasil around those whom they wish well to. To go round a
person in the opposite direction, or wither-shins (German WIDER-SHINS),
is unlucky, and a sort of incantation.] both the leech and the
assistants seemed to consider as a matter of the last importance to the
accomplishment of a cure; and Waverley, whom pain rendered incapable of
expostulation, and who indeed saw no chance of its being attended to,
submitted in silence.
After this ceremony was duly performed, the old Esculapius let his
patient blood with a cupping-glass with great dexterity, and proceeded,
muttering all the while to himself in Gaelic, to boil on the fire
certain herbs, with which he compounded an embrocation. He then fomented
the parts which had sustained injury, never failing to murmur prayers or
spells, which of the two Waverley could not distinguish, as his ear only
caught the words GASPER-MELCHIOR-BALTHAZAR-MAX-PRAX-FAX, and similar
gibberish. The fomentation had a speedy effect in alleviating the pain
and swelling, which our hero imputed to the virtue of the herbs, or
the effect of the chafing, but which was by the bystanders unanimously
ascribed to the spells with which the operation had been accompanied.
Edward was given to understand, that not one of the ingredients had been
gathered except during the full moon, and that the herbalist had, while
collecting them, uniformly recited a charm, which in English ran thus:--
Hail to thee, thou holy herb,
That sprung on holy ground!
All in the Mount Olivet
First wert thou found:
Thou art boot for many a bruise,
And healest many a wound;
In our Lady's blessed name,
I take thee from the ground.'
[This metrical spell, or something very like it, is preserved
by Reginald Scott, in his work on Witchcraft.]
Edward observed, with some surprise, that even Fergus, notwithstanding
his knowledge and education, seemed to fall in with the superstitious
ideas of his countrymen, either because he deemed it impolitic to affect
scepticism on a matter of general belief, or more probably because, like
most men who do not think deeply or accurately on such subjects, he had
in his mind a reserve of superstition which balanced the freedom of
his expressions and practice upon other occasions. Waverley made no
commentary, therefore, on the manner of the treatment, but rewarded the
professor of medicine with a liberality beyond the utmost conception
of his wildest hopes. He uttered, on the occasion, so many incoherent
blessings in Gaelic and English, that Mac-Ivor, rather scandalized at
the excess of his acknowledgements, cut them short, by exclaiming, 'CEUD
MILE MHALLOICH ART ORT!' i.e. 'A hundred thousand curses on you!' and so
pushed the helper of men out of the cabin.
After Waverley was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue,--for
the whole day's exercise had been severe,--threw him into a profound,
but yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an opiate draught
administered by the old Highlander from some decoction of herbs in his
pharmacopoeia.
Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over, and
their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus and all
his friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a question how to
dispose of the disabled sportsman. This was settled by Mac-Ivor, who had
a litter prepared, of 'birch and hazel grey,'
[On the morrow they made their biers,
of birch and hazel grey.--CHEVY CHASE.]
which was borne by his people with such caution and dexterity as renders
it not improbable that they may have been the ancestors of some of
those sturdy Gael, who have now the happiness to transport the belles
of Edinburgh, in their sedan chairs, to ten routs in one evening.
When Edward was elevated upon their shoulders, he could not help being
gratified with the romantic effect produced by the breaking up of this
sylvan camp. [The author has been sometimes accused of confounding
fiction with reality. He therefore thinks it necessary to state, that
the circumstance of the hunting described in the text as preparatory to
the insurrection of 1745, is, so far as he knows, entirely imaginary.
But it is well known such a great hunting was held in the Forest of
Braemar, under the auspices of the Earl of Mar, as preparatory to the
Rebellion of 1715; and most of the Highland Chieftains who afterwards
engaged in that civil commotion were present on this occasion.]
The various tribes assembled, each at the pibroch of their native clan,
and each headed by their patriarchal ruler. Some, who had already begun
to retire, were seen winding up the hills, or descending the passes
which led to the scene of action, the sound of their bagpipes dying
upon the ear. Others made still a moving picture upon the narrow plain,
forming various changeful groups, their feathers and loose plaids waving
in the morning breeze, and their arms glittering in the rising sun. Most
of the Chiefs came to take farewell of Waverley, and to express their
anxious hope they might again, and speedily, meet; but the care of
Fergus abridged the ceremony of taking leave. At length, his own men
being completely assembled and mustered. Mac-Ivor commenced his march,
but not towards the quarter from which they had come. He gave Edward to
understand, that the greater part of his followers, now on the field,
were bound on a distant expedition, and that when he had deposited
him in the house of a gentleman, who he was sure would pay him every
attention, he himself should be under the necessity of accompanying them
the greater part of the way, but would lose no time in rejoining his
friend.
Waverley was rather surprised that Fergus had not mentioned this
ulterior destination when they set out upon the hunting-party; but his
situation did not admit of many interrogatories. The greater part of the
clansmen went forward under the guidance of old Ballenkeiroch and Evan
Dhu Maccombich, apparently in high spirits. A few remained for the
purpose of escorting the Chieftain, who walked by the side of Edward's
litter, and attended him with the most affectionate assiduity. About
noon, after a journey which the nature of the conveyance, the pain
of his bruises, and the roughness of the way, rendered inexpressibly
painful, Waverley was hospitably received into the house of a gentleman
related to Fergus, who had prepared for him every accommodation which
the simple habits of living, then universal in the Highlands, put in his
power. In this person, an old man about seventy, Edward admired a relic
of primitive simplicity. He wore no dress but what his estate afforded.
The cloth was the fleece of his own sheep, woven by his own servants,
and stained into tartan by the dyes produced from the herbs and lichens
of the hills around him. His linen was spun by his daughters and
maid-servants, from his own flax, nor did his table, though plentiful,
and varied with game and fish, offer an article but what was of native
produce.
Claiming himself no rights of clanship or vassalage, he was fortunate
in the alliance and protection of Vich Ian Vohr and other bold and
enterprising Chieftains, who protected him in the quiet unambitious life
he loved. It is true, the youth born on his grounds were often enticed
to leave him for the service of his more active friends; but a few old
servants and tenants used to shake their grey locks when they heard
their master censured for want of spirit, and observed, 'When the wind
is still, the shower falls soft.' This good old man, whose charity and
hospitality were unbounded, would have received Waverley with kindness,
had he been the meanest Saxon peasant, since his situation required
assistance. But his attention to a friend and guest of Vich Ian Vohr was
anxious and unremitted. Other embrocations were applied to the injured
limb, and new spells were put in practice. At length, after more
solicitude than was perhaps for the advantage of his health, Fergus took
farewell of Edward for a few days, when, he said, he would return to
Tomanrait, and hoped by that time Waverley would be able to ride one
of the Highland ponies of his landlord, and in that manner return to
Glennaquoich.
The next day, when his good old host appeared, Edward learned that his
friend had departed with the dawn, leaving none of his followers except
Callum Beg, the sort of foot-page who used to attend his person, and
who had it now in charge to wait upon Waverley. On asking his host if
he knew where the Chieftain was gone, the old man looked fixedly at him,
with something mysterious and sad in the smile which was his only
reply. Waverley repeated his question, to which his host answered in a
proverb,--
What sent the messengers to hell,
Was asking what they knew full well.'
[Corresponding to the Lowland saying, 'Mony ane speirs the
gate they ken fu' weel.]
He was about to proceed, but Callum Beg said, rather pertly, as Edward
thought, that 'Ta Tighearnach (i.e. the Chief) did not like ta Sassenagh
Duinhe-wassel to be pingled wi' mickle speaking, as she was na tat
weel.' From this Waverley concluded he should disoblige his friend by
inquiring of a stranger the object of a journey which he himself had not
communicated.
It is unnecessary to trace the progress of our hero's recovery. The
sixth morning had arrived, and he was able to walk about with a staff,
when Fergus returned with about a score of his men. He seemed in
the highest spirits, congratulated Waverley on his progress towards
recovery, and finding he was able to sit on horseback, proposed their
immediate return to Glennaquoich, Waverley joyfully acceded, for the
form of his fair mistress had lived in his dreams during all the time of
his confinement.
Now he has ridden o'er moor and moss,
O'er hill and many a glen.
Fergus, all the while, with his myrmidons, striding stoutly by his side,
or diverging to get a shot at a roe or a heath-cock. Waverley's bosom
beat thick when they approached the old tower of Ian nan Chaistel, and
could distinguish the fair form of its mistress advancing to meet them.
Fergus began immediately, with his usual high spirits, to exclaim, 'Open
your gates, incomparable princess, to the wounded Moor Abindarez, whom
Rodrigo de Narvez, constable of Antiquera, conveys to your castle; or
open them, if you like it better, to the renowned Marquis of Mantua, the
sad attendant of his half-slain friend, Baldovinos of the Mountain.--Ah,
long rest to thy soul, Cervantes! without quoting thy remnants, how
should I frame my language to befit romantic ears!'
Flora now advanced, and welcoming Waverley with much kindness, expressed
her regret for his accident, of which she had already heard the
particulars, and her surprise that her brother should not have taken
better care to put a stranger on his guard against the perils of the
sport in which he engaged him. Edward easily exculpated the Chieftain,
who, indeed, at his own personal risk, had probably saved his life.
This greeting over, Fergus said three or four words to his sister in
Gaelic. The tears instantly sprang to her eyes, but they seemed to be
tears of devotion and joy, for she looked up to heaven, and folded her
hands as in a solemn expression of prayer or gratitude. After the
pause of a minute, she presented to Edward some letters which had been
forwarded from Tully-Veolan during his absence, and, at the same time,
delivered some to her brother. To the latter she likewise gave three
or four numbers of the CALEDONIAN MERCURY, the only newspaper which was
then published to the north of the Tweed.
Both gentlemen retired to examine their dispatches, and Edward speedily
found that those which he had received contained matters of very deep
interest.