THE MARCH
The conflicting passions and exhausted feelings of Waverley had resigned
him to late but sound repose. He was dreaming of Glennaquoich, and had
transferred to the halls of Ian nan Chaistel the festal train which so
lately graced those of Holyrood. The pibroch too was distinctly heard;
and this at least was no delusion, for the 'proud step of the chief
piper' of the 'chlain Mac-Ivor' was perambulating the court before the
door of his Chieftain's quarters, and, as Mrs. Flockhart, apparently
no friend to his minstrelsy, was pleased to observe, 'garring the very
stane-and-lime wa's dingle wi' his screeching.' Of course, it soon
became too powerful for Waverley's dream, with which it had at first
rather harmonized.
The sound of Callum's brogues in his apartment (for Mac-Ivor had again
assigned Waverley to his care) was the next note of parting. 'Winna yere
honour bang up? Vich Ian Vohr and ta Prince are awa to the lang green
glen ahint the clachan, tat they ca' the King's Park, and mony ane's on
his ain shanks the day, that will be carried on ither folk's ere night.'
[The main body of the Highland army encamped, or rather bivouacked,
in that part of the King's Park which lies towards the village of
Duddingston.]
Waverley sprang up, and, with Callum's assistance and instructions,
adjusted his tartans in proper costume. Callum told him also, 'tat his
leather DORLACH wi' the lock on her was come frae Doune, and she was awa
again in the wain wi' Vich Inn Vohr's walise,'
By this periphrasis Waverley readily apprehended his portmanteau was
intended. He thought upon the mysterious packet of the maid of the
cavern, which seemed always to escape him when within his very grasp.
But this was no time for indulgence of curiosity; and having declined
Mrs. Flockhart's compliment of a morning, i.e. a matutinal dram, being
probably the only man in the Chevalier's army by whom such a courtesy
would have been rejected, he made his adieus, and departed with Callum.
'Callum,' said he, as they proceeded down a dirty close to gain the
southern skirts of the Canongate, 'what shall I do for a horse?'
'Ta deil ane ye maun think o',' said Callum. 'Vich Ian Vohr's marching
on foot at the head o' his kin (not to say ta Prince, wha does
the like), wi' his target on his shoulder; and ye maun e'en be
neighbour-like.'
'And so I will, Callum--give me my target;--so, there we are fixed. How
does it look?'
'Like the bra' Highlander tat's painted on the board afore the mickle
change-house they ca' Luckie Middlemass's,' answered Callum; meaning,
I must observe, a high compliment, for, in his opinion, Luckie
Middlemass's sign was an exquisite specimen of art. Waverley, however,
not feeling the full force of this polite simile, asked him no further
questions.
Upon extricating themselves from the mean and dirty suburbs of the
metropolis, and emerging into the open air, Waverley felt a renewal both
of health and spirits, and turned his recollection with firmness upon
the events of the preceding evening, and with hope and resolution
towards those of the approaching day.
When he had surmounted a small craggy eminence, called St. Leonard's
Hill, the King's Park, or the hollow between the mountain of Arthur's
Seat, and the rising grounds on which the southern part of Edinburgh
is now built, lay beneath him, and displayed a singular and animating
prospect. It was occupied by the army of the Highlanders, now in the act
of preparing for their march. Waverley had already seen something of the
kind at the hunting-match which he attended with Fergus Mac-Ivor; but
this was on a scale of much greater magnitude, and incomparably deeper
interest. The rocks, which formed the background of the scene, and the
very sky itself, rang with the clang of the bagpipers, summoning
forth, each with his appropriate pibroch, his chieftain and clan. The
mountaineers, rousing themselves from their couch under the canopy of
heaven, with the hum and bustle of a confused and irregular multitude,
like bees alarmed and arming in their hives, seemed to possess all the
pliability of movement fitted to execute military manoeuvres. Their
motions appeared spontaneous and confused, but the result was order and
regularity; so that a general must have praised the conclusion, though a
martinet might have ridiculed the method by which it was attained.
The sort of complicated medley created by the hasty arrangements of the
various clans under their respective banners, for the purpose of getting
into the order of march, was in itself a gay and lively spectacle. They
had no tents to strike, having generally, and by choice, slept upon the
open field, although the autumn was now waning, and the nights began to
be frosty. For a little space, while they were getting into order, there
was exhibited a changing, fluctuating; and confused appearance of
waving tartans and floating plumes, and of banners displaying the proud
gathering word of Clanronald, GANION COHERIGA (Gainsay who dares);
LOCH-SLOY, the watchword of the Mac-Farlanes; FORTH FORTUNE, AND FILL
THE FETTERS, the motto of the Marquis of Tuilibardine; BYDAND, that of
Lord Lewis Gordon; and the appropriate signal words and emblems of many
other chieftains and clans.
At length the mixed and wavering multitude arranged themselves into a
narrow and dusky column of great length, stretching through the whole
extent of the valley. In the front of the column the standard of the
Chevalier was displayed, bearing at red cross upon a white ground,
with the motto TANDEM TRIUMPHANS. The few cavalry being chiefly Lowland
gentry, with their domestic servants and retainers, formed the advanced
guard of the army; and their standards, of which they had rather too
many in respect of their numbers, were seen waving upon the extreme
verge of the horizon. Many horsemen of this body, among whom Waverley
accidentally remarked Balmawhapple, and his lieutenant, Jinker (which
last, however, had been reduced, with several others, by the advice of
the Baron of Bradwardine, to the situation of what he called reformed
officers, or reformadoes), added to the liveliness, though by no means
to the regularity, of the scene, by galloping their horses as fast
forward as the press would permit, to join their proper station in
the van. The fascinations of the Circes of the High Street, and the
potations of strength with which they had been drenched over night, had
probably detained these heroes within the walls of Edinburgh somewhat
later than was consistent with their morning duty. Of such loiterers,
the prudent took the longer and circuitous, but more open route, to
attain their place in the march, by keeping at some distance from the
infantry, and making their way through the enclosures to the right, at
the expense of leaping over or pulling down the dry-stone fences. The
irregular appearance and vanishing of these small parties of horsemen,
as well as the confusion occasioned by those who endeavoured, though
generally without effect, to press to the front through the crowd of
Highlanders, maugre their curses, oaths, and opposition, added to the
picturesque wildness what it took from the military regularity of the
scene.
While Waverley gazed upon this remarkable spectacle, rendered yet more
impressive by the occasional discharge of cannon-shot from the Castle
at the Highland guards as they were withdrawn from its vicinity to
join their main body, Callum, with his usual freedom of interference,
reminded him that Vich Ian Vohr's folk were nearly at the head of the
column of march, which was still distant, and that 'they would gang very
fast after the cannon fired.' Thus admonished, Waverley walked briskly
forward, yet often easting a glance upon the darksome clouds of warriors
who were collected before and beneath him. A nearer view, indeed,
rather diminished the effect impressed on the mind by the more distant
appearance of the army. The leading men of each clan were well armed
with broadsword, target, and fusee, to which all added the dirk, and
most the steel pistol. But these consisted of gentlemen, that is,
relations of the chief, however distant, and who had an immediate title
to his countenance and protection. Finer and hardier men could not
have been selected out of any army in Christendom; while the free and
independent habits which each possessed, and which each was yet so well
taught to subject to the command of his chief, and the peculiar mode of
discipline adopted in Highland warfare, rendered them equally formidable
by their individual courage and high spirit, and from their rational
conviction of the necessity of acting in unison, and of giving their
national mode of attack the fullest opportunity of success.
But, in a lower rank to these, there were found individuals of an
inferior description, the common peasantry of the Highland country,
who, although they did not allow themselves to be so called, and claimed
often, with apparent truth, to be of more ancient descent than the
masters whom they served, bore, nevertheless, the livery of extreme
penury, being indifferently accoutred, and worse armed, half naked,
stinted in growth, and miserable in aspect. Each important clan had some
of those Helots attached to them;--thus, the Mac-Couls, though tracing
their descent from Comhal, the father of Finn or Fingal, were a sort
of Gibeonites, or hereditary servants to the Stewarts of Appin; the
Macbeths, descended from the unhappy monarch of that name, were subjects
to the Morays, and clan Donnochy, or Robertsons of Athole; and many
other examples might be given, were it not for the risk of hurting any
pride of clanship which may yet be left, and thereby drawing a Highland
tempest into the shop of my publisher. Now these same Helots, though
forced into the field by the arbitrary authority of the chieftains under
whom they hewed wood and drew water, were, in general, very sparingly
fed, ill dressed, and worse armed. The latter circumstance was indeed
owing chiefly to the general disarming act, which had been carried into
effect ostensibly through the whole Highlands, although most of the
chieftains contrived to elude-its influence, by retaining the weapons
of their own immediate clansmen, and delivering up those of less value,
which they collected from these inferior satellites. It followed, as a
matter of course, that, as we have already hinted, many of these poor
fellows were brought to the field in a very wretched condition.
From this it happened, that, in bodies, the van of which were admirably
well armed in their own fashion, the rear resembled actual banditti.
Here was a pole-axe, there a sword without a scabbard; here a gun
without a lock, there a scythe set straight upon a pole; and some had
only their dirks, and bludgeons or stakes pulled out of hedges. The
grim, uncombed, and wild appearance of these men, most of whom gazed
with all the admiration of ignorance upon the most ordinary production
of domestic art, created surprise in the Lowlands, but it also created
terror. So little was the condition of the Highlands known at that late
period, that the character and appearance of their population,
while thus sallying forth as military adventurers, conveyed to the
south-country Lowlanders as much surprise as if an invasion of African
Negroes or Esquimaux Indians had issued forth from the northern
mountains of their own native country. It cannot therefore be wondered
if Waverley, who had hitherto judged of the Highlanders generally from
the samples which the policy of Fergus had from time to time exhibited,
should have felt damped and astonished at the daring attempt of a body
not then exceeding four thousand men, and of whom not above half the
number, at the utmost, were armed, to change the fate, and alter the
dynasty, of the British kingdoms.
As he moved along the column, which still remained stationary, an iron
gun, the only piece of artillery possessed by the army which meditated
so important a revolution, was fired as the signal of march. The
Chevalier had expressed a wish to leave this useless piece of ordnance
behind him; but, to his surprise, the Highland chiefs interposed to
solicit that it might accompany their march, pleading the prejudices of
their followers, who, little accustomed to artillery, attached a
degree of absurd importance to this field-piece, and expected it would
contribute essentially to a victory which they could only owe to their
own muskets and broadswords. Two or three French artillerymen were
therefore appointed to the management of this military engine, which
was drawn along by a string of Highland ponies, and was, after all, only
used for the purpose of firing signals. [See Note 25.]
No sooner was its voice heard upon the present occasion, than the whole
line was in motion. A wild cry of joy from the advancing battalions rent
the air, and was then lost in the shrill clangour of the bagpipes, as
the sound of these, in their turn, was partially drowned by the heavy
tread of so many men put at once into motion. The banners glittered
and shook as they moved forward, and the horse hastened to occupy their
station as the advanced guard, and to push on reconnoitring parties
to ascertain and report the motions of the enemy. They vanished from
Waverley's eye as they wheeled round the base of Arthur's seat, under
the remarkable ridge of basaltic rocks which fronts the little lake of
Duddingston.
The infantry followed in the same direction, regulating their pace by
another body which occupied a road more to the southward. It cost Edward
some exertion of activity to attain the place which Fergus's followers
occupied in the line of march.