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THE TRUE STORY BOOK
* * * * *
WORKS BY ANDREW LANG.
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THE TRUE STORY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW LANG. With
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London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
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* * * * *
[Illustration: MONTEZUMA GREETS THE SPANIARDS]
THE TRUE STORY BOOK
Edited by
ANDREW LANG
With Numerous Illustrations by L. Bogle, Lucien Davis, H. J. Ford,
C. H. M. Kerr, and Lancelot Speed
[Illustration]
London
Longmans, Green, and Co
and New York: 15 East 16th Street
1893
All rights reserved
_DEDICATION_
_TO FRANCIS McCUNN_
_You like the things I used to like,
The things I'm fond of still,
The sound of fairy wands that strike
Men into beasts at will;_
_The cruel stepmother, the fair
Stepdaughter, kind and leal,
The bull and bear so debonair,
The trenchant fairy steel._
_You love the world where brute and fish
Converse with man and bird,
Where dungeons open at a wish,
And seas dry at a word._
_That merry world to-day we leave,
We list an ower-true tale,
Of hearts that sore for Charlie grieve,
When handsome princes fail,_
_Of gallant races overthrown,
Of dungeons ill to climb,
There's no such tale of trouble known,
In all the fairy time._
_There Montezuma still were king,
There Charles would wear the crown,
And there the Highlanders would ding
The Hanoverian down:_
_In Fairyland the Rightful Cause
Is never long a-winning,
In Fairyland the fairy laws
Are prompt to punish sinning:_
_For Fairyland's the land of joy,
And this the world of pain,
So back to Fairyland, my boy,
We'll journey once again!_
INTRODUCTION
IT is not without diffidence that the editor offers _The True Story
Book_ to children. We have now given them three fairy books, and their
very kind and flattering letters to the editor prove, not only that they
like the three fairy books, but that they clamour for more. What
disappointment, then, to receive a volume full of adventures which
actually happened to real people! There is not a dragon in the
collection, nor even a giant; witches, here, play no part, and almost
all the characters are grown up. On the other hand, if we have no
fairies, we have princes in plenty, and a sweeter young prince than
Tearlach (as far as this part of his story goes) the editor flatters
himself that you shall nowhere find, not in Grimm, or Dasent, or
Perrault. Still, it cannot be denied that true stories are not so good
as fairy tales. They do not always end happily, and, what is worse, they
do remind a young student of lessons and schoolrooms. A child may fear
that he is being taught under a specious pretence of diversion, and that
learning is being thrust on him under the disguise of entertainment.
Prince Charlie and Cortes may be asked about in examinations, whereas no
examiner has hitherto set questions on 'Blue Beard,' or 'Heart of Ice,'
or 'The Red Etin of Ireland.' There is, to be honest, no way of getting
over this difficulty. But the editor vows that he does not mean to teach
anybody, and he has tried to mix the stories up so much that no clear
and consecutive view of history can possibly be obtained from them;
moreover, when history does come in, it is not the kind of history
favoured most by examiners. They seldom set questions on the conquest of
Mexico, for example.
That is a very long story, but, to the editor's taste, it is simply the
best true story in the world, the most unlikely, and the most romantic.
For who could have supposed that the new-found world of the West held
all that wealth of treasure, emeralds and gold, all those people, so
beautiful and brave, so courteous and cruel, with their terrible gods,
hideous human sacrifices, and almost Christian prayers? That a handful
of Spaniards, themselves mistaken for children of a white god, should
have crossed the sea, should have found a lovely lady, as in a fairy
tale, ready to lead them to victory, should have planted the cross on
the shambles of Huitzilopochtli, after that wild battle on the temple
crest, should have been driven in rout from, and then recaptured, the
Venice of the West, the lake city of Mexico--all this is as strange, as
unlooked for, as any story of adventures in a new planet could be. No
invention of fights and wanderings in Noman's land, no search for the
mines of Solomon the king, can approach, for strangeness and romance,
this tale, which is true, and vouched for by Spanish conquerors like
Bernal Diaz, and by native historians like Ixtlilochitl, and by later
missionaries like Sahagun. Cortes is the great original of all
treasure-hunters and explorers in fiction, and here no feigned tale can
be the equal of the real. As Mr. Prescott's admirable history is not a
book much read by children (nor even by 'grown-ups' for that matter),
the editor hopes children will be pleased to find the 'Adventures in
Anahuac' in this collection. Miss Edgeworth tells us in _Orlandino_ how
much the tale delighted the young before Mr. Prescott wrote that
excellent narrative of the world's chief adventure. May it please still,
as it did when the century was young!
The adventures of Prince Charlie are already known, in part, to boys and
girls who have read the _Tales of a Grandfather_, for pleasure and not
as a school book. But here Mrs. McCunn has treated of them at greater
length and more minutely. The source, here, is in these seven brown
octavo volumes, all written in the closest hand, which are a treasure of
the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh. The author is Mr. Forbes, a bishop
of the persecuted Episcopalian Church in Scotland. Mr. Forbes collected
his information very carefully, closely comparing the narratives of the
various actors in the story. Into the boards of his volumes are fastened
a scrap of the Prince's tartan waistcoat, a rag from his sprigged calico
dress, a bit of his brogues--a twopenny treasure that has been wept and
prayed over by the faithful. Nobody, in a book for children, would have
the heart to tell the tale of the Prince's later years, of a moody,
heart-broken, degraded exile. But, in the hills and the isles, bating a
little wilfulness and foolhardiness, and the affair of the broken
punch-bowl, Prince Charles is a model for princes and all men, brave,
gay, much-enduring, good-humoured, kind, royally courteous, and
considerate, even beyond what may be gathered from this part of the
book, while the loyalty of the Highlanders (as in the case of Mackinnon,
flogged nearly to death) was proof against torture as well as against
gold. It is the Sobieski strain, not the Stuart, that we here admire in
Prince Charles; it is a piety, a loyalty, a goodness like Gordon's that
we revere in old Lord Pitsligo in another story.
Many of the tales are concerned with fighting, for that is the most
dramatic part of mortal business. These English captives who retake a
ship from the Turks, these heroes of the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_,
were doubtless good men and true in all their lives, but the light of
history only falls on them in war. The immortal Three Hundred of
Thermopylae would also have been unknown, had they not died, to a man,
for the sake of the honour of Lacedaemon. The editor conceives that it
would have been easy to give more 'local colour' to the sketch of
Thermopylae: to have dealt in description of the Immortals, drawn from
the friezes in Susa, lately discovered by French enterprise. But the
story is Greek, and the Greeks did not tell their stories in that way,
but with a simplicity almost bald. Yet who dare alter and 'improve' the
narrative of Herodotus? In another most romantic event, the finding of
Vineland the Good, by Leif the Lucky, our materials are vague with the
vagueness of a dream. Later fancy has meddled with the truth of the
saga. English readers, no doubt, best catch the charm of the adventure
in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's astonishingly imaginative tale called 'The Best
Story in the World.' For the account of Isandhlwana, and Rorke's Drift,
'an ower-true tale,' the editor has to thank his friend Mr. Rider
Haggard, who was in South Africa at the time of the disaster, and who
has generously given time and labour to the task of ascertaining, as far
as it can be ascertained, the exact truth of the melancholy, but,
finally, not inglorious, business. The legend of 'Two Great Cricket
Matches' is taken, in part, from Lillywhite's scores, and Mr. Robert
Lyttelton's spirited pages in the 'Badminton' book of Cricket. The
second match the editor writes of 'as he who saw it,' to quote Caxton on
Dares Phrygius. These legends prove that a match is never lost till it
is won.
Some of the True Stories contain, we may surmise, traces of the
imaginative faculty. The escapes of Benvenuto Cellini, of Trenck, and of
Casanova must be taken as the heroes chose to report them; Benvenuto and
Casanova have no firm reputation for veracity. Again, the escape of
Caesar Borgia is from a version handed down by the great Alexandre
Dumas, and we may surmise that Alexandre allowed it to lose nothing in
the telling; he may have 'given it a sword and a cocked hat,' as was Sir
Walter's wont. About Kaspar Hauser's mystery we can hardly speak of 'the
truth,' for the exact truth will never be known. The depositions of the
earliest witnesses were not taken at once; some witnesses altered their
evidence in later years; parts of the records of Nuremberg are lost in
suspicious circumstances. The Duchess of Cleveland's book, _Kaspar
Hauser_, is written in defence of her father, Lord Stanhope. The charges
against Lord Stanhope, that he aided in, or connived at, the slaying of
Kaspar, because Kaspar was the true heir of the House of Baden--are as
childish as they are wicked. But the Duchess hardly allows for the
difficulties in which we find ourselves if we regard Kaspar as
absolutely and throughout an impostor. This, however, is not the place
to discuss an historical mystery; this 'true story' is told as a romance
founded on fact; the hypothesis that Kaspar was a son and heir of the
house of Baden seems, to the editor, to be absolutely devoid of
evidence.
To Madame Von Platt Stuart the author owes permission to quote the
striking adventures of her father, or of her uncle, on the flooded
Findhorn. The _Lays of the Deer Forest_, which contain this tale in the
volume of notes, were written by John Sobieski Stuart, and by Charles
Edward Stuart, and the editor is uncertain as to which of those
gentlemen was the hero of these perilous crossings of the Highland
river. Many other good tales, legends, and studies of natural history
and of Highland manners may be found in the _Lays of the Deer Forest_,
apart from the curious interest of the poems. On the whole, with certain
exceptions, the editor has tried to find true stories rather out of the
beaten paths of history; the narrative of John Tanner, for instance, is
probably true, but the book in which his adventures were published is
now rather difficult to procure. For 'A Boy among the Red Indians,' 'Two
Cricket Matches,' 'The Spartan Three Hundred,' 'The Finding of Vineland
the Good,' and 'The Escapes of Lord Pitsligo,' the editor is himself
responsible, as far as they do not consist of extracts from the original
sources. Miss May Kendall translated or adapted Casanova's escape and
the piratical and Algerine tales. Mrs. Lang reduced the narrative of the
Chevalier Johnstone, and did the escapes of Caesar Borgia, of Trenck, and
Cervantes, while Miss Blackley renders that of Benvenuto Cellini. Mrs.
McCunn, as already said, compiled from the sources indicated the
Adventures of Prince Charles, and she tells the story of Grace Darling;
the contemporary account is, unluckily, rather meagre. Miss Alleyne did
'The Kidnapping of the Princes,' Mrs. Plowden the 'Story of Kaspar
Hauser.' Miss Wright reduced the Adventures of Cortes from Prescott, and
Mr. Rider Haggard has already been mentioned in connection with
Isandhlwana.
Here the editor leaves _The True Story Book_ to the indulgence of
children, explaining, once more, that his respect for their judgment is
very great, and that he would not dream of imposing _lessons_ on _them_,
in the shape of a Christmas book. No, lessons are one thing, and stories
are another. But though fiction is undeniably stranger and more
attractive than truth, yet true stories are also rather attractive and
strange, now and then. And, after all, we may return once more to
Fairyland, after this excursion into the actual workaday world.
CONTENTS
PAGE
_A Boy among the Red Indians_ 1
_Casanova's Escape_ 16
_Adventures on the Findhorn_ 29
_The Story of Grace Darling_ 41
_The 'Shannon' and the 'Chesapeake'_ 48
_Captain Snelgrave and the Pirates_ 52
_The Spartan Three Hundred_ 64
_Prince Charlie's Wanderings_ 68
_Two Great Matches_ 105
_The Story of Kaspar Hauser_ 113
_An Artist's Adventure_ 122
_The Tale of Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift_ 132
_How Leif the Lucky found Vineland the Good_ 153
_The Escapes of Cervantes_ 161
_The Worthy Enterprise of John Foxe_ 168
_Baron Trenck_ 176
_The Adventure of John Rawlins_ 186
_The Chevalier Johnstone's Escape from Culloden_ 193
_The Adventures of Lord Pitsligo_ 207
_The Escape of Caesar Borgia from the Castle of
Medina del Campo_ 213
_The Kidnapping of the Princes_ 219
_The Conquest of Montezuma's Empire_ 224
_Adventures of Bartholomew Portugues, a Pirate_ 326
_The Return of the French Freebooters_ 330
PLATES
_Montezuma greets the Spaniards_ _Frontispiece_
_The Findhorn_ _To face_ 36
_Grace Darling_ " 44
_'Some of the Pirates . . . had thrown several
Buckets of Claret upon him'_ " 60
_The Ball hit the Middle Stump_ " 108
_He prepared to attack the Sentry_ " 126
_Montezuma greets the Spaniards_ " 270
_Cortes in the Temple of Huitzilopochtli_ " 276
_Montezuma assailed by Missiles_ " 296
_A BOY AMONG THE RED INDIANS_
THE earliest event of my life which I distinctly remember (says John
Tanner) is the death of my mother. This happened when I was two years
old, and many of the attending circumstances made so deep an impression
that they are still fresh in my memory. I cannot recollect the name of
the settlement at which we lived, but I have since learned it was on the
Kentucky River, at a considerable distance from the Ohio.
My father, whose name was John Tanner, was an emigrant from Virginia,
and had been a clergyman.
When about to start one morning to a village at some distance, he gave,
as it appeared, a strict charge to my sisters, Agatha and Lucy, to send
me to school; but this they neglected to do until afternoon, and then,
as the weather was rainy and unpleasant, I insisted on remaining at
home. When my father returned at night, and found that I had been at
home all day, he sent me for a parcel of small canes, and flogged me
much more severely than I could suppose the offence merited. I was
displeased with my sisters for attributing all the blame to me, when
they had neglected even to tell me to go to school in the forenoon. From
that time, my father's house was less like home to me, and I often
thought and said, 'I wish I could go and live among the Indians.'
One day we went from Cincinnati to the mouth of the Big Miami, opposite
which we were to settle. Here was some cleared land, and one or two log
cabins, but they had been deserted on account of the Indians. My father
rebuilt the cabins, and inclosed them with a strong picket. It was early
in the spring when we arrived at the mouth of the Big Miami, and we were
soon engaged in preparing a field to plant corn. I think it was not more
than ten days after our arrival, when my father told us in the morning,
that, from the actions of the horses, he perceived there were Indians
lurking about in the woods, and he said to me, 'John, you must not go
out of the house to-day.' After giving strict charge to my stepmother to
let none of the little children go out, he went to the field, with the
negroes, and my elder brother, to drop corn.
Three little children, besides myself, were left in the house with my
stepmother. To prevent me from going out, my stepmother required me to
take care of the little child, then not more than a few months old; but
as I soon became impatient of confinement, I began to pinch my little
brother, to make him cry. My mother, perceiving his uneasiness, told me
to take him in my arms and walk about the house; I did so, but continued
to pinch him. My mother at length took him from me to nurse him. I
watched my opportunity, and escaped into the yard; thence through a
small door in the large gate of the wall into the open field. There was
a walnut-tree at some distance from the house, and near the side of the
field where I had been in the habit of finding some of the last year's
nuts. To gain this tree without being seen by my father and those in the
field, I had to use some precaution. I remember perfectly well having
seen my father, as I skulked towards the tree; he stood in the middle of
the field, with his gun in his hand, to watch for Indians, while the
others were dropping corn. As I came near the tree, I thought to myself,
'I wish I could see these Indians.' I had partly filled with nuts a
straw hat which I wore, when I heard a crackling noise behind me; I
looked round, and saw the Indians; almost at the same instant, I was
seized by both hands, and dragged off betwixt two. One of them took my
straw hat, emptied the nuts on the ground, and put it on my head. The
Indians who seized me were an old man and a young one; these were, as I
learned subsequently, Manito-o-geezhik, and his son Kish-kau-ko.
[Illustration]
After I saw myself firmly seized by both wrists by the two Indians, I
was not conscious of anything that passed for a considerable time. I
must have fainted, as I did not cry out, and I can remember nothing that
happened to me until they threw me over a large log, which must have
been at a considerable distance from the house. The old man I did not
now see; I was dragged along between Kish-kau-ko and a very short thick
man. I had probably made some resistance, or done something to irritate
this last, for he took me a little to one side, and drawing his
tomahawk, motioned to me to look up. This I plainly understood, from the
expression of his face, and his manner, to be a direction for me to look
up for the last time, as he was about to kill me. I did as he directed,
but Kish-kau-ko caught his hand as the tomahawk was descending, and
prevented him from burying it in my brains. Loud talking ensued between
the two. Kish-kau-ko presently raised a yell: the old man and four
others answered it by a similar yell, and came running up. I have since
understood that Kish-kau-ko complained to his father that the short man
had made an attempt to kill his little brother, as he called me. The
old chief, after reproving him, took me by one hand, and Kish-kau-ko by
the other and dragged me betwixt them, the man who had threatened to
kill me, and who was now an object of terror to me, being kept at some
distance. I could perceive, as I retarded them somewhat in their
retreat, that they were apprehensive of being overtaken; some of them
were always at some distance from us.
It was about one mile from my father's house to the place where they
threw me into a hickory-bark canoe, which was concealed under the
bushes, on the bank of the river. Into this they all seven jumped, and
immediately crossed the Ohio, landing at the mouth of the Big Miami, and
on the south side of that river. Here they abandoned their canoe, and
stuck their paddles in the ground, so that they could be seen from the
river. At a little distance in the woods they had some blankets and
provisions concealed; they offered me some dry venison and bear's
grease, but I could not eat. My father's house was plainly to be seen
from the place where we stood; they pointed at it, looked at me, and
laughed, but I have never known what they said.
After they had eaten a little, they began to ascend the Miami, dragging
me along as before.
It must have been early in the spring when we arrived at Sau-ge-nong,
for I can remember that at this time the leaves were small, and the
Indians were about planting their corn. They managed to make me assist
at their labours, partly by signs, and partly by the few words of
English old Manito-o-geezhik could speak. After planting, they all left
the village, and went out to hunt and dry meat. When they came to their
hunting-grounds, they chose a place where many deer resorted, and here
they began to build a long screen like a fence; this they made of green
boughs and small trees. When they had built a part of it, they showed me
how to remove the leaves and dry brush from that side of it to which the
Indians were to come to shoot the deer. In this labour I was sometimes
assisted by the squaws and children, but at other times I was left
alone. It now began to be warm weather, and it happened one day that,
having been left alone, as I was tired and thirsty, I fell asleep. I
cannot tell how long I slept, but when I began to awake, I thought I
heard someone crying a great way off. Then I tried to raise up my head,
but could not. Being now more awake, I saw my Indian mother and sister
standing by me, and perceived that my face and head were wet. The old
woman and her daughter were crying bitterly, but it was some time
before I perceived that my head was badly cut and bruised. It appears
that, after I had fallen asleep, Manito-o-geezhik, passing that way, had
perceived me, had tomahawked me, and thrown me in the bushes; and that
when he came to his camp he had said to his wife, 'Old woman, the boy I
brought you is good for nothing; I have killed him; you will find him in
such a place.' The old woman and her daughter having found me,
discovered still some signs of life, and had stood over me a long time,
crying, and pouring cold water on my head, when I waked. In a few days I
recovered in some measure from this hurt, and was again set to work at
the screen, but I was more careful not to fall asleep; I endeavoured to
assist them at their labours, and to comply in all instances with their
directions, but I was notwithstanding treated with great harshness,
particularly by the old man, and his two sons She-mung and Kwo-tash-e.
While we remained at the hunting camp, one of them put a bridle in my
hand, and pointing in a certain direction motioned me to go. I went
accordingly, supposing he wished me to bring a horse: I went and caught
the first I could find, and in this way I learned to discharge such
services as they required of me.
I had been about two years at Sau-ge-nong, when a great council was
called by the British agents at Mackinac. This council was attended by
the Sioux, the Winnebagoes, the Menomonees, and many remote tribes, as
well as by the Ojibbeways, Ottawwaws, &c. When old Manito-o-geezhik
returned from this council, I soon learned that he had met there his
kinswoman, Net-no-kwa, who, notwithstanding her sex, was then regarded
as principal chief of the Ottawwaws. This woman had lost her son, of
about my age, by death; and, having heard of me, she wished to purchase
me to supply his place. My old Indian mother, the Otter woman, when she
heard of this, protested vehemently against it. I heard her say, 'My son
has been dead once, and has been restored to me; I cannot lose him
again.' But these remonstrances had little influence when Net-no-kwa
arrived with plenty of whisky and other presents. She brought to the
lodge first a ten-gallon keg of whisky, blankets, tobacco, and other
articles of great value. She was perfectly acquainted with the
dispositions of those with whom she had to negotiate. Objections were
made to the exchange until the contents of the keg had circulated for
some time; then an additional keg, and a few more presents, completed
the bargain, and I was transferred to Net-no-kwa. This woman, who was
then advanced in years, was of a more pleasing aspect than my former
mother. She took me by the hand, after she had completed the negotiation
with my former possessors, and led me to her own lodge, which stood
near. Here I soon found I was to be treated more indulgently than I had
been. She gave me plenty of food, put good clothes upon me, and told me
to go and play with her own sons. We remained but a short time at
Sau-ge-nong. She would not stop with me at Mackinac, which we passed in
the night, but ran along to Point St. Ignace, where she hired some
Indians to take care of me, while she returned to Mackinac by herself,
or with one or two of her young men. After finishing her business at
Mackinac, she returned, and, continuing on our journey, we arrived in a
few days at Shab-a-wy-wy-a-gun.
The husband of Net-no-kwa was an Ojibbeway of Red River, called
Taw-ga-we-ninne, the hunter. He was seventeen years younger than
Net-no-kwa, and had turned off a former wife on being married to her.
Taw-ga-we-ninne was always indulgent and kind to me, treating me like an
equal, rather than as a dependent. When speaking to me, he always called
me his son. Indeed, he himself was but of secondary importance in the
family, as everything belonged to Net-no-kwa, and she had the direction
in all affairs of any moment. She imposed on me, for the first year,
some tasks. She made me cut wood, bring home game, bring water, and
perform other services not commonly required of the boys of my age; but
she treated me invariably with so much kindness that I was far more
happy and content than I had been in the family of Manito-o-geezhik. She
sometimes whipped me, as she did her own children: but I was not so
severely and frequently beaten as I had been before.
Early in the spring, Net-no-kwa and her husband, with their family,
started to go to Mackinac. They left me, as they had done before, at
Point St. Ignace, as they would not run the risk of losing me by
suffering me to be seen at Mackinac. On our return, after we had gone
twenty-five or thirty miles from Point St. Ignace, we were detained by
contrary winds at a place called Me-nau-ko-king, a point running out
into the lake. Here we encamped with some other Indians, and a party of
traders. Pigeons were very numerous in the woods, and the boys of my
age, and the traders, were busy shooting them. I had never killed any
game, and, indeed, had never in my life discharged a gun. My mother had
purchased at Mackinac a keg of powder, which, as they thought it a
little damp, was here spread out to dry. Taw-ga-we-ninne had a large
horseman's pistol; and, finding myself somewhat emboldened by his
indulgent manner toward me, I requested permission to go and try to kill
some pigeons with the pistol. My request was seconded by Net-no-kwa, who
said, 'It is time for our son to begin to learn to be a hunter.'
Accordingly, my father, as I called Taw-ga-we-ninne, loaded the pistol
and gave it to me, saying, 'Go, my son, and if you kill anything with
this, you shall immediately have a gun and learn to hunt.' Since I have
been a man, I have been placed in difficult situations; but my anxiety
for success was never greater than in this, my first essay as a hunter.
I had not gone far from the camp before I met with pigeons, and some of
them alighted in the bushes very near me. I cocked my pistol, and raised
it to my face, bringing the breech almost in contact with my nose.
Having brought the sight to bear upon the pigeon, I pulled trigger, and
was in the next instant sensible of a humming noise, like that of a
stone sent swiftly through the air. I found the pistol at the distance
of some paces behind me, and the pigeon under the tree on which he had
been sitting. My face was much bruised, and covered with blood. I ran
home, carrying my pigeon in triumph. My face was speedily bound up; my
pistol exchanged for a fowling-piece; I was accoutred with a
powder-horn, and furnished with shot, and allowed to go out after birds.
One of the young Indians went with me, to observe my manner of shooting.
I killed three more pigeons in the course of the afternoon, and did not
discharge my gun once without killing. Henceforth I began to be treated
with more consideration, and was allowed to hunt often, that I might
become expert.
Game began to be scarce, and we all suffered from hunger. The chief man
of our band was called As-sin-ne-boi-nainse (the Little Assinneboin),
and he now proposed to us all to move, as the country where we were was
exhausted. The day on which we were to commence our removal was fixed
upon, but before it arrived our necessities became extreme. The evening
before the day on which we intended to move my mother talked much of all
our misfortunes and losses, as well as of the urgent distress under
which we were then labouring. At the usual hour I went to sleep, as did
all the younger part of the family; but I was wakened again by the loud
praying and singing of the old woman, who continued her devotions
through great part of the night. Very early on the following morning she
called us all to get up, and put on our moccasins, and be ready to
move. She then called Wa-me-gon-a-biew to her, and said to him, in
rather a low voice, 'My son, last night I sung and prayed to the Great
Spirit, and when I slept, there came to me one like a man, and said to
me, "Net-no-kwa, to-morrow you shall eat a bear. There is, at a distance
from the path you are to travel to-morrow, and in such a direction"
(which she described to him), "a small round meadow, with something like
a path leading from it; in that path there is a bear." Now, my son, I
wish you to go to that place, without mentioning to anyone what I have
said, and you will certainly find the bear, as I have described to you.'
But the young man, who was not particularly dutiful, or apt to regard
what his mother said, going out of the lodge, spoke sneeringly to the
other Indians of the dream. 'The old woman,' said he, 'tells me we are
to eat a bear to-day; but I do not know who is to kill it.' The old
woman, hearing him, called him in, and reproved him; but she could not
prevail upon him to go to hunt.
I had my gun with me, and I continued to think of the conversation I had
heard between my mother and Wa-me-gon-a-biew respecting her dream. At
length I resolved to go in search of the place she had spoken of, and
without mentioning to anyone my design, I loaded my gun as for a bear,
and set off on our back track. I soon met a woman belonging to one of
the brothers of Taw-ga-we-ninne, and of course my aunt. This woman had
shown little friendship for us, considering us as a burthen upon her
husband, who sometimes gave something for our support; she had also
often ridiculed me. She asked me immediately what I was doing on the
path, and whether I expected to kill Indians, that I came there with my
gun. I made her no answer; and thinking I must be not far from the place
where my mother had told Wa-me-gon-a-biew to leave the path, I turned
off, continuing carefully to regard all the directions she had given. At
length I found what appeared at some former time to have been a pond. It
was a small, round, open place in the woods, now grown up with grass and
small bushes. This I thought must be the meadow my mother had spoken of;
and examining around it, I came to an open space in the bushes, where,
it is probable, a small brook ran from the meadow; but the snow was now
so deep that I could see nothing of it. My mother had mentioned that,
when she saw the bear in her dream, she had, at the same time, seen a
smoke rising from the ground. I was confident this was the place she had
indicated, and I watched long, expecting to see the smoke; but, wearied
at length with waiting, I walked a few paces into the open place,
resembling a path, when I unexpectedly fell up to my middle in the snow.
I extricated myself without difficulty, and walked on; but, remembering
that I had heard the Indians speak of killing bears in their holes, it
occurred to me that it might be a bear's hole into which I had fallen,
and, looking down into it, I saw the head of a bear lying close to the
bottom of the hole. I placed the muzzle of my gun nearly between his
eyes and discharged it. As soon as the smoke cleared away, I took a
piece of stick and thrust it into the eyes and into the wound in the
head of the bear, and, being satisfied that he was dead, I endeavoured
to lift him out of the hole; but being unable to do this, I returned
home, following the track I had made in coming out. As I came near the
camp, where the squaws had by this time set up the lodges, I met the
same woman I had seen in going out, and she immediately began again to
ridicule me. 'Have you killed a bear, that you come back so soon, and
walk so fast?' I thought to myself, 'How does she know that I have
killed a bear?' But I passed by her without saying anything, and went
into my mother's lodge. After a few minutes, the old woman said, 'My
son, look in that kettle, and you will find a mouthful of beaver meat,
which a man gave me since you left us in the morning. You must leave
half of it for Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who has not yet returned from hunting,
and has eaten nothing to-day.' I accordingly ate the beaver meat, and
when I had finished it, observing an opportunity when she stood by
herself, I stepped up to her, and whispered in her ear, 'My mother, I
have killed a bear.' 'What do you say, my son?' said she. 'I have killed
a bear.' 'Are you sure you have killed him?' 'Yes.' 'Is he quite dead?'
'Yes.' She watched my face for a moment, and then caught me in her arms,
hugging and kissing me with great earnestness, and for a long time. I
then told her what my aunt had said to me, both going and returning, and
this being told to her husband when he returned, he not only reproved
her for it, but gave her a severe flogging. The bear was sent for, and,
as being the first I had killed, was cooked all together, and the
hunters of the whole band invited to feast with us, according to the
custom of the Indians. The same day one of the Crees killed a bear and a
moose, and gave a large share of the meat to my mother.
[Illustration]
One winter I hunted for a trader called by the Indians Aneeb, which
means an elm-tree. As the winter advanced, and the weather became more
and more cold, I found it difficult to procure as much game as I had
been in the habit of supplying, and as was wanted by the trader. Early
one morning, about mid-winter, I started an elk. I pursued until night,
and had almost overtaken him; but hope and strength failed me at the
same time. What clothing I had on me, notwithstanding the extreme
coldness of the weather, was drenched with sweat. It was not long after
I turned towards home that I felt it stiffening about me. My leggings
were of cloth, and were torn in pieces in running through the bush. I
was conscious I was somewhat frozen before I arrived at the place where
I had left our lodge standing in the morning, and it was now midnight.
I knew it had been the old woman's intention to move, and I knew where
she would go; but I had not been informed she would go on that day. As I
followed on their path, I soon ceased to suffer from cold, and felt that
sleepy sensation which I knew preceded the last stage of weakness in
such as die of cold. I redoubled my efforts, but with an entire
consciousness of the danger of my situation; it was with no small
difficulty that I could prevent myself from lying down. At length I lost
all consciousness for some time, how long I cannot tell, and, awaking as
from a dream, I found I had been walking round and round in a small
circle not more than twenty or twenty-five yards over. After the return
of my senses, I looked about to try to discover my path, as I had missed
it; but, while I was looking, I discovered a light at a distance, by
which I directed my course. Once more, before I reached the lodge, I
lost my senses; but I did not fall down; if I had, I should never have
got up again; but I ran round and round in a circle as before. When I at
last came into the lodge, I immediately fell down, but I did not lose
myself as before. I can remember seeing the thick and sparkling coat of
frost on the inside of the pukkwi lodge, and hearing my mother say that
she had kept a large fire in expectation of my arrival; and that she had
not thought I should have been so long gone in the morning, but that I
should have known long before night of her having moved. It was a month
before I was able to go out again, my face, hands, and legs having been
much frozen.
There is, on the bank of the Little Saskawjewun, a place which looks
like one the Indians would always choose to encamp at. In a bend of the
river is a beautiful landing-place, behind it a little plain, a thick
wood, and a small hill rising abruptly in the rear. But with that spot
is connected a story of fratricide, a crime so uncommon that the spot
where it happened is held in detestation, and regarded with terror. No
Indian will land his canoe, much less encamp, at '_the place of the two
dead men_.' They relate that many years ago the Indians were encamped
here, when a quarrel arose between two brothers, having she-she-gwi for
totems.[1] One drew his knife and slew the other; but those of the band
who were present, looked upon the crime as so horrid that, without
hesitation or delay, they killed the murderer, and buried them together.
As I approached this spot, I thought much of the story of the two
brothers, who bore the same totem with myself, and were, as I supposed,
related to my Indian mother. I had heard it said that, if any man
encamped near their graves, as some had done soon after they were
buried, they would be seen to come out of the ground, and either re-act
the quarrel and the murder, or in some other manner so annoy and disturb
their visitors that they could not sleep. Curiosity was in part my
motive, and I wished to be able to tell the Indians that _I_ not only
stopped, but slept quietly at a place which they shunned with so much
fear and caution. The sun was going down as I arrived; and I pushed my
little canoe in to the shore, kindled a fire, and, after eating my
supper, lay down and slept. Very soon I saw the two dead men come and
sit down by my fire, opposite me. Their eyes were intently fixed upon
me, but they neither smiled nor said anything. I got up and sat opposite
them by the fire, and in this situation I awoke. The night was dark and
gusty, but I saw no men, or heard any other sound than that of the wind
in the trees. It is likely I fell asleep again, for I soon saw the same
two men standing below the bank of the river, their heads just rising to
the level of the ground I had made my fire on, and looking at me as
before. After a few minutes, they rose one after the other, and sat down
opposite me; but now they were laughing, and pushing at me with sticks,
and using various methods of annoyance. I endeavoured to speak to them,
but my voice failed me; I tried to fly, but my feet refused to do their
office. Throughout the whole night I was in a state of agitation and
alarm. Among other things which they said to me, one of them told me to
look at the top of the little hill which stood near. I did so, and saw a
horse fettered, and standing looking at me. 'There, my brother,' said
the ghost, 'is a horse which I give you to ride on your journey
to-morrow; and as you pass here on your way home, you can call and leave
the horse, and spend another night with us.'
At last came the morning, and I was in no small degree pleased to find
that with the darkness of the night these terrifying visions vanished.
But my long residence among the Indians, and the frequent instances in
which I had known the intimations of dreams verified, occasioned me to
think seriously of the horse the ghost had given me. Accordingly I went
to the top of the hill, where I discovered tracks and other signs, and,
following a little distance, found a horse, which I knew belonged to the
trader I was going to see. As several miles travel might be saved by
crossing from this point on the Little Saskawjewun to the Assinneboin, I
left the canoe, and, having caught the horse, and put my load upon him,
led him towards the trading-house, where I arrived next day. In all
subsequent journeys through this country, I carefully shunned 'the place
of the two dead'; and the account I gave of what I had seen and suffered
there confirmed the superstitious terrors of the Indians.
I was standing by our lodge one evening, when I saw a good-looking young
woman walking about and smoking. She noticed me from time to time, and
at last came up and asked me to smoke with her. I answered that I never
smoked. 'You do not wish to touch my pipe; for that reason you will not
smoke with me.' I took her pipe and smoked a little, though I had not
been in the habit of smoking before. She remained some time, and talked
with me, and I began to be pleased with her. After this we saw each
other often, and I became gradually attached to her.
I mention this because it was to this woman that I was afterwards
married, and because the commencement of our acquaintance was not after
the usual manner of the Indians. Among them it most commonly happens,
even when a young man marries a woman of his own band, he has previously
had no personal acquaintance with her. They have seen each other in the
village; he has perhaps looked at her in passing, but it is probable
they have never spoken together. The match is agreed on by the old
people, and when their intention is made known to the young couple, they
commonly find, in themselves, no objection to the arrangement, as they
know, should it prove disagreeable mutually, or to either party, it can
at any time be broken off.
I now redoubled my diligence in hunting, and commonly came home with
meat in the early part of the day, at least before night. I then dressed
myself as handsomely as I could, and walked about the village, sometimes
blowing the Pe-be-gwun, or flute. For some time Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa
pretended she was not willing to marry me, and it was not, perhaps,
until she perceived some abatement of ardour on my part that she laid
this affected coyness entirely aside. For my own part, I found that my
anxiety to take a wife home to my lodge was rapidly becoming less and
less. I made several efforts to break off the intercourse, and visit her
no more; but a lingering inclination was too strong for me. When she
perceived my growing indifference, she sometimes reproached me, and
sometimes sought to move me by tears and entreaties; but I said nothing
to the old woman about bringing her home, and became daily more and
more unwilling to acknowledge her publicly as my wife.
About this time I had occasion to go to the trading-house on Red River,
and I started in company with a half-breed belonging to that
establishment, who was mounted on a fleet horse. The distance we had to
travel has since been called by the English settlers seventy miles. We
rode and went on foot by turns, and the one who was on foot kept hold of
the horse's tail, and ran. We passed over the whole distance in one day.
In returning, I was by myself, and without a horse, and I made an
effort, intending, if possible, to accomplish the same journey in one
day; but darkness, and excessive fatigue, compelled me to stop when I
was within about ten miles of home.
When I arrived at our lodge, on the following day, I saw
Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa sitting in my place. As I stopped at the door of the
lodge, and hesitated to enter, she hung down her head; but Net-no-kwa
greeted me in a tone somewhat harsher than was common for her to use to
me. 'Will you turn back from the door of the lodge, and put this young
woman to shame, who is in all respects better than you are? This affair
has been of your seeking, and not of mine or hers. You have followed her
about the village heretofore; now you would turn from her, and make her
appear like one who has attempted to thrust herself in your way.' I was,
in part, conscious of the justness of Net-no-kwa's reproaches, and in
part prompted by inclination; I went in and sat down by the side of
Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa, and thus we became man and wife. Old Net-no-kwa had,
while I was absent at Red River, without my knowledge or consent, made
her bargain with the parents of the young woman, and brought her home,
rightly supposing that it would be no difficult matter to reconcile me
to the measure. In most of the marriages which happen between young
persons, the parties most interested have less to do than in this case.
The amount of presents which the parents of a woman expect to receive in
exchange for her diminishes in proportion to the number of husbands she
may have had.
I now began to attend to some of the ceremonies of what may be called
the initiation of warriors, this being the first time I had been on a
war-party. For the first three times that a man accompanies a war-party,
the customs of the Indians require some peculiar and painful
observances, from which old warriors may, if they choose, be exempted.
The young warrior must constantly paint his face black; must wear a
cap, or head-dress of some kind; must never precede the old warriors,
but follow them, stepping in their tracks. He must never scratch his
head, or any other part of his body, with his fingers, but if he is
compelled to scratch he must use a small stick; the vessel he eats or
drinks out of, or the knife he uses, must be touched by no other person.
The young warrior, however long and fatiguing the march, must neither
eat, nor drink, nor sit down by day; if he halts for a moment, he must
turn his face towards his own country, that the Great Spirit may see
that it is his wish to return home again.
* * * * *
It was Tanner's wish to return home again, and after many dangerous and
disagreeable adventures he did at last, when almost an old man, come
back to the Whites and tell his history, which, as he could not write,
was taken down at his dictation.[2]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The totem is the crest of the Indians.
[2] From _Tanner's Captivity_. New York, 1830.
_CASANOVA'S ESCAPE_
IN July 1755 Casanova di Seingalt, a Venetian gentleman, who, by reason
of certain books of magic he possessed, fell under the displeasure of
the Church, was imprisoned by order of the Inquisition in a cell in the
ducal palace.
The cell in which he was imprisoned was one of seven called 'The Leads,'
because they were under the palace roof, which was covered neither by
slates nor bricks, but great heavy sheets of lead. They were guarded by
archers, and could only be reached by passing through the hall of
council. The secretary of the Inquisition had charge of their key, which
the gaoler, after going the round of the prisoners, restored to him
every morning. Four of the cells faced eastward over the palace canal,
the other three westward over the court. Casanova's was one of the
three, and he calculated that it was exactly above the private room of
the inquisitors.
For many hours after the gaoler first turned the key upon Casanova he
was left alone in the gloomy cell, not high enough for him to stand
upright in, and destitute even of a couch. He laid aside his silk
mantle, his hat adorned with Spanish lace and a white plume--for, when
roused from sleep and arrested by the Inquisition, he had put on the
suit lying ready, in which he intended to have gone to a gay
entertainment. The heat of the cell was extreme: the prisoner leaned his
elbows on the ledge of the grating which admitted to the cell what light
there was, and fell into a deep and bitter reverie. Eight hours passed,
and then the complete solitude in which he was left began to trouble
him. Another hour, another, and another; but when night really fell, to
take Casanova's own account,
'I became like a raging madman, stamping, cursing, and uttering wild
cries. After more than an hour of this furious exercise, seeing no one,
not hearing the least sign which could have made me imagine that anyone
was aware of my fury, I stretched myself on the ground. . . . But my
bitter grief and anger, and the hard floor on which I lay, did not
prevent me from sleeping.
'The midnight bell woke me: I could not believe that I had really passed
three hours without consciousness of pain. Without moving, lying as I
was on my left side, I stretched out my right hand for my handkerchief,
which I remembered was there. Groping with my hand--heavens! suddenly it
rested upon _another_ hand, icy cold! Terror thrilled me from head to
foot, and my hair rose: I had never in all my life known such an agony
of fear, and would never have thought myself capable of it.
'Three or four minutes I passed, not only motionless, but bereft of
thought; then, recovering my senses, I began to think that the hand I
touched was imaginary. In that conviction I stretched out my arm once
more, only to encounter the same hand, which, with a cry of horror, I
seized, and let go again, drawing back my own. I shuddered, but being
able to reason by this time, I decided that while I slept a corpse had
been laid near me--for I was sure there was nothing when I lay down on
the floor. But whose was the dead body? Some innocent sufferer, perhaps
one of my own friends, whom they had strangled, and laid there that I
might find before my eyes when I woke the example of what my own fate
was to be? That thought made me furious: for the third time I approached
the hand with my own: I clasped it, and at the same instant I tried to
rise, to draw this dead body towards me, and be certain of the hideous
crime. But, as I strove to prop myself on my left elbow, the cold hand I
was clasping became alive, and was withdrawn--and I knew that instant,
to my utter astonishment, that I held none other than my own left hand,
which, lying stiffened on the hard floor, had lost heat and sensation
entirely.'
That incident, though comic, did not cheer Casanova, but gave him matter
for the darkest reflections--since he saw himself in a place where, if
the unreal seemed so true, reality might one day become a dream. In
other words, he feared approaching madness.
But at last came daybreak, and by-and-by the gaoler returned, asking the
prisoner if he had had time to find out what he would like to eat.
Casanova was allowed to send for all he needed from his own apartments
in Venice, but writing-implements, any metal instruments whatever, even
knife and fork, and the books he mentioned, were struck from his list.
The inquisitors sent him books which they themselves thought suitable,
and which drove him, he said, to the verge of madness.
He was not ill-treated--having a daily allowance given him to buy what
food he liked, which was more than he could spend. But the loss of
liberty soon became insupportable. For months he believed that his
deliverance was close at hand; but when November came, and he saw no
prospect of release, he began to form projects of escape. And soon the
idea of freeing himself, however wild and impossible it seemed, took
complete possession of him.
[Illustration]
By-and-by he was allowed half an hour's daily promenade in the corridor
(galetas) outside his cell--a dingy, rat-infested place, into which old
rubbish was apt to drift. One day Casanova noticed a piece of black
marble on the floor--polished, an inch thick and six inches long. He
picked it up stealthily, and without any definite intention, managed to
hide it away in his cell.
Another morning his eyes fell upon a long iron bolt, lying on the floor
with other old odds and ends, and that also, concealed in his dress, he
bore into his cell. When left alone, he examined it carefully, and
realised that if pointed, it would make an excellent spontoon. He took
the black marble, and after grinding one end of the bolt against it for
a long while, he saw that he had really succeeded in wearing the iron
down. For fifteen days he worked, till he could hardly stir his right
arm, and his shoulder felt almost dislocated. But he had made the bolt
into a real tool; or, if necessary, a weapon, with an excellent point.
He hid it in the straw of his armchair so carefully that, to find it,
one must have known that it was there; and then he began to consider
what use he should make of it.
He was certain that the room underneath was the one in which on entering
he had seen the secretary of the Inquisition, and which was probably
opened every morning. A hole once made in the floor, he could easily
lower himself by a rope made of the sheets of his bed, and fastened to
one of the bed-posts. He might hide under the great table of the
tribunal till the door was opened, and then make good his escape. It was
probable, indeed, that one of the archers would mount guard in this room
at night; but him Casanova resolved to kill with his pointed iron. The
great difficulty really was that the hole in the floor was not to be
made in a day, but might be a work of months. And therefore some pretext
must be found to prevent the archers from sweeping out the cell, as they
were accustomed to do every morning.
Some days after, alleging no reason, he ordered the archers not to
sweep. This omission was allowed to pass for several mornings, and then
the gaoler demanded Casanova's reason. He answered, that the dust
settled on his lungs, and made him cough, and might give him a mortal
disease. Laurent, the gaoler, offered to throw water on the floor before
sweeping it; but Casanova's arguments against the dampness of the
atmosphere that would result were equally ingenious. Laurent's
suspicions, however, were roused, and one day he ordered the room to be
swept most carefully, and even lit a candle, and on the pretence of
cleanliness, searched the cell thoroughly. Casanova seemed indifferent,
but the next day, having pricked his finger, he showed his handkerchief
stained with blood, and said that the gaoler's cruelty had brought on so
severe a cough that he had actually broken a small blood-vessel. A
doctor was sent for, who took the prisoner's part, and forbade sweeping
out the cell in future. One great point was gained; but the work could
not begin yet, owing to the fearful cold. The prisoner would have been
forced to wear gloves, and the sight of a worn glove might have excited
suspicion. So he occupied himself with another stratagem--the creation,
little by little, of a lamp, for the solace of the endless winter
nights. One by one, the gaoler himself, unsuspectingly, brought the
different ingredients: oil was imported in salads, wick the prisoner
himself made from threads pulled from the quilt, and in time the lamp
was complete.
The very unwelcome sojourn of a Jewish usurer, like himself captive of
the Inquisition, in his cell, forced Casanova to delay his projects of
escape till after Easter, when the Jew was imprisoned elsewhere.
No sooner had he left than Casanova, by the light of the lamp
constructed with so much difficulty, began his task. Drawing his bed
away, he set to work to bore through the plank underneath, gathering the
fragments of wood in a napkin--which the next morning he contrived to
empty out behind a heap of old cahier books in the corridor--and after
six hours' labour, pulling back his bed, which concealed all trace of it
from the gaoler's eyes.
The first plank was two inches thick; the next day he found another
plank beneath it, and he pierced this only to find a third plank. It was
three weeks before he dug out a cavity large enough for his purpose in
this depth of wood, and his disappointment was great when, underneath
the planks, he came to a marble pavement which resisted his one tool.
But he remembered having read of a general who had broken with an axe
hard stones, which he first made brittle by vinegar, and this Casanova
possessed. He poured a bottle of strong vinegar into the hole, and the
next day, whether it was the effect of the vinegar or of his stronger
resolution, he managed to loosen the cement which bound the pieces of
marble together, and in four hours had destroyed the pavement, and found
another plank, which, however, he believed to be the last.
At this point his work was once more interrupted by the arrival of a
fellow prisoner, who only stayed, however, for eight days. A more
serious delay was caused by the fact that unwittingly a part of his work
had been just above one of the great beams that supported the ceiling,
and he was forced to enlarge the hole by one-fourth. But at last all was
done. Through a hole so thin as to be quite imperceptible from below he
saw the room underneath. There was only a thin film of wood to be broken
through on the night of his escape. For various reasons, he had fixed on
the night of August 27. But hear his own words:
'On the 25th,' writes Casanova, 'there happened what makes me shudder
even as I write. Precisely at noon I heard the rattling of bolts, a
fearful beating of my heart made me think that my last moment had come,
and I flung myself on my armchair, stupefied. Laurent entered, and said
gaily:
'"Sir, I have come to bring you good news, on which I congratulate you!"
'At first I thought my liberty was to be restored--I knew no other news
which _could_ be good; and I saw that I was lost, for the discovery of
the hole would have undone me. But Laurent told me to follow him. I
asked him to wait till I got ready.
'"No matter," he said, "you are only going to leave this dismal cell for
a light one, quite new, where you can see half Venice through the two
windows; where you can stand upright; where----"
'But I cannot bear to write of it--I seemed to be dying. I implored
Laurent to tell the secretary that I thanked the tribunal for its mercy,
but begged it in Heaven's name to leave me where I was. Laurent told me,
with a burst of laughter, that I was mad, that my present cell was
execrable, and that I was to be transferred to a delightful one.
'"Come, come, you must obey orders," he exclaimed.
'He led me away. I felt a momentary solace in hearing him order one of
his men to follow with the armchair, where my spontoon was still
concealed. That was always something! If my beautiful hole in the floor,
that I had made with such infinite pains, could have followed me
too--but that was impossible! My body went; my soul stayed behind.
'As soon as Laurent saw me in the fresh cell, he had the armchair set
down. I flung myself upon it, and he went away, telling me that my bed
and all my other belongings should be brought to me at once.'
For two hours Casanova was left alone in his new cell, utterly hopeless,
and expecting to be consigned for the rest of his life to one of the
palace dungeons, from which no escape could be possible. Then the gaoler
returned, almost mad with rage, and demanded the axe and all the
instruments which the prisoner must have employed in penetrating the
marble pavement. Calmly, without stirring, Casanova told him that he
did not know what he was talking about, but that, if he _had_ procured
tools, it could only have been from Laurent himself, who alone had
entrance to the cell.
Such a reply did not soften the gaoler's anger, and for some time
Casanova was very badly treated. Everything was searched; but his tool
had been so cleverly concealed that Laurent never found it. Fortunately
it was the gaoler's interest not to let the tribunal know of the
discovery he had made. He had the floor of the cell mended without the
knowledge of the secretary of the Inquisition, and when this was done,
and he found himself secure from blame, Casanova had little difficulty
in making peace with him, and even told him the secret of the lamp's
construction.
Fortunately, out of the tribunal's allowance to the prisoner enough was
always left, after he had provided for his own needs, for a gift--or
bribe, to the gaoler. But Laurent did not relax his vigilance, and every
morning one of the archers went round the cell with an iron bar, giving
blows to walls and floor, to assure himself that there was nothing
broken. But he never struck the ceiling, a fact which Casanova resolved
to turn to account at the first opportunity.
One day the prisoner ordered his gaoler to buy him a particular book,
and Laurent, objecting to an expense which seemed to him quite needless,
offered to borrow him a book of one of the other prisoners, in exchange
for one of his own. Here at last was an opportunity. Casanova chose a
volume out of his small library, and gave it to the gaoler, who returned
in a few minutes with a Latin book belonging to one of the other
prisoners.
Pen and ink were forbidden, but in this book Casanova found a fragment
of paper; and he contrived, with the nail of his little finger, dipped
in mulberry juice, to write on it a list of his library--and returned
the volume, asking for a second. The second came, and in it a short
letter in Latin. The correspondence between the prisoners had really
begun.
The writer of the Latin letter was the monk Balbi, imprisoned in the
Leads with a companion, Count Andre Asquin. He followed it by a much
longer one, giving the history of his own life, and all that he knew of
his fellow-prisoners. Casanova formed a very poor opinion of Father
Balbi's character from his letters; but assistance of some kind he must
have, since the gaoler must needs discover any attempt to break through
the ceiling, unless that attempt was made from above. But Casanova soon
thought of a plan by which Balbi could break through _his_ ceiling,
undiscovered.
'I wrote to him,' he relates, 'that I would find some means of sending
him an instrument with which he could break through the roof of his
cell, and having climbed upon it, go to the wall separating his roof
from mine. Breaking through that, he would find himself on _my_ roof,
which also must be broken through. That done, I would leave my cell, and
he, the Count, and I together, would manage to raise one of the great
leaden squares that formed the highest palace roof. Once outside _that_,
I would be answerable for the rest.
'But first he must tell the gaoler to buy him forty or fifty pictures of
saints, and by way of proving his piety, he must cover his walls and
ceiling with these, putting the largest on the ceiling. When he had done
this, I would tell him more.
'I next ordered Laurent to buy me the new folio Bible that was just
printed; for I fancied its great size might enable me to conceal my tool
there, and so send it to the monk. But when I saw it, I became
gloomy--the bolt was two inches longer than the Bible. The monk wrote to
me that the cell was already covered according to my direction, and
hoped I would lend him the great Bible which Laurent told him I had
bought. But I replied that for three or four days I needed it myself.
'At last I hit upon a device. I told Laurent that on Michaelmas Day I
wanted two dishes of macaroni, and one of these must be the largest dish
he had, for I meant to season it, and send it, with my compliments, to
the worthy gentleman who had lent me books. Laurent would bring me the
butter and the Parmesan cheese, but I myself should add them to the
boiling macaroni.
'I wrote to the monk preparing him for what was to happen, and on St.
Michael's Day all came about as I expected. I had hidden the bolt in the
great Bible, wrapped in paper, one inch of it showing on each side. I
prepared the cheese and butter; and in due time Laurent brought me in
the boiling macaroni and the great dish. Mixing my ingredients, I filled
the dish so full that the butter nearly ran over the edge, and then I
placed it carefully on the Bible, and put that, with the dish resting on
it, into Laurent's hand, warning him not to spill a drop. All his
caution was necessary: he went away with his eyes fixed on his burden,
lest the butter should run over; and the Bible, with the bolt projecting
from it, were covered, and more than covered, by the huge dish. His one
care was to hold that steady, and I saw that I had succeeded. Presently
he came back to tell me that not a drop of butter had been spilt.'
Father Balbi next began his work, detaching from the roof one large
picture, which he regularly put back in the same place to conceal the
hole. In eight days he had made his way through the roof, and attacked
the wall. This was harder work, but at last he had removed six and
twenty bricks, and could pass through to Casanova's roof. This he was
obliged to work at very carefully, lest any fracture should appear
visible below.
One Monday, as Father Balbi was busy at the roof, Casanova suddenly
heard the sound of opening doors. It was a terrible moment, but he had
time to give the alarm signal, two quick blows on the ceiling. Then
Laurent entered, bringing another prisoner, an ugly, ill-dressed little
man of fifty, in a black wig, who looked like what he was, a spy of the
Inquisition.
Casanova soon learned the history of Soradici--for this was the spy's
name--and when his new companion was asleep he wrote to Balbi the
account of what had happened. For the present, evidently the work must
be given up, no confidence whatever could be placed in Soradici. Yet
soon Casanova thought of a plan of making use even of this traitor.
First he ordered Laurent to buy him an image of the Virgin Mary, holy
water, and a crucifix. Next he wrote two letters, addressed to friends
in Venice--letters in which he made no complaint, but spoke of the
benevolence of the Inquisition, and the blessing that his trials had
been to him. These letters, which, even if they reached the hands of the
secretary, could do him no possible harm, he entrusted to Soradici, in
case he should soon be set free; exacting the spy's solemn oath, on the
crucifix and the image of the Virgin, not to betray him, but to give the
letters to his friends.
Soradici took the oath required of him, and sewed the letters into his
vest. None the less, Casanova felt confident that he would be betrayed,
and this was exactly what happened. Two days after the spy was sent for
to the secretary, and when he returned to the cell, his companion soon
discovered that he had given up the letters.
Casanova affected the utmost anguish and despair. He flung himself down
before the image of the Virgin, and demanded vengeance on the monster
who had ruined him by breaking so solemn a pledge. Then he lay down with
his face to the wall, and for the whole day uttered no single word to
the spy, who, terrified at his companion's prayer for vengeance,
entreated his forgiveness. But when the spy slept he wrote to Father
Balbi and told him to go on with his work the next day, beginning at
exactly three o'clock, and working four hours.
The next day, after the gaoler had left them, bearing with him the book
of Father Balbi in which the prisoner's letter was concealed, Casanova
called his companion. The spy, by this time, was really ill with terror;
for he believed that he had provoked the wrath of the Virgin Mary by
breaking his oath. He was ready to do anything his companion told him to
do, and weak enough to credit any falsehood.
Casanova put on a look of inspiration, and said:
'Learn that at break of day the Holy Virgin appeared to me, and
commanded me to forgive you. You shall not die. The grief that your
treachery caused me made me pass all the night sleepless, since I knew
that the letters you had given to the secretary would prove my ruin--and
my one consolation was to believe that in three days I should see you
die in this very cell. But though my mind was full of my
revenge--unworthy of a Christian--at break of day the image of the
Blessed Virgin that you see moved, opened her lips, and said: "Soradici
is under my protection: I would have you pardon him. In reward of your
generosity I will send one of my angels in figure of a man, who shall
descend from heaven to break the roof of the cell, and in five or six
days to release you. To-day this angel will begin his work at three
o'clock, and will work till half an hour before the sun sets, for he
must return to me by daylight. When you escape you will take Soradici
with you, and you will take care of him all his life, on condition that
he quits the profession of a spy for ever." With these words the Blessed
Virgin disappeared.'
At first even the spy's credulity would hardly be persuaded that
Casanova had not dreamed; but when at the appointed hour the sound of
the angel working in the roof was really to be heard, when it lasted
four hours, and ceased again as foretold, all his doubt vanished, and he
was ready to follow Casanova blindly. The thought of once more betraying
him never entered his mind; he believed that the Blessed Virgin herself
was on the side of his companion.
The angel would appear, Casanova told him, on the evening of October 31.
And at the hour appointed Father Balbi, not looking in the least like an
angel, came feet foremost through the ceiling. Casanova embraced him,
left him to guard the spy, and himself ascending through the roof,
crossed over into the other cell and greeted the monk's fellow-prisoner,
Count Andre, who had all this time kept their secret, but, being old and
infirm, had no desire to fly with them.
The next thing was to return into the garret above the two cells, and
set to work to break through the palace roof itself. Most of this task
fell to Casanova, till he reached the great sheet of lead surmounting
the planks, and there the monk's help was necessary. Uniting their
strength, they raised it till an opening was made wide enough to pass
through. But outside the moonlight was too strong, and they would have
been seen from below had they ventured on the roof. They returned into
the cell and waited. Casanova had made strong ropes by tying together
sheets, towels, and whatever else would serve. Now, since there was
nothing to be done till the moon sank, he sat down and wrote a courteous
letter to the Inquisition, explaining his reasons for attempting to
escape.
The spy, too cowardly to risk his life in so daring a venture, and
beginning to see that he had been imposed upon, begged Casanova on his
knees to leave him behind, praying for the fugitives--and this Casanova
was thankful to do, for Soradici could only have encumbered him. Father
Balbi, though for the last hour he had been heaping reproaches on his
friend's rashness, was less of a coward than the spy, and as the time
had come to start he followed Casanova. They crept out on the roof, and
began cautiously to ascend it. Half-way up the monk begged his companion
to stop, saying that he had lost one of the packages tied round his
neck.
'Was it the package of cord?' asked Casanova.
'No,' replied the monk, 'but a black coat, and a very precious
manuscript.'
'Then,' said Casanova, resisting a sudden temptation to throw Balbi
after his packet, 'you must be patient, and come along.'
The monk sighed, and followed. Soon they had reached the highest point
of the roof, and here Balbi contrived to lose his hat, which rolled down
the roof, failed to lodge in the gutter, and fell into the canal below.
The poor fellow grew desperate, and said it was a bad omen. Casanova
soothed him, and left him seated where he was, while he himself went to
investigate, his faithful tool in his hand.
Now fresh difficulties began. For a long time Casanova could find no way
of re-entering the palace, except into the cell they had quitted. He was
growing hopeless, when he saw a skylight, that he was sure was too far
away from their starting point to belong to any of the cells. He made
his way to it; it was barred with a fine iron grating that needed a
file. And Casanova only had one tool!
Sitting on the roof of the skylight, he nearly abandoned himself to
despair, till the bell striking midnight suddenly roused him. It was the
first of November: All Saint's Day--the day on which he had long had a
curious foreboding that he should recover his liberty. Fired with hope,
he set his tool to work at the grating, and in a quarter of an hour he
had wrenched it away entire. He set it down by the skylight, and went
back for the monk. They regained the skylight together.
Casanova let down his companion through the skylight by the cord, and
found that the floor was so far away that he himself dared not risk the
leap. And though the cord was still in his hands, he had nowhere to
fasten it. The monk, inside, could give him no help--and, not knowing
what to do, he set out on another voyage of discovery.
It was successful, for in a part of the roof which he had not yet
visited he found a ladder left by some workmen, and long enough for his
purpose. Indeed, it seemed likely to be too long, for when he tried to
introduce it into the skylight, it only entered as far as the sixth
round, and then was stopped by the roof. However, with a superhuman
effort Casanova, hanging to the roof, below the skylight, managed to
lift the other end of the ladder, nearly, in the action, flinging
himself down into the canal. But he had succeeded in forcing the ladder
farther in, and the rest was comparatively easy. He climbed up again to
the skylight, lowered the ladder, and in another moment was standing by
his companion's side.
They found themselves in a garret opening into another room, well barred
and bolted. But just then Casanova was past all exertion. He flung
himself on the ground, the packet of cord under his head, and fell into
a sleep of utter exhaustion. It was dawn when he was roused at last by
the monk's despairing efforts. For two hours the latter had been shaking
him, and even shouting in his ears, without the slightest effect!
Casanova rose, saying:
'This place must have a way out. Let us break everything--there is no
time to lose!'
They found, at last, a door, of which Casanova's tool forced the lock,
and which led them into the room containing the archives or records of
the Venetian Republic. From this they descended a staircase, then
another, and so made their way into the chancellor's office. Here
Casanova found a tool which secretaries used to pierce parchment, and
which was some little help to them--for he found it impossible to force
the lock of the door through which they had next to part, and the only
way was to break a hole in it. Casanova set to work at the part of the
door that looked most likely to yield, while his companion did what he
could with the secretary's instrument--they pushed, rent, tore the wood;
the noise that they made was alarming, but they were compelled to risk
it. In half an hour they had made a hole large enough to get through.
The monk went first, being the thinner; he pulled Casanova after
him--dusty, torn, and bleeding, for he had worked harder than Father
Balbi, who still looked respectable.
They were now in a part of the palace guarded by doors against which no
possible effort of theirs could have availed. The only way was to wait
till they were opened, and then take flight. Casanova tranquilly changed
his tattered garments for a suit which he had brought with him, arranged
his hair, and made himself look--except for the bandages he had tied
round his wounds--much more like a strayed reveller than an escaped
prisoner. All this time the monk was upbraiding him bitterly, and at
last, tired of listening, Casanova opened a window, and put out his
head, adorned with a gay plumed hat. The window looked out upon the
palace court, and Casanova was seen at once by people walking there. He
drew back his head, thinking that he had brought destruction upon
himself; but after all the accident proved fortunate. Those who had seen
him went immediately to tell the authority who kept the key of the hall
at the top of the grand staircase, at whose window Casanova's head had
appeared, that he must unwittingly have shut someone in the night
before. Such a thing might easily have happened, and the keeper of the
keys came immediately to see if the news were true.
Presently the door opened, and quite at his ease, the keeper appeared,
key in hand. He looked startled at Casanova's strange figure, but the
latter, without stopping or uttering a word, passed him, and descended
the stairs, followed by the frightened monk. They did not run, nor did
they loiter; Casanova was already, in spirit, beyond the confines of the
Venetian Republic. Still followed by the monk, he reached the
water-side, stepped into a gondola, and flinging himself down
carelessly, promised the rowers more than their fare if they would reach
Fusina quickly. Soon they had left Venice behind them; and a few days
after his wonderful escape Casanova was in perfect safety beyond Italy.
_ADVENTURES ON THE FINDHORN_
THE following adventures in crossing the Findhorn are extracted from
'Lays of the Deer Forest,' by John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart
(London, 1848).
* * * * *
I had lost my boat in the last speat; it was the third which had been
taken away in that year, and, until I obtained another, I was obliged to
ford the river. I went one day as usual; there was a dark bank of cloud
lying in the west upon Beann-Drineachain, but all the sky above was blue
and clear, and the water moderate, as I crossed into the forest. I
merely wanted a buck, and, therefore, only made a short circuit to the
edge of Dun-Fhearn, and rolled a stone down the steep into the deep,
wooded den. As it plunged into the burn below, I heard the bound of feet
coming up; but they were only two small does, and I did not 'speak' to
them, but amused myself with watching their uneasiness and surprise as
they perked into the bosky gorge, down which the stone had crashed like
a nine-pounder; and, as their white targets jinked over the brae, I went
on to try the western terraces.
[Illustration]
There is a smooth dry brae opposite to Logie Cumming, called 'Braigh
Choilich-Choille,'[3] great part of the slope of which is covered with a
growth of brackens from five to six feet high, mixed with large masses
of foxgloves, of such luxuriance that the stems sometimes rise five from
a single root, and more than seven feet in height, of which there is
often an extent of five feet of blossoms, loaded with a succession of
magnificent bells. As we crossed below this beautiful covert, I observed
Dreadnought suddenly turn up the wind towards it. I immediately made for
the crest beyond where the bank rises smooth and open, and whence I had
a free sweep of the summit and of both sides. I had just reached the top
when the dog entered the thicket of the ferns, and I saw their tall
heads stir about twenty yards before him, followed by a roar from his
deep tongue, and a fine buck bolted up the brae. I gave a short whistle
to stop him, and immediately he stood to listen, but behind a great
spruce fir, which then, with many others, formed a noble group upon the
summit of the terrace. The sound of the dog dislodged him in an instant,
and he shot out through the open glade, when I followed him with the
rifle, and sent him over on his horns like a wheel down the steep, and
splash, like a round shot, into the little rill at its foot. We
brittled him on the knog of an old pine, and rewarded the dog, and drank
the Dochfalla; when, having occasion to send the piper to the other side
of the wood, and being so near home, I shouldered the roe, and took the
way for the ford of Craig-Darach, a strong wide broken stream with a
very bad bottom, but the nearest then passable.
As I descended the Bruach-gharbh, Dreadnought stopped and looked up into
a pine, then approaching the tree, searched it all round with his nose.
I scanned the branches, but could see nothing except an old hawk's nest,
which had been disused long ago; and if it had not, I do not understand
how it should be interesting to a hound. The dog, however, continued to
investigate the stump and stem of the fir, gaze into the branches,
turning his head from side to side, and setting up his ears like a
cocked-hat. I laid down the buck, and unslung my double gun, and threw a
stick at the nest, when out shot a large pine-martin, and, like a
squirrel, sprung along the branches from tree to tree, till I brought
him to the ground. Dreadnought examined him with a sort of wrinkle in
his whiskers, and turned away, and sat down in dignified abstraction;
while I remounted the buck, and braced the martin to his feet with the
little 'ial-chas,' or foot-straps used for trussing the legs of the roe.
We then resumed our path for the ford.
As I descended through the Boat-Shaw, I heard a heavy sound from the
water, but when I came out from the birches upon the green bank on its
brink, I saw that the river had come down, and was just lipping with the
top of the stone, the sight of whose head was the mark for the last
possibility of crossing. As I looked upon its contracting ring, I
perceived that the stream was still growing; there was no time to be
lost, for the alternative now was to go round by the bridge of
Daltulich, a circuit of four miles; and I knew that, before I reached
the next good ford, the water would be a continuous rapid, probably six
feet deep: I decided, therefore, upon trying the chance where I was.
Dreadnought, who had gone about thirty yards up the stream to take the
deep water in the pool of Craig-Darach, had observed my hesitation with
one leg out and one in the water, and was standing on the point of the
rock waiting the result. As soon as I made another step he plunged into
the river, and in a few moments was rolling on the bank of silver sand
thrown up by the back-water upon the opposite side of the river. As I
advanced through the stream, he looked at me occasionally, and I at
him, and the beautiful smooth sand and green bank upon his side--for by
that time I began to wish I was there too. I was then in pretty deep
water for a ford, but still some distance from the deepest part; my kilt
was floating round me in the boiling water, and the strong eddy, formed
by the stream running against my legs, gulped and gushed with increasing
weight. I moved slowly and carefully, for the whole ford was filled with
large round slippery stones from the size of a sixty-pound shot to a
two-hundredweight shell. I stopped to rest, and looked back to the ford
mark: it was wholly gone, and I saw only the broad smooth wave of water
which slipped over its head. Ten paces more, and I should be through the
deepest part. I stepped steadily and rigidly, but I wanted the use of my
balancing limbs and the freedom of my breath; for the barrels of the
double gun and rifle, which were slung at my back, were passed under my
arms to keep them out of the water; and I was also obliged to hold the
legs of the buck, which, loaded with the 'wood-cat,' were crossed upon
my breast. At every step the round and slidering stones endangered my
footing, rendered still more unsteady by the upward pressure of the
water. In this struggle the current gave a great gulp, and a wave
splashed up over my guns. I staggered downwards with the stream, and
could not recover a sure footing for several yards. At last I secured my
hold against a large fixed stone, and paused to rest. After a little I
made another effort to proceed.
The water was now running above my belt, and at the first step which I
made from the stone I found that it deepened abruptly before me. I felt
that in six inches more that strong stream would lift me off my legs;
and with great difficulty I gained about two yards up the current to
ascertain if the depth was continuous, but the bottom still shelved
before me, and, as I persisted in attempting it, I was turned round by
the stream, the waves were leaping through the deep channel before me,
and having no arms to balance my steps, I began to think of the bonnie
banks on _either_ side the river. In this jeopardy poor Dreadnought had
not been unconcerned; at the first moment of my struggle he had gone
down the great stony beach which lay before me, and, sitting down by the
water, watched me with great anxiety, and at last began to whine, and
whimper, and tremble with agitation. But when he saw me stagger down the
stream, he rose, went in up to his knees, howled, pawed the water, and
lapped the waves with impatience. Meanwhile I was obliged to come to a
rest, with my left foot planted strongly against a stone, for the mere
resistance to the pressure of water, which, rushing with a white foam
from my side, was sufficient exertion without the weight of the buck and
the two guns, which amounted to more than seventy pounds.
After a few moments' pause I made a last effort to reach the east bank;
but it was now impossible, and I turned to make an attempt to regain the
Tarnaway side. I was at least thirty yards lower down than when I
entered the stream, and the water was rushing and foaming all round me;
another stagger nearly carried me off my feet, and, in the exertion to
keep them, a thick transpiration rose upon my forehead, my ears began to
sing, and my head to swim, while, disordered in their balance, the buck
and the guns almost strangled me, I looked down the channel; the water
was running in a white, broken rapid into the black pool below, and
swept with a wide, foaming back-water under the steep rock which turned
its force. The soft green bank before me was sleeping beneath the shade
of the weeping birches, where bluebells and primroses grew thick in the
short smooth turf, and, though they had long shed their blossoms, the
bright patches of their clusters were yet visible among the tall
foxgloves, which still retained the purple bells upon their tops. The
bank looked softer, and greener, and more inviting than ever it had done
before; but my eyes grew dim and my limbs faint with that last struggle.
I felt for my dirk knife, for a desperate rolling swim for life seemed
now inevitable, and, steadying myself in the stream, I cut loose the
straps of the buck and the slings of the guns, and retaining them only
with my hands, held them ready to let go as soon as I should be taken
off my legs. When they were free, I dipped my hand in the water, and
laved it over my brow and face. The singing of my ears ceased, and my
sight came clear, and I discovered that I had lost my bonnet in the
struggle, and distinguished the white cockade dancing like a little
'cailleach' of foam in the vortex of the pool below.
Being now _morally_ relieved from the weight of the roe and guns--though
resolved to preserve them to the last--I resumed my attempt for the west
bank; but when I reached a similar distance to that which I had gained
for the other, I found an equally deep channel before me, and that the
diminished water by which I had been encouraged was only the shoaling of
a long bank which extended with the stream. I now saw that before I
joined my bonnet, which still danced and circled in the pool below,
there was only one effort left--to struggle up the stream, and reach the
point from which I had taken the water. But this was a desperate
attempt; for at every step I had to find a safe footing at the upper
side of some stone, and then with all my strength to force myself
against the current. But often the stones gave way, and, loosening from
their bed, went rolling and rumbling down the rapid, and I was driven
back several feet, to recommence the same struggle. The river also was
still increasing, and the flat sand, which was dry when I left it, was
now a sheet of water. While I was thus wrestling with the stream, I saw
Dreadnought enter, not at his usual place in the pool, but at the tail,
just above the run of the stream in which I was struggling. He came
whimpering over, and crossed about a yard or two above me; but instead
of making for the bank, he turned in the water, and swam towards me. The
stream, however, was too strong for him, and carried him down. I called
and waved to the forest, and he turned and steered for its bank, but did
not reach the shelving sand till he was well tumbled in the top of the
rapid, out of which he only emerged in time to catch a little
back-water, which helped him on to the shore. The attempt of the dog to
reach me had passed while I rested: and when he gained the bank, I
resumed my effort to make the shallower water.
[Illustration]
Dreadnought's eye was turned towards me as he came dripping up the bank,
and seeing me move forward, he ran before me to the water's edge, at the
right entrance of the ford, whining, and howling, and baying, as if he
knew as well as I that it was the place to make for. In a few steps the
stones became less slippery, and the bottom more even, and I began to
think that I might gain it, when, at the rocky point above, I saw a
white mass of foam, loaded with brushwood, sticks, and rubbish, borne
along by a ridge of yellow curdling water, at least two feet higher than
the stream. I gathered all my strength, and made a struggle for the bank
opposite to where I was. The water was already above my belt, and
rushing between my arms as I bore up the guns. I felt myself lifted off
my legs; again I held the ground. The green bank was only a few yards
distant, but the deep water was close below, and the yellow foaming
flood above. As I staggered on, I heard it coming down, crumpling up and
crackling the dead boughs which it bore along. I stumbled upon a round
stone, and nearly fell backward, but it was against the stream which
forced me forward. I felt the spray splash over my head: I was nearly
blind and deaf. I made a desperate effort with the last strength which I
had left, and threw myself gasping on the bank.
Dreadnought sprang forward, jumped over and over me, whined, and kissed
my face and hands, and tried to turn me over with his snout, and
scratched and pawed me to make me speak; but I could not yet, and
gasped, and choked, and felt as if my heart would burst. I lay, dripping
and panting, with my arms stretched out on the grass, unable to move,
except with the convulsive efforts of my breath. At last I sat up, but I
could scarcely see: a thin gauzy cloud was over my eyes, a heavy
pressure rung in my ears, my feet still hung in the water, which was now
sweeping a wide white torrent from bank to bank, and running with a
fierce current through both the pools below. The back-water, where my
bonnet had danced, no longer remained; all was carried clear out in one
long rush down to the Cluag. 'Benedictum sit nomen Domini!' I thought,
as I crossed myself. I stretched out my hand, and plucked the nearest
flowers, and smelled their sweet greenwood scent with inexpressible
delight. I never thought that flowers looked so beautiful, or had half
so much perfume, though they were only the pale wild blossoms of the
fading year. I placed them in my breast, and have them still, and never
look upon them without repeating--
'DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI AD TE, DOMINE!'
[Illustration: THE FINDHORN.]
Such were the hazards on the fords of the Findhorn; but even by boat the
struggle was sometimes no less arduous, though it enabled us to cross
the water at a height otherwise impassable, of which the following
passage is an example:--
One evening I was returning with the piper, and the old hound which had
accompanied me at the ford. As we descended towards the pool of Cluag,
where I had left the coble quietly moored in the morning, Dreadnought
frequently turned and looked at me with hanging ears and a heavy
cheerless eye; and when we came to the path which led down to the river
he stopped, and dropped behind, and followed at my heel, though usually
he trotted on before, and instead of waiting for the boat, took the
water, which he preferred to the coble. When we came out from the trees
upon the steep bank above the river, I understood his altered manner.
From rock to rock the stream was running a white, furious, rushing
torrent, and the little boat tugging and jibbing on her chain, and
swinging and bobbing upon the top of the froth, like the leaves which
danced upon the eddy. Dreadnought had heard the sound of the river, and
knew what there was at work before us. The boat was moored near the
throat of the pool, in the back-water of a little bay, now entirely
filled with froth and foam up to the gunwale of the coble, which was
defended by a sharp point of rock, from whose breakwater the stream was
thrown off in a wild shooting torrent. Within the bay the reaction of
the tide formed a quick back-water, which raised the stream without
nearly two feet higher than the level within, and at times sucked the
boat on to the point, where she was struck in the stem by the gushing
stream and sent spinning round at the full swing of her 'tether.'
Donald looked at me. There was no alternative but the bridge of
Daltullich, more than four miles about, with two bucks to carry, and
ourselves well run since four o'clock in the morning. I stood for some
moments considering the chances, and the manifest probability of going
down the stream. Immediately after emerging from the little mooring bay
there was a terrific rush of water discharged through the narrow throat
of the pool, and raised to the centre in a white fierce tumbling ridge,
for which the shortness of the pool afforded no allowance for working,
while the little back-water, which, in ordinary cases, caught us on the
opposite side, and took us into the bank, was lost in a flood, which ran
right through the basin like a mill-lead. 'Can you swim, Donald?' said I
mechanically. '_Swim_, Sir!' said he, who knew how often I had seen
him tumbled by the waves both in salt water and fresh. 'Oh yes, I know
you can. But I was thinking of that stream.' 'Ougudearbh!' replied
Donald: 'But it was myself that never tried it yon way!' 'And what do
you think of her?' 'Faith, Thighearna, you know best--but if you try it,
I shall not stay behind.'
We had often ridden the water together by day and night, in flood and
fair; and, narrow as the pool was, I thought we could get through it. We
threw in a broken branch to prove the speed of the current, but it
leaped through the plunging water like a greyhound, and was away in a
moment down to the fierce white battling vortex of the Scuddach, where
there was no salvation for thing alive; a few moments it disappeared in
the wild turmoil, and then came up beyond--white and barked, and
shivered like a splintered bone. Donald, however, saw that I was going
to try the venture, and he was already up the bank unlocking the chain
without a word. The bucks were deposited in the stern of the boat, the
guns laid softly across them, covered with a plaid, and Dreadnought
followed slowly and sternly, and laid himself down with an air as if,
like Don Alphonso of Castile, 'the body trembled at the dangers into
which the soul was going to carry it.' I took the oars--there were no
directions to be given--Donald knew how to cross the pool, and every
other where we were used to ferry.
The boat's head was brought round to the stream, for it was necessary to
run her into it with the impulse of the back-water to shoot her forward,
or she would have been drawn back, stern foremost, into the eddy, where
the jaw of the water, over the point of the rock, would have swamped us
in an instant. Donald knelt at the bows, and held fast by a light
painter till I cried 'Ready!' when the little shallop sprung from the
rope, tilted away like a sea-bird, and glided towards the roaring
torrent. I looked over my shoulder; Donald was gripping the bows, his
teeth set fast, but a gleam of light was in his eye as we plunged
headlong into the bursting stream. A blow like the stroke of a mighty
wooden hammer lifted the boat into the surf; there was a crack as if her
bows were stove in, and she shot shivering through the pool, filled with
water to our knees, and sending the spray over us like a sheet. The
rocks and trees seemed to fly away; the roaring water spouted and
boiled, as it lifted up the boat, which spun round like a leaf, with her
starboard gunwale lipping with the waves; but a few seconds swept us
through the pool, and we were flying into the mad tumbling thunder of
the rapid below. I kept the larboard bow to the stream, and pulled with
all my might; but I thought she did not move, the eddy of the great
mid-stream seemed to fix her in the ridge of the torrent, and take her
along with it; the oars bent like willows to the strain, a boiling gush
from below lifted her bows, and threw her gunwale under the froth. I
thought we were gone, but I redoubled the last desperate strokes, and we
shot out of the foaming ridge towards the opposite bank, rolling, and
leaping, and plunging into the throat of the rapid. Donald sat like a
tiger ready for the spring, and as we neared the shore, bounded on the
grass with the chain. This checked the speed of the boat; I unshipped
the oars, and sprung out just as the coble came crash alongside the
bank, then swirling round, her head flew out to the stream, dragging
Donald along the grass after her. I jumped into the water, and caught
hold of the bow; for two minutes the struggle was doubtful and she
continued to drag us along: at last Donald reached the stump of a tree,
and, running round it, made a turn of the chain and brought her up.
We sat down, and wiped our faces, and looked at each other in silence.
The incredibly short space of time which had elapsed since we stood on
the '_other side_,' with the mysterious future before us, and now to be
sitting on '_this_,' and call it the _past_, was like a dream. The
tumult, the flying shoot, the concussion at parting and arriving, seemed
like an explosion, as if we had been blown up and thrown over. 'I don't
think that boat will ever go back again, Thighearna,' said Donald. 'Why
not?' 'Did you not feel her twist, and hear her split, when we came into
the burst of the stream?' replied Donald. 'I don't know,' said I; 'I
felt and heard a great many things, but there was no time to think what
they were.' 'Oh, it was not _thinking_ that I was,' answered Donald;
'but the water came squirting up in my face through her ribs, and I held
on by both bows, expecting at every stroke to see them open and let me
through.' We got up and examined the boat's bottom; there was a yawning
rent from the stem to the centre, and part of the torn planks lapped one
over the other by the twist, the bows being only held together by the
iron band which bound the gunwale.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] The woodcocks' brae, from the frequency with which they breed there.
_THE STORY OF GRACE DARLING_
A CAREFUL reader of the 'Times' on the morning of Tuesday, September 11,
1838, might have found, if he cared to look, a certain paragraph in an
obscure corner headed 'The Wreck of the "Forfarshire."' It is printed in
the small type of that period; the story is four days old, for in those
days news was not flashed from one end of the country to the other; and,
moreover, the story is very incomplete.
On the evening of Wednesday, September 5, the steamship 'Forfarshire'
left Hull for Dundee, carrying a cargo of iron, and having some forty
passengers on board. The ship was only eight years old; the master, John
Humble, was an experienced seaman; and the crew, including firemen and
engineers, was complete. But even before the vessel left the dock one
passenger at least had felt uneasily that something was wrong--that
there was an unusual commotion among officials and sailors. Still, no
alarm was given, and at dusk the vessel steamed prosperously down the
Humber.
The next day (Thursday, the 6th) the weather changed, the wind blowing
N.N.W., and increasing towards midnight to a perfect gale. On the
morning of Friday, the 7th, a sloop from Montrose, making for South
Shields, saw a small boat labouring hard in the trough of the sea. The
Montrose vessel bore down on it, and in spite of the state of the
weather managed to get the boat's crew on board.
They were nine men in all, the sole survivors, as they believed
themselves to be, of the crew and passengers of the 'Forfarshire,' which
was then lying a total wreck on Longstone, one of the outermost of the
Farne Islands.
It was a wretched story they had to tell of lives thrown away through
carelessness and negligence, unredeemed, as far as their story went, by
any heroism or unselfish courage.
While still in the Humber, and not twenty miles from Hull, it was found
that one of the boilers leaked, but the captain refused to put about.
The pumps were set to work to fill the boiler, and the vessel kept on
her way, though slowly, not passing between the Farne Islands and the
mainland till Thursday evening. It was eight o'clock when they entered
Berwick Bay; the wind freshened and was soon blowing hard from the
N.N.W. The motion of the vessel increased the leakage, and it was now
found that there were holes in all the three boilers. Two men were set
to work the pumps, one or two of the passengers also assisting, but as
fast as the water was pumped into the boilers it poured out again. The
bilge was so full of steam and boiling water that the firemen could not
get to the fires. Still the steamer struggled on, labouring heavily, for
the sea was running very high. At midnight they were off St. Abbs Head,
when the engineers reported that the case was hopeless; the engines had
entirely ceased to work. The ship rolled helplessly in the waves, and
the rocky coast was at no great distance. They ran up the sails fore and
aft to try and keep her off the rocks, and put her round so that she
might run before the wind, and as the tide was setting southward she
drifted fast with wind and tide. Torrents of rain were falling, and in
spite of the wind there was a thick fog. Some of the passengers were
below, others were on deck with crew and captain, knowing well their
danger.
About three the noise of breakers was distinctly heard a little way
ahead, and at the same time a light was seen away to the left,
glimmering faintly through the darkness. It came home to the anxious
crew with sickening certainty that they were being driven on the Farne
Islands. [Now these islands form a group of desolate whinstone rocks
lying off the Northumbrian coast. They are twenty in number, some only
uncovered at low tide, and all offering a rugged iron wall to any
ill-fated boat that may be driven upon them. Even in calm weather and by
daylight seamen are glad to give them a wide berth.]
The master of the 'Forfarshire' in this desperate strait attempted to
make for the channel which runs between the Islands and the mainland. It
was at best a forlorn chance; it was hopeless here; the vessel refused
to answer her helm! On she drove in the darkness, nearer and nearer came
the sound of the breakers; the fear and agitation on board the boat grew
frantic. Women wailed and shrieked; the captain's wife clung to him,
weeping; the crew lost all instinct of discipline, and thought of
nothing but saving their skins.
Between three and four the shock came--a hideous grinding noise, a
strain and shiver of the whole ship, and she struck violently against a
great rock. In the awful moment which followed five of the crew
succeeded in lowering the larboard quarter-boat and pushed off in her.
The mate swung himself over the side, and also reached her; and a
passenger rushing at this moment up from the cabin and seeing the boat
already three yards from the ship, cleared the space with a bound and
landed safely in her, though nearly upsetting her by his weight. She
righted, and the crew pulled off with the desperate energy of men rowing
for their lives. The sight of agonised faces, the shrieks of the
drowning were lost in the darkness and in the howling winds, and the
boat with the seven men on board was swept along by the rapidly-flowing
tide.
Such was the story the exhausted boat's crew told next morning to their
rescuers on board the Montrose sloop. And the rest of the ship's
company--what of them? Had they all gone down by the island crag with
never a hand stretched out to help them?
Hardly had the boat escaped from the stranded vessel when a great wave
struck her on the quarter, lifted her up bodily, and dashed her back on
the rock. She struck midships on the sharp edge and broke at once into
two pieces. The after part was washed clean away with about twenty
passengers clinging to it, the captain and his wife being among them. A
group of people, about nine in number, were huddled together near the
bow; they, with the whole fore part of the ship, were lifted right on to
the rock. In the fore cabin was a poor woman, Mrs. Dawson, with a child
on each arm. When the vessel was stranded on the rock the waves rushed
into the exposed cabin, but she managed to keep her position, cowering
in a corner. First one and then the other child died from cold and
exhaustion, and falling from the fainting mother were swept from her
sight by the waves, but the poor soul herself survived all the horrors
of the night.
[Illustration: GRACE DARLING.]
It was now four o'clock; the storm was raging with unabated violence,
and it was still two hours to daybreak. About a mile from Longstone, the
island on which the vessel struck, lies Brownsman, the outermost of the
Farne Islands, on which stands the lighthouse. At this time the keeper
of the lighthouse was a man of the name of William Darling. He was an
elderly, almost an old man, and the only other inmates of the
lighthouse were his wife and daughter Grace, a girl of twenty-two. On
this Friday night she was awake, and through the raging of the storm
heard shrieks more persistent and despairing than those of the wildest
sea-birds. In great trouble she rose and awakened her father. The cries
continued, but in the darkness they could do nothing. Even after day
broke it was difficult to make out distant objects, for a mist was still
hanging over the sea. At length, with a glass they could discern the
wreck on Longstone, and figures moving about on it. Between the two
islands lay a mile of yeasty sea, and the tide was running hard between
them. The only boat on the lighthouse was a clumsily built jolly-boat,
heavy enough to tax the strength of two strong men in ordinary weather,
and here there was but an old man and a young girl to face a raging sea
and a tide running dead against them. Darling hesitated to undertake
anything so dangerous, but his daughter would hear of no delay. On the
other side of that rough mile of sea men were perishing, and she _could_
not stay where she was and see them die.
So off they set in the heavy coble, the old man with one oar, the girl
with the other, rowing with straining breath and beating hearts. Any
moment they might be whelmed in the sea or dashed against the rocks.
Even if they got the crew off it would be doubtful if they could row
them to the lighthouse; the tide was about to turn, and would be against
them on their homeward journey; death seemed to face them on every side.
When close to the rock there was imminent danger of their being dashed
to pieces against it. Steadying the boat an instant, Darling managed to
jump on to the rock, while Grace rapidly rowed out a little and kept the
boat from going on the rocks by rowing continually. It is difficult to
imagine how the nine shipwrecked people, exhausted and wearied as they
were, were got into the boat in such a sea, especially as the poor
woman, Mrs. Dawson, was in an almost fainting condition; but finally got
on board they all were. Fortunately, one or two of the rescued crew were
able to assist in the heavy task of rowing the boat back to Brownsman.
The storm continued to rage for several days after, and the whole party
had to remain in the lighthouse. Moreover, a boatload which had come to
their rescue from North Shields was also storm-stayed, twenty guests in
all, so that the housewifely powers of Grace and her mother were taxed
to the utmost.
It is told of this admirable girl that she was the tenderest and
gentlest of nurses and hostesses, as she was certainly one of the most
singularly courageous of women.
She could never be brought to look upon her exploit as in any way
remarkable, and when by-and-by honours and distinctions were showered
upon her, and people came from long distances to see her, she kept
through it all the dignity of perfect simplicity and modesty.
Close to Bamborough, on a windy hill, lie a little grey church and a
quiet churchyard. At all seasons high winds from the North Sea blow over
the graves and fret and eat away the soft grey sandstone of which the
plain headstones are made. So great is the wear and tear of these winds
that comparatively recent monuments look like those which have stood for
centuries. On one of these stones lies a recumbent figure, with what
looks not unlike a lance clasped in the hand and laid across the breast.
Involuntarily one thinks of the stone Crusaders, who lie in their
armour, clasping their half-drawn swords, awaiting the Resurrection
morning. It is the monument of Grace Darling, who here lies at rest with
her oar still clasped in her strong right hand.
_THE 'SHANNON' AND THE 'CHESAPEAKE'_
AMONG the captains of British 38-gun frigates who ardently longed for a
meeting with one of the American 44-guns, in our war with the United
States, was Captain Philip Bowesbere Broke, of the 'Shannon.' The desire
sprang from no wish to display his own valour, only to show the world
what wonderful deeds could be done when the ship and crew were in all
respects fitted for battle. He had put his frigate in fighting order,
taught his men the art of attack and defence, and out of a crew not very
well disposed and got together in a rather haphazard manner, had made a
company as pleasant to command as it was dangerous to meet.
With this desire, in March 1813 Captain Broke sailed from Halifax on a
cruise in Boston Bay. But to his disappointment two American frigates,
the weather being foggy, left the harbour without his having a chance to
encounter them. Two remained, however, and one of these, the
'Chesapeake,' commanded by Captain James Lawrence, was nearly ready for
sea. When her preparations were complete, Captain Broke addressed to her
commanding officer a letter of challenge, having previously sent a
verbal message, which had met with no reply.
'As the "Chesapeake" appears now ready for sea,' began this letter, 'I
request you will do me the favour to meet the "Shannon" with her, ship
to ship, to try the fortune of our respective flags.'
He then gave an account of the 'Shannon's' forces, which were somewhat
inferior to the 'Chesapeake's.' The 'Chesapeake' had 376 men, the
'Shannon' 306 men and 24 boys, and the American vessel also had the
advantage in guns.
'I entreat you, sir,' Captain Broke concluded, 'not to imagine that I am
urged by mere personal vanity to the wish of meeting the "Chesapeake,"
or that I depend only upon your personal ambition for your acceding to
this invitation. We have both nobler motives. . . . Favour me with a
speedy reply. We are short of provisions and water, and cannot stay long
here.'
This letter he entrusted to Captain Plocum, a discharged prisoner; but
it so happened that before his boat reached the shore, the American
frigate left it--Captain Lawrence having received permission from
Commodore Bairbridge to sail and attack the 'Shannon' in response to
Captain Broke's verbal challenge.
Some manoeuvring between the two ships took place; but at last, in the
evening of June 1, 1813, the 'Chesapeake,' with three ensigns flying,
steered straight for the 'Shannon's' starboard quarter. Besides the
ensigns, she had flying at the fore a large white flag, inscribed with
the words: 'Sailors' Rights and Free Trade,' with the idea, perhaps,
that this favourite American motto would damp the energy of the
'Shannon's' men. The 'Shannon' had a Union Jack at the fore, an old
rusty blue ensign at the mizzen peak, and two other flags rolled up,
ready to be spread if either of these should be shot away. She stood
much in need of paint, and her outward appearance hardly inspired much
belief in the order and discipline that reigned within.
At twenty minutes to six Captain Lawrence came within fifty yards of the
'Shannon's' starboard quarter, and gave three cheers. Ten minutes after
the 'Shannon' fired her first gun, then a second. Then the 'Chesapeake'
returned fire, and the remaining guns on the broadside of each ship went
off as fast as they could be discharged.
Four minutes before six the 'Chesapeake's' helm, probably from the death
of the men stationed at it, being for the moment unattended to, the ship
lay with her stem and quarter exposed to her opponent's broadside, which
did terrible execution. At six o'clock, the 'Chesapeake' and 'Shannon'
being in close contact, the 'Chesapeake,' endeavouring to make a little
ahead, was stopped by becoming entangled with the anchor of the
'Shannon.' Captain Broke now ran forward, and, seeing the 'Chesapeake's'
men deserting the quarter-deck guns, he ordered the two ships to be
lashed together, the great guns to cease firing, and Lieutenant Watt to
bring up the quarter-deck men, who were to act as boarders. This was
done instantly, and at two minutes past six Captain Broke leaped aboard
the 'Chesapeake,' followed by twenty men, and reached her quarter-deck.
Here not an officer or man was to be seen. Upon the 'Chesapeake's'
gangways, twenty-five or thirty Americans made a slight resistance, but
were quickly driven towards the forecastle. Several fled over the bows,
some, it is believed, plunged into the sea, the rest laid down their
arms and submitted.
Lieutenant Watt, with others, followed quickly. Hardly had he stepped
upon the taffrail of the 'Chesapeake' when he was shot through the foot
by a musket ball; but, rising in spite of it, he ordered one of the
'Shannon's' 9-pounders to be directed at the 'Chesapeake's' mizzen top,
whence the shot had come. The second division of the Marines now rushed
forward, and while one party kept down the Americans who were ascending
the main hatchway, another party answered a destructive fire which still
continued from the main and mizzen tops. The 'Chesapeake's' main top was
presently stormed by midshipman William Smith. This gallant young man
deliberately passed along the 'Shannon's' foreyard, which was braced up
to the 'Chesapeake's' mainyard, and thence into her top. All further
annoyance from the 'Chesapeake's' mizzen top was put a stop to by
another of the 'Shannon's' midshipmen, who fired at the Americans from
the yardarm as fast as his men could load the muskets and hand them to
him.
After the Americans upon the forecastle had submitted, Captain Broke
ordered one of his men to stand sentry over them, and sent most of the
others aft, where the conflict was still going on. He was in the act of
giving them orders when the sentry called out lustily to him. On
turning, the captain found himself opposed by three of the Americans,
who, seeing they were superior to the British then near them, had armed
themselves afresh. Captain Broke parried the middle fellow's pike, and
wounded him in the face, but instantly received from the man on the
pikeman's right a blow with the butt-end of a musket, which bared his
skull and nearly stunned him. Determined to finish the British
commander, the third man cut him down with his broadsword, but at that
very instant was himself cut down by Mindham, one of the 'Shannon's'
seamen. Can it be wondered if all concerned in this breach of faith fell
victims to the indignation of the 'Shannon's' men? It was as much as
Captain Broke could do to save from their fury a young midshipman, who,
having slid down a rope from the 'Chesapeake's' foretop, begged his
protection.
While in the act of tying a handkerchief round his commander's head,
Mindham, pointing aft, called out:
'There, sir--there goes up the old ensign over the Yankee colours!'
Captain Broke saw it hoisting (with what feelings may be imagined), and
was instantly led to the 'Chesapeake's' quarter-deck, where he sat down.
That act of changing the 'Chesapeake's' colours proved fatal to a
gallant British officer and four or five fine fellows of the 'Shannon's'
crew. We left Lieutenant Watt just as, having raised himself on his feet
after his wound, he was hailing the 'Shannon' to fire at the
'Chesapeake's' mizzen top. He then called for an English ensign, and
hauling down the American flag, bent, owing to the ropes being tangled,
the English flag below instead of above it. Observing the American
stripes going up first, the 'Shannon's' people reopened their fire, and,
directing their guns with their accustomed precision at the lower part
of the 'Chesapeake's' mizzen mast, killed Lieutenant Watt and four or
five of their comrades. Before the flags had got halfway to the mizzen
peak, they were pulled down and hoisted properly, and the men of the
'Shannon' ceased their fire.
An unexpected fire of musketry, opened by the Americans who had fled to
the hold, killed a fine young marine, William Young. On this, Lieutenant
Falkiner ordered three or four muskets that were ready to be fired down
the hold, and Captain Broke, from the quarter-deck, told the lieutenant
to summon. The Americans replied, 'We surrender'; and all hostilities
ceased. Almost immediately after Captain Broke's senses failed him from
loss of blood, and he was conveyed on board his own ship.
Between the discharge of the first gun and the time of Captain Broke's
boarding only eleven minutes had passed, and in four minutes more the
'Chesapeake' was completely his. As a rule, however, this good fortune
did not attend our arms in the conflict with the American marine.
_CAPTAIN SNELGRAVE AND THE PIRATES_
IN the year 1719, I, being appointed commander of the 'Bird' galley,
arrived at the River Sierra Leone, on the north coast of Guinea. There
were, at the time of our unfortunate arrival in that river, three pirate
ships, who had then taken ten English ships in that place. The first of
these was the 'Rising Sun,' one Cochlyn commander, who had not with him
above twenty-five men; the second was a brigantine commanded by one Le
Bouse, a Frenchman, whose crew had formerly served with Cochlyn's under
the pirate Moody; the third was a large ship commanded by Captain Davis,
with a crew of near one hundred and fifty men. This Davis was a generous
man, nor had he agreed to join with the others when I was taken by
Cochlyn; which proved a great misfortune to me, for I found Cochlyn and
his crew to be a set of the basest and most cruel villains that ever
were.
I come now to give an account of how I was taken by them. It becoming
calm about seven o'clock, and growing dark, we anchored in the river's
mouth, soon after which I went to supper with the officers that usually
ate with me. About eight o'clock the officer of the watch upon deck sent
me word, 'He heard the rowing of a boat.' Whereupon we all immediately
went on deck, and the night being very dark, I ordered lanterns and
candles to be got ready, supposing the boat might come from the shore
with some white gentlemen that lived there as free merchants. I ordered
also, by way of precaution, the first mate, Mr. Jones, to go into the
steerage to put things in order, and to send me twenty men on the
quarter-deck with firearms and cutlasses, which I thought he went about,
for I did not in the least suspect Mr. Jones would have proved such a
villain as he did afterwards.
As it was dark, I could not yet see the boat, but heard the noise of
the rowing very plain. Whereupon I ordered the second mate to hail the
boat, to which the people in it answered, 'They belonged to the "Two
Friends," Captain Elliot, of Barbadoes.' At this, one of the officers
who stood by me said he knew that captain very well. I replied, 'It
might be so, but I would not trust any boat in such a place,' and
ordered him to hasten the first mate, with the people and arms, on deck.
By this time our lanterns and candles were brought up, and I ordered the
boat to be hailed again; to which the people in it answered, 'They were
from America,' and at the same time fired a volley of small shot at us,
which showed the boldness of these villains. For there were in the boat
only twelve of them, as I understood afterwards, who knew nothing of the
strength of our ship, which was indeed considerable, we having sixteen
guns and forty-five men on board. But, as they told me after we were
taken, 'they depended on the same good-fortune as in the other ships
they had taken, having met with no resistance, for the people were
generally glad of an opportunity of entering with them.'
Which last was but too true.
When they first began to fire, I called aloud to the first mate to fire
at the boat out of the steerage portholes, which not being done, and the
people I had ordered upon deck with small arms not appearing, I was
extremely surprised, and the more when an officer came and told me 'The
people would not take arms.'
I went down into the steerage, where I saw a great many of them looking
at one another, little thinking that my first mate had prevented them
from taking arms. I asked them with some roughness why they had not
obeyed my orders, saying it would be the greatest reproach in the world
to us all to be taken by a boat.
Some of them answered that they would have taken arms, but the chest
they were kept in could not be found.
By this time the boat was along the ship's side, and there being nobody
to oppose them, the pirates immediately boarded us, and coming on the
quarter-deck, fired their pieces several times down into the steerage,
giving one sailor a wound of which he died afterwards.
At last some of our people bethought themselves to call out for quarter,
which the pirates granting, their quartermaster came down into the
steerage, asking where the captain was. I told him I had been so till
now. On that he asked me how I durst order my people to fire at their
boat out of the steerage.
I answered, 'I thought it my duty to defend my ship if my people would
have fought.'
On that he presented a pistol to my breast, which I had but just time to
parry before it went off, so that the bullet passed between my side and
arm. The rogue, finding he had not shot me, turned the butt-end of the
pistol, and gave me such a blow on the head as stunned me, so that I
fell on my knees, but immediately recovering myself, I jumped out of the
steerage upon the quarter-deck, where the pirate boatswain was.
He was a bloodthirsty villain, having a few days before killed a poor
sailor because he did not do something as soon as he ordered him. This
cruel monster was asking some of my people where their captain was, so
at my coming upon deck one of them pointed me out. Though the night was
very dark, yet, there being four lanterns with candles, he had a full
sight of me; whereupon, lifting up his broadsword, he swore that no
quarter should be given to any captain that defended his ship, at the
same time aiming a full stroke at my head. To avoid it I stooped so low
that the quarter-deck rail received the blow, and was cut in at least an
inch deep, which happily saved my head from being cleft asunder, and the
sword breaking at the same time with the force of his blow on the rail,
it prevented his cutting me to pieces.
By good fortune his pistols, that hung at his girdle, were all
discharged, otherwise he would doubtless have shot me. But he took one
of them and endeavoured to beat out my brains, which some of my people
observing, cried:
'For God's sake don't kill our captain, for we never were with a better
man.'
This turned the rage of him and two other pirates on my people, and
saved my life; but they cruelly used my poor men, cutting and beating
them unmercifully. One of them had his chin almost cut off, and another
received such a wound on the head that he fell on the deck as dead, but
afterwards, by the care of our surgeon, he recovered.
Then the quartermaster, coming on deck, took me by the hand, and told me
my life was safe, provided none of my people complained of me. I
answered that I was sure none of them could.
By this time the pirate ship had drawn near, for they had sent their
boat before to discover us; and on approaching, without asking any
questions, gave us a great broadside, believing, as it proved
afterwards, that we had taken their boat and people. So the
quartermaster told them, through the speaking-trumpet, that they had
taken a brave prize, with all manner of good victuals and fresh
provisions on board.
Just after this, Cochlyn, the pirate captain, ordered them to dress a
quantity of these victuals; so they took many geese, turkeys, fowls, and
ducks, making our people cut their heads off and pull the great feathers
out of their wings, but they would not stay till the other feathers were
pulled off. All these they put into our great furnace, which would boil
victuals for five hundred negroes, together with several Westphalia hams
and a large pig. This strange medley filled the furnace, and the cook
was ordered to boil them out of hand.
As soon as the pirate ship had done firing, I asked the quartermaster's
leave for our surgeon to dress my poor people that had been wounded, and
I likewise went to have my arm dressed, it being very much bruised by
the blow given me by the pirate boatswain. Just after that a person came
to me from the quartermaster, desiring to know what o'clock it was by my
watch; which, judging to be a civil way of demanding it, I sent it him
immediately, desiring the messenger to tell him it was a very good gold
watch. When it was delivered to the quartermaster he held it up by the
chain, and presently laid it down on the deck, giving it a kick with his
foot, saying it was a pretty football. On which one of the pirates
caught it up, saying he would put it in the common chest to be sold at
the mast.
By this time I was loudly called upon to go on board the pirate ship,
and there was taken to the commander, who asked me several questions
about my ship, saying she would make a fine pirate man-of-war.
As soon as I had done answering the captain's questions, a tall man,
with four pistols in his girdle and a broadsword in his hand, came to me
on the quarter-deck, telling me his name was James Griffin, and we had
been schoolfellows. Though I remembered him very well, yet having
formerly heard it had proved fatal to some who had been taken by pirates
to own any knowledge of them, I told him I could not remember any such
person by name. On that he mentioned some boyish pranks that had
formerly passed between us. But I, still denying any knowledge of him,
he told me that he supposed I took him to be one of the pirate's crew
because I saw him dressed in that manner, but that he was a forced man,
and since he had been taken, though they spared his life, they had
obliged him to act as master of the pirate ship. And the reason of his
being so armed was to prevent their ill-using him, for there were hardly
any among the crew but what were cruel villains. But he would himself
take care of me that night, when I should be in the greatest danger,
because many of their people would soon get drunk with the good liquors
found in my ship.
I then readily owned my former acquaintance with him, and he turned to
Captain Cochlyn and desired that a bowl of punch might be made. So we
went into the cabin, where there was not chair, nor anything else to sit
upon, for they always kept a clear ship, ready for an engagement. So a
carpet was spread on the deck, on which we sat down cross-legged, and
Captain Cochlyn drank my health, desiring that I would not be cast down
at my misfortune, for my ship's company in general spoke well of me, and
they had goods enough left in the ships they had taken to make a man of
me. Then he drank several other healths, among which was that of the
Pretender, by the name of King James the Third.
It being by this time midnight, my schoolfellow desired the captain to
have a hammock hung up for me to sleep in, for it seemed everyone lay
rough, as they call it, that is, on the deck, the captain himself not
being allowed a bed. This being granted, and soon after done, I took
leave of the captain, and got into my hammock, but I could not sleep in
my melancholy circumstances. Moreover, the execrable curses I heard
among the ship's company kept me awake, though Mr. Griffin, according to
his promise, walked by me with his broadsword in his hand, to protect me
from insults.
Some time after, it being about two o'clock in the morning, the pirate
boatswain (that attempted to kill me when taken) came on board very
drunk, and being told I was in a hammock, he came near me with his
cutlass. My generous schoolfellow asked him what he wanted; he answered,
'To kill me, for I was a vile dog.' Then Griffin bade the boatswain keep
his distance, or he would cleave his head asunder with his broadsword.
Nevertheless, the bloodthirsty villain came on to kill me; but Mr.
Griffin struck at him with his sword, from which he had a narrow escape;
and then he ran away. So I lay unmolested till daylight.
[Illustration]
I come now to relate how Mr. Simon Jones, my first mate, and ten of my
men entered with the pirates. The morning after we were taken he came to
me and told me that his circumstances were bad at home; moreover, he had
a wife whom he could not love; and for these reasons he had entered
with the pirates and signed their articles. I was greatly surprised at
this declaration, and told him I believed he would repent when too late.
And, indeed, I saw the poor man afterwards despised by his brethren in
iniquity, and have been told he died a few months after they left Sierra
Leone. However, I must do him the justice to own he never showed any
disrespect to me, and the ten people he persuaded to enter with him
remained very civil to me. But I learned afterwards from one of them
that, before we came to Sierra Leone, Jones had said that he hoped we
should meet with pirates, and that it was by his contrivance that the
chest of arms was hid out of the way when we were taken. And when I
called on the people in the steerage to fire on the pirate boat, Jones
prevented them, declaring that this was an opportunity he had long
wished for, and that if they fired a musket they would all be cut to
pieces. Moreover, to induce them to enter with the pirates, he had
assured them that I had promised to enter myself. So it was a wonder I
escaped so well, having such a base wretch for my first officer.
As soon as the fumes of the liquor were out of the pirates' heads they
went on board the prize, as they called my ship, and all hands went to
work to clear it, by throwing over bales of woollen goods, with many
other things of great value, so that before night they had destroyed
between three and four thousand pounds worth of the cargo--money and
necessaries being what they wanted. The sight of this much grieved me,
but I was obliged in prudence to be silent.
That afternoon there came on board to see me Captain Henry Glynn, with
whom I was acquainted, who resided at Sierra Leone, but though an
honest, generous person, was on good terms with the pirates. He brought
with him the captains of the two other pirate ships, and Captain Davis
generously said he was ashamed to hear how I had been used, for their
reasons for going a-pirating were to revenge themselves on base
merchants and cruel commanders, but none of my people gave me the least
ill character; and, indeed, it was plain that they loved me.
This was by no means relished by Cochlyn; however, he put a good face on
it.
That night the boatswain came down into the steerage, where he had seen
me sitting with the ship's carpenter, but since we happened to have
changed places, and it had grown so dark he could not distinguish our
faces, he, thinking I sat where he had seen me before, presented a
pistol and drew the trigger, swearing he would blow my brains out. By
good fortune the pistol did not go off, but only flashed in the pan; by
the light of which the carpenter, observing that he should have been
shot instead of me, it so provoked him that he ran in the dark to the
boatswain, and having wrenched the pistol out of his hand, he beat him
to such a degree that he almost killed him. The noise of the fray being
heard on board the pirate ship that lay close to us, a boat was sent
from her, and they being told the truth of the matter, the officer in
her carried away this wicked villain, who had three times tried to
murder me.
I had one bundle of my own things left to me, in which was a black suit
of clothes. But a pirate, who was tolerably sober, came in and said he
would see what was in it. He then took out my black suit, a good hat and
wig, and some other things. Whereon I told him I hoped he would not
deprive me of them, for they would be of no service to him in so hot a
country, but would be of great use to me, as I hoped soon to return to
England.
I had hardly done speaking, when he lifted up his broadsword and gave me
a blow on the shoulder with the flat side of it, whispering in my ear at
the same time:
'I give you this caution, never to dispute the will of a pirate; for,
supposing I had cleft your skull asunder for your impudence, what would
you have got by it but destruction?'
I gave him thanks for his warning, and soon after he put on the clothes,
which in less than half an hour after I saw him take off and throw
overboard, for some of the pirates, seeing him dressed in that manner,
had thrown several buckets of claret upon him. This person's true name
was Francis Kennedy.
The next day, understanding that the three pirate captains were on shore
at my friend Captain Glynn's, I asked leave to go to them, which was
granted, and next day I went on board in company with them. Captain
Davis desired Cochlyn to order all his people on the quarter-deck, and
made a speech to them on my behalf, which they falling in with, it was
resolved to give me the ship they designed to leave to go into mine,
with the remains of my cargo, and further, the goods remaining in the
other prizes, worth, with my own, several thousand pounds. Then one of
the leading pirates proposed that I should go along with them down the
coast of Guinea, where I might exchange the goods for gold, and that, no
doubt, as they went they should take some French and Portuguese vessels,
and then they might give me as many of their best slaves as would fill
the ship; that then he would advise me to go to the island of St. Thomas
and sell them there, and after rewarding my people in a handsome manner,
I might return with a large sum of money to London and bid the merchants
defiance.
This proposal was approved of, but it struck me with a sudden damp. So I
began to say it would not be proper for me to accept of such a quantity
of other people's goods as they had so generously voted for me. On which
I was interrupted by several, who began to be very angry.
[Illustration: 'SOME OF THE PIRATES . . . HAD THROWN SEVERAL BUCKETS OF
CLARET UPON HIM.']
On this Captain Davis said: 'I know this man, and can easily guess his
thoughts; for he thinks, if he should act in the manner you have
proposed, he will ever after lose his reputation. Now I am for allowing
everybody to go to the devil their own way, so desire you will give him
the remains of his own cargo and let him do with it what he thinks
fitting.'
This was readily granted; and now, the tide being turned, they were as
kind to me as they had at first been severe, and we employed ourselves
in saving what goods we could.
And through the influence of Captain Davis, one of the ships the pirates
had taken, called the 'Bristol Snow,' was spared from burning--for they
burned such prizes as they had no use for. And I was set entirely at
liberty, and went to the house of Captain Glynn, who, when the pirates
left the river of Sierra Leone, together with other English captains who
had been hiding from the pirates in the woods, their ships having been
taken, helped me to fit up the 'Bristol Snow' that we might return to
England in it. And we left the river Sierra Leone the 10th day of May,
and came safe to Bristol, where I found a letter from the owner of the
ship I had gone out with, who had heard of my misfortune, and most
generously comforted me, giving money for my poor sailors and promising
me command of another ship--a promise which he soon after performed.
I shall now inform the reader what became of my kind schoolfellow,
Griffin, and my generous friend Davis. The first got out of the hands of
the pirates by taking away a boat from the stern of the ship he was in
when on the coast of Guinea, and was driven on shore there. But
afterwards he went passenger to Barbadoes in an English ship, where he
was taken with a violent fever, and so died.
As for Davis, he sailed to the island Princess, belonging to the
Portuguese, which is in the Bay of Guinea. Here the people soon
discovered they were pirates by their lavishness; but the Governor
winked at it, because of the great gain he made by them. But afterwards,
someone putting it into his mind that if the King of Portugal heard of
this it would be his ruin, he plotted to destroy Davis. And when, before
sailing, Captain Davis came on shore with the surgeon and some others to
bid farewell to the Governor, they found no Governor, but many people
with weapons were gathered together in the street, who at a word from
the Governor's steward fired at Davis and his men. The surgeon and two
others were killed on the spot, but Davis, though struck by four shots,
went on running towards the boat. But being closely pursued, a fifth
shot made him fall; and the Portuguese, being amazed at his great
strength and courage, cut his throat that they might be sure of him.
Thus fell Captain Davis, who, allowing for the course of life he had
been unhappily engaged in, was a most generous, humane person.
[Illustration]
_THE SPARTAN THREE HUNDRED_
THIS is the story of the greatest deed of arms that was ever done. The
men who fought in it were not urged by ambition or greed, nor were they
soldiers who knew not why they went to battle. They warred for the
freedom of their country, they were few against many, they might have
retreated with honour, after inflicting great loss on the enemy, but
they preferred, with more honour, to die.
It was four hundred and eighty years before the birth of Christ. The
Great King, as the Greeks called Xerxes, the Persian monarch, was
leading the innumerable armies of Asia against the small and divided
country of Greece. It was then split into a number of little States, not
on good terms with each other, and while some were for war, and freedom,
and ruin, if ruin must come, with honour, others were for peace and
slavery. The Greeks, who determined to resist Persia at any cost, met
together at the Isthmus of Corinth, and laid their plans of defence. The
Asiatic army, coming by land, would be obliged to march through a narrow
pass called Thermopylae, with the sea on one side of the road, and a
steep and inaccessible precipice on the other. Here, then, the Greeks
made up their minds to stand. They did not know, till they had marched
to Thermopylae, that behind the pass there was a mountain path, by which
soldiers might climb round and over the mountain, and fall upon their
rear. As the sea on the right hand of the Pass of Thermopylae lies in a
narrow strait, bounded by the island of Euboea, the Greeks thought
that their ships would guard their rear and prevent the Persians from
landing men to attack it. Their army encamped in the Pass, having wide
enough ground to manoeuvre in, between the narrow northern gateway, so
to speak, by which the invaders would try to enter, and a gateway to the
south. Their position was also protected by an old military wall, which
they repaired.
The Greek general was Leonidas, the Spartan king. He chose three hundred
men, all of whom had sons at home to maintain their families and to
avenge them if they fell. Now the manner of the Spartans was this: to
die rather than yield. However sorely defeated, or overwhelmed by
numbers, they never left the ground alive and unvictorious, and as this
was well known, their enemies were seldom eager to attack such resolute
fighters.
Besides the Spartans, Leonidas led some three or four thousand men from
other cities, and he was joined at Thermopylae by the Locrians and a
thousand Phocians. Perhaps he may have had six or eight thousand
soldiers under him, while the Persians may have outnumbered them by the
odds of a hundred to one. Why, you may ask, did the Greeks not send a
stronger force? The reason was very characteristic. They were holding
their sports at the time, racing, running, boxing, jumping, and they
were also about to be engaged in another festival. They would not omit
or put off their games however many thousand barbarians might be
knocking at their gates. There is something boyish, and something fine
in this conduct, but we must remember, too, that the games were a sacred
festival, and that the Gods might be displeased if they were omitted.
Leonidas, then, thought that at least he could hold the Pass till the
games were over, and his countrymen could join him. But when he found,
on arriving at Thermopylae, that he would have to hold two positions, the
Pass itself, and the mountain path, of whose existence he had not been
aware, then some of his army wished to return home. But Leonidas refused
to let them retreat, and bade the Phocians guard the path across the
hills, while he sent home for reinforcements. He could not desert the
people whom he had come to protect. Meanwhile the Greek fleet was also
alarmed, but was rescued by a storm which wrecked many of the Persian
vessels.
Xerxes was now within sight of Thermopylae. He sent a horseman forward to
spy out the Greek camp, and this man saw the Spartans amusing themselves
with running and wrestling, and combing their long hair, outside the
wall. They took no notice of him, and he returning, told Xerxes how few
they were, and how unconcerned. Xerxes then sent for Demaratus, an
exiled king of Sparta in his camp, and asked what these things meant. 'O
king!' said Demaratus, 'this is what I told you of yore, when you
laughed at my words. These men have come to fight you for the Pass, and
for that battle they are making ready, for it is our country fashion to
comb and tend our hair when we are about to put our heads in peril.'
Xerxes would not believe Demaratus. He waited four days, and then, in a
rage, bade his best warriors, the Medes and Cissians, bring the Greeks
into his presence. The Medes, who were brave men, and had their defeat
at Marathon, ten years before, to avenge, fell on, but their spears were
short, their shields were thin, and they could not break a way into the
stubborn forest of bronze and steel. In wave upon wave, all day long,
they dashed against the Greeks, and left their best lying at the mouth
of the Pass. 'Thereby was it made clear to all men, and not least to the
king, that men are many, but heroes are few.'
Next day Xerxes called on his bodyguard, the Ten Thousand Immortals, and
they came to close quarters, but got no more glory than the Medes.
Thrice the King leaped from his chair in dismay as thrice the Greeks
drove the barbarians in rout. And on the third day they had no better
fortune.
But there was a man, a Malian, whose name is a scorn to this hour; he
was called Epialtes. He betrayed to Xerxes the secret of the mountain
path, probably for money. He later fled to Thessaly with a price on his
head, but returned to Anticyra, and there he was slain by Athenades.
Then Xerxes was glad beyond measure when he heard of the path, and sent
his men along the path by night. They found the Phocians guarding it,
but the Phocians disgracefully fled to the higher part of the mountain.
The Persians, disdaining to pursue them, marched to the pass behind the
Spartan camp, and the Greeks were now surrounded in van and rear. But
news of this had come to Leonidas, and his army was not of one mind as
to what they should do. Some were for retreating and abandoning a
position which it was now impossible to hold. Leonidas bade them depart;
but for him and his countrymen it was not honourable to turn their backs
on any foe. He sent away the soothsayer, or prophet, Megistias, but he
returned, and bade his son go home. The Thespians, to their immortal
honour, chose to bide the brunt with Leonidas. There thus remained what
was left of the Three Hundred, their personal attendants, seven hundred
Thespians, and some Thebans, about whose conduct it is difficult to
speak with certainty, as accounts differ. Leonidas, on this last day of
his life, did not wait to be attacked in front and rear, but, sallying
into the open, himself assailed the Persians. They drove the barbarians
like cattle with their spears; the captains of the barbarians drove them
back on the spears with whips. Many fell from the path into the sea, and
there perished, and many more were trodden down and died beneath the
feet of their own companions. But the spears of the Greeks broke at last
in their hands, so they drew their swords, and rushed to yet closer
quarters. In this charge fell Leonidas, 'the bravest man,' says the
Greek historian, 'of men whose names I know,' and he knew the names of
all the Three Hundred. Over the body of Leonidas fell the two brothers
of Xerxes, for they fought for the corpse, and four times the Greeks
drove back the Persians. Now came up the Persians with the traitor
Epialtes, attacking the Greeks in the rear. Now was their last hour
come, so they bore the body of the king within the wall. There they
occupied a little mound in a sea of enemies, and there each man fought
till he died, stabbing with his dagger when his sword was broken, and
biting, and striking with the fist, when the dagger-point was blunted.
Among them all, none made a better end than Eurytus. He was suffering
from a disease of the eyes, but he bade them arm him, and lead him into
the thick of the battle. Of another, Dieneces, it is told that hearing
the arrows of the Persians would darken the sun, he answered, 'Good
news! we shall fight in the shade.' One man only, Aristodemus, who also
was suffering from a disease of the eyes, did not join his countrymen,
but returned to Sparta. There he was scouted for a coward, but, in the
following year, he fell at Plataea, excelling all the Spartans in deeds
of valour.
This is the story of the Three Hundred. The marble lion erected where
Leonidas fell has perished, and perished has the column engraved with
their names, but their glory is immortal.[4]
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Herodotus.
[Illustration]
_PRINCE CHARLIE'S WANDERINGS_
CHAPTER I
THE FLIGHT
APRIL 16, 1746. It was an April afternoon, grey and cold, with gleams of
watery sunshine, for in the wilds of Badenoch the spring comes but
slowly, and through April on to May the mountains are as black and the
moors as sombre and lifeless as in the dead of winter. In a remote
corner of this wild track stood, in 1746, a grey, stone house with
marsh-lands in front, severe and meagre as the houses were at that time
in the Highlands. Upstairs in a room by herself a little girl of ten was
looking out of the window. She had been sent up there to be out of the
way, for this was a very busy day in the household of Gortuleg. The
Master, Mr. Fraser, was entertaining the chief of his clan, old Lord
Lovat, who, in these anxious days, when the Prince was at Inverness and
the Duke of Cumberland at Aberdeen, had thought fit to retire into the
wilds of Badenoch, to the house of his faithful clansman.
[Illustration]
Downstairs, the astute old man of eighty was sitting in his armchair by
the fire, plotting how he could keep in with both parties and secure his
own advantage whichever side might win. By some strange infatuation the
household at Gortuleg were cheerful and elate. A battle was imminent,
nay, might have been fought even now, and they were counting securely on
another success to the Prince's army. So the ladies of the
family--staunch Jacobites every one of them (as, indeed, most ladies
were even in distinctly Whig households)--were busy preparing a feast
in honour of the expected victory. The little girl sat alone upstairs,
hearing the din and commotion and looking out on the vacant marsh-land
outside. Suddenly and completely the noise ceased below, and the child
seized her opportunity and crept downstairs. All was still in the big
living-room, only in the dim recess of the fireplace the old lord was
sitting, a silent, brooding figure, in his deep armchair. The rest of
the household, men and women, gentle and simple, were all crowded in the
doorway, breathlessly intent on something outside. Threading her way
through them the child crept outside the circle and looked eagerly to
see what this might be. Across the grey marshes horsemen were riding,
riding fast, though the horses strained and stumbled, and the riders had
a weary, dispirited air. 'It is the fairies' was the idea that flashed
through her brain, and in a moment she was holding her eyelids open with
her fingers, for she knew that the 'good people,' if they do show
themselves, are only visible between one winking of the eyes and
another. But this vision did not pass away, and surely never were fairy
knights in such a sorry plight as was this travel-stained, dishevelled
company that drew rein at the door of Gortuleg.
The leader of the band was a young man in Highland dress, tall and fair,
and with that 'air' of which his followers fondly complained afterwards
that no disguise could conceal it. At the sight of him, arriving in this
plight at their doors, a great cry of consternation broke from the
assembled household. There was no need to tell the terrible news: the
Prince was a fugitive, a battle had been lost, and the good cause was
for ever undone! It was no time for idle grieving, immediate relief and
refreshment must be provided, and the Prince sent forward without delay
on his perilous flight. The ladies tore off their laces and
handkerchiefs to bind up wounds, and wine was brought out for the
fugitives. There is no certain account of Charles's interview with Lord
Lovat; we do not know whether the cunning old man turned and upbraided
the Prince in his misfortune, or whether the instincts of a Highland
gentleman overcame for a moment the selfishness of the old chief.
Anyway, this was no time to bandy either upbraidings or compliments.
Forty minutes of desperate fighting on the field of Culloden that
morning had broken for ever the strength of the Jacobite cause. Hundreds
lay dead where they fell, hundreds were prisoners in the hands of the
most relentless of enemies, hundreds were fleeing in disarray to their
homes among the mountain fastnesses. For the Prince the only course
seemed to be flight to the West coast. There, surely, some vessel might
be found to convey him to France, there to await better times and to
secure foreign allies. A price was on his head, his enemies would
certainly be soon on his traces, he dared not delay longer than to
snatch a hasty meal and drink some cups of wine.
At Gortuleg the party broke up and went their several ways. The Prince
was accompanied by the Irish officers of his household, Sir Thomas
Sheridan, O'Neal, and O'Sullivan, gentlemen-adventurers who had
accompanied him from France and whose advice in his day of triumph had
often been injudicious. Let it be said for them that they were at least
faithful and devoted when his fortunes were desperate. As guide went a
certain Edward Burke, who, fortunately for the party, knew every yard of
rugged ground between Inverness and the Western sea. During all the time
that he shared the Prince's wanderings this Edward Burke acted as his
valet, giving him that passionate devotion which Charles seems to have
inspired in all who knew him personally at this time. Reduced now to a
handful of weary, wounded men, the Prince's party continued their flight
through the chilly April night. At two o'clock next morning they had
passed the blackened ruins of Fort George. As dawn broke they drew rein
at the house of Invergarry. But the gallant chief of the Macdonells was
away, and the hospitable house was deserted and silent; the very rooms
were without furniture or any accommodation, and the larder was bare of
provisions. But wearied men are not fastidious, and without waiting to
change their clothes, they rolled themselves up in their plaids on the
bare boards, and slept the sleep of utter weariness. It was high noon
before they woke up again--woke up to find breakfast unexpectedly
provided, for the faithful Burke had risen betimes and drawn two fine
salmon from the nets set in the river. Here for greater security the
Prince and his valet changed clothes, and the journey was continued
through Lochiel's country. The next stage was at the head of Loch
Arkaig, where they were the guests of a certain Cameron of Glenpean, a
stalwart, courageous farmer, whom the Prince was destined to see more of
in his wanderings. Here the country became so wild and rugged that they
had to abandon their horses and clamber over the high and rocky
mountains on foot. In his boyhood in Italy the Prince had been a keen
sportsman, and had purposely inured himself to fatigue and privations.
These habits stood him now in good stead; he could rival even the
light-footed Highlanders on long marches over rough ground; the
coarsest and scantiest meals never came amiss to him; he could sleep on
the hard ground or lie hid in bogs for hours with a stout heart and a
cheerful spirit.
Here on the night of Saturday, the 19th, among the mountains that
surround Loch Morar, no better shelter could be found than a shieling
used for shearing sheep.
The next day, Sunday, the 20th, they came down to the coast and found
refuge in the hospitable house of Borodale, belonging to Mr. Angus
Macdonald, a clansman of Clanranald's. Nine months before, when the
Prince had landed from France and had thrown himself without arms or
following on the loyalty of his Highland friends, this Angus Macdonald
had been proud to have him as his guest. One of his sons, John, had
joined the Prince's army and had fought under his own chief, young
Clanranald. This young man was at this time supposed to have been killed
at Culloden, though in fact he had escaped unhurt. When the Prince,
therefore, entered this house of mourning he went up to Mrs. Macdonald
and asked her with tears in his eyes if she could endure the sight of
one who had caused her such distress. 'Yes,' said the high-hearted old
Highland-woman, 'I would be glad to have served my Prince though all my
sons had perished in his service, for in so doing they would only have
done their duty.'[5]
While resting here at Borodale, Charles sent his final orders to the
remnant of his gallant army, which under their chiefs had drawn to a
head at Ruthven. They were to disperse, he wrote, and secure their own
safety as best they could; they must wait for better times, when he
hoped to return bringing foreign succours. Heartbreaking orders these
were for the brave men who had lost all in the Prince's cause, and who
were now proscribed and homeless fugitives.
Charles and the handful of men who accompanied him had expected that,
once safely arrived at the coast, their troubles would be over and the
way to France clear. But at Borodale they learned that the Western seas
swarmed with English ships of war and with sloops manned by the local
militia. A thorough search was being made of every bay and inlet of the
mainland, and of every island, even to the Outer Hebrides, and further,
to remote St. Kilda! This disconcerting news was brought by young
Clanranald and Mr. Aeneas Macdonald of Kinloch Moidart, the Parisian
banker who had accompanied Charles from France. The latter had just
returned from an expedition to South Uist, where he had more than once
narrowly escaped being taken by some vigilant English cruiser. It was
impossible, he urged, for a ship of any size to escape through such a
closely-drawn net; the idea of starting directly for France must be
abandoned, but could the Prince escape to the outer islands and there
secure a suitable vessel, he _might_ be out upon the wide seas before
his departure was discovered. It was therefore decided that the little
party should cross the Minch in an open boat and make for the Long
Island. For this expedition the very man was forthcoming in the person
of the Highland pilot who had accompanied Mr. Macdonald to South Uist.
This was old Donald MacLeod of Guatergill, in Skye, a trader of
substance and a man of shrewdness and experience. In spite of being a
MacLeod he was a staunch Jacobite, and had joined the Prince's army at
Inverness. He had a son, a mere lad, at school in that place; this boy,
hearing that a battle was likely to take place, flung aside his book,
borrowed a dirk and a pistol, and actually fought in the battle of
Culloden. More lucky than most, he escaped from the fight, tracked the
Prince to Borodale, and arrived in time to take his place as one of the
eight rowers whom his father had collected for the expedition. The boat
belonged to the missing John Macdonald, for the Borodale family gave
life and property equally unhesitatingly in the Prince's service.
On April 26, in the deepening twilight, the party started from
Lochnanuagh. Hardly had they set out when they were overtaken by a
terrible storm, the worst storm, Donald declared, that he had ever been
out in, and he was an experienced sailor. The Prince demanded vehemently
that the boat should be run on shore, but Donald, knowing the rock-bound
coast, answered that to do so would be to run on certain death. Their
one chance was to hold out straight to sea. It was pitch dark, the rain
fell in torrents; they had neither lantern, compass, nor pump on board.
Charles lay at the bottom of the boat, with his head between Donald's
knees. No one spoke a word; every moment they expected to be overwhelmed
in the waves or dashed against a rock, and for several hours the vessel
rushed on in the darkness. 'But as God would have it,' to use Donald's
words, 'by peep of day we discovered ourselves to be on the coast of the
Long Isle. We made directly for the nearest land, which was Rossinish in
Benbecula.'
Here they found only a deserted hut, low, dark, and destitute of window
or chimney; the floor was clay, and when they had lit a fire, the peat
smoke was blinding and stifling. Still, they could dry their clothes and
sleep, even though it were on a bed no better than a sail spread on the
hard ground. Here they rested two days, and then found a more
comfortable refuge in the Island of Scalpa, where the tacksman--although
a Campbell--was a friend of Donald MacLeod's and received them
hospitably.