His mother could for him as cradle set
Her husband’s rusty iron corselet;
Whose jangling sound could hush her babe to rest,
That never plain’d of his uneasy nest;
Then did he dream of dreary wars at hand,
And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.--HALL’S SATIRES
It was towards the close of a summer’s evening, during the anxious
period which we have commemorated, that a young gentleman of quality,
well mounted and armed, and accompanied by two servants, one of whom led
a sumpter horse, rode slowly up one of those steep passes, by which the
Highlands are accessible from the Lowlands of Perthshire. [The beautiful
pass of Leny, near Callander, in Monteith, would, in some respects,
answer this description.] Their course had lain for some time along the
banks of a lake, whose deep waters reflected the crimson beams of the
western sun. The broken path which they pursued with some difficulty,
was in some places shaded by ancient birches and oak-trees, and in
others overhung by fragments of huge rock. Elsewhere, the hill, which
formed the northern side of this beautiful sheet of water, arose in
steep, but less precipitous acclivity, and was arrayed in heath of the
darkest purple. In the present times, a scene so romantic would have
been judged to possess the highest charms for the traveller; but
those who journey in days of doubt and dread, pay little attention to
picturesque scenery.
The master kept, as often as the wood permitted, abreast of one or both
of his domestics, and seemed earnestly to converse with them, probably
because the distinctions of rank are readily set aside among those who
are made to be sharers of common danger. The dispositions of the leading
men who inhabit this wild country, and the probability of their taking
part in the political convulsions that were soon expected, were the
subjects of their conversation.
They had not advanced above half way up the lake, and the young
gentleman was pointing to his attendants the spot where their intended
road turned northwards, and, leaving the verge of the loch, ascended a
ravine to the right hand, when they discovered a single horseman coming
down the shore, as if to meet them. The gleam of the sunbeams upon his
head-piece and corslet showed that he was in armour, and the purpose of
the other travellers required that he should not pass unquestioned.
“We must know who he is,” said the young gentleman, “and whither he is
going.” And putting spurs to his horse, he rode forward as fast as the
rugged state of the road would permit, followed by his two attendants,
until he reached the point where the pass along the side of the lake
was intersected by that which descended from the ravine, securing thus
against the possibility of the stranger eluding them, by turning into
the latter road before they came up with him.
The single horseman had mended his pace, when he first observed the
three riders advance rapidly towards him; but when he saw them halt and
form a front, which completely occupied the path, he checked his
horse, and advanced with great deliberation; so that each party had an
opportunity to take a full survey of the other. The solitary stranger
was mounted upon an able horse, fit for military service, and for
the great weight which he had to carry, and his rider occupied his
demipique, or war-saddle, with an air that showed it was his familiar
seat. He had a bright burnished head-piece, with a plume of feathers,
together with a cuirass, thick enough to resist a musket-ball, and a
back-piece of lighter materials. These defensive arms he wore over a
buff jerkin, along with a pair of gauntlets, or steel gloves, the
tops of which reached up to his elbow, and which, like the rest of his
armour, were of bright steel. At the front of his military saddle hung
a case of pistols, far beyond the ordinary size, nearly two feet in
length, and carrying bullets of twenty to the pound. A buff belt, with a
broad silver buckle, sustained on one side a long straight double-edged
broadsword, with a strong guard, and a blade calculated either to strike
or push. On the right side hung a dagger of about eighteen inches
in length; a shoulder-belt sustained at his back a musketoon or
blunderbuss, and was crossed by a bandelier containing his charges of
ammunition. Thigh-pieces of steel, then termed taslets, met the tops of
his huge jack-boots, and completed the equipage of a well-armed trooper
of the period.
The appearance of the horseman himself corresponded well with his
military equipage, to which he had the air of having been long inured.
He was above the middle size, and of strength sufficient to bear with
ease the weight of his weapons, offensive and defensive. His age
might be forty and upwards, and his countenance was that of a resolute
weather-beaten veteran, who had seen many fields, and brought away
in token more than one scar. At the distance of about thirty yards
he halted and stood fast, raised himself on his stirrups, as if to
reconnoitre and ascertain the purpose of the opposite party, and brought
his musketoon under his right arm, ready for use, if occasion should
require it. In everything but numbers, he had the advantage of those who
seemed inclined to interrupt his passage.
The leader of the party was, indeed, well mounted and clad in a buff
coat, richly embroidered, the half-military dress of the period; but his
domestics had only coarse jackets of thick felt, which could scarce be
expected to turn the edge of a sword, if wielded by a strong man; and
none of them had any weapons, save swords and pistols, without which
gentlemen, or their attendants, during those disturbed times, seldom
stirred abroad.
When they had stood at gaze for about a minute, the younger gentleman
gave the challenge which was then common in the mouth of all strangers
who met in such circumstances--“For whom are you?”
“Tell me first,” answered the soldier, “for whom are you?--the strongest
party should speak first.”
“We are for God and King Charles,” answered the first speaker.--“Now
tell your faction, you know ours.”
“I am for God and my standard,” answered the single horseman.
“And for which standard?” replied the chief of the other
party--“Cavalier or Roundhead, King or Convention?”
“By my troth, sir,” answered the soldier, “I would be loath to reply to
you with an untruth, as a thing unbecoming a cavalier of fortune and
a soldier. But to answer your query with beseeming veracity, it
is necessary I should myself have resolved to whilk of the present
divisions of the kingdom I shall ultimately adhere, being a matter
whereon my mind is not as yet preceesely ascertained.”
“I should have thought,” answered the gentleman, “that, when loyalty and
religion are at stake, no gentleman or man of honour could be long in
choosing his party.”
“Truly, sir,” replied the trooper, “if ye speak this in the way of
vituperation, as meaning to impugn my honour or genteelity, I would
blithely put the same to issue, venturing in that quarrel with my single
person against you three. But if you speak it in the way of logical
ratiocination, whilk I have studied in my youth at the Mareschal-College
of Aberdeen, I am ready to prove to ye LOGICE, that my resolution
to defer, for a certain season, the taking upon me either of these
quarrels, not only becometh me as a gentleman and a man of honour, but
also as a person of sense and prudence, one imbued with humane letters
in his early youth, and who, from thenceforward, has followed the wars
under the banner of the invincible Gustavus, the Lion of the North, and
under many other heroic leaders, both Lutheran and Calvinist, Papist and
Arminian.”
After exchanging a word or two with his domestics, the younger gentleman
replied, “I should be glad, sir, to have some conversation with you upon
so interesting a question, and should be proud if I can determine you
in favour of the cause I have myself espoused. I ride this evening to
a friend’s house not three miles distant, whither, if you choose to
accompany me, you shall have good quarters for the night, and free
permission to take your own road in the morning, if you then feel no
inclination to join with us.”
“Whose word am I to take for this?” answered the cautious soldier--“A
man must know his guarantee, or he may fall into an ambuscade.”
“I am called,” answered the younger stranger, “the Earl of Menteith,
and, I trust, you will receive my honour as a sufficient security.”
“A worthy nobleman,” answered the soldier, “whose parole is not to be
doubted.” With one motion he replaced his musketoon at his back,
and with another made his military salute to the young nobleman, and
continuing to talk as he rode forward to join him--“And, I trust,” said
he, “my own assurance, that I will be BON CAMARADO to your lordship in
peace or in peril, during the time we shall abide together, will not
be altogether vilipended in these doubtful times, when, as they say, a
man’s head is safer in a steel-cap than in a marble palace.”
“I assure you, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that to judge from your
appearance, I most highly value the advantage of your escort; but, I
trust, we shall have no occasion for any exercise of valour, as I expect
to conduct you to good and friendly quarters.”
“Good quarters, my lord,” replied the soldier, “are always acceptable,
and are only to be postponed to good pay or good booty,--not to mention
the honour of a cavalier, or the needful points of commanded duty. And
truly, my lord, your noble proffer is not the less welcome, in that I
knew not preceesely this night where I and my poor companion” (patting
his horse), “were to find lodgments.”
“May I be permitted to ask, then,” said Lord Menteith, “to whom I have
the good fortune to stand quarter-master?”
“Truly, my lord,” said the trooper, “my name is Dalgetty--Dugald
Dalgetty, Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, at your
honourable service to command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO
BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the
FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty
courses reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift,
when I was eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I
had acquired at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and
designation of Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and
legs conform, to the German wars, there to push my way as a cavalier of
fortune. My lord, my legs and arms stood me in more stead than either
my gentle kin or my book-lear, and I found myself trailing a pike as
a private gentleman under old Sir Ludovick Leslie, where I learned the
rules of service so tightly, that I will not forget them in a hurry.
Sir, I have been made to stand guard eight hours, being from twelve at
noon to eight o’clock of the night, at the palace, armed with back and
breast, head-piece and bracelets, being iron to the teeth, in a bitter
frost, and the ice was as hard as ever was flint; and all for stopping
an instant to speak to my landlady, when I should have gone to
roll-call.”
“And, doubtless, sir,” replied Lord Menteith, “you have gone through
some hot service, as well as this same cold duty you talk of?”
“Surely, my lord, it doth not become me to speak; but he that hath seen
the fields of Leipsic and of Lutzen, may be said to have seen pitched
battles. And one who hath witnessed the intaking of Frankfort, and
Spanheim, and Nuremberg, and so forth, should know somewhat about
leaguers, storms, onslaughts and outfalls.”
“But your merit, sir, and experience, were doubtless followed by
promotion?”
“It came slow, my lord, dooms slow,” replied Dalgetty; “but as my
Scottish countrymen, the fathers of the war, and the raisers of those
valorous Scottish regiments that were the dread of Germany, began to
fall pretty thick, what with pestilence and what with the sword, why
we, their children, succeeded to their inheritance. Sir, I was six years
first private gentleman of the company, and three years lance speisade;
disdaining to receive a halberd, as unbecoming my birth. Wherefore I
was ultimately promoted to be a fahndragger, as the High Dutch call
it (which signifies an ancient), in the King’s Leif Regiment of
Black-Horse, and thereafter I arose to be lieutenant and ritt-master,
under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the
Lion of the North, the terror of Austria, Gustavus the Victorious.”
“And yet, if I understand you, Captain Dalgetty,--I think that rank
corresponds with your foreign title of ritt-master--”
“The same grade preceesely,” answered Dalgetty; “ritt-master signifying
literally file-leader.”
“I was observing,” continued Lord Menteith, “that, if I understood you
right, you had left the service of this great Prince.”
“It was after his death--it was after his death, sir,” said Dalgetty,
“when I was in no shape bound to continue mine adherence. There are
things, my lord, in that service, that cannot but go against the stomach
of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of
the most superabundant, being only about sixty dollars a-month to a
ritt-master, yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of
that sum, whilk was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when
justly considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I have seen
some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on the field of
battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their
desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish
blades, who ever disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy
lucre.”
“But were not these arrears,” said Lord Menteith, “paid to the soldiery
at some stated period?”
“My lord,” said Dalgetty, “I take it on my conscience, that at no
period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be
recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I
served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm
or victory, or the fetching in some town or doorp, when a cavalier of
fortune, who knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small
profit.”
“I begin rather to wonder, sir,” said Lord Menteith, “that you should
have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have
ultimately withdrawn from it.”
“Neither I should,” answered the Ritt-master; “but that great leader,
captain, and king, the Lion of the North, and the bulwark of the
Protestant faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns,
over-running countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his
service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred cavaliers who follow
the noble profession of arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have
myself commanded the whole stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine,
occupying the Palsgrave’s palace, consuming his choice wines with my
comrades, calling in contributions, requisitions, and caduacs, and not
failing to lick my fingers, as became a good cook. But truly all this
glory hastened to decay, after our great master had been shot with three
bullets on the field of Lutzen; wherefore, finding that Fortune had
changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings went on as before out of
our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were all cut off, I e’en gave
up my commission, and took service with Wallenstein, in Walter Butler’s
Irish regiment.”
“And may I beg to know of you,” said Lord Menteith, apparently
interested in the adventures of this soldier of fortune, “how you liked
this change of masters?”
“Indifferent well,” said the Captain--“very indifferent well. I cannot
say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For
hard knocks, we had plenty of them. I was often obliged to run my head
against my old acquaintances, the Swedish feathers, whilk your honour
must conceive to be double-pointed stakes, shod with iron at each
end, and planted before the squad of pikes to prevent an onfall of the
cavalry. The whilk Swedish feathers, although they look gay to the eye,
resembling the shrubs or lesser trees of ane forest, as the puissant
pikes, arranged in battalia behind them, correspond to the tall pines
thereof, yet, nevertheless, are not altogether so soft to encounter as
the plumage of a goose. Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows and light
pay, a cavalier of fortune may thrive indifferently well in the Imperial
service, in respect his private casualties are nothing so closely looked
to as by the Swede; and so that an officer did his duty on the field,
neither Wallenstein nor Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before them, would
likely listen to the objurgations of boors or burghers against any
commander or soldado, by whom they chanced to be somewhat closely shorn.
So that an experienced cavalier, knowing how to lay, as our Scottish
phrase runs, ‘the head of the sow to the tail of the grice,’ might get
out of the country the pay whilk he could not obtain from the Emperor.”
“With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest,” said Lord
Menteith.
“Indubitably, my lord,” answered Dalgetty, composedly; “for it would be
doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
question for any petty delinquency.”
“And pray, Sir,” continued Lord Menteith, “what made you leave so
gainful a service?”
“Why, truly, sir,” answered the soldier, “an Irish cavalier, called
O’Quilligan, being major of our regiment, and I having had words with
him the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our several
nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to me with
the point of his batoon advanced and held aloof, instead of declining
and trailing the same, as is the fashion from a courteous commanding
officer towards his equal in rank, though, it may be, his inferior in
military grade. Upon this quarrel, sir, we fought in private rencontre;
and as, in the perquisitions which followed, it pleased Walter
Butler, our oberst, or colonel, to give the lighter punishment to
his countryman, and the heavier to me, whereupon, ill-stomaching such
partiality, I exchanged my commission for one under the Spaniard.”
“I hope you found yourself better off by the change?” said Lord
Menteith.
“In good sooth,” answered the Ritt-master, “I had but little to complain
of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings
and Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good
wheaten loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of
the Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the
black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus’s camp. Service there was none, duty
there was little; and that little we might do, or leave undone, at our
pleasure; an excellent retirement for a cavalier somewhat weary of field
and leaguer, who had purchased with his blood as much honour as might
serve his turn, and was desirous of a little ease and good living.”
“And may I ask,” said Lord Menteith, “why you, Captain, being, as I
suppose, in the situation you describe, retired from the Spanish service
also?”
“You are to consider, my lord, that your Spaniard,” replied Captain
Dalgetty, “is a person altogether unparalleled in his own conceit,
where-through he maketh not fit account of such foreign cavaliers of
valour as are pleased to take service with him. And a galling thing
it is to every honourable soldado, to be put aside, and postponed, and
obliged to yield preference to every puffing signor, who, were it the
question which should first mount a breach at push of pike, might be
apt to yield willing place to a Scottish cavalier. Moreover, sir, I was
pricked in conscience respecting a matter of religion.”
“I should not have thought, Captain Dalgetty,” said the young nobleman,
“that an old soldier, who had changed service so often, would have been
too scrupulous on that head.”
“No more I am, my lord,” said the Captain, “since I hold it to be the
duty of the chaplain of the regiment to settle those matters for me, and
every other brave cavalier, inasmuch as he does nothing else that I know
of for his pay and allowances. But this was a particular case, my lord,
a CASUS IMPROVISUS, as I may say, in whilk I had no chaplain of my own
persuasion to act as my adviser. I found, in short, that although my
being a Protestant might be winked at, in respect that I was a man of
action, and had more experience than all the Dons in our TERTIA put
together, yet, when in garrison, it was expected I should go to mass
with the regiment. Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at
the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be
an act of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether
unwilling to homologate by my presence. True it is, that I consulted on
the point with a worthy countryman of my own, one Father Fatsides, of
the Scottish Covenant in Wurtzburg--”
“And I hope,” observed Lord Menteith, “you obtained a clear opinion from
this same ghostly father?”
“As clear as it could be,” replied Captain Dalgetty, “considering we had
drunk six flasks of Rhenish, and about two mutchkins of Kirchenwasser.
Father Fatsides informed me, that, as nearly as he could judge for a
heretic like myself, it signified not much whether I went to mass or
not, seeing my eternal perdition was signed and sealed at any rate,
in respect of my impenitent and obdurate perseverance in my damnable
heresy. Being discouraged by this response, I applied to a Dutch pastor
of the reformed church, who told me, he thought I might lawfully go
to mass, in respect that the prophet permitted Naaman, a mighty man of
valour, and an honourable cavalier of Syria, to follow his master into
the house of Rimmon, a false god, or idol, to whom he had vowed service,
and to bow down when the king was leaning upon his hand. But neither
was this answer satisfactory to me, both because there was an unco
difference between an anointed King of Syria and our Spanish colonel,
whom I could have blown away like the peeling of an ingan, and chiefly
because I could not find the thing was required of me by any of the
articles of war; neither was I proffered any consideration, either in
perquisite or pay, for the wrong I might thereby do to my conscience.”
“So you again changed your service?” said Lord Menteith.
“In troth did I, my lord; and after trying for a short while two
or three other powers, I even took on for a time with their High
Mightinesses the States of Holland.”
“And how did their service jump with your humour?” again demanded his
companion.
“O! my lord,” said the soldier, in a sort of enthusiasm, “their
behaviour on pay-day might be a pattern to all Europe--no borrowings, no
lendings, no offsets no arrears--all balanced and paid like a
banker’s book. The quarters, too, are excellent, and the allowances
unchallengeable; but then, sir, they are a preceese, scrupulous people,
and will allow nothing for peccadilloes. So that if a boor complains of
a broken head, or a beer-seller of a broken can, or a daft wench does
but squeak loud enough to be heard above her breath, a soldier of honour
shall be dragged, not before his own court-martial, who can best judge
of and punish his demerits, but before a base mechanical burgo-master,
who shall menace him with the rasp-house, the cord, and what not, as if
he were one of their own mean, amphibious, twenty-breeched boors. So
not being able to dwell longer among those ungrateful plebeians, who,
although unable to defend themselves by their proper strength, will
nevertheless allow the noble foreign cavalier who engages with them
nothing beyond his dry wages, which no honourable spirit will put
in competition with a liberal license and honourable countenance, I
resolved to leave the service of the Mynheers. And hearing at this time,
to my exceeding satisfaction, that there is something to be doing this
summer in my way in this my dear native country, I am come hither,
as they say, like a beggar to a bridal, in order to give my loving
countrymen the advantage of that experience which I have acquired
in foreign parts. So your lordship has an outline of my brief story,
excepting my deportment in those passages of action in the field, in
leaguers, storms, and onslaughts, whilk would be wearisome to narrate,
and might, peradventure, better befit any other tongue than mine own.”