Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and
constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation:
an excellent plot, very good friends.--HENRY IV Part I.
No sooner had the general acclamation of joyful surprise subsided, than
silence was eagerly demanded for reading the royal commission; and the
bonnets, which hitherto each Chief had worn, probably because unwilling
to be the first to uncover, were now at once vailed in honour of
the royal warrant. It was couched in the most full and ample terms,
authorizing the Earl of Montrose to assemble the subjects in arms,
for the putting down the present rebellion, which divers traitors
and seditious persons had levied against the King, to the manifest
forfaulture, as it stated, of their allegiance, and to the breach of
the pacification between the two kingdoms. It enjoined all subordinate
authorities to be obedient and assisting to Montrose in his enterprise;
gave him the power of making ordinances and proclamations, punishing
misdemeanours, pardoning criminals, placing and displacing governors and
commanders. In fine, it was as large and full a commission as any with
which a prince could intrust a subject. As soon as it was finished,
a shout burst from the assembled Chiefs, in testimony of their ready
submission to the will of their sovereign. Not contented with generally
thanking them for a reception so favourable, Montrose hastened to
address himself to individuals, The most important Chiefs had already
been long personally known to him, but even to those of inferior
consequence he now introduced himself and by the acquaintance he
displayed with their peculiar designations, and the circumstances and
history of their clans, he showed how long he must have studied the
character of the mountaineers, and prepared himself for such a situation
as he now held.
While he was engaged in these acts of courtesy, his graceful manner,
expressive features, and dignity of deportment, made a singular contrast
with the coarseness and meanness of his dress. Montrose possessed that
sort of form and face, in which the beholder, at the first glance, sees
nothing extraordinary, but of which the interest becomes more impressive
the longer we gaze upon them. His stature was very little above the
middle size, but in person he was uncommonly well-built, and capable
both of exerting great force, and enduring much fatigue. In fact,
he enjoyed a constitution of iron, without which he could not have
sustained the trials of his extraordinary campaigns, through all of
which he subjected himself to the hardships of the meanest soldier.
He was perfect in all exercises, whether peaceful or martial, and
possessed, of course, that graceful ease of deportment proper to those
to whom habit has rendered all postures easy.
His long brown hair, according to the custom of men of quality among the
Royalists, was parted on the top of his head, and trained to hang down
on each side in curled locks, one of which, descending two or three
inches lower than the others, intimated Montrose’s compliance with that
fashion against which it pleased Mr. Prynne, the puritan, to write a
treatise, entitled, THE UNLOVELINESS OF LOVE-LOCKS. The features which
these tresses enclosed, were of that kind which derive their interest
from the character of the man, rather than from the regularity of their
form. But a high nose, a full, decided, well-opened, quick grey eye, and
a sanguine complexion, made amends for some coarseness and irregularity
in the subordinate parts of the face; so that, altogether, Montrose
might be termed rather a handsome, than a hard-featured man. But those
who saw him when his soul looked through those eyes with all the energy
and fire of genius--those who heard him speak with the authority of
talent, and the eloquence of nature, were impressed with an opinion
even of his external form, more enthusiastically favourable than the
portraits which still survive would entitle us to ascribe to it. Such,
at least, was the impression he made upon the assembled Chiefs of the
mountaineers, over whom, as upon all persons in their state of society,
personal appearance has no small influence.
In the discussions which followed his discovering himself, Montrose
explained the various risks which he had run in his present undertaking.
His first attempt had been to assemble a body of loyalists in the north
of England, who, in obedience to the orders of the Marquis of Newcastle,
he expected would have marched into Scotland; but the disinclination of
the English to cross the Border, and the delay of the Earl of Antrim,
who was to have landed in the Solway Frith with his Irish army,
prevented his executing this design. Other plans having in like manner
failed, he stated that he found himself under the necessity of assuming
a disguise to render his passage secure through the Lowlands, in which
he had been kindly assisted by his kinsman of Menteith. By what means
Allan M’Aulay had come to know him, he could not pretend to explain.
Those who knew Allan’s prophetic pretensions, smiled mysteriously;
but he himself only replied, that “the Earl of Montrose need not be
surprised if he was known to thousands, of whom he himself could retain
no memory.”
“By the honour of a cavalier,” said Captain Dalgetty, finding at length
an opportunity to thrust in his word, “I am proud and happy in having an
opportunity of drawing a sword under your lordship’s command; and I do
forgive all grudge, malecontent, and malice of my heart, to Mr. Allan
M’Aulay, for having thrust me down to the lowest seat of the board
yestreen. Certes, he hath this day spoken so like a man having full
command of his senses, that I had resolved in my secret purpose that he
was no way entitled to claim the privilege of insanity. But since I
was only postponed to a noble earl, my future commander-in-chief, I do,
before you all, recognise the justice of the preference, and heartily
salute Allan as one who is to be his BON-CAMARADO.”
Having made this speech, which was little understood or attended to,
without putting off his military glove, he seized on Allan’s hand,
and began to shake it with violence, which Allan, with a gripe like a
smith’s vice, returned with such force, as to drive the iron splents of
the gauntlet into the hand of the wearer.
Captain Dalgetty might have construed this into a new affront, had not
his attention, as he stood blowing and shaking the injured member, been
suddenly called by Montrose himself.
“Hear this news,” he said, “Captain Dalgetty--I should say Major
Dalgetty,--the Irish, who are to profit by your military experience, are
now within a few leagues of us.”
“Our deer-stalkers,” said Angus M’Aulay, “who were abroad to bring in
venison for this honourable party, have heard of a band of strangers,
speaking neither Saxon nor pure Gaelic, and with difficulty making
themselves understood by the people of the country, who are marching
this way in arms, under the leading, it is said, of Alaster M’Donald,
who is commonly called Young Colkitto.”
“These must be our men,” said Montrose; “we must hasten to send
messengers forward, both to act as guides and to relieve their wants.”
“The last,” said Angus M’Aulay, “will be no easy matter; for I am
informed, that, excepting muskets and a very little ammunition, they
want everything that soldiers should have; and they are particularly
deficient in money, in shoes, and in raiment.”
“There is at least no use in saying so,” said Montrose, “in so loud
a tone. The puritan weavers of Glasgow shall provide them plenty of
broad-cloth, when we make a descent from the Highlands; and if the
ministers could formerly preach the old women of the Scottish boroughs
out of their webs of napery, to make tents to the fellows on Dunse Law,
[The Covenanters encamped on Dunse Law, during the troubles of 1639.] I
will try whether I have not a little interest both to make these godly
dames renew their patriotic gift, and the prick-eared knaves, their
husbands, open their purses.”
“And respecting arms,” said Captain Dalgetty, “if your lordship will
permit an old cavalier to speak his mind, so that the one-third have
muskets, my darling weapon would be the pike for the remainder, whether
for resisting a charge of horse, or for breaking the infantry. A common
smith will make a hundred pike-heads in a day; here is plenty of wood
for shafts; and I will uphold, that, according to the best usages of
war, a strong battalion of pikes, drawn up in the fashion of the Lion of
the North, the immortal Gustavus, would beat the Macedonian phalanx,
of which I used to read in the Mareschal-College, when I studied in the
ancient town of Bon-accord; and further, I will venture to predicate--”
The Captain’s lecture upon tactics was here suddenly interrupted by
Allan M’Aulay, who said, hastily,--“Room for an unexpected and unwelcome
guest!”
At the same moment, the door of the hall opened, and a grey-haired man,
of a very stately appearance, presented himself to the assembly. There
was much dignity, and even authority, in his manner. His stature was
above the common size, and his looks such as were used to command. He
cast a severe, and almost stern glance upon the assembly of Chiefs.
Those of the higher rank among them returned it with scornful
indifference; but some of the western gentlemen of inferior power,
looked as if they wished themselves elsewhere.
“To which of this assembly,” said the stranger, “am I to address myself
as leader? or have you not fixed upon the person who is to hold an
office at least as perilous as it is honourable?”
“Address yourself to me, Sir Duncan Campbell,” said Montrose, stepping
forward.
“To you!” said Sir Duncan Campbell, with some scorn.
“Yes,--to me,” repeated Montrose,--“to the Earl of Montrose, if you have
forgot him.”
“I should now, at least,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “have had some
difficulty in recognising him in the disguise of a groom.--and yet I
might have guessed that no evil influence inferior to your lordship’s,
distinguished as one who troubles Israel, could have collected together
this rash assembly of misguided persons.”
“I will answer unto you,” said Montrose, “in the manner of your own
Puritans. I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.
But let us leave an altercation, which is of little consequence but
to ourselves, and hear the tidings you have brought from your Chief of
Argyle; for I must conclude that it is in his name that you have come to
this meeting.”
“It is in the name of the Marquis of Argyle,” said Sir Duncan
Campbell,--“in the name of the Scottish Convention of Estates, that
I demand to know the meaning of this singular convocation. If it is
designed to disturb the peace of the country, it were but acting like
neighbours, and men of honour, to give us some intimation to stand upon
our guard.”
“It is a singular, and new state of affairs in Scotland,” said Montrose,
turning from Sir Duncan Campbell to the assembly, “when Scottish men of
rank and family cannot meet in the house of a common friend without an
inquisitorial visit and demand, on the part of our rulers, to know the
subject of our conference. Methinks our ancestors were accustomed to
hold Highland huntings, or other purposes of meeting, without asking
the leave either of the great M’Callum More himself, or any of his
emissaries or dependents.”
“The times have been such in Scotland,” answered one of the Western
Chiefs, “and such they will again be, when the intruders on our
ancient possessions are again reduced to be Lairds of Lochow instead of
overspreading us like a band of devouring locusts.”
“Am I to understand, then,” said Sir Duncan, “that it is against my name
alone that these preparations are directed? or are the race of Diarmid
only to be sufferers in common with the whole of the peaceful and
orderly inhabitants of Scotland?”
“I would ask,” said a wild-looking Chief, starting hastily up, “one
question of the Knight of Ardenvohr, ere he proceeds farther in his
daring catechism.--Has he brought more than one life to this castle,
that he ventures to intrude among us for the purposes of insult?”
“Gentlemen,” said Montrose, “let me implore your patience; a messenger
who comes among us for the purpose of embassy, is entitled to freedom of
speech and safe-conduct. And since Sir Duncan Campbell is so pressing, I
care not if I inform him, for his guidance, that he is in an assembly
of the King’s loyal subjects, convoked by me, in his Majesty’s name and
authority, and as empowered by his Majesty’s royal commission.”
“We are to have, then, I presume,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “a civil
war in all its forms? I have been too long a soldier to view its
approach with anxiety; but it would have been for my Lord of Montrose’s
honour, if, in this matter, he had consulted his own ambition less, and
the peace of the country more.”
“Those consulted their own ambition and self-interest, Sir Duncan,”
answered Montrose, “who brought the country to the pass in which it
now stands, and rendered necessary the sharp remedies which we are now
reluctantly about to use.”
“And what rank among these self-seekers,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “we
shall assign to a noble Earl, so violently attached to the Covenant,
that he was the first, in 1639, to cross the Tyne, wading middle deep at
the head of his regiment, to charge the royal forces? It was the same,
I think, who imposed the Covenant upon the burgesses and colleges of
Aberdeen, at the point of sword and pike.”
“I understand your sneer, Sir Duncan,” said Montrose, temperately; “and
I can only add, that if sincere repentance can make amends for youthful
error, and for yielding to the artful representation of ambitious
hypocrites, I shall be pardoned for the crimes with which you taunt me.
I will at least endeavour to deserve forgiveness, for I am here, with
my sword in my hand, willing to spend the best blood of my body to make
amends for my error; and mortal man can do no more.”
“Well, my lord,” said Sir Duncan, “I shall be sorry to carry back this
language to the Marquis of Argyle. I had it in farther charge from the
Marquis, that, to prevent the bloody feuds which must necessarily follow
a Highland war, his lordship will be contented if terms of truce could
be arranged to the north of the Highland line, as there is ground enough
in Scotland to fight upon, without neighbours destroying each other’s
families and inheritances.”
“It is a peaceful proposal,” said Montrose, smiling, “such as it
should be, coming from one whose personal actions have always been more
peaceful than his measures. Yet, if the terms of such a truce could be
equally fixed, and if we can obtain security, for that, Sir Duncan, is
indispensable,--that your Marquis will observe these terms with strict
fidelity, I, for my part, should be content to leave peace behind us,
since we must needs carry war before us. But, Sir Duncan, you are too
old and experienced a soldier for us to permit you to remain in our
leaguer, and witness our proceedings; we shall therefore, when you have
refreshed yourself, recommend your speedy return to Inverary, and we
shall send with you a gentleman on our part to adjust the terms of
the Highland armistice, in case the Marquis shall be found serious in
proposing such a measure.” Sir Duncan Campbell assented by a bow.
“My Lord of Menteith,” continued Montrose, “will you have the goodness
to attend Sir Duncan Campbell of Ardenvohr, while we determine who shall
return with him to his Chief? M’Aulay will permit us to request that he
be entertained with suitable hospitality.”
“I will give orders for that,” said Allan M’Aulay, rising and coming
forward. “I love Sir Duncan Campbell; we have been joint sufferers in
former days, and I do not forget it now.”
“My Lord of Menteith,” said Sir Duncan Campbell, “I am grieved to
see you, at your early age, engaged in such desperate and rebellious
courses.”
“I am young,” answered Menteith, “yet old enough to distinguish between
right and wrong, between loyalty and rebellion; and the sooner a good
course is begun, the longer and the better have I a chance of running
it.”
“And you too, my friend, Allan M’Aulay,” said Sir Duncan, taking his
hand, “must we also call each other enemies, that have been so often
allied against a common foe?” Then turning round to the meeting, he
said, “Farewell, gentlemen; there are so many of you to whom I wish
well, that your rejection of all terms of mediation gives me deep
affliction. May Heaven,” he said, looking upwards, “judge between our
motives, and those of the movers of this civil commotion!”
“Amen,” said Montrose; “to that tribunal we all submit us.”
Sir Duncan Campbell left the hall, accompanied by Allan M’Aulay and Lord
Menteith. “There goes a true-bred Campbell,” said Montrose, as the envoy
departed, “for they are ever fair and false.”
“Pardon me, my lord,” said Evan Dhu; “hereditary enemy as I am to their
name, I have ever found the Knight of Ardenvohr brave in war, honest in
peace, and true in council.”
“Of his own disposition,” said Montrose, “such he is undoubtedly; but
he now acts as the organ or mouth-piece of his Chief, the Marquis, the
falsest man that ever drew breath. And, M’Aulay,” he continued in a
whisper to his host, “lest he should make some impression upon the
inexperience of Menteith, or the singular disposition of your brother,
you had better send music into their chamber, to prevent his inveigling
them into any private conference.”
“The devil a musician have I,” answered M’Aulay, “excepting the piper,
who has nearly broke his wind by an ambitious contention for superiority
with three of his own craft; but I can send Annot Lyle and her harp.”
And he left the apartment to give orders accordingly.
Meanwhile a warm discussion took place, who should undertake the
perilous task of returning with Sir Duncan to Inverary. To the higher
dignitaries, accustomed to consider themselves upon an equality even
with M’Callum More, this was an office not to be proposed; unto others
who could not plead the same excuse, it was altogether unacceptable. One
would have thought Inverary had been the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
the inferior chiefs showed such reluctance to approach it. After a
considerable hesitation, the plain reason was at length spoken
out, namely, that whatever Highlander should undertake an office so
distasteful to M’Callum More, he would be sure to treasure the offence
in his remembrance, and one day or other to make him bitterly repent of
it.
In this dilemma, Montrose, who considered the proposed armistice as
a mere stratagem on the part of Argyle, although he had not ventured
bluntly to reject it in presence of those whom it concerned so nearly,
resolved to impose the danger and dignity upon Captain Dalgetty, who had
neither clan nor estate in the Highlands upon which the wrath of Argyle
could wreak itself.
“But I have a neck though,” said Dalgetty, bluntly; “and what if he
chooses to avenge himself upon that? I have known a case where an
honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did
the Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua,
although I read that they only cut off their hands and noses, put out
their eyes, and suffered them to depart in peace.”
“By my honour Captain Dalgetty,” said Montrose, “should the Marquis,
contrary to the rules of war, dare to practise any atrocity against you,
you may depend upon my taking such signal vengeance that all Scotland
shall ring of it.”
“That will do but little for Dalgetty,” returned the Captain; “but
corragio! as the Spaniard says. With the Land of Promise full in
view, the Moor of Drumthwacket, MEA PAUPERA REGNA, as we said at
Mareschal-College, I will not refuse your Excellency’s commission,
being conscious it becomes a cavalier of honour to obey his commander’s
orders, in defiance both of gibbet and sword.”
“Gallantly resolved,” said Montrose; “and if you will come apart with
me, I will furnish you with the conditions to be laid before M’Callum
More, upon which we are willing to grant him a truce for his Highland
dominions.”
With these we need not trouble our readers. They were of an evasive
nature, calculated to meet a proposal which Montrose considered to have
been made only for the purpose of gaining time. When he had put Captain
Dalgetty in complete possession of his instructions, and when that
worthy, making his military obeisance, was near the door of his
apartment, Montrose made him a sign to return.
“I presume,” said he, “I need not remind an officer who has served under
the great Gustavus, that a little more is required of a person sent with
a flag of truce than mere discharge of his instructions, and that his
general will expect from him, on his return, some account of the state
of the enemy’s affairs, as far as they come under his observation. In
short, Captain Dalgetty, you must be UN PEU CLAIR-VOYANT.”
“Ah ha! your Excellency,” said the Captain, twisting his hard features
into an inimitable expression of cunning and intelligence, “if they do
not put my head in a poke, which I have known practised upon honourable
soldados who have been suspected to come upon such errands as the
present, your Excellency may rely on a preceese narration of whatever
Dugald Dalgetty shall hear or see, were it even how many turns of tune
there are in M’Callum More’s pibroch, or how many checks in the sett of
his plaid and trews.”
“Enough,” answered Montrose; “farewell, Captain Dalgetty: and as they
say that a lady’s mind is always expressed in her postscript, so I would
have you think that the most important part of your commission lies in
what I have last said to you.”
Dalgetty once more grinned intelligence, and withdrew to victual his
charger and himself, for the fatigues of his approaching mission.
At the door of the stable, for Gustavus always claimed his first
care,--he met Angus M’Aulay and Sir Miles Musgrave, who had been looking
at his horse; and, after praising his points and carriage, both united
in strongly dissuading the Captain from taking an animal of such value
with him upon his present very fatiguing journey.
Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather
wild tracks, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into
Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bothies where he would be
condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for
his horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather. In short,
he pronounced it absolutely impossible, that, after undertaking such a
pilgrimage, the animal could be in any case for military service. The
Englishman strongly confirmed all that Angus had said, and gave himself,
body and soul, to the devil, if he thought it was not an act little
short of absolute murder to carry a horse worth a farthing into such a
waste and inhospitable desert. Captain Dalgetty for an instant looked
steadily, first at one of the gentlemen and next at the other, and then
asked them, as if in a state of indecision, what they would advise him
to do with Gustavus under such circumstances.
“By the hand of my father, my dear friend,” answered M’Aulay, “if you
leave the beast in my keeping, you may rely on his being fed and sorted
according to his worth and quality, and that upon your happy return, you
will find him as sleek as an onion boiled in butter.”
“Or,” said Sir Miles Musgrave, “if this worthy cavalier chooses to part
with his charger for a reasonable sum, I have some part of the silver
candlesticks still dancing the heys in my purse, which I shall be very
willing to transfer to his.”
“In brief, mine honourable friends,” said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing
them both with an air of comic penetration, “I find it would not be
altogether unacceptable to either of you, to have some token to remember
the old soldier by, in case it shall please M’Callum More to hang him
up at the gate of his own castle. And doubtless it would be no small
satisfaction to me, in such an event, that a noble and loyal cavalier
like Sir Miles Musgrave, or a worthy and hospitable chieftain like our
excellent landlord, should act as my executor.”
Both hastened to protest that they had no such object, and insisted
again upon the impassable character of the Highland paths. Angus
M’Aulay mumbled over a number of hard Gaellic names, descriptive of the
difficult passes, precipices, corries, and beals, through which he
said the road lay to Inverary, when old Donald, who had now entered,
sanctioned his master’s account of these difficulties, by holding up his
hands, and elevating his eyes, and shaking his head, at every gruttural
which M’Aulay pronounced. But all this did not move the inflexible
Captain.
“My worthy friends,” said he, “Gustavus is not new to the dangers of
travelling, and the mountains of Bohemia; and (no disparagement to the
beals and corries Mr. Angus is pleased to mention, and of which Sir
Miles, who never saw them, confirms the horrors,) these mountains may
compete with the vilest roads in Europe. In fact, my horse hath a most
excellent and social quality; for although he cannot pledge in my cup,
yet we share our loaf between us, and it will be hard if he suffers
famine where cakes or bannocks are to be found. And, to cut this matter
short, I beseech you, my good friends, to observe the state of Sir
Duncan Campbell’s palfrey, which stands in that stall before us, fat
and fair; and, in return for your anxiety an my account, I give you
my honest asseveration, that while we travel the same road, both that
palfrey and his rider shall lack for food before either Gustavus or I.”
Having said this he filled a large measure with corn, and walked up with
it to his charger, who, by his low whinnying neigh, his pricked ears,
and his pawing, showed how close the alliance was betwixt him and his
rider. Nor did he taste his corn until he had returned his master’s
caresses, by licking his hands and face. After this interchange of
greeting, the steed began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which
showed old military habits; and the master, after looking on the animal
with great complacency for about five minutes, said,--“Much good may it
do your honest heart, Gustavus;--now must I go and lay in provant myself
for the campaign.”
He then departed, having first saluted the Englishman and Angus M’Aulay,
who remained looking at each other for some time in silence, and then
burst out into a fit of laughter.
“That fellow,” said Sir Miles Musgrave, “is formed to go through the
world.”
“I shall think so too,” said M’Aulay, “if he can slip through M’Callum
More’s fingers as easily as he has done through ours.”
“Do you think,” said the Englishman, “that the Marquis will not respect,
in Captain Dalgetty’s person, the laws of civilized war?”
“No more than I would respect a Lowland proclamation,” said Angus
M’Aulay.--“But come along, it is time I were returning to my guests.”