THE PHANTOM REGIMENT--THE QUARTERMASTER'S STORY.
Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly
obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvellous,
still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous
districts of the northern kingdom; for "the Schoolmaster" finds it no
easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the
prejudices of more than two thousand years.
I was born in Strathnairn, about the year 1802, and, on the death of
my mother, was given, when an infant, to the wife of a cotter to
nurse. With these good people I remained for some years, and thus
became cognizant of the facts I am about to relate.
There was a little romance connected with my old nurse Meinie and her
gudeman.
In their younger days they had been lovers--lovers as a boy and
girl--but were separated by poverty, and then Ewen Mac Ewen enlisted
as a soldier, in the 26th or Cameronian Regiment, with which he saw
some sharp service in the West Indies and America. The light-hearted
young highlander became, in time, a grave, stern, and morose soldier,
with the most rigid ideas of religious deportment and propriety: for
this distinguished Scottish regiment was of Puritan origin, being one
of those raised among the Westland Covenanters, after the deposition
of king James VII. by the Estates of Scotland. England surrendered
to William of Orange without striking a blow; but the defence of
Dunkeld, and the victorious battle of Killycrankie, ended the
northern campaign, in which the noble Dundee was slain, and the army
of the cavaliers dispersed. The Cameronian Regiment introduced their
sectarian forms, their rigorous discipline, and plain mode of public
worship into their own ranks, and so strict was their code of morals,
that even the Non-jurors and Jacobins admitted the excellence and
stern propriety of their bearing. They left the Scottish Service for
the British, at the Union, in 1707, but still wear on their
appointments the five-pointed star, which was the armorial bearing of
the colonel who embodied them; and, moreover, retain the privilege of
supplying their own regimental Bibles.
After many years of hard fighting in the old 26th, and after carrying
a halbert in the kilted regiment of the Isles, Ewen Mac Ewen returned
home to his native place, the great plain of Moray, a graver, and, in
bearing, a sadder man than when he left it.
His first inquiry was for Meinie.
She had married a rival of his, twenty years ago.
"God's will be done," sighed Ewen, as he lifted his bonnet, and
looked upwards.
He built himself a little cottage, in the old highland fashion, in
his native strath, at a sunny spot, where the Uisc Nairn--the Water
of Alders--flowed in front, and a wooded hill arose behind. He hung
his knapsack above the fireplace; deposited his old and sorely
thumbed regimental Bible (with the Cameronian star on its boards,)
and the tin case containing his colonel's letter recommending him to
the minister, and the discharge, which gave sixpence per diem as the
reward of sixteen battles--all on the shelf of the little window,
which contained three panes of glass, with a yoke in the centre of
each, and there he settled himself down in peace, to plant his own
kail, knit his own hose, and to make his own kilts, a grave and
thoughtful but contented old fellow, awaiting the time, as he said,
"when the Lord would call him away."
Now it chanced that a poor widow, with several children, built
herself a little thatched house on the opposite side of the drove
road--an old Fingalian path--which ascended the pastoral glen; and
the ready-handed veteran lent his aid to thatch it, and to sling her
kail-pot on the cruicks, and was wont thereafter to drop in of an
evening to smoke his pipe, to tell old stories of the storming of
Ticonderago, and to ask her little ones the catechism and biblical
questions. Within a week or so, he discovered that the widow was
Meinie--the ripe, blooming Meinie of other years--an old, a faded,
and a sad-eyed woman now; and poor Ewen's lonely heart swelled within
him, as he thought of all that had passed since last they met, and as
he spake of what they were, and what they might have been, had fate
been kind, or fortune roved more true.
We have heard much about the hidden and mysterious principle of
affinity, and more about the sympathy and sacredness that belong to a
first and early love; well, the heart of the tough old Cameronian
felt these gentle impulses, and Meinie was no stranger to them. They
were married, and for fifteen years, there was no happier couple on
the banks of the Nairn. Strange to say, they died on the same day,
and were interred in the ancient burying-ground of Dalcross, where
now they lie, near the ruined walls of the old vicarage kirk of the
Catholic times. God rest them in their humble highland graves! My
father, who was the minister of Croy, acted as chief mourner, and
gave the customary funeral prayer. But I am somewhat anticipating,
and losing the thread of my own story in telling theirs.
In process of time the influx of French and English tourists who came
to visit the country of the clans, and to view the plain of Culloden,
after the publication of "Waverley" gave to all Britain, that which
we name in Scotland "the tartan fever," and caused the old path which
passed the cot of Ewen to become a turnpike road; a tollbar--that
most obnoxious of all impositions to a Celt--was placed across the
mouth of the little glen, barring the way directly to the
battle-field; and of this gate the old pensioner Ewen naturally
became keeper; and during the summer season, when, perhaps, a hundred
carriages per day rolled through, it became a source of revenue alike
to him, and to the Lord of Cawdor and the Laird of Kilravock, the
road trustees. And the chief pleasure of Ewen's existence was to sit
on a thatched seat by the gate, for then he felt conscious of being
in office--on duty--a species of sentinel; and it smacked of the old
time when the Generale was beaten in the morning, and the drums
rolled tattoo at night; when he had belts to pipeclay, and boots to
blackball; when there were wigs to frizzle and queues to tie, and to
be all trim and in order to meet Monseigneur le Marquis de Montcalm,
or General Washington "right early in the morning;" and there by the
new barrier of the glen Ewen sat the live-long day, with spectacles
on nose, and the Cameronian Bible on his knee, as he spelled his way
through Deuteronomy and the tribes of Judah.
Slates in due time replaced the green thatch of his little cottage;
then a diminutive additional story, with two small dormer windows,
was added thereto, and the thrifty Meinie placed a paper in her
window informing shepherds, the chance wayfarers, and the wandering
deer-stalkers that she had a room to let; but summer passed away, the
sportsman forsook the brown scorched mountains, the gay tourist
ceased to come north, and the advertisement turned from white to
yellow, and from yellow to flyblown green in her window; the winter
snows descended on the hills, the pines stood in long and solemn
ranks by the white frozen Nairn, but "the room upstairs" still
remained without a tenant.
Anon the snow passed away, the river again flowed free, the flowers
began to bloom; the young grass to sprout by the hedgerows, and the
mavis to sing on the fauld-dykes, for spring was come again, and
joyous summer soon would follow; and one night--it was the 26th of
April--Ewen was exhibiting his penmanship in large text-hand by
preparing the new announcement of "a room to let," when he paused,
and looked up as a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky; a red
gleam of lightning flashed in the darkness without, and then they
heard the roar of the deep broad Nairn, as its waters, usually so
sombre and so slow, swept down from the wilds of Badenoch, flooded
with the melting snows of the past winter.
A dreadful storm of thunder, rain, and wind came on, and the little
cottage rocked on its foundations; frequently the turf-fire upon the
hearth was almost blown about the clay-floor, by the downward gusts
that bellowed in the chimney. The lightning gleamed incessantly, and
seemed to play about the hill of Urchany and the ruins of Caistel
Fionlah; the woods groaned and creaked, and the trees seemed to
shriek as their strong limbs were torn asunder by the gusts which in
some places laid side by side the green sapling of last summer, and
the old oak that had stood for a thousand years--that had seen
Macbeth and Duncan ride from Nairn, and had outlived the wars of the
Comyns and the Clanchattan.
The swollen Nairn tore down its banks, and swept trees, rocks, and
stones in wild confusion to the sea, mingling the pines of Aberarder
with the old oaks of Cawdor; while the salt spray from the Moray
Firth was swept seven miles inland, where it encrusted with salt the
trees, the houses, and windows, and whatever it fell on as it mingled
with the ceaseless rain, while deep, hoarse, and loud the incessant
thunder rattled across the sky, "as if all the cannon on earth,"
according to Ewen, "were exchanging salvoes between Urchany and the
Hill of Geddes."
Meinie grew pale, and sat with a finger on her mouth, and a startled
expression in her eyes, listening to the uproar without; four
children, two of whom were Ewen's, and her last addition to the clan,
clung to her skirts.
Ewen had just completed the invariable prayer and chapter for the
night, and was solemnly depositing his old regimental companion, with
"Baxter's Saints' Best," in a place of security, when a tremendous
knock--a knock that rang above the storm--shook the door of the
cottage.
"Who can this be, and in such a night?" said Meinie.
"The Lord knoweth," responded Ewen, gravely; "but he knocks both loud
and late."
"Inquire before you open," urged Meinie, seizing her husband's arm,
as the impatient knock was renewed with treble violence.
"Who comes there?" demanded Ewen, in a soldierly tone.
"A friend," replied a strange voice without, and in the same manner.
"What do you want?"
"Fire and smoke!" cried the other, giving the door a tremendous kick;
"do you ask that in such a devil of a night as this? You have a room
to let, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Well: open the door, or blood and 'oons I'll bite your nose off!"
Ewen hastened to undo the door; and then, all wet and dripping as if
he had just been fished up from the Moray Firth, there entered a
strange-looking old fellow in a red coat; he stumped vigorously on a
wooden leg, and carried on his shoulders a box, which he flung down
with a crash that shook the dwelling, saying,--
"There--dam you--I have made good my billet at last."
"So it seems," said Ewen, reclosing the door in haste to exclude the
tempest, lest his house should be unroofed and torn asunder.
"Harkee, comrade, what garrison or fortress is this," asked the
visitor, "that peaceable folks are to be challenged in this fashion,
and forced to give parole and countersign before they march in--eh?"
"It is my house, comrade; and so you had better keep a civil tongue
in your head."
"Civil tongue? Fire and smoke, you mangy cur! I can be as civil as
my neighbours; but get me a glass of grog, for I am as wet as we were
the night before Minden."
"Where have you come from in such a storm as this?"
"Where you'd not like to go--so never mind; but, grog, I tell
you--get me some grog, and a bit of tobacco; it is long since I
tasted either."
Ewen hastened to get a large quaighful of stiff Glenlivat, which the
veteran drained to his health, and that of Meinie; but first he gave
them a most diabolical grin, and threw into the liquor some black
stuff, saying,--
"I always mix my grog with gunpowder--it's a good tonic; I learned
that of a comrade who fell at Minden on the glorious 1st of August,
'59.
"You have been a soldier, then?"
"Right! I was one of the 25th, or old Edinburgh Regiment; they
enlisted me, though an Englishman, I believe; for my good old dam was
a follower of the camp."
"Our number was the 26th--the old Cameronian Regiment--so we were
near each other, you see, comrade."
"Nearer than you would quite like, mayhap," said Wooden-leg, with
another grin and a dreadful oath.
"And you have served in Germany?" asked Ewen.
"Germany--aye, and marched over every foot of it, from Hanover to
Hell, and back again. I have fought in Flanders, too."
"I wish you had come a wee while sooner," said Ewen gravely, for this
discourse startled his sense of propriety.
"Sooner," snarled this shocking old fellow, who must have belonged to
that army, "which swore so terribly in Flanders," as good Uncle Toby
says; "sooner--for what?"
"To have heard me read a chapter, and to have joined us in prayer."
"Prayers be d--ned!" cried the other, with a shout of laughter, and a
face expressive of fiendish mockery, as he gave his wooden leg a
thundering blow on the floor; "fire and smoke--another glass of
grog--and then we'll settle about my billet upstairs."
While getting another dram, which hospitality prevented him from
refusing, Ewen scrutinised this strange visitor, whose aspect and
attire were very remarkable; but wholly careless of what any one
thought, he sat by the hearth, wringing his wet wig, and drying it at
the fire.
He was a little man, of a spare, but strong and active figure, which
indicated great age; his face resembled that of a rat; behind it hung
a long queue that waved about like a pendulum when he moved his head,
which was quite bald, and smooth as a cricket-ball, save where a long
and livid scar--evidently a sword cut--traversed it. This was
visible while he sat drying his wig; but as that process was somewhat
protracted, he uttered an oath, and thrust his cocked hat on one side
of his head, and very much over his left eye, which was covered by a
patch. This head-dress was the old military triple-cocked hat, bound
with yellow braid, and having on one side the hideous black leather
cockade of the House of Hanover, now happily disused in the British
army, and retained as a badge of service by liverymen alone. His
attire was an old threadbare red coat, faced with yellow, having
square tails and deep cuffs, with braided holes; he wore
knee-breeches on his spindle shanks, one of which terminated, as I
have said, in a wooden pin; he carried a large knotted stick; and, in
outline and aspect, very much resembled, as Ewen thought, Frederick
the Great of Prussia, or an old Chelsea pensioner, or the soldiers he
had seen delineated in antique prints of the Flemish wars. His
solitary orb possessed a most diabolical leer, and, whichever way you
turned, it seemed to regard you with the fixed glare of a basilisk.
"You are a stranger hereabout, I presume?" said Ewen drily.
"A stranger now, certainly; but I was pretty well known in this
locality once. There are some bones buried hereabout that may
remember me," he replied, with a grin that showed his fangless jaws.
"Bones!" reiterated Ewen, aghast.
"Yes, bones--Culloden Muir lies close by here, does it not?"
"It does--then you have travelled this road before?"
"Death and the Devil! I should think so, comrade; on this very night
sixty years ago I marched along this road, from Nairn to Culloden,
with the army of His Royal Highness, the Great Duke of Cumberland,
Captain-General of the British troops, in pursuit of the rebels under
the Popish Pretender----"
"Under His Royal Highness Prince Charles, you mean, comrade," said
Ewen, in whose breast--Cameronian though he was--a tempest of
Highland wrath and loyalty swelled up at these words.
"Prince--ha! ha! ha!" laughed the other; "had you said as much then,
the gallows had been your doom. Many a man I have shot, and many a
boy I have brained with the butt end of my musket, for no other crime
than wearing the tartan, even as you this night wear it."
Ewen made a forward stride as if he would have taken the wicked
boaster by the throat; his anger was kindled to find himself in
presence of a veritable soldier of the infamous "German Butcher,"
whose merciless massacre of the wounded clansmen and their
defenceless families will never be forgotten in Scotland while oral
tradition and written record exist; but Ewen paused, and said in his
quiet way,--
"Blessed be the Lord! these times and things have passed away from
the land, to return to it no more. We are both old men now; by your
own reckoning, you must at least have numbered four-score years, and
in that, you are by twenty my better man. You are my guest to-night,
moreover, so we must not quarrel, comrade. My father was killed at
Culloden."
"On which side?"
"The right one--for he fell by the side of old Keppoch, and his last
words were, 'Righ Hamish gu Bragh!'"
"Fire and smoke!" laughed the old fellow, "I remember these things as
if they only happened yesterday--mix me some more grog and put it in
the bill--I was the company's butcher in those days--it suited my
taste--so when I was not stabbing and slashing the sheep and cattle
of the rascally commissary, I was cutting the throats of the Scots
and French, for there were plenty of them, and Irish too, who fought
against the king's troops in Flanders. We had hot work, that day at
Culloden--hotter than at Minden, where we fought in heavy marching
order, with our blankets, kettles, and provisions, on a broiling
noon, when the battle-field was cracking under a blazing sun, and the
whole country was sweltering like the oven of the Great Baker."
"Who is he?"
"What! you don't know him? Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho! come, that is
good."
Ewen expostulated with the boisterous old fellow on this style of
conversation, which, as you may easily conceive, was very revolting
to the prejudices of a well-regulated Cameronian soldier.
"Come, come, you old devilskin," cried the other, stirring up the
fire with his wooden leg, till the sparks flashed and gleamed like
his solitary eye; "you may as well sing psalms to a dead horse, as
preach to me. Hark how the thunder roars, like the great guns at
Carthagena! More grog--put it in the bill--or, halt, d--me! pay
yourself," and he dashed on the table a handful of silver of the
reigns of George II., and the Glencoe assassin, William of Orange.
He obtained more whiskey, and drank it raw, seasoning it from time to
time with gunpowder, just as an Arab does his cold water with ginger.
"Where did you lose your eye, comrade?"
"At Culloden; but I found the fellow who pinked me, next day, as he
lay bleeding on the field; he was a Cameron, in a green velvet
jacket, all covered with silver; so I stripped off his lace, as I had
seen my mother do, and then I brained him with the butt-end of
brown-bess--and before his wife's eyes, too! What the deuce do you
growl at, comrade? Such things will happen in war, and you know that
orders must be obeyed. My eye was gone--but it was the left one, and
I was saved the trouble of closing it when taking aim. This slash on
the sconce I got at the battle of Preston Pans, from the Celt who
slew Colonel Gardiner."
"That Celt was my father--the Miller of Invernahyle," said Meinie,
proudly.
"Your father! fire and smoke! do you say so? His hand was a heavy
one!" cried Wooden-leg, while his eye glowed like the orb of a hyæna.
"And your leg?"
"I lost at Minden, in Kingsley's Brigade, comrade; aye, my
leg--d--n!--that was indeed a loss."
"A warning to repentance, I would say."
"Then you would say wrong. Ugh! I remember when the shot--a
twelve-pounder--took me just as we were rushing with charged bayonets
on the French cannoniers. Smash! my leg was gone, and I lay
sprawling and bleeding in a ploughed field near the Weser, while my
comrades swept over me with a wild hurrah! the colours waving, and
drums beating a charge."
"And what did you do?"
"I lay there and swore, believe me."
"That would not restore your limb again."
"No; but a few hearty oaths relieve the mind; and the mind relieves
the body; you understand me, comrade; so there I lay all night under
a storm of rain like this, bleeding and sinking; afraid of the knives
of the plundering death-hunters, for my mother had been one, and I
remembered well how she looked after the wounded, and cured them of
their agony."
"Was your mother one of those infer----" began MacEwen.
"Don't call her hard names now, comrade; she died on the day after
the defeat at Val; with the Provost Marshal's cord round her neck--a
cordon less ornamental than that of St. Louis."
"And your father?"
"Was one of Howard's Regiment; but which the devil only knows, for it
was a point on which the old lady, honest woman, had serious doubts
herself."
"After the loss of your leg, of course you left the service?"
"No, I became the company's butcher; but, fire and smoke, get me
another glass of grog; take a share yourself, and don't sit staring
at me like a Dutch Souterkin conceived of a winter night over a 'pot
de feu,' as all the world knows King William was. Dam! let us be
merry together--ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! and I'll sing you a song of
the old whig times."
"'O, brother Sandie, hear ye the news,
Lillibulero, bullen a la!
An army is coming sans breeches and shoes,
Lillibulero, bullen a la!
"'To arms! to arms! brave boys to arms!
A true British cause for your courage doth ca';
Country and city against a kilted banditti,
Lillibulero, bullen a la!'"
And while he continued to rant and sing the song (once so obnoxious
to the Scottish Cavaliers), he beat time with his wooden leg, and
endeavoured to outroar the stormy wind and the hiss of the drenching
rain. Even MacEwen, though he was an old soldier, felt some
uneasiness, and Meinie trembled in her heart, while the children
clung to her skirts and hid their little faces, as if this singing,
riot, and jollity were impious at such a time, when the awful thunder
was ringing its solemn peals across the midnight sky.