THE PHANTOM REGIMENT--THE MIDNIGHT MARCH.
This queer old fellow (continued the quartermaster) was always in a
state of great excitement, and used an extra number of oaths, and
mixed his grog more thickly with gunpowder when a stray red coat
appeared far down the long green glen, which was crossed by Ewen's
lonely toll-bar. Then he would get into a prodigious fuss and
bustle, and was wont to pack and cord his trunk, to brush up his
well-worn and antique regimentals, and to adjust his queue and the
black cockade of his triple-cornered hat, as if preparing to depart.
As the time of that person's wished-for departure drew nigh, Ewen
took courage, and shaking off the timidity with which the swearing
and boisterous fury of Wooden-leg had impressed him, he ventured to
expostulate a little on the folly and sin of his unmeaning oaths, and
the atrocity of the crimes he boasted of having committed.
But the wicked old Wooden-leg laughed and swore more than ever,
saying that a "true soldier was never a religious one."
"You are wrong, comrade," retorted the old Cameronian, taking fire at
such an assertion; "religion is the lightest burden a poor soldier
can carry; and, moreover, it hath upheld me on many a long day's
march, when almost sinking under hunger and fatigue, with my pack,
kettle, and sixty rounds of ball ammunition on my back. The duties
of a good and brave soldier are no way incompatible with those of a
Christian man; and I never lay down to rest on the wet bivouac or
bloody field, with my knapsack, or it might be a dead comrade, for a
pillow, without thanking God----"
"Ha, ha, ha!"
"--The God of Scotland's covenanted Kirk for the mercies he
vouchsafed to Ewen Mac Ewen, a poor grenadier of the 26th Regiment."
"Ho, ho, ho!"
The old Cameronian took off his bonnet and lifted up his eyes, as he
spoke fervently, and with the simple reverence of the olden time; but
Wooden-leg grinned and chuckled and gnashed his teeth as Ewen resumed.
"A brave soldier may rush to the cannon's mouth, though it be loaded
with grape and cannister; or at a line of levelled bayonets--and rush
fearlessly too--and yet he may tremble, without shame, at the thought
of hell, or of offended Heaven. Is it not so, comrade? I shall
never forget the words of our chaplain before we stormed the Isles of
Saba and St. Martin from the Dutch, with Admiral Rodney, in '81."
"Bah--that was after I was killed by the Cherokees. Well?"
"The Cameronians were formed in line, mid leg in the salt water, with
bayonets fixed, the colours flying, the pipes playing and drums
beating 'Britons strike home,' and our chaplain, a reverend minister
of God's word, stood beside the colonel with the shot and shell from
the Dutch batteries flying about his old white head, but he was cool
and calm, for he was the grandson of Richard Cameron, the glorious
martyr of Airdsmoss.
"'Fear not, my bairns,' cried he (he aye called us his bairns, having
ministered unto us for fifty years and more)--'fear not; but remember
that the eyes of the Lord are on every righteous soldier, and that
His hand will shield him in the day of battle!'
"'Forward, my lads,' cried the colonel, waving his broad sword, while
the musket shot shaved the curls of his old brigadier wig; 'forward,
and at them with your bayonets;' and bravely we fell on--eight
hundred Scotsmen, shoulder to shoulder--and in half an hour the
British flag was waving over the Dutchman's Jack on the ramparts of
St. Martin."
But to all Ewen's exordiums, the Wooden-leg replied by oaths, or
mockery, or his incessant laugh,--
"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!"
At last came the long-wished for twenty-sixth of April!
The day was dark and louring. The pine woods looked black, and the
slopes of the distant hills seemed close and near, and yet gloomy
withal. The sky was veiled by masses of hurrying clouds, which
seemed to chase each other across the Moray Firth. That estuary was
flecked with foam, and the ships were riding close under the lee of
the Highland shore, with topmasts struck, their boats secured, and
both anchors out, for everything betokened a coming storm.
And with night it came in all its fury;--a storm similar to that of
the preceding year.
The fierce and howling wind swept through the mountain gorges, and
levelled the lonely shielings, whirling their fragile roofs into the
air, and uprooting strong pines and sturdy beeches; the water was
swept up from the Loch of the Clans, and mingled with the rain which
drenched the woods around it. The green and yellow lightning played
in ghastly gleams about the black summit of Dun Daviot, and again the
rolling thunder bellowed over the graves of the dead on the bleak,
dark moor of Culloden. Attracted by the light in the windows of the
toll house, the red deer came down from the hills in herds and
cowered near the little dwelling; while the cries of the affrighted
partridges, blackcocks, and even those of the gannets from the Moray
Firth were heard at times, as they were swept past, with branches,
leaves, and stones, on the skirts of the hurrying blast.
"It is just such a storm as we had this night twelvemonths ago," said
Meinie, whose cheek grew pale at the elemental uproar.
"There will be no one coming up the glen to-night," replied Ewen; "so
I may as well secure the toll-bar, lest a gust should dash it to
pieces."
It required no little skill or strength to achieve this in such a
tempest; the gate was strong and heavy, but it was fastened at last,
and Ewen retreated to his own fireside. Meanwhile, during all this
frightful storm without, Wooden-leg was heard singing and carolling
up-stairs, stumping about in the lulls of the tempest, and rolling,
pushing, and tumbling his chest from side to side; then he descended
to get a fresh can of grog--for "grog, grog, grog," was ever his cry.
His old withered face was flushed, and his excited eye shone like a
baleful star. He was conscious that a great event would ensue.
Ewen felt happy in his soul that his humble home should no longer be
the resting-place of this evil bird whom the last tempest had blown
hither.
"So you leave us to-morrow, comrade?" said he.
"I'll march before daybreak," growled the other; "'twas our old
fashion in the days of Minden. Huske and Hawley always marched off
in the dark."
"Before daybreak?"
"Fire and smoke, I have said so, and you shall see; for my friends
are on the march already; but good night, for I shall have to parade
betimes. They come; though far, far off as yet."
He retired with one of his diabolical leers, and Ewen and his wife
ensconced themselves in the recesses of their warm box-bed; Meinie
soon fell into a sound sleep, though the wind continued to howl, the
rain to lash against the trembling walls of the little mansion, and
the thunder to hurl peal after peal across the sky of that dark and
tempestuous night.
The din of the elements and his own thoughts kept Ewen long awake;
but though the gleams of electric light came frequent as ever through
the little window, the glow of the "gathering peat" sank lower on the
hearth of hard-beaten clay, and the dull measured tick-tack of the
drowsy clock as it fell on the drum of his ear, about midnight, was
sending him to sleep, by the weariness of its intense monotony, when
from a dream that the fierce hawk eye of his malevolent lodger was
fixed upon him, he started suddenly to full consciousness. An uproar
of tongues now rose and fell upon the gusts of wind without; and he
heard an authoritative voice requiring the toll-bar to be opened.
Overhead rang the stumping of the Wooden-lag, whose hoarse voice was
heard bellowing in reply from the upper window.
"The Lord have a care of us!" muttered Mac Ewen, as he threw his kilt
and plaid round him, thrust on his bonnet and brogues, and hastened
to the door, which was almost blown in by the tempest as he opened it.
The night was as dark, and the hurricane as furious as ever; but how
great was Ewen's surprise to see the advanced guard of a corps of
Grenadiers, halted at the toll-bar gate, which he hastened to unlock,
and the moment he did so, it was torn off its iron hooks and swept up
the glen like a leaf from a book, or a lady's handkerchief; as with
an unearthly howling the wind came tearing along in fitful and
tremendous gusts, which made the strongest forests stoop, and dashed
the struggling coasters on the rocks of the Firth--the Æstuarium
Vararis of the olden time.
As the levin brands burst in lurid fury overhead, they seemed to
strike fire from the drenched rocks, the dripping trees, and the long
line of flooded roadway, that wound through the pastoral glen towards
Culloden.
The advanced guard marched on in silence with arms slung; and Ewen,
to prevent himself from being swept away by the wind, clung with both
hands to a stone pillar of the bar-gate, that he might behold the
passage of this midnight regiment, which approached in firm and
silent order in sections of twelve files abreast, all with muskets
slung. The pioneers were in front, with their leather aprons, axes,
saws, bill-hooks, and hammers; the band was at the head of the
column; the drums, fifes, and colours were in the centre; the
captains were at the head of their companies; the subalterns on the
reverse flank, and the field-officers were all mounted on black
chargers, that curvetted and pranced like shadows, without a sound.
Slowly they marched, but erect and upright, not a man of them seeming
to stoop against the wind or rain, while overhead the flashes of the
broad and blinding lightning were blazing like a ghastly torch, and
making every musket-barrel, every belt-plate, sword-blade, and
buckle, gleam as this mysterious corps filed through the barrier,
with who? Wooden-leg among them!
By the incessant gleams Ewen could perceive that they were
Grenadiers, and wore the quaint old uniform of George II.'s time; the
sugar-loaf-shaped cap of red cloth embroidered with worsted; the
great square-tailed red coat with its heavy cuffs and close-cut
collar; the stockings rolled above the knee, and enormous
shoe-buckles. They carried grenade-pouches; the officers had
espontoons; the sergeants shouldered heavy halberds, and the coats of
the little drum-boys were covered with fantastic lace.
It was not the quaint and antique aspect of this solemn battalion
that terrified Ewen, or chilled his heart; but the ghastly expression
of their faces, which were pale and hollow-eyed, being, to all
appearance, the visages of spectres; and they marched past like a
long and wavering panorama, without a sound; for though the wind was
loud, and the rain was drenching, neither could have concealed the
measured tread of so many mortal feet; but there was no footfall
heard on the roadway, nor the tramp of a charger's hoof; the regiment
defiled past, noiseless as a wreath of smoke.
The pallor of their faces, and the stillness which accompanied their
march, were out of the course of nature; and the soul of Mac Ewen
died away within him; but his eyes were riveted upon the marching
phantoms--if phantoms, indeed, they were--as if by fascination; and,
like one in a terrible dream, he continued to gaze until the last
files were past; and with them rode a fat and full-faced officer,
wearing a three-cocked hat, and having a star and blue ribbon on his
breast. His face was ghastly like the rest, and dreadfully
distorted, as if by mental agony and remorse. Two aides-de-camps
accompanied him, and he rode a wild-looking black horse, whose eyes
shot fire. At the neck of the fat spectre--for a spectre he really
seemed--hung a card.
It was the Nine of Diamonds!
The whole of this silent and mysterious battalion passed in line of
march up the glen, with the gleams of lightning flashing about them.
One bolt more brilliant than the rest brought back the sudden flash
of steel.
They had fixed bayonets, and shouldered arms!
And on, and on they marched, diminishing in the darkness and the
distance, those ghastly Grenadiers, towards the flat bleak moor of
Culloden, with the green lightning playing about them, and gleaming
on the storm-swept waste.
The Wooden-leg--Ewen's unco' guest--disappeared with them, and was
never heard of more in Strathnairn.
He had come with a tempest, and gone with one. Neither was any trace
ever seen or heard of those strange and silent soldiers. No regiment
had left Nairn that night, and no regiment reached Inverness in the
morning; so unto this day the whole affair remains a mystery, and a
subject for ridicule with some, although Ewen, whose story of the
midnight march of a corps in time of war--caused his examination by
the authorities in the Castle of Inverness--stuck manfully to his
assertions, which were further corroborated by the evidence of his
wife and children. He made a solemn affidavit of the circumstances I
have related before the sheriff, whose court books will be found to
confirm them in every particular; if not, it is the aforesaid
sheriff's fault, and not mine.
There were not a few (but these were generally old Jacobite ladies of
decayed Highland families, who form the gossiping tabbies and
wall-flowers of the Northern Meeting) who asserted that in their
young days they had heard of such a regiment marching by night, once
a year to the field of Culloden; for it is currently believed by the
most learned on such subjects in the vicinity of the "Clach na
Cudden," that on the anniversary of the sorrowful battle, a certain
place, which shall be nameless, opens, and that the restless souls of
the murderers of the wounded clansmen march in military array to the
green graves upon the purple heath, in yearly penance; and this story
was thought to receive full corroboration by the apparition of a fat
lubberly spectre with the nine of diamonds chained to his neck; as it
was on that card--since named the Curse of Scotland--the Duke of
Cumberland hastily pencilled the savage order to "show no quarter to
the wounded, but to slaughter all."
Such was the story of our old Highland Quartermaster.