I
1740
How Angus McDonald of Clanranald and I set out for the Scots College
in Rome; how we fell in with Mr. O'Rourke and Manuel the Jew, and
with the latter saw strange company in Leghorn; how we were presented
to Captain Creach, "of the Regiment Irlandia," at the Inn of
Aquapendente, and what befel thereafter.
"Hoot!" snorted my Uncle Scottos, with much contempt, "make a lad
like that into a priest! Look at the stuff there is in him for a
soldier!"
Without waiting for a reply, he roared: "Here, mogh Radhan dubh! (my
little black darling), shew your father how you can say your
Pater-noster with a single-stick!" At which he caught up a stout rod
for himself, and, throwing me a lighter one, we saluted, and at it we
went hammer and tongs.
I suppose my Uncle was a bit discomposed with his argument, for he
was one ill to bear contradiction, even in thought, and so forgot I
was but a lad, for he pushed me hard, making me fairly wince under
his shrewd cuts, and ruffling me with his half-angry shouts of "Mind
your guard!" each time he got in at me, until before long the
punishment was so severe I was out of breath, my wrist half broken,
and I was forced to cry "Pax!" Indeed, I was so ruffled I made but a
poor shewing, and my father laughed heartily at my discomfiture.
"Well, well, Donald," he said, in reply to my Uncle's argument, "I'll
at least promise you his schooling will not be any harder than that
you would put him at."
"Perhaps not," answered my Uncle, still in some little heat, "but
mine is at least the schooling of a gentleman! However, thank God,
they cannot take that out of him in Rome, whatever else they may
stuff into him. Man! man!" he broke out again, after a moment's
pause, "but you're wasting the making of a pretty soldier!"
And he looked so gallant as he stood there before the big fireplace,
full of scorn for the ignoble fate he dreaded might be in store for
me, that my heart swelled with a great pity for myself, and for my
father too, who should be so bent on sending me to Rome, so far away
from my Uncle, who knew so many pretty turns with the sword I might
learn from no other, and so many songs I might never sing now.
For I worshipped my Uncle, Donald McDonell of Scottos, but always
known as "Scottos," as is our custom; he was called The Younger, not
to belittle him, but because my Grandfather, old Æneas of Scottos,
was still alive. He had been in France and Spain and Italy, first as
a cadet and afterwards as ensign in Colonel Walter Burke's regiment
of foot, one of the regiments of the Irish Brigade serving under the
Duke of Berwick, and many a night have I been kept awake with his
stories of their engagements at Cremona, Alicant, Barcelona, and
other places--how they beat, and sometimes how they were beaten--till
I knew the different Dillons and Butlers and McDonells and O'Rourkes,
and other gentlemen of the regiment, not only by name, but as though
I had met with them face to face. He had no great love for the
Church, for he hated the sight of a priest, and was continually
railing against my being sent to Rome lest they should make a "Black
Petticoat" of me.
"That 'a McDonell must be either a soldier or a priest' may be a very
good saying in its way," he went on to my father, for there was no
interruption in their talk, "but mark you which comes first! If all
our forebears had bred but little shavelings, and no soldiers, where
would the McDonell family be now, think you? 'Tis not in reason you
should give up your one son for the sake of an old saw, like enough
made by some priest himself. If one of mine chooses to take to it,
he will not be missed out of the flock; but depend upon it, brother,
God never gave you this one to waste in this way. Let me train him
until he is ready to go abroad into the service, and I'll answer for
it to stand him in better stead than all the tingle-fangle whimseys
they'll teach him in Rome!"
But my father only smiled in his quiet way, and said in his low, soft
voice, so different from my Uncle's:
"Donald, Donald, you witch the lad! You have my word that when the
time comes he shall be free in his choice; but, priest or soldier,
he'll be no worse the gentleman for a little of the book-learning you
make so light of. Now, say good-bye to your Uncle, lad, and we'll be
off."
As we rode homewards, I on the saddle before him, my father talked
all the way of what my going to Rome would really mean. He told me
of the Scots College there, what it looked like, where his room
was--"and there, if they have not whitewashed the wall, Shonaidh,
which may well be the case, you'll find written near the head of my
bed:
"'Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,
'Tis fifty fathoms deep;
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
With the Scots lords at his feet.'
That I wrote one afternoon at the siesta when my heart was big and I
was wearying for home, as you may do, and I thought I heard my mother
singing, and wrote down the old words for my comfort. Perhaps you'll
find them there still," he added, slowly, as if he were back in the
old days rather than talking to me.
"And, Shonaidh," he went on, after a little, "just when your heart
fails you is the time to play the soldier as truly as if you had a
broadsword in your hand. Homesick you'll be--I'd be sorry for you if
you were not--but remember, I went through it all before you, and,
though I have done nothing for it, my time in the old Scots College
was the best gift my father ever gave me. If God wills it, you will
be a priest, but neither I nor yet the Rector will force you. You
are going under the care of one of the best of men, a nobleman and
one whose slightest word you should be proud to treasure; and,
remember, the first duty of a gentleman who would some day command is
to learn to obey."
And so on as we rode; he told me much, much more than I had ever
known, of all he had done and all he had hoped to do as a boy, but he
had given up his own plans that his brother Scottos might go to serve
under the Duke of Berwick in Spain; how, though he had borne himself
therein as a brave and gallant gentleman, the fighting abroad had
brought nothing to those at home, and, after the disappointment of
1715, how he had no longer heart for foreign service, for he was
committed to the Royal Cause beyond everything, and so remained at
home in spite of danger, hoping for the day when the King would come
again.
He warned me that I must not make too much of my Uncle's railings
against the Church, for he had seen many things in Spain that were in
a measure hard to see, and, whatever were his words, he was a good
son of the Church, and in his heart did not believe his own
sayings--which made me wonder, I remember, why my father should so
punish me for lying--and so on until we reached Crowlin, as our house
was known.
It was in the month of August when I left home, I being just twelve
years of age, and Angus McDonald of Clanranald, who was to be my
comrade, fourteen. He was a much bigger lad than I, and at home
could handle me readily enough, but from being so much with my Uncle
Scottos, who was never done talking of what he had seen in foreign
parts, I was in a measure travelled, and no sooner were we out of the
country than Angus gave the lead to me, which I kept in all the years
we were together.
My Grandfather, Æneas of Scottos, gave me his blessing and a bright
new guinea and much good advice; my father kissed me fondly, and,
with many a direction for the road, gave me a letter to Father
Urbani, the Rector in Rome; my sister Margaret hung about my neck and
refused to be comforted; but at last, with a cousin of Clanranald's
and a party of their people, we started for Edinburgh.
My Uncle Scottos rode with us as far as Inchlaggan, and when we said
good-bye he commanded me, sternly, "Don't let them make a little
priest of you, Shonaidh, or I'll baste you with a wooden sword when
you come home!" Then he swore somewhat in Spanish and kissed me on
both cheeks, and rode off with his head down, waving his hand at the
top of the hill, though he never looked back.
Our stay in Edinburgh with Bishop Hay, and our journey to Boulogne
and thence to Father Innes, of the Scots College in Paris, with whom
we lodged for three weeks, produced nothing of interest; indeed, we
did not fall in with much I can now recall until we drove into
Marseilles and were there lodged in the house of the Benedictins.
Here we saw much to wonder at--soldiers in uniforms, sailors in
petticoats, galley-slaves in chains, Jews in gabardines, and others
dressed in such outlandish habits we could not help staring at them,
though had we worn our own Highland clothes I do not believe any
would have remarked on us; and we heard, I doubt not, every language
on earth save the Gaelic, which is but little spread beyond the
Highlands.
A more lively people than the Marseilles would be hard to meet. On
the quay one evening we marked a fellow carrying something like a
long, narrow drum, which he tapped with his fingers as he strolled.
Presently he stopped at a clear space, and, drawing a little pipe
from under his arm, began to play both instruments at once cleverly
enough. Hardly had he begun before the crowd gathered round, and on
some lusty fellow setting up a shout and leaping into the middle of
the space and holding forth his hand, it was caught by one, who in
turn invited another, and then another, while from the tavern
opposite rushed men and women fairly tumbling over one another in
their haste, laughing and shouting as they came, till all were at it,
footing it merrily as they swung in and out and twisted and turned in
a long tail. Round the posts, jumping over the ropes that held the
vessels fast, then across the street and into the tavern by one door
and out at another into the street again, with such mad laughing and
singing and holding forth of hands that Angus and I could stand it no
longer, and so caught hold; and, though we could speak no word of
their language, we could laugh as hard in English and give as wild
skreighs in Gaelic and foot it as lightly as any of them. It was a
grand ploy, and only ended when we were all out of breath.
Provided with money sufficient to carry us to Rome, we took passage
for Leghorn, or Livorno, as they call it, in a fair-sized barque, but
the dirt and the evil smells on board disgusted us beyond measure,
and we almost longed for the bone-breaking coaches again. However,
we were not long aboard before we fell in with a tall, decent man, a
Mr. O'Rourke by name, who was an Irishman, on his way to finish his
studies as a priest at the Propaganda in Rome, but the merriest and
best-natured man I had ever seen. He was bigger and broader and had
a greater hand and foot than any one else on board.