Chapter IV: Part 4

He was clad in his white undress-jacket and kilt, and stood bareheaded, with his bonnet in his hand. He was pale and emaciated with long confinement, but his bearing was firm and as soldier-like as ever. His eyes seemed unusually bright, and at times a red flush crossed his otherwise deadly pale cheek. There were two aged monks from the San Ferdinando convent of Candeleria present, but the Highlander refused to hear or communicate with them. Yet the honest friars were determined not to abandon him in his last hour, and withdrawing to a little distance, they placed a crucifix against a fragment of rock and prayed earnestly, with true catholic fervour, to that all-wise Power above, before which the soul of one they deemed a heretic was so soon to appear.

There was no chaplain present with the troops; but the prisoner was attended by the venerable Dugald-Mhor, who walked slowly beside him bare-headed, with his bonnet under his arm. He read portions of the Scripture from an old dog-eared bible, which he produced from his _sporran molloch_; and the low solemn tones in which he read could be distinctly heard by all, so very still was the place; and as the hand of the village-clock approached the hour at which the soldier was to die, a deeper sadness fell upon the hearts of the beholders, who, although long accustomed to all the heart-harrowing scenes of war, had never before witnessed a death in so solemn and peculiar a manner.

Mackie and his attendant sung together the hymn--

"The hour of my departure's come," &c.

and when it was concluded, the hand of the clock on the alcalde's house wanted but five minutes of the hour. The soldier cast a hasty glance towards it, and, falling upon his knees, covered his face with his hands and burst out into an agony of prayer, from which he was only aroused by the seven strokes of the last hour he would ever hear on earth striking from the dull-toned bell.

His last moment was come!

When the sound ceased, Cameron of Fassifern and his field-officers dismounted from their horses, which were led away, and the provost-marshal drew up a section of twelve soldiers opposite where the prisoner yet knelt on the turf.

Many of his comrades now took their last farewell of him; and Evan Iverach, to whom he had given seven pounds, saved from his pay while prisoner at Coria, to send to his parents at Braemar, retired to his place in the ranks with tearless eyes, because Evan had a mistaken idea, that to have shown signs of deep emotion would have been unmanly. But that night, in his billet, honest Evan wept like a woman for the loss of his comrade and friend. During the bandaging of Mackie's eyes, Fassifern took off his bonnet, and kneeling down, commanded his regiment to do so likewise. As one man the Highlanders bent their bare knees to the sod, joining, as they did so, in the solemn psalm which Dugald and the prisoner had begun to sing. It was a sad and mournful Scottish air, one which every Scotsman present had been accustomed to hear sung in their village kirks or fathers' cottages in boyhood. It softened and subdued their hearts, carrying back their recollections to their childhood, and to years that had passed away into eternity. Many heard it chanted then for the first time since their native hills had faded from their sight, and as the strain died away through the deep and narrow vale of Banos, it found an echo in every breast.

Dugald closed his bible, and, placing a handkerchief in the hand of the prisoner, withdrew, and covering his wrinkled face with his bonnet, knelt down also. Now came the duty of the provost-marshal, whose unwilling detachment consisted of twelve picked men, of disorderly character, on whom, as a punishment, fell the lot of slaying their comrade.

With his eyes blindfolded, the unfortunate Highlander knelt down between his coffin and his grave, and, without quivering once, dropped his handkerchief.

"Section!" cried the provost-marshal, "'ready--present--_fire_!" The words followed each other in rapid succession, and the echoes of the death-shot were reverberated like thunder among the hills around. A shriek burst from the females of the village. Red blood was seen to spout forth from many a wound in the form of the prisoner; he sprung convulsively upwards, and then fell backward dead on the damp gravel, which was so soon to cover him.

The hearts of all began to beat more freely; but at that moment the red sun sank behind the darkening hills, and a deeper gloom enveloped Banos, the effect of which was not lost on the minds of the beholders.

All was over now! The corse lay stretched on the ground, and the smoke of the musquetry was curling around the grave which yawned beside it. Cameron sprung on his horse, and his voice was the first to break the oppressive silence. The shrill pipes sounded, and the rattling drums beat merrily in the re-echoing vale, as corps after corps marched past the spot where the body of Mackie, though breathless, lay yet bleeding, and moved up the winding pathway towards the pass of Banos, whence by different routes they marched to their cantonments in the villages and camps among the mountains. When all had passed away, the pioneers placed the dead man in his coffin, and covered him hurriedly up; the sods were carefully deposited over and beaten down with the shovel, and the grave of the man who had been living but ten minutes before, presented now the same appearance as the resting-place of one who had been many years entombed. The weeds and the long grass waved over it.

The village _paisanos_ placed a rough wooden cross above it, to prevent, as they said, "the heretic from haunting the resting-place of his bones;" and near this rude emblem was placed a vine, which Evan Iverach tended daily--clearing its root of weeds and encumbrances, watching and pruning the stem, and long before the regiment left Banos he had twined it around and hidden the limbs of the cross; and when the Highlanders marched from the valley, as they wound through a deep defile among the mountains Evan's farewell look was cast to the place where the vine-covered cross marked the grave of his comrade.

*CHAPTER V.*

*AN ADVENTURE. A HIGHLAND LEGEND.*

"And such a phantom, too, 'tis said,
With Highland broad-sword, targe and plaid,
And fingers red with gore,
Is seen in Rothiemurchus glade."
_Marmion._

Before the regiment left Banos to take the field again, Ronald had an unlooked-for adventure with a fierce denizen of the neighbouring mountains, which nearly cost him his life.

There was a certain part of the hills, from which the valley of Banos strongly resembled his native place, Strathonan, but on a much smaller scale; and thither Stuart was in the habit of repairing almost daily, to indulge freely in those long reveries so usual to a Highlander, and enjoy the beauty of the prospect which bore so near a resemblance to his home. A slight effort of the imagination made it at once Strathonan, near the source of that celebrated trout-stream, the Isla; but the sound of the guitar and castanets came on the wind instead of the war-pipe of Albyn, and destroyed the illusion. There were neither bucks nor roes bounding over the mountain-slope; and instead of the plaided shepherd or agile huntsman starting from the copsewood, a lazy yet handsome Spanish peasant appeared at times, sauntering slowly along, clad in his short brown jacket tied round the waist by a broad yellow scarf, leather gaiters bound with red thongs, a cigar in his mouth, a staff in his hand, and a stiletto in his girdle. Often did a figure wearing this romantic dress, or enveloped in a huge brown mantle, appear on the solitary pathways of the hills. Far down below, on the village green, instead of the lively strathspey or martial gilliechallium,[*] the graceful fandango or bolero was danced by the athletic _paisanos_ and olive-cheeked girls of the valley.

[*] Sword dance.

His patron had often warned him of the danger which he incurred, by wandering so far among mountains so much infested by wolves; but Stuart always considered himself safe enough, as he never went without his sword and dirk. His host acquainted him with many wonderful tales of men having been killed and devoured by them among the wild places; and said that, within his recollection, nearly twenty children had been carried off from the very heart of the village.

"Senor," said he, on one occasion, "you can know little of the nature of the wolf, as perhaps there are none now in your country; but they have the cunning of the fox, together with the strength and ferocity of the tiger. On entering the village in the evening, he moves about with careful and stealthy paces; and when he seizes on a child, grasps it by the throat so as to prevent it giving a single cry, and bears it away to the recesses among the hills. I have known of a lad of fourteen being carried off thus. A man belonging to the village, a brave guerilla of Mina's band, was attacked one evening in the pass of Banos by a band of wolves. He slew three with his rifle and poniard, but the others tore him to fragments. This brought the attention of senores the alcaldes of the valley[*] to the matter, and they offered a reward of eighty reals, or four duros, for each wolf's head brought to their houses, and forthwith war was proclaimed against these fierce inhabitants of the sierras.

[*] Banos is divided into two districts, each ruled by its own alcalde; the northern part of the village lies in Leon, and the southern in Estremadura.

"A dozen hides and heads were brought in weekly, and we continued this dangerous sport until the British entered the valley, when firing in the neighbourhood could no longer be continued. Since we acted upon the offensive, the wolves have become more shy and never enter the vale, but it is death to encounter the herds on their own ground; therefore I would pray you, senor, if you value your own safety, never to wander about as you are pleased to do."

Ronald thanked the worthy vine-dresser for his advice and good-wishes, but laughed at his fears about the wolves, and told him that while he was armed with his sword, he considered himself secure against any such antagonists; and so continued to ramble about as usual.

One evening, while he was surveying the valley from his old post when the sun was setting, he became overpowered with the heat of the atmosphere and the fatigue of a long walk, and fell fast asleep beside a rude wooden cross, erected to mark the spot where the only _abogado_ who ever appeared in Banos had been poniarded by his first client for unfair dealing. How long Stuart slept there he had no idea, but while dreaming that he had that worthy clerk to the royal signet, Mr. Macquirk, among the mountains of Banos, even close to the abogado's cross, and was about to take summary vengeance upon him for the manner in which he had bamboozled and swindled the old gentleman at Lochisla, he was awakened in a very disagreeable manner by something grasping him roughly by the throat. With the rapidity of light all the stories he had heard of the wolves flashed upon his memory. He was fully awake in an instant, and found himself grappling and struggling savagely with one of those terrible animals, by moonlight, on a solitary hillside many miles away from the village, where the watch-fires of the guard-houses could be seen twinkling afar off at the bottom of the deep valley, like red stars. His brass gorget and the massive lace, on the collar of the coat, together with a stout military stock, had saved his neck from the fangs of the gigantic wolf, which, by straining every energy of strength and courage, or rather desperation, he grasped with a ferocity almost equal to its own, and retaining his hold, threw upon the turf beside him. Its struggles were terrible, and his hands, which encircled its tough and brawny throat, were torn by its claws; yet he never relaxed his iron clutch until the breath and strength of his antagonist began to fail, and then putting his right hand to his side for his Highland dirk, he remembered with rage and anguish that it was left behind at his billet. The moment was indeed a critical one. Two other wolves were approaching the spot cautiously, and Stuart, remembering how often he had heard of their overpowering man by numbers, considered himself for ever lost. It was like some horrible dream, and his heart became filled with an agony of horror and alarm which it had never known before.

"Heaven help me now!" gasped he. "Ah! had I only my dirk, or even a _skene-dhu_, they would be welcome." He cried aloud for aid, but the cries were feeble, as his tongue was swollen and clove to his palate with the keenness of his terror; and ere the echoes of his last shout died away, he was struggling with the others, and was endeavouring to elude their fangs by rolling over and over, and fighting fiercely with hands and feet. Scarcely had the two wolves come to the aid of their half-burked comrade, ere Stuart imagined that other sounds than the echoes of his cry reverberated through the wilderness. It was--what? the halloo of a true Highland huntsman!

"Hoigh! Diaoul! what's a' this?" cried Dugald Mhor Cameron, plunging headlong among them, with a long dirk gleaming in his right hand and a _skene-dhu_ in his left. One wolf fled, another was pierced thrice to the vitals by Dugald's dirk, and rolled away for several yards, tearing up the earth in rage and agony, until it was finally destroyed by the sharp black knife being drawn across its thick throat by Dugald, who handled it well, being an adroit deer-stalker. The other savage, which had been so gallantly grasped by Ronald, he dispatched by repeated stabs of the dirk, which he drove home to the hilt, sending eighteen inches of cold iron into the body at every stroke. While this passed, poor Stuart, exhausted and overcome, sank backward on the turf, just as Fassifern rode up with his claymore drawn.

"I trust we have not been too late," he cried earnestly, as he leapt from his horse, which had been snorting and shying aside from the scene of the fray. "I am sure, Dugald, we answered to his first cry. He is one of ours; an officer too,--Stuart, by heavens!"

"But for Dugald's prompt and gallant succour, all would have been over with me by this time, colonel," said Ronald, as with difficulty he staggered up from the turf, which was plentifully besprinkled with the blood of his enemies.

"Are you hurt in any way?" was the eager inquiry of both.

"My hands are torn a little; but my sash and coat are all rent to fritters."

"How opportunely Dugald came to save you!"

"Opportune, indeed! I will never be able to repay him for this night's work."

"Ochone! Mr. Stuart," replied the old man, who was cleaning his weapons in his plaid, "dinna say a word about thanks; keep a' them for the kernel there."

"I was coming over the mountains from Candeleria," said Fassifern, "where I have been president of a court-martial. Your cries alarmed us within a few yards of this old cross, and my horse began to snort and rear, refusing to advance a step; but trusty Dugald went headlong on, and with his short weapons, I see, has done you right good service. 'Tis well the matter is no worse, and had the wolves not given you so severe a mauling, Stuart," added the colonel with a smile, as he put his foot in his stirrup, "I should have sent Claude for your sword again. You know you should never be without your arms, or forget the order against strolling more than two miles from camp or quarters. By my word, these were no ordinary foes to contend with, these wolves; they are larger than Highland shelties, and their skins will be a prize for the _paisanos_ in the morning, for Dugald is, of course, too proud to take fee or reward from the alcaldes."

"I have escaped their maws by a miracle," said Stuart, yet gasping with the excitement of the fierce struggle.

"By nae miracle at all, sir," said old Dugald, "by nae miracle; but just by the help o' a teuch auld carle's hand and the bit cauld iron; and I assure your honours, I wad rather face a thoosand rampaugin wolves, than ae kelpie, habgoblin, wraith, spunkie, sheeted ghaist, deadlicht, broonie, or ony ither scrap o' deevildom sae common at name in the Hielands. Hoich, sirs! it was indeed nae sma' matter to cut the weasens o' thae awfu' monsters o' wolves; but," said he, holding aloft his long Highland dagger, which flashed back the rays of the moon, "but that is a blade that has rung on the target o' the _lham-dearg_; and after _that_, what could a bold hand not do wi' it?"

"On the target of who?" asked Ronald.

"The _lham-dearg_, sir."

"The words are Gaelic; but who is he?"

"A spirit wi' a bloody hand, that haunts at the mirk hour the wood o' Glenmore, in the Grants' country."

"What has this to do with your dirk?" said Stuart, who became interested in every thing which looked like a northern legend.

"Pooh!" said Cameron; "'tis an old ghost story, and not one of Dugald's prime ones. But he is as prosy with his legends, as Colin Campbell is about Egypt and Ralph Abercrombie."

"He doesna believe it noo," muttered Dugald, shaking his white hairs sorrowfully; "but when he was a bairn at hame in Fassifern-house, I hae made his vera lugs tingle wi' fear at the name o' the _lham-dearg_, and he used to grane and greet for a licht that he micht see to sleep, as he said; and in thae days he wadna hae gane into a dark place, to be made king o' the braw Highlands frae Castle Grant to Lochaber. But noo wars and campaigning hae learned him to scoff at a' thae matters, though his faither, the laird, (gude guide him!) a man as auld as mysel, believes every word o' them. I daursay, he doesna believe noo that deidlichts burn on the piper's grave in the auld kirk-yaird at hame; or that spunkies and fairies bide in the glen o' Auchnacarry, kelpies in Loch-Archaig, or that the _daoine shie_ haunt the dark holes, cairns, round rings, and unco' places o' the Corrie-nan-gaul in Knoydart, where I mysel hae seen them dancing tulloch-gorm in the bonnie moonlicht."

"Certainly not, Dugald. What I believed when a child, will scarcely pass now for truth; and I believe you never saw any thing unearthly until Ferintosh had swelled your belt to bursting. Come, Dugald, acknowledge this to be true," said Cameron, laughing.

"May be ye'll no believe in the red-cap, that haunts the auld tower at Archaig; and may be no in the vera _taisch_?" said the old servitor in a voice approaching to a groan at the other's apostasy. "Ochone, may be no! although I mysel saw bluid on his hand, and tauld him o' it the day before the shot struck him there at the battle of Arroya del Molino."

"Dugald," said the colonel, "I will not argue with you about the second sight, because I know you have some pretensions to the character of a _taischatr_. You certainly have me at vantage there, and your prediction about the shot at Arroya came true; and exactly twenty-four hours after you said my hand dropped blood, a musquet-shot passed through it. A very singular coincidence indeed."

"It was nane," replied the old Gael firmly, "it was nane; and I saw the shot before it came, because there was a wreath before my een, and a' the power o' the _taisch_ was in me."

"Well, Stuart, what think you of the second sight?"

Ronald was loath to express his disbelief in this superstition, which found a disciple in the colonel, and so hesitated to reply.

"I see you are too true a Highlander to disbelieve in its existence, and yet you are reluctant to acknowledge the truth," said Fassifern laughing, while he mistook the other's meaning. "But let us reach Banos, and over some of the bottled sherry which I lately got from Lisbon we will discuss these matters, and hear Dugald's story of the spirit of Glenmore, which if you are at all superstitious might have too much effect if related by him in Gaelic by moonlight, and on a lonely hill-side."

This proposal was at once accepted, and they began to descend the narrow and winding pathway which led from the rugged summits of the sierra towards the village. Dugald advanced in front, leading the horse of Cameron, who followed behind with Stuart. The latter thanked his stars for escaping from his late encounter so easily, having only sustained a few severe scratches and bruises. While enjoying some of the colonel's pure bottled sherry, a rarity in Spain, where the wine is ever kept in greasy hog-skins, Ronald soon forgot his disagreeable adventure at the abogado's cross. Dugald who, in consideration of his venerable age and relationship to Fassifern (being a fortieth cousin or so), was seated at the table, partook of the wine, and to wile away the time related in Gaelic the Highland legend he had referred to. Many readers may consider it a foolish, perhaps an intrusive tale altogether; but had they heard it far away from home, in a hut at Banos, related in expressive and poetical Gaelic by such a reverend and warrior-looking old man as Dugald Cameron, it would have had a very different effect from what it can ever produce when related in plain and unvarnished English, stripped of all the Ossianic description and style in which Ronald Stuart first heard it.

*The Lham-Dearg*

"My story commences at the close of the fatal,--ay, sirs, I may say the most deplorable battle of Culloden; a battle which laid prostrate, for ever the hopes of a gallant prince, the cause of an illustrious house, and the energies of a brave and loyal people, and proved that _right_ may contend in vain against _might_, and that justice must sometimes yield to the overwhelming majority of brute force. I was then but a wild Highland boy of fifteen, and followed the clan-regiment of the noble Lochiel, upon whom I attended as a sort of page, to carry his target and scabbard on the march. My brave old father, too, was in the battle; and being, in consequence of his relationship to the chief, a front rank man, he greatly distinguished himself in that desperate but unavailing charge we made on the troops of the Elector, after foolishly enduring a cannonade which miserably thinned our numbers. Ah, sirs! had we at first rushed on them with the broad-sword, as was ever our wont, another race would have filled the throne at this hour; but when we did charge, Cumberland's two lines were swept before our long blades like winnowed chaff upon the gale. Even then the day seemed ours, when the fire of the third compelled us to recoil. Ochone! let me think of it no more, for I grow wild at times when the memory of these days swells up in my withered heart, and the dangers, the glory, and the chivalry of the 'forty-five' are all remembered with mingled pride and sorrow. I was but a child then, and yet on that bloody day I shot dead several of Barrel's regiment, while the Camerons were among them, hewing them down like willow-wands with axe and claymore.

"In the rout which followed, I fled away with our wounded chieftain, and gained a place of safety among the hills; but my father was taken captive by the Campbells from the west country, and so he was one of the few who escaped the death decreed to all by the bloody mandates of the German duke, whose memory will be abhorred and execrated while grass grows and water runs in the land of the Gael.

"It is of my father's adventures I have now principally to speak.

"He was disarmed and manacled by the false sons of Diarmed, and from amidst them he beheld the merciless red-coats slaying, murdering in cold blood the helpless and unresisting wounded by spontoon and bayonet, by the sword and volleys of musquetry; while the relentless Cumberland rode about the muir of Drummossie with his staff, treading down the hearts of better and braver men than ever will come of his tribe.

"The sun set that night on a field of blood, and one of woe and desolation to the Highlanders.

"Those wretched prisoners, whom the blood-glutted soldiers were too weary to slaughter, were, to the number of four hundred and forty men, enclosed in a hollow square, surrounded by the regiments of Barrel, Wolfe, and Bligh, who hemmed them in with fixed bayonets, and subjected them to every taunt and insult that national hatred, the meanest malice and cowardice when most triumphant, could suggest. Amongst other brave and unfortunate clansmen my father listened to them; his bosom swelled with rage and agony, and he longed to burst his bonds and leap like a tiger headlong upon them. But he was powerless, unarmed, and ironed, rather like some base malefactor than a gentle-blooded _duinhe-wassel_ of the clan Cameron. The cutting taunts of Bligh's soldiers roused at last even the ire of Colonel Campbell of the Argyleshire men, and his blood became fired at the gross abuse lavished upon his countrymen. Stepping forward with his sword drawn, he sternly commanded them to be silent, and said that he would wager his commission against a crown-piece, that any Highlander there would meet in equal arms, and vanquish the best man present that wore a scarlet coat.

"'Ha! do you say so, sir?' cried the duke, who with his staff was in the centre of the square.

"'May it please your highness, I do most assuredly,' said Campbell, raising his bonnet; 'and I long to see the matter put to the test, to cure these southron gentry of their unwarrantable insolence. By my faith, they seem to forget the good use they made of their heels at Preston and Falkirk!'

"'And you will stand to your wager, colonel?'

"'My commission to a crown-piece.'

"'Done!' said the duke. 'Your bet is a fatal one, as you will find to your cost, ere many minutes pass away. Your very words savour of Jacobitism and treason; and your commission shall certainly be lost, if your rebel beats not a champion of my choosing. My friend, Major Von Thunderbotham, of Bligh's, may consider your command as his already.'

"'By Heaven! your highness, no dog of a Hessian that ever wore a head, shall command the men of Macallummore's race!' replied Campbell bluntly, and regardless of the consequences.

"A gigantic dragoon of Cobham's horse offered himself readily as the duke's champion; and on his colonel bearing testimony of his strength, activity, and expertness with his weapon, he was accepted. In his broken English, the ungenerous duke now addressed the prisoners in a style at once savage and insulting, offering freedom to any one of them who, in an encounter with the broad-sword, could foil the trooper. The words had scarcely fallen from his lips, before my father strode forward and claimed the combat.

"'Strike well, Cameron, for the honour of the Highlands!' said Campbell, as my father flung aside his fetters as he would have done a coil of adders.

"'Had you and others of your race struck for the right this day, the Prince would not have been a fugitive in the land of his fathers!' replied the other with an indignant scowl.

"'Oich! you are somewhat insolent for a cock laird or upstart gilly,' said the abashed Campbell. 'But remember that freedom is before you if you conquer; and if not, the hemp is grown--ay, man, and twisted too,--that will hang you like a dog from the walls of Carlisle some day to come.'

"'Better a thousand times to die on the scaffold with the white cockade on my brow, than eat the bread of a foreign oppressor and usurper,' replied my father heedlessly. 'But am I to encounter the sidier roy with my hands, after the base manner of his people?"

"'No: take my claymore,' answered Campbell; 'its temper and metal are matchless. Luno of Lochlin never forged a better: and if you are brave as you are impudent, I have no fears for you.'

"'But a dirk; what shall I do for a dirk?'

"'Take mine, Evan of Tor-a-muilt,' said an aged Highlander stepping forward, wearing red tartans and the bramble-berry badge in his bonnet. He placed a dirk,--this very weapon with which I slew the wolves to-night,--in the hand of my father, who started back with awe at the sight of the giver. The Highlanders around shrunk back likewise. His height was superhuman; his hair was white as snow, and a beard of the same hue descended to the square buckle at his girdle. His eyes had that keen and bright expression in them which seemed to harrow up the soul, and read the inmost thoughts of those he looked upon. In his bonnet he still wore that badge which all others had discarded for safety,--the white rose of the Stuarts.

"'Strike well, Cameron, and you will have your revenge,' said he, waving his bonnet as he added, 'God bless King James the Eighth, and send death to the Elector of Hanover!'

"'Shoot him! bayonet him! Forward!' cried Cumberland in a tempest of fury, and with the hoarse accents of rage. 'Blow out the brains of the insolent rebel!'

"But the aged speaker of the treason had disappeared, and although the prisoners were narrowly searched twice over, he could no where be found, and the fury of the duke was boundless. What became of the old man, no one knew. He disappeared suddenly from amidst them; but whether he sunk into the earth or melted into thin air, remains yet a mystery; but the Highlanders were filled with terrors, and every man drew his plaid closer around him, and shrunk from the touch of his neighbour. After threatening the English trooper with the lash and triangles if he did not vanquish his opponent, he commanded the combat to begin without further delay. The dragoon cast aside his leather gloves, and drawing his long blade, stood upon the defensive. My father belted his plaid tighter about him, drew his bonnet over his brow, and rushed, in the northern fashion, headlong on his adversary, who was compelled to retire backwards, acting only on the defensive. Burning with hatred and fury, my father pressed forward, heedless of the weapon of the soldier, in whose broad breast he buried the dirk of the mysterious Highlander, and then gathering all his force for one mighty effort with the claymore, he clove the unfortunate dragoon down to the neck, cutting even the folds of his white cravat.

"'Well done, Cameron! Hoigh! for Lochiel!' cried Colonel Campbell. 'Now your highness will perceive what thews and sinews the mountains can produce. I have gained my bet. Your countryman the major is likely to continue one a little longer, and the crown-piece will go to my good champion.'

"'King George has lost a true man,' replied the duke fiercely, 'and hell is cheated of a Scots rebel for a short time longer. Well now, dog of a Highlander! you have missed the gallows this time; but I believe only a little time will elapse before you dance yet to the hangman's hornpipe.'

"At this supposed smart remark a loud laugh arose among his glittering staff, and was echoed by the soldiery; but a prouder and more triumphant shout burst from the unfortunate Gaelic prisoners. Many a gallant battle-cry mingled with it. _Fraoch-eilan! A dh'aindeoin cotheireadh! Craigellachie!_ from the men of Glengarry, Clanronald, and Strathspey. Loud and long they shouted in defiance, till the crimson cheeks and carbuncles of the corpulent duke turned white with vexation and fury. When the commotion had subsided Colonel Campbell put a few crown-pieces into my father's hand, and pointed to the hills.

"'Begone now,' said he, 'and thank your mother for giving you such good milk, and for making such a man of you.[*] Away! the mountains are before you, and you are once more a free man.'

[*] These were the very words used by Colonel Campbell when his singular combat terminated, after the field of Culloden. See any History of the Civil War, 1745-6.

"'I want not your gold or your silver, sir!' said my father, tossing the pieces on the bloody grass. 'Your money is the wages of treason to Scotland, and rebellion against King James. I heed not your frown, sir. God will now be the best judge between your cause and ours, after this fatal day. Keep your money, and I will, with your permission, retain the claymore; it may yet be drawn for King James the Eighth.'

"And without vailing his bonnet, or deigning to bestow a glance on Cumberland, he broke through the ranks of Wolfe's regiment, and made off with all speed towards the mountains of the Grants' country, where he hoped to remain in safe hiding until the clans gathered together once more, or the present danger had passed away. After concealing himself in the _Chlachdhian_, or sheltering-cave of Cairn-gorm, and after wandering for days in Duthil and Inverallan, and being sorely hunted and pressed by the parties of red-coats scouring and devastating the country, he found himself one night compelled to take refuge in the great fir forests of Grant of Rothiemurchus, the whole country from Lorn to the mouth of the Spey being infested with bands of the _sidier roy_. Beacons of destruction, by night and by day, blazed on hill and in valley, while the proud halls of long-descended chieftains and the green huts of their faithful vassals were given indiscriminately to the flames; and the shrieks of helpless women and children were borne on the breeze, which had so lately swelled with the _piobrachd_ and march of the Highlander. It was a sight indeed to make him thirst for vengeance, when nightly he looked forth from the cavern of the blue mountain to behold the sky red with the fires of the destroyer. But, alas! the neck of the Gael was bending beneath the foot of the stranger, and the power of the proud race who would never bend, was then broken.

"To shut out sights and sounds which every where announced the downfall of Albyn, my father plunged into the recesses of the wild forest of Rothiemurchus, but his retreat was not unmarked. A party of king's troops, Hessians I believe, clad in yellow uniform, beheld him from a neighbouring eminence, and despatched a party of ten men, to shoot or destroy him in any way they chose,--Cumberland having doomed to death all who wore the garb of the Celtic race. For nearly an hour these Georgian sleuth-hounds followed upon his track with murderous eagerness and precision, firing at intervals whenever he came in sight. Their fire he returned, and shot dead three with his Highland pistol.

"Dashing on, and threading the mazes of the forest with the rapidity and activity of a true mountaineer, he contrived to baffle his pursuers, and reached what he supposed to be the inmost recesses of the wilderness. There, panting and breathless with exhaustion, he flung himself to rest on the green sward, cursing and deploring the hour when a son of the Gael had to flee from the arm of a stranger, and was hunted like a deer on his native hills by the soldiers of one he deemed a German despot and oppressor.

"He rolled himself up in his plaid, and creeping close under the pine branches, lay listening with intense eagerness when the crash of a bramble or the rustle of leaves should announce that the Hessians were on his track. The night was calm and still. Not a heather-bell or blade of grass was stirring, and the pendent branches of the gloomy and gigantic pines hung down perfectly still and motionless. Not a sound was heard throughout all the immensity of the vast forest, save the hoarse murmurs of the foaming Spey, whose waters came hurrying down from the far-off hills of Badenoch, and swept through the recesses of Rothiemurchus on their course to the Moray Frith. There was no moon shining, but the night was clear and cloudless, and at times the red stars were seen twinkling through the dark foliage of the pines.

"As my father (Evan of Tor-a-muilt,[*] as he was named) lay thus in concealment, he suddenly remembered that he was within the bounds of the place haunted by the terrible spirit of Glenmore and Rothiemurchus,--the _lham-dearg_, or bloody-hand, who compelled all who crossed his path during his nocturnal rambles to do battle with him, and none were ever known to survive the awful conflict. He would have started up and fled; but remembering that it was equally dangerous to avoid as to seek the company of evil spirits, he resolved to remain where he was, saying over his prayers like a good catholic, and imploring protection from Saint Colm of the Isles. Yet his blood ran cold with terror, perspiration burst forth from every pore, and he covered his head in his plaid to shut out any frightful sight or sound that might invade the stillness of the gloomy wood. He locked his hand in the basket-hilt of his claymore, and lay hearkening so intensely, that he might almost have heard the dew dropping from the leaves.

[*] The Wedders-hill, an eminence at the foot of Loch-Archaig, in Kilmallie, Inverness-shire.

"A loud exclamation in a barbarous language, and one unknown to him, caused him to start up; and the report of musquetry, the crash of shot striking the trees, and the light uniform of a score of Hessians appearing at a short distance, compelled the hunted Highlander again to seek safety in flight. As unrelentingly as ever they pursued, incited by the hope of plunder, and the reward given for every dirk and claymore. The soldiers, to procure Highland weapons, committed a thousand outrages, even in the town of Inverness, and among the mountains tortured by various means the poor peasantry to reveal where their arms were concealed; after which they were either shot or bayoneted.

"'May the curse of Glencoe be upon ye! and may the raven's croak be your only coronach, ye wolves' whelps!' cried he, as he again fled through the wood. 'Better face a Highland bogle than the bayonets of the Hessians, a race as cowardly as they are merciless!'

"He sought the most difficult and devious paths and soon the shouts of the enemy died away behind him in the distance. No sooner did he find himself in safety than his former fears returned, and as he paced slowly along a narrow forest-path, where the branches were locked together overhead, and where only the pale starlight glimmered at times, he beheld before him the figure of a gigantic Highlander. He was moving but a few yards in front, and his form towered up between the trees in dark and shadowy outline. The belted plaid fluttered behind him, and the eagle's wing, with the forbidden badge of James VIII., adorned his bonnet. With long and stately, but noiseless strides, he continued moving before my father, who often hallooed aloud to him to turn or stand, without receiving an answer. The checks of his tartan were red, his white beard streamed about him, and my father at once recognised by it the aged warrior who had presented him with the dirk on the muir of Drummossie.

"'Turn and assist me, if you are a true son of the hills? The blood-hounds of the Hanoverian have been on my skirts the live-long night; and even now they track me like a stricken deer.' My father received no answer to many such exhortations, yet he continued closely to follow the stranger, who always contrived to elude his grasp, and led him a wearisome ramble across the ravines and deep corries, through brawling torrents and intricate dingles, until, enraged at his contemptuous and singular conduct, he drew his claymore.

"'Turn, base coward!' he exclaimed, 'turn; and I will try whether the boss of your target is proof against the strokes of claymore and skene-dhu, or the _biodag_. Turn, turn; or by my father's bones, I will smite you through the back!'

"Even while he spoke, the form which had glided so far before him suddenly vanished, and he found himself at the mouth of a cavern, huge, black, and yawning, with the long and dark whins waving gloomily from the rocks around. A moment he recoiled at the sight of it, but summoning up his energies he entered boldly, calling aloud on his midnight companion in terms of threat and defiance, until the winding recesses of the cavern rang with the sound.

"It seemed to him that other noises mingled with the deep echoes of his voice. A tempest of wind tore through the cavern, hurling him violently to the earth. The trees of the forest without were shaken as if by a tempest; the Spey thundered louder over a neighbouring cascade, and the roar of its falling waters was mingled with the shrieks of the river kelpie. My father sprung up, and instinctively stood upon his guard, but an oppressive feeling of horror took possession of his mind; a cold perspiration bedewed his forehead; his lips were parched and his mouth clammy; he could hear his heart throbbing audibly, while he strained his eyes till they almost started from the sockets, as he endeavoured to pierce the gloom. At that moment he would have faced a whole brigade of red-coats to have been free from that terrible cavern, but he had gone too far to recede, and he gathered courage from despair.

"He heard the clank of steel, and the tread of heavy feet sounded as if afar off, in hollow and vaulted places. Something like the fold of a damp plaid or shroud was waved across his face, and the memory of the _lham-dearg_ again rushed terribly and vividly upon his mind.

"Expectation and horror wound him to a pitch of madness: he held aloft his target, and even while his hair bristled under his bonnet, and the marrow of his bones seemed turning to ice, he defied the spirit to battle.

"'Bloody hand of Glenmore! spirit of darkness! spirit of hell! come forth? Here a true man, a Cameron, defies you!'

"While the words were falling from his lips the awful figure stood before him, arrayed as an ancient warrior of the hills, and a halo of lambent fire playing around his form rendered him terribly distinct amidst the surrounding darkness. My father's brain boiled and whirled while he looked upon him, and his heart grew sick and palsied with fear: he knew that he was in the presence of an infernal spirit. Notwithstanding his terror, he recognised the white-haired warrior from whose hand he had received the dirk, and whom he had followed with taunt and defiance through the wood; but a superhuman courage armed his heart and nerved his hand, and calling aloud on heaven and Saint Colm of lona to aid him, he rushed forward to the encounter. The face of the spectre was changed from what he had first seen it: it was distorted and terrible with rage, and his eyes glared like stars of fire. My father saw the blade of the _lham-dearg_ descending like a flash of lightning, yet he shrunk not; he felt it ringing upon his target, but he sunk with the mighty force of the blow, and a whirlwind seemed again to rush through the cavern, and bear him along with it, dashing him senseless to the earth.

"When consciousness returned, the morning sun was shining gaily in the wide blue vault, the dewy pines of Rothiemurchus were glistening in the light, and afar off rose the huge sides of the blue Cairngorm. The eagle was boldly winging away from his eyrie among the shores of Loch-avon, and soaring aloft on the balmy air; the mountain Spey was rushing as usual through the corries and chasms of the pine-clad glen, from which the white mists and foam of its course were curling in the bright sun, above the dark fir trees of the vast Highland forest.

"My father rose; he stretched his stiffened limbs and looked cautiously around him, but neither spectre nor red soldier was in sight. Behind him yawned the arched mouth of the black cavern: he shuddered as he looked upon its gloomy depth, and turning away, plunged into the forest in hopes that some loyal tenant or forester of the laird of Grant would yield him somewhat to save him from perishing of want."

"Then, Dugald, this terrible encounter turns out to have been only a dream after all," said Stuart.

"Nothing more," remarked Fassifern.

"It was nae dream, sirs," said Dugald, forgetting his Gaelic, and resuming the Lowland dialect, "it was indeed nae dream; and as proof positive, he found his target cloven like a nut-shell by the stroke of the spirit's blade--what nae mortal sword could hae dune; for it was covered wi' four barkened bull-hides, and with three hundred brass studs,--and yet it was cloven in twa, and his arm felt the wecht o' the unco' cloure for mony a day after."

"A very foolish story, Dugald," said the colonel. "But you have forgotten to tell us that your father had emptied a capacious hunting-flask of fiery mountain whisky before he entered the cavern; and probably a fall on the rocks might account for the cloven targe."

"Sir, ye never tried to account for it in that way before," replied the old man indignantly; "bethink ye, when at hame, how ye wadna put your nose outside the door-stane after dark, for fear o' encountering _lham-dearg_. Ye were but a callant then, to be sure; but even now, wi' a' your bravery,--and I ken that, like a' o' your name, you've a lion's heart in the field, on the water ye tremble like an aspen leaf, and a' for fear o' the kelpie. But as for my faither's adventure, ye ken the hail country-side rang, and yet rings, wi' the story."

"Your father, Dugald, was always seeing things such as no other man ever saw, I believe."

"I ken he was farer seen than maist folk; but mair than he hae viewed the fightin' spectre o' Glenmore, but nae man ever cam aff sae easy frae a tulzie wi' him. Four o' Rothiemurchus' gillies ance foucht a battle wi' him near Loch-morlach, and never ane o' them survived the scuds his claymore gied them."

"Well; and the dirk--"

"My faither wore till his dying day,--and I shall wear till mine, in memory of that adventure. It's no different frae other men's,--a sharp blade wi' a buckhorn hilt, ye see; but he micht sink it to the guard in an aiken tree, and it ne'er would bend or break. But, as I said before, my faither was farer seen than ither folk, and he ance had a mair solemn and eerie adventure wi' a wraith,--ay, sirs, _his ain wraith_, than the ane I hae now related.

"He joined me when I was wi' the Prince and Lochiel, biding in concealment amang the wild shores of Loch-Archaig, at Kilmallie. The Prince of Wales lived in our puir hut on the top of Tor-a-muilt, frae whar we had a look-out for mony a mile, and richt gude need there was! The hail country was swarming wi' red-coats and blood-thirsty mercenaries, under the Prince of Hesse. Ochone! ochone-aree! Had you seen the gallant Prince Charles as I saw him then! O sirs! the vera thocht o't maddens me. He had neither shirt, shoe, nor hose on; he had been wandering for six weeks in the Corrie-nan-gaul of Knovdart, bare-footed, dressed in an auld tartan coat and _filleadh-beg_, wi' a lang beard hanging frae his chin. He carried a musquet, dirk, pistol, and horn; and but for his famished and wae-begane face, lookit mair like some wild reiver o' the isles, than the son o' braid Scotland's king.

"We were a' in the same plight, and ever since the dool-day o' Culloden had lived in caves and forests, like the beasts o' the field. My father found us out in our hiding-place--a feat which baffled the followers of Cumberland, to whom no true Scotsman would betray us,--even although thirty thousand pounds were offered for the prince, dead or alive! My father fell on his knees, and sair he wept to see the son o' his king a wandering outcast and outlaw, amang his ain Highland hills. He tauld us o' his encounter wi' the _lham-dearg_, but the prince laughed heartily, just as he used to do at Holyrood, and wadna believe a word o't. Aweel, sirs, we wandered lang about Archaig and Glenpean, stealing for the prince's support the few sheep which escaped Cumberland's order to destroy every living thing in the country. Mony, mony were the miseries and calamities he suffered until the month of September, when he embarked at Moidart on board o' the Ballona, a Nantz ship o' thirty-twa guns, broucht for him by the loyal Colonel Warren. Lochiel, Glengarry, Borodale, and a hundred common men, including my faither and mysel, followed them into banishment.

"In France the prince, wha indeed never, while ae plack rubbit on anither, forgot auld friends, got Lochiel command of one of the regiments composed of Scots and Irish refugees, wha served the French king. As in duty bound, we followed Lochiel, and became soldiers of his battalion, which soon became so famous,--the Royal Scots regiment. We were wi' the army under the Mareschal Saxe, whan the French defeated oor auld enemy the bluidy Duke of Cumberland at Laffeldt, in June 1747, and compelled the British troops to retire in disorder. Wi' a' the memory o' the past, o' our prince's wrangs, and the awfu' butcherie o' Culloden glowing in their minds, the Royal Scots fought wi' richt gude will against the scarlet ranks o' the British, and unco' slaughter we made amang them wi' bayonet and claymore, when they were compelled to flee, and retire in disorder on the toon or village o' Val.

"On the evening o' the battle day my father stude on duty as an advanced sentinel frae the French picquets; placed by the Mareschal Saxe in the direction o' Maestricht, where the British army lay. It was just aboot the gloaming, the clouds were gathering in the lift and darkening the flat, level, I may say meeserable landscape; and my faither, puir man, strade sorrowfully to and fro on his lanely post, sighing sairly as he thocht on mony a braw and brave comrade and clansman then lying cauld and stiff on the plain o' Val, and ower wham nae coronach could be sung, or cairn raised in the land o' the stranger. He thocht too o' his humble sheiling at hame, on the Wedders-hill, and compared the view frae it wi' the 'Lawlands o' Holland,' wi' the dull marshy flats, the yellow canals, and slaw-moving barges, the windmills, and smoky toons about Laffeldt. Different indeed was the scenery frae that around the lanely auld thack cottage at hame, where the blue Loch-Archaig rolled to the base o' the dark an' towering mountains, covered wi' the siller birch or black pines to their vera tap.

"Puir man! melancholy and sad he grew, but his surprise was aroused when he saw a Hieland soldier, wearing a garb the vera counterpart o' his ain, walking slowly, at a few yards distance, as if likewise on sentry. My faither stoppit to observe him, and the stranger stoppit also; and the outline o' his form was distinctly seen, as he stude wi' his back to the west, whare the sky was a' crimson and gowd wi' the last flush o' the day that had passed awa'. My faither challenged twice aloud, but gat nae response; and his birse beginning to rise, he made a motion as if handling his musquet, biting his cartridge, and a' that, ye ken. The stranger did sae likewise, imitating his motions exactly as his shadow on the wa' or reflection in a looking-glass wad hae dune. A queer and eerie sensation passed over my father on behauldin' this, and a souching cam ower his heart when he bethoucht him that a' wasna richt. Yet boldly he gaed towards the figure, and step to step as he took them, mimicking ilka motion, the ither advanced also, until my faither made an involuntary stop, and it did sae too.