Chapter II: Part 2

Followed by his people, Macfarlane rushed down the sloping face of the knoll, with the intention of cutting across the open space by the most direct line towards the spot he had indicated; but they had not gone many steps ere the hurricane again came sweeping over the woods with all its former fury,--the enormous pines bent and groaned as if from the agony they were enduring,--the violence of the conflagration was increased tenfold,--the wall of fire by which they were environed was speedily closed in, so as to annihilate every lingering hope of escape,--and the Macfarlanes were compelled to throw themselves again flat on the ground, and to scramble down into the bottom of the hollow, to avoid being scorched up like moths by the fire which the uncertain whirlwind darted suddenly hither and thither in different directions, and to escape the risk of being snatched up into the air and launched amid the burning pines.

It had happened so far well for the sufferers, that the cattle, terrified by the shouts of the conflict, and still more by the first blaze of the bothy, had fled up the bank from the hollow, and, forgetting their fatigue, they had charged full-tilt through the forest, routing and bellowing in that direction which led to their own Loch Lomond pastures, from which they had been so unwillingly driven. The small space towards the bottom of the hollow, therefore, was thus left entirely disencumbered of them; so that when the Macfarlanes were forced down thither, they were enabled to gather around the shallow pool of water in the centre of the place. There they endeavoured to defend themselves against the flying embers, by rolling up their bodies tight in their plaids. But although they were rid of the cattle, they were not left as the only occupants of the spot; for the place was soon covered with swarms of mice, weasels, adders, frogs, toads, and all the minuter sorts of animals, like them driven into the centre of the circle by the scorching heat of the devouring element that surrounded them. For now the flames raged fiercer than ever, and the dense canopy of smoke that covered the comparatively small space where they lay, was so pressed down upon them by the fury of the blast, that it appeared to shut out the very air; and they seemed to breathe nothing but fire and burning dust and ashes. Their very lungs seemed to be igniting, whilst at every temporary accession of the tempest, the half-consumed tops of the blazing pines were whirled among them like darts, inflicting grievous bruises and burns on many of them.

And now, as if to consummate their afflictions and their miserable fate, the long, dry, and wiry heath that grew within the open space where they lay, was laid hold of by the fire; and the flames, running along the ground from all sides towards the centre, threatened them with instant, awful, and inevitable death. But one resource now remained; and to that they were not slow in resorting. They rolled themselves into the shallow pool, and wallowed together in a knot. They gasped like dying men, and their eyeballs glared and started from their sockets with the agony they endured; and in their utter despair they sucked the muddy water of the lochan in which they lay, to cool their burning mouths and throats. Macfarlane felt as if they had been already consigned to the purifying pains of that purgatory through which, as his religion told him, their guilty souls must pass. Their bewildered brains spun round, and strange and terrific shapes seemed to pass before their eyes. Some short ejaculations for mercy were breathed, but not a groan, nor a word, nor a sound of complaint, was permitted to escape from any one of their manly breasts, even although the pool, their last frail hope, was now fast drying up from the intensity of the heat.

After a complication of indescribable torments, which made the passing minutes seem like hours, the force of the hurricane suddenly slackened for a short time, and the thick surface of heath around them having been by this time burnt out, and the trees which grew upon the immediate confines of the circle having had their boughs and foliage consumed and their trunks prostrated, the open space within which they were enclosed grew wider in its limits, and consequently the air became more abundant and freer in its circulation; so that they began gradually to revive. By degrees they were enabled to raise themselves in a weak and half-suffocated state from what was now reduced to little more than the mere mud of the pool. Then it was that their chief, though himself much overcome by the conjunction of his own bodily and mental sufferings, was roused to active exertion by that anxious desire to preserve his people which now sprang up within him, to the utter extinguishment of all consideration for his own person. He was so faint, that it was with some difficulty he could ascend the knoll; but he hastened to climb it, that he might endeavour to discover from thence whether any hope was likely to arise for them. There he found that the bothy, and the fuel and pine trees that had been heaped upon it, had already sunk into a smoking hillock of red-hot ashes, from the smouldering surface of which the ghastly half-consumed skulls of his Lochaber foes were seen fearfully protruding themselves. The undaunted heart of Macfarlane quailed before a spectacle so unlooked for and so unwelcome at such a moment. He started back and shuddered as their blackened visages met his eye, grinning, as it were, with a horrible fiend-like expression of satisfaction at his present misery. He turned from the sight with disgust, not unmingled with remorse, and then sweeping his eyes around the now far-retreating circle of the burning forest, and reflecting on the imminent destruction which he and his clansmen had so recently escaped, and looking to the peril by which they were yet environed, he crossed himself, threw his eyes upwards, uttered an inward prayer of penitence and of thankfulness, and then he bravely prepared himself to take every advantage of whatever favourable circumstances might occur.

After scanning the blazing boundary all around with the most minute attention, Macfarlane thought he could perceive one narrow blank in the continuity of the fiery wall. His knowledge of the forest enabled him to be immediately aware that the blank was occasioned by a ravine which he knew was but partially covered with wood, through which a stream found its way. He took his determination; and summoning his people around him, and pointing out this distant hope of escape, he called to them to follow him. With resolute countenances they immediately began to make their difficult and hazardous way over the torrid and smoking ground, among the red-hot trunks of the pine-trees which stood half-consumed--smouldering fallen logs--tall branchless masts, which still blazed like upright torches, and which were every moment falling around them, or those which had already fallen, or which had been broken over, hanging burning in an inclined position across their way--whilst they were, every now and then, tripped and thrown down by some unseen obstacle among the scorching embers; and ever and anon each returning gust of the hurricane whirled up around them an atmosphere of ignited dust and cinders, almost sufficient to have deprived them of the breath of life. But still, with their heads half-muffled in their plaids, they persevered, till the increasing heat of the air they inhaled and of the ground they trod on, and the multiplication of the difficulties they had to encounter, would have been enough of themselves to have convinced them of their approach to the more active theatre of the conflagration, even if its fiery enclosure, and the groaning and crashing of the falling timber, had not been but too manifestly before their eyes and loud in their ears.

The difficulties and dangers of their progress now became infinitely multiplied. Hitherto their endeavours to keep together had been tolerably successful; but now each individual could do no more than take care of himself, and every cloud of burning cinders that blew around them produced a greater separation among them, till finally they became so dispersed, that when the chief reached the head of the narrow ravine, through which he had hoped that he might have led them in a body, he cleared the burning dust from his eyes, looked everywhere around him eagerly for his people, and, to his bitter mortification, he beheld no one but his trusty Angus, who, amidst all the obstacles and hazards through which they had passed, had still contrived to stick close to his master. Old Margery's vision came across his mind, and, in the midst of the burning heats to which he was subjected, the blood ran cold to his heart. He cast his eyes down the trough of the ravine, over which clouds of flame and smoke were then rolling, and there, indeed, he did, at transient intervals, behold a handful of his clansmen toiling through the perilous passage. He shouted aloud to bid them stay; but the overwhelming roar of the whirlwind, combined with that of the combustion of the neighbouring trees, rendered his voice altogether powerless. Distressing doubts arose within him as to the fate of those who appeared to be amissing; but the rapid growth of the conflagration around him compelled him to shake off all such thoughts, and summoning up his sternest resolution, he rushed down into the ravine, with Angus at his back, as if he had been rushing to an assault under the spirit-stirring influence of the war-cry of the Macfarlanes. And few assaults indeed could have been so hazardous, for, ever and anon, huge burning pines were precipitated from the steeps above, so that even the water-course itself was in a great measure choked up by their hissing and smoking ruins. But still Macfarlane fought his way onwards amidst burnings and bruises, many of them occasioned by his frequently looking round with anxious solicitude for the safety of his faithful follower; but, in spite of all these difficulties and perils, he had already made considerable progress down the ravine, when, in one instant, he was deprived of all sense by the sudden descent of an enormous pine, which he could neither avoid nor see.

When the chief recovered from his swoon, he found himself lying on his back, in a shallow part of the little stream, which there crept along between two great stony masses. He had been struck down by the spray and smaller branches of the upper boughs of the tree, which, fortunately for him, had rested across the great stones in such a manner as to form an arch over his body, and as this arch naturally produced a rush of air under it, he was thus saved alike from being crushed to death and from suffocation. Raising himself on his hands and knees, he made his way out from under the burning boughs, and got up so stunned and battered, that some moments elapsed ere he quite recovered his recollection. Recent events then crowded fast to his mind, and with these his anxiety for the safety of Angus recurred more strongly than ever. He called loudly and frequently on him by name, but the well-known voice of his faithful follower came not in return. A lurid light was thrown down into the depth of the ravine by the conflagration which was spreading widely above. He moved anxiously around the tree, looking earnestly everywhere underneath the smoking branches, till at last the manly countenance of Angus Macfarlane met his eye. The forehead exhibited a fearful ghastly-looking wound, and his body was lying so crushed down beneath the boughs that pressed upon it, as to take away all chance that a spark of life remained within it. With desperate strength and anguish of mind the chief drew his claymore, and hewed away the interposing branches, till he had so far relieved the body as to be able to draw it forth. He eagerly felt for the pulses of life, but they were for ever stilled.

"Alas, alas, my faithful Angus!" cried Macfarlane, "art thou gone for ever! Alas, thy fate was indeed too truly read! But I cannot leave thee to feed the devouring flames, or to be a banquet for the ravens when this awful burning shall have passed away. Alas! I promised to provide for thy bridal, and now, since it hath pleased Heaven to dispose it otherwise, it shall not be said that thy chief permitted thee to lack funereal rites!"

With these words Macfarlane stooped him down, and raised the body of Angus upon his shoulders. The way down the water-course was obstructed by the huge half-consumed trunks of the fallen pines, which lay in every direction across, resting irregularly on the large blocks of slippery stone, with their branches interwoven like hurdles. But Macfarlane, weakened as he was by the accumulated fatigue and suffering he had undergone, staggered on under his burden with an unsubdued spirit, determined to bear it so long as his limbs were able to sustain his own person. Inconceivable was the toil which he underwent, and many were the hairbreadth 'scapes which he made from instantaneous destruction. But still he persevered with undiminished courage, until his heroic exertions were at length rewarded by his reaching a spot of comparative safety, beyond the fiery barrier which had so long environed him. But here he only stopped to breathe for a moment, for, toil-spent, exhausted, and bruised, and faint as he was, he was still compelled, by a regard for his own life, to urge onwards over the smoother ground which he now trod, with longer and less cautious strides. His way was illuminated for an immense distance before him, by the triumphant conflagration that came roaring after him, and it was still gaining fresh strength every succeeding moment from the furious aid it was receiving from the increasing hurricane.

As he bore his burden resolutely onwards, his uncertain path led him across a mossy patch of heath, where there were but few trees. There the lurid light of the conflagration, reflected as it was from the heavens, was sufficient to show him a white figure advancing hastily towards him. It was a maiden's slender form--she came--she uttered one wild and piercing shriek, and then she sank down amid the long heath. Macfarlane laid the body of Angus upon a small hillock, and ran to her aid. It was Ellen. He flew to a rill hard by, and brought water in his bonnet. She still breathed, but, as he lifted her head on his knee, each succeeding inspiration became fainter and fainter, till her fair bosom ceased to heave, and her lovely features settled into the marble stillness of death. Her frenzied efforts had been greater than her delicate frame could bear, and the severe mental shock which she received had suddenly expelled her pure spirit from its earthly tenement.

Macfarlane leant over her for a time, altogether absorbed in the intensity of those feelings to which human nature compelled him to yield. But it was not long till the increasing roar of the advancing conflagration, which was now fearfully extending the breadth of its line of march, roused him from his stupor. What could he now do? Was he to abandon both, or even one of the bodies of those, the memory of whom he so much cherished, in order to consult his own safety? or was he to peril his own life for the purpose of performing a pious but by no means an imperatively necessary duty? He hesitated for a moment--a transient and accidental gleam disclosed to him the honest countenance of Angus--his heart filled with many an old recollection--his lip quivered--his eyes became moist--he moved towards the hillock where the body of Angus lay, and, stooping down hastily, he raised it again to his right shoulder, and then, passing onwards, he put his left arm around the slim form of Ellen, and lifting it up, he laboured on under the weight of both, with the long hair of the maiden sweeping over the tops of the purple heath as he went. Louder and louder came the roar of the conflagration behind him. He quickened his steps, toiling on every moment more and more breathlessly. But again the trees grew thicker as he advanced, and his way became more and more encumbered by their stems. The heat of the advancing flames now came more and more sensibly upon him, yet still he struggled on, firmly resolved not to relinquish either of his burdens till dire necessity should compel him to do so. The moment when this alternative was to arrive seemed to be fast approaching--nature was becoming exhausted--when his ears caught a shout which he well knew must come from some of his own clansmen. Faint as he was, the chief was not slow in replying to it; and, to his great relief, he was soon joined by some of those from whom he had been separated during the earlier part of their dreadful and bewildering retreat. He was now speedily relieved of both his burdens, and the flagging spirits of all of them being in some degree restored by this meeting, they again pushed on with renewed exertions, and without a halt, for some miles, during which they picked up several stragglers, whose bruised and blackened figures gave sufficient evidence of the dangers and difficulties they had passed through.

Worn out almost to death, this remnant of the Macfarlanes with difficulty climbed the gentle slope of a considerable eminence that lay in their way, and as they wound over the summit of it, where the trees grew somewhat thinly, Macfarlane, as he looked behind him, had at last the satisfaction to perceive that they had now gained so much on their pursuing enemy as to render them secure of a safe and easy retreat. Many, I trow, was the cross that was signed, and the broken thanksgiving that was uttered ere the chief and this fragment of his followers threw themselves down to rest awhile, and to contemplate the awful scene of destruction from which they had so wonderfully escaped, of which their present commanding position gave them a full view.

The flames had now spread for miles in every direction over the thickest parts of the forest, rising over the crested ridges and swelling elevations, and diving into the deepest valleys and hollows. It seemed like one great billowy sea of fire, agitated as it was from time to time by the hurricane, which, as it approached its termination, came in gusts, violent in strength, but short in duration. As each of these successively swept over the blazing woods, its terrible roar was mingled with the fearful crash of thousands of gigantic pines, which were levelled like reeds before it. These, as they fell, tossed up myriads of mimic stars and meteors into the firmament, which, being surrounded by a zone of dense and inky clouds on its horizon, shone from within that circumference to its very centre, like one vast concave plate of red-hot brass. The scene was enough to humble the proudest heart. The very deer were terrified into an unwonted degree of familiarity with man, for a herd of them that came sweeping over the brow of the eminence, flying in terror from the devouring flames, halted by them, and mingled with them, as if to claim protection from them. The dauntless heart of Macfarlane himself sank within him, as the whole desolating circumstances of this terrible night came crowding to his mind. It was wrung by a deep pang as he recalled the horrible spectacle of the massacred men of Lochaber; he wept like a child when he again looked on the inanimate bodies of those whose appointed bridal-day must now become that of their funeral. He groaned deeply as he gathered from his people around him the sad fate of many of those who were not now to be seen among them; and when such thoughts as these could be so far subdued as to permit him to gaze on the red and resistlessly devouring element, which was so rapidly annihilating his forest, he pictured to himself the melancholy devastation it would produce over his wide domains, and the destruction it would occasion to his hunting grounds, and already, in imagination, he beheld the sable livery of mourning that must soon be spread over his hitherto magnificent territory. And how well his anticipations were verified, we know from the fact, that ere many days went round the whole of the forest covering that country for above twenty-five miles in length, and of a breadth corresponding to that extent, was completely burned down, and the mosses which afterwards originated from it, and which still exist, are full of the embalmed witnesses of this terrible calamity.

COMPARATIVELY RECENT DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS.

Author.--Your legend, my dear Grant, is extremely valuable as matter of history. The preservation of the circumstances which fortuitously caused the destruction of one vast extent of forest, enables us easily to imagine those which may have contributed to the annihilation of all the rest.

Grant.--Doubtless, it does.

Author.--It appears that many of those tracts of woodland must have perished at periods much more recent than we should at first sight be led to suppose; and it now occurs to me, that I lately heard enough to convince me that this was the case with the forests covering the bare country you are now looking at. Both of you know enough of it to be aware that the upper part of Strathspey, far beyond those distant hills, is somewhat about eight and twenty or thirty miles from Cawdor Castle; and you know that bare heaths, such as we see before us, now cover the whole of that stretch of country, with two exceptions; I mean that of the picturesque forest of Dulnan, immediately to the south of the Bridge of Carr, and that presented by the now almost exhausted forest of Dulsie, the remnants of which you may see behind us yonder to our right, running along the trough of the river Findhorn, and covering part of the hills to the north of it. In the whole of the space I have mentioned, these are the only fragments of woodland left to interrupt the dull monotony of the moors.

Clifford.--I was over it all this very season. It is not very easy for me to conceive that it could have ever been wooded at all. 'Tis excellent grouse ground every bit of it. But, as to timber, if there be any, it is all buried beneath the heathery sod.

Author.--True. Yet a respectable man, perfectly worthy of credit, assured a friend of mine, that in his grandfather's younger days, the state of this part of the country was very different. The old man he alluded to lived near Aviemore. He sent his son, who was the father of my friend's informant, on some errand to Fort George. He had himself become blind from age, and as he had not travelled that way for many years, he earnestly questioned his son after his return. "What sort of a country is that you have been seeing?" said he; and when his son had described it as having pretty much the same appearance as it now wears, "Och, hey!" exclaimed the old man, "what a change! When I was a youth, I used to go in underneath the shade of the forest on this side of the woods of Dulnan, and I hardly ever saw the sun again till I got out of it below Cawdor Castle!"

Grant.--That is a very curious fact. Why that would bring the existence of the forests of this part of the country down to within three generations; and, even allowing that your friend's informant was advanced in life when he told the story, and that his father and grandfather were rather patriarchal in the endurance of their lives, yet I think the evidence you have brought forward would enable us safely to say, that these moors we now look upon were still covered with wood at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Author.--Such, certainly, ought to be our conclusion. Is it not surprising, then, that I have never been able to pick up any account, legendary or otherwise, of the circumstances which must have produced the extirpation of these forests at a period comparatively so recent.

Clifford.--From the roots and trunks which are left, it would appear that the trees were almost entirely pines.

Author.--The pine is certainly the prevailing tree, but it is by no means the only one. Birches, alders, and hazels are common, and oaks of immense size, some of them three or four feet in diameter for a great way up the stem, are dug up in various parts of these moors, and many of them in situations where it is now matter of astonishment that such monarchs of the wood could have been produced; for they are found high on the hills yonder above Dulsie, as well as in the mosses far up the courses of the rivers Dorback and Divie.

Clifford, with enthusiasm,--With what a different scene should we now be surrounded, if we could conjure up all these ancient tenants of the soil, like the reanimated bodies of dead warriors from their graves, as told in some fairy tale of my childhood, to live again, and to wave their leafy banners triumphantly over these hills and hollows!

Grant.--It would be a very different scene indeed.

Author.--Aye, truly it would. Conceive the bleak face of these moors so covered, and then carry your imagination back into remote ages, and let us endeavour to people it in fancy with the animals which must have roamed through its endless wildernesses, and couched within the protection of its almost impervious thickets.

Clifford.--What a country for sport!

Author.--Let us picture to ourselves the myriads of birds of all kinds which winged their flight over the boundless ocean of its foliage, as it was blown into billowy motion by the breezes, or which nestled among its branches as it quietly settled itself to repose, and we shall not only have produced out of these wastes a gorgeous landscape, most romantic in its character, but we shall have opened a wide field for the speculations of the naturalist.

Clifford.--Yes; but, talking of the romantic character of your landscape, what would all that be to the ancient figures to be found in it? Fancy, only fancy the figures! Think of the dress, the arms, the hunting-implements, and the houses of its human inhabitants! Would we could have but one glimpse of them truly as they were!

Author.--If you were to go far enough back for them, you would fill our forests with a race of men, rude as the scenes in which they lived and roamed, and the whole sketch would be one for which we could hardly now find any really existing resemblance, save in the wilds of North America.

Grant.--Your view of the matter is probably correct enough.

Author.--I believe it to be very correct; and, now I think of it, a discovery was made some eight or ten years ago, which would seem to bear evidence to the former existence of this ideal picture in which we have been indulging. Some labourers, who were employed in digging in a moss on Lord Moray's estate of Brae-Moray, to our left there, found a curious bundle, they took from under ten feet of a solid peat stratum. The bundle was about two feet long by one foot thick, and in form it very much resembled such a cloak-bag as you may have at times seen strapped behind a horseman's saddle. A careless inspection of it would have led one to believe that it was covered with leather tanned with the hair on it, and it looked, for all the world, like that of one of those strange old trunks which were frequently to be seen bristling like bears among the uncouth baggage on the top of our ancient Flies and Diligences. When I first saw it, a piece of it had been torn up by the curious peasants who had found it, and the aperture they had thus made enabled us to become instantly acquainted with the nature of the mass within, which proved to be tallow.

Grant.--Tallow!--Adipocere, I suppose. That fatty substance into which animal fibre is frequently converted by long immersion in water.

Author.--No such thing, I assure you. It was pure tallow; and the whole appearances connected with it were very easily explained. It was evident that the tallow, fresh taken from the recent carcase, had been pressed into the raw hide the moment it had been stripped from the newly slain animal, and the whole had been stitched or rather laced up with thongs cut from the skin itself. The perfect state of the leather into which the skin had been converted, exhibited a beautiful proof of the extent to which the chemical principle tannin exists in peat moss. No modern tan-pit could have performed the process more effectually. Nor were the preservative properties of moss less established by it; for the tallow was quite entire and uncorrupted, and perfectly inodorous and tasteless. On first inspection it presented a hard appearance, so much so indeed, that it might have been mistaken for chalk; but the moment heat was applied, it melted as readily as fresh tallow would have done.

Clifford.--By your account of this strange mass, it might have been valuable for the candlemakers, if not for culinary purposes. Pray, what became of it?

Author.--The noble proprietor of the estate where it was found gave it me at my request; and with his permission I sent it to the Museum of the Edinburgh University. But whilst it remained in my possession, I never could look at it without its bringing to my mind what we have so often read of in North American travels,--I mean the Indian practice of killing an elk, or a deer, or a buffalo, bundling up the tallow of the creature in its raw hide with all manner of expedition, with the future purpose of making pemmican of it, and so marching off with it on their shoulders, leaving the flesh to feed the wolves and the bears. And really I cannot divest myself of the conviction that the mass of tallow I have described belonged to a period of the history of this country when the state of its inhabitants differed but little from that of those nomade North American tribes.

Grant.--It certainly does appear to give no small degree of probability to your fancy.

Clifford.--Nay, but might not some of your cattle-lifters of a much later date have performed all that you suppose your savages to have done?

Author.--The circumstance of the bundle being found beneath ten feet of solid moss, which had formed over it since the time it was left there, together with the various layers of trees found in the same bog, lying one over the other, would seem to forbid any such apparently modern explanation, and to throw back the period of its deposition to a very remote era indeed.

Grant.--Undoubtedly; and the probability is, that the tallow was the produce of no vulgar beast, but rather that of some of the bisons or magnificent wild cattle of the ancient Caledonian forests.

Author.--Certainly. But I have since had another lump of tallow sent me, which had all the evidences of a much more modern origin. It was found on the farm of Drumlochan, on the south side of the Findhorn, about a mile below Dulsie Bridge yonder; and it was covered by a little more than two feet of moss. Its form was very peculiar; for it was round one way and flat the other, like a North Wiltshire cheese, which it very much resembled in shape and size. It had indeed every appearance of having been pressed into a cheese shape until it had become firm enough to be removed. It had no covering of any kind on it; and although in hardness and consistence it was quite like the matter of the other mass, yet it must strike every one that its form, and the comparatively small depth at which it was found, render it probable that its origin was much more recent. I sent it to the Museum of the Northern Institution at Inverness.

Clifford.--Ah! I shall be right at last, I find. This surely may have been the work of some of these freebooters of whom I have heard you speak,--of some of those very limmers, for example, who, as you once told me, stole Mr. Russel's cattle.

Author.--Oh no. That story is much too modern even for this last mass of tallow.

Grant.--Bravo! Have you a tale of cattle-stealing to tell also? Allons, let us have it. I have a fair right to demand it of you.

Author.--There is little in my tale; and I fear it will tell but tamely after yours. Besides, I have already given an abridgment of it in an early number of a well-known magazine. But as you may not have seen it, and as we are now in the very scene where part of its events took place, we may sit down under the lee of yonder large stone on the brow of the hill, and I shall there give you the particulars of it, whilst you are enjoying the prospect which that elevated position commands.

By the time we had reached the spot I had indicated, my friends were not sorry to rest a while, and I began as follows:--

MR. RUSSEL AND THE REAVER.

The decided though cruel measures which followed the defeat of Culloden, whilst they were sufficient to extinguish the hopes of the Highlanders who had so enthusiastically espoused the cause of Charles, were ill calculated to subdue their warlike spirits. They were driven, it is true, to seek shelter in those rocky and inaccessible fastnesses which their highest glens afforded them; but there, amidst the wildest and most solitary scenes of nature, they permitted their minds to brood in bitter reflection over all their wrongs--over all those tragedies which history itself has blushed to record--their wives and children massacred amidst the midnight conflagration of their humble dwellings, or perishing in their flight through the snows of winter. But heroism such as theirs was not to be crushed even by such calamities as these,--calamities which were calculated to have bowed down less lofty and indomitable spirits to the very dust. With them the effect was like that which would result from some puerile attempt to curb and arrest the mountain cataract. They were divided, as its stream might be, into smaller and less important bodies, and their power was no longer so forcible as when they were united together in one stream, but each individual portion seemed to gain a particular character and consequence of its own by its separation from the main body, where it had hitherto flowed undistinguished and unobserved.

It was thus that, lurking in little parties, in retreats only known to themselves, among craggy ravines and pine-clad precipices, they now resumed that minor and predatory warfare which they had been wont to wage against the inhabitants of the more civilised parts of Scotland,--I mean that which consisted in plundering those richer districts of their cattle. Perhaps no inconsiderable degree of political animosity may have mingled itself in many instances with the other motives that prompted these marauding expeditions in the later times of which I am speaking. But, be this as it may, we must not look upon those who were engaged in them as we do upon the wretched cow-stealers of the present day. That which is now considered as one of the most despicable of crimes was then, in the eyes of the mountaineer, esteemed as an honourable and chivalrous profession. In his untamed imagination no one was looked upon with so much admiration and envy as that individual who might be chosen as the leader of a daring band to harry the low country of its live stock; for these proud sons of the Gael had ever held the inhabitants of the plains in the most sovereign contempt, and they regarded them and their more favoured pastures in no other light than as so many nurses and nurseries, destined by Heaven to rear the cattle which they were born to consume. I can instance one well authenticated example which displays this opinion in its true light. The Laird of Grant, the great chieftain of the glen of Urquhart, having had his cattle driven off by a party of Camerons, and having sent a strong remonstrance to Cameron of Lochiel himself by a special ambassador, had his herds immediately restored to him, with a most courteous letter of apology, which, I believe, still exists, assuring him that his stupid fellows had entirely mistaken his orders, which were, that they should not begin to plunder until they had reached "Moray-land, where every gentleman was entitled to take his prey."

It was soon after the middle of the last century that Mr. Russel, a gentleman of Morayshire, who resided at Earlsmill, near Tarnaway Castle, to the north of the Findhorn, and about ten miles from hence, was alarmed one morning by the unpleasant intelligence, that a strong body of Highlanders had come before daybreak and carried off the whole of his cattle from this very farm of the Aitnoch, which he had at that time taken as a hill-grazing. Mr. Russel was an extremely active and intelligent man; and although he did not make all the warlike preparations which your friend the Laird of Macfarlane did, yet he was not deficient either in promptitude of decision or in readiness of action. After putting a few questions to the scared and breathless messenger, he lost not a moment in summoning and arming his servants; and, instead of taking this way--towards the Aitnoch, he struck at once diagonally across the country in a westerly direction, and marched with great expedition, in order, if possible, to reach a part of the deep glen of the Findhorn, some miles above Dulsie yonder, in such time as to enable him to intercept the plunderers. You may trace with your eye the dark shadow of the glen, which sinks deep and abruptly into the bosom of those purple mountains which you see retreating behind each other in misty perspective. That is the grand pass into the Western Highlands, and Mr. Russel was well aware that if he did not succeed in arresting his cattle before the robbers had made their way through it, the boundless wastes to which it led would render all further search after them quite hopeless. Having reached the course of the river, Mr. Russel and his party made their way down the steep hill-side, forded the stream to its southern bank, and, carefully examining the ground to ascertain whether any fresh footprints were to be observed, they took their stand, satisfied that they had been so far successful.

The spot chosen by Mr. Russel for his ambuscade was in the midst of that most beautiful range of retired and tranquil scenery known by the name of The Streems. There the hollow glen is so profound and so narrow in many places, that one of those little clusters of cottages which are now found here and there sprinkled in the pastoral bottom has the name of Tchirfogrein, a Gaelic appellation implying that it never sees the sun. There were then no houses near the place they had selected, but the party lay concealed behind some huge fragments of rock, shivered by the wedging ice of the previous winter from the summit of a lofty crag that hung half across the narrow holm where they had taken up their position. A little farther down the river the passage was contracted, and there was no approach from that point but by a rude and scrambling footpath irregularly worn along the steep face of the mountain, and behind them the glen was equally confined. Both extremities of the small amphitheatre thus enclosed were then, though they are not now, shaded by dense thickets of birch, hazel, and holly, whilst a few wild pines found a scanty subsistence for their roots on the face of the crags in midway air, and were twisted and writhed by lack of nutriment into the most fantastic and picturesque forms. The stillness of an unusually calm and breathless air hung over this romantic scene, and it was lighted by the now declining sun of a serene summer day, so that half the narrow haugh was in broad and deep shadow, that was strongly contrasted with the brilliant golden light falling on the tufted tops of the trees of a wooded bank on the opposite side of the river.

Mr. Russel and his small party had not long occupied their post when, as they listened in the silence of the evening, they heard the distant lowing of the cattle and the wild shouts of the reavers as they came faint and prolonged up the hollow trough of the glen. The sounds gradually drew nearer and nearer, and increased in volume as they were swelled and re-echoed from the rocks on either side. At length the crashing of the boughs announced the appearance of the more advanced part of the drove; and the tired animals began to issue slowly from among the tangled wood, or to rush violently forth as the shouts of their drivers were more or less impetuous, or their blows chanced to light upon them. As they appeared individually, they gathered themselves into a group on the level open sward, where they stood bellowing, as if quite unwilling to proceed any farther.

In rear of the last stragglers of the herd Mr. Russel now beheld, bursting singly from different parts of the brake, a party of fourteen Highlanders, all in the full costume of the mountains, and wearing the well-known tartan of a western clan. All of them were armed with the dirk, pistol, and claymore, and the greater number of them carried antique fowling-pieces. Mr. Russel's party consisted of not more than ten or eleven persons; but they were well armed, and they were people upon whom he could depend. Exhorting them to be firm, therefore, he drew them suddenly forth from their ambush, and ranged them up in array upon the green turf. The robbers appeared to be confounded for a moment, and uttered some uncouth exclamations of surprise; but a shrill whistle from their leader made them quickly recover their presence of mind, and they rushed forward in a body, and formed themselves in order of battle in front of their spoil. Mr. Russel and his party stood their ground with determination, whilst the leader of the enemy seemed to be holding counsel with himself as to what he should do. He was a little spare athletic man, with long red hair curling over his shoulders, and with a pale and thin, but acute visage. After leaning upon his gun for a time, and surveying the party opposed to him with the eye of a hawk, he shouldered his piece and advanced slowly a few paces in front of his men, until he considered himself to be sufficiently within earshot, and, raising his voice,--

"Mr. Russel," cried he, in very correct English, though with a Highland accent, "are you for peace or war? If for war, look to yourself. But if you are for peace and treaty, order your men to stand fast, and let you and me advance and meet each other half way."

"I will treat," replied Mr. Russel; "but can I trust to your keeping faith?"

"Trust!" exclaimed the other in an offended tone, and with an imperious air; "methinks you may well enough trust to the word and honour of a gentleman."

"I am content," said Mr. Russel.

The respective parties were now ordered to stand their ground, and the two leaders advanced about seventy or eighty paces each towards the middle of the open space, with their loaded guns cocked and presented at each other; and having abridged the distance that divided them to some ten or twelve paces, they halted, and the negotiation commenced. A certain sum was demanded for the restitution of the cattle. Mr. Russel had not so much money about him; but he offered to give all he had in his pocket, which amounted to a sum not a great deal short of what the robber had asked. After some little conversation this was accepted. The bargain was concluded, the money was paid, the guns were uncocked and shouldered, and the two hitherto hostile parties advanced to meet each other and to mingle together in perfect harmony.

"And now, Mr. Russel," said the leader of the band, "you must look at your beasts, to see that none of them are wanting."

"They are all here but one small dun quey," said Mr. Russel, after a minute examination of the herd.

"Ha!" cried the Highland leader, darting an angry glance of inquiry around his men, "how is this? Ewan, I would speak with you."

A tall handsome dark man, whom he had thus addressed, then moved a little way apart with him, and a conversation ensued between them in Gaelic, the sound of which could only be heard, whilst ever and anon the leader's eyes glanced towards one or other of his people; and his voice and gestures indicated anything but satisfaction. At last he returned towards the group.

"Mr. Russel," said he, "you may make your mind easy about the dun quey. On the word of a gentleman, she shall be on your pasture before daylight to-morrow morning."

The treaty being thus happily concluded, and the cattle taken possession of by those who were wont to have the charge of them, Mr. Russel and the Highland leader shook hands and parted, and each took his own way, attended by his followers.

Clifford, interrupting the narrative, Ah! I have a shrewd suspicion that the cheese-shaped lump of tallow you spoke of will turn out, after all, to have been the produce of poor Dunny.

Author.--Have patience, and you shall hear.

We shall leave Mr. Russel and his people to return down the glen with the rescued herd, that we may inquire a little into the motions of the reaver and his men. They had no sooner threaded the mazes of the brake which shut in the upper end of the dell that was the scene of the strange negotiation I have described, than the leader halted them, in order to hold a conference.

"Ewan," said he to him who seemed to act as his second in command, "this is an awkward affair, and you have been much to blame. You had charge of the rear, and not a beast should have strayed. But your carelessness has brought my honour into pledge; and, by all that is good, you must redeem it. I have said that the dun quey shall be on Mr. Russel's pasture in the morning; and, dead or alive, she must be there, for a gentleman's word must be kept."

"I own I have not been so sharp as I should have been," said Ewan, with a mortified air; "but I think I have enough of cleverness in me to enable me to promise you, on the word of a gentleman, that your word shall be made good."

"See that it be so, then," said the leader somewhat sternly, as he walked slowly away up the glen. "Take what strength you please with you, but see that you save both my honour and your own."

His comrades crowded around Ewan, proffering him their friendly aid to enable him to search for and recover the quey. But he courteously declined all their kind offers; and tightening his plaid over his body with the utmost composure, he sprang up the almost perpendicular face of the southern mountain with the agility of a deer, and disappeared over the brow of it, without permitting his breath to come much quicker there than it had done whilst he was in talk with his companions in the deep glen below.

Ewan wandered not over the moors and mosses which you see stretching over the mountain far off yonder like one who was bewildered, or like a hound at fault. Circumstances had arisen to his mind, which had afforded him some clue to the search he had undertaken; and of that clue he had at once laid hold, with a determined resolution to unravel it as speedily as possible to the end. His course, therefore, was taken at once; and it was a most direct one. You see that singular opening in the country between us and Strathspey? Perhaps you may remember that there is a narrow pass there, where a small lake fills the bottom of the defile, and where the face of the mountain that rises over it has all the appearance of having been shaven down by the sword of some giant. The strange tradition of the country indeed is, that it was done by the mighty Fingal, by way of trying the temper of a claymore which he had not yet put to the proof. Well does the weapon seem to have performed its office; and in honour of it the place has ever since been called Beemachlai, or the cut of the sword. Ewan then had no sooner breasted the mountain that hung over the Findhorn, than he turned his face directly southward, and took his way in a straight line for the pass; and despite of the ravines and burns, and peat-pots and moss-hags, and all the other difficulties and obstructions that lay in his road, and the darkness of the evening which settled down upon that wild hill to make all these difficulties ten times greater than they otherwise would have been, he, in a wonderfully short period of time, found himself planted in the narrow path that ran between the loch of Beemachlai, on the one hand, and the mountain that rises from its western margin on the other.

But before taking up his post, the cautious Ewan stooped down, and carefully passed his hand over the whole surface of a bare spot, of some dozen or so of square yards in extent, which he knew must necessarily have been crossed by every man or beast travelling that way, to ascertain whether any fresh footprints had been made in the soft black surface of the moss. His experience in such investigations was so great as to enable him perfectly to satisfy himself that no animal at least had recently trodden there; and with this assurance he stationed himself in the very hollow of the pass, and, seated on a bank, he turned his head towards the north, whence the path came downwards along the base of the hill, and kept eager watch both with eyes and ears. The moon was at this time but young, and the sky was partially covered with thin fleecy clouds; so that when it did rise, it gave but a scanty and uncertain light, though it was enough to pourtray the bold profile of Fingal's hill on the calm bosom of the lake, as well as to enable any one to distinguish a human figure at some little distance.

Ewan had not remained long in this position, when he distinctly heard the short sharp cry used by Highlanders for urging on a bullock. It was occasionally repeated; and by and bye it was followed by the faint sound of the footsteps of a beast and its driver, which grew upon his ear. Ewan bent his head towards the ground, that he might the better catch the figures of both against the sky; and ere they had already come within fifty yards of him, he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction to find that his judgment had not deceived him, and starting up to his feet, he planted himself directly in the middle of the path, so that his figure threw a broad shadow across it; and leaning on his gun, he calmly waited the advance of him who came. He was a tall--nay, almost a gigantic man, with an awkward shambling gait; and he held the dun quey by a long halter with his left hand, whilst he drove her on with a huge rough stick which he carried in his right. He halted the moment that Ewan's dark figure appeared.

"What is it that stands there? Answer, in the name of God!" cried he in Gaelic, and in a tone that manifested great alarm.

"Methinks a foul thief like you had little ado with any such name, Gilliesh," replied Ewan resolutely. "What devil tempted you to steal the dun quey from our herd?"

"What devil told you that I had stolen her?" demanded Gilliesh, much relieved to find that he had to deal with nothing more than mortal flesh.

"Did I not see thee lurking among the birches on the Doun of Dulsie?" said Ewan; "and did I not know that thou couldst be there for no good end; and when the quey was missed, did I not put that and that together to help my guessing, and have I not guessed rightly?"