Chapter II: Part 2

On that day, the French had twelve line-of-battle ships, besides a number of frigates and other smaller vessels. From all their manoeuvres it was very clear that they did not wish to face us--for they stole off in a very dignified manner, never looking over their shoulders all the time, as they were fain to have made us believe that they never saw us at all, or that we were quite beneath their notice. But it was no time for us to stand upon ceremony.--We after them full sail, and we soon made them condescend to attend to us. In spite of all they could do we brought them to action in L'Orient Bay. There we lethered them handsomely, and we very speedily took from them three great ships, the Alexander, the Formidable, and the Tigger; and, if it had not been for the batteries on shore, there was no doubt that we should have had every keel of them. Well, you see, gentlemen, a large splinter of oak--rent away from the ship's side by a cannon shot--took me just below the knee, and demolished the shape of my leg in the ugly fashion I showed you this moment. But I was young then, and hearty, and no very easily daunted or cast down, so that I was soon out of the doctor's list, and on duty again.

But what was far worse than all the wounds that my body could have suffered, though it had been shot and drilled through and through like a riddle, was that which befel me at Hilsea barracks after we returned to Britain. You know very well, gentlemen, that the Bible says, "a wounded speerit who can bear?" Now, you may guess what were the wounds of my speerit, and, consequently, what were my sufferings, when I and some of my Hillant comrades were told, that we were to be immediately drafted into the ninth, or East Norfolk--an English regiment!

It was with sore hearts, and no little indignation, that we heard of the odious order for this cruel separation from our beloved native regiment--a corps in which we had all been like bairns of the same family in the bosom of our common mother--where our officers had been more like elder brothers to us than superiors--cracking with us, at times, in Gaelic, over all our old Hillant stories--and enjoying, as much as we did, our Hillant songs and Hillant dances--and many of them, having known sundry individuals among us when at home in boyhood, were as familiar and easy with us, at any ordinary bye-hour, as you, gentlemen, are pleased to be with me at this precious moment--and yet the di'el ae bit was our discipline any the waur o' that, whatever his Grace the gallant Duke of Wellington may say against such a system--and, for aught I know, he may be right enough as to the English, who have not been brought up as we were in the allowance of such liberties,--but, as for us, when the parade hour came, or the time for duty, all such familiarities ceased, and every one filled his own place, like the wheel of a watch, to be turned at the will of him who was above him.--You may easily conceive, then, that banishment, or even death itself, would have been better to us than the being thus torn from such a regiment for the express purpose of being joined to a corps composed of Englishmen, with whom we could neither crack of our homes, nor of our Hillant hills, nor sing Gaelic songs, nor tell auncient stories, nor speak about Ossian, nor hear the pipes play, nor dance the Hillant-fling.--And then, instead of the kind and brotherly correction of our Hillant officers, the very slightest sound of whose word of reproof brought the blush of shame into our cheeks, and was as effectual a punishment to us as if we had been brought to the halberts--think what it was to us to be snubbed by some cross tempered upsetting Sassenach, who could know nothing of our nation's temper or disposition, and who might perhaps, of a morning, order our backs to be scored, with as little remorse as he would order a beef-steak to be brandered for his breakfast.--Oh it was a terrible change!--Our very speerits were just altogether broken at the very thought of it, and we actually ceased to be the same men.

But, gentlemen, if this was the effect produced on our minds by the mere anticipation of this most bitter change in our fate, what think ye was the misery of body which we sustained, and, especially, what think ye was my misery, when I, who never wore aught else but a kilt from the day I was born till that accursed moment, was crammed, in spite of all I could say or do to the contrary, hip and thigh, into a pair of tight regimental small-clothes!--Aye, you may laugh indeed gentlemen--but if anybody was to tie your legs together with birken woodies, as they have tied the fore-legs of yon pouny that you see feeding yonder in the bit meadow at the foot of the brae, and if you were then to be bidden to climb up the steepest face of Ben-Machduie, you could not be more helpless, or more ill at ease than I was. As for drilling, you might as well have set up a man in a sack to march.

"Step out!" cried they eternally--"why the devil don't you step out?"

But it was just altogether ridiculous to cry out any such thing to me, for fint a step could I take at all, unless they had letten me step out of my breeks.--I was in perfect torture with them.--The very circulation of my blood was stopped--my nether man was rendered entirely numb and powerless. Nay, had I been built up mid man into a brick-wall I might have stepped out just as well.

Now, I would have you to understand, gentlemen, that especially and above all things, the confounded articles grippit and pinched me most desperately over the henches. The joints of my henches were so bound together in their very sockets by their pressure as to be rendered altogether useless; and the torture I endured in these quarters became so great, that I felt I could bear it no longer. I sat down, therefore, to hold a consultation with myself what was best to be done; and, after as cool and calm a consideration of my lamentable case as my extreme state of misery would allow, I came, in my own private council of war, to the determination, that I had only three things to choose from, and these were,--to desert--to cut my throat--or to cut my breeches; and, after having much and duly weighed these different evil alternatives, I finally resolved to adopt the last of them.

Having come to this resolution, I then began, like a skilful engineer, narrowly to examine the horrid instruments of my sufferings, in order to ascertain how and where I could most easily make a breach in them, and one that was most likely to give the greatest ease to myself. A little farther thought and observation soon convinced me, that, as the parts most grievously afflicted, were those which your masters of fortification would have called the sailliant angles of my henches to right and left, and especially as on these hinged much of the motion of the whole man, it was clear that the proposed attempt to work myself relief should be first tried in those two points. I lost not a moment, therefore, in carrying my plan into execution. I immediately borrowed a pair of shears from a sodger's wife; and, sitting down regularly before my breeches, like an experienced general about to besiege a fortress, I fairly attacked the two sailliant angles of the bastion, and carried them by storm; and having, with the greatest nicety, cut out a round piece of the cloth of three or four inches in width, directly over each hip-joint, I ventured to thrust my limbs within the very garrison of my breeches; and really, gentlemen, the ease I obtained in consequence of this bold operation is not to be described.

So innocent was I, and so utterly unconscious of even a suspicion that I had done any thing wrong, that when the drum beat, I went off to the private parade of the company I had been attached to, with my heart almost as much eased as my henches; nay, it was absolutely bounding with benevolence, and brimful with the earnest desire and intention of spreading the blessed discovery I had made, and making it widely known among my Hillant comrades, so that all of them who might be in the same state of misery as I had been, might forthwith proceed to benefit themselves, as I had done, by the bright discovery I had made. Rejoicing in my ease, therefore, I strode across the barrack-square, with a step so much wider and grander than any I had lately been able to use, that I felt a pride in the excellence of my invention which I cannot possibly describe. I halted for a moment--stretched out, first my right leg, and then my left, just as I have seen a fowl do upon its perch--and then, clapping my hand upon the new made hole on either side of me, I chuckled for joy.

"Hah!" cried I; "breeches do they call you? By my faith, then, but I have made you more like your name by these well-imagined breaches of my own contrivance, which I have so ingeniously opened through your accursed sides."

I then bent myself down, and made a spring into the air; after which, being quite satisfied that a paring or two more off the edges of the round holes would make all nearly right, I walked on with an air of dignified self-satisfaction that was not to be mistaken. But I had not come within ten yards of the spot where the company was falling in, when I heard the serjeant exclaim,--

"My heyes! look at that ere Ighland savage! I'm damned if he arn't been cutting big oles in his Majesty's rigimental breeches!"

A loud horse-laugh burst out from among the men, and the serjeant joined heartily in it. But it was no laughing matter to me; I was cut to the soul. All our horrible anticipations of English officers, halberds, and cat-o'-nine-tails, came smack upon me at once. I was overwhelmed--I grew dizzy--and, before I had well recovered myself, I was marched off to the guard-house under the charge of a corporal and a file of men, and a written crime was given in against me in these terms.

"Privut Archbauld Stewart of Captin Ketley's compnay, confined by order of Sargunt Nevett, for aving cut two big oles in the ipps of a pair of riggimental britches belonghing too is Magesty King George the Third."

Well, gentlemen, there was I left in the guard-house for some hours a prisoner. But if I was confined in one way, I took good care to put myself very much at my ease in another; for I pulled off my tormentors altogether, and sat quite coolly and comfortably without them. But I was sore enough at heart, for all that; for, independent of the fearful prospect of the unrelenting punishment that awaited me, the disgrace of confinement to which I had thus, for the first time in my life, been subjected, and that so unjustly, stung me to the very heart. For a good hour or more I could do nothing but grind my teeth with absolute vexation and rage; but at length I began to gather some command of myself, and to think of the necessity of making up my mind as to what was to be done. I recalled the three evil alternatives, from which I had already made that which had now proved to be so unfortunate a selection, and as that had so miserably failed me, I continued for sometime swinging backwards and forwards, like a bairn in a shuggy-shue, [2] between the two that yet remained to be tried, and I had not yet made up my mind on the subject, when the serjeant appeared, and ordered me to put on my breeches and follow him. I obeyed like a man who gets up from his straw to go out and be hanged. But there was one great difference between such a poor wretch and me, very much in his favour, for as his fetters in such a case are taken off, I was on the contrary condemned to buckle on mine.

I did follow the serjeant as he bade me, but notwithstanding the outlets I had made in the breeches for the joints of my hench bones, and the comparative ease I had thereby formerly enjoyed, yet the few hours I had had in the guardhouse of a freedom of limb resembling that which I was wont to enjoy in my old kilt, made me feel so strange upon thus recommitting my joints to the thraldom of the accursed garments, that I went shaughling along after him, as if they had undergone no improvement at all. He took me directly to Captain Ketley's quarters, and whilst I was on my way thither, I was compelled to bring my doubts to a hasty conclusion, and so I resolved that of the two plans now only remaining for me to choose from, desertion should be first tried, seeing that if it should fail me, I might cut my throat afterwards, for that if I should cut my throat first, I should not afterwards find it an easy matter to desert. I had no more time than just enough to settle this point with myself, when the serjeant rapped at our captain's door.

"Come in!" cried Captain Ketley, in what sounded in my ear like a tremendous voice.

"Privut Archbauld Stewart and his cut breeches, your honour!" cried the serjeant, ushering me without ceremony into the middle of the room.

There I stood with my head up, and in the military attitude of attention, the which, as you will naturally observe, gentlemen, was, of all others, out of all sight the most convenient and best chosen attitude for me at the time; for, as you will understand, the palms of my two hands were thus exactly applied to the two holes I had made, though the size of the holes themselves was so great that I could by no means entirely cover them. But if I could have done so, this well conceived manoeuvre of mine would have been of no avail.

"Stand at ease!" cried the serjeant, giving me at the same time a smart tap on the back with his rattan cane.

"Serjeant," said I impatiently, "you know very well that it's not possible for me to stand at ease in thir fashious breeks of mine."

I saw that Captain Ketley had a hard task of it to keep his gravity.

"What is this which has been reported to me of you, sir?" demanded he with as stern a look as he could possibly assume; "how comes it that you have taken upon you to destroy a pair of new regimental breeches in that manner?"

"Captain," said I, now quite brought to bay, and making up my mind to go through with it, whatever the consequences might be; "Captain, if your honor will but hear me, I will speak."

"Speak on then," said Captain Ketley, "provided you say nothing that as an officer I may not listen to. Serjeant Nevett, you may retire."

"You need not fear that I shall offend you, Captain Ketley," said I, "I have been over long accustomed to speak to officers to forget the respect and duty I owe to them as a sodger, and since your honour is so kind, I will be as short as I can. I enlisted, you see, to serve in the Inverness Highlanders, and in so doing I covenanted to fight in company with my own countrymen, and in the freedom of a kilt. Now, against all bargain--against all manner of justice--against my will--and against the very nature of a Hillantman, I have been thrust, first into this English regiment, and then into this pair of English small clothes--well may they be so called, I'm sure. Captain Ketley, all this is most unreasonable. You might as well put a deer of the mountains into a breachame, and expect to plough the land with him, as to put a Hillantman into such cruel harness as thir things, with the hope that he can do his work in them; and, although I am as wishful as any man that serves King George can be, to spend the last drop of my blood, as some of it has flowed already in the cause of his Majesty, God bless him! and for our common country, yet I will just tell your honour plainly and honestly--though with all manner of respect--that I will not stay in this Ninth Regiment to be kept in the eternal torture of thir breeks, though I should see the men drawn out to shoot me for trying to desert--for death itself is desirable rather than that I should longer endure such misery as this. So I say again, that although I am quite willing to serve King George in any regiment he may be pleased to put me into that wears the kilt, yet I will take the first moment I can catch, to run away from such disgraceful and heartbreaking bondage as this to which I am now subjected."

"No, no, my good fellow," said Captain Ketley, who had all this time had his own share of trouble in keeping himself from laughing, and who now gave way and laughed outright; "you must not run away from us, Archy. We cannot afford to lose so good a man. We must do all we can to put you at your ease with us. Your complaints are certainly not altogether unreasonable. But you should not have cut holes in your breeches--you should have come and stated your grievances to me. Remember in future, that you will always find me ready to listen to any well-founded complaint you may have to make. Meanwhile,--see here," said he, taking a pair of old loose trowsers out of his chest, and tossing them to me,--"wear these for a few days, till your limbs get somewhat accustomed to the thraldom of small clothes, and until we can get you fitted with a better and easier pair of your own. I shall see about your immediate release from confinement, and that you and your Highland comrades be excused from duty until you are more at home in your new clothing. If you behave yourself well, you shall always find a friend in me."

"God bless your honour!" cried I, with a joyful and grateful heart, and, if you will believe me, gentlemen, almost with the tears in my eyes; "your honour has spoken to me just like one of our own kind Hillant officers of the Ninety-seventh. I'll go all the world over with you, though my breeks were of iron!"

Well, gentlemen, Captain Ketley was as good as his word--he was a kind and steady friend to me as long as he lived. He inquired of me whether I could read and write; and, finding that I could do both--aye, and spell too--and that somewhat better, as I reckon, than Serjeant Nevett,--and, moreover, that I was not a bad hand at counting,--he got me made a corporal in less than a fortnight, and, very soon after that, a serjeant. But, woe's me! a few months had hardly passed away when Captain Ketley died. Many were the salt tears I shed over his grave, after we had given him our parting vollies, and no wonder, for he was one of the best friends I ever had in my life. I cannot think of him, even yet, without regret. Willingly would I have given my life for his at any time. But what is this miserable world, gentlemen, but a valley of sorrow?

Well, I got fond enough, after all, of the Holy Boys, as the old Ninth lads were called.

Clifford (interrupting.)--How did they get that name, Archy?

Serjeant.--Oh, I'll tell you that, sir.--You see, when they came from the West Indies, as a skeleton regiment, they were made up again with growing boys. Colonel Campbell of Blythswood tried to do them some good by getting them schoolmasters and Bibles. But the young rogues had been ill nurtured in the parent nest, and they used to barter their Bibles for gin and gingerbread. The Duke of York used to say of them, that they were every thing that was bad but bad sodgers--ha! ha! ha!

And now, gentlemen, I believe I have little more to tell you about myself, except that I got my jaw broken in two places by a musket ball in Holland, on the 19th of September 1799. See what a queer kind of a mouth it has made me in the inside here. You see I had been out superintending the working party in the redoubts, and I had returned, tired as a dog, to the barn where the light company were quartered, and had just laid my head on my wife's knee to take a nap--for I was married by this time--when a terrible thumping came to the door, and Corporal Parrot ran to see who was there. Now, it happened that one of our serjeants was sick, and the other had been killed.--It was Adjutant Orchard who knocked so loud.

"Where is Serjeant Stewart?" demanded he, in a terrible hurry, the moment he entered the place.

"Can't I do instead of him?" replied Corporal Parrot; "for he is just new out of the trenches."

"No!" replied the Adjutant; "if he was new out of hell, I must have him directly."

"What's ado, sir?" demanded I, jumping up.

"You know as much as I do," replied the Adjutant; "but, depend upon it, we are not wanted to build churches. Get you out the light bobs as fast as you can."

Well, I hurried about and got out the light company with as little delay as possible; and no very easy matter it was to get hold of the poor fellows, knocked up as they were. Some of them I actually pulled out of hay stacks by the legs, as you would pull out periwinkles from their shells. The troops marched fifteen miles without a halt. We found the French and Russians hard at it, blazing away so that we could see the very straws at our feet as we marched over the sand. The balls came whistling about us like hail as we advanced. First came one, and knocked away the hilt of my sword; then came another, and cracked off the iron head of my halberd.

"If you go on at this rate, you villains," said I, "you'll disarm us altogether."

Then smack came another, whack through my canteen, and spilt all my brandy.

"Ye rascals!" said I, trying at the same time to save as much of it as I could in my mouth, "that is most uncivil. Ye are no gentlemen, ye scoundrels, to spill a poor fellow's drop of comfort in this way."

By and bye, half-a-dozen of balls or so went through the blanket I carried on my shoulders.

"By my faith," said I, "it's time now that I should return you my compliments for all your civilities, you vagabonds."

I stooped to take a musket from a dead Russian for my own defence. The piece was a rifle, and it was yet warm in his hand from the last discharge.

"By your leave, my poor fellow," said I, "I'll borrow your firelock for a shot or two, seeing that you have no farther use for it at this present time."

But dead as he was, the last gripe of departing life had made him hold it so fast, that I was obliged to twist it round ere I could make him part with it. I took off his cartridge-box by pulling the belt over his head. He had fired but two cartridges, and eighteen still remained. I loaded and fired twice; and I was just in the act of biting off the end of my third cartridge to fire again, when a musket ball took me in the left cheek, and knocked me over as flat as a sixpence on the ground. The captain of the company looked behind him, and seeing that I was still able to move my hands, he very humanely ordered a file of men to carry me to the rear. They lifted me up from the ground, and the whole world seemed to be going round with me. They supported me under the arms, and I staggered along like a drunk man. They took me to a barn, where I lay insensible for some time, until coming to myself somewhat, as I lay there, I saw two surgeons employed with the wounded. "You will have little trouble with me, gentlemen," thought I within myself; "I shall be dead before you can get at me." Just at this moment I heard one of the surgeons say to the other,--

"I believe I shall die of hunger."

"I am like to faint from absolute want," said the other.

I could not speak, but I beckoned.

"By and bye," said one of the surgeons, shaking his head.

"Your turn is not come yet," said the other.

I beckoned again, and pointed to the wallet at my side.

"Oh ho!" said the first surgeon crossing the place, and rapidly followed by the other,--"Oh ho! I comprehend you now. Let's see what you have got in your larder."

He put his hand into the wallet, and found some balls of oatmeal, which my wife, honest woman, had made by rolling them up with water, and then giving them a roast among the ashes. The two gentlemen devoured them with great glee. They then looked at my chafts, put some lint into the wound, and bound it up.

"Well," thought I to myself, "a leaden ball made the wound, and a ball of oatmeal has doctored it. Many thanks to my worthy wife, God bless her!"

After the doctors left us, the place, which was pitch dark, became hot and pestiferous, and the groans that came from some of the poor wretches put me in mind of pandemonium. I was for some time feverish and restless. I tried to stretch myself out at length, but I felt some one at my feet who would not stir all I could do. Though I could not speak, I was not sparing of my kicks, but still the person regarded me not. Next to me was Serjeant Wilson with a broken leg, and he was pressed upon by some one at his side. But the Serjeant had the full use of his tongue.

"Sir," said he to his neighbour, for he was noted for being a very polite man, "will you do me the favour to lie a little farther over, and take your elbow out of my stomach."

His civil request was disregarded, and there was no reply.

"Oh!" said the serjeant, "perhaps the gentleman is a furreiner; but all them furreiners understands French, so I'll try my hand at that with him:--Moushee wooly wous have the goodness to takee your elbow out of my guts. Confound the fellow, what an edification he has had that he does not understand French. I've heard Ensign Flitterkin say that it is the language of Europe. Pray, sir, may I ax if you be a European? No answer,--by my soul then I may make bold to say that you are any thing but a civilian. Sir," continued the serjeant, beginning now to lose patience altogether, and to wax very wroth, "I insist on your removing your elbow. I say, rascal! take your elbow out of my stomach this moment!"

And so the serjeant went on from bad to worse, till he swore, and went on to swear, at the poor man more and more bloodily the whole night. But neither his swearing, nor my kicking, could rid either of us of our troublesome companions. And it was no great wonder indeed--for when the day-light came, we discovered that they were two dead Russians!

"This is a horrible place!" exclaimed the principal surgeon when he came back in the morning. "As near as I can guess, one hundred and fifty-two men have died in this wretched barn since last night!--we must have the wounded out of this."

Thanks to my wife's oatmeal balls, which the grateful surgeons had not forgotten, my wounds were dressed the very first man. We were soon afterwards carried on hand-barrows by a Russian party down to the flat-bottomed boats, and so we were conveyed to the Texel. I bore the bullet home in my chafts, and it was cut out by an English doctor in Deal hospital. I was discharged on the 23d of June 1800. But my pension was granted before pensions were so big as they are now-a-days, so that I am but ill off compared to some who have come home from the late wars. But, thank God, I am contented, since I cannot make a better of it.

GALLANTRY OF THE SEVENTY-FIRST HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY.

Clifford.--How little known are the miseries to which the brave defenders of Britain's glory are subjected!--and how meagre is their reward, and how poor is their harvest of individual fame!--Our Nelsons and our Wellingtons, to be sure, are as certainly, as they are deservedly, destined to immortality of name. But is it not most painful to think that so many of our bravest hearts have gallantly fallen, to sleep in undistinguished oblivion? Your scene in the old barn, Serjeant, reminds me of an anecdote which I had from an officer of the Ninety-first Regiment.--It has never yet appeared in print, though it well deserves to be so recorded, as being worthy of that distinguished corps, the Seventy-first Highland Light Infantry, to which it belongs.

The circumstances took place in 1813, during the Peninsular War. The Seventy-first were at that time stationed with the Fiftieth and the Ninety-second, at St. Pierre, on the main road between Bayonne and St. Jean-pied-de-Port.--This was the key of Lord Hill's position on the river Adour, and the fire of musquetry brought against its defenders on the 13th December, was such as the oldest veterans had never before witnessed. The corps under Lord Hill, indeed, were on that day attacked by Soult's whole force. But so nobly did those fine regiments perform their duty, that the late Lieutenant-General the Honourable William Stewart, next day gave out an order, which I remember treasuring up in my memory as a masterpiece of soldier-like diction. I think the very words were these:--"The second Division has greatly distinguished itself, and its gallantry in yesterday's action is fully felt by the Commander of the Forces, and the Allied Army."

And well indeed had they merited this highly creditable testimonial of their good behaviour. But the carnage was great, and there were many who, alas! did not survive to participate in the honour conferred by it. Several of the wounded, belonging to the respective corps, were huddled together in the lower storey of an old house, that stood upon the very ground on which the thickest part of the contest had taken place. Now it happened, that certain officers from different regiments had taken shelter in a room in the floor above, where they were refreshing themselves, after their fatigue, with such food and other restoratives as they could command, and among them was that officer of the Ninety-first who told me the facts to which he was an ear-witness.

The conversation of these gentlemen, though mingled now and then with many regrets for lost companions, had a certain temperate joy in it--a joy arising from a conviction that they had behaved like men--and which was tempered by strong feelings of gratitude to a kind Providence, who had preserved them amidst all the perils of the fight. Suddenly their talk was put an end to by the most heart-rending groans and shrieks of agony, that came up from the room below, through the old decayed floor. What mirth or joy there was among them, was altogether banished by the frequency and intensity of the screams, that betokened the mortal sufferings of a dying man. They sat for a time mutely, though deeply sympathizing, with the poor unfortunate from whom they came. At length they distinctly heard another faint, and apparently expiring voice, say, in a tone of rebuke,--"Haud your tongue, James, and bear your fate like a man. We'll soon be baith at ease.--But, in the mean time, haud your tongue, for there are folk aboon us that may be hearin' you; and if you have no respect for yoursell, recollect what you owe to the gallant Seventy-first Hillant Light Infantry, to which we baith belong."

This appeal had the desired effect. All that could now be heard, in the stillness of the night, was a low murmur. A surgeon, who was of the party, immediately went to administer what relief he might to the wretched sufferers. But in one short hour these heroic men had ceased to exist, and no one can now tell even the name of either of them.

Author.--A most touching anecdote!--What magnanimous fellows!

Grant.--Their names should have been written by the hand of Fame herself, in letters of the purest and most imperishable gold!--Yet they have been allowed to sink into the sea of forgetfulness, and,

"Like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever."

they have melted into oblivion--so far, at least, as this world is concerned.

Clifford.--Yes; they sleep unremembered, whilst every lily-livered cobler, or tailor, who has handled his awl, or his bodkin, with no more peril to his person than may have lain on the point of one or other of these formidable weapons, has his tombstone--his death's head and cross-bones--and his attendant cherubims--as well as his text and his epitaph.

Serjeant.--Very true, sir--very true. What have such chields as these to do with fame? But for all that, we see fame arise to the silliest men, and from the most trifling causes.

Grant.--Right, Archy. For instance, I remember a certain Highlander, who gained his fame in a way that may perhaps make you envious--for it is the tale of your unwhisperables that has brought him to my mind.

Serjeant.--Aye, sir!--What was his story?

Grant.--Why, the hero was a certain Rory Maccraw, who, despising the kilt which he had worn all his life, resolved, at all risks, to figure in a pair of those elegant emblems of civilization called breeches. At the present day, one may travel from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth without seeing such a thing as a kilt; but at the time of which I am now speaking, anything in the shape of breeches was just as rarely to be seen as the kilt is now. Rory had a pair made for him in some distant town, where, as they would say in Ireland, he had not been by when his measure was taken, and having put them on, he left his glen to go to a market. It was observed by his neighbours, that he never before took so long a time to walk the same distance, and, from his strange and stately manner of strutting, they attributed this circumstance to the pride he felt in his new garments. Arrived at the market, the expectation he had indulged in, that he was to excite the wonder and envy of all the people there, did not deceive him. He was followed, and stared at, and admired, and questioned wherever he went. If a dancing bear had waddled through the fair, he could not have had half the number of people after him. But like most of those who envy the lot of their neighbours, these good folks only saw the outside of things, and knew not the misery which was covered by this fair external show. In the midst of their admiration, poor Rory was in torture. He would have given all he was worth, unmentionables and all, to have got rid of the admiring crowds that followed him; and at last, long before he had done half his business in the market--for as to pleasure, he could taste none of it--he, the envied, the observed of all observers, watched his opportunity to steal hobbling away down a back lane, whence he went limping in agony into the country. There, seating himself by the public way-side, regardless of what eyes might behold him, he pulled off the instruments of his suffering, and hanging them on the end of his staff, he placed it over his shoulder, and so trudged his way homeward, in defiance of the taunts, gibes, and laughter of the crowds which he fell in with by the way. But his fame was established; and ever afterwards he went by the name of Peter Breeks.

Clifford.--Capital!

Author.--Well, Archy, to return to your own story, and the disappointment you have met with in the arrestment of your career of glory, I would fain comfort you with the old proverb, that a contented mind is better than riches.

Serjeant.--That is very true, sir; and I am very thankful that I am blessed with that same. And although I got but little in the army but hard knocks, yet I would take them all over again, rather than that I should not have seen the many things I did see, as well as the heaps of queer human beings I met with during the few years I served. What is man, gentlemen, unless he gets the rust of home, and the reek of his own fire-side rubbed off him by travel? He can never be expected to speculate on any thing but the ducks in the dubbs, or the hens on the midden-head. Though I had a tolerable education for the like of me, what would I have been had I never been out of this valley? Not much better, I trow, than one of the stirks that are bred in it. Bless you, sirs, I saw a vast of human nature in my travels.

Grant.--And thought much and well on it too, Archy, if I mistake not.

Serjeant.--May be I did, sir,--and a very curious nature it is, I'll assure you. But, gentlemen, we must cross the water at this wooden bridge here.

Author.--If you had not seen so much by going into the world as you have done, Archy, I have great doubts whether that curiosity, which has since made you pick up that great store of your native legends which you are said to possess, might not have lain entirely dormant.

Serjeant.--Oh, bless your honour, I should never have thought of such things. It was the seeing so much that roused up the spirit of enquiry within me. And so it happened, that after I came back from the sodgering trade, this spirit could not rest till I had gathered up all the curious stories I could get. And then I fell tooth and nail upon books, so that, when I was not working, I was always reading histories, novelles, magazines, newspapers, and such like, so that I am not just altogether that ill informed. But stop a moment, gentlemen; do you see yon bright green spot in the hollow of the hill-side yonder above us?

Grant.--Yes; but what is there wonderful about that, Archy?

Serjeant.--There is nothing very wonderful about itself, indeed, but it is worth your remarking for all that. It is what we call in this country a wallee, that is, the quaking bog out of which a spring wells forth.

Clifford.--Tut, Archy! There are few grouse shooters who have not experienced the treachery of these smooth-faced, flattering, but most deceitful water-traps.

Serjeant.--Smooth-faced, flattering, and deceitful, indeed, sir. I've heard them compared by some to the fair sex, beauteous and smiling outside, and cruelly cold-hearted within. But I think any such comparison is most unjust, for my old woman never deceived me; and, as I have told you, if it had not been for her oatmeal balls I verily believe I should not have been here at this moment.

Clifford.--It would ill become you, indeed, to slander the fair sex, Mister Serjeant, and depend upon it, you will not catch me doing so.

Serjeant.--But about the wallee yonder; I was saying----

Clifford.--Aye, the wallee; I shall never forget the first cold-bath I had up to the neck in one of them. It was all owing to the spite of a cunning old moorcock, which I had severely wounded. Out of revenge, I suppose, for the mortal injury I had done him, he chose to come fluttering down into the very middle of what I conceived to be a beautiful surface of hard green-sward. Being but a young sportsman at the time, and very eager to secure my bird, who sat most provokingly tock-tock-tocking at me, as if he had bid me defiance, I ran down the bank, and made a bound towards him. In I went souse. I shiver yet to think of it--my very senses were congealed--and for a moment I verily believed that I had been suddenly transformed into the North Pole, and that the cock-grouse that fluttered around me was Captain Parry come to explore me. And, i' faith, if it had not been for the light foot and strong arm of the gilly who was with me, I believe I might have been sticking upright there, preserved in ice till this moment. There was a moorish bath for you!

Serjeant.--They are most unchancy bits for strangers; that is certain, sir.

Clifford.--Unchancy indeed! But if that is all you have to tell us about yonder place in the hill-side, Mr. Archy, you may save yourself the trouble of attempting to astonish me with your information; for, Sassenach though I be, I promise you that I have been long ago initiated into the full depth of the mystery.--Nymphs and Naiads of the crystal Aven, what a beautiful stream there is for fishing!

Serjeant.--'Tis very good, indeed, sir. But yon wallee that I was speaking about would swallow a horse, with you on the top of it. Many a time have I thrust a long pole down into it without reaching any thing the least like firm ground. It would swallow that fishing-wand of yours, sir.

Clifford.--(Already employed in putting his rod together.)--Plague choke it, I should be sorry indeed to see my rod go in any such way. It is one of the best Bond ever made; and though adapted, by means of these different pieces, to any size of stream, it was never intended for such deep sea fishing as you would put it to. I shall apply it to another purpose, my good serjeant. With this sky, the trouts there will take a grey mallard's wing with a yellow silk body, in great style.

Serjeant.--But the wallee up yonder is worth your notice, because of an ould auncient monumental stone, that once stood on the dry bank beside it.

Grant.--Ha! a monumental stone!--let us hear about that.

Serjeant.--It was about seven feet high, sir, and the tradition regarding it is, that it was set up there in memory of a sad story that is connected with it.

Author.--A story, said you?

Clifford.--Then, my good fellow, Serjeant Stewart, just have the kindness to sit down there, and tell us the particulars of your sad story, while I give a few casts here over this most tempting stream.

Serjeant.--With all manner of pleasure, sir; I shall be happy to tell your honours all I have gathered about it. It is the very legend for which Mr. Clifford marked me down in his book.

Clifford immediately began to fish. Grant and I seated ourselves on the daisied bank of the river, one on each side of the serjeant. The gilly stretched himself at length on the grass, and was soon asleep--the pony with the panniers grazed as far around him as the length of his halter would let him, and my Newfoundland dog Bronte sat watching the trouts leaping, whilst Archy proceeded with his narrative, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following words; but if not always precisely in the serjeant's own language, at least I shall give it with a strict adherence to his facts.

LEGEND OF THE CLAN-ALLAN STEWARTS.

From the important correction which your honour has made upon my genealogy, I think I may now venture to say, with some confidence, that the time of my legend must be somewhere about the fifteenth century--how early in it I cannot say; but it is pretty clear that my ancestor, Sir Allan Stewart, must have lived about that period. As I have already told you, the whole of this country, hill and glen, was then covered with forests, except in such spots as were kept open by the art of man for pasture or for tillage, but of the latter, even of the rudest kind, I suspect there was but little hereaway in those days. I take it for granted that the chief of the Clan-Allan must have had his stronghold at the old tower of Drummin, though I do not mean to say that it was identically the same building that now exists there. It stands, as some of you perhaps know, gentlemen, a good way down the country from where we now are, on a point of table land considerably elevated above the valley, which is there rendered wider by the junction of the river Livat with the river Aven, and just in the angle between these two streams. When the noble old forests waved over the surrounding hills, leaving the quiet meadows below open in rich pasture, it must have been even yet a more beautiful place for man to dwell in than it is now,--and, let me tell you, that is saying a great deal.

My history begins towards the end of the life of Sir Allan Stewart, whose term of existence had been long, and no doubt boisterous enough, as you may very well guess. He was by this time so old as to be confined to his big oak chair, which was generally placed for him under the projection of the huge chimney of the ancient fire-place, or lumm, as we call it in Scotland; and there he sat, propped up with pillows, crooning over old ballads, and muttering old saws from morn till night, as if he now cared for nothing in this life, but to drone away the last dull measure of his time, like the end of some drowsy ill-composed pibroch, if such a thing there can be. But the lively interest which he took when any stirring event occurred, which in any degree affected the honour or welfare of himself, his family or clan, sufficiently showed that all his martial fire was not extinguished; for then would it flash out from beneath his heavy eyelids--his bulky form would move impatiently on his seat, and he would turn his eyes restlessly towards his broadsword and targe, that hung conspicuously among the deers' heads, wolfs' skins, and the numerous warlike weapons that covered the walls, with an expression so animated, as very plainly to speak the ardour of his decaying spirit, which still, like that of the old war-horse, seemed thus to snuff up the battle from afar.

Sir Allan had two tall strapping sons by his first marriage--Walter and Patrick, both of them pretty men. To Walter, as the elder of the two, he looked as his successor, and, accordingly, he already acted in all things, and on all occasions, as his father's representative. After the death of their mother, Sir Allan had married a woman of lower degree, by whom he had a third son, called Murdoch, whose naturally bad dispositions had been fostered by the doting fondness of his old father. Murdoch's mother, at the time we are speaking of, was what we would call in our country phrase a handsome boardly-looking dame, of some forty years of age or so, whose smooth tongue and deceitful smile covered the blackest and most depraved heart.

"See, father!" said Walter Stewart to old Sir Allan, as he and his brother Patrick entered the hall one evening, followed by some of their people, with whom they had been all day engaged in the pursuit of a wolf, whose grinning countenance, attached to his shaggy skin, was borne triumphantly on the point of a hunting spear. "See here, father! we have got him at last. We have at last taken vengeance on the villain for his cruel slaughter of poor Isabel's child. Look at the spoils of the murdering caitiff who devoured the little innocent."

"Hath he not been a fell beast, father?" said Patrick, holding up the hunting spear before Sir Allan, and shaking the trophy.

"Ah!" said Sir Allan, rousing himself up, "a fell beast indeed!--aye, aye--poor child, poor child!--bring his head nearer to me, boy! Would I could have been with you! Aye, aye--dear me--age will come upon us. But I have seen the day, boys--aye, aye--och, hey!"

"Ho, there!" cried Walter Stewart, "what means it that there are no signs of supper? By St. Hubert, but we have toiled long enough and hard enough to-day with legs, arms, spears, spades, and mattocks, to have well earned our meal! Where is brother Murdoch?--where is the Lady Stradawn?"

"Aye, aye," said the querulous old Sir Allan, "it is ever thus now-a-days. I am always left to myself--weary, weary is my life I am sure--and I am hungry--very hungry. Aye, aye."

"Thou shalt have thy supper very soon, father," said Patrick, kindly taking his hand; "and Walter and I will leave you but for a brief space, to rid us of these wet and soiled garments."

The two brothers then hastened from the hall to go to their respective chambers.

"Whose draggle-tailed beast was that I saw tied up under the tree beyond the outer gateway as we came in?" demanded Walter of his attendant, Dugald Roy.

"I have seen the beast before," replied Dugald. "If I am not far mista'en, it is the garron the proud Priest of Dalestie rides,--and a clever beast it would need to be, I am sure, for many a long, and late, and queer gate does it carry him, I trow."

"How came the animal there, Dugald?" demanded Walter quickly.

"If by your question, how the animal came there, you would ask what road he took, Sir Knight," replied Dugald, "I must tell you that the man that could answer you would need to deal with the devil, for no one but the foul fiend himself could follow the Priest of Dalestie; for, unless he be most wickedly belied, his ways follow those of the Evil One, as much as our good father, Peter of Dounan, is known to travel in the path of his blessed Master."

"Nay, but I would know from thee, in plain terms, where thou judgest that the rider of the horse may be?" said Sir Walter, impatiently.

"With your lady mother, the Lady Stradawn, I reckon," said Dugald, sinking his voice to a half whisper.

"Call her not my lady mother!" said Sir Walter, angrily, "my lady step-mother, if thou wilt, or my step-mother without the lady, for that, in truth, would better befit her, disgrace as she hath been and still is to us all.--Here, undo this buckle!--But what, I pr'ythee, hath she to do with the proud Priest of Dalestie, as thou hast so well named him?"

"Nay, nothing that I know of, Sir Walter, unless it be to confess her," replied Dugald.

"Why, the good old father, Peter of Dounan, was here but yesterday, was he not?" exclaimed Sir Walter, "might he not have shriven her?"

"Father Peter was here sure enough," replied Dugald, "but it would seem that he is not to the lady's fancy."

"Beshrew her fancy!" cried Sir Walter, bitterly,--"Where could she, or any one, find a worthier confessor than Father Peter of Dounan? He is, indeed, a good and godly man, and, frail as he is in body, we know that he is always ready to run, as fast as his feeble limbs can carry him, wherever his pious duties or his charities may call him.--Moreover, he is at all times within reach, what need, then, hath she to send so far a-field for one whose character is, by every one's report, so very questionable--give me my hose and sandals, Donald.--Now thou may'st go.--By the Rood, I like not that pestilent and ill-famed fellow coming about our house! He hath more character for arrogance, and self-indulgence as a glutton and a toss-pot, than for sanctity.--It was an ill day for this country side when it was disgraced by his coming into it."