Chapter IV: Part 4

John, now proceeding at what might rather be called an anxious pace than a quick one, had very nearly reached the wicket, when his eye caught a tall white figure, standing within a few yards of it, and posted close by the path which he must necessarily pursue. The moonshine enabled him to see a terrible face, with a huge mouth; and, so far as his recollection of his own natural physiognomy went, derived as it was from his shavings on Saturday nights ever since his chin had required a razor, he felt persuaded that the countenance before him was a fac-simile of his own. It was, moreover, very ghastly, and very bloody. His eyes fixed themselves upon it with unconquerable dismay, and he shook throughout every nerve, like the trembling poplar. But that which most astonished and terrified him, as he gazed on this apparition, was, the strange circumstance, that he could distinctly perceive, that it had already assumed a head-gear precisely similar to the very remarkable one which he had been so recently compelled from necessity to adopt. On the summit of its crown appeared a huge sod, with all its native plants upon it, and these waved to and fro before him with something like portentous omen. John felt as if he had only fled from the battle-field of Culloden to meet both death and burial in this most unchancy churchyard, and if his knees smote each other before, they now increased their reciprocal antagonist action in a degree that was tenfold more striking. John felt persuaded beyond a doubt, that the devil had been permitted thus to assume his own appearance, and to come thus personally to reprove him for the indiscreet use which he had made of his name. Sudden death seemed to be about to fall on him. The grave appeared to be about to open to receive his wounded and worn-out body. But these were evils which, at that dreadful moment, John hardly recognized, for the jaws of the Evil Spirit himself seemed to him to be slowly and terribly expanding themselves to swallow up his sinful soul. Fain would John have fled, but he was rivetted to the spot. No way suggested itself to his distracted mind by which he could escape, and he well knew that he had no way that led homewards to that spot where he looked for concealment and safety, save that which went directly by the dreaded object before him. For some time he stood trembling and staring, in a cold sweat, until at length, overpowered by his feelings, he dropped upon his knees, and began putting up such snatches of prayer to Heaven, for help against the powers of darkness, as his fears allowed him to utter.

As John thus sat on his knees, praying and quaking, his animal courage so far returned to him as to permit him to observe that the object of his terror remained unchanged and immovable. At length his mind recovered itself to such an extent, as to enable him to revert to that night of misery which he had so recently experienced, in beholding that which he had believed to be the spirit of Dallas the packman, and remembering how that matter had been cleared up by the appearance of daylight, he began to reason with himself as to the possibility of this being a somewhat similar case. Having thus so far reduced his fears within the control of his reason, he summoned up resolution to raise himself from his knees, and to advance one step nearer to the phantom which had so long triumphed over the courage that was within him. And, seeing that, notwithstanding this movement of his, it still maintained its position, and uttered no sound, he ventured to take a second step--and then a third step, until the truth, and the whole truth, began gradually to dawn upon his eyes and his mind, and then, at last, he discovered, to his very great relief, that the horrible and much-dreaded demon whose appearance had so disturbed and discomposed his nervous system, was no other than a tall old tombstone, with a head so fearfully chisselled on the top of it, as might have left it a very doubtful matter, even in the day-time, for any one, however learned in such pieces of art, to have determined whether the rustic sculptor had intended it for a death's-head or a cherubim. Some idle artist of the brush, in passing by that way with a pot full of red paint, prepared for giving a temporary glory to a new cart about to be turned out from a neighbouring wright's shop, had paused as he passed by, and exhausted the full extent of his small talents in communicating to the countenance that bloody appearance, the effect of which had so much appalled John Smith, and some waggish schoolboy had finished the figure, by tearing up a sod covered with plants of various kinds, and clapping it on its top, so as thereby very much to augment its artificial terrors. John Smith drew a long breath of inconceivable relief on making this discovery, and then darting through the wicket, he pursued his journey with as much expedition as his weakness and fatigue permitted him to use.

John walked on for some hour or twain with very determined resolution, but at length the great loss of blood he had experienced, brought on so unconquerable a drowsiness, that he felt he must have a little rest, were it but for a few minutes, even if his taking it should be at the risk of his life. John was never wont to be very particular as to the place where he made his bed, but on the present occasion it happened, probably from the blood-vessels of his body having been so much drained, that he had a most unpleasant chill upon him. He felt as if ice itself was shooting and crystallizing through every vein and artery within him. Then the night had become somewhat raw, and he had left his plaid, which is a Highlander's second house, on the fatal field of battle. Under all these circumstances, John was seized with a resistless desire to enjoy the luxury of sleep for a short time, under the shelter of a roof, and in the vicinity of a good peat fire. Calling to mind that there was an humble turf-built cottage in a hollow a little way farther on, by the side of a small rushy, mossy stream, he made the best of his way towards it.

The house consisted of three small apartments, one in the middle of it, opposite to the outer door, and one at either end, which had their entrances from that in the centre. When John came to the brow of the bank that looked down upon this humble dwelling, he was by no means sorry to perceive that the middle apartment had a good blazing fire in it, as he could easily see through the window and outer door, which last chanced to be invitingly open. John, altogether forgetful of his uncouth and terrific appearance, lost not a moment in availing himself of this lucky circumstance. But he had no sooner presented his awful spectral form and visage within the threshold, than he spread instantaneous terror over the group assembled within.

"Oh, a ghost! a ghost!" cried out in Gaelic a pale-faced girl of some eight or nine years of age, as she dropped on her knees, shaken by terror in every limb and feature.

"Oh, the devil! the devil!" roared an old man and woman, who also sank down before John, bellowing out like frightened cattle. "Och, och! we shall all be swallowed up quick by the Evil One!"

"Fear nothing," said John Smith, in a mild tone, and in the same tongue. "I am but a poor wounded and wearied man. I only want to lie down and rest me a little, if you will be so charitable as to grant me leave."

"Wounded!" said the old man, rising from his knees, somewhat reassured; "where were you wounded?"

"In the head here," said John, with a stare that again somewhat disconcerted the old man; "and if it had not been for this peat that I clapped on my skull, I believe my very brains would have been all out of me."

"Mercy on us, where got ye such a mischance as that?" exclaimed the old woman.

"At Culloden, I'll be sworn," said the old man.

"Aye, aye, it was at Culloden," replied John. "But, if ye be Christians, give me a drink of warm milk and water, to put away this shivering thirst that is on me, and let me lie down in a warm bed for half an hour."

"Och aye, poor man, ye shall not want a drop of warm milk and water, and such a bed as we can give you," said the old woman, moving about to prepare the drink for him.

"Thank ye--thank ye!" said John, much refreshed and comforted by swallowing the thin but hot potation. And then following the old man into the inner apartment on the right hand, he sank down in a darksome nook of it, on a pallet among straw, and covering himself up, turf, nightcap and all, under a coarse blanket, he was sound asleep before the old man had withdrawn the light, and shut the door of his clay chamber.

"Oh that our boys were back again safe and sound!" cried the old woman, wringing her hands.

"Safe and sound I fear we cannot expect them to be, Janet," replied the old man. "But oh that we had them back again, though it was to see them wounded as badly as that poor fellow! Much do I fear that they are both corpses on Drummossie Moor."

"What will become of us!" cried the old woman, weeping bitterly; "what will become of this poor motherless lassie now, if her father be gone?"

But, leaving this aged couple to complain, and John Smith to enjoy his repose, we must now return to poor Morag, whom, as you may recollect, gentlemen, we left hunted into covert by the two dragoons who had so closely pursued her. The patch of natural wood into which she dived was not large. It chiefly consisted of oaks and birches, which, though they had grown to a considerable size in certain parts, so that their wide-spreading heads had kept the knolls on which their stems stood, altogether free from the incumbrance of any kind of brushwood,--had yet in most places risen up thinner and smaller, leaving ample room and air around them to support thickets of the tallest broom and juniper bushes.

It chanced that Morag was not altogether unacquainted with the nature of the place, having at one time, in earlier life, been hired to tend the cows of a farmer at no great distance from it. She was well aware that a rill, which had its origin in the higher grounds at some distance, came wimpling into the upper part of the wood, and thence, during its descent over the sloping surface of the ground, from its having met with certain obstructions, or from some other cause, it had worn itself a channel through the soft soil, to the depth of some six feet or so, but which was yet so narrow, that the ferns and bushes growing out of the undermined sods that fringed the edges of it, almost entirely covered it with one continued tangled and matted arch. Towards this rill Morag endeavoured to make her way through the tall broom, and, as she was doing so, she heard the dismounted trooper, who had by this time entered the wood after her, calling to his comrade, who sat mounted outside:

"Bill! do you padderowl round the wood, and keep a sharp look out that she don't bolt without your seeing her. I'll follow arter her here, and try if I can't lay my hands on her; and if I do but chance to light on her, be she witch or devil, I'll drag her out of her covert by the scruff of the neck."

Morag heard no more than this.--She pressed forward towards the bed of the rill, and having reached it, she stopped, like a chased doe, one moment to listen, and hearing that the curses, as well as the crashing of the jack-boots of her pursuer, as yet indicated that he was still at some distance behind her, and evidently much entangled in his progress, she carefully shed the pendulous plants of the ferns asunder, and then slid herself gently down into the hollow channel. There finding her feet safely planted on the bottom, she cautiously and silently groped her way along the downward course of the rill, through the dark and confined passage which it had worn out for its tiny stream. In this way she soon came to the lower edge of the wood, where the hollow channel became deeper, and where it assumed more of the character of a ravine, but where it was still skirted with occasional oaks, mingled with thickets of birches, hazels, and furze bushes.

Morag was about to emerge from the obscurity of this subterranean arch, into the more open light, when, as she looked out, she beheld the mounted trooper standing on his stirrups on the top of the bank, eagerly gazing around him in all directions. The furze there grew too thick and high for him to be able to force his way down to the bottom of the ravine, even if he had accidently observed her. But his eyes were directed to higher and more distant objects, and seeing that she had been as yet unperceived, she instantly drew so far back, as to be beyond all reach of his observation,--whilst she could perfectly well watch him, so long as he maintained his present position. She listened for the crashing strides of him who was engaged in searching the wood for her. For a time they came faint and distant to her ear, but, by degrees, they began to come nearer,--and then again the sound would alternately diminish and increase, as he turned away in some other direction, fighting through the opposing boughs, and then came beating his way back again, in the same manner, with many a round oath. At length she heard him raging forward in the direction of the rill, at some forty yards above the place where she was, blaspheming as he went.

"Ten thousand devils!" cried he; "such a place as this I never se'ed in all my life afore. If my heyes beant nearly whipt out of my head with them 'ere blasted broom shafts, my name aint Tom Wetherby! Dang it, there again! that whip has peeled the very skin off my cheek, and made both my heyes run over with water like mill-sluices--I wonder at all where this she-devil can be hidden? Curse her! Do you think, Bill, that she can raaly have ridden off through the hair, as they do say they do? But for a matter of that, she may be here somewhere after all, for my heyes be so dimmed, that, dang me an' I could see her if she were to rise up afore my very face. How they do smart with pain! Oh! Lord, where am I going?" cried he, as he went smack down through the ferns and brush into the concealed bed of the rill, and was laid prostrate on his back in the narrow clayey bottom of it, in such a position that it defied him to rise.

"Hollo Bill!" cried he, from the bowels of the earth, in a voice which reached his comrade as if he had spoken with a pillow on his mouth, but which rang with terrible distinctness down the hollow natural tube to the spot where Morag was concealed. "Hollo!--help!--help!"

"What a murrain is the matter with ye?" cried Bill, very much astonished.

"I've fallen plump into the witches' den!--into the very bottomless pit!--Hollo!--hollo! Help!--help!" cried the fallen trooper from the abyss.

"How the plague am I to get to ye if so be the pit be bottomless?" cried Bill, in a drawling tone, that did not argue much promise of any zealous exertion of effective aid on the part of the speaker.

"Curse ye, come along quickly, or I shall be smothered in this here infernal, dark, outlandish place," cried Tom Wetherby.

"Well,--well," replied Bill, with the same long-drawn tone of philosophic indifference, "I'm a coming--I'm a coming. But you must keep chaunting out from the bottom of that bottomless pit of yours, do you hear, Tom, else I shall never find you in that 'ere wilderness. And how the devil I am to get into it is more than I know."

The dragoon turned his horse very leisurely away, to look for some place where he could best quit his saddle, in order to make good his entrance on foot into the thicket. The moment the quick eyes of Morag perceived that he had disappeared from his station on the brow of the bank, she crept forth from her concealment, and keeping her way down through the shallow stream, that her footsteps might leave no prints behind them, she stole off, until she was beyond all hearing of the two dragoons. Then it was that Morag began to ply her utmost speed, and, after following the ravine until it expanded into a small and partially wooded glen, she hurried on through it, until at length she found herself emerging on the lower and more open country. Afraid of being seen, she made a long circuitous sweep through some rough broomy waste ground of considerable extent, towards a distant hummock, with the shape of which she was familiar, and having thus gained a part of the country with which she was acquainted, though it was still very distant from her present home, she hailed the descent of the shades of night with great satisfaction.

Under their protection she proceeded on her way with great alacrity, and without apprehension, though with a torn heart, that made her every now and then stop to give full vent to her grief for John Smith, of whose death she had so little reason to doubt, from all the circumstances she had heard. At length, fatigue came so powerfully upon her, that she was not sorry to perceive, as she was about to descend into a hollow, the light of a cheerful fire, that blazed through the window of a turf-built cottage, and was reflected on the surface of a rushy stream, that ran lazily through the bottom near to it. The door was shut, but Morag descended the path that led towards it, and knocked without scruple.

An old man and woman came immediately to open it, and looked out eagerly, as if for some one whose coming they had expected, and disappointment seemed to cloud their brows, when they found only her who was a stranger to them. Morag, addressing them in Gaelic, entreated for leave to rest herself for half an hour by their fireside. She was admitted, after some hesitation and whispering between them, after which she craved a morsel of oaten cake, and a draught of water. A little girl, of some eight or nine years old, waited not to know her granny's will, but ran to a cupboard for the cake; and brought it to her, and then hastened to fill a bowl with water from a pitcher that stood in a corner. The old couple would have fain pumped out of Morag something of her history, and they put many questions to her for that purpose. But she was too shrewd for them, and all they could gather from her was, that she had been away seeing her friends a long way off, and that she had first rode, and then walked so far, that she was glad of a little rest, and a morsel to allay her hunger, after which she would be enabled to continue her journey, with many thanks to them for their hospitality.

Morag had not sat there for many minutes, when there came a rap to the door. The old man sprang up to open it, and immediately three Highlanders appeared, full armed with claymores and dirks, but very much jaded and soiled with travel. Morag retired into a corner.

"Och, Ian! Ian!"--"Och, Hamish! Hamish!" cried the old couple, embracing two of them, who appeared to be their sons; and, "Oh, father! father!" cried the little girl, springing into Ian's arms.

"Tuts, don't be foolish, Kirstock!" cried Ian, in a surly tone, as he shook off the little girl; "What's the use of all this nonsense, father?--Better for you to be getting something for us and our comrade MacCallum here to drink. We are almost famished for want;" and with that he threw himself into the old man's wooden arm-chair.

"Aye, aye, father," said Hamish, occupying the seat where his mother had sat, and motioning to MacCallum to take that which Morag had just left; "we have had a sad tramp away from the battle. Would we had never gone near it! Aye, and we got such a fright into the bargain."

"Fright!" cried the old man much excited; "Surely, surely, my sons are not cowards!--Much as I love you, boys, I would rather that you had both died than run away."

"Oh!" said MacCallum, now joining in the conversation, "we all three fought like lions in the battle. But it requires nerves harder than steel to look upon the Devil, and if ever he was seen on earth, we saw him this precious night."

"Preserve us all!" said the old woman; "what was he like?"

"Never mind what he was like, mother," said Ian gruffly; "let us have some of your bread and cheese, and a drop of Uisge-beatha to put some heart in us."

"You shall have all that I have to give you, boys," said the old man; "but that is not much. I would have fain given a sup out of the bottle to the poor wounded man that came in here, a little time ago; but I bethought me that you might want it all, and so we sent him to his bed with a cup of warm milk and water."

"Bed, did you say?" cried Ian. "What! one of Prince Charley's men?"

"Surely, surely!" said the old man. "Troth, I should have been any thing but fond of letting in any one else but a man who had fought on the same side with yourselves."

"Don't speak of our having fought on Charley's side, father," said Ian; "that's not to be boasted of now. The fruits of fighting for him have been nothing but danger and starvation, so far as we have gathered them; and now we have no prospect before us but the risk of hanging. Methinks you would have shewn more wisdom if you had sent this fellow away from your door. To have us three hunted men here, is enough to make the place too hot, without bringing in another to add to the fire."

"Never mind, Ian," said MacCallum; "why may we not make our own of him? You know very well that John MacAllister told us that he could make our peace, and save our lives, if we could only prove our loyalty to the King, by bringing in a rebel or two."

"Very true," said Hamish; "and an excellent advice it was."

"Most excellent," said Ian; "and if we act wisely, and as I advise, this fellow shall be our first peace-offering."

"Oh, boys, boys!" cried the old man; "would you buy your own lives by treachery of so black a die?"

"Oh, life is sweet!" cried the old woman--"and the lives of my bairns----"

"Hold your foolish tongue, woman!" interrupted the old man. "No, no, boys! I'll never consent to it."

"Oh life is sweet! life is sweet!" cried the old woman again; "and the lives of both my bonny boys--the life of Ian, the father of this poor lassie!----"

"Oh, my father's life!" whimpered the little girl.

"This is no place to talk of such things," said the old man, leading the way into the apartment at the opposite end of the house, to that where John Smith was sleeping, and followed by all but Morag, who, having slipped towards the door, to listen after he had closed it, heard him say, "What made you speak that way before the stranger lass?"

"Who and what is she at all?" demanded Ian.

"A poor tired lass, weary with the long way she has been to see her friends," said the old woman; "but she'll be gone very soon."

"If she does not go of her own accord, we must take strong measures with her too," said Ian.

"God forgive you, boys, what would you do?" said the old man. "Let not the Devil tempt you thus. Would you bring foul treason upon this humble, but hitherto spotless shed of mine, by violating the sacred rights of hospitality to a woman, and by giving up a man to an ignominious death, who, upon the faith of it, is now soundly sleeping under my roof, in the other end of the house? Fye, fye, boys! I tell you plainly I will be a party to no such wickedness."

"So you would rather be a party to assist in hanging Hamish and me, your own flesh and blood?" said Ian. "But you need be no party to either; for we shall take all the guilt of this fellow's death upon ourselves."

"You shall never do this foul treason, if I can prevent it," said the old man, with determination.

"Poof!" said Ian, "how could you prevent us?"

"By rousing the man to defend himself," said the father rather unguardedly.

"Ha! say you so?" cried Ian. "What! would you rouse up an armed man to fight against your own children? Then must we take means to prevent your so doing."

"Oh, Ian!" cried the old woman. "Oh, Hamish! Oh, boys! boys!"

"What! what! what boys!" cried the old man with great excitement, whilst there was a sound of feet as of a struggle. "Would you lay your impious hands upon your own father?"

"Oh, don't hurt poor granny!" cried the little girl, in the bitterest tone of grief.

"Be quiet, I tell you, Kirstock!" cried Ian, in an angry tone. "Hold out of my way, mother! We'll do him no harm! we are only going to bind him that he may not interfere."

"Boys, boys!" cried the old man; "you have been tempted by the Devil! There is no wonder that you should have seen him once to-night; and I should not wonder if he was to appear to you again, for you seem resolved to be his children, and not mine."

"Sit down--sit down quietly in this chair," said Ian; "sit down, I say quietly, and let MacCallum put the rope about you. By the great oath you had better!"

"Oh, boys!" cried the old woman; "Och, Hamish! Och, Ian."

Morag hardly waited to hear so much of this dialogue as I have given, when she resolved to be the means, if possible, of saving the life of the poor wounded man, whom the wretches had thus determined so traitorously to give up to the tender mercies of the Duke of Cumberland. She had her hand upon the door of the chamber where he slept, in order to go in and rouse him, when she remembered that, in this way, her own safety was almost certain to be compromised. She therefore immediately adopted a plan, which she considered might be equally effectual for her purpose as regarded the stranger, whilst it would leave to herself some chance of escape. Slipping on tiptoe to the outer door, she quietly opened it, and, letting herself out, she moved quickly round the house, towards a little window belonging to the room at that end of it, where she knew the wounded man was lying. It consisted of two small panes of glass, placed in a frame that moved inwards upon hinges. She put her ear to it, but no sound reached her save that of deep snoring. Morag pushed gently against the frame, and it yielded to the pressure. Having inserted her head, and looked eagerly about, in the hope of descrying the sleeper, by the partial stream of moonlight that was admitted into the place, she could discover nothing but the heap of straw in the bedstead in a dark corner, where, wrapped in a blanket, he lay so buried as to be altogether invisible. She called to him, at first in a low voice, and afterwards in a somewhat louder tone, till at length she awaked him.

"Who is there?" demanded he in Gaelic.

"Rise! rise, and escape!" said she, in a low but distinct voice, and in the same language; "Your liberty! your life is in danger! Up, up, and fly from this house!" Having said this, she retreated her head a little from the window, to watch the effect of her warning, so that the moon shone brightly upon her countenance, and completely illuminated every feature of it.

There was a quick rustling noise among the straw, and then she heard the slow heavy step of the man within. Suddenly a head was thrust out of the window, and the moonbeam falling fully upon it, disclosed to the terrified eyes of Morag, the features of John Smith--pale, bloody, and death-like, with all the fearful appendages which he bore, the whole combination being such as to leave not a doubt in her mind that she beheld his ghost. With one shrill scream, which she could not control, she vanished in a moment from before the window. John Smith, filled in his turn with superstitious awe, as well as with the strangeness of the manner in which he had been roused from the deep sleep into which he had been plunged,--and struck by the well known though hollow voice in which he had been addressed--the solemn warning which he had received, and, above all, the distinct, though most unaccountable appearance of Morag, with whose features he was so perfectly acquainted--together with the wild and sudden manner in which the vision had departed--all tended to convince him that the whole was a supernatural visitation. For some moments his powers of action were suspended; but steps and voices in the outer apartment speedily recalled his presence of mind. He drew his claymore, summoned up his resolution, and banging up the door with one kick of his foot, he took a single stride into the middle of the floor. The fire was still blazing, and it threw on his terrible figure the full benefit of its light. The three villains having tied the old man into his chair, and locked him and his wife and grandchild into the place where their conference was held, had been at that moment preparing to steal in upon the sleeping stranger. Suddenly they beheld the same apparition which they had seen in the churchyard, burst from the very room which they were about to enter. The threatening words of the old man recurred to them all.

"Oh, the devil! the devil! the devil!" cried the terrified group, and bearing back upon one another, they tripped, and, in one moment, all their heels were dancing the strangest possible figures in the air, to the music of their own mingled screams and yells. You will easily believe, gentlemen, that John Smith tarried not a moment to inquire after their bruises, but pushing up the outer door, and slapping it to after him, he again pursued his way towards the farm of the Pensassenach.

Winged by her fears, and in dreadful apprehension that the ghost of John Smith was still following her, Morag flew with an unnatural swiftness and impetus. She was quite unconscious of noticing any of the familiar objects by the way; yet, by a species of instinct, she reached home, in so short a time, that she could hardly believe her own senses. But still in dreadful fear of the ghost, she thundered at the door, and roared out to her mistress for admittance. The kind-hearted Pensassenach had been sitting up in a state of the cruellest anxiety regarding Morag, of whose intended expedition she had received no inkling, nor had she been informed of her departure, until long after she was gone. She no sooner heard her voice, and her knock, than she hastened to admit her.

"Foolish girl that you are!" said she, "I am thankful to see you alive. My stars and garters, what a draggled figure you are!--But come away into this room here, and let me hear all you have to tell me about the battle. The rebels were defeated, were they not?--eh?--Why, what is the matter with the girl? she pants as if she was dying. Sit down, sit down, child, and compose yourself; you look for all the world as if you had seen a ghost."

"Och, och, memm!--och, hoch!" replied the girl very much appalled, that her mistress should thus, as she thought, so immediately see the truth written in her very face. "Och, hoch! an' a ghaist Morag has surely seen. Has ta ghaist put her mark upon her face?--Och, hoch! she'll ne'er won ower wi't!"

"The poor girl's head has been turned by the horrible scenes of carnage she has witnessed," said the Pensassenach.

"Och, hoch!" said Morag, with her hands on her knees, and rocking to and fro with nervous agitation; "terrible sights! terrible sights, surely, surely!"

"Here, my poor Morag," said the Pensassenach, after she had dropped into a cup a small quantity of some liquid nostrum of her own, from a phial, hastily taken from a little medicine chest, and added some water to it, "drink this, my good girl!"

"Och, hoch!" said Morag, after she had swallowed it; "she thinks she sees ta ghaist yet."

"What ghost did you see?" demanded the Pensassenach.

"Och, hoch! Och, hoch, memm!" replied Morag, trembling more than ever; "Shon Smiss ghaist; Shon Smiss, as sure as Morag is in life, an' ta leddy stannin' in ta body tare afore her e'en."

"John Smith's ghost!" cried the Pensassenach. "Pooh, nonsense! But again I ask you, how went the battle? The rumour is, that the rebels have been signally defeated, and all cut to pieces."

"Och, hoch! is tat true?" said Morag, weeping. "Och, hoch, poor Shon Smiss!"

"Did you not see the rout?" demanded the Pensassenach. "Did you not witness the battle, and behold the glorious triumph of the royal army?"

"Och, hoch, no!" replied the girl. "Morag saw nae pattals, nor naesin' but hearin' terrible shots o' guns, an' twa or sree red cotted sodgers tat pursued her for her life."

"Well, well!" replied the Pensassenach; "Come now! tell me your whole history."

Morag's nerves being now somewhat composed, she gave her mistress as clear an outline as she could, of all that had befallen her. The Pensassenach dropped some tears, to mingle with those which Morag shed, when she recounted the evidence of John Smith's death, which she felt to be but too probably true. But when she came to talk of the ghost, she did all she could to laugh the girl out of her fears, insisting with her that she had been deceived by terror and weakness, and seeing how much the poor girl was worn out, she desired her to take some refreshment, and to go to bed directly; and she had no sooner retired, than the Pensassenach prepared to follow her example.

Morag, overcome with the immense fatigue she had undergone, had not strength left to undo much more than half her dress, when she dropped down on her bed, and fell over into a slumber. She had been lying in this state for fully half an hour or more, during part of which she had been dreaming of John Smith, mixed up with many a strange incident, with all of which his slaughter, and his pale countenance and bloody figure were invariably connected, when she was awaked by a tapping at the window of her apartment, which was upon the ground floor. She looked up and stared, but the moon was by this time gone down, and all without was dark as pitch.

"Morag! Morag!" cried John Smith, who knowing well where she slept, went naturally to her window to get her to come round and give him admission to the house, and yet at the same time half doubting, after the strange visitation which he had had, from what he believed to be her wraith, that he could hardly expect to find her alive. "Morag! Morag!" cried he again in his faint hollow voice.

"Och, Lord have mercy upon me, there it is!" cried Morag, in her native tongue, and shaking from head to foot with terror. "Who is there?"

"Its me, your own Ian," cried John, in a tender tone. "Let me in, Morag, for the love of God!"

"Och, Ian, Ian!" cried Morag. "Och, Ian, my darling dear Ian! are you sure that it is really yourself in real flesh and blood?--for I have got such a fright already this night. But if it really and truly be you, go round to the door and I'll be with you in a minute. Och, och, the Lord be praised, if it really be him after all!"

Trembling, and agitated with the numerous contrary emotions of hope, fear, and joy, by which she was assailed, Morag sprang out of bed, lighted her lamp, hurried on just enough of her clothes as might make her decent in the eyes of her lover, and with her bosom heaving, and her heart beating, as if it would have burst through her side, she ran to unlock the outer door. Her lamp flashed on the fearful figure without. She again beheld the horrible spectre which had so recently terrified her, and believing that it was John Smith's ghost which she saw, and that it had followed her home to corroborate the fatal tidings she had heard regarding his death, which had been already so much strengthened by her dreams, she uttered a piercing shriek, and fainted away on the floor. The shriek alarmed the Pensassenach, who was not yet in bed. Hastily throwing a wrapper over her deshabille, she seized her candle, and proceeded down stairs with all speed, and was led by John's voice of lamentation to the kitchen, whither he had carried Morag in his arms, and where the lady found him tearing his hair, or rather the heathery turf which then appeared to be doing duty for it, in the very extremity of mental agony. It is strange how the same things, seen under different aspects and circumstances, will produce the most opposite effects. There being nothing now about John Smith, or his actions, that did not savour of humanity, but his extraordinary head-dress, the Pensassenach had no doubt that it was the real bodily man that she saw before her, she perceived nothing but what was powerfully ludicrous in his strange costume, the absurdity of which was heightened by his agonizing motions and attitudes, and exclamations of intense anxiety about Morag, whose fainting-fit gave no uneasiness to a woman of her experience. The Pensassenach laughed heartily, and then hurried away for a bunch of feathers to burn under Morag's nose, by which means she quickly brought her out of her swoon, and by a little explanation she speedily restored her to the full possession of her reason. This accomplished, the Pensassenach entirely forgot John Smith's wretched appearance, in the eagerness of her inquiries regarding the result of the engagement.

"How went the battle, John?" demanded she. "We heard the guns, but the cannonade did not last long. The victory was soon gained, and it was with the right cause, was it not?"

"Woe, woe! Oich, oich!" cried John, in a melancholy tone, and shaking his head in utter despair. "Oich, oich, her head is sore, sore."

"Very true, very true!" cried the compassionate Pensassenach. "I had forgotten you altogether, shame on me! Ah! poor fellow, how bloody you are about the face! You must be grievously wounded."

"Troth she be tat," said John Smith. "She has gotten a wicked slash on ta croon, tat maist spleeted her skull. An' she wad hae peen dead lang or noo an it had na peen for tiss ponny peat plaister tat she putten tilt. Morag tak' her awa' noo, for she has toon her turn, and somesing lighter may serve."

"Och, hoch, hoch, tat is fearsome," said Morag, after she had removed the clod from John's head. "She mak's Morag sick ta vera sight o't."

"Oich, but tat be easy noo," said John. "Hech, she was joost like an if she had been carryin' a' ta hill o' Lethen Bar on her head."

"Poor fellow, poor fellow!" cried the Pensassenach, "that is a fearful cut indeed. But I don't think the skull is fractured. How and where did you get this fearful wound?"

"Fare mony a petter man's got more," replied John, yielding up his head into the affectionate hands of Morag, who was now so far recovered as to be able to look more narrowly at it.

"Oich, oich, fat a head!" cried the affectionate and feeling girl, shuddering and growing pale, and then bursting into an agony of tears, as she looked upon his gaping wound. "Oich, oich, she'll never do good more! She canna leeve ava, ava!"

"Tut, tut!" cried John, with a ghastly smile, that was meant to reassure Morag. "Fat nonsense, tat Morag pe speak! An' she pe traivel a' ta way hame so far, fat for wad she pe deein' noo tat she is at hame?"

"Alas, poor fellow!" said the Pensassenach, as she was directing Morag to bind up his head, "I wish I may be able to make this your home. After all our losses and sufferings for our loyalty by those marauding rascals, three days ago, we shall next run the risk of being punished for harbouring a rebel. But no matter. Happen what may, you have large claims upon me, John, and as long as Morag can conceal you here you shall be safe. You have been so short a time away that few people can be aware of it, and still fewer can know the cause of your absence."

What the Pensassenach said was true, for as most of her people had run away when the Highland party appeared, there were few who certainly knew the cause of John Smith's absence, and those few who did know were not very likely to tell any thing about it. Trusting to this, she gave out that she had sent him after the rebels, to keep an eye on her husband's horses, and to endeavour to recover them if he could, and that, in making this attempt, he had received his wound. To give the better colour to this story, she called her people together, and offered a handsome reward to such of them as would go immediately and try to find and bring back the horses, telling them that John Smith could describe to them whereabouts they were most likely to fall in with them, he having, at one time, actually got possession of most of them, but that they had escaped from him, having been scared away by the thundering of the artillery. But not a man of them would venture upon such a search among the gibbets, where, as they were told, so many of their murdered countrymen were still hanging, and where, without much inquiry or ceremony, any one who might go on such an errand might be tucked up to swing in company with them. Every hour increased this terror, by bringing accounts of fresh executions, and indeed the fears of the Pensassenach's men turned out to be by no means groundless, for it is a truth but too well known, that many innocent servants who were sent to seek their master's horses never returned.

The Pensassenach did not suffer for her kindness in thus protecting John Smith; and she and her husband were ultimately no losers from the havoc which the Highlanders committed on their farm. Their damage was reported to the Duke of Cumberland, and the lady's conduct having been highly extolled, as that of a very loyal Englishwoman, who had been thus persecuted for the open expression of her sentiments, the most ample remuneration was assigned to her by the government.

John Smith, nursed as he was by Morag, soon recovered. After he was quite restored to health, he only waited until he could scrape a little money together to enable him to furnish a cottage, ere he should make her his wife. The penetration of the Pensassenach soon enabled her to discover how matters stood between them, and she found means to make all smooth for them in the manner which was most flattering to John, that is, by presenting him with a very handsome purse of money, as a reward for the eminent services he had rendered her. John was so proud of the purse that he did not know whether most to value it or the gold pieces it contained, and much as he loved Morag, and eager as he was for their union, he had some doubt whether he could ever bring himself to part, even with one of those pretty pieces which he so respected for the Pensassenach's sake. And, alas, as it so happened, he was never called upon to spend them as it was intended they should have been spent. Fain would I have made my story end happily, gentlemen; but, as I am narrating a piece of actual history, I must be verawcious. John had made all preparation for their marriage, when, alas, Morag was seized with some acute complaint about the region of the heart and lungs, which all the medical attendants that the Pensassenach could command could not fathom or relieve. John watched her with the tenderest and most unremitting solicitude. But it pleased God that his unwearied care of her, should not be blessed with the same happy result, which hers had been with regard to him, for after a long and lingering illness, poor Morag died on the very day she should have been his bride. The probability was, that the unheard of fatigue of body, and agitation of mind, which she underwent during her heroic expedition in search of her lover, had produced some fatal organic change within her.

John Smith was inconsolable for the loss of Morag. For some time he was more like a walking clod than a man. Even the kind attempts of his master and mistress to rouse him were unavailing. When at length he was able to go about his usual duties on the farm, to do which his honest regard for his employer's interest stimulated him, he suffered so much mental agony from the painful recollections which every object around him suggested to his mind, that he felt he could no longer go rationally about his master's affairs. Being at last convinced that he was in danger of falling into utter and hopeless despair, he came to the resolution of enlisting in the army, and having once formed this determination, he went through a very touching scene of parting with the kind Pensassenach and her husband, and shouldering his small kitt, he went and joined the gallant Forty-Second, then the Black Watch. He served with distinguished approbation in all the actions in which that brave corps was in his time engaged. He was made a serjeant at Bunker's Hill; and after time had in some degree assuaged his affliction, he married a very active, intelligent, and economical woman, with whose aid he undertook to keep the regimental mess. John could neither read nor write, and he always spoke English imperfectly. But his clever wife enabled him to carry on the business for so many years, with so much credit to himself, and so successfully, that he ultimately retired with her at an advanced period of life, with the enjoyment of his pension, and such an accumulation of fortune as made him perfectly comfortable.

I knew John well. He was a warm-hearted man, and always remarkable for his uprightness and integrity, and especially for a strict determination to keep his word, whatever it might cost him so to do. As an instance of this, I may mention, that having on one occasion had a serious illness, in which he was given up by the doctor, he made a will, in which he left many small legacies to poor people. John recovered, but he thought it his duty to keep his word, and he paid the legacies. To me, and to my brother, who lived in one of his houses while we were at the school of Nairn, he acted the part of a kind friend and guardian. He was perhaps too kind and indulgent to us, indeed. No one dared to him to impute a fault to us, even when we were guilty. I remember that he had a large garden, well stocked with fruit trees, and gooseberry bushes. Often has the good old man sent me into it, to steal fruit for myself and brother, whilst he watched at the door, lest his wife might surprise and detect me. Many is the time that I have listened to him, with boyish wonder, as, with lightning in his eye, he fought over again his battles of Culloden, Bunker's Hill, and Ticonderoga.

As John had no children, his intended heir was a nephew. His greatest desire in life was to marry him to a grand-daughter of his old departed benefactress, the Pensassenach. He offered to settle his whole fortune, which was not small, on the young lady, if she would only marry his nephew; and John's wife did all in her power to back up the proposal. But although the nephew was a good, well-doing lad, he was not the man to take the young woman's fancy; and so the match never took place.

CRUELTY OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND AFTER THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN.

Clifford.--Is it possible that the Duke of Cumberland could have authorized such atrocities, as the hanging up innocent servants in the way you describe, Mr. Macpherson?

Dominie.--I am afraid that what I have asserted is but too true, sir.

Author.--I am sorry to say, that I am in possession of a document which but too satisfactorily proves, that he did give most cruel orders. It is an orderly book of the thirty-seventh regiment, which was called Cholmondeley's Regiment; and in that I find, in the general orders, dated "The Camp at Enwerness, Aprill 17th, 1746," the following entry:--"A captain and fifty foot to march directly, and vizt all the cothidges in the naberhod of the field of batall, and to search for rebbels, the officers and men will take notiss, that the pubilick orders of the rabells yesterday was to give us no quarters." This, I think, was a pretty broad hint to the men and the officer commanding them, what it was that the Duke expected of them.

Grant.--Very distinct, indeed.

Author.--Not to be mistaken, I think.

Clifford.--Is there anything existing to establish that any such order was given by the Prince, previous to the battle, as that to which the Duke here alludes?

Author.--Not a vestige of any thing that I am aware of. But if such orders had been given by the Prince, that circumstance would have afforded no apology for him to have issued the order I have now repeated to you, after the battle was over, and the enemy so effectually cut to pieces in the field. Nothing, I think, could more mark a sanguinary temper than his thus letting loose a body of men, to visit all the neighbouring cottages, and to put to death, in cold blood, all whom his ignorant and bloodthirsty myrmidons might choose to consider as rebels. The slaughter in this way, of the innocent as well as of the guilty, was said to have been immense.

Clifford.--The picture is horrible!

Grant.--It is horrible to think of it, even at this great distance of time, seated comfortably, as I am at this moment, in this great oaken arm-chair.

Serjeant.--And a comfortable arm-chair that is, sir; and many a good day and queer night has it seen. If I am not mistaken, that was old Alister Shaw of Inchrory's very chair.

Author.--Ay--who was Alister Shaw, Archy?

Serjeant.--Faith, sir, he was a queer tough little fellow, Inchrory--for by that name he was always best known in the country--as proud as a bantam cock on his own midden-head. The body cared not for the King. I have two or three curious little anecdotes about him, which I can tell you and the gentlemen, if you have no objections.

Clifford.--Objections, Mr Serjeant! I, the secretary, desire that you shall tell them, without another moment's delay.

Serjeant.--Aweel, aweel, sir! I'll do that at your bidding. I'm not accustomed to disobey the adjutant.

ALISTER SHAW OF INCHRORY.