"And the Marquis of Argyle--should I incline to enter his service, is he
a kind master?" demanded Dalgetty.

"Never man kinder," quoth Campbell.

"And bountiful to his officers?" pursued the Captain.

"The most open hand in Scotland," replied Murdoch.

"True and faithful to his engagements?" continued Dalgetty.

"As honourable a nobleman as breathes," said the clansman.

"I never heard so much good of him before," said Dalgetty; "you must
know the Marquis well,--or rather you must be the Marquis himself!--Lord
of Argyle," he added, throwing himself suddenly on the disguised
nobleman, "I arrest you in the name of King Charles, as a traitor. If
you venture to call for assistance, I will wrench round your neck."

The attack which Dalgetty made upon Argyle's person was so sudden and
unexpected, that he easily prostrated him on the floor of the dungeon,
and held him down with one hand, while his right, grasping the Marquis's
throat, was ready to strangle him on the slightest attempt to call for
assistance.

"Lord of Argyle," he said, "it is now my turn to lay down the terms
of capitulation. If you list to show me the private way by which you
entered the dungeon, you shall escape, on condition of being my LOCUM
TENENS, as we said at the Mareschal-College, until your warder visits
his prisoners. But if not, I will first strangle you--I learned the
art from a Polonian heyduck, who had been a slave in the Ottoman
seraglio--and then seek out a mode of retreat."

"Villain! you would not murder me for my kindness," murmured Argyle.

"Not for your kindness, my lord," replied Dalgetty: "but first, to teach
your lordship the JUS GENTIUM towards cavaliers who come to you under
safe-conduct; and secondly, to warn you of the danger of proposing
dishonourable terms to any worthy soldado, in order to tempt him to
become false to his standard during the term of his service."

"Spare my life," said Argyle, "and I will do as you require."

Dalgetty maintained his gripe upon the Marquis's throat, compressing it
a little while he asked questions, and relaxing it so far as to give him
the power of answering them.

"Where is the secret door into the dungeon?" he demanded.

"Hold up the lantern to the corner on your right hand, you will discern
the iron which covers the spring," replied the Marquis.

"So far so good.--Where does the passage lead to?"

"To my private apartment behind the tapestry," answered the prostrate
nobleman.

"From thence how shall I reach the gateway?"

"Through the grand gallery, the anteroom, the lackeys' waiting hall, the
grand guardroom--"

"All crowded with soldiers, factionaries, and attendants?--that will
never do for me, my lord;--have you no secret passage to the gate, as
you have to your dungeons? I have seen such in Germany."

"There is a passage through the chapel," said the Marquis, "opening from
my apartment."

"And what is the pass-word at the gate?"

"The sword of Levi," replied the Marquis; "but if you will receive my
pledge of honour, I will go with you, escort you through every guard,
and set you at full liberty with a passport."

"I might trust you, my lord, were your throat not already black with the
grasp of my fingers--as it is, BESO LOS MANOS A USTED, as the Spaniard
says. Yet you may grant me a passport;--are there writing materials in
your apartment?"

"Surely; and blank passports ready to be signed. I will attend you
there," said the Marquis, "instantly."

"It were too much honour for the like of me," said Dalgetty; "your
lordship shall remain under charge of mine honest friend Ranald MacEagh;
therefore, prithee let me drag you within reach of his chain.--Honest
Ranald, you see how matters stand with us. I shall find the means, I
doubt not, of setting you at freedom. Meantime, do as you see me do;
clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under
his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy
Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that
is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your
gullet and mine to still harder usage."

"If he offer at speech or struggle," said Ranald, "he dies by my hand."

"That is right, Ranald--very spirited:--A thorough-going friend that
understands a hint is worth a million!"

Thus resigning the charge of the Marquis to his new confederate,
Dalgetty pressed the spring, by which the secret door flew open,
though so well were its hinges polished and oiled, that it made not the
slightest noise in revolving. The opposite side of the door was secured
by very strong bolts and bars, beside which hung one or two keys,
designed apparently to undo fetterlocks. A narrow staircase, ascending
up through the thickness of the castle-wall, landed, as the Marquis had
truly informed him, behind the tapestry of his private apartment. Such
communications were frequent in old feudal castles, as they gave the
lord of the fortress, like a second Dionysius, the means of hearing the
conversation of his prisoners, or, if he pleased, of visiting them in
disguise, an experiment which had terminated so unpleasantly on the
present occasion for Gillespie Grumach. Having examined previously
whether there was any one in the apartment, and finding the coast clear,
the Captain entered, and hastily possessing himself of a blank passport,
several of which lay on the table, and of writing materials, securing,
at the same time, the Marquis's dagger, and a silk cord from the
hangings, he again descended into the cavern, where, listening a moment
at the door, he could hear the half-stifled voice of the Marquis making
great proffers to MacEagh, on condition he would suffer him to give an
alarm.

"Not for a forest of deer--not for a thousand head of cattle," answered
the freebooter; "not for all the lands that ever called a son of
Diarmid master, will I break the troth I have plighted to him of the
iron-garment!"

"He of the iron-garment," said Dalgetty, entering, "is bounden unto you,
MacEagh, and this noble lord shall be bounden also; but first he must
fill up this passport with the names of Major Dugald Dalgetty and his
guide, or he is like to have a passport to another world."

The Marquis subscribed, and wrote, by the light of the dark lantern, as
the soldier prescribed to him.

"And now, Ranald," said Dalgetty, "strip thy upper garment--thy plaid
I mean, Ranald, and in it will I muffle the M'Callum More, and make of
him, for the time, a Child of the Mist;--Nay, I must bring it over your
head, my lord, so as to secure us against your mistimed clamour.--So,
now he is sufficiently muffled;--hold down your hands, or, by Heaven,
I will stab you to the heart with your own dagger!--nay, you shall be
bound with nothing less than silk, as your quality deserves.--So, now
he is secure till some one comes to relieve him. If he ordered us a late
dinner, Ranald, he is like to be the sufferer;--at what hour, my good
Ranald, did the jailor usually appear?"

"Never till the sun was beneath the western wave," said MacEagh. "Then,
my friend, we shall have three hours good," said the cautious Captain.
"In the meantime, let us labour for your liberation."

To examine Ranald's chain was the next occupation. It was undone by
means of one of the keys which hung behind the private door, probably
deposited there, that the Marquis might, if he pleased, dismiss a
prisoner, or remove him elsewhere without the necessity of summoning
the warden. The outlaw stretched his benumbed arms, and bounded from the
floor of the dungeon in all the ecstasy of recovered freedom.

"Take the livery-coat of that noble prisoner," said Captain Dalgetty;
"put it on, and follow close at my heels."

The outlaw obeyed. They ascended the private stair, having first secured
the door behind them, and thus safely reached the apartment of the
Marquis.

[The precarious state of the feudal nobles introduced a great deal of
espionage into their castles. Sir Robert Carey mentions his having put
on the cloak of one of his own wardens to obtain a confession from the
mouth of Geordie Bourne, his prisoner, whom he caused presently to be
hanged in return for the frankness of his communication. The fine old
Border castle of Naworth contains a private stair from the apartment
of the Lord William Howard, by which he could visit the dungeon, as is
alleged in the preceding chapter to have been practised by the Marquis
of Argyle.]



CHAPTER XIV.

     This was the entry then, these stairs--but whither after?
     Yet he that's sure to perish on the land
     May quit the nicety of card and compass,
     And trust the open sea without a pilot.--TRAGEDY OF BENNOVALT.

"Look out for the private way through the chapel, Ranald," said the
Captain, "while I give a hasty regard to these matters."

Thus speaking, he seized with one hand a bundle of Argyle's most private
papers, and with the other a purse of gold, both of which lay in a
drawer of a rich cabinet, which stood invitingly open. Neither did he
neglect to possess himself of a sword and pistols, with powder-flask and
balls, which hung in the apartment. "Intelligence and booty," said the
veteran, as he pouched the spoils, "each honourable cavalier should
look to, the one on his general's behalf, and the other on his own. This
sword is an Andrew Ferrara, and the pistols better than mine own. But
a fair exchange is no robbery. Soldados are not to be endangered, and
endangered gratuitously, my Lord of Argyle.--But soft, soft, Ranald;
wise Man of the Mist, whither art thou bound?"

It was indeed full time to stop MacEagh's proceedings; for, not finding
the private passage readily, and impatient, it would seem, of farther
delay, he had caught down a sword and target, and was about to enter the
great gallery, with the purpose, doubtless, of fighting his way through
all opposition.

"Hold, while you live," whispered Dalgetty, laying hold on him. "We
must be perdue, if possible. So bar we this door, that it may be thought
M'Callum More would be private--and now let me make a reconnaissance for
the private passage."

By looking behind the tapestry in various places, the Captain at length
discovered a private door, and behind that a winding passage, terminated
by another door, which doubtless entered the chapel. But what was his
disagreeable surprise to hear, on the other side of this second door,
the sonorous voice of a divine in the act of preaching.

"This made the villain," he said, "recommend this to us as a private
passage. I am strongly tempted to return and cut his throat."

He then opened very gently the door, which led into a latticed gallery
used by the Marquis himself, the curtains of which were drawn, perhaps
with the purpose of having it supposed that he was engaged in attendance
upon divine worship, when, in fact, he was absent upon his secular
affairs. There was no other person in the seat; for the family of the
Marquis,--such was the high state maintained in those days,--sate during
service in another gallery, placed somewhat lower than that of the great
man himself. This being the case, Captain Dalgetty ventured to ensconce
himself in the gallery, of which he carefully secured the door.

Never (although the expression be a bold one) was a sermon
listened to with more impatience, and less edification,
on the part of one, at least, of the audience. The Captain heard
SIXTEENTHLY-SEVENTEENTHLY-EIGHTEENTHLY and TO CONCLUDE, with a sort of
feeling like protracted despair. But no man can lecture (for the service
was called a lecture) for ever; and the discourse was at length closed,
the clergyman not failing to make a profound bow towards the latticed
gallery, little suspecting whom he honoured by that reverence. To judge
from the haste with which they dispersed, the domestics of the Marquis
were scarce more pleased with their late occupation than the anxious
Captain Dalgetty; indeed, many of them being Highlandmen, had the excuse
of not understanding a single word which the clergyman spoke, although
they gave their attendance on his doctrine by the special order of
M'Callum More, and would have done so had the preacher been a Turkish
Imaum.

But although the congregation dispersed thus rapidly, the divine
remained behind in the chapel, and, walking up and down its Gothic
precincts, seemed either to be meditating on what he had just been
delivering, or preparing a fresh discourse for the next opportunity.
Bold as he was, Dalgetty hesitated what he ought to do. Time, however,
pressed, and every moment increased the chance of their escape being
discovered by the jailor visiting the dungeon perhaps before his wonted
time, and discovering the exchange which had been made there. At length,
whispering Ranald, who watched all his motions, to follow him and
preserve his countenance, Captain Dalgetty, with a very composed air,
descended a flight of steps which led from the gallery into the body of
the chapel. A less experienced adventurer would have endeavoured to
pass the worthy clergyman rapidly, in hopes to escape unnoticed. But the
Captain, who foresaw the manifest danger of failing in such an attempt,
walked gravely to meet the divine upon his walk in the midst of the
chancel, and, pulling off his cap, was about to pass him after a formal
reverence. But what was his surprise to view in the preacher the very
same person with whom he had dined in the castle of Ardenvohr! Yet he
speedily recovered his composure; and ere the clergyman could speak, was
the first to address him. "I could not," he said, "leave this mansion
without bequeathing to you, my very reverend sir, my humble thanks for
the homily with which you have this evening favoured us."

"I did not observe, sir," said the clergyman, "that you were in the
chapel."

"It pleased the honourable Marquis," said Dalgetty, modestly, "to
grace me with a seat in his own gallery." The divine bowed low at this
intimation, knowing that such an honour was only vouchsafed to persons
of very high rank. "It has been my fate, sir," said the Captain, "in
the sort of wandering life which I have led, to have heard different
preachers of different religions--as for example, Lutheran, Evangelical,
Reformed, Calvinistical, and so forth, but never have I listened to such
a homily as yours."

"Call it a lecture, worthy sir," said the divine, "such is the phrase of
our church."

"Lecture or homily," said Dalgetty, "it was, as the High Germans say,
GANZ FORTRE FLICH; and I could not leave this place without testifying
unto you what inward emotions I have undergone during your edifying
prelection; and how I am touched to the quick, that I should yesterday,
during the refection, have seemed to infringe on the respect due to such
a person as yourself."

"Alas! my worthy sir," said the clergyman, "we meet in this world as
in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not knowing against whom we
may chance to encounter. In truth, it is no matter of marvel, if we
sometimes jostle those, to whom, if known, we would yield all respect.
Surely, sir, I would rather have taken you for a profane malignant than
for such a devout person as you prove, who reverences the great Master
even in the meanest of his servants."

"It is always my custom to do so, learned sir," answered Dalgetty; "for
in the service of the immortal Gustavus--but I detain you from your
meditations,"--his desire to speak of the King of Sweden being for once
overpowered by the necessity of his circumstances.

"By no means, my worthy sir," said the clergyman. "What was, I pray
you, the order of that great Prince, whose memory is so dear to every
Protestant bosom?"

"Sir, the drums beat to prayers morning and evening, as regularly as for
parade; and if a soldier passed without saluting the chaplain, he had
an hour's ride on the wooden mare for his pains. Sir, I wish you a very
good evening--I am obliged to depart the castle under M'Callum More's
passport."

"Stay one instant, sir," said the preacher; "is there nothing I can
do to testify my respect for the pupil of the great Gustavus, and so
admirable a judge of preaching?"

"Nothing, sir," said the Captain, "but to shew me the nearest way to
the gate--and if you would have the kindness," he added, with great
effrontery, "to let a servant bring my horse with him, the dark grey
gelding--call him Gustavus, and he will prick up his ears--for I know
not where the castle-stables are situated, and my guide," he added,
looking at Ranald, "speaks no English."

"I hasten to accommodate you," said the clergyman; "your way lies
through that cloistered passage."

"Now, Heaven's blessing upon your vanity!" said the Captain to himself.
"I was afraid I would have had to march off without Gustavus."

In fact, so effectually did the chaplain exert himself in behalf of so
excellent a judge of composition, that while Dalgetty was parleying with
the sentinels at the drawbridge, showing his passport, and giving
the watchword, a servant brought him his horse, ready saddled for the
journey. In another place, the Captain's sudden appearance at large
after having been publicly sent to prison, might have excited suspicion
and enquiry; but the officers and domestics of the Marquis were
accustomed to the mysterious policy of their master, and never supposed
aught else than that he had been liberated and intrusted with some
private commission by their master. In this belief, and having received
the parole, they gave him free passage.

Dalgetty rode slowly through the town of Inverary, the outlaw attending
upon him like a foot-page at his horse's shoulder. As they passed the
gibbet, the old man looked on the bodies and wrung his hands. The look
and gesture was momentary, but expressive of indescribable anguish.
Instantly recovering himself, Ranald, in passing, whispered somewhat
to one of the females, who, like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, seemed
engaged in watching and mourning the victims of feudal injustice and
cruelty. The woman started at his voice, but immediately collected
herself and returned for answer a slight inclination of the head.

Dalgetty continued his way out of the town, uncertain whether he should
try to seize or hire a boat and cross the lake, or plunge into the
woods, and there conceal himself from pursuit. In the former event he
was liable to be instantly pursued by the galleys of the Marquis, which
lay ready for sailing, their long yard-arms pointing to the wind, and
what hope could he have in an ordinary Highland fishing-boat to escape
from them? If he made the latter choice, his chance either of supporting
or concealing himself in those waste and unknown wildernesses, was in
the highest degree precarious. The town lay now behind him, yet what
hand to turn to for safety he was unable to determine, and began to be
sensible, that in escaping from the dungeon at Inverary, desperate
as the matter seemed, he had only accomplished the easiest part of a
difficult task. If retaken, his fate was now certain; for the personal
injury he had offered to a man so powerful and so vindictive, could be
atoned for only by instant death. While he pondered these distressing
reflections, and looked around with a countenance which plainly
expressed indecision, Ranald MacEagh suddenly asked him, "which way he
intended to journey?"

"And that, honest comrade," answered Dalgetty, "is precisely the
question which I cannot answer you. Truly I begin to hold the
opinion, Ranald, that we had better have stuck by the brown loaf and
water-pitcher until Sir Duncan arrived, who, for his own honour, must
have made some fight for me."

"Saxon," answered MacEagh, "do not regret having exchanged the foul
breath of yonder dungeon for the free air of heaven. Above all, repent
not that you have served a Son of the Mist. Put yourself under my
guidance, and I will warrant your safety with my head."

"Can you guide me safe through these mountains, and back to the army of
Montrose?" said Dalgetty.

"I can," answered MacEagh; "there lives not a man to whom the mountain
passes, the caverns, the glens, the thickets, and the corries are known,
as they are to the Children of the Mist. While others crawl on the level
ground, by the sides of lakes and streams, ours are the steep hollows of
the inaccessible mountains, the birth-place of the desert springs. Not
all the bloodhounds of Argyle can trace the fastnesses through which I
can guide you."

"Say'st thou so, honest Ranald?" replied Dalgetty; "then have on with
thee; for of a surety I shall never save the ship by my own pilotage."

The outlaw accordingly led the way into the wood, by which the castle
is surrounded for several miles, walking with so much dispatch as kept
Gustavus at a round trot, and taking such a number of cross cuts and
turns, that Captain Dalgetty speedily lost all idea where he might be,
and all knowledge of the points of the compass. At length, the path,
which had gradually become more difficult, altogether ended among
thickets and underwood. The roaring of a torrent was heard in the
neighbourhood, the ground became in some places broken, in others boggy,
and everywhere unfit for riding.

"What the foul fiend," said Dalgetty, "is to be done here? I must part
with Gustavus, I fear."

"Take no care for your horse," said the outlaw; "he shall soon be
restored to you."

As he spoke, he whistled in a low tune, and a lad, half-dressed in
tartan, half naked, having only his own shaggy hair, tied with a thong
of leather, to protect his head and face from sun and weather, lean,
and half-starved in aspect, his wild grey eyes appearing to fill up ten
times the proportion usually allotted to them in the human face, crept
out, as a wild beast might have done, from a thicket of brambles and
briars.

"Give your horse to the gillie," said Ranald MacEagh; "your life depends
upon it."

"Och! och!" exclaimed the despairing veteran; "Eheu! as we used to say
at Mareschal-College, must I leave Gustavus in such grooming!"

"Are you frantic, to lose time thus!" said his guide; "do we stand on
friends' ground, that you should part with your horse as if he were your
brother? I tell you, you shall have him again; but if you never saw the
animal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?"

"And that is true too, mine honest friend," sighed Dalgetty; "yet if
you knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be kind to him,
my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well." So saying,
and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.

To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
Huge stones, over which they scrambled,--thickets of them and brambles,
through which they had to drag themselves,--rocks which were to be
climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the purpose of
an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and many
such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and half-naked
mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the surprise and
envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece, corslet,
and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found himself
at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of the
road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood
at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer
was to lay his hand on the soldier's arm, and point backward in the
direction of the wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was
closing fast, and they were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at
length he could distinctly hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large
bell.

"That," said he, "must be the alarm--the storm-clock, as the Germans
call it."

"It strikes the hour of your death," answered Ranald, "unless you can
accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man
has yielded up his soul."

"Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend," said Dalgetty, "I will not deny
that the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as
I explained to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mind not
pedestrian exercise the flourish of a fife), that I think I had better
ensconce myself in one of these bushes, and even lie quiet there to
abide what fortune God shall send me. I entreat you, mine honest friend
Ranald, to shift for yourself, and leave me to my fortune, as the Lion
of the North, the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, my never-to-be-forgotten
master (whom you must surely have heard of, Ranald, though you may have
heard of no one else), said to Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburgh,
when he was mortally wounded on the plains of Lutzen. Neither despair
altogether of my safety, Ranald, seeing I have been in as great pinches
as this in Germany--more especially, I remember me, that at the fatal
battle of Nerlingen--after which I changed service--"

"If you would save your father's son's breath to help his child out
of trouble, instead of wasting it upon the tales of Seannachies," said
Ranald, who now grew impatient of the Captain's loquacity, "or if your
feet could travel as fast as your tongue, you might yet lay your head on
an unbloody pillow to-night."

"Something there is like military skill in that," replied the Captain,
"although wantonly and irreverently spoken to an officer of rank. But
I hold it good to pardon such freedoms on a march, in respect of the
Saturnalian license indulged in such cases to the troops of all
nations. And now, resume thine office, friend Ranald, in respect I am
well-breathed; or, to be more plain, I PRAE, SEQUAR, as we used to say
at Mareschal-College."

Comprehending his meaning rather from his motions than his language,
the Son of the Mist again led the way, with an unerring precision that
looked like instinct, through a variety of ground the most difficult and
broken that could well be imagined. Dragging along his ponderous boots,
encumbered with thigh-pieces, gauntlets, corslet, and back-piece, not to
mention the buff jerkin which he wore under all these arms, talking of
his former exploits the whole way, though Ranald paid not the slightest
attention to him, Captain Dalgetty contrived to follow his guide a
considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a hound was
heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent of its prey.

"Black hound," said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a Child of
the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found
our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer
has gained the herd."

So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone equally
low from the top of a pass, up which they had for some time been
ascending. Mending their pace, they reached the top, where the moon,
which had now risen bright and clear, showed to Dalgetty a party of ten
or twelve Highlanders, and about as many women and children, by whom
Ranald MacEagh was received with such transports of joy, as made his
companion easily sensible that those by whom he was surrounded, must
of course be Children of the Mist. The place which they occupied well
suited their name and habits. It was a beetling crag, round which winded
a very narrow and broken footpath, commanded in various places by the
position which they held.

Ranald spoke anxiously and hastily to the children of his tribe, and
the men came one by one to shake hands with Dalgetty, while the women,
clamorous in their gratitude, pressed round to kiss even the hem of his
garment. "They plight their faith to you," said Ranald MacEagh, "for
requital of the good deed you have done to the tribe this day."

"Enough said, Ranald," answered the soldier, "enough said--tell them
I love not this shaking of hands--it confuses ranks and degrees in
military service; and as to kissing of gauntlets, puldrons, and the
like, I remember that the immortal Gustavus, as he rode through the
streets of Nuremberg, being thus worshipped by the poulace (being
doubtless far more worthy of it than a poor though honourable cavalier
like myself), did say unto them, in the way of rebuke, 'If you idolize
me thus like a god, who shall assure you that the vengeance of Heaven
will not soon prove me to be a mortal?'--And so here, I suppose you
intend to make a stand against your followers, Ranald--VOTO A DIOS, as
the Spaniard says?--a very pretty position--as pretty a position for
a small peloton of men as I have seen in my service--no enemy can
come towards it by the road without being at the mercy of cannon and
musket.--But then, Ranald, my trusty comrade, you have no cannon, I dare
to aver, and I do not see that any of these fellows have muskets either.
So with what artillery you propose making good the pass, before you come
to hand blows, truly, Ranald, it passeth my apprehension."

"With the weapons and with the courage of our fathers," said MacEagh;
and made the Captain observe, that the men of his party were armed with
bows and arrows.

"Bows and arrows!" exclaimed Dalgetty; "ha! ha! ha! have we Robin Hood
and Little John back again? Bows and arrows! why, the sight has not been
seen in civilized war for a hundred years. Bows and arrows! and why not
weavers' beams, as in the days of Goliah? Ah! that Dugald Dalgetty, of
Drumthwacket, should live to see men fight with bows and arrows!--The
immortal Gustavus would never have believed it--nor Wallenstein--nor
Butler--nor old Tilly,--Well, Ranald, a cat can have but its
claws--since bows and arrows are the word, e'en let us make the best
of it. Only, as I do not understand the scope and range of such
old-fashioned artillery, you must make the best disposition you can out
of your own head for MY taking the command, whilk I would have gladly
done had you been to fight with any Christian weapons, is out of the
question, when you are to combat like quivered Numidians. I will,
however, play my part with my pistols in the approaching melley, in
respect my carabine unhappily remains at Gustavus's saddle.--My service
and thanks to you," he continued, addressing a mountaineer who offered
him a bow; "Dugald Dalgetty may say of himself, as he learned at
Mareschal-College,

     "Non eget Mauri jaculis, neque arcu,
     Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
     Fusce, pharetra;

whilk is to say--"

Ranald MacEagh a second time imposed silence on the talkative commander
as before, by pulling his sleeve, and pointing down the pass. The bay
of the bloodhound was now approaching nearer and nearer, and they could
hear the voices of several persons who accompanied the animal, and
hallooed to each other as they dispersed occasionally, either in the
hurry of their advance, or in order to search more accurately the
thickets as they came along. They were obviously drawing nearer and
nearer every moment. MacEagh, in the meantime, proposed to Captain
Dalgetty to disencumber himself of his armour, and gave him to
understand that the women should transport it to a place of safety.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said Dalgetty, "such is not the rule of
our foreign service in respect I remember the regiment of Finland
cuirassiers reprimanded, and their kettle-drums taken from them, by
the immortal Gustavus, because they had assumed the permission to march
without their corslets, and to leave them with the baggage. Neither did
they strike kettle-drums again at the head of that famous regiment until
they behaved themselves so notably at the field of Leipsic; a lesson
whilk is not to be forgotten, any more than that exclamation of the
immortal Gustavus, 'Now shall I know if my officers love me, by their
putting on their armour; since, if my officers are slain, who shall lead
my soldiers into victory?' Nevertheless, friend Ranald, this is without
prejudice to my being rid of these somewhat heavy boots, providing I
can obtain any other succedaneum; for I presume not to say that my bare
soles are fortified so as to endure the flints and thorns, as seems to
be the case with your followers."

To rid the Captain of his cumbrous greaves, and case his feet in a pair
of brogues made out of deerskin, which a Highlander stripped off for his
accommodation, was the work of a minute, and Dalgetty found himself much
lightened by the exchange. He was in the act of recommending to Ranald
MacEagh, to send two or three of his followers a little lower to
reconnoitre the pass, and, at the same time, somewhat to extend his
front, placing two detached archers at each flank by way of posts of
observation, when the near cry of the hound apprised them that the
pursuers were at the bottom of the pass. All was then dead silence; for,
loquacious as he was on other occasions, Captain Dalgetty knew well the
necessity of an ambush keeping itself under covert.

The moon gleamed on the broken pathway, and on the projecting cliffs of
rock round which it winded, its light intercepted here and there by the
branches of bushes and dwarf-trees, which, finding nourishment in the
crevices of the rocks, in some places overshadowed the brow and ledge
of the precipice. Below, a thick copse-wood lay in deep and dark shadow,
somewhat resembling the billows of a half-seen ocean. From the bosom of
that darkness, and close to the bottom of the precipice, the hound was
heard at intervals baying fearfully, sounds which were redoubled by the
echoes of the woods and rocks around. At intervals, these sunk into deep
silence, interrupted only by the plashing noise of a small runnel of
water, which partly fell from the rock, partly found a more silent
passage to the bottom along its projecting surface. Voices of men were
also heard in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had
not discovered the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or
that, having discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the
imperfect light, and the uncertainty whether it might not be defended,
made them hesitate to attempt it.

At length a shadowy figure was seen, which raised itself up from the
abyss of darkness below, and, emerging into the pale moonlight, began
cautiously and slowly to ascend the rocky path. The outline was so
distinctly marked, that Captain Dalgetty could discover not only the
person of a Highlander, but the long gun which he carried in his hand,
and the plume of feathers which decorated his bonnet. "TAUSEND TEIFLEN!
that I should say so, and so like to be near my latter end!" ejaculated
the Captain, but under his breath, "what will become of us, now they
have brought musketry to encounter our archers?"

But just as the pursuer had attained a projecting piece of rock about
half way up the ascent, and, pausing, made a signal for those who were
still at the bottom to follow him, an arrow whistled from the bow of one
of the Children of the Mist, and transfixed him with so fatal a wound,
that, without a single effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and
fell headlong from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below.
The crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of his
fall from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of horror and
surprise, which burst from his followers. The Children of the Mist,
encouraged in proportion to the alarm this first success had caused
among the pursuers, echoed back the clamour with a loud and shrill yell
of exultation, and, showing themselves on the brow of the precipice,
with wild cries and vindictive gestures, endeavoured to impress on their
enemies a sense at once of their courage, their numbers, and their state
of defence. Even Captain Dalgetty's military prudence did not prevent
his rising up, and calling out to Ranald, more loud than prudence
warranted, "CAROCCO, comrade, as the Spaniard says! The long-bow for
ever! In my poor apprehension now, were you to order a file to advance
and take position--"

"The Sassenach!" cried a voice from beneath, "mark the Sassenach sidier!
I see the glitter of his breastplate." At the same time three muskets
were discharged; and while one ball rattled against the corslet of
proof, to the strength of which our valiant Captain had been more than
once indebted for his life, another penetrated the armour which covered
the front of his left thigh, and stretched him on the ground. Ranald
instantly seized him in his arms, and bore him back from the edge of the
precipice, while he dolefully ejaculated, "I always told the immortal
Gustavus, Wallenstein, Tilly, and other men of the sword, that, in my
poor mind, taslets ought to be made musket-proof."

With two or three earnest words in Gaelic, MacEagh commended the wounded
man to the charge of the females, who were in the rear of his little
party, and was then about to return to the contest. But Dalgetty
detained him, grasping a firm hold of his plaid.--"I know not how this
matter may end--but I request you will inform Montrose, that I died like
a follower of the immortal Gustavus--and I pray you, take heed how you
quit your present strength, even for the purpose of pursuing the enemy,
if you gain any advantage--and--and--"

Here Dalgetty's breath and eyesight began to fail him through loss of
blood, and MacEagh, availing himself of this circumstance, extricated
from his grasp the end of his own mantle, and substituted that of a
female, by which the Captain held stoutly, thereby securing, as he
conceived, the outlaw's attention to the military instructions which he
continued to pour forth while he had any breath to utter them, though
they became gradually more and more incoherent--"And, comrade, you
will be sure to keep your musketeers in advance of your stand of pikes,
Lochaber-axes, and two-handed swords--Stand fast, dragoons, on the left
flank!--where was I?--Ay, and, Ranald, if ye be minded to retreat, leave
some lighted matches burning on the branches of the trees--it shows as
if they were lined with shot--But I forget--ye have no match-locks nor
habergeons--only bows and arrows--bows and arrows! ha! ha! ha!"

Here the Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable
to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he
connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long
time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in
the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in
reality, as they were wild and uncouth in outward appearance.



CHAPTER XV.

     But if no faithless action stain
     Thy true and constant word,
     I'll make thee famous by my pen,
     And glorious by my sword.

     I'll serve thee in such noble ways
     As ne'er were known before;
     I'll deck and crown thy head with bays,
     And love thee more and more.--MONTROSE'S LINES.

We must now leave, with whatever regret, the valiant Captain Dalgetty,
to recover of his wounds or otherwise as fate shall determine, in order
briefly to trace the military operations of Montrose, worthy as they are
of a more important page, and a better historian. By the assistance of
the chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the
junction of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were
peculiarly zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two
or three thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish
under Colkitto. This last leader, who, to the great embarrassment of
Milton's commentators, is commemorated in one of that great poet's
sonnets, was properly named Alister, or Alexander M'Donnell, by birth a
Scottish islesman, and related to the Earl of Antrim, to whose patronage
he owed the command assigned him in the Irish troops. In many respects
he merited this distinction. He was brave to intrepidity, and almost to
insensibility; very strong and active in person, completely master of
his weapons, and always ready to show the example in the extremity of
danger. To counterbalance these good qualities, it must be recorded,
that he was inexperienced in military tactics, and of a jealous and
presumptuous disposition, which often lost to Montrose the fruits of
Colkitto's gallantry. Yet such is the predominance of outward personal
qualities in the eyes of a mild people, that the feats of strength and
courage shown by this champion, seem to have made a stronger impression
upon the minds of the Highlanders, than the military skill and
chivalrous spirit of the great Marquis of Montrose. Numerous traditions
are still preserved in the Highland glens concerning Alister M'Donnell,
though the name of Montrose is rarely mentioned among them.

[Milton's book, entitled TETRACHORDON, had been ridiculed, it would
seem, by the divines assembled at Westminster, and others, on account of
the hardness of the title; and Milton in his sonnet retaliates upon
the barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to
English ears:--

     . . . . why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
     COLKITTO or M'Donald, or Gallasp?
     These rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
     That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp.

"We may suppose," says Bishop Newton, "that these were persons of note
among the Scotch ministers, who were for pressing and enforcing the
Covenant;" whereas Milton only intends to ridicule the barbarism
of Scottish names in general, and quotes, indiscriminately, that of
Gillespie, one of the Apostles of the Covenant, and those of Colkitto
and M'Donnell (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest
enemies.]

The point upon which Montrose finally assembled his little army, was in
Strathearn, on the verge of the Highlands of Perthshire, so as to menace
the principal town of that county.

His enemies were not unprepared for his reception. Argyle, at the head
of his Highlanders, was dogging the steps of the Irish from the west to
the east, and by force, fear, or influence, had collected an army nearly
sufficient to have given battle to that under Montrose. The Lowlands
were also prepared, for reasons which we assigned at the beginning of
this tale. A body of six thousand infantry, and six or seven thousand
cavalry, which profanely assumed the title of God's army, had been
hastily assembled from the shires of Fife, Angus, Perth, Stirling, and
the neighbouring counties. A much less force in former times, nay, even
in the preceding reign, would have been sufficient to have secured the
Lowlands against a more formidable descent of Highlanders, than those
united under Montrose; but times had changed strangely within the last
half century. Before that period, the Lowlanders were as constantly
engaged in war as the mountaineers, and were incomparably better
disciplined and armed. The favourite Scottish order of battle somewhat
resembled the Macedonian phalanx. Their infantry formed a compact body,
armed with long spears, impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the age,
though well mounted, and arrayed in complete proof. It may easily
be conceived, therefore, that their ranks could not be broken by the
disorderly charge of Highland infantry armed for close combat only, with
swords, and ill furnished with missile weapons, and having no artillery
whatever.

This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the introduction
of muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which, not being as yet
combined with the bayonet, was a formidable weapon at a distance, but
gave no assurance against the enemy who rushed on to close quarters. The
pike, indeed, was not wholly disused in the Scottish army; but it was no
longer the favourite weapon, nor was it relied upon as formerly by those
in whose hands it was placed; insomuch that Daniel Lupton, a tactician
of the day, has written a book expressly upon the superiority of the
musket. This change commenced as early as the wars of Gustavus Adolphus,
whose marches were made with such rapidity, that the pike was very soon
thrown aside in his army, and exchanged for fire-arms. A circumstance
which necessarily accompanied this change, as well as the establishment
of standing armies, whereby war became a trade, was the introduction of
a laborious and complicated system of discipline, combining a variety
of words of command with corresponding operations and manoeuvres, the
neglect of any one of which was sure to throw the whole into confusion.
War therefore, as practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed
much more than formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to
which previous practice and experience were indispensable requisites.
Such was the natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost
everywhere, and particularly in the long German wars, superseded what
may be called the natural discipline of the feudal militia.

The Scottish Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double
disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the
spear, a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often
repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were
subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted,
perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely
masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen
soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly understood.
So much has been done in our own time in bringing back tactics to their
first principles, and in getting rid of the pedantry of war, that it
is easy for us to estimate the disadvantages under which a half-trained
militia laboured, who were taught to consider success as depending upon
their exercising with precision a system of tactics, which they probably
only so far comprehended as to find out when they were wrong, but
without the power of getting right again. Neither can it be denied,
that, in the material points of military habits and warlike spirit,
the Lowlanders of the seventeenth century had sunk far beneath their
Highland countrymen.

From the earliest period down to the union of the crowns, the whole
kingdom of Scotland, Lowlands as well as Highlands, had been the
constant scene of war, foreign and domestic; and there was probably
scarce one of its hardy inhabitants, between the age of sixteen and
sixty, who was not as willing in point of fact as he was literally bound
in law, to assume arms at the first call of his liege lord, or of a
royal proclamation. The law remained the same in sixteen hundred and
forty-five as a hundred years before, but the race of those subjected to
it had been bred up under very different feelings. They had sat in quiet
under their vine and under their fig-tree, and a call to battle involved
a change of life as new as it was disagreeable. Such of them, also, who
lived near unto the Highlands, were in continual and disadvantageous
contact with the restless inhabitants of those mountains, by whom their
cattle were driven off, their dwellings plundered, and their persons
insulted, and who had acquired over them that sort of superiority
arising from a constant system of aggression. The Lowlanders, who lay
more remote, and out of reach of these depredations, were influenced by
the exaggerated reports circulated concerning the Highlanders, whom,
as totally differing in laws, language, and dress, they were induced
to regard as a nation of savages, equally void of fear and of humanity.
These various prepossessions, joined to the less warlike habits of the
Lowlanders, and their imperfect knowledge of the new and complicated
system of discipline for which they had exchanged their natural mode
of fighting, placed them at great disadvantage when opposed to the
Highlander in the field of battle. The mountaineers, on the contrary,
with the arms and courage of their fathers, possessed also their simple
and natural system of tactics, and bore down with the fullest confidence
upon an enemy, to whom anything they had been taught of discipline was,
like Saul's armour upon David, a hinderance rather than a help, "because
they had not proved it."

It was with such disadvantages on the one side, and such advantages on
the other, to counterbalance the difference of superior numbers and the
presence of artillery and cavalry, that Montrose encountered the army of
Lord Elcho upon the field of Tippermuir. The Presbyterian clergy had not
been wanting in their efforts to rouse the spirit of their followers,
and one of them, who harangued the troops on the very day of battle,
hesitated not to say, that if ever God spoke by his mouth, he promised
them, in His name, that day, a great and assured victory. The cavalry
and artillery were also reckoned sure warrants of success, as the
novelty of their attack had upon former occasions been very discouraging
to the Highlanders. The place of meeting was an open heath, and the
ground afforded little advantage to either party, except that it allowed
the horse of the Covenanters to act with effect.

A battle upon which so much depended, was never more easily decided.
The Lowland cavalry made a show of charging; but, whether thrown into
disorder by the fire of musketry, or deterred by a disaffection to
the service said to have prevailed among the gentlemen, they made no
impression on the Highlanders whatever, and recoiled in disorder from
ranks which had neither bayonets nor pikes to protect them. Montrose
saw, and instantly availed himself of this advantage. He ordered his
whole army to charge, which they performed with the wild and desperate
valour peculiar to mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone,
trained in the Italian wars, made a desperate defence upon the right
wing. In every other point their line was penetrated at the first onset;
and this advantage once obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to
contend at close quarters with their more agile and athletic enemies.
Many were slain on the held, and such a number in the pursuit, that
above one-third of the Covenanters were reported to have fallen; in
which number, however, must be computed a great many fat burgesses who
broke their wind in the flight, and thus died without stroke of sword.
[We choose to quote our authority for a fact so singular:--"A great many
burgesses were killed--twenty-five householders in St. Andrews--many
were bursten in the flight, and died without stroke."--See Baillie's
Letters, vol. ii. page 92.]