A Legend of Montrose Read online

  CHAPTER IX.

  . . . . In a rebellion, When what's not meet, but what must be, was law, Then were they chosen, in a better hour, Let what is meet be said it must be meet, And throw their power i' the dust.--CORIOLANUS.In a small apartment, remote from the rest of the guests assembled atthe castle, Sir Duncan Campbell was presented with every species ofrefreshment, and respectfully attended by Lord Menteith, and by AllanM'Aulay. His discourse with the latter turned upon a sort of huntingcampaign, in which they had been engaged together against the Childrenof the Mist, with whom the Knight of Ardenvohr, as well as the M'Aulays,had a deadly and irreconcilable feud. Sir Duncan, however, speedilyendeavoured to lead back the conversation to the subject of his presenterrand to the castle of Darnlinvarach.

  "It grieved him to the very heart," he said, "to see that friends andneighbours, who should stand shoulder to shoulder, were likely to beengaged hand to hand in a cause which so little concerned them. Whatsignifies it," he said, "to the Highland Chiefs, whether King orParliament got uppermost? Were it not better to let them settle theirown differences without interference, while the Chiefs, in the meantime,took the opportunity of establishing their own authority in a mannernot to be called in question hereafter by either King or Parliament?"He reminded Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last reignto settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in factlevelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentionedthe celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they werecalled, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan, formed to introducestrangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancientcustoms and mode of government, and to despoil them of the inheritanceof their fathers. [In the reign of James VI., an attempt of rather anextraordinary kind was made to civilize the extreme northern part of theHebridean Archipelago. That monarch granted the property of the Islandof Lewis, as if it had been an unknown and savage country, to a numberof Lowland gentlemen, called undertakers, chiefly natives of the shireof Fife, that they might colonize and settle there. The enterprisewas at first successful, but the natives of the island, MacLeods andMacKenzies, rose on the Lowland adventurers, and put most of them tothe sword.] "And yet," he continued, addressing Allan, "it is forthe purpose of giving despotic authority to the monarch by whom thesedesigns have been nursed, that so many Highland Chiefs are uponthe point of quarrelling with, and drawing the sword against, theirneighbours, allies, and ancient confederates." "It is to my brother,"said Allan, "it is to the eldest son of my father's house, that theKnight of Ardenvohr must address these remonstrances. I am, indeed, thebrother of Angus; but in being so, I am only the first of his clansmen,and bound to show an example to the others by my cheerful and readyobedience to his commands."

  "The cause also," said Lord Menteith, interposing, "is far more generalthan Sir Duncan Campbell seems to suppose it. It is neither limitedto Saxon nor to Gael, to mountain nor to strath, to Highlands nor toLowlands. The question is, if we will continue to be governed by theunlimited authority assumed by a set of persons in no respect superiorto ourselves, instead of returning to the natural government of thePrince against whom they have rebelled. And respecting the interest ofthe Highlands in particular," he added, "I crave Sir Duncan Campbell'spardon for my plainness; but it seems very clear to me, that the onlyeffect produced by the present usurpation, will be the aggrandisementof one overgrown clan at the expense of every independent Chief in theHighlands."

  "I will not reply to you, my lord," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "becauseI know your prejudices, and from whom they are borrowed; yet you willpardon my saying, that being at the head of a rival branch of the Houseof Graham, I have both read of and known an Earl of Menteith, whowould have disdained to have been tutored in politics, or to have beencommanded in war, by an Earl of Montrose."

  "You will find it in vain, Sir Duncan," said Lord Menteith, haughtily,"to set my vanity in arms against my principles. The King gave myancestors their title and rank; and these shall never prevent my acting,in the royal cause, under any one who is better qualified than myselfto be a commander-in-chief. Least of all, shall any miserable jealousyprevent me from placing my hand and sword under the guidance of thebravest, the most loyal, the most heroic spirit among our Scottishnobility."

  "Pity," said Sir Duncan Campbell, "that you cannot add to this panegyricthe farther epithets of the most steady, and the most consistent. But Ihave no purpose of debating these points with you, my lord," wavinghis hand, as if to avoid farther discussion; "the die is cast with you;allow me only to express my sorrow for the disastrous fate to whichAngus M'Aulay's natural rashness, and your lordship's influence, aredragging my gallant friend Allan here, with his father's clan, and manya brave man besides."

  "The die is cast for us all, Sir Duncan," replied Allan, looking gloomy,and arguing on his own hypochondriac feelings; "the iron hand of destinybranded our fate upon our forehead long ere we could form a wish, orraise a finger in our own behalf. Were this otherwise, by what meansdoes the Seer ascertain the future from those shadowy presages whichhaunt his waking and his sleeping eye? Nought can be foreseen but thatwhich is certain to happen."

  Sir Duncan Campbell was about to reply, and the darkest and mostcontested point of metaphysics might have been brought into discussionbetwixt two Highland disputants, when the door opened, and Annot Lyle,with her clairshach in her hand, entered the apartment. The freedom ofa Highland maiden was in her step and in her eye; for, bred up in theclosest intimacy with the Laird of M'Aulay and his brother, withLord Menteith, and other young men who frequented Darnlinvarach, shepossessed none of that timidity which a female, educated chiefly amongher own sex, would either have felt, or thought necessary to assume, onan occasion like the present.

  Her dress partook of the antique, for new fashions seldom penetratedinto the Highlands, nor would they easily have found their way to acastle inhabited chiefly by men, whose sole occupation was war and thechase. Yet Annot's garments were not only becoming, but even rich. Heropen jacket, with a high collar, was composed of blue cloth, richlyembroidered, and had silver clasps to fasten, when it pleased thewearer. Its sleeves, which were wide, came no lower than the elbow, andterminated in a golden fringe; under this upper coat, if it can be sotermed, she wore an under dress of blue satin, also richly embroidered,but which was several shades lighter in colour than the upper garment.The petticoat was formed of tartan silk, in the sett, or pattern, ofwhich the colour of blue greatly predominated, so as to remove thetawdry effect too frequently produced in tartan, by the mixture andstrong opposition of colours. An antique silver chain hung roundher neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she turned herinstrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured by abrooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her profusionof light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile and ablush, she mentioned that she had M'Aulay's directions to ask them ifthey chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surpriseand interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debatewith Allan M'Aulay.

  "Can this," he said to him in a whisper, "a creature so beautiful and soelegant, be a domestic musician of your brother's establishment?"

  "By no means," answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; "sheis a--a--near relation of our family--and treated," he added, morefirmly, "as an adopted daughter of our father's house."

  As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesywhich every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, heresigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whateverrefreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probablydesigned to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence.If such was Allan's purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncankept his eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeperinterest than could have arisen from any impression that she wasa person of consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the oldknight's steady gaze; and it was not without considerable h
esitation,that, tuning her instrument, and receiving an assenting look from LordMenteith and Allan, she executed the following ballad, which our friend,Mr. Secundus M'Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, hasthus translated into the English tongue:

  THE ORPHAN MAID.

  November's hail-cloud drifts away, November's sunbeam wan Looks coldly on the castle grey, When forth comes Lady Anne.

  The orphan by the oak was set, Her arms, her feet, were bare, The hail-drops had not melted yet, Amid her raven hair.

  "And, Dame," she said, "by all the ties That child and mother know, Aid one who never knew these joys, Relieve an orphan's woe."

  The Lady said, "An orphan's state Is hard and sad to bear; Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate, Who mourns both lord and heir.

  "Twelve times the rolling year has sped, Since, when from vengeance wild Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled, Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."

  "Twelve times the year its course has born," The wandering maid replied, "Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn Drew nets on Campsie side.

  "St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;-- An infant, wellnigh dead, They saved, and rear'd in want and toil, To beg from you her bread."

  That orphan maid the lady kiss'd-- "My husband's looks you bear; St. Bridget and her morn be bless'd! You are his widow's heir."

  They've robed that maid, so poor and pale, In silk and sandals rare; And pearls, for drops of frozen hail, Are glistening in her hair.

  The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance ofthe above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from theoriginal Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, thatthe original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.

  LITERAL TRANSLATION.

  The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale of autumn. The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when the roar of battle hath passed over him.

  Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].

  There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of appointment. The withered leaves fell around her, and her heart was more withered than they.

  The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost] still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.

  And the maiden said, "Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan child." And the Lady replied, "How can I give that which I have not? I am the widow of a slain lord,--the mother of a perished child. When I fled in my fear from the vengeance of my husband's foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide, and my infant perished. This was on St. Bridget's morn, near the strong Lyns of Campsie. May ill luck light upon the day." And the maiden answered, "It was on St. Bridget's morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in misery, and must die, unless she is now aided." And the Lady answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and thine shall be the inheritance of his widow." And she called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the frozen hail-drops.

  While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise,that it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of SirDuncan Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from hisage and character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that periodpossessed a much greater sensibility both for tale and song than wasfound among their Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardlyaccounted for the embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyesfrom the songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an objectso interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features whichexpressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority,should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As theChief's brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrowsuntil they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which somethinglike a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed inthe same posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased tovibrate. He then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as ifpurposing to speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and wasabout to address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castlemade his appearance.