Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since Read online

  CHAPTER XVI

  AN UNEXPECTED ALLY APPEARS

  The Baron returned at the dinner-hour, and had in a great measurerecovered his composure and good humour. He not only confirmed thestories which Edward had heard from Rose and Bailie Macwheeble, butadded many anecdotes from his own experience, concerning the state ofthe Highlands and their inhabitants, The chiefs he pronounced to be,in general, gentlemen of great honour and high pedigree, whose word wasaccounted as a law by all those of their own sept, or clan. 'It did not,indeed,' he said, 'become them, as had occurred in late instances, topropone their PROSAPIA, a lineage which rested for the most part on thevain and fond rhymes of their Seannachies or Barahs, as aequiponderatewith the evidence of ancient charters and royal grants of antiquity,conferred upon distinguished houses in the Low Country by diversScottish monarchs; nevertheless, such was their OUTRECUIDANCE andpresumption, as to undervalue those who possessed such evidents, as ifthey held their lands in a sheep's skin.'

  This, by the way, pretty well explained the cause of quarrel betweenthe Baron and his Highland ally. But he went on to state so manycurious particulars concerning the manners, customs, and habits of thispatriarchal race, that Edward's curiosity became highly interested, andhe inquired whether it was possible to make with safety an excursioninto the neighbouring Highlands, whose dusky barrier of mountains hadalready excited his wish to penetrate beyond them. The Baron assured hisguest that nothing would be more easy, providing this quarrel werefirst made up, since he could himself give him letters to many of thedistinguished chiefs, who would receive him with the utmost courtesy andhospitality.

  While they were on this topic, the door suddenly opened, and, ushered bySaunders Saunderson, a Highlander, fully armed and equipped, entered theapartment. Had it not been that Saunders acted the part of master of theceremonies to this martial apparition, without appearing to deviate fromhis usual composure, and that neither Mr. Bradwardine nor Rose exhibitedany emotion, Edward would certainly have thought the intrusion hostile,As it was, he started at the sight of what he had not yet happened tosee, a mountaineer in his full national costume. The individual Gael wasa stout, dark, young man, of low stature, the ample folds of whose plaidadded to the appearance of strength which his person exhibited. Theshort kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; thegoat-skin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wroughtpistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicatedhis claim to be treated as a Duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; abroadsword dangled by his side, a target hung upon his shoulder, anda long Spanish fowling-piece occupied one of his hands. With the otherhand he pulled off his bonnet, and the Baron, who well knew theircustoms, and the proper mode of addressing them, immediately said, withan air of dignity, but without rising, and much, as Edward thought,in the manner of a prince receiving an embassy, 'Welcome, Evan DhuMaccombich! what news from Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr?'

  'Fergus Mac-Ivor Vich Ian Vohr,' said the ambassador, in good English,'greets you well, Baron of Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan, and is sorrythere has been a thick cloud interposed between you and him, which haskept you from seeing and considering the friendship and alliances thathave been between your houses and forebears of old; and he prays youthat the cloud may pass away, and that things may be as they have beenheretofore between the clan Ivor and the house of Bradwardine, whenthere was an egg between them for a flint, and a knife for a sword. Andhe expects you will also say, you are sorry for the cloud, and no manshall hereafter ask whether it descended from the hill to the valley,or rose from the valley to the hill; for they never struck with thescabbard who did not receive with the sword; and woe to him who wouldlose his friend for the stormy cloud of a spring morning!'

  To this the Baron of Bradwardine answered, with suitable dignity, thathe knew the chief of clan Ivor to be a well-wisher to the King, and hewas sorry there should have been a cloud between him and any gentlemanof such sound principles, 'for when folks are banding together, feebleis he who hath no brother.'

  This appearing perfectly satisfactory, that the peace between theseaugust persons might be duly solemnized, the Baron ordered a stoup ofusquebaugh, and, filling a glass, drank to the health and prosperity ofMac-Ivor of Glennaquoich; upon which the Celtic ambassador, to requitehis politeness, turned down a mighty bumper of the same generous liquor,seasoned with his good wishes to the house of Bradwardine.

  Having thus ratified the preliminaries of the general treaty ofpacification, the envoy retired to adjust with Mr. Macwheeble somesubordinate articles with which it was not thought necessary to troublethe Baron. These probably referred to the discontinuance of the subsidy,and apparently the Bailie found means to satisfy their ally, withoutsuffering his master to suppose that his dignity was compromised. Atleast, it is certain, that after the plenipotentiaries had drunk abottle of brandy in single drams, which seemed to have no more effectupon such seasoned vessels, than if it had been poured upon the twobears at the top of the avenue, Evan Dhu Maccombich, having possessedhimself of all the information which he could procure respecting therobbery of the preceding night, declared his intention to set offimmediately in pursuit of the cattle, which he pronounced to be 'notfar off;--they have broken the bone,' he observed, 'but they have had notime to suck the marrow.'

  Our hero, who had attended Evan Dhu during his perquisitions, was muchstruck with the ingenuity which he displayed in collecting information,and the precise and pointed conclusions which he drew from it. Evan Dhu,on his part, was obviously flattered with the attention of Waverley, theinterest he seemed to take in his inquiries, and his curiosity about thecustoms and scenery of the Highlands. Without much ceremony he invitedEdward to accompany him on a short walk of ten or fifteen miles into themountains, and see the place where the cattle were conveyed to; adding,'If it be as I suppose, you never saw such a place in your life, norever will, unless you go with me, or the like of me.'

  Our hero, feeling his curiosity considerably excited by the idea ofvisiting the den of a Highland Cacus, took, however, the precautionto inquire if his guide might be trusted. He was assured, that theinvitation would on no account have been given had there been the leastdanger, and that all he had to apprehend was a little fatigue; andas Evan proposed he should pass a day at his Chieftain's house inreturning, where he would be sure of good accommodation and an excellentwelcome, there seemed nothing very formidable in the task he undertook.Rose, indeed, turned pale when she heard of it; but her father, wholoved the spirited curiosity of his young friend, did not attemptto damp it by an alarm of danger which really did not exist; and aknapsack, with a few necessaries, being bound on the shoulders of a sortof deputy gamekeeper, our hero set forth with a fowling-piece in hishand, accompanied by his new friend Evan Dhu, and, followed by thegamekeeper aforesaid, and by two wild Highlanders, the attendants ofEvan, one of whom had upon his shoulder a hatchet at the end of a pole,called a Lochaber-axe, [The Town-guard of Edinburgh were, till a lateperiod, armed with this weapon when on their police duty. There wasa hook at the back of the axe, which the ancient Highlanders used toassist them to climb over walls, fixing the hook upon it, and raisingthemselves by the handle. The axe, which was also much used by thenatives of Ireland, is supposed to have been introduced into bothcountries from Scandinavia.] and the other a long ducking-gun. Evan,upon Edward's inquiry, gave him to understand that this martial escortwas by no means necessary as a guard, but merely, as he said, drawingup and adjusting his plaid with an air of dignity, that he might appeardecently at Tully-Veolan, and as Vich Ian Vohr's foster-brother ought todo. 'Ah!' said he, 'if you Saxon Duinhe-wassel (English gentlemen) sawbut the Chief with his tail on!'

  'With his tail on!' echoed Edward, in some surprise.

  'Yes--that is, with all his usual followers, when he visits those of thesame rank. There is,' he continued, stopping and drawing himself proudlyup, while he counted upon his fingers the several officers of hischief's retinue--'there is his HANCH-MAN, or right-hand man; then hisBARDH,
or poet; then his BLADIER, or orator, to make harangues to thegreat folks whom he visits; then his GILLY-MORE, or armour-bearer, tocarry his sword and target, and his gun; then his GILLY CASFLIUCH,who carries him on his back through the sikes and brooks; then hisGILLY-COMSTRIAN, to lead his horse by the bridle in steep and difficultpaths; then his GILLY-TRUSHHARNISH, to carry his knapsack; and the piperand the piper's man, and it may be a dozen young lads besides, that haveno business, but are just boys of the belt, to follow the laird, and dohis honour's bidding.'

  And does your Chief regularly maintain all these men?' demandedWaverley.

  'All these!' replied Evan; 'aye, and many a fair head beside, that wouldnot ken where to lay itself, but for the mickle barn at Glennaquoich.'

  With similar tales of the grandeur of the Chief in peace and war,Evan Dhu beguiled the way till they approached more closely those hugemountains which Edward had hitherto only seen at a distance. It wastowards evening as they entered one of the tremendous passes whichafford communication between the High and Low Country; the path, whichwas extremely steep and rugged, winded up a chasm between two tremendousrocks, following the passage which a foaming stream, that brawled farbelow, appeared to have worn for itself in the course of ages. A fewslanting beams of the sun, which was now setting, reached the water inits darksome bed, and showed it partially, chafed by a hundred rocks,and broken by a hundred falls. The descent from the path to the streamwas a mere precipice, with here and there a projecting fragment ofgranite, or a scathed tree, which had warped its twisted roots into thefissures of the rock. On the right hand, the mountain rose above thepath with almost equal inaccessibility; but the hill on the oppositeside displayed a shroud of copsewood, with which some pines wereintermingled.

  'This,' said Evan, 'is the pass of Bally-Brough, which was kept informer times by ten of the clan Donnochie against a hundred of the LowCountry carles. The graves of the slain are still to be seen in thatlittle corri, or bottom, on the opposite side of the burn--if your eyesare good, you may see the green specks among the heather.--See, thereis an earn, which you Southrons call an eagle--you have no such birdsas that in England--he is going to fetch his supper from the Laird ofBradwardine's braes, but I'll send a slug after him.'

  He fired his piece accordingly, but missed the superb monarch of thefeathered tribes, who, without noticing the attempt to annoy him,continued his majestic flight to the southward. A thousand birds ofprey, hawks, kites, carrion-crows, and ravens, disturbed from thelodgings which they had just taken up for the evening, rose at thereport of the gun, and mingled their hoarse and discordant notes withthe echoes which replied to it, and with the roar of the mountaincataracts. Evan, a little disconcerted at having missed his mark, whenhe meant to have displayed peculiar dexterity, covered his confusion bywhistling part of a pibroch as he reloaded his piece, and proceeded insilence up the pass.

  It issued in a narrow glen, between two mountains, both very lofty, andcovered with heath. The brook continued to be their companion, and theyadvanced up its mazes, crossing them now and then, on which occasionsEven Dhu uniformly offered the assistance of his attendants to carryover Edward; but our hero, who had been always a tolerable pedestrian,declined the accommodation, and obviously rose in his guide's opinion byshowing that he did not fear wetting his feet. Indeed he was anxious,so far as he could without affectation, to remove the opinion whichEvan seemed to entertain of the effeminacy of the Lowlanders, andparticularly of the English.

  Through the gorge of this glen they found access to a black bog, oftremendous extent, full of large pit-holes, which they traversedwith great difficulty and some danger, by tracks which no one but aHighlander could have followed. The path itself, or rather the portionof more solid ground on which the travellers half walked, half waded,was rough, broken, and in many places quaggy and unsound. Sometimes theground was so completely unsafe, that it was necessary to spring fromone hillock to another, the space between being incapable of bearingthe human weight. This was an easy matter to the Highlanders, whowore thin-soled brogues fit for the purpose, and moved with a peculiarspringing step; but Edward began to find the exercise, to which he wasunaccustomed, more fatiguing than he expected. The lingering twilightserved to show them through this Serbonian bog, but deserted them almosttotally at the bottom of a steep and very stony hill, which it wasthe travellers' next toilsome task to ascend. The night, however,was pleasant, and not dark; and Waverley, calling up mental energy tosupport personal fatigue, held on his march gallantly, though envying inhis heart his Highland attendants, who continued, without a symptomof abated vigour, the rapid and swinging pace, or rather trot, which,according to his computation, had already brought them fifteen milesupon their journey.

  After crossing this mountain, and descending on the other side towards athick wood, Evan Dhu held some conference with his Highland attendants,in consequence of which Edward's baggage was shifted from the shouldersof the gamekeeper to those of one of the gillies, and the former wassent off with the other mountaineer in a direction different fromthat of the three remaining travellers. On asking the meaning of thisseparation, Waverley was told that the Lowlander must go to a hamletabout three miles off for the night; for unless it was some veryparticular friend, Donald Bean Lean, the worthy person whom theysupposed to be possessed of the cattle, did not much approve ofstrangers approaching his retreat. This seemed reasonable, and silenceda qualm of suspicion which came across Edward's mind, when he sawhimself, at such a place and such an hour, deprived of his only Lowlandcompanion. And Evan immediately afterwards added, 'that indeed hehimself had better get forward, and announce their approach to DonaldBean Lean, as the arrival of a SIDIER ROY (red soldier) might otherwisebe a disagreeable surprise.' And without waiting for an answer, injockey phrase, he trotted out, and putting himself to a very round pace,was out of sight in an instant.

  Waverley was now left to his own meditations, for his attendant with thebattle-axe spoke very little English. They were traversing a thick, and,as it seemed, an endless wood of pines, and consequently the path wasaltogether indiscernible in the murky darkness which surrounded them.The Highlander, however, seemed to trace it by instinct, without thehesitation of a moment, and Edward followed his footsteps as close as hecould.

  After journeying a considerable time in silence, he could not helpasking, 'Was it far to the end of their journey?'

  'Ta cove was tree, four mile; but as Duinhe-wassel was a wee taiglit,Donald could, tat is, might--would--should send ta curragh.'

  This conveyed no information. The CURRAGH which was promised might be aman, a horse, a cart, or chaise; and no more could be got from the manwith the battle-axe, but a repetition of 'Aich ay! ta curragh.'

  But in a short time Edward began to conceive his meaning, when, issuingfrom the wood, he found himself on the banks of a large river or lake,where his conductor gave him to understand they must sit down for alittle while. The moon, which now began to rise, showed obscurelythe expanse of water which spread before them, and the shapeless andindistinct forms of mountains with which it seemed to be surrounded. Thecool and yet mild air of the summer night refreshed Waverley afterhis rapid and toilsome walk; and the perfume which it wafted from thebirch-trees, bathed in the evening dew, was exquisitely fragrant. [It isnot the weeping birch, the most common species in the Highlands, but thewoolly-leaved Lowland birch, that is distinguished by this fragrance.]

  He had now time to give himself up to the full romance of his situation.Here he saw on the banks of an unknown lake, under the guidance of awild native, whose language was unknown to him, on a visit to the den ofsome renowned outlaw, a second Robin Hood, perhaps, or Adam o' Gordon,and that at deep midnight, through scenes of difficulty and toil,separated from his attendant, left by his guide.--What a variety ofincidents for the exercise of a romantic imagination, and all enhancedby the solemn feeling of uncertainty, at least, if not of danger! Theonly circumstance which assorted ill with the rest, was the cause of hisjourney--the Baron's milk-cows! This degra
ding incident he kept in thebackground.

  While wrapped in these dreams of imagination, his companion gentlytouched him, and pointing in a direction nearly straight across thelake, said 'Yon's ta cove.' A small point of light was seen to twinklein the direction in which he pointed, and gradually increasing insize and lustre, seemed to flicker like a meteor upon the verge of thehorizon. While Edward watched this phenomenon, the distant dash ofoars was heard. The measured sound approached near and more near, andpresently a loud whistle was heard in the same direction. His friendwith the battle-axe immediately whistled clear and shrill, in reply tothe signal, and a boat, manned with four or five Highlanders, pushed fora little inlet, near which Edward was sitting. He advanced to meetthem with his attendant, was immediately assisted into the boat by theofficious attention of two stout mountaineers, and had no sooner seatedhimself than they resumed their oars, and began to row across the lakewith great rapidity.