THE MARCH
The conflicting passions and exhausted
feelings of Waverley had resigned him to late but
sound repose. He was dreaming of Glennaquoich,
and had transferred to the halls of lan nan Chaistel
the festal train which so lately graced those of Holyrood.
The pibroch too was distinctly heard; and this at
least was no delusion, for the ’proud step of
the chief piper’ of the ‘chlain Mac-Ivor’
was perambulating the court before the door of his
Chieftain’s quarters, and as Mrs. Flockhart,
apparently no friend to his minstrelsy, was pleased
to observe, ’garring the very stane-and-lime
wa’s dingle wi’ his screeching.’
Of course it soon became too powerful for Waverley’s
dream, with which it had at first rather harmonised.
The sound of Callum’s brogues
in his apartment (for Mac-Ivor had again assigned
Waverley to his care) was the next note of parting.
’Winna yer honour bang up? Vich lan Vohr
and ta Prince are awa to the lang green
glen ahint the clachan, tat they ca’ the
King’s Park, and mony âne’s
on his ain shanks the day that will be carried on ither
folk’s ere night.’
Waverley sprung up, and, with Callum’s
assistance and instructions, adjusted his tartans
in proper costume. Callum told him also,’
tat his leather dorlach wi’ the lock on her
was come frae Doune, and she was awa again in the
wain wi’ Vich Ian Vohr’s walise.’
By this periphrasis Waverley readily
apprehended his portmanteau was intended. He
thought upon the mysterious packet of the maid of the
cavern, which seemed always to escape him when within
his very grasp. But this was no time for indulgence
of curiosity; and having declined Mrs. Flockhart’s
compliment of a morning, i.e. a matutinal
dram, being probably the only man in the Chevalier’s
army by whom such a courtesy would have been rejected,
he made his adieus and departed with Callum.
‘Callum,’ said he, as
they proceeded down a dirty close to gain the southern
skirts of the Canongate, ‘what shall I do for
a horse?’
‘Ta deil ane ye maun think o’,’
said Callum. ’Vich Ian Vohr’s marching
on foot at the head o’ his kin (not to say ta
Prince, wha does the like), wi’ his target on
his shoulder; and ye maun e’en be neighbour-like.’
’And so I will, Callum, give
me my target; so, there we are fixed. How does
it look?’
‘Like the bra’ Highlander
tat’s painted on the board afore the mickle
change-house they ca’ Luckie Middlemass’s,’
answered Callum; meaning, I must observe, a high compliment,
for in his opinion Luckie Middlemass’s sign
was an exquisite specimen of art. Waverley, however,
not feeling the full force of this polite simile,
asked him no further questions.
Upon extricating themselves from the
mean and dirty suburbs of the metropolis, and emerging
into the open air, Waverley felt a renewal of both
health and spirits, and turned his recollection with
firmness upon the events of the preceding evening,
and with hope and resolution towards those of the
approaching day.
When he had surmounted a small craggy
eminence called St. Leonard’s Hill, the King’s
Park, or the hollow between the mountain of Arthur’s
Seat and the rising grounds on which the southern
part of Edinburgh is now built, lay beneath him, and
displayed a singular and animating prospect. It
was occupied by the army of the Highlanders, now in
the act of preparing for their march. Waverley
had already seen something of the kind at the hunting-match
which he attended with Fergus Mac-Ivor; but this was
on a scale of much greater magnitude, and incomparably
deeper interest. The rocks, which formed the
background of the scene, and the very sky itself,
rang with the clang of the bagpipers, summoning forth,
each with his appropriate pibroch, his chieftain and
clan. The mountaineers, rousing themselves from
their couch under the canopy of heaven with the hum
and bustle of a confused and irregular multitude,
like bees alarmed and arming in their hives, seemed
to possess all the pliability of movement fitted to
execute military manoeuvres. Their motions appeared
spontaneous and confused, but the result was order
and regularity; so that a general must have praised
the conclusion, though a martinet might have ridiculed
the method by which it was attained.
The sort of complicated medley created
by the hasty arrangements of the various clans under
their respective banners, for the purpose of getting
into the order of march, was in itself a gay and lively
spectacle. They had no tents to striket having
generally, and by choice, slept upon the open field,
although the autumn was now waning and the nights began
to be frosty. For a little space, while they
were getting into order, there was exhibited a changing,
fluctuating, and confused appearance of waving tartans
and floating plumes, and of banners displaying the
proud gathering word of Clanronald, Ganion Coheriga
(Gainsay who dares), Loch-Sloy, the watchword of the
MacFarlanes; Forth, fortune, and fill the fetters,
the motto of the Marquis of Tullibardine; Bydand, that
of Lord Lewis Gordon, and the appropriate signal words
and emblems of many other chieftains and clans.
At length the mixed and wavering multitude
arranged themselves into a narrow and dusky column
of great length, stretching through the whole extent
of the valley. In the front of the column the
standard of the Chevalier was displayed, bearing a
red cross upon a white ground, with the motto Tandem
Triumphans. The few cavalry, being chiefly Lowland
gentry, with their domestic servants and retainers,
formed the advanced guard of the army; and their standards,
of which they had rather too many in respect of their
numbers, were seen waving upon the extreme verge of
the horizon. Many horsemen of this body, among
whom Waverley accidentally remarked Balmawhapple and
his lieutenant, Jinker (which last, however, had been
reduced, with several others, by the advice of the
Baron of Bradwardine, to the situation of what he
called reformed officers, or reformadoes), added to
the liveliness, though by no means to the regularity,
of the scene, by galloping their horses as fast forward
as the press would permit, to join their proper station
in the van. The fascinations of the Circes
of the High Street, and the potations of strength
with which they had been drenched over night, had probably
detained these heroes within the walls of Edinburgh
somewhat later than was consistent with their morning
duty. Of such loiterers, the prudent took the
longer and circuitous, but more open, route to attain
their place in the march, by keeping at some distance
from the infantry, and making their way through the
inclosures to the right, at the expense of leaping
over or pulling down the drystone fences. The
irregular appearance and vanishing of these small
parties of horsemen, as well as the confusion occasioned
by those who endeavoured, though generally without
effect, to press to the front through the crowd of
Highlanders, maugre their curses, oaths, and opposition,
added to the picturesque wildness what it took from
the military regularity of the scene.
While Waverley gazed upon this remarkable
spectacle, rendered yet more impressive by the occasional
discharge of cannon-shot from the Castle at the Highland
guards as they were withdrawn from its vicinity to
join their main body, Callum, with his usual freedom
of interference, reminded him that Vich lan Vohr’s
folk were nearly at the head of the column of march
which was still distant, and that ’they would
gang very fast after the cannon fired.’
Thus admonished, Waverley walked briskly forward, yet
often casting a glance upon the darksome clouds of
warriors who were collected before and beneath him.
A nearer view, indeed, rather diminished the effect
impressed on the mind by the more distant appearance
of the army. The leading men of each clan were
well armed with broad-sword, target, and fusee, to
which all added the dirk, and most the steel pistol.
But these consisted of gentlemen, that is, relations
of the chief, however distant, and who had an immediate
title to his countenance and protection. Finer
and hardier men could not have been selected out of
any army in Christendom; while the free and independent
habits which each possessed, and which each was yet
so well taught to subject to the command of his chief,
and the peculiar mode of discipline adopted in Highland
warfare, rendered them equally formidable by their
individual courage and high spirit, and from their
rational conviction of the necessity of acting in
unison, and of giving their national mode of attack
the fullest opportunity of success.
But, in a lower rank to these, there
were found individuals of an inferior description,
the common peasantry of the Highland country, who,
although they did not allow themselves to be so called,
and claimed often, with apparent truth, to be of more
ancient descent than the masters whom they served,
bore, nevertheless, the livery of extreme penury,
being indifferently accoutred, and worse armed, half
naked, stinted in growth, and miserable in aspect.
Each important clan had some of those Helots attached
to them: thus, the MacCouls, though tracing their
descent from Comhal, the father of Finn or Fingal,
were a sort of Gibeonites, or hereditary servants
to the Stewarts of Appin; the Macbeths, descended
from the unhappy monarch of that name, were subjects
to the Morays and clan Donnochy, or Robertsons of Athole;
and many other examples might be given, were it not
for the risk of hurting any pride of clanship which
may yet be left, and thereby drawing a Highland tempest
into the shop of my publisher. Now these same
Helots, though forced into the field by the arbitrary
authority of the chieftains under whom they hewed
wood and drew water, were in general very sparingly
fed, ill dressed, and worse armed. The latter
circumstance was indeed owing chiefly to the general
disarming act, which had been carried into effect
ostensibly through the whole Highlands, although most
of the chieftains contrived to elude its influence
by retaining the weapons of their own immediate clansmen,
and delivering up those of less value, which they
collected from these inferior satellites. It followed,
as a matter of course, that, as we have already hinted,
many of these poor fellows were brought to the field
in a very wretched condition.
From this it happened that, in bodies,
the van of which were admirably well armed in their
own fashion, the rear resembled actual banditti.
Here was a pole-axe, there a sword without a scabbard;
here a gun without a lock, there a scythe set straight
upon a pole; and some had only their dirks, and bludgeons
or stakes pulled out of hedges. The grim, uncombed,
and wild appearance of these men, most of whom gazed
with all the admiration of ignorance upon the most
ordinary productions of domestic art, created surprise
in the Lowlands, but it also created terror. So
little was the condition of the Highlands known at
that late period that the character and appearance
of their population, while thus sallying forth as
military adventurers, conveyed to the South-Country
Lowlanders as much surprise as if an invasion of African
Negroes or Esquimaux Indians had issued forth from
the northern mountains of their own native country.
It cannot therefore be wondered if Waverley, who had
hitherto judged of the Highlanders generally from
the samples which the policy of Fergus had from time
to time exhibited, should have felt damped and astonished
at the daring attempt of a body not then exceeding
four thousand men, and of whom not above half the
number, at the utmost, were armed, to change the fate
and alter the dynasty of the British kingdoms.
As he moved along the column, which
still remained stationary, an iron gun, the only piece
of artillery possessed by the army which meditated
so important a revolution, was fired as the signal
of march. The Chevalier had expressed a wish
to leave this useless piece of ordnance behind him;
but, to his surprise, the Highland chiefs interposed
to solicit that it might accompany their march, pleading
the prejudices of their followers, who, little accustomed
to artillery, attached a degree of absurd importance
to this field-piece, and expected it would contribute
essentially to a victory which they could only owe
to their own muskets and broadswords. Two or
three French artillerymen were therefore appointed
to the management of this military engine, which was
drawn along by a string of Highland ponies, and was,
after all, only used for the purpose of firing signals.
No sooner was its voice heard upon
the present occasion than the whole line was in motion.
A wild cry of joy from the advancing batallions rent
the air, and was then lost in the shrill clangour of
the bagpipes, as the sound of these, in their turn,
was partially drowned by the heavy tread of so many
men put at once into motion. The banners glittered
and shook as they moved forward, and the horse hastened
to occupy their station as the advanced guard, and
to push on reconnoitring parties to ascertain and
report the motions of the enemy. They vanished
from Waverley’s eye as they wheeled round the
base of Arthur’s Seat, under the remarkable ridge
of basaltic rocks which fronts the little lake of Duddingston.
The infantry followed in the same
direction, regulating their pace by another body which
occupied a road more to the southward. It cost
Edward some exertion of activity to attain the place
which Fergus’s followers occupied in the line
of march.