LAURA EVERINGHAM;

  OR,

  THE HIGHLANDERS OF GLEN ORA.



  BY

  JAMES GRANT,

  AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE AIDE-DE-CAMP,"
  ETC. ETC.



  "Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us,
    Not a hope dare now attend;
  The world wide is all before us,
    But a world without a friend!"
                          _Strathallan's Lament._



  LONDON:
  GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
  THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
  NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.




  LONDON:
  BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.




  CONTENTS.

  CHAP.

  I. The Foster Brothers
  II. The Feudal Lords of the Nineteenth Century
  III. Mr. Ephraim Snaggs
  IV. The Rock of the Boar
  V. Callum Dhu
  VI. Which Treats of many Things
  VII. The Rent Court
  VIII. Minnie
  IX. The Red Priest of Applecross
  X. The Stone of the Sun
  XI. My Mother
  XII. The Gathering
  XIII. The Stone of Strength
  XIV. The Seven Bullets
  XV. The Sixth Day
  XVI. Sir Horace
  XVII. Mr. Snobleigh
  XVIII. Death!
  XIX. The Eviction
  XX. Desolation
  XXI. The Heather on Fire!
  XXII. The Uisc Dhu
  XXIII. The Ruined Cottage
  XXIV. The White Stag
  XXV. The Gael and the Saxon
  XXVI. A Last Interview
  XXVII. Dumbarton
  XXVIII. My Regiment
  XXIX. The Route--We Sail
  XXX. The Troop Ship
  XXXI. The Reefs of Palegrossa
  XXXII. The Yuze Bashi
  XXXIII. The Khan
  XXXIV. Story of the Greek Lieutenant
  XXXV. The Execution
  XXXVI. In Orders for Duty
  XXXVII. I March To Rodosdchigg
  XXXVIII. The Vision of Corporal Moustapha
  XXXIX. The Turkish Veil
  XL. A Love Adventure
  XLI. A Strange Task
  XLII. Two Charming Eyes
  XLIII. I Scale the Window
  XLIV. Temptation and Folly
  XLV. Story of the Wise King and the Wicked Geni
  XLVI. Hussein's Wrath
  XLVII. Sequel to Chapter Forty-Three
  XLVIII. The Turkish Boat
  XLIX. The Bagnio
  L. The Two Turkish Lieutenants
  LI. Dreams and Longings
  LII. The Galiondoi
  LIII. A Row in the Bagnio
  LIV. Flight
  LV. Resume my Command
  LVI. Biodh Treun!
  LVII. The Isle of Marmora
  LVIII. The Fairy Bell
  LIX. A Gleam of other Days
  LX. Farewell




THE HIGHLANDERS OF GLEN ORA.



CHAPTER I.

THE FOSTER-BROTHERS.

It was after sunset in the month of April three years ago.

The hills of the Western Highlands were still tipped with a golden
gleam, but the deep and savage hollows of Glen Ora were gloomy and
full of dark shadows.  Still crowned with the snow of last winter,
above it towered Ben Ora, beneath whose mighty scalp the giant peaks
of the north and west were dwindled down to little hills; for among
those stupendous mountains the eye becomes so accustomed to their
colossal proportions, that all just ideas of size and distance are
lost.  At its base spread one of those vast tracts of brown or purple
heath so common in the Scottish Highlands, overspread by a wilderness
of stones, and torn by ghastly ravines from which the mist of
downward torrents rose.  The sides of these were tufted by those
black whin bushes, the introduction of which tradition ascribes to
the hunting Stuarts, as a cover for their game.

On the western shoulder of Ben Ora, a ridge of riven and naked rocks,
resembling the skeleton of a mountain range, stood a herd of deer,
with all their proud antlers visible against the clear bright flush
of the sunset sky.

Two men were observing them from the rugged bank of one of the
watercourses, in which they were half hidden.  One carried a
fishing-rod, and the other a gun.

He with the rod was a tall, stout, and well-made lad of some twenty
years, with dark-blue eyes, curly brown hair, and a sunburnt visage;
he wore a grey shooting-jacket and kilt, a sporran, of badger-skin,
and a heather-coloured bonnet.  His companion was a few years older,
larger in form, brawny, thickset, and strong as a Highland bull, and
his knees, where shown by his tattered kilt and well-worn hose, of no
colour known in nature, were almost as hairy as those of the same
animal.  He wore the usual coarse blue jacket and bonnet of a
Highland peasant.

His hair, beard, and whiskers, which grew all matted in a curly mass,
were black, almost to that deep tint which seems blue when touched by
the light; his eyes were dark, restless, keen, and sparkling; his
nose somewhat short and saucy, but his face, which was browned to the
hue of mahogany by exposure to the weather, was thoughtful, stern,
anxious, and at times even haggard in expression.  Save his gun and
skene-dhu, he had no weapon, though his aspect and bearing were rough
and wild as those of any Celtic bandit we have read of in romance;
but then his figure was a model of manly beauty, symmetry, and grace.

The first personage with the red was Allan Mac Innon, MYSELF, and the
dark and handsome man was my foster-brother---my _co-dhalta_--Black
Mac Ian--usually named by us Callum Dhu, and on this eventful evening
we were observing a party of five English tourists or visitors, who
were somewhat rashly (as they were without a guide) urging their
shaggy shelties up the side of Ben Ora, to obtain a view of the
scenery by moonlight.

This party consisted of two fair and laughing English girls, wearing
broad brown straw hats; and three gentlemen clad in those peculiar
coats and tartan caps, without which no Sassenach deems himself
eligible to pass the Highland frontier.

'Callum,' said I, 'shall I net warn them to beware?'

'It would ill become your father's son to run after _their_ tails,
like a keeper or gilly,' said he, grasping my arm angrily, as we
spoke in Gaelic, to give the original of which would fidget my friend
the printer.

'Callum, they are not more than half-a-mile off now.'

'Oh, what a pity it is, that the half-mile was not a thousand, ay, or
ten thousand!  The fires that may be extinguished this summer on many
a hearth in Glen Ora would burn all the brighter perhaps in winter.'

'Not in the least, Callum; for if we had not one truculent tyrant
over us,' said I, 'we would be certain to have another.'

'Aich ay; for the Mac Innons of Glen Ora are doomed men! and--'

'See, see,' I exclaimed, 'they have almost reached the
Craig-na-tuirc, and if they attempt to descend after nightfall,
something terrible will happen.'

'Let it happen: if it is their fate, can we avert it?' said Callum,
with a dark scowl in his eyes which sparkled in the last flush of the
west; 'what matter is it to you, Allan Mac Innon?  Has not this
man--this Horace Everingham, Baronet, and so forth, who bought the
fair patrimony your father's brother wasted in all manner of riotous
living--told you coldly, when begging a six months' mercy for your
sick mother, and for the two-and-thirty poor families in the glen,
that he intrusted all such petty affairs to his factor, (that mangy
Lowland cur, Ephraim Snaggs, with his Bible phrases and pious
quotations,) and what said _he_?  That the new proprietor had
resolved to turn the glen into a deer forest---a hunting field--and
that whether the rents were forthcoming or not, the people must go!
That Canada was a fine place for such as they, and that hampers of
foreign game would soon replace them.  The curse of heaven be on his
foreign game, say I!  When the Queen wants men to recruit the ranks
of the Black Watch, of the Gordon Highlanders, and the Ross-shire
Buffs, will she borrow the contents of the Lowlander's hamper?  Let
these moonlight visitors go over the rocks if they will--let Loch Ora
receive their bodies and the devil their souls, for what matters it
to you, Mac Innon, or to me?'

'True, true,' said I, bitterly, 'but there are two ladies with
them--Laura, the daughter of Sir Horace, and her friend.'

'They, at least, are kind to the poor people, and gave many a pound
to the women of Glentuirc, when they were expatriated last year; yet
evil comes over every stranger who crosses Ben Ora.'

'A spirit is said to haunt it,' said I.

'Would to heaven a spirit haunted the glen, and kept out all but
those whose right comes not from paper or from parchment--but from
the hand of God!'

'But the women, Callum?'

'_Co-dhalta_, be not a soft-hearted fool,' was the pettish response;
'who cared for _our_ women, when the sheriff, Mac Fee, with his
police and soldiers, came here and tore down the huts, and fired
through the thatch to force the people out?  Who cared for old
bedridden Aileen Mac Donuil, whose four sons died with eight hundred
of our Cameronians in India, and who was shot through the body, and
died miserably on the wet hill side three days after?  And so, forth
were they all driven to the shore by the baton and bayonet--the old
and the young, the strong man and the infant, the aged, the frail,
and the women almost in labour--to be crammed on board the great
ship, the _Duchess_, and taken to America, like slaves from Africa,
and why?  Because the land that gave corn and potatoes to the people
was wanted to fatten the grouse and red deer, and thus were they
driven forth from their fathers' holdings, their fathers' homes and
graves; so Allan, believe me, your sympathy for the strangers who are
now on the hill, is all moonshine in the water.  Ha! ha! something
always happens to those who go up Ben Ora after nightfall.  You
remember the story of Alaster Grant, the Captain Dhu, or Black
Alexander from Urquhart?  He was a frightfully immoral character,
savage and fierce, and was said to have done dreadful things in the
Indian wars, fighting, plundering, and sparing neither man, woman,
nor child.  Well, this dissolute soldier was shooting with some of
his wild companions from Fort William, about a year after Waterloo.
They spent a night on Ben Ora, and all that night the lightning
played about its scalp.  Next morning a shepherd--old Alisdair Mac
Gouran--found their hut torn to pieces; the whole party, to all
appearance, strangled, their gun-barrels twisted like corkscrews, and
the Black Captain's body torn limb from limb, and strewed all around;
but whether by a thunderbolt or the devil, no man knew, though many
averred it must have been the latter.  Six months ago, I watched an
Englishman or a Lowlander, (which, I neither know nor care,) go up
the Craig-na-tuirc, and he never more came down; but three months
after, his bones, or little more, were found at the mouth of the Uisc
Dhu, with his travelling knapsack and sketch-book close by; for six
long miles the Lammas floods had swept them from the spot where he
must have perished.  Two others went up in October, and in ascending
the mountain were singing merrily; but the snow came down that night,
and hid the path; the cold was bitter, and the deer were driven down
to the clachan in the glen.  Next day we found the strangers stiff
enough, and piled a cairn to mark the spot.  I warned another
traveller, a Scotsman too, from the Braes of Angus, against ascending
the Ben alone!  He, too, went up laughing, and came down no more.  A
week or two after I was standing on the brow of the Craig-na-tuirc,
and saw a gathering of the ravens in the corrie below.  I heard their
exulting croak, and the flap of their dusky wings; and there, in the
moss of the wet ravine, we found the traveller's body wedged up to
the neck, and his bare skull divested of eyes, nose, and hair, picked
white and clean by these birds of evil omen.  Then we all know the
story of the keeper that was gored by the white stag, on the night
your father died.'

'All this I know well enough,' said I, 'and hence my anxiety for the
two ladies, who are now in the dusk, ascending that dangerous
precipice.'

'Who pities our women--yet they are starving?'

'God pities them.'

'He alone!' responded Callum, lifting his tattered bonnet at the
name; 'yet my poor mother died in my arms of sheer hunger, and
Snaggs, the factor, mocked me at her funeral, because I had a piper
who played the march of Gil Chriosd before her coffin; but I heard
him with scorn, for I knew that my mother--she who nursed you, Allan
Mac Innon, had now that inheritance of which not even her Grace of
Sutherland, or the great Lord of Breadalbane, can deprive the poor
Highlander--a grave on the mountain side, and a home among the angels
in heaven.'

The words of my foster-brother raised a momentary glow of indignation
in my breast; and turning away from the mountain, we began to descend
into the glen in the twilight, and I strove to think no more about
the strangers or their fate, but in vain, for Laura Everingham, with
all her pretty winning ways, was still before me, and her voice was
in my ear.

We had met repeatedly in our mutual rides, rambles, and wanderings,
and the impression she made upon me, when acting as her guide to the
old ruined chapels, towers, and burial-places, the high cascades, and
deep corries of the Ora, and other solemn scenes of nature, with
which our district abounded, was lasting, pure, and deep.  I was
learning to love her, more dearly than I dared to tell, for
poverty--crushing, grinding poverty--like a mountain weighed upon my
heart and tongue; yet Laura knew my secret--at least I hoped so; pure
devotion and true tenderness cannot remain long concealed; a woman
soon discovers them by a mysterious intuition, and as Laura (knowing
this) neither repulsed nor shunned me, was I not justified in
believing myself not altogether indifferent to her?

Time will tell.  'Happy age,' says some Italian writer, 'when a look,
the rustle of a garment--a flower--a mere nothing, suffice to make
the youthful heart overflow with torrents of joy!'

The severity of Sir Horace, and the pride, petulance, and hostility
of my mother, of whom more in good time, had partly estranged us of
late; but Laura had repeatedly said,

'If I knew your mother, Allan, I am sure she would learn to love me.'

'I know not, Miss Everingham, how any one could help loving you!' was
my reply, and I trembled at my own temerity.

One word more for Callum Dhu, and he and my reader must be acquainted
for life.

His grandfather was that noble and heroic Mac Ian, who, after the
defeat of Prince Charles, watched over him with matchless fidelity
for weeks, concealing him in the mountains at the risk of his life,
and robbing for his support while his own children were starving, and
though he knew that 30,000_l._ were set upon the head of the royal
fugitive.  This poor man was afterwards, when in extreme old age,
hanged at Inverness, for 'lifting' a sheep; but, though impelled by
hunger to borrow subsistence from the folds of the wealthy, he had
scrupulously avoided the possessions of the poor; and before death,
took off his bonnet, to 'thank the blessed God that he had never
betrayed his trust, never injured the poor, nor refused to share his
crust with the stranger, the needy, or the fatherless.'

This poor sheepstealer died like a Christian and a hero, and had in
youth been one of those Highland warriors whose more than Spartan
faith and truth a late pitiful historian has dared to stigmatize as
mere ignorance of the value of gold.  Under the same circumstances,
we presume, this Scottish writer would have known to a penny the
value set upon the head of his fugitive guest.

With his blood and spirit, Callum Dhu had inherited many of the wild
ideas and primitive Celtic virtues of his ancestor, as the reader
will see when they become better acquainted.




CHAPTER II.

THE FEUDAL LORDS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Turning our steps homeward, after a day of wandering and fishing, we
traversed the Braes of Glen Ora, a wild and desolate scene, such as
Horatio Mac Culloch would love to paint, tufted by broom and whin;
torn by savage watercourses, all yellow marl and gravel, swept by the
foaming torrent, or jagged by ghastly rocks, silence on every hand,
and a deep shadow over all, save where a golden gleam of light that
shot between the black and distant peaks of the west, tipped the
points of the purple heather with fire, and edged the scattered rocks
with the last glow of the sun that had set.

Here and there, throughout this desolate tract, on which the shadows
of night were descending, were blacker spots, that marked where, in
the preceding year, the houses of nearly fifty crofters had been
levelled or burned.  No tongue was required to tell us the terrible
story of legal wrong, and worse than feudal tyranny inflicted on the
unresisting poor.  The blackened rafters were lying on every hand
among the long grass, and thrown far asunder; the humble walls were
half levelled and overgrown by weeds, like the hearths around which
generations had sat, and told or sung of the past memories of the
Gael and the kindly chiefs of other times, in the long nights of
winter, when Ben Ora was mantled by snow, and the frozen cascade hung
over the rocks, white as the beard of Ossian.  Here a currant-bush,
or there an apple-tree, still marked amid the weeds and heather where
the garden of the peasant had been.  Elsewhere the glen was yet
dotted by little patches of corn and potatoes, all growing wild; but
where were those who had sown and planted them?

Driven from their native land to make way for sheep, or grouse, or
deer, and packed in ships, like slaves for the Cuban market, the old
people of the glen, the women and children, were pining on the banks
of the Susquehanna; while the young and able were forced by
starvation, or lured by false promises, into the ranks of the
Sutherland Highlanders, and were now away to fight the Russians in
the East.  Thus it is that the game-laws, centralization, wilful
neglect, and maladministration, reduce the people of the glens to
misery, starvation, and inability to pay the exorbitant rents
demanded for their little farms; then their dwellings are demolished,
and themselves expelled, that one vast game preserve may be made of
the land which has given to the British service nearly ninety of its
finest battalions of infantry.

  "Clanchattan is broken, the Seaforth bends low,
    The sun of Clan Ronald is sinking in labour,
  Glencoe and Clan Donoquhy, what are they now?
    And where is bold Keppoch, the Lord of Lochaber?
  All gone with the House they supported, laid low!
    While the Dogs of the South their bold life-blood were lapping,
  Trod down by a fierce and a merciless foe;
    The brave are all gone, with the Stuarts of Appin!"


'My God!' exclaimed Callum, with deep emotion, as he looked around
him, with a fierce and saddened eye, 'who now could think this place
had given three hundred swordsmen to Glenfinnon?'

'And sent two hundred with my father to Egypt?' added I.

'Better had he and they stayed at home; for the Mac Innons might yet
have brooked the land their fathers sprang from.'

Callum Dhu felt, as he spoke, like a true Celt--believing that our
ancestors sprang from the soil; _i.e._ were the old and original
race, without predecessors.

My father, the youngest of the two sons of Alaster Mac Innon, of Glen
Ora, was an officer of the 42nd Highlanders, who served under
Abercromby in Egypt and Wellington in Spain.  His elder brother
belonged, unfortunately, to the Scots Fusilier Guards, and amid the
dissipation of a London life, 'in rivalling the follies of his equals
in birth and superiors in fortune,' soon wasted his small but ancient
patrimony, which, though it could once bring 600 swordsmen to the
king's host, in more modern times did not produce more than 600_l._
yearly rent.

Glen Ora was not entailed, thus its broad acres of heather and
whinstone-rock, mountain and torrent, slipped from under the hands of
my gay uncle like a moving panorama; he died early, and the estate
passed away to strangers.  The old tower was demolished, and a
hunting-seat built on its site, by a noble duke, whose family had
enriched their pockets, if not their blood, by intermarriage with the
tribe of Levi.  Then began the war of extermination and expatriation
in the north; and while the authoress of "Uncle Tom" was feasted and
slavery reviled in the coteries of the Duchess in London, fire,
sword, and eviction were enforced by Mr. Snaggs, her factor, in Glen
Ora.  Thus had things continued until the preceding year, when the
estate was purchased by Sir Horace Everingham, of Elton Hall,
Yorkshire.

My father had died on service with his regiment in Jamaica, when the
yellow flag waved on Up-park Camp, and the Highland bonnets lay as
thick in the yard of the pest-stricken barracks as ever they have
been on the battle-field; and my mother, a Stuart, of Appin, brought
me home to Glen Ora, where, with the pension of a captain's widow,
she endeavoured to eke out a subsistence among our own people, and
occupied as a farm, at a small rental, the thatched mansion, which in
better times was the jointure-house of our family.

But a ukase had gone forth!  The whole country was doomed to become a
deer-forest, desolate and wild as when the first Fergus and his
bare-kneed Scots landed on its shores, which perhaps no foot had trod
since the waters of the Flood had left them.

The men of Glentuirc, a sept of our race, had already been swept
away, and now those of Glen Ora were to follow.

As a necessary preliminary the rents had been doubled and trebled,
until we were incapable of satisfying the rapacity of this alien
lord, whose feudal charters gave him a more than imperial power over
us.  A blight had fallen on our little corn-patches; several of our
sheep had been smothered in the snow, and other troubles and
difficulties fell thick and fast upon us.  In vain Ephraim Snaggs,
the factor, was prayed for mercy; but to seek it from that astute
writer to the signet and grim elder of the kirk, was 'to take a bone
from a tiger.'

The olden times were gone!  For ages unnumbered the Highland landlord
deemed that wealth consisted in the number of families, and troops of
chubby children who lived upon his lands; farms were divided and
subdivided in the fertile glens, until 'every rood of land maintained
its man;' and on every lot and rood was a tenant--a hardy soldier, a
tiller of the soil, and the father of a sturdy and a faithful race.
The laird valued his property not by the rent-roll, but by the number
of brave and leal-hearted swordsmen whose homes were made thereon.
This was the patriarchal system, old as the world before the Flood;
for feudality, with its barbarism, its imaginary rights and slavish
tenures, its monkish parchments and legal villany, was unknown in the
Highlands until a comparatively recent period; and then, noble was
the struggle made against it by the Wallace of the Celtic tribes,
John of Moidart, who expelled and slew his nephew Ronald Galda, for
accepting from James V. a feudal charter of the lands which belonged
to the tribe of which he, Ronald, was the chief.  In this spirit, the
Highland peasant has a hereditary right to his hut--a right derived
from God--but kings have given our feudal lords, even in the
nineteenth century, a power over the land on which the hut is built;
and at their behest whole villages are demolished, and the people
swept away with a heartless barbarity sufficient to call down the
lasting vengeance of heaven on the ignoble dukes and canting
marquises of the northern and western Highlands!

But to resume:--

After traversing this Serbonian waste for a mile or two, we reached a
little cot built under the brow of a rock; large blocks of whinstone,
with a few courses of turf above them, bedded in clay, formed the
walls; the roof, which was composed of divot, fern, and straw, all
firmly tied by ropes of heather, was covered by moss of the richest
emerald green.  It was a humble dwelling, with a little window of one
pane, on each side of a rude door composed of three planks nailed on
bars; yet Callum Dhu, who had lived here alone since his mother's
death, never closed it at meal-time, without coming forth to the
road, in the hospitable old Celtic spirit, to see if a stranger or
wayfarer were in sight.

Here we parted, as I resisted all his kind invitations to enter,
though the poor fellow had but little to offer me; nor would I permit
him to escort me home, as he was weary after a long day of wandering.
Callum Mac Ian, the descendant of our hereditary henchman, now
supported himself by killing foxes, weasels, and wild cats; for
which, as these vermin were very destructive, (especially the former
among the sheep,) he received a small sum from each cot-farmer in
Glen Ora.  This contribution, with a little patch of potatoes,
cultivated by himself, enabled him to live; but as Callum
occasionally took a shot at other quadrupeds which were not
considered vermin, he was continually in scrapes and broils with the
keepers of the duke, the marquis, the laird, and other adjoining
potentates, whose ancestors, by force or fraud, had partitioned the
land of the Mac Innons, as the powers of Europe did Poland.

'My love to dear Minnie,' said he, touching his bonnet in the dark,
as I left him; 'I would she were here with me, for the cottage is
dreary since my poor mother went to the place of sleep on the hill;
but _achial_, Mac Innon! this is not a time in Glen Ora for marrying
or giving in marriage.'

Minnie was my mother's maid, and the object of my foster-brother's
boyish attachment.  They had long loved each other, and had solemnly
plighted their troth by joining hands through the hole of the
Clach-na-Greiné; but Snaggs was their evil genius; for with the daily
dread of eviction and proscription hanging over him, how could Callum
pay the illegally-levied marriage-tax of forty shillings, or bring a
wife under the caber of his hut, or ask leave to add one foot in
breadth to his little patch of potatoes and kail?

In a few minutes after, I stood at my mother's door.




CHAPTER III.

MR. EPHRAIM SNAGGS.

Our residence, the old jointure-house, now shorn of its fair
proportions, and diminished in aspect, since it was built for the
widow of Lachlan Mohr Mac Innon, who led his clan to Worcester, was
small, low in the roof, and heavily thatched with warm heather.  The
two principal rooms were wainscoted; the entrance was floored with
hard-beaten clay, and above the door was a rudely-carved
representation of the arms of Mac Innon, a boar's head erased,
holding in its mouth the legbone of a deer, supported by a lion and,
a leopard.  This uncouth piece of heraldry, the pride of my mother's
heart, was the _chef d'oeuvre_ of some local sculptor.  The aspect of
the house was cheerless and indicative of the decay that had fallen
upon us; the carpets were faded and worn; the furniture antique and
rickety; there were corner cupboards, where old china, worm-eaten
books, bottles of whisky, powder-flasks, bullet-moulds, deer-horns,
fishing-gear, teapots, and coffee-cups, dogs' collars, an old dirk
and skene, mingled pell-mell with innumerable other etcetera.

Far off on the mountain slope, the strong square tower of Lachlan
Mohr (who was besieged therein by the Campbells after Inverlochy) was
a landmark for two hundred years; but now it was removed to make way
for a modern mansion, the windows of which, on this evening, were
brilliantly lighted up; and then, I doubted not, Sir Horace
Everingham was sitting down to a sumptuous entertainment after his
visit to Ben Ora, while I, the heir of all these hills and glens, had
scarcely a crust to place before me.

I thought of all these things--the present and the past--with a
bitterness renewed by the recent conversation with my foster-brother.
I tossed aside my fishing-gear, basket, and bonnet, and with a sigh
of weariness and dejection, entered the half-dilapidated mansion.  As
I had been abroad the whole day, I sought, with some anxiety, the
apartment of my sick and aged mother.  I heard the sound of voices
proceeding from it; she was expostulating, and a stranger was
threatening!  I made a forward stride, when a hand was timidly laid
on my arm; I turned, and met the anxious face of pretty Minnie Mac
Omish.

'A chial! a chial!' she whispered, with tears in her soft hazel eyes;
'Snaggs, the factor, is with your mother, Allan, and I fear he brings
bad news.'

'Can other come to us now, Minnie?' said I; 'but take my
fish-basket--I have brought a good stipper from the Uisc Dhu and Loch
Ora.'

I then entered the little dining-room where we usually had all our
meals served up.

I see it yet in memory.

Like many apartments in old Highland houses, its ceiling was low,
pannelled with fir, and painted in a dull white colour; the stone
fireplace, heavily moulded, bore the motto of the Mac Innons,
_Cuimhuich bas Alpin_, in raised letters, and the grate, a little
brass-knobbed basket, at which, as my nurse affirmed, Prince Charles
had once warmed his royal feet, stood upon two blocks of stone.  A
few old prints of battles in black frames, an oil-portrait or two, an
old ebony table, with a huge family-bible, an inverted punch-bowl
cracked and riveted, chairs of a fashion that has long since
disappeared from the Lowlands, made up the plenishing of this little
chamber, which was alike my mother's dining-room and peculiar sanctum
sanctorum--and the palladium of which, were the old gilt gorget and
regimental claymore of my father, suspended above the chimney-piece.
He had worn these during the campaigns with the Black Watch in Egypt
and in Spain.

With gold spectacles on nose, my mother, a thin, pale woman of a
dignified aspect, in an old-fashioned costume, with black silk
_mittens_ on her hands, was seated in her cushioned chair, affecting
to work at some ornament or article of attire, which lay on a little
tripod table.  She seemed nervous and agitated; how could she be
otherwise, when opposite sat he, who was the horror of the glens from
Lochness to Loch Ora--Ephraim Snaggs, with his malevolent visage,
perched on the top of a bamboo-cane, over the silver knob of which
his hands were crossed.

Bald-headed, hollow in the temples, with a prominent chin, and more
of the serpent than the dove in his sinister grey eye, there sat Mr.
Snaggs with his truculent smile, and an affectation of sympathy on
his tongue.

'Beware, sir, of what you say,' my mother was exclaiming, 'for ours
is an honoured line--an ancient house.'

'So I perceive,' said Snaggs, impertinently, as he fixed his eyes on
a very palpable hole in the ceiling; 'ah, the old story--the old
story, Mrs. Mac Innon!  Bad times and no price for sheep, eh?  I
would beg to remind you, my dear madam, that a certain pious writer
says, "However unfortunate we may deem ourselves, yet let us remember
there is an eye watching over us; it is a heavenly will, not a blind
fate, that guides the world;" ah me--ah me!'

Fire and pride were flashing in my mother's dark grey eyes as I
entered; then she burst into tears, and throwing down her work,
exclaimed to me in Gaelic, and with all the spirit of the olden time--

'My son, God has sent you here in a lucky hour!  I have come of a
race that have smiled often in the face of death--why then, do I weep
before this wretched worm?'

'What have you dared to say, Mr. Snaggs?' I asked, turning sharply to
that personage; 'why do I find my mother in tears?'

'Because she is out of cash,' was the cool reply; 'a simple reason,
my dear sir, and a plain one; but it is very little that _you_ do to
furnish her with any.  I have called for the last time anent the
arrears of rent due to Sir Horace Everingham--the new proprietor of
this estate--arrears due before he acquired the lands, and I receive
still the same unvaried excuses, about sheep with the rot, cattle
with the murrain, or scraps of traditions and antediluvian nonsense,
about the time when Loch Ora belonged to the Mac Innons--and about
your great-grandfather who fought at Culloden, and was nearly hanged
at Carlisle, as, I think, he deserved to be, for opposing the House
of Hanover, and the Kirk as established by law.  Now the law, of
which I am an unworthy representative--_the law says_, young man,
that when a tenant--but I need not quote the cases before the Lords
of Council and Session in 1792 or 1756 on this point, to _you_.  If
an instalment at least, of the aforesaid arrears--say about fifty
pounds--is not paid to me--to _me_, sir,' he continued, laying a fat
finger impressively into the palm of his left hand, 'then a notice of
eviction shall be duly served upon you, with the rest of the lazy
wretches in Glen Ora, who must all sail for Canada this summer, sure
as my name is Ephraim Snaggs.  Moreover, sir, I may inform you, that
Sir Horace, by my recommendation--mine, sir--has some intentions of
pulling down this absurd-looking old house, and erecting here a box
for his friend, Captain Clavering, or for Mr. Snobleigh, of Snobleigh
Park, I know not which; and if so, the law must be put in force
against you, sir--the law of expulsion--you hear me!'

The reader may imagine the pride, wrath, and bitterness that swelled
up within me, at this insolent speech, which had gradually approached
the bullying point.  I made a stride towards Snaggs, and my fingers
twitched with an irresistible desire to grasp his throat.

My mother (poor old woman!) had long been in ill health.  Mhari Mac
Innon the 'wise woman' of our locality, and other aged people of the
glen, alleged her illness was caused by her declining to drink of St.
Colme's well, a famous medicinal spring in Glen Ora, where, for ages,
the Mac Innons and adjacent tribes had been wont to quaff the water
at midnight, as a sovereign remedy for all diseases; and thereafter
drop in a coin, or tie a rag to the alders which overshadowed it, as
an offering to the guardian spirit of the fountain.  Pale, sad, and
sickly, my mother sat in her high-backed chair, motionless and silent
as if overwhelmed by the approaching tide of ruin, in the form of
debt which we had not a shilling to meet--and of avarice which we
could not satisfy.

'Mr. Snaggs,' said I, 'you should have reserved your detestable
communications for my ears alone, and thus spared my poor mother the
humiliation of a moment so bitter as this.  She is old, and her
thoughts and ideas have come down to her from other times.  She
cannot see, nor believe, that any man has authority to turn her off
the land of the Mac Innons--'

'Pooh, my dear sir,' said Snaggs, waving his hand, and rising; 'if
you are about to begin your old-world nonsense and twaddle about
Celtic right in the soil, I must leave you.  The sheriff's warrants
will tell another story next week, if fifty pounds at least--'

'Listen to me, Ephraim Snaggs,' said I, forcing him into a seat, and
grasping his shoulder like a vice.  'I am here on the land that
belonged to my forefathers--to Angus Mac Innon, who fought for King
James at Culloden--'

'Ha-ha--stuff--there you go again!'

'There was a time,' I continued, fiercely, 'when had you, or such as
you, spoken above your breath in Glen Ora, you had been flung into
the loch with a hundred weight of stone at your neck.  There was a
time when the Mac Innons owned all the land we may see from Ben Ora;
when we had Griban in Mull, the Isles of Tiree, of Pabay, and Scalpa,
with Strathardle in Skye.  Poor as we are now, we owned all that, but
only in common--mark me, sir, _in common_, with the people of our
name.  Listen to me, Mr. Snaggs,' I continued, as the fierce sob of
pride, so difficult to repress, rose to my throat; 'I am the last of
a long line, whose misfortune it has been to fight for the losing
side.  Our people marched to Worcester under Lachlan M'hor, and
perished there in heaps; we were at Sheriffmuir, under the banner of
the Marquis of Seaforth, for a marquis he was, by order of the king;
we were "out" in the '45, under Angus Mac Innon, and of all the
swordsmen he marched from yonder glen, which you are about to
depopulate, not a man came back from Culloden--as God hears me--not
one.  Since then our people have gone forth in the Highland regiments
to every part of the world.  Some have left their bones on the
heights of Abraham and in the isles of the Western Indies; some sleep
under the shadow of the Pyramids and on the plains of the Peninsula.
In India, Egypt, Africa, and Spain, wherever Britain wanted men to
fight her battles, there have they been faithful and true, loyal and
brave, standing foremost in the ranks of war, and giving place to
none!  All my own family have perished in the service of their
country since this century began--I am the last of them, and as their
reward, our roof is to be torn from us, and we are to be expelled
from the home and the graves of our kindred--we, the descendants of
the old aboriginal race, who first trod the land after God separated
it from the waters, and why? because a miserable fifty pounds may not
be forthcoming by a certain day!  There was a time, Mr. Ephraim
Snaggs, when the cry of _Bas Alpin_ from yonder rock would easily
have brought six hundred swordsmen to guard the roof you threaten;
and he whom you beard--he, who from the first Mac Innon, has come
through twenty generations in the right line.'

'Had you come through twenty generations in the _wrong_ line I would
have respected you quite as much, sir,' said Mr. Snaggs, with his
bland professional sneer, as he rose again, and smoothed the nap of
his hat, preparatory to retiring, as if wearied by the torrent of
Gaelic I had poured upon him.  'All these fine arguments about
broadswords and barbarism won't pay the rent or satisfy the just
claims of Sir Horace, thus the law of landlord and tenant must take
its course.  You have no means of raising money, I suppose?'

'None!'

'No friends--eh?'

'None.'

'Nothing you can sell?'

'Nothing!'

'Then, take my advice, and quietly quit the glen altogether; there
are plenty of counting-rooms, offices, and shops in the Lowlands,
where such great sturdy fellows as you may easily make yearly, triple
the rent of this old tumble-down place, with its patch of potatoes
and corn.  Quit your gun and fishing-rod--betake yourself to some
honest and industrious occupation, instead of indulging in the very
sophistry of vanity, and in wandering about these hills the livelong
day, sighing over an imaginary past and an impossible future.  No man
has any right in the soil but such as the law gives him.  Why, Mr.
Allan, before I was half your age, I was one of the smartest writer's
clerks in Glasgow, earning my threepence a page of a hundred and
twenty-five words; but perhaps you would prefer a shopman's place--'

The shout with which Rob Roy greeted honest Bailie Jarvie's proposal
to take his two sons as apprentices, was nothing to the shrill cry of
anger with which my mother interrupted the sneer I was too poor to
resent with pride--besides in its soundness, the advice of Snaggs
humbled, while it exasperated me.

'I would rather see my boy Allan buried in his grave at the Stones of
St. Colme than truckling to a Lowland dog like you, Ephraim Snaggs!
Begone, lest I smite you on the face, weak though my hand, for
recommending a calling so vile to Mac Innon of Glen Ora!'

'Mother, mother!' I exclaimed, 'what can I do?'

'Shoulder a musket and march to fight the Russians, if God opens up
no brighter or better path to the son of a line that led their
hundreds to battle in the times of old!' was the fierce and Spartan
response.

'Very well, ma'am--very well,' continued the matter-of-fact Snaggs,
smoothing the nap of his beaver, and smiling with his ticket-of-leave
look.  '"The gentle mind," saith the divine Blair, "is like the
smooth stream, which reflects every object in its just proportion and
in its fairest colours;" but these outbursts of anger, in the style
of Helen Mac Gregor or Lady Macbeth, won't satisfy Sir Horace
Everingham; and if the sum of fifty pounds, at least, be not
forthcoming----'

A tremendous knocking at the outer door, and the sound of voices in
great agitation, arrested the factor's angry farewell.  Minnie grew
pale, and hurried to open, and hastening into the passage, I met two
of the Englishmen and the ladies, with disorder apparent in their
attire and alarm in their faces.  The oldest of their party, Sir
Horace, was absent; and now the danger of the mountain, and the
warnings withheld by Callum Dhu, rushed reproachfully on my memory.

'My father, Mr. Mac Innon--my father, Mr. Snaggs!' exclaimed Miss
Everingham, rushing towards us, with clasped hands.  'I seek succour
for my father!' she continued, trembling, agitated, pale, and in
tears, and with hair and dress disordered.

'How--your father--Sir Horace?'

'We missed him at the rock, Mr. Snaggs, on Ben Ora--the steep rock, I
know not how you name it!'

'The Craig-na-tuirc,' said I.

'Yes--thank you--yes; and he did not come back to us.'

'Some dreadful event must have occurred,' added her dark-eyed
companion, Miss Clavering, whose usual bloom was blanched and gone;
'so many accidents--'

'Get us some aid, my good man,' said her brother, a tall and
soldier-like fellow, with a heavy black moustache and a dragoon air;
'ropes, poles, and a couple of stable-lanterns, if you have such
things.  We must make a search after the old gentleman--come
Snobleigh, my boy, look sharp!'

'Oh-aw-yaas,' drawled his companion, who had a very used-up air, and
wore a short-tailed tartan shooting-jacket, an eye-glass, a cigar in
his mouth, and a faint moustache under his snub nose; 'young fellow,
eh-aw-aw, what is your name?'

'Glen Ora,' said my mother, interrupting me, and half springing from
her chair, irate at his nonchalance.

'Aw--odd--very, Mr. Glen Ora; you'll look aftaw the ladies, whom we
shall leave here in your chawge.'

'I am master here, at least,' said I, haughtily; 'Snaggs, hand
chairs--see to the ladies, while I go to the Craig-na-tuirc, to
search for Sir Horace.'

'Oh thank you--bless you!' exclaimed Miss Everingham, grasping my
arm; 'all my trust is in you, Allan.'

'Lanterns--eh, aw-aw, you'll require--'

'The moon is up, and we require no other light,' said I, cutting
short this mouthing drawler; 'come, Callum Mac Ian,' I added, as that
personage, whose solitary hut the alarm had reached, appeared among
us; 'old Sir Horace has fallen over the Craig-na-tuirc, or lost his
way on the hills--let us seek him.'

Though weak and tottering, my mother had propped herself upon her
cane, and risen to her full height, which was tall and commanding, to
welcome those agitated and unceremonious visitors.

'Mr. Snaggs,' said she, pointing to the door, with the air of a
Siddons, 'you may retire.'

Snaggs bowed with a malevolent smile, and withdrew.

'Ladies, be seated--gentlemen, assist the ladies to seats--thank you;
be composed, Miss Everingham, and be assured that we will leave
nothing undone to discover your father, who must have lost his way on
the mountains.  They were not made for Lowland legs to climb,' she
added, with a cold smile.

Her stature, her lofty air, and calm decisive manner, awed the two
English girls, and calmed their excessive agitation, while it dashed
the somewhat brusque air of the gentlemen; and, reseating herself in
her wide, old-fashioned chair, she spread her skirt all over it, in a
way peculiar to ladies of 'the old school,' and then fixed her keen
grey Highland eyes upon her unexpected and not over-welcome visitors,
to learn the cause of all this commotion and alarm for one towards
whom it may easily be supposed she felt but little love, as she
deemed poor Sir Horace little better than a usurper, and was wont to
stigmatize him roughly in Gaelic as 'a Hanoverian rat.'

I snatched a hunting-horn, Callum threw off his plaid, and leaving
the two perfumed gentlemen to follow us as they best could in their
well-glazed boots and tightly-strapped pantaloons, we took our way
with all speed towards the rocky summit of Ben Ora.




CHAPTER IV

THE BOOK OF THE BOAR.

The sudden presence of Laura Everingham under my mother's roof had,
for a moment, confused and astonished me, filling me with tremulous
anxiety for the issue of their interview.

Laura was a lady-like girl, pretty rather than beautiful, and
graceful rather than dignified, with a bright sunny English eye, a
pale but interesting face, matchless hands and ankles, and a
profusion of chestnut hair.  She had trembled excessively when I
presented her to my mother, whom she informed, as rapidly and
coherently as her excessive agitation would permit, that Sir Horace,
'her dear, good, kind papa, would go to the summit of the mountain in
the moonlight, in spite of all advice and the warnings of various
shepherds.'

'The old gentlemen is, aw--aw, rather nocturnal in his tastes,
madam,' yawned Mr. Snobleigh, who had been surveying the dining-room
through his glass, with great apparent curiosity and much
unmistakable depreciation; 'town habits, madam, won't suit this
parallel--aw, of north latitude.'

'And he would visit the Craig-na-tuirc,' continued Laura; 'for dear
papa is such an obstinate old thing, and we are always so afraid of
the gout flying to his head, that we never dare to cross him.  Well,
we ascended that horrid mountain, and after great danger and labour
reached the shoulder or cliff, Craig-na-tuirc, I think, you name it,
just in time to see the moon rise above the hills, and a lovely moon
it was--'

'Aw--for Scotland--very!' said Mr. Snobleigh.

'We were at the very verge of the precipice, with our little ponies,
from which we had all dismounted, but dear old obstinate papa, who
would keep his saddle, when suddenly an eagle soared up, with its
huge flapping wings, from amid our feet--our wild ponies took to
flight--scampered down the mountain, and vanished; that which bore
papa accompanied them; we heard him crying piteously for help--oh,
heaven, how piteously!  And then, a white stag shot past--'

'God and Mary!--a white stag?' exclaimed my mother.

'Then all became still, so frightfully still, that I heard only my
own heart beating.  Oh, dear madam,' added Laura Everingham, clasping
my mother's hand, emotion lending new charms to her winning face and
manner, 'do you think there is danger?'

'Heaven alone knows; if indeed the sheltie galloped towards the Uisc
Dhu--' my mother paused, for even her strong antagonism to this fair
daughter of a man she hated, and against whom all her fierce and
antiquated Celtic prejudices were enlisted, could not withstand the
charm of Laura's winning eye; thus she left nothing unsaid to comfort
her and to soothe her terror.  In this she was joined by Miss
Clavering, a fine, handsome, and showy English girl, whose beautiful
and sparkling eyes, dark hair, and nose _retroussé_, piquant manner,
and graceful _tournure_, made her, as her brother Tom Clavering, of
the Grenadier Guards, constantly affirmed, 'one of the finest girls
about town,' meaning London, of course.

'And you saw a white stag?'

'Yes--white as snow,' answered the girls, together.

'Dhia!' exclaimed my mother; 'if it should be the white stag of Loch
Ora!'

'Why--what then?'

'It is said to be enchanted--it never dies, and never appears but as
a harbinger of evil!'

'Heavens, dear madam, don't say so, pray!' urged Laura, weeping
bitterly, and here Callum Dhu and I left them.

Followed by Captain Tom Clavering and his friend, Mr. Adolphus
Frederick Snobleigh, who, with their glazed boots, scarlet shirts,
and blue neckties, tight pantaloons, pomaded locks, and bandolined
moustaches, were scarcely accoutred for ascending the sides of Ben
Ora at midnight, over heather ankle-deep, and drenched in dew, or
over--

  'Crags, knolls and mounds, confusedly hurled,
  The fragments of an earlier world.'

Callum Dhu and I hastened round the base of the mountain, and sought
the Craig-na-tuirc for traces of the missing stranger.  The moon was
clear and bright, though obscured at times by fleecy cloudlets, and
we soon reached the summit of the steep craig, or _Rock of the Boar_,
and saw the wild glens and savage peaks of the western Highlands
bounding the view on every side, while at our feet lay Loch nan
Spiordan, or the Lake of Spirits, which was haunted by the
water-horse and bull, and from which the Uisc Dhu, or _black stream_,
brawled through a hundred rough ravines and stony chasms, into the
deep dark basin of Loch Ora.  Here we paused for a few minutes.

The voice and image of Laura Everingham were still before me; for one
more fair or polished had never been beneath the roof-tree of our
mountain dwelling, and on regaining my breath, I said, with some
emotion, to Callum,

'If he has fallen into the Black Water!'--

'Well--he may turn up about Christmas-time--a bag of bones, stranded
on the margin of the loch,' was the grim response.

'And we allowed him to ascend--what will people say?'

'There will be none here to say anything,' was the sharp response;
'by that time Glen Ora will be desolate--its people gone to the
shores of the Far West, and the warm hearths where they sit now, will
be silent, cold, and grassy.'

'But the Englishman's daughter, Callum?'

'Let her weep to the night wind, and it will hear her, as it has
often heard our women weep, when the roofs were torn down and the
fires extinguished; when the cabers were tossed upon the heath, and
the cottagers were driven in fetters to the shore, like slaves for
market.'

'But his daughter is beautiful.'

'Dioul! do _you_ begin to think so?'

'Fair, delicate, and gentle, too, Callum,' I urged, warming a little.

'But what of that? she is a stranger, and not one of us!  It was not
at such dainty breasts as hers that Lachlan Mohr, who could twist a
horse-shoe, or Angus your ancestor, or Alisdair Mac Coll Keitach, who
could cleave men from beard to breeks, were suckled.'

'What the deuce does all this matter?  I would rather have a silver
pound in my pocket than a pedigree an ell long; but wind your horn,
and then let us shout.'

Callum blew his horn, but the echoes of the rocks alone replied in
prolonged reverberations to the sound.  Then we shouted together, and
again the echoes were our sole reply.  The more I thought of the fair
and timid girl now at my mother's house, the more anxious I felt for
her father's fate.

Myriads of stars were mirrored in the lone and deep blue Loch of the
Spirits, a thousand feet below us, and as we traversed the beetling
cliff, the stones we disengaged, rolled over and plashed into the
water, with a dull faint sound that was long in ascending to the ear.

'By the Black Stone of Scone,' said Callum, with a Highland grin, 'if
the stranger _has_ gone over here on the sheltie, he will have a
skinful of cold water by this time.'

'For heaven's sake, don't say so, Callum!'

'Why not?' returned my companion, tartly; 'his first threat, on
coming among us, was to put me in prison, because a deer-hide was
found in my hut; if he has gone over the Craig-na-tuirc it was his
own fate, and you know our proverb--Ni droch dhuine dan na fein!
_Me_ in prison, indeed!  I swore that I found the deer drowned in the
moss, though I shot him at the waterfall, and a brave animal he
was--thirty-four stone weight--devil an ounce less, after the
gralloch was out of him; so every man in the glen had a savoury
supper that night.  Must _we_ starve, while the Englishman and the
Lowlander have sport enough and to spare, and when the poor are
driven mad by the depredations of the game on the crops?'

'Hark!  I hear voices!'

Turning in the direction from whence they proceeded, we met Captain
Clavering and his companion, the exquisite Mr. Snobleigh, who had
just succeeded in overtaking us, breathless, and in great anxiety for
Sir Horace.

'It was in _that_ direction Sir Horace was carried by his pony,' said
the captain, pointing westward down the rocks.

'Dioul!  that is straight for the linn of Glen-dhu-uisc (the glen of
the black water), and if so, God save him!' added Callum, touching
his bonnet, 'for his bones--before _we_ find them--will have been
picked white as china by the gled and iolar.  However, let us do what
we can, Mac Innon,' he added, hastening onward, his natural kindness
of heart penetrating the crust of prejudice and animosity with which
he had resolved to protect it from any emotion of sympathy for the
new possessor of our lands.

'The mountain sheltie went like lightning,' said Captain Clavering;
'its hoofs struck fire from the rocks at every bound.'

'Aw--yes,' added his companion, the great head of the dynasty of
Snobleigh; 'I daresay the poor baronet thought himself astride one of
Scott's demmed water kelpies.'

The roar of the cataract, formed by the Uisc Dhu forcing its way
through a chasm, and rolling over a ledge of rocks into Loch Ora, now
broke the solemn stillness of the midnight hills.  We reached a
plateau of rock, which overhung the fall, and we felt it trembling
and vibrating in the concussion of the waters, which roared and
rushed in one broad, ceaseless, and snow-white torrent, into a deep
dark pool below.  Its height was startling; its sides bristled with
ghastly rocks, and these were fringed by tangled masses of green
shrubbery and wild plants.  Glittering in the moonlight like dew, or
a continual shower of revolving diamonds, the transparent foam arose
from the profundity into which the descending waters bellowed, and
beyond which they swept away round the mountain in placid silence,
forming Loch Ora, where the black ouzel and the wild swan floated in
the radiance of the summer moon.

Captain Clavering appeared to be impressed by this majestic scene,
but his companion, a restless Londoner, prattled and talked, and ever
and anon shouted 'Sir Horace!' in the voice of a peacock proclaiming
rain.

'Stay; I hear something,' said I; 'it comes from yonder rock.'

'No, no,' replied Callum, hastily; 'do not say so--that is Sien Sluai
(the dwelling of a multitude).  Often when my father was benighted,
he has seen lights glitter there, and heard the sound of music,
dancing feet, and merry little voices.'

A moment after, we heard a lamentable cry, that was quite different
from the echoes.

'Good heaven!' exclaimed Captain Clavering, 'there is some one over
the fall--or _in it_.  Did you not hear a voice?  There it is again!'

'Dioul!  I have heard it twice already, but thought it was a hart
roaring in the forest,' said Callum; 'and here are the hoofmarks of a
pony, fresh in the turf, at the very edge of the Fall.'

'Help!' cried a piteous voice, which ascended from the abyss beneath
us, and sounded above the hiss and roar of the hurrying waters;
'help, in the name of the blessed God!'

'Merciful heaven, it is Sir Horace!' exclaimed Captain Clavering,
peering over.

'Aw--aw, good gwacious--gwacious goodness! aw-aw, what a dreadful
situation!' added Snobleigh, aghast.

Upon a ledge of rock that jutted over the fall about twenty feet
below the plateau on which we stood, lay the unfortunate baronet,
crouching in a place where the beetling rocks rose above him, and
where they descended sheer below to a depth which the eye and mind
shrank from contemplating.  His pony had become unmanageable, or
disliked the severity with which it was whipped and spurred; thus on
getting the bit between its teeth, it scoured along the terrible
ridge of the Craig-na-tuirc like the wind, and rushed headlong
towards the cascade.  In deadly terror, the portly baronet had thrown
himself off this fierce and shaggy little charger, but too late; he
was just at the edge of the fall over which the pony went headlong
like a flying Pegasus.  Desperately Sir Horace clung to the bracken
and heather on the verge of the chasm; but both gave way, and he
toppled over!--sight, sound, hearing, and sensation left him as he
fell into the abyss, believing all was over; but the sharp, cool,
smoky spray revived him, and on recovering, he found himself safely
and softly shelved on a turf-covered ledge of rock, from which an
ascent unaided was totally impracticable, as the cliff above him was
a sheer wall of twenty feet high; and a safe descent was equally
impossible, for below, two hundred feet and more, pouring like
ceaseless thunder, the cascade roared, boomed, boiled, and whirled;
he shut his eyes, and for the first time since childhood, perhaps,
endeavoured to arrange his thoughts in prayer.

Imagine the sensations of this right honourable baronet, and M.P. for
'the gentlemanly interest'--this old Regent-street lounger and
man-about-town, accustomed to all the butterfly enjoyment, the ease,
elegance, and luxury wealth can procure, and London furnish, on
finding himself at midnight in the region of old romance and much
imaginary barbarism---in the land of caterans, brownies, and bogles,
cowering like a water-rat on a narrow ledge of rock, and on the verge
of that tremendous cascade!

Prayer was difficult, new, and unnatural to him; he closed his eyes,
and after shouting hopelessly and vainly, he endeavoured not to think
at all; terror absorbed all his faculties, and now were he to live
for a thousand years he could never forget the miseries and horrors
he endured.

His senses wandered, and while the endless linn, stunning and
dashing, poured in full flood and mighty volume over the trembling
rocks, at one time he imagined himself addressing the House on the
Abjuration Oath, the Scottish Appellate Jurisdiction, or some other
equally sane and useful institution; or at the opera listening to
Mario, Alboni, or Piccolomini; now it was the voice of his daughter,
and then the laugh of his ward, Fanny Clavering.  The quaint wild
stories of the Highland foresters flitted before him, and while
strange voices seemed to mingle with the ceaseless roar of that
eternal cataract; damp kelpies sprawled their long and clammy fingers
over him; paunchy imps and bearded brownies swarmed about his ears
like gnats in the moonshine; while grey spectres seemed to peer and
jabber at him, from amid the pouring foam and impending rocks.

He grew sick and faint with fear and hopelessness, for he was a cold,
proud, and narrow-hearted man; hence the agony of his mind was the
greater when he found himself face to face, and front to front, with
Death!

Hours passed away; they seemed months, years, ages, still he remained
there in a state of torpor and coma.  He might fall into the stream;
then all would be over; he might linger on for days, his cries
unheard, for the country was desolate and depopulated--for days until
he perished of slow starvation, and his bones would be left to whiten
on that shelf of rock after his flesh had been carried away by the
hawks and eagles!

'Horror! horror!' he exclaimed, and shut his eyes.

Suddenly, voices that seemed human met his ear!

He uttered a wild cry for mercy and for succour and the loud Highland
_haloo_ of Callum Mac Ian responded.  By a lucky chance we had
discovered the lost man, when every hope was dying in his arid heart.

A mountain-ash, the sinewy roots of which grasped the fissures of the
rocks, and were knotted round them, overhung the chasm, and from this
Callum, supported by Clavering and me--the captain was a brave,
active, and athletic fellow--lowered down a stout rope, which we
desired Sir Horace to tie securely round him; but he was so paralyzed
by fear, or so benumbed by cold, that though we reiterated the
request again and again, with all the energy his urgent danger could
inspire, we were unheeded.

'Dioul! 'smeas so na'n t-alam!' (the devil! this is worse than alum!)
grumbled Callum in Gaelic; this old fellow will have the cat's
departure in the cascade if he closes his ears thus!'

'What in heaven's name shall we do?' asked Captain Clavering; 'good
fellows, can't you advise?'

'Go down into the cascade,' said I.

'Eh--aw--the deuce! good gwacious, you cawnt mean that,' said
Snobleigh, with a chill shudder; 'deaw me--what a boaw!'

'He does mean it,' replied Callum, coldly; 'but that shall be my
task, for though his spirit is brave, his arm is less strong than
mine, and I shall meet the danger first.  It was our task of old--I
am his co-dhalta, and come of race that were the leine chrios of his
father's on many a bloody field--but I forget that you are
Englishmen, and know not what I speak of.'

Even while he said this, Callum had flung aside his bonnet and plaid;
tied one end of the rope round the ash, and knotted the other round
his waist, and begun to descend into the chasm, finding grasps for
his hands and rests for his feet where other men would have felt for
them in vain; and scaring the polecat from its lair, and the
chattering night-hawk from its perch, by his hearty shout of triumph,
as he reached Sir Horace, and transferred the rope round his inert
and passive form.

'Air Dhia! the old man is like a bundle of dry bracken,' said the
bold Highland forester with some contempt; 'hoist away sirs, and be
sure that you have a tight hold of _your_ end of the rope!'

Assisted by Mr. Snobleigh, who was in a high state of excitement, the
Captain and I drew up the poor baronet, who was almost dead with
renewed terror on finding himself suspended like the golden fleece
over that roaring gulf; however, we landed him safely, and laid him
at length on the thick soft heather to recover his breath and
animation, while we lowered the rope to Callum, who with our
assistance scrambled up the wall of rock like a squirrel, and stood
beside us again.

'Mona mon dioul!' said he, with a hearty laugh, such as can only come
from a throat and lungs braced by the keen mountain air; 'this will
be a night for the new laird to remember!'




CHAPTER V.

CALLUM DHU.

Morning was beginning to brighten the sky behind the sharp peaks of
the eastern hills as we slowly descended from the lofty summit of the
Craig-na-tuirc.  We had got our English visitors up to that altitude
very well; but getting them _down_ from it proved a very different
and more arduous affair: Callum at last lost all patience, and saying
that he wished he 'had a keallach to carry the dainty bodach in,'
hoisted Mr. Snobleigh, _bongré malgré_, on his shoulders, and
sturdily carried him to the foot of the mountain leaving to Captain
Clavering and me the task of laughing, and supporting the
crest-fallen baronet.

The sun had risen above the mountains when we reached the narrow path
that traversed my native and old hereditary glen; the morning wind
was lifting the light leaves of the silver birches, and rustling the
wiry foliage of the Scottish pines that clothed the steep sides of
the lovely valley.  At times a roebuck started up from among the
green and waving bracken, to vanish with a wild bound into the gloomy
thickets; and the pale mist was wreathing the dun summit of Ben Ora.

A flood of amber glory rolled along the hills, lighting up in quick
succession each rocky peak and heath-clad cone, and filling all the
glens with warmth as the sun arose; and Callum Dhu, whose mind was
full of the ancient usages and superstitions of the Gael, raised his
bonnet with reverence to the god of day.

''Pon my soul, you are a rum one!' exclaimed Mr. Snobleigh, as he was
set on the ground again; 'but--aw--aw--fine fellow after all; we owe
you I don't know how much for your bravery, and I for this canter
down hill,' he added, unclasping his porte-monnaie.

'I am neither a horse nor a servant,' said Callum, with a dark
expression in his eye.

Now that Sir Horace was free from danger, and felt somewhat mollified
towards mankind in the Highlands generally, every bitter thought
which the teachings of my Celtic mother, the precepts of my nurse,
and the example of Callum could inspire, returned with renewed vigour
to my breast; and on reaching the rugged bridle-road, with a haughty,
hostile, and distant aspect, I touched my bonnet, and on seeing the
baronet's carriage approaching (together with Mr. Snaggs on a
trotting mountain garron), was about to withdraw, when Clavering
politely requested me to stay.

On the patrimonial estate of my forefathers, I found myself regarded
as little better than a shepherd, and treated by these pampered
strangers as a mere gilly, trapper, or bush-beater; and my fiery
spirit revolted within me, on reflecting that the poor attire Callum
and myself wore, declared us to be little better.  But find, if you
may, a Birmingham baronet, or a cotton lord, whose titles came with
the Reform Bill, who will acknowledge that a Scottish chief whose
name and lineage may be coeval with Old King Cole, or the Wars of
Fingal, can be equal to his own.

The carriage halted; a liveried lacquey sprang from the rumble,
banged down the steps, and opened the door, on which Laura Everingham
and Fanny Clavering alighted to welcome and embrace Sir Horace, who
received this demonstration with the proper and well-bred frigidity
of one who abhorred 'a scene;' but his daughter hung upon his neck,
calling him her 'dear papa--her own papa,' while observing with alarm
that he trembled excessively, his whole nervous system being
seriously shaken, as well it might.

'You are ill, dear papa!' said Laura, regarding him anxiously.

'A draught from St. Colme's well might do him good,' said Callum Dhu;
'but perhaps he has water enough in him already--and so, a good sup
of whisky--'

'Right,' said Captain Clavering, searching in the pocket of the
carriage, and producing a flask of brandy, a 'nip' from which greatly
revived the old gentleman, who, in a few words, made his daughter and
her friend acquainted with the danger he had run, and the courage by
which he had been rescued.

'So you see, Mr. Snaggs,' said the baronet, 'our Celt here, with the
beard like a French sapeur, has been to me a real friend.'

'Glad to hear it, Sir Horace,' mumbled Snaggs with one of his
detestable smiles; 'but how seldom do we find one--what is it the
divine Blair saith, Mr. Snobleigh?'

'Eh--aw--don't know, really.'

'It is _this_, my dear sir; "there is a friend that loveth at all
times and a brother that is born for adversity.  Thine own friend,
and thy father's friend, forsake not."'

'Aw--vewy good--devilish good, indeed!'

Miss Everingham, while her pale cheek glowed, and then grew pale
again, fixed her bright eyes, full of tears, and gratitude upon
Callum and me, and while touching our hands, timidly, exclaimed,

'Oh, how shall we ever thank you--how repay this!'

'Aw--aw--'pon my soul, that is just what I have been thinking of,'
said Snobleigh, who 'mouthed' his words as if he had been reared in
the Scottish law courts, where we may daily hear the most astounding
and miraculous English that tongue can utter.

My heart throbbed; a new and undefinable emotion thrilled through me,
at the touch of Laura's soft and pretty hands, and the truthful,
thankful, and earnest glance of her soft blue English eyes.

'Ah, that devil of a pony!' sighed Sir Horace; 'I hope its neck was
broken at the cascade.  Egad! it started off with me as if it had
been running for the Ascot Cup!'

'So did all our cattle.  How lucky that we were dismounted!' observed
Miss Clavering.

'It was like the Start for the Derby,' laughed her brother.

'Or the Doncaster Cup and Saucer,' added Snobleigh, 'Sir Horace
leading the way.'

'But it is time we were moving,' said that personage.  'Come--you,
sir, to whom I owe so much--what is your name?'

'Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'

'Ah, well; get into the rumble, and come with us to Glen Ora House,
and you shall have lunch and a good bottle of wine with the butler.'

'I do not lunch, neither do I dine with lacqueys,' replied Callum,
proudly.

'Whew! aw--I see--these Highland fellows are all alike.  Clavering,
have you any money about you?'

The captain handed his purse to the baronet, who took from it, and
from his own, the gold they contained, and turning to Callum, said--

'My good fellow, here are fifteen sovereigns; but you will call on me
at Glen Ora House, and bring your friend with you; new coats and
shoes, &c., are at your service; but what the devil is the matter
with you?'

'Monna, mon dioul! is it money you would offer me?' asked Callum, as
he drew himself up with the air of an Indian king; 'so you value your
life at fifteen dirty guineas?'

'How, fellow; do you really wish more?'

'_More!_' reiterated Callum, fiercely; 'I am a poor man, who, when I
lie down at night, thank God that one other day is passed, though I
know not where the food of to-morrow may come from.  The hills teem
with game, and the rivers are alive with fish; yet I dare neither
shoot one nor net the other.  But keep your gold, Sir Horace.  Every
coin of it is accursed, for it has come to you through the filthy
hands of your factor, and every groat of it is stained by the
sweat--the tears--the blood of the Highlanders of Glen Ora, from whom
it has been extorted and torn by Ephraim Snaggs, that merciless and
rapacious oppressor of the poor!'

Sir Horace stared at this outburst, which Callum Mac Ian,
notwithstanding his sharp Celtic accent, and Gaelic being his native
language, spoke in good English, and with all the purity and fluency
of an educated Highlander.  The factor, who was close by muttered
something about 'an insolent idle poacher;' but Captain Clavering
patted Callum on the shoulder, and exclaimed, in his jolly off-hand
way,

'You are a trump! ha, ha, ha--'pon my soul, I like this!'

'You are the most puzzling fellow imaginable!' said Sir Horace, who
had now recovered his self-possession, and with it his usual bearing,
which was cold, pompous, selfish, and aristocratic (I am sorry to
add, ungrateful); he added, 'would your friend take the money?'

The expression of my eye, I presume, startled him, for he asked,

'Who are you, sir, may I ask?'

'Alan Mac Innon,' I replied briefly.

'The idle, roving son of a poor widow,' suggested the amiable Mr.
Snaggs, with a dark look.

'Widow of the last Glen Ora, Captain of Grenadiers in the Black
Watch,' said Callum, sharply; 'Co-dhalta,' he added to me, in
Gaelic--'be not offended--they are strangers, and know no better.'

'Well, well, I must leave to our sermon-quoting friend, Mr. Snaggs,
the task of rewarding you, for, egad, I know not how to treat you,'
said Sir Horace, turning towards the carriage and handing in Miss
Clavering and his daughter Laura; 'but give them a dram,
Clavering--it will be acceptable all round, I have no doubt.'

Callum Dhu produced from his jacket pocket a silver-rimmed quaigh,
which had belonged to the ill-fated Mac Ian of the '45, and from
which it was averred _Prionse Tearlach_ himself had drunk.  The
captain filled it with brandy for me, and I drank and bowed to all.
It was refilled for my foster-brother, who, while lifting his bonnet,
bowed politely to the strangers, and then turning to me, added,

'Mo Cheann Chinnidh-sa!  Beannachd Dhe' oirbh!' (_i.e._, My own
chief--God bless you!')

My heart swelled; _his chief!_ and I had no right to the soil, beyond
the dust that adhered to my shoes; yet Callum's respect for me was as
great as if I possessed all the lands of the Siol nan Alpin.

'Egad, this is like some of the things I have read of in the Scotch
novels,' said Sir Horace, with a supercilious smile; 'is it not,
Laura?'

'Exactly, papa.'

'If I had only my sketch-book here,' added her friend.

'Aw--yaas--vewy good,' drawled Mr. Snobleigh, as he applied a vesta
to his meerschaum; 'here we have a couple of bare-legged Sawney
Beans, and all we want is a witch with a caldron--

  "Fillet of a fenny snake,
  In the caldron boil and bake:
  Eye of newt and toe of frawg,
  Wool of bat and tongue of dawg,"

and all that sort of thing--a brownie--aw-aw--a black dwarf, and so
forth; eh, Miss Everingham?'

'Anything you please, Mr. Snobleigh, now that dear papa is safe.'

'Safe,' added the frank Tom Clavering; 'but for our brave and sturdy
friends, he had now perhaps been at the bottom of yonder lock--or
_loch_, as they call it.'

'It is a bit of romance, Laura, love,' said Miss Clavering, with one
of her brightest smiles; 'do not the place, the costume, and the
whole affair, remind you of--what is it--you remember the book, Mr.
Snobleigh?'

'Eh--aw, yaas,' was the languid reply; 'but do you admire the
costume, eh?  I was once nearly dispensing with the superfluous
luxury of pantaloons myself, and, aw-aw, exchanging from the
Grenadier Gawds into an 'Ighland corps, which threw us into the shade
in the Phoenix Pawk.'

'The deuce you were,' said Clavering; 'that would be to commence the
sliding-scale, Snob, my boy; from the Guards to the line, and from
thence'--

'Eh--aw--to the dawgs.'

'You are a noble fellow,' said Laura Everingham to Callum; 'and I
shall never, never forget you!'

Callum bowed.

'Give my dearest love to Mrs. Mac Innon--the kind old lady your
mother,' she added to me; 'and say that I shall ever remember her
kindness--poor dear old thing--and she so ill too!'

'Aw--Snaggs, old fellow--do you think she has any knowledge of the
aw--aw--second sight?'

'Why?' inquired Snaggs, with a furtive glance at me.

'I have made up a devilish heavy book on the Derby, and wondaw rathaw
which horse will win,' said Snobleigh.

Snaggs smiled faintly, and reined back his pony.

Although at that time only the half of what this fine gentleman said
was understood by me, I gave him a glance so furious, that after
attempting to survey me coolly through his glass for a second, he
grew pale, smiled, and looked another way.

At last, the baronet grew weary of all this; he pocketed his purse,
and stepped into the carriage; his friends found seats also--the
steps were shut up--the door closed, and with its varnished wheels
flashing in the morning sun, away it bowled, the horses, two fine
bays, at a rapid trot, and Snaggs spurring furiously behind.  Callum
and I were left on the narrow mountain-path with saddened, humbled,
and irritated hearts, that smarted and rebelled under the loftiness
of tone which the possession of 'a little filthy lucre,' enabled
these _blasé_ voluptuaries to assume towards us, who were the old
hereditary sons of the soil.

'I would ask you to my hut,' said Callum, 'but for three days no food
has been there.'

'Come, Callum--come with me, and though I have but little to offer,
that little shall be shared with you and a thousand welcomes to it,'
said I, and we turned our steps together homeward.




CHAPTER VI.

WHICH TREATS OF MANY THINGS.

I have said that Laura Everingham was pretty rather than beautiful,
and graceful rather than dignified.  I may add, that she was winning
rather than witty; but her friend Miss Clavering was both beautiful
and brilliant; and frequently as I had seen both these attractive
English girls, it was Laura, whose gentleness, voice, and face, made
the most vivid impression on me; and thus, with my mind full of her
image, I returned slowly and thoughtfully towards the old
jointure-house of Glen Ora.

Three weeks passed away.

The great service we, or Callum, rather, had rendered to Sir Horace,
was forgotten, for the adventures of that night had given the baronet
a violent and all-absorbing fit of the gout, and a fever which
confined him to bed; and amid his friends, the luxuries which
surrounded him, and the frivolities of fashionable life, he forgot
that save for the fearless heart and strong arm of Mac Ian he must
have perished by the waters of the Uisc Dhu, without leaving,
perhaps, a trace of his fate behind.  And poor Callum--he whose
Spartan virtue had declined the proffered reward--was often almost
starving; for his little crop had failed; his patches of wheat and
potatoes were blighted, though carefully reared on the sunny side of
Ben Ora; and, like others in the glen, he anticipated with sorrow and
anxiety the usual visit of the pious and uncompromising Snaggs when
the term-time arrived.

My poor mother's health was failing fast, and as it failed, her
spirit sank.  She lacked many comforts which I was without the means
of procuring; and though old Mhari and her niece Minnie were
unwearying and unremitting in their kindness and ministry, she seemed
to be dying literally by inches, yet without any visible ailment--a
painful and a terrible contemplation for me, who, except the people
in the glen, and the ties of blood old Highland custom and tradition
gave between us, had not another relative in the world; for all my
kindred--ay more than thirty of them--had died, as I have said, in
the service of their country.

She was passing away from among us, and now, for her sake, I
regretted that my foster-brother had not stooped to avail himself of
the reward proffered by Sir Horace; for even that small sum would
have been at her service, as honest Callum Mac Ian loved and revered
her as if she had been his own mother.

With such sad, bitter, and humiliating reflections, the memory of the
winning smile, the thankful glance, and soft pretty manner of Laura
Everingham, struggled hard for mastery; but as weeks rolled on, these
pleasing recollections gave place to a just emotion of anger, at what
I deemed her cold and haughty neglect of my mother, whom she had
neither visited nor invited to the new house of Glen Ora.  Vague
suspicions floated in my mind that Snaggs the factor was in some
degree to blame for this apparent discourtesy, and these surmises
afterwards proved to be correct.  Moreover, the moustached Captain
Clavering, and his perfumed friend, Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh,
whom we saw shooting and deer-stalking on the hill sides, usually
passed me with a nod or glance of recognition, because I was coarsely
clad, and to them seemed but a mountain gilly, though every bonnet in
Glen Ora was veiled at my approach in reverence to the name I
inherited.  But this was the result of old Celtic sympathies--the
ties of clanship and kindred, the historical, traditionary, and
poetic veneration of the Highland peasant for the head of his house,
humbled and poor though that house may be; sympathies deep, bitter,
fiery and enthusiastic, and beyond the comprehension of a
devil-may-care guardsman like Clavering, or an effeminate _blasé
parvenu_, and man-about-town, like Snobleigh.

Once a liveried lacquey with a well-powdered head brought a beautiful
bouquet of flowers 'with Miss Everingham's love to Mrs. Captain Mac
Innon;' but as this knock-knee'd gentleman in the red plush
inexpressibles was over-attentive to our pretty Minnie, her lover
Callum flung him out of the front door, and tore his livery; and such
was the report made by Mr. Jeames Toodles of his reception at the old
jointure-house, that no more messages came from the family of Sir
Horace.

Now came the crisis in the fortunes of the cottars of Glen Ora.  The
postman who travelled once weekly over the mountains, and bore the
letters for the district, in a leathern bag strapped across his back,
brought for each resident, myself included, a notice that Mr. Ephraim
Snaggs would be in the glen on a certain day, to hold a rent-court,
and collect the arrears; with a brief intimation, that if all demands
were not satisfied in full, the houses would be destroyed, and the
people driven off.  That night, there went a wail of lamentation
through the glen; the women wept, and the men gazed about them with
the sullen apathy in which a despairing mariner may see his ship
going down into the ocean, for there were neither remedy nor mercy to
be expected.  Our people were able to live comfortably in the glen,
as for ages their forefathers had done, marrying and giving in
marriage--increasing and multiplying, till their corn patches and
little green cottages dotted all the mountain slopes; but curbed by
the game-laws, and thence deprived of those substitutes by which
nature replaced the sterility of the soil--ruined by the wanton
destruction of the kelp manufacture, and by having their rents
doubled, tripled, and quadrupled with the deliberate intention that
they should be unable to pay them, and hence afford to the feudal
lord of the land a LEGAL EXCUSE for sweeping them to the sea-shore,
that the glens may be made a wilderness for game, and their hearths a
lair for the deer, the fox, and the wild cat--the peasantry found
themselves helpless!  And thus it is, that in virtue of a fragment of
sheepskin, we find men in Scotland, exerting over their fellow-men a
murderous and inhuman tyranny; such as was never wielded by the worst
feudal despots in the middle ages of Germany, or in the present days
of Russia.  But to resume my story:

In addition to our little household, we had now to support Callum
Dhu, who had been afflicted by a sickness--I verily believe, the
result of mere want and privation, for he was too proud to
acknowledge, that occasionally days elapsed without his fast being
broken.  He was entitled to four hundred merks Scots, and a good dram
for every fox's head; but as he was weak and ailing, the foxes got
into places beyond his reach, and rabbits became scarce.  We could
not see Callum starve; for never did brother love brother more
sincerely than my fosterer loved me; and but for this sentiment, and
his ardent regard for Minnie and his native glen, the poor fellow had
long since abandoned his hut, and joined one of our eight Highland
regiments.

Now came 'the day--the great, the eventful day,' when Snaggs the
factor, accompanied by his clerk (the latter custodier of a wooden
box and a green-baize bag), both on trotting Highland garrons,
appeared at the lower entrance of the glen, their advance into which
was witnessed by the cottars with greater excitement, and certainly
far more terror than their forefathers, when beholding the _Sliochd
Dhiarmed an Tuirc_, numbering a thousand swordsmen under Black Colin
of Rhodez, march through the same pass against the Mac Innons of Glen
Ora, and the Mac Intyres of Glen O.

And now, with the reader's permission, I will devote a short
paragraph to Mr. Snaggs.

He was externally a very religious man, and grave in his deportment,
being an elder of a dissenting kirk.  Having been bred to the law in
Edinburgh, he spoke with an extremely English accent, as nothing
Scottish is much in vogue about 'the Parliament House;' for
unfortunately, the language which our Lowlanders received from their
brave ancestors who came from the Cimbric Chersonese--a language in
which the sweetest of our poets have sung--the language spoken by
Mary Queen of Scots, in which Knox preached, and all our laws are
written, is voted vulgar by the growing 'snobbishness' of the
Scottish people themselves--excuse the term pray, but I know of none
more suitable--hence Mr. Snaggs spoke with a marvellous accent, and
it would have been quite in vain to quote to such as he the words of
honest Ninian Wingate, when he warned John Knox--'Gif ye throw
curiositie of novationis hes forgot our auld plane Scottis qwhilk
your mither lernit you, in tymes coming I sall wryt to yow my mynd in
Latin, for I am nocht acquynt with your Southeron.'  Mr. Snaggs went
to kirk thrice on Sunday; he was a member of various
tract-distributing societies, and always wore a white neckcloth, and
scrupulously accurate suit of black; he was a great believer in
whisky-toddy and the patriotism of the Lord Advocate.  Honesty and
charity were ever in his mouth, but never in his heart or hand; he
never swore by aught save his honour, which was a somewhat tattered
article.  He never was known to do good by stealth 'and blush to find
it fame;' but he subscribed largely to all _printed_ lists,
especially such as were headed by philanthropic and noble
depopulators.  His keen grey eyes were expressive alternately of
cunning and malevolence, while his mouth wore a perpetual smile or
grin.  Cringing and mean to the rich, Snaggs was a tyrant and
oppressor of the poor, and led the van of that all-but-organized
system of extermination pursued by certain infamous dukes, marquises,
and lairds towards the poor Highland peasantry; and he was a vehement
advocate for the substitution of bare sheep-walks and useless
game-preserves, instead of glens studded by little cottages, and
teeming with life and rural health, and peopled by a brave and hardy
race, who in the ranks of war gave place to none, and who, although
they have no feudal charters, are by right of inheritance the true
lords of the soil.

Such was the smooth, pious, fawning but terrible Ephraim Snaggs, who
made his appearance in Glen Ora punctually at eleven o'clock on the
appointed day.  Now we had no longer any hope of remaining in the old
jointure-house, for I do not believe that anything save a miracle
would have raised fifty pounds among us, and the age of miracles is
past.




CHAPTER VII.

THE RENT COURT.

I shall never forget the emotion of shame that glowed within me on
finding myself compelled to avoid this miserable worm.

'He is coming! he is coming!' exclaimed Minnie, wringing her hands,
as we perceived from the dining-room window two mounted figures
appear in the gorge of the glen.

'Oclion! ochon! ochon!' chorused old Mhari, lifting up her hands,
'the sorrows that have fallen upon us would sink the blessed ship of
Clanronald.'

Callum uttered a hearty oath in Gaelic, and pulled his bonnet over
his knitted brow.

Mr. Snaggs dismounted at the door and gave his green bag to Minnie,
on whom he smiled familiarly, and then perceiving that she was
pretty, he pinched her rosy cheek, and eyed her with a glance that
had more of a leer than benignity in it; but he was always singularly
_suave_ to Minnie.  Being too indisposed to receive him, my mother
remained in her own room, and I--knowing that we had not the cash to
meet his demands, took my rod and went to the Loch nan Spiordan for
our supper; as there the _tarr-dhiargan_, or red-bellied char, were
in great plenty, and the banks were a favourite ride of Laura
Everingham.  For Snaggs I left a note, filled with the old excuses,
of wet weather, bad crops, corn destroyed by the south-west wind,
sheep with the rot, cattle with the murrain, hard times, and so
forth.  He read it over--smiled faintly, and after carefully folding
and docketing it, he seated himself at a table which was placed in
front of the house under an ancient lime, on the branches of which
many a cateran from the isles had swung in the wind.  There his clerk
arranged his papers, and while the poor dejected defaulters came
slowly down the glen communing sorrowfully together, Mr. Snaggs
regaled himself on bread, cheese, and a dram which Callum Dhu placed
before him, with more of old Highland hospitality than the factor
merited.

The excitement was general; thirty-two families the remnant of our
once powerful tribe, all linked and connected together by ties of
blood, descent, and misfortune, hovered on the brink of ruin.

One by one, the tenants approached bonnet in hand, and before this
man of power and parchment bent their heads that under braver
auspices would not have stooped to the whistle of a cannon-ball.
Poor people! their tremulous but earnest excuses for the lack of
money, though their small rents varied only from fifteen to twenty
pounds or so, and the half-uttered prayers for mercy, from those who
could no more pay this, than liquidate the National Debt, were all
the same.

One named Ian Mac Raonuil had been ten years a soldier, and though
thrice wounded, was unpensioned, as there was a break in his service,
having enlisted twice.  Latterly he had earned a scanty subsistence
by fishing in the salt lochs beyond Ben Ora; he was now sixty years
of age, and had seven children.  He could pay the old rent, but was
totally unable to pay the new, which was exactly triple what had ever
been paid for his poor cottage within the memory of man.  The factor
shook his legal head---made an entry in his black-book--handed to the
haggard-eyed Mac Raonuil (as he did to all) a pious tract, and
summoned the next on his fatal roll.

'Alisdair Mac Gouran.'

A fine-looking old Highlander, upwards of seventy years of age
stepped forward.  His tall and erect figure was clad in coarse blue
cloth, and his long locks, which were white as snow, glittered in the
sun, when he politely removed his bonnet before the grand vizier of
the new proprietor, with the usual greeting, as he knew no language
but Gaelic,

'Failte na maiduin duibh'--(Hail--good morning to you).

'_You_ have your rent at least, I hope, Alisdair?' said Snaggs, with
a grin on his thin lips.

'I have the old rent,' replied the cotter with a sickly smile.

'But the _new_?'

'A chial! what would you be asking of me?  I have the old rent, and
by the sweat of my brow and the toil of my children's tender hands
have I earned it.  It is here.  Have mercy on us, Ephraim Snaggs, and
do not double the rent.  You stand between us and Sir Horace--between
us and starvation.  He will be advised by you for good or for
evil--he is an Englishman, and like a Lowlander, can know no better.
You are aware that my croft is small, and that my eight children have
to support themselves by fishing; but the famine was sore three years
ago; our potatoes failed, and as you know well our little crop of
wheat was literally thrashed on the mountain by the wind.  All that
remained was devoured by the game of the Duchess.  I then fell into
arrears.  I, like my fathers before me, for more generations than I
can number, have regularly paid rent and kain to the uttermost
farthing--for God and Mary's sake, take pity on us now, Mr. Snaggs.
Accept the old rental, but spare us the new--for a little time at
least, or eleven human beings, including my old and bedridden mother,
now past her ninetieth year, will be homeless and houseless!'

'Mac Gouran,' said Mr. Snaggs, with mock impressiveness, while his
malevolent eye belied his bland voice; 'the divine Walton says, "can
_you_ or any man charge God that he hath not given enough to make
life happy?"'

'God gave, but the duke, the lord, and the earl, have taken away,'
answered the Highlander, sharply.

Snaggs grinned again--took the money, gave a receipt, and with it a
printed tract.  Then he made another entry in his fatal book, and a
groan escaped the breast of Mac Gouran, for too well did he know what
that entry meant.  His cot was in a picturesque place where Sir
Horace wished to plant some coppice; so the humble roof, where twenty
generations of brave and hardy peasants had reared their sturdy
broods, was doomed to be swept away.

All who came forward had the same, or nearly the same, excuses to
make.

Gillespie Ruadh--or Red Archibald--Minnie's uncle, was also in
default; but Snaggs, who had cast favourable eyes on his pretty
niece, spoke to him with such excessive suavity that old Archy was
quite puzzled.

Many professed their readiness and ability to pay the old rent, but
their total incapacity to meet the new and exorbitant one, which they
knew too well was but the plea, the pretence, on which they were to
be driven from the glen, that it might be well stocked with deer and
black cock.  The last summoned by the factor was Callum Dhu Mac Ian.

My fosterer, who was viewed as a kind of champion by the people,
pressed the hand of Minnie to reassure her, and with one stride
appeared before Snaggs in his tattered Highland dress.  He carried a
gun in his hand, and had a couple of red foxes, hanging dead over his
left shoulder.  A dark cloud was hovering on Callum's brow and a
lurid spark was gleaming in his eye, both indicative of the fire he
was smothering in his heart--a fire fanned by the lamentations of the
people, who were now collected in little family groups and communing
together.

'How are you, Callum?' asked Snaggs, with a sardonic grin, holding
out his left hand, as his right held a pen: but Callum drew back,
saying proudly,

'Thank you--but I would not take the _left_ hand of a king.'

'Well then, neer-do-weel,' said Snaggs, surveying the tall and
handsome hunter with an eye of ill-disguised antipathy, 'what have
you to say?'

'I am no neer-do-weel, Mr. Snaggs,' replied Callum loftily, and
disdaining to touch his bonnet or bend his head.

'Pay up then,' was the pithy rejoinder.

'I never was asked for rent before.  I and mine have dwelt rent-free
under the Mac Innons of Glen Ora since these hills had a name.  We
were hunters, father and son in succession, as you know well, and
paid neither rent nor kain; we owed nothing to the chief but an armed
man's service in time of war and feud; so I see no reason why it
should be otherwise now.'

'I am afraid, my fine fellow, that the sheriff and the law will tell
you another story.'

'D--n both, with all my heart!'

'What--dare you say so of the law?'

'Yes--and it must learn, that instead of me paying to Sir Horace, he
must, as his betters did of old, pay to me a sum for every fox's head
I bring to his hall.'

'You are three years in arrear, Callum.'

'Three hundred and more, perhaps, by your way of reckoning; but the
last proprietor is dead--our debts died with him.'

'Your idea is a very common one among these ignorant people,'
rejoined Snaggs, with a smile on his mouth and a glare in his wolfish
eye; 'but I must condescend to inform you, that the law of Scotland
says, when a landlord or overlord dies, the rents past due belong to
his executors.  Sir Horace took the estate with all its debts, and
the half-year's rent then current, with all arrears, are his due; and
this rule applies especially to grass-farms, as you will find in the
case of Elliot _versus_ Elliot, before the Lords of Council and
Session in 1792; and the landlord has a hypothec for his rent over
the crop and stocking; hence your furniture and plenishing are the
property of Sir Horace Everingham.'

'Ha-ha-ha!  A broken table, two creepies, a kail-pot and crocan; an
old cashcroim, some mouldy potatoes, and a milk bowie!'

'And remember,' added Snaggs, impressively, 'when a tenant who is
bankrupt, remains, notwithstanding a notice to remove, the landlord
may forcibly eject him in six days, as you will find in a case before
the Lords of Council and Session in 1756.  This is the wisdom, not
the cunning of the law, my dear friend, for, as the learned Johnson
says, "cunning differs from wisdom as much as twilight from open
day."'

'A nis! a nis!' cried Callum, in fierce irony, as he stamped his
right foot passionately on the ground, and struck the butt of his gun
on the turf; 'Snake! by the Black Stone of Scone you come to it now!'

Minnie clung in terror to her fiery lover.

'Laoighe mo chri,' she whispered, 'be calm and tempt him not!'

'Mr. Snaggs, I am but a half-lettered Highlandman, and know not what
you mean; but this I know--and here I speak for my chief Glen Ora, as
well as for his people--the sun shines as bright, and the woods are
as green, as ever they were twenty centuries ago, and yet we starve
where our fathers lived in plenty!  Why is this?'

'Because you are a pack of lazy and idle fellows.'

'We are not,' retorted Callum, fiercely; 'the dun hills swarm with
fatted deer; the green woods are alive with game, and the blue rivers
teem with fish; but who among us dares to use a net or gun?  For now
the land, with all that is in its waters, its woods, and in the air,
belong to the stranger.  God was kind to the poor Celts, Mr. Snaggs,
in the days before you were born,' he continued, with unintentional
irony.  'He gave us all those things, because He saw that the land,
though beautiful, was very barren; but you, and such as you, have
robbed us of them, and one day God will call you to an account for
this.  Listen: in the days of the kelp manufacture, we made twenty
thousand tons of it annually, here on the western coast alone--ay, we
_lazy Highlandmen_, raising _two hundred thousand pounds sterling
every year_.  This work, with a cow's milk, butter, and cheese, a few
potatoes, and a few sheep, for food and clothes, kept many a large
family in happiness, in health, and comfort; rents were paid strictly
and regularly in rent and kain, and arrears were never heard of.  But
the Parliament, influenced by the English manufacturers, DESTROYED us
by taking the duty off barilla; and when Lord Binning said, that a
hundred thousand clansmen in the West would starve, the English
Chancellor of the Exchequer replied--"Let them starve--I care not!"
may God and St. Colme forgive his soul the sin.  There were only
forty-five Scotsmen--time-serving and tongue-tied Scotsmen--in that
House, opposed to six hundred wordy Englishmen, so how could our case
be otherwise?  Now, this was only thirty years ago, and since then
arrears, ruin, misery, and famine have fallen upon the people of the
glens; the castles of their chiefs have become English grouse-lodges,
and the West Highlands are well nigh a voiceless wilderness, from the
Mull of Cantyre to the Kyle of Duirness--two hundred and fifty good
miles, Mr. Snaggs.'

'Where the deuce did _you_ pick up all this stuff--this Lay of the
Last Outlaw?' sneered Snaggs, with unfeigned surprise, while a murmur
of assent from the poor tenantry followed Callum's words.

'I could tell you more, Snaggs, esquire and factor,' replied Callum,
still maintaining his fire; 'esquire means nothing now in this world,
though _factor_ may have a terrible signification in the next; I can
tell you, that these poor people whom you are about to evict--for I
know their doom is sealed--have a right in the soil superior to that
claimed by any landlord or overlord either.  The Lowlanders, like the
English, were feudal serfs, while we--the Celts--were freemen, and
our land belonged not to the chiefs, but to _the people_; it was
ours; but lawyers came with their feu-charters and damnable
legalities, and then the patriarchal clansman became what you find
him now, something between a slave and an outcast--a wretch to be
retained or expelled at the will of his landlord.  The chief was a
thing of our breath, whom we could make or unmake; but the land, with
its mountains, woods, and waters, was the unalienable birthright of
the people; it was their home--their dwelling-place--their grave!
The King of Scotland could neither give it nor take it away, for it
was the patrimony of the tribes of the Gael; and it was for this
patriarchal right in the land that John of Moidart and Ranald Galda
died at the battle of Blairleine!'

'And so the land belonged to the Gael,' continued Snaggs, with his
calm sneer; 'but who gave it to them?'

'God!' replied Callum, lifting his bonnet with reverence; 'but no
doubt, Mr. Snaggs, a lawyer like you will have more faith in
feu-charters, and bonds, and bank-notes, than in Him; it is only to
be expected of one of your dirty trade; and now I have only a few
words more.'

'I am glad to hear it.'

'It would be a blessing for Scotland if you, and every man such as
you, were groping among the weeds at the bottom of Loch Ora, each
with a good-sized stone at his neck; and it would be a greater
blessing if the unwieldy estates of her absentee proprietors were
held by residents who would spend their rents--not in London and in
Paris--but among the people from whom they are drawn, and on the soil
from whence they are raised; and for this reason, Mr. Snaggs, and
many others, the sooner Scotland is rid of her fustian chiefs and
so-called nobility the better for herself.  So much, Mr. Snaggs, for
the Lay of the Last Outlaw!'

With these words Callum gave the table a kick, that sent it flying
right over the head of Snaggs, whose religious tracts, rent-books,
papers, and luncheon, were scattered in every direction by this
champion of Celtic rights, who shouldered his fowling-piece, and
hastened up the glen to meet me; and relate all that had passed.




CHAPTER VIII.

MINNIE.

Though few men in their senses ever think of consulting Hansard, I
may mention, that the debates in 1823 will be found to corroborate
much of what Callum advanced in his own peculiar way.

Minnie, who was an amiable and good-natured girl, became alarmed by
the sudden violence of her lover, and its probable effect upon the
temper of Mr. Snaggs; she busied herself in collecting all that
worthy's papers, dockets, and religious tracts, which had been
spilled and scattered abroad by the unexpected capsize of the table,
at which he had been seated with much legal dignity and assumed
benignity of aspect.

'Thank you, my good girl,' said Snaggs, on recovering his breath and
lawyer-like composure; 'thank you--I shall not forget this.'

'Thank you, sir, a thousand times,' replied Minnie, curtsying very
low, as she thought of her old uncle's unpaid arrears.

Minnie Mac Omish was a very pretty girl; under a little lace cap, her
silky brown hair was braided in two thick masses over her temples and
little ears, and enough remained to form a heavy knot behind, where
two very bewildering little curls, that were the joy of Callum's
heart, played upon her plump white neck.  Her eyes were large, blue,
and expressive; her bust full and perfect; her figure firm and
graceful, and a healthy bloom, that came with the free mountain air,
tinged her rounded cheeks with red.

'You are a good girl,' continued the factor, slipping a half-crown
into her hand, 'and this will buy a ribbon for your pretty neck,' he
added, kissing her cheek, much to Minnie's surprise.

'Oh, Mr. Snaggs,' said she, anxiously, and with tears, as the worthy
elder still lingered near her, after mounting his pony, 'I hope you
will forget Callum's fury, and show some mercy to my poor old uncle,
Gillespie Ruadh--he is old--his wife is sick, and they have seven
children.'

'The mystical number seems to be the established one in Glen Ora, my
dear,' said Snaggs, retaining the girl's hand in his, despite her
timid efforts to withdraw it; 'by-the-by, lass, can you tell me how
many cattle are in the glen?'

'No.'

'You do not know?'

'We never count them, sir.'

'Why?'

'It is so unlucky.'

'Whew!--how?'

'Some would be sure to die after we had reckoned them; and St. Colme
knows we have few enough for the poor people.'

This was said, of course, in Gaelic, but Snaggs understood it, for,
pressing her hand, he added, more kindly,--

'My good girl, I wish I had you in my own house at Inverness (I am a
quiet old bachelor), that I might teach you the folly of believing in
such personages as St. Colme, and in these old remnants of popery and
superstition, which warp the ideas of the people, and prevent the
diffusion of a purer religion into these barbarous districts.  Be
assured, my dear girl, "that when religion is neglected," as the
divine Blair says, "there can be no regular or steady practice of the
duties of morality."'

'But how about my poor old uncle, sir?' she urged again, with tears
in her eyes.

'Gillespie Ruadh is long--very long in arrear,' said Snaggs,
pretending to consult his note-book, while squinting over it, at the
pretty face that was so anxiously upturned to his; 'let me see--let
me see--'

'In arrears?'

'Ay, heavily--not a payment has he made since Whitsunday was two
years.'

'Alas!  I know that,' said Minnie, beginning to weep.

'Now, don't spoil those pretty eyes of yours, Minnie--'

'What shall I tell my uncle?'

'Oho,' whispered Snaggs, over whose eyes there shot a strange and
baleful gleam; 'he asked you to intercede with me?'

'Yes, sir,' replied Minnie, with hesitation.

'Meet me to-night at dusk--'

'Where?'

'At the Clach-na-greiné,' said Snaggs, sinking his voice lower still.

'But why at dusk, and why at such a lonely place?'

'Is not one place the same as another--when the spirit of God is
everywhere?  But tell no one of this; and when there, I will give you
a message--ay, it may be a receipt in full for Gillespie.'

'Heaven will reward you, sir.'

'It rewards all who have faith, even as a grain of mustard-seed,
Minnie,' said the factor, touching his garron with his riding-switch.
'Can you read English, Minnie?'

'A little, sir.'

'Then take these tracts, "The Sinner's Deathbed"--"The Pious
Policeman"--"The God-fearing Footman"--read them to your friends, and
say they were given by Snaggs the factor, whom they hate so much--and
see that you have all the contents by rote to-night, when we meet at
moonrise near the Clach-na-greiné.  But say not a word to any human
being on the subject, or the sequel may prove the worse for your
uncle Gillespie Ruadh--do not forget Minnie--at moonrise;' and with
these words and an impressive gleam in his glassy deceitful eyes, Mr.
Snaggs trotted down the glen to join the minister in prayer at the
bedside of a dying cotter, and thereafter to dine with Sir Horace at
the new manor-house of Glen Ora.




CHAPTER IX.

THE RED PRIEST OF APPLECROSS.

I heard, with the utmost alarm, the relation of all that had passed,
and felt assured that my doom and the doom of our people were sealed.
To Mr. Snaggs, Callum had said nothing more than I would have said,
but the chances are that, had I encountered him, my bearing might
have been more violent.

'The glen will be swept like Glentuirc,' said Callum, as we descended
the hill slowly and thoughtfully; 'swept bare as my hand, devil a
doubt of it.'

'And the old jointure-house, Callum--our last home on earth--sick and
ailing as my poor mother is, how is she ever to be got out of it?'

'Never alive, I fear me.'

I shuddered at his answer, for he as well as I knew the strange old
tradition connected with it.

Lachlan Mohr Mac Innon, about twenty years before his fall at
Worcester, had been seized by a covenanting and reformatory spirit,
and while the fervour lasted, had demolished an ancient chapel of St.
Colme, and with the stones thereof, built the said jointure-house.
This was considered an act of sacrilege so deep, that the Mac Donalds
of Keppoch, and other Catholic tribes, were on the point of marching
in hostile array to Glen Ora, when the influence of a wandering monk
of the Scottish mission restrained them.  This personage, whose
adventures have been given to the world as the Capuchino Scozzese,
and who is still remembered in Ross-shire as the Red Priest of
Applecross, cursed the deed in Latin and Gaelic, and predicted, that
as Lachlan Mohr had built a house for the dowagers of his family to
live in, not one should ever _die_ there; and strange enough, though
it had been inhabited for about two hundred years, no member of our
family was ever known to pay the debt of nature within it; though
many who were sick, ailing, or longing for death, after dwelling long
there, perished by violent ends or sudden diseases elsewhere.

Angus Mac Innon, who fought at Culloden, left a widow, a daughter of
Barcaldine, who attained a vast age, and lived beyond a century,
attenuated, bed-ridden, sickly, and querulous, in the last stages of
emaciation and second childhood.  Longing for a crisis to her
sufferings, in the same year in which her present Majesty ascended
the throne, she insisted on being conveyed on a pallet into the open
air, and, like the Lady May, of Cadboll, to defy fate, and test the
truth of the terrible prediction.  Four of our people, Alisdair Mac
Gouran, Ian Mac Raonuil, Red Gillespie, and Mac Ian, the father of my
fosterer, bore her slowly and carefully on a palliasse; and whether
it might be the result of fancy acting on a highly-nervous
temperament, or the weakness of a system worn away with age, I know
not; but to the no small horror of her bearers, the aged widow of
Angus expired at the instant she was passing the threshold.

Now, my mother had long been sickly and almost bedridden, and thus
though I could scarcely put much faith in the prediction of the Red
Priest of Applecross, which had been impressed upon me in childhood
by my nurse, the mother of Callum Dhu, as something to be spoken of
in whispers, and thought of with awe, yet I looked forward with vague
apprehension to our expulsion from the house; as she was wont to
affirm that she was so feeble and worn by time, that the life in her
was not natural, and that if once she passed _the door_ of the fated
mansion, her doom would be similar to that of Angus' widow.  A
strange terror seized me with this thought, for my mother was my only
tie to the glen, to my country--to existence itself!

Weary of dark conjectures, and with a heart full of dim forebodings,
while Callum and Minnie were in another part of the house, I entered
my mother's little parlour.  She was again seated at a little tripod
table, with her bible and her knitting before her.

'You know all, Allan,' said she, anxiously.

'Yes, mother,' said I, and flinging myself into a chair, I pressed my
hands upon my temples, and then we relapsed into moody silence.

My mother sighed deeply.

What need was there for words to express our anxious thoughts?  From
time to time I gazed earnestly at my only parent--my only living
relative.  Age had traced deep lines upon her pale sad face; but care
had planted furrows deeper still.  We sat long silent; at last she
said in a trembling voice--

'The evil day is coming, Allan, when the fire on this hearth--so long
boasted as the highest in Scotland--will be quenched at last.'

I bit my lips till the blood came.  Poverty had made me as powerless
as if a wall of adamant enclosed me, and I could see no means of
extrication from our present difficulties.

'Even money if we had it would not satisfy them, mother,' said I.

'Why?'

'Because Sir Horace is resolved on having this house pulled down, and
a new shooting-box built in its stead.'

'A little time, Allan--dear Allan--would have made _me_ least
independent of this poor dwelling, unless indeed the curse that was
laid on Lachlan Mhor----'

'Oh, mother, do not speak or think of that!' I exclaimed, hastily,
while half kneeling and half embracing her, 'there is to be a
gathering on the Braes, and a shooting-match.  Miss Everingham gives
a hundred sovereigns--think of that, mother, a hundred sovereigns to
the best rifle-shot.  I may win them, or Callum, and that prize would
pay a portion of our debts; hear me, mother, dear mother! and if I
lose, there is still hope for us in Callum.  We have done this man,
Sir Horace, a service--Callum Dhu saved him from a dreadful death at
the Black Water--might we not ask a little time, a little mercy at
least, for your sake, mother?'

'No!  I would rather perish than stoop to sue from such as he, for
mercy or for grace.  No, no; if it is written in the book of fate
that the stranger shall rule here, then let our glen be swept bare as
the Braes of Lochaber.  But oh, _mo mhac! mo mhac!_ (my son! my son!)
your home and grave will lie in a land that is distant far from mine.'

'Mo mhathair! mo mhathair!' I exclaimed in a wild burst of grief at
her words, which I vainly endeavour to give here literally in
English; 'even when you are gone, I cannot go to that distant land
beyond the Atlantic.  There is no heather there, nor aught that
speaks of home; the broad salt sea shall never roll between your
resting-place and mine.  I will trust to the honesty, the manliness,
and the sympathy of Sir Horace; he will never be so cruel as to
unhouse the widow of a brave Highland officer, who carried the
colours of the Black Watch at the Battle of the Pyramids, and led
three assaults at Burgos and Badajoz.'

My mother was a Scottish matron of the old school--a genuine
Highlander, with all a Highlander's impulsive spirit, warmth of heart
and temper--their pride and their prejudices if you will; but honest
prejudices withal, of that bluff olden time which scorned and spurned
the cold-blooded conventionality of the new.  My suggestions or hopes
of temporizing with Sir Horace, whom she could never be brought to
view otherwise than as a sorner in the land, and usurper of our
patrimony, though the poor man had bought it legally, honestly, and
fairly at its then market-price, brought on such a paroxysm of
irritation, sorrow, and weakness, that I became seriously alarmed for
her life, and committed her to the care of Minnie and old Mhari,
whose _fion-na-uisc a batha_, or wine distilled from the birch, was
considered in Glen Ora a sovereign remedy 'for all the ills that
flesh is heir to;' and was deemed moreover very conducive to strength
and longevity.

I was now summoned by Callum, who earnestly begged my company, if I
could spare an hour with him.




CHAPTER X.

THE STONE OF THE SUN.

I have now arrived at a point in the history of that acute factor,
pious elder, and severe moralist, Mr. Snaggs, which I would
willingly, but cannot omit, without leaving in my narrative a hiatus
which every dramatist, novelist, historian, and biographer would
unanimously condemn.  With the suspicion natural to a Celt, Minnie
mistrusted Ephraim Snaggs, and informed Callum of the proposed
meeting.

Callum's eyes flashed fire! he grasped his skene, and bit his lips,
with a dark expression on his brow; for it was well known in the
district that two handsome girls had already been wiled by Snaggs to
distant towns, where, after a time, all trace of them was lost; and
when questioned by their friends (he had taken care to evict and
expatriate their relations), he had only groaned, turned up his eyes,
twiddled his thumbs, and quoted Blair.

The peculiarity of his request, the solitude of the place, and its
traditionary character, excited the keenest suspicion in the mind of
Callum Dhu, and he begged of me to accompany him to the
trysting-place, to which we accordingly proceeded, and there
ensconced ourselves among the thick broom, juniper-bushes, and long
wavy bracken, about an hour or so after sunset.

In a wild and solitary rift or ravine, that opened at the back of Ben
Ora, and the rugged sides of which were covered by the light feathery
mountain-ash, the silver birch, the hazel, and the alder, amid which
the roe and the fallow-deer made their lair, stood the
Clach-na-greiné, or _stone of the sun_.  A huge misshapen block, on
which some quaint figures and runes or words in an ancient and
barbarous language were discernible; it was a relic of the Druids,
whose religion, a corruption of the older faith of the Magi, had
inspired them to worship the God of Day as the essence of fire.  Here
had the spirit of Loda descended on their souls, and here in latter
times the posterity of Mac Ionhuin (or the Son of Love) were wont to
meet in arms, to hail and inaugurate their young chiefs; here justice
was administered, and the guilty were flung into the Poul-a-baidh, or
drowning-pool; here the Red Priest of Applecross anathematized the
sacrilege of Lachlan Mohr; and here in 'the glimpses of the moon,'
the famous white stag of Loch Ora, which was believed to be
bullet-proof, and to have a miraculous longevity, was seen at times.

In the centre of this obelisk was a round hole, through which the
lovers of the district had been wont for ages to join hands in
testimony of their mutual betrothal: this formed a strong and sacred
tie of mutual fidelity, which none had been known to break without
suffering a violent death.

It happened as old Mhari had told me a hundred times, and as Callum
Dhu was ready to affirm on oath, that among the men who followed my
father into the ranks of the Black Watch, there was one who had
betrothed himself solemnly to a girl of the glen, through the hole of
the Clach-na-greiné.  Forgetting both him and her trothplight, this
girl fell in love with a handsome stranger whom she met at a
harvest-home in Glentuirc.  He danced with her repeatedly, and
whispered of her beauty and of his passion until her head was turned,
and her heart so far won, that he persuaded her to cross the mountain
of Ben Ora with him; but her confidence being mingled with fear, she
begged of a companion to follow them a little way.  The moon was
bright, and as they proceeded, she observed with growing alarm that
he carefully avoided every stream and rill of running water, and that
his face, though manly and beautiful, was deathly pale in the white
moonlight.  They descended into the ravine, and anon were seen in the
full blaze of the moon, near the great rough column of the
Clach-na-greiné.  A shadowy cloud obscured it for a time.  When it
passed away, the maiden and her pale lover had disappeared.  The
Druid obelisk stood on its grassy mound in silence and loneliness.
The damsel was never seen again.  Her earthly lover also proved
false; he married a Spanish wife, and after escaping the whole
Peninsular war, was killed at the side of old Ian Mac Raonuil by the
_last_ shot that was fired from the hill of Toulouse.

A hundred such traditions combined to make the place wild and
unearthly.  The path to it from Glen Ora lay through a skeleton
forest of old fir-trees, which, being entirely denuded of bark and
foliage, were white, bleached, and ghastly in aspect; while the stone
was generally covered by numbers of the hideous reptile which is
known in some pails of the Highlands as the _bratag_, and is spotted
black and white, and when eaten by cattle, causes them to swell and
die.

But enough of the Clach-na-greiné.

Minnie had not been many minutes seated on a fragment of rock near
it, and had barely exchanged the appointed signal with Callum--a
verse of a song, to which he replied by a low whistle--when Mr.
Snaggs, who had left his pony among the blasted pines, was seen
hastening to the rendezvous with a cat-like step and stealthy eye.

'I am punctual, you will perceive, my dear girl,' said he, taking her
hand kindly in his; 'the broad white moon seems just to touch the
huge black shoulder of Ben Ora, and throws the shadow of that grim
obelisk along this horrid ravine.  If one were to shout here, would
the sound be heard in Glen Ora, think you?'

'No, sir,' replied Minnie, with a shudder.

'You are very confident or courageous, my dear Minnie, to venture so
far to meet _me_,' said he, in his most winning tone.  We were close
by and heard everything.

'Courage is nothing new in Glen Ora,' said Minnie.

'But your people belonged to Glentuirc?'

'Yes, of old,' answered Minnie, proudly; 'the Mac Omishes of Chaistal
Omish.'

'A most euphonious name--are you sure?'

'Do you doubt it?'

'Yes--for so beautiful a face as yours, Minnie never came of the race
of Glentuirc.'

'They were braver than they were bonnie, perhaps, Mr. Snaggs,' said
Minnie, with reserve.

'But now about your uncle's farm, Minnie--it lies with yourself to
keep Gillespie Fatadh in the glen and it lies with you to level his
cottage to the earth and drive him into a Lowland workhouse, or to
the distant shores of America.'

'With _me_?' was the breathless query.

'Sit down on this green bank and listen to me.  We must be wary, my
dear girl, in treating with the denizens of this glen, for they are
sinful ones--sloth is sin, and they are slothful,' said Mr. Snaggs,
drawing close to her side, and patting one of her pretty hands with
his right hand, while it was firmly clutched by his left; 'we must be
wary--religion is the life of the world, and wickedness is always its
own punishment.'

'Sir?' was the perplexed interjection of Minnie.

'I was about to remark, my dear,' resumed the moralist, putting an
arm round the waist of the girl, who became flushed, and who trembled
violently, 'that we should take care of the beginnings of sin; but as
the divine Wilson remarks, "nobody is exceedingly nicked all at
once;" thus I might kiss you, as I do now--so might a young man; but
I do so, with all the emotions of a father stirred within me--yes
Minnie, the emotions of a father, an elder, and a factor; yet were a
young man to do this, as the divine Blair remarks----'

'But about my uncle's farm?' urged poor Minnie, in great perplexity;
'we have long expected a rich cousin from India, where, as his
letters said, his fortune and his liver were growing larger every
day; but he has never appeared--and then my uncle omitted to sow his
corn last year in such a way as to save it from the birds and
fairies.'

It was now Mr. Snaggs' turn to look perplexed.

'From the fairies?' said he.

'Yes--for after a field is sown, our farmers mix some grain and sand
together, and scatter it broadcast, saying at every handful, "the
sand for the fairies, and the corn for the birds;" and those mixed
grains become all that the birds and fairies take.  But the minister
told him that this was a sinful superstition--so the crop rotted in
the ground, or was destroyed between the Marquis's grouse and the
mildew.'

'Hush--did you not hear something stir among these bushes?' said
Snaggs, with alarm, as Callum raised, and ducked down his head
suddenly; 'pooh! a polecat or a blackcock--listen to me, Minnie; I am
always kind to _you_, whatever the glensmen may say of me.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Seldom is there a time, that I come over the hills from Inverness,
without bringing something for you--a ribbon, a rosette, a gaud or a
gown-piece--eh.'

'True, sir--and many, many thanks for your kindness to a poor girl
like me.'

'Not at all--not at all, when she is so sweet and pretty, Minnie.'

'Sir!'

'Do you not understand me?'

'No.'

'Then give me another kiss to begin with.'

Minnie innocently enough tendered her soft cheek, to which the
fatherly Snaggs applied his lips like a leech, and his eyes began to
sparkle, as he surveyed the fine slope of her shoulders and contour
of her bust.  He became excited, and retaining one of her hands in
his, clasped her tightly by the waist.

'I have ever been kind to your uncle, Minnie.'

She was about to break away, but these words restrained her, and she
gazed anxiously into the eyes of Snaggs, who, therefore, kissed her
so tenderly, that I had much ado to retain Callum in his lair among
the long bracken.  Poor Minnie, in her distress, looked
beautiful--her face was so full of expression.

'I have kept Gillespie Ruadh in his farm without raising its rent,
which would have been rather futile, as he has not paid a sixpence to
me for these past two years.'

'God will reward you, sir,' said Minnie, weeping.

'Cannot you reward me too, Minnie?'

'I, sir--a poor girl without a halfpenny in the world!'

'You.  Would you not like to leave the glen and enter into the
service of a lady in the Lowlands.  I know one, a fine and motherly
old dame, whose strict, moral, and religious principles----'

'No--no, I could not leave Glen Ora and the Mac Innons.'

'The Mac Innons,' laughed Snaggs, 'will soon be but a memory here:
long ere this day twelve months, the grass will grow is green on
their hearths, as it waves on the hearths of Glentuirc.'

'Then I will still have Callum Dhu,' murmured Minnie, in a voice that
trembled.

'Callum Dhu,' reiterated Snaggs, with scornful impatience; 'what is
he that you should regret him?'

'My betrothed husband,' said Minnie, with honest pride; 'and none can
reap in harvest or handle the cashcroimh like he; but he preferred to
be a hunter like his fathers before him; and at shinty, wrestling,
racing, tossing the stone, the hammer, or the caber, there is no one
on the Braes of Loch Ora like Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'

'Stuff!  These qualities, lassie, only fit him for the trade of a
housebreaker.  Better would it be for him if he read his prayers; for
as the divine Blair sayeth, "every prayer sent up from a secret
retirement is listened to."  See, here is money, dear Minnie,'
continued the wily Snaggs, holding before her a handful of
bank-notes; 'those wretched pieces of paper which cause so much
misery and crime, will be yours if----'

'If--what?'

The tempter whispered in her ear, and his eyes gleamed in the
moonlight.

She uttered a half-stifled scream.

'For Heaven's sake let me go, Mr. Snaggs, or I shall scream for
help,' said Minnie, as a rosy crimson replaced the paleness of her
cheek.

'None can hear you.'

'Be not so sure of that,' she retorted, with a scornful smile.

'Remember your uncle, his sick wife and family!  Why are you so
afraid?' he whispered; 'I will be your protector for life, Minnie,
and will open up a thousand new scenes and pleasures to you.  Let me
teach you that you were not born to live always in this dull and
hideous glen.  Oh, Minnie, have my eyes not told you the secret of my
heart?'

'I am getting quite faint,' said Minnie, overcome by excitement and
alarm.

'Apply my handkerchief to your nostrils--this strange perfume may
revive you.'

He placed his voluminous silk handkerchief close to her face.  In a
moment a tremor passed over the form of Minnie, and she sank
senseless on the grassy mound of the Clach-na-greiné.  With a
triumphant chuckle the pious moralist knelt down and threw his arms
around her; but in the next moment a fierce shout rang in his
startled ears, and the strong hand of Callum Dhu was on his throat,
while the blade of a bare skene glittered before his eyes.

For a moment these two men glared at each other like a snake and a
tiger.  In the next, the frail moralist was dashed upon the turf, and
the iron fingers of Callum compressed his throat like a vice, until
his eyeballs were starting from their sockets.

'Mac Innon,' cried my fosterer, 'what shall I do with him? we are
near the old Hill of Justice--his life in your hands--say but the
word, and the last breath is in the nostrils of our tormentor!'

'Let us drag him to prison,' said I.

'Prison--ha--but there is none nearer than the Castle of Inverness.'

'Then let us fling him into the Poul-a-baidh, where the bones of many
a better man are whitening among the weeds.'

'Right--mona mon dioul! but few stones will be on your cairn, dog!'

And snatching by the throat and heels the terrified wretch, who could
scarcely gasp for mercy, we rushed to the edge of the pool, where
justice was executed of old, and flung him headlong in.

'The curse of the Red Priest be on him!' cried Callum, as Snaggs
disappeared with a scream of terror.  Anon, he rose to the surface,
floundering, dashing, and bellowing for aid, until he laid hold of
the long weeds and broad-bladed water-docks, that fringed the margin,
and after being nearly suffocated by the floating watercresses (of
which, I suppose, he would in future share the horror of the learned
Scaliger), he scrambled out in a woful plight, and ran towards his
pony, which was cropping the scanty herbage that grew among the
blasted pines.  The moment he was mounted, he turned towards us a
face that was ghastly and white with fear and fury; he was minus a
hat, and his grizzled hair hung lank and dripping about his ears.

'Scoundrels!' he cried, 'for this outrage you shall both rot in the
Castle of Inverness.'

'I will not be the only one of my race who has been within its
towers,' said I; 'but they suffered for fighting brave battles on the
mountain side--not for ducking a yelping hound like you.'

In token of vengeance, he shook his clenched hand at us, and galloped
away.  Long before this, the situation of Minnie attracted all our
attention, and excited our wonder and alarm.

'Laoighe mo chri--speak to me--hear me!' implored Callum, kneeling
beside her on the grass and taking her tenderly in his arms.  But she
remained quite insensible and unconscious of all he said to her.

'By what witchcraft did she faint thus?' said Callum--'she, a strong
and healthy girl--so full of life and spirit too!'

'Snaggs spoke of a perfume in his handkerchief.'

'A perfume,' responded the black-browed Celt, grinding his teeth;
'what could it be?'

'Oh--this phial may tell,' said I, picking up a little bottle which
lay on the turf beside Minnie.  It was labelled 'Chloroform.'

'Dioul! what is that?' asked Callum.

'An essence invented by a Lowland physician.  It makes even the
strongest man so insensible for a time, that you might cut off his
leg and draw all his teeth without having the slightest resistance
offered.'

'Insensible!'

'Ay, as a stone; look at our poor Minnie.'

'The unhanged villain!' exclaimed Callum, swelling with new wrath;
'dioul! why did I not gash his throat with my skene as I would have
scored a stag?  He had some dark and sinister end in view; he deemed
Minnie but a poor, ignorant, and unprotected Highland girl, who knew
no language but her native Gaelic, and had no idea of aught beyond
the sides of the glen; but as far as grass grows and wind blows will
I follow and have vengeance on him!'

Minnie recovered slowly and with difficulty: she was sick and had an
overwhelming headache, with such a weakness in all her limbs, that we
were compelled to support, and almost carry her between us to Glen
Ora.  Callum mingled his endearments with muttered threats of
vengeance on Snaggs, and as I knew that he would keep them too, I was
not without anxiety as to the mode in which his wrath might develop
itself.

Two days after this affair, on the application of Mr. Snaggs, the
sheriff of the county granted warrants of removal against every
family in the glen; and these long-dreaded notices of eviction were
duly served in form of law by a messenger-at-arms, in the name of
'Fungus Mac Fee, Esquire, Advocate and Sheriff,' a position that
worthy had gained, after the usual lapse of time spent in sweeping
the Scottish Parliament House with the tail of his gown.

Six days now would seal our doom!

Such was the result of poor Minnie's intercession for her old uncle,
with the admirer of the 'divine Blair.'




CHAPTER XI.

MY MOTHER.

My mother was now so frail, weakened by long illness and by being
almost constantly confined to bed, that I dared not communicate to
her the fatal 'notice,' which had been served on us, in common with
all the people in the glen; but I never hoped that she would remain
long ignorant of the ruin that hovered over all, while the garrulous
old Mhari was daily about her sick-bed.

The moanings and mutterings of that aged crone, together with her
occasional remarks whispered in Gaelic, of course to Minnie, soon
acquainted the poor patient that every door in the glen, including
her own, had been chalked with a mark of terrible significance; and
that the crushed remnant of a brave old race which had dwelt by the
Ora for ages--yea, before the Roman eagles cowered upon the Scottish
frontier--was at last to be swept away.

It gave her a dreadful shock--our fate she knew was fixed: and while
Mhari, Minnie, and the older people of the glen, croaked incessantly
among themselves of the old legend of the Red Priest and 'the curse
he had laid on the stones of the jointure-house,' my mind was a
chaos; for I knew not on what hand to turn, or where to seek a
shelter for my mother's head.  She had her little pension as a
captain's widow--true; but we had so many dependants who clung to us
in the good old Celtic fashion, and for whom our little farm had
furnished subsistence, that to be driven from it was to tear asunder
a hundred tender and long-cherished ties, which few but a Highlander
can comprehend.

A little hope was kindled in my breast, by my foster-brother
reminding me of that which (in the hurry of other thoughts I had
forgotten)--the great annual gathering on the Braes of Loch Ora being
now almost at hand; and that he or I--it mattered not which--might
win one of the handsome prizes which the generosity of Cluny Mac
Pherson, the Laird of Invercauld, and other true Highland gentlemen,
offered to the men of the mountains on such occasions, to foster
their ancient spirit, to develop their hardihood, and excite their
emulation in feats of strength and skill.

'Mother,' I whispered, and stooped over her bed, 'the gathering takes
place in three days--the daughter of the Englishman----'

'Sir Horace--well,' she muttered with a sigh of anger.

'Yes, dear mother--Laura Everingham and her friend, Miss Clavering,
have made up a purse of guineas (some say fifty, others a hundred)
with a silver brooch, for the best rifle-shot, and Callum and I have
sworn to win it if we can.'

'How many better marksmen than either of you have, ere this, sworn
the same thing?'

'But God will aid me, mother.  I will shoot neither with pride nor
with a desire to emulate any one; but to find bread for our starving
household--to satisfy the cravings of the villain Snaggs, and to keep
this roof a little--a very little--longer over your head.'

'And this prize you say----'

'Will, at least, be fifty guineas, mother--think of that.'

'Scorn alike the prize and the donor.'

'The prize I may--but the donor--ah, mother, you know her not; but
think of this money and all it may do, if fairly and honestly won;
how long is it since we saw fifty guineas at once, mother?  It will
pay part of our arrears, and win us a little time, if it cannot win
us mercy from Snaggs and his master.'

I dared not add that I had also in my breast a desire to appear to
advantage before the winning daughter of Sir Horace, and the
lingering hope of eclipsing the holiday Captain Clavering and that
mustachioed popinjay Mr. Snobleigh, who had been rifle-practising
incessantly to gain the ladies' prize.  Yielding to the pressure of
our affairs, and, perhaps, to her inability to argue the point with
me, my mother gave her reluctant consent that I _might compete_.

She was very weak and faint, and before I left her, beckoned me to
kiss her cheek.  Then she burst into tears, and this sorely startled
me--for it was long since I had seen her weep.  Her great lassitude
required composure, and more than all, it required many comforts,
which, in that sequestered district, and with straitened means, she
was compelled to relinquish: thus, when I addressed her now, a time
always elapsed before she could collect her scattered energies to
understand or reply to me.  This prostration of a spirit once so
proud, so fiery and energetic--this emaciation of a form once so
stately and so beautiful, with those gentle hands now so
tremulous--those kind eyes now so sad and sunken, and those weak,
querulous whisperings of affection, with the pallor of that beloved
face, smote heavily on my heart, which was traversed by more than one
sharp pang, as the terrible conviction came upon me, that she could
not be long with us now.  Yet Mhari, Minnie, and Callum Dhu, all
strong in the belief of the legend of the Red Priest of Applecross,
believed that she was perfectly safe while enclosed by the four
charmed walls of the old jointure-house.

'The lamp may flicker,' said Mhari, with a solemn shake of her old
grey head; 'but, please God, it can never go out while we keep it
here.'

Accompanied by Alisdair Mac Gouran, Ian Mac Raonuil, Gillespie Ruadh,
the three patriarchs of the glen, and all the other male inhabitants,
among whom were five-and-twenty sturdy fellows, a few being clad in
tartan, but by far the greater number wearing the coarse dark-blue
homespun coats, ungainly trousers, and broad bonnets of the
peasantry, with four pipers in front (in the Highlands everything
partakes of the warlike), we marched from Glen Ora, and crossing the
shoulder of the great Ben, descended towards the Braes, where the
gathering was to be held, about ten miles distant.  Callum carried my
rifle as well as his own, and his confidence that we would win Laura
Everingham's prize was somewhat amusing; but it arose less from his
certainty of our skill than from the fact of our bullets being cast
in a famous mould or _calme_, of unknown metal, which had belonged to
the father of old Mhari, who was never known to miss his aim.  In
short, it was universally believed in the glen to be enchanted.  All
the glensmen had in their bonnets a tuft of heather and the badge of
Mac Innon, a twig of the mountain pine; and most of them wore the
clan tartan plaid, which is of bright red striped with green.  We
brought with us our own provisions, cheese, bannocks, and whisky,
which last never paid duty to Her Majesty, as the reader may be
assured.

Though my suit of tartans was far from rich or handsome--nay, I might
almost say that it was very plain--it was correct, and with three
feathers of the iolair in my bonnet, and my father's old 42nd's
claymore, having _Biodh treun_--be valiant--inscribed on its blade,
my pistols, horn, skene-dhu and biodag, I marched over the crest of
the hill which shaded our Highland glen with as much pride in my
heart as if all the well-armed Mac Innons that over followed my
fathers of old were behind me; for this native pride, and a glow of
old romance, as a poor Highland gentleman, were all that remained to
me now.

The summer morning was bright and beautiful; the air was fresh and
keen, and we drank it in at every pore; the unclouded sun was in all
his brilliance; the pipes rang loud and clear; and Callum, with three
or four others, sang one of the warlike songs of Ian Lom.  The
gallant coileach-dhu (or black cock) rose before us at times; the
useag sang merrily among the black whin-bushes, and the mountain-bee
and the butterfly skimmed over the purple heatherbells.  My heart
grew light; I forgot for a time that my mother was sick and
dying--that ruin hovered over us; and, boylike, I thought only of the
sports of the day, and the glory of our people carrying off the
prizes on the same green braes where Lachlan Mohr had routed Clan
Dhiarmid an Tuirc in the days of the great Cavalier.

The spirit of those who accompanied me rose also.  Even Ephraim
Snaggs, his notices of eviction, and his legal terrors, were
forgotten.  The veteran Mac Raonuil marched with his head up and his
war-medal glittering, as he told old yarns of the brave Black Watch,
and Callum urged that we, this day, should give place to none; but
remember, that the Mac Innons were the _head_ of the five tribes--the
Mac Gregors, Grants, Mac Nabs and Mac Alpines, who have ever been
linked together in Celtic tradition, as the descendants of five royal
brothers, and are hence known as the Siòl Alpin.  The Highlander
broods over these old memories, and treasures them up as his only
inheritance, and they are his best and highest incentive to noble
daring in the hour of battle, and to kindly emotions of clanship in
the day of peace.

'Blessed,' says Andrew Picken, 'be that spirit of nationality or
clanship, or by whatever name the principle may be called, which
opens up the heart of man to his brother man; and in spite of the
trained selfishness to which he is educated in artificial life, bids
the warm and glorious feeling of sympathy gush forth in circumstances
of sorrow and of trouble, to cheer the drooping heart of the
unfortunate, and prevent his swearing hatred to his own species.'[*]


[*] The Black Watch.




CHAPTER XII.

THE GATHERING.

The day was clear and beautiful; the unclouded sun, I have said,
shone in all his splendour through a summer sky.  The vast
amphitheatre of hills which surround the braes of Loch Ora were
mellowed in the sunny haze, or the silver vapour exhaled from the
little pools of water that dotted all the heath-clad plain.  At the
base of Ben Ora, which towered above the braes, the monarch of all
the adjacent mountains, the gathering took place.  The lower part of
the hill was dotted by a line of snow-white tents and marquees, over
which waved various flags and streamers.  Amid these tents were a
number of carriages; but the horses had been untraced, unbitted, and
were quietly cropping the herbage, or enjoying their feeds of corn in
the background.  A great oval space was formed by the spectators who
had crowded hither from all quarters to witness the games; the tall
ruins of an ancient tower, once the stronghold of the Thanes of Loch
Ora, enclosed one end of this oval; the waters of the dark-blue loch,
rolling up to the base of the mighty mountain, enclosed the other;
and here the red-funnelled steamers from Glasgow, Oban, and
Inverness, were disgorging their passengers in hundreds at every
trip.  The slope of Ben Ora resembled a parterre of flowers, so
varied were the dresses of the ladies.  Fringed parasols of the most
brilliant colours were fluttering on the soft wind; and the blue
sunshades and broad bloomer-hats of the fairer portion of the
assembly, mingled with the wide-awakes, Glengarry bonnets, and those
peculiar tartan caps or crush-hats, which, with the checked coat and
'fast' waistcoat, generally indicate Messrs. Brown, Jones, and
Robinson--the thorough Cockney when touring in the Highlands.
Appetized by the long ride, drive, or march to the Braes, or by the
morning's sail up the sunlit loch, already the merrymakers had begun
to uncork their bottles and unpack their hampers, amid a fund of
laughter, frolics, and nonsense; and white cloths were spread on the
grass, on the roofs of carriages, or any other available place; while
champagne cooled in the mountain stream, and pale Bass, Guinness XX
Dublin stout, _uiskey_, cold grouse, veal and venison pies, tongue,
fowl, milk-punch, ices, hock, and seltzer-water, with all other
accessories for pic-nicking were in requisition.  In other places
were knots or groups of Highlanders, talking in guttural Gaelic,
laughing or croaking over their ills, or drinking toasts--'up with
horn, and down with corn'--'the mountains and valleys,' &c., while
troops of children, bare-headed and bare-legged, swarmed and
gambolled about them, filling the air with shrill and strange cries
of delight.

Among the _élite_ of the company was a stately duchess, whose family
have long been notorious in the annals of cruelty and eviction; and
whose glens have been swept of thousands of brave men, after the
artifices of an infamous factor, the oppression of the game-laws, the
destruction of the kelp manufacture, the slaughter of the flower of
the clans in the Peninsular war, and other Highland evils, had driven
the people to starvation and despair!  There were present also a
couple of chattering countesses, and many old ladies, whose pedigrees
were considerably longer than their purses; but who, nevertheless,
deemed themselves the prime patronesses of the gathering, as they
usually were of the Northern Meeting.  Flounced, feathered, and
jewelled, with clan tartan scarfs, they regarded with just and due
condescension the crowds of richly-dressed and handsome South-country
women, many of whom were attired _à outrance_, complete in elegance
and fashion from bonnet and bracelet to their kid shoes.  These, our
decayed Highland tabbies regarded with the good-nature which
generally falls to the lot of such wallflowers, who may, as Swift has
it--

  "Convey a libel in a frown,
  Or wink a reputation down;
  Or by the tossing of a fan,
  Describe the lady and the man."


Among the _élite_ of the male sex were various holiday warriors
attired in gorgeous clan tartans.  Some were distinguished by one
eagle's feather in the bonnet, marking the gentleman; others by two,
indicating the chieftain; but very few by _three_, the badge of a
_chief_.  The principal of the latter, was the Most Noble the Marquis
of Drumalbane, Admiral of the Western Isles and Western Coast of
Scotland--one whose forefathers had led their thousands to the field,
and from whose glens our most splendid Highland regiments had marched
to many a torrid clime and bloody victory; but whose vast territories
were now a deathlike waste, where nothing was heard but the bleat of
the sheep and the whistle of the curlew.  In Glenarchai alone, this
enterprising exterminator had converted thirty thousand acres into a
hunting-forest.  He was attended--_not_ by a thousand brave men in
arms--but by a few puny footmen and Lowland gamekeepers attired as
Highlanders, and a few gentlemen who wore in their bonnets the
eagle's wing, and carried at their necks each a silver key, as
captains of certain ruined fortresses among the mountains of the West
Highlands.

The varied tartans and magnificent appointments of these holiday
Highlanders had a barbaric and picturesque effect.  Their belts and
buckles, jewelled daggers and pistols, snow-white sporrans, tasselled
with silver or gold, their brooches studded by Scottish topazes and
amethysts, and all their paraphernalia of mountain chivalry, flashed
and sparkled in the noonday sun; while long bright ribbons and little
banneroles of every colour streamed from the ebony drones of more
than a hundred war-pipes.

Beside these gay duinewassals, the poor men of Glen Ora seemed but a
troop of reapers or fishermen; but we stepped not the less proudly,
because to the same march with which our pipers woke the echoes of
the hills, our fathers had thrice left Glentuirc to sweep the
Campbells of Breadalbane from Rannoch and Lochaber to the gates of
Kilchurn.

In this epoch of civilization and ridicule, when even patriotism,
religion, and love are made a jest, the reader may smile at these
references to a past, and what we _conventionally_ deem a barbarous
age; but a mountaineer never forgets that the brave traditions of
other times are ever his best incentive to heroic enterprise and
purity of thought.

In the centre of the vast oval formed by the spectators, tents, and
carriages, lay the sledge-hammers, the uprooted cabers, the
putting-stones, cannon-balls, broad-swords, targets, and other
appurtenances of the games.

On halting and dispersing my followers, my first impulse was to scan
the crowd for Miss Everingham, now that I could appear before her in
my proper character, and to better advantage than I had hitherto
done; and just as the sports were beginning, I saw the baronet's
four-in-hand drag, the team of which, the showy Captain Clavering
handled in first-rate style, come sweeping round the base of the
hill, with its varnished wheels and embossed harness flashing in the
sun; the captain, whose costume was most accurate, from his
well-fitting white kid gloves to his glazed boots, adroitly halted it
in the most central and conspicuous place.  I was standing close by
where he reined up, and then the _sense_ of Laura's presence made my
heart beat violently, while my colour came and went again.  No notice
was taken of me for some time by the party of well-dressed
fashionables who crowded the drag, till the studied respect shown to
me by the peasantry, not one of whom passed or approached me without
vailing his bonnet, attracted the attention of Sir Horace, who was
quietly surveying the _canaille_ through a double-barrelled
lorgnette.  He then gave me a formal bow and conventional smile, but
barely condescended to notice, even by a glance, my foster-brother
Callum Dhu; but for whom (as Callum himself said,) 'the red
tarr-dhiargan had been then perhaps nestling among his hair at the
bottom of Loch Ora.'

Near the carriage-steps stood Mr. Jeames Toodles in all the splendour
of red plush investments for his nether-man, and spotless white
stockings on his curved but ample calves.  He bore a gold-headed cane
and an enormous bouquet, and from time to time cast furtive glances
at Callum Dhu, who, being armed to the teeth, he deemed little better
than a cannibal or Tchernemoski Cossack.

Snobleigh--we beg pardon--Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh--who
cantered up on a dashing bay mare, languidly gave me the tips of his
fingers, with a dreamy 'aw--how aw you--glad to see you old
fellow--any noos to-day?'  But Clavering, who had more of the soldier
about him, shook me heartily by the hand, examined the lock and
barrel of my rifle, and praised the piece; then he turned to his
sister and Miss Everingham, both of whom greeted me in a manner so
winning and gay, that even the heart of my mother, encrusted as it
was by old Highland prejudices, would have been won.

I still remember how my heart throbbed when Laura's soft and velvet
hand touched mine; for her glove was off, and then the little white
fingers on which the diamonds were flashing, rested on the window of
the carriage.

'And _you_ mean to shoot for my prize to-day!' said she, while her
sunny eyes danced with youth and pleasure; 'how kind of you to honour
us so far as to compete for the purse which Fanny and I have made up.
We hope you will prove victorious--indeed, we are quite certain that
you will, Mr. Mac Innon.'

'_Mr._ to the head of the Siol Alpine!' growled Callum, under his
thick black beard.

I pardoned her that prefix, which always jars on a Celtic ear, for
her good wishes were so warmly and so prettily expressed.

Alas! how little she knew the agony that was gnawing my heart, under
an exterior so calm.  How little could she conceive the breathless
eagerness with which Callum and I longed to win this wretched
prize--an eagerness fired by no spirit of rivalry; but by an honest
desire to keep a crumbling roof above the head of my dying
mother--for a very little longer.  And away over the dun mountains,
far from this gay scene of mirth and sunshine, my heart wandered to
that little darkened room where she was lying in a half-torpid state,
with pretty Minnie reading or knitting beside her, and old Mhari
creeping and creaking about her bed on tiptoe.

Laura Everingham knew nothing of all this, and she looked so pretty
in her white crape bonnet, with her sunny English smile, her blooming
cheek reddened by our healthy Scottish breeze, that I deemed her all
the happier in her ignorance of the misery her presence--or, at
least, the presence and the projects of her father, were about to
work among the old race of Glen Ora.  Young, ardent, and
enthusiastic, could I fail to be flattered by her notice, pleased by
the preference which her good wishes inferred, and dazzled by her
beauty?--for I will uphold that her mere prettiness became absolute
_beauty_, when one knew more of Laura, and learned to appreciate her
goodness and worth.

'When will the games begin, Fanny?  I am so impatient,' said Laura;
'look at that love of a horse--he eats corn from the groom's hand;
and see, Clavering, such a pet of a bonnet on that old thing's head.
Who is she--does anybody know?  Of course they will, for every one in
the Highlands knows every one else.  But who would expect to find
such bonnets in Scotland?  Who is that handsome fellow in the green
uniform, with the enormous gold epaulettes--a Russian officer?'

'No,' answered Fanny, with a droll smile, 'he is only an archer of
the Queen's Scotch body-guard, who is to shoot for a prize to-day.
From the care with which his whiskers are curled, I will take heavy
odds that _he_ don't win.'

'And that tall handsome fellow with the black beard--oh such a love
of a beard it is!  Heavens, it is the man who saved my dear papa's
life!'

'He is my foster-brother, Miss Everingham; he, too, means to compete
for your prize.'

'Aw--the fellow seems so strong that he might squeeze the wataw out
of a whinstone; and aw--aw, as for tossing that fwightful
cabaw--goodness gwacious!' yawned the languid A. F. Snobleigh,
surveying the six feet and odd inches of Callum through his eyeglass.

'He is quite a model of a man, Laura,' said Fanny Clavering; 'I would
marry him in a moment if he would have me.  He looks so like----'

'What we read of in romances.'

'A bandit--a wild mountain robber--and I have always thought it would
be so exciting, so delightful to marry a real robber, and be the
bride of a real bandit or corsair--oh, I should love a corsair of all
things, especially if his bark were a fine steam yacht, we should
have such delightful pic-nics among the Greek Isles, and trips to the
garrison balls at Corfu!'

'You perceive, Miss Everingham,' said Captain Clavering, laughing,
while he smoothed his unparalleled white kid gloves, 'our noisy Fanny
has a strong love for the charms of nature in an unsophisticated
state.  Hence her rapture at the long whiskers and bare legs of these
Highlandmen.'

The cold, artificial, and aristocratic Sir Horace, whom the gold of
his father, who died a wealthy Manchester millionaire and docile
ministerialist, had made a baronet and king of our Highland glen,
received all who approached his carriage with the same bow, the same
smile, the same welcome, and nearly the same set of stereotyped
phrases, good wishes and warm inquiries; and thus he graciously
received his facile and obnoxious factor and factotum, Mr. Snaggs,
who had been delayed by the ceremony of founding a new dissenting
chapel, and who now galloped up on his barrel-bellied and knock-kneed
pony, which he rode with a huge crupper and creaking saddle.  A dark,
almost savage scowl flitted for a moment across the usually placid
and affectedly benign visage of 'the moralist,' and admirer of Blair,
as our piper Ewen Oig passed and repassed him, playing the march of
Black Donald; and then he smiled with malicious triumph, as if
anticipating that day now so near at hand, when the war-pipe of Mac
Innon would be hushed for ever by the shores of the Western Sea.

I exchanged a glance full of deep and bitter import, with the calm,
stern, and stately Callum Dhu; then we withdrew a little way, for the
vicinity of this man's presence was hateful to us, and now, amid a
buzz of tongues began the great business of the gathering--a
gathering summoned to foster the nationality of a people, whom the
grasping aristocracy are leaving nothing undone to exterminate and
destroy.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE STONE OF STRENGTH.

Having many of my own adventures to relate, I will confine my
narrative chiefly to the achievements of those in whom I am most
interested--the men of Glen Ora; and even in that I must be brief.
In all those athletic sports, which in time of peace were of old, and
are still the principal amusements of the Gael, there were many stout
and hardy competitors; but Callum's known fame for strength and
agility, together with his cool and confident air and graceful
bearing, made them all dubious of victory, yet there were on the
ground the flower of that poor remnant, who now represent the once
powerful clans of the West.

Young Ewen Oig, the most handsome lad in our glen, elicited a burst
of applause, and won the first prize for the sword dance, a species
of Pyrrhic measure, performed over the crossed blades of two
claymores; and he was also the victor of the dangerous Geal-ruith or
race up hill, when nearly twenty strong and active Celts, hardy and
swift as mountain deer, flung their belts, bonnets, and plaids on the
ground, and with their kilts girdled tightly about them, started in a
line at full speed up the steep slope of the Craig-na-tuirc, for the
goal, a rough misshapen block that marked the scene of some forgotten
conflict.

In the broadsword and target exercise the old men bore away the palm,
for these warlike accomplishments are disused by the young; but, for
the dangerous feat of swinging the sledge-hammer and tossing a long
iron bar fairly over-end-long, by one turn of the foot, the silver
medals were bestowed on Gillespie Ruadh; while the victor of the
Clach-neart, or _stone of strength_,--one of which in the days of old
usually lay at the door of every chief, that he might test the muscle
of his followers, was Callum Dhu, who flung it a full yard and more,
beyond the most powerful champions of the adjacent glens and clans.

Then came the play with the Clach-cuid-fir, a more serious test of
strength.

In the centre of that great arena, formed by the circle of wondering
and excited spectators, lay two stones, one of which was a square
block about four feet high; the other was smaller and weighed two
hundred and fifty pounds in weight.  This was the _clach_.  In the
Highlands, he who could lift the lesser and place it on the larger
block was esteemed _a man_, and entitled from thenceforward to wear a
bonnet.  Though much disused in general, this severe Celtic feat had
still been remembered and practised by the men who dwelt in our
remote districts; but as most of those who came with me were youths
whose energies were scarcely developed, or old men whose strength was
beginning to fail, Callum Dhu alone advanced to the clach-cuid-fir,
and, taking off his bonnet, bowed to the people, in token that he
challenged all men present to the essay.

His air, his garb, his bare muscular limbs, his stately port, erected
head and ample chest, gave him the aspect of one of the athletæ of
the Roman games.  Thrice he waved his bonnet in token of challenge to
the people, and though a murmur of admiration greeted him, there was
no other response.  At his neck hung a brass miraculous medal and
little crucifix, for Callum had been reared a Catholic, and these he
carefully adjusted before he began.  Every eye and opera-glass were
fixed upon him, while grasping the ponderous clach, and with a
simple, but scarcely perceptible effort, he raised and placed it
gently on the summit of the greater block.

For a moment the people paused as if they had each and all held in
their breath, and then a loud, long and hearty plaudit made the sunny
welkin ring: and my breast expanded with honest pride in Callum's
strength and prowess.

'Heavens--such a love of a man!' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, with
astonishment and delight sparkling in her beautiful eyes.

'Regulaw brick--aw!' added her cavalier, Mr. Snobleigh, whose glass
was wedged in his right eye.

'Egad!' exclaimed Captain Clavering, with honest English warmth and
admiration; 'this is the mettle of which the Scots make their
Highland regiments.'

'Such were our men, sir,' said I, bowing; 'but there are few now
between Lochness and Lochaber, who could perform a feat like this.'

'The greater is the cause of regret.'

'Now, Callum,' said I, 'let us have no more of this.  You have tasked
your strength enough for one day--and remember you have long been
weak and ailing.'

'I have been struggling to give pride and pleasure to Minnie, and if
I conquer, 'tis as much for her sake as for yours, Mac Innon.  She
pinned this cockade on my bonnet when I left her, and reminding me of
the former prizes I had won, smiled on me, as she alone can smile;
for Minnie is the fairest flower on the banks of the Ora.  But what
seeks this red-legged partridge here?' he continued, in Gaelic.

This was applied to the valet of Sir Horace, Mr. Jeames Toodles, who,
notwithstanding the splendour of his livery, his red plush nether
habiliments, laced hat and heraldic buttons, approached timidly to
say, that 'Sir 'Orace vished that ere thingumbob lifted again, if the
gentlemen had no objections.'

Callum gave the liveryman a withering glance, and touching his bonnet
to the ladies, pushed the clach off the lower block with one hand.

'Oh, papa,' exclaimed Miss Everingham, 'how can you be so cruel as to
ask this?  Don't you see that the poor man looks quite faint, after
all he has done already?'

'Never mind,' said the baronet, from his well-stuffed carriage; 'up
with it again, my man, and here is a sovereign for you!'

While something like an emotion of rage and humiliation made the eyes
of my fosterer flash fire, he snatched up the ponderous clach, and
after poising it aloft for a moment, while he trembled in every limb,
while every muscle and fibre strained and stood like cords and wires
of iron, and while the perspiration oozed from every opening pore, he
dashed it down upon the lower block, and shivered it into fifty
fragments.

I saw that he was deathly pale, when Mr. Jeames Toodles approached
him with the sovereign, but whether in anger, or that his strength
had been wantonly overtasked, I know not--probably both.  Disdaining
to touch the coin, the poor half-starved fox-hunter said to the
valet, with a glance of quiet contempt--

'Put that in your pocket, my friend, and thank your master for me.
Dioul!' he added, in Gaelic, 'does this man think to pay us like
English rope-dancers, or the fellow who squeaks in Punch's box at the
fair?  Air Dhia! we have not yet come to that!'

'You are a noble fellow,' exclaimed Fanny Clavering, patting his
brawny shoulder with her pretty hand, while her fine eyes sparkled;
'I shall never--never forget you.'

'Miss Clavering,' said Sir Horace, coldly; 'you forget yourself.'

Then came the tossing of the caber--a tree which is cut short off by
the roots, and must be balanced by a man in the palms of his hands,
and which he must toss completely round in the air, so that it may
fall endlong in a direct line from him.  In this feat, none ever
excelled a little tribe named the Mac Ellars, who for more than a
thousand years had resided in Glen-tuirc; but about twelve months
before this time, they had been expelled with great cruelty by
Snaggs.  Their huts were burned down, and several persons who were
old and bedridden, were wounded--three mortally--by the soldiers from
Fort Augustus.  These had been ordered to fire through the thatched
roofs to force the people out, after which the whole were driven at
the bayonet's point to the sea-shore, where they were ironed and
embarked on board the famous evicting ship, the _Duchess_, which
awaited them at Isle Ornsay, to convey the whole tribe to the nearest
port of the American coast; so, when the caber was carried to-day,
the strong hands that were wont to toss it high aloft, amid the
honest shouts that woke the rocky echoes of Ben Ora, were now
assisting to clear the vast forests of that Far West, where the sun
of the clans is sinking.




CHAPTER XIV

THE SEVEN BULLETS.

Now came the rifle-shooting, which deserves an entire chapter to
itself.  The first prize was no less than a hundred sovereigns; the
second was fifty.

Laura Everingham and Fanny Clavering had constituted themselves the
patronesses of this feat of skill; but though the purses, on the
acquisition of which the whole energies of Callum and myself were
devoted--in no spirit of vain-glory, as I have said, but goaded on by
the spur of sheer adversity--was made up by them and their female
friends; yet Fanny by her air and bearing, her energy, in short by
the very noise she made, assumed the supreme direction of affairs;
thus the gentler Laura, in her little white crape bonnet and lace
shawl, seemed a mere appendage to her beautiful, brilliant, and 'Di
Vernon' looking friend.

Fanny was a free and dashing girl, with whom _you_ must have fallen
in love, my bachelor friend, for she was one who made herself
everywhere as much at home as the fly in your sugar-basin.  She wore
a broad hat and feather, which gave a piquancy to her fine eyes and
expressive features.  She had on a dark green riding-habit, with
yellow gauntlets, and carried a gold-headed switch.  She was a showy
girl--the pet of the Household Brigade, and the counterpart of her
brother the Guardsman, only a little more merry, and much more
wilful.  She was a good horsewoman, and rode hurdle-races and
steeple-chases; a good hand at whist, rather a sharp stroke at
billiards, and would deliberately sweep up the pool with the
prettiest white hands in the world.  She waltzed divinely, was
considered glorious in a two-handed flirtation, or private
theatricals, where she shone to admiration as 'Di Vernon,' or the
'Rough Diamond.'  Fanny could make up a good book on the Oaks, and
had always a shrewd guess as to the winner of the Derby; she had the
Army List and the Peerage at her taper finger-ends, and knew all the
last novels and music as if they had been her own composition.  Once
upon a time she was nearly riding herself for the Chester Cup; and
those who peddled and punted at mere county races, she despised as
heartily as if she belonged to the Hussars or the Oxford Blues.  In
short, Fanny knew everything from the Deluge to the deux-temps, and
from the misfortunes in the Crimea to the mystery of
crochet--moreover, a word in your ear, my dear reader, our charming
friend had some thousand pounds per annum in her own right, and
'expectations' without end.

She had urged the more timid and retiring Laura to club their prize
for the rifle-shooting; and now she appeared on the ground with a
smart grooved rifle in her hands, to compete with all comers, on the
part of herself and of the shrinking Laura, who had never laid her
little hand upon a fire-arm in her life, and begged to be excused
doing so now.

About thirty Highlanders, armed with rifles, crowded near her, but
respectfully waited until Mr. Snaggs, whom she had requested to
assist her, called over their names as they stood on the list, and to
each as he stepped forward, the factor somewhat ostentatiously handed
a--religious tract.

Meanwhile, Captain Clavering, Mr. Snobleigh (who wore a green
sporting-coat with bronze buttons, on each of which was a fox's
head), Callum Dhu, Ewen Oig, a few more privileged persons, and I,
remained by her side, and now all the spectators pressed forward with
interest to witness the shooting.

Callum and I were wont to shoot deer running, at four hundred yards,
and to pierce a potato when tossed into the air, using spherical
rifle-balls; thus we had little doubt of our success; but we meant to
challenge the holiday huntsmen of the Lowlands to a trial of skill
they little thought of.

The shooting proceeded with great spirit and rapidity, and it was
admirable, for all the competitors were expert sportsmen.  The
targets were of iron, placed against the wall of the ruined tower, in
a place which was sheltered from the wind, and afforded a long and
level range.  We shot at five hundred yards, and though the average
was six balls out of twelve, put into a six-foot target, Callum,
whose hands shook after tossing the caber, struck the nail on the
head at two hundred yards; and Ewen Oig, I, and other Highlanders,
easily put each, eight consecutive sphero-conical balls into the
target, at an average of four inches from the bull's-eye; and at one
hundred and eighty yards broke every quart-bottle that was placed
before us.

There was a deliberation in the air of Callum Dhu that confounded the
competitors.  After squibbing his rifle, he carefully measured the
charge of powder, poured it slowly down the barrel which he held
straight and upright; then he moistened the wadding, poised the
bullet thereon, setting it fairly in with his forefinger and thumb,
and then he drove it firmly home.  Then he capped, cocked, and
placing the butt-plate square against the top-arm muscle, levelled
surely and firmly to prevent the rifle from 'kicking.'  A moment his
keen bright hazel eye glanced along the sites, and while, impressed
by these grave preparations, all held their breath, he fired with a
deadly precision that none could surpass.

Clavering struck the bull's-eye thrice in succession at two hundred
yards: but his shooting was not to be compared to ours; and we were
greeted by bursts of applause in which he joined loudly, for he was a
fine, frank and honest-hearted fellow.

'This beats everything I have met with, Miss Everingham,' said he,
with great delight; 'I have seen the Cockneys shooting at Chalk
Farm--the Chasseurs at Vincennes and the Jagers at Frankfort, where
ten targets were shot as fast as the markers could work; but these
Highland marksmen beat them hollow, and this is in a land where the
game-laws say the tenant shall not have a gun.  Old Leather-stocking,
with his boasted Killdeer, could do nothing like this.'

'All skill and practice, my dear sir,' suggested Mr. Snaggs, who had
repeatedly been solacing himself by quiet sneers at Highlanders in
general, and myself in particular; 'to allow tenants the use of guns
would only lead to poaching and vice, "which," sayeth the trite
Quarles, "is its own punishment."'

It was unanimously agreed that Callum and I were the victors of that
day's shooting.  Elated by the prospect of winning the prize, and
feeling happy that I would thereby be honestly enabled to relieve, to
a certain extent, the troubles of a sick and aged parent, after a
moment's conference with Callum, I turned to Captain Clavering,
saying,

'We have shot at your targets placed at five hundred yards, and were
ready to have done so, had they been placed at a thousand yards, if
our rifles had been furnished with telescope sights.  We will now
challenge _you_ to a trial of skill, which may be new to you--with
seven solid sugar-loaf balls shot from thirty-six inch rifled
barrels.'

'Agreed,' said the Captain: 'I have shot a deer running at nearly
five hundred yards, and have no fear.'

'Ewen Oig, bring our targets and hang one over the battlement of the
tower,' said I to the young piper, who was the son of Gillespie
Ruadh, and was lithe, nimble, and active.  He took one of the small
white targets we had brought with us from Glen Ora, and which
measured about three feet square, and bore, in black line upon it,
the figure of a cross.  With this he scrambled to the summit of the
ruined tower, a daring feat, as it was more than seventy feet in
height, and there he fixed it firmly by means of a hammer, nails, and
holdfasts.  We now approached within two hundred yards, and
challenged the competitors two and two, to put _seven_ bullets
successively into the lines of the cross which measured two feet one
way by one the other.

The impatient Mr. Snobleigh fired and missed.  'You keep your head
too high, sir,' said Callum; 'thus, in firing, your line of vision
does not follow the line of the barrel, and yours is rather more than
thirty-six inches in length.'

Clavering fired twice, and twice splintered the edge of the target.
All their other bullets were flattened like lichens on the castle
wall, and he and Snobleigh drew back, muttering something about the
unusual height and range.

Fanny now came forward with her smart rifle, which was decorated by
ribbons, and which Snobleigh had loaded for her; she, and some one
else, fired seven bullets between them, and one only struck the lower
verge of the little target.

'Now, sirs,' said she to Callum and me; 'it is your turn'--but Callum
lowered his rifle and drew back, 'What is the matter, sir?'

'I cannot contend with a lady,' said he, doffing his bonnet, 'and
more than all, with one who is among the fairest in the land.'

'Shoot, shoot, I command you!' said Fanny, while her dark eyes
flashed with girlish triumph at Callum's honest admiration of her
great beauty.

'Your will is a law to me, madam.  My chief and I will fire by
turn--he, four balls, and I, three; and here I must give place to
him.  Had your hand been as powerful as your eye, Miss Clavering, we
had but little chance of victory to-day.'

'I told you he was a love of a man, Laura,' whispered Fanny to her
friend, the charm of whose presence was for ever in my mind, and I
was fired by an ambition to outshine the perfumed Snobleigh--he who
owned a park and hall in Yorkshire, a house "in town," another in
Paris; a stud at Tattersall's, a yacht at Cowes, a shooting-box on
the Grampians, and a commission in the Foot Guards--while I--what did
I own? only my father's name, with the poor inheritance of Highland
pride, and the dreams of other days.

'We shall see if these boasting Celts can perform this fine feat
themselves,' sneered Mr. Snaggs, as he adjusted his spectacles and
came fussily forward.

'Factor,' whispered Callum in his deep voice, 'the breast of the
villain who thought to outrage my Minnie is smaller than that target,
yet my ball may reach it some day, _on the lone hillside, at a
thousand yards_!'

Snaggs grew pale, as if the death-shot was ringing in his ears.  As I
levelled my rifle, the betting began.  I fired and placed the ball in
the black line at the very head of the cross.  Then Callum stepped
forward.

'Fifty to one, he hits the black line,' said Clavering.

'Aw--done--I take you--cool hundred if you like,' drawled Snobleigh,
betting-book in hand!

'It is done, by Jove; right through the target!'

'Lend me the telescope.'

'I could hit the medal on your breast at half the distance, Captain
Clavering,' said Callum, as he fired again.

'Thank you, my fine fellow; I would rather you found another mark.
Bravo! in the very centre of the cross!' continued Clavering, who was
looking at the target through his telescope.

Then I fired again, and lodged my bullet in the black line, a little
lower down, and so we discharged our seven bullets, planting them all
fairly until the cruciform arrangement was complete, thus--

     *
   * * *
     *
     *
     *

Then Ewen Oig, wild with excitement, sprang again to the summit of
the tower, wrenched away the target, and it was carried round the
field, with the pipes playing before it, while we, by three hearty
bursts of applause, were hailed the victors of the shooting-butts.

'By Jove,' exclaimed Clavering, 'I wish I could do this!'

'So you might, Captain, easily, if your bullets had been cast in the
same mould.'

'How--what do you mean?'

'In the mould of old Mhari's father, the forester of Coille-tor.'

'The deuce! you don't mean to say they are charmed,' said the
Captain, laughing; 'enchanted--bewitched?'

'Perhaps they are, and perhaps they are not.  I say nothing; but I
wounded the white stag with one.'

'Ha, ha, ha! capital--I like this!' exclaimed Clavering.

'Der Freischutz in the North--a second Hans Rudner,' said Laura
Everingham; 'but the prizes are undoubtedly theirs.'

'By Jove, how a few such fellows would have picked off the Russians
from the rifle-pits!'

'And this victor is our quiet-looking Allan Mac Innon,' said Laura,
her eyes beaming with a pleasure that intoxicated me.

'He is a regular trump!' added the Captain, with manly honesty,
although he had been beaten.

'He looks so calm and demure,' continued Miss Everingham, 'no one
would have thought it was--it was----'

'It was in him,' suggested Clavering, squibbing off his rifle; 'why
don't you become a soldier, Mac Innon--there is good stuff in
you--'pon my soul, I like you immensely! don't _you_, Miss
Everingham?'

At this absurd question, Laura coloured to her temples, and grew pale
again.

'Well--aw,' began Mr. Snobleigh, who looked irritated and
discomfited; 'I aw--nevaw saw such shooting certainly--beats
Jerningham of ours, and he as the world knows, was
matched--aw--aw--twenty-five pigeons--aw--against you, Clavering, for
fifty sovereigns a-side; but I'll back these 'Ighland fellows against
all England--aw.'

Now came the most exciting and, to me, humiliating part of the
proceedings--the distribution of the first and second prizes for
shooting.

Though poor, crushed and bruised by biting poverty, I could not,
without an emotion of shame, accept the hundred sovereigns from the
hand of Laura Everingham, and decline the more suitable gift of a
silver cup, which was the alternative, in the case of a gentleman
being the victorious competitor!  Now in my inmost heart I felt that
a poor and proud gentleman was the most miserable of all God's
creatures.  Clavering's words, 'why don't you become a soldier?' were
ever in my ears; but the thought of my old and dying parent, of whom
I was the only prop and stay, stifled the more fiery energy that rose
within me; and as we drew near the little covered platform, where the
_élite_ of the spectators were grouped around that beautiful but
stony-hearted Duchess, the canting Marquis, the two Countesses, Sir
Horace and others of their privileged order, I felt my spirit sink as
if I was a very slave.

Here also stood Mr. Ephraim Snaggs, bearing on a silver salver two
purses beautifully embroidered.  One was by the hands of Miss
Everingham, and contained the hundred sovereigns; the other was by
her friend, and contained the fifty.

While crimsoned by mortification, I heard my name pronounced, and
found myself before Sir Horace, who, as the newspapers said, "in a
choice, neat, and appropriate speech," duly emphasised in the true
Oxford fashion, announced that I was _the_ victor of _the_
shooting-match, and entitled to _the_ first prize--my companion to
_the_ second.

To accept this money seemed to me, educated as I had been by my proud
and haughty mother, the very acme of shame and humiliation; but, at
that bitter moment, I saw her in fancy stretched on her bed of
sickness, wan with illness and with age, and about to be forcibly
evicted at the stern behest of the very donor of this wretched
coin--the curse of men, and cause of all their crime and misery.  But
for her sake I would gladly have scattered the money among the poor
Celts who crowded round us, with exultation in their eyes, "that Mac
Innon himself and no Sassenagh," was the victor; but I mastered my
emotion; the Lowlander's proverb, _he yat tholis overcomes_, flashed
upon my memory, and while my cheek burned with a fever heat, I
received the purse from the hand of Laura Everingham, and again her
soft touch gave me a thrill that went straight to my swollen heart.

With all a woman's quickness she divined the source of my emotion,
and said tremulously,

'Mr. Mac Innon, you have, I think, some reluctance in accepting this
prize; if you would prefer the silver cup, I am sure that dear
papa----'

'No, no, madam; a thousand thanks for your generous delicacy;
but--but the money----'

'Will be more acceptable,' added Mr. Snaggs, spitefully.  'We have a
proverb among us in Scotland, my dear Miss Everingham, anent "leaving
a legacy to Mac Gregor."  Mr. Mac Innon is a Highlander, and
possesses, I have no doubt, an accurate idea of the value of the
current coin of these kingdoms.'

'Aw--aw,' drawled the vacant Snobleigh, taking his cue from the
factor, and whom I heard though he spoke in a whisper, for my sense
of hearing was painfully acute, 'I always thought this young fellow
wondawfully well behaved for a Scotsman, but aw--aw--with all his
cussed pwide and politeness he has taken your tin, Laura.'

My breast heaved--I felt the fire flashing in my eyes, and I glared
at Snaggs with fury, while the impulse to dirk or shoot him rose
within me.

'Ephraim Snaggs--liar, coward, and hypocrite, utter but another taunt
or jeer, and I will strangle you like the dog you are!' I exclaimed
in a voice so hoarse with passion, that Laura shrunk from me in
terror, while I emptied the hundred sovereigns from the purse into my
right hand, and flung them in a golden shower among the crowd, a
startling and unexpected manoeuvre, which was immediately imitated by
Callum, who tossed his fifty into the air; and thus in a moment we
were as poor and as desperate as when the shooting began.

While the crowd scrambled for the money among the grass, a murmur--a
cry of astonishment had risen, on all sides, and then silence
succeeded.

'What the devil do you mean, fellow, by refusing the money?' asked
Sir Horace, who seemed highly irritated that Callum should presume to
imitate his master.

'Because I did not come here for money.'

'For what then?'

'Honour--like my chief and fosterer Mac Innon.'

'Honour?' reiterated the incredulous baronet, coolly surveying
through his glass the erect figure of the tattered huntsman, from his
bonnet to his brogues.  'Oho, of course you have a pedigree like a
Welshman, beginning with Adam and ending with yourself.'

'In that case it might be no better than your own; but I am come of a
long line of brave men, whose shoes, the son of a Manchester baronet,
rich though he be, is not worthy to tie.'

The claret-reddened cheeks of Sir Horace grew pale at this fierce
hit, while the stately duchess, the two _passé_ countesses, and all
the Highland tabbies of 'good family,' exchanged significant and
self-satisfied smiles.  The baronet was about to make an impetuous
rejoinder, when Clavering said,--

'Sir Horace do, I beg of you, respect the feelings of these people,
whose peculiar temper and ideas you cannot understand.'

'Papa, papa!' urged his startled daughter.

'You speak English well--devilish well, indeed, for a Highlander,'
said Sir Horace loftily, gulping down his anger; 'how is this?'

'I am all unused to answer questions that are asked in such tones,
yet I will satisfy you.'

'Do, for never did I meet an ignorant gilly who spoke so proudly to
me.'

'A gilly I am, but _not_ an ignorant one, Sir Horace.  Thanks be to
God, and to good Father Hamish Cameron, who now sleeps in his grave
in the Scottish church at Valladolid, I can read and write, and do a
little more.  I am thus unlike the poor people round me, who are
oppressed and destroyed, without knowing why and wherefore the land
of their fathers, so dear to their hearts, is made a hunting-field
for the dissipated and the idle of the south country, while they are
driven from starvation to exile--we, the Gael, who since the Union
have led the van of Britain's bloodiest battles.  But I know that our
enthusiasm, our traditions, and our ties of clanship seem mere trash
and absurdity to such as you, Sir Horace--a cold-blooded
conventionalist and man of the world.  I have learned to be aware
that the game-laws, the loss of the kelp trade, misgovernment, and
centralization are the curses of the Highlands--all this I know,
though I am but a half-lettered gilly!  I know a black-hearted
villain when I see one, Mr. Snaggs, and I know a pampered tyrant when
I speak to one, Sir Horace, and so _failte air an duinnewassal!_ let
us go Mac Innon.'

Sir Horace gave us a glance full of spite and anger; he felt that a
peasant had dared to lecture him before a multitude; but now we
marched off with our pipes playing, leaving the crowd of fashionables
staring after us in astonishment, while the more ignoble mob still
hunted for the scattered gold among the grass.

'We have done right and well, Callum Dhu,' said I; 'but think of my
poor mother and of the eviction notices?'

'Your mother--ay, poor lady--there the dirk enters my heart.'

'If moved, she dies.'

'Nothing but the prediction of the Red Priest can save her now,' said
Callum, lowering his voice, 'unless we defend the house by
musket-shot, for if she passes its walls, she will die like the wife
of Angus and your great-grandmother, the wife of Lachlan Mohr.'




CHAPTER XV.

THE SIXTH DAY.

We marched bravely and with pipes playing, while we were within sight
of the crowds assembled on the green braes at the foot of the
stupendous Ben; but as soon as we had crossed the shoulder of the
mountain, and begun to descend into that beautiful valley from which
we were all about to be expelled, our spirit sank and the wild notes
of Ewen's _Piob Mohr_ died away, while dejected and silent, or
communing only in low and foreboding whispers, the men of our fated
tribe approached their humble homes.

The aged, the women, and the little ones came forth to meet and to
welcome with acclamations, and outstretched arms the victors of the
different games.  The crest-fallen bearing of Black Callum and myself
led them at first to suppose what they had hitherto believed to be
impossible and incredible, that we hail been beaten at rifle-shooting
'by the strangers.'

When I left the glen that morning, all my thoughts were bent on
victory, and I saw only one thing in the world--a black spot on a
white target; but _now_ the blue eyes of Laura Everingham were ever
before me, in all their variety and beauty of expression.

My mother's feeble voice fell sadly and reproachfully on my ear as I
entered her chamber, and Minnie, drawing back the curtains, revealed
the thin and aged form that seemed to be passing like a shadow from
among us.

'You have won the prize, my dear boy, Allan?'

'Yes, mother.'

Her eyes were bent in love and sorrow on me.  Oh, how full my heart
was at that moment!

'A hundred guineas, Allan--think of that!'

'And Callum won the second prize,' said Minnie, with a timid blush of
pleasure.

'Fifty more--one hundred and fifty!  Oh, Allan, my poor boy.  God's
blessed hand was in this, to save us from the grasp of ruin!'

I wrung my hands, and throwing the empty purses before my mother,
covered my face and sat down.

'What means this, Allan?' asked the poor woman, in a voice of
tenderness and alarm; but I made no reply.  'An empty purse, you have
not--oh, you cannot have spent or lost the money?'

'Neither, dear mother--but pity me and bear with the weakness you
have taught me?'

'What have you done?'

'Listen and you shall hear.'

I detailed to her the shooting, and told how Callum and I were the
victors at any distance from one to five hundred yards, and how we
showered our bullets into the bull's-eye, as fast as the markers
could count them; how we challenged all to shoot seven consecutive
balls into the black cross on the tower of the Thanes; how none save
Callum and I could touch it at two hundred yards--a feat such as the
Highlands had seldom seen before, and how we won the prizes.

I related how the hateful Snaggs had been there with musty morality
on his oily tongue, and a hateful smile in his deep grey eye; how he
had uttered sneers to which (without seeming to commit an outrage) I
could not reply.  I told her of the shame I endured when competing
with shepherds and foresters for a prize, even from a lady's hand.  I
the heir of an old and respected line, and with all the pride in
which _she_ had reared me, swelling in my heart; I told her of the
wily factor's taunts, and how Callum and I had flung the gold with
scorn among the people, and departed from that great and long
wished-for gathering on the Braes as poor as when this morning, so
full of hope and spirit, we had marched over the mountains to attend
it.

My mother heard me quietly to the end, and then applauded me as
warmly as her feeble strength would permit.  But I failed to feel
this approval in my own heart, when beholding the emptiness of our
household--the lack of comforts--yea almost of common food; and I
cursed the pride that made me scorn a prize, which though less than a
bagatelle to some--to you, my good reader, I hope--would have been a
Godsend to our half-famished family at Glen Ora.

Then Laura's face and eyes, her voice and accents came before me, and
I fell, I knew not why, into a dreamy reverie over all I did.

My mother's illness and our penury pressed heavily on my soul.  A
lofty barrier seemed to surround me; a girdle of evils--a boundary
beyond which I saw no outlet, from which there was no escape, and
which I dared not and knew not how to surmount.  Too proud to beg,
and ashamed to dig, I became bewildered as the evil hour approached,
when the authorities would arrive to evict the people of the glen.
For the whole of the previous day no food passed my lips; I found
eating impossible, I felt as one over whom hung a sentence of death;
a dark, inevitable, and unavertible fate; and with the apathy of
despair I saw the morning of the sixth day dawn, when the messengers
and constables, or perhaps the soldiery from Fort William, would
arrive to extinguish the fires, unroof the houses, and drive the
people away.

Thoughts of armed, manly, and determined resistance floated darkly
and fiercely through my mind; and I am certain that the same ideas
were hovering before Callum, as he sat by his humble but untasted
breakfast, sharpening his skene dhu, cleaning, oiling and examining
his favourite rifle, the crack of which might never more wake the
echoes of the mountains; and our pretty Minnie watched him the while
with loving and anxious eyes.  There were weapons enough in the
cottages to arm the men of the glen, and their number was sufficient
to have held against three thousand red coats, the gorge that led to
the valley, for there our grandfathers had made a long and desperate
defence against the ruffianly Huskes Brigade in 1746, and _we_ were
able to do as much again; but the steamers had opened up the lochs in
our rear; and though we might have repelled the authorities for a few
days, we were sure of being overcome and severely chastised in the
end; thus the rash and dangerous idea to taking arms to defend our
old hereditary hearths and homes was no sooner formed than it was
dismissed.

At night I could scarcely sleep, and if for a moment my eyes closed,
distressing visions of flaming houses, and of women and children
dragged forth by rural police and soldiers, came before me.  I heard
my mother crying for succour--but invisible powers seemed to chain my
feet to the earth, and breathlessly I writhed and strove to aid her.
Perspiration bedewed my forehead, when hands were roughly laid upon
her bed to bear her forth, for the hour of eviction had come, and I
remembered the widow of Lachlan Mohr.  Then I was free--I sprang to
my father's sword; but our tormentors flung themselves upon me!  My
mother was borne forth--now--_now_, she was at the threshold.  I
heard a faint cry, and all was over--she had expired!  Then I would
start up, with my heart full of horror, grief, and vengeance, to find
that it was all a dream; but, alas, a dark and foreboding one!

The sixth day dawned.  It drew slowly and heavily on--it passed away,
and night darkened without Ewen Oig, who was posted as a scout on the
lofty brow of the Craig-na-tuirc, seeing any sign of the dreaded
authorities approaching by the road which, like a slender thread
between the giant hills, wound away in the distance towards the
capital of the Highlands.

A little hope began to gather in my heart.

But they might come on the morrow.

My mother had caught the feverish excitement that reigned in our
little household, and from the crooning and croaking of old Mhari,
soon learned the doom that hung over us, and it had a most fatal
effect upon her frail and delicate constitution.  She became
dangerously ill; in her face I read that sad and terrible expression
which comes but once, and my soul sickened with alarm!

After a late and hasty meal of broiled venison (poached by Callum),
and shared with a staghound and the sheep collies, I despatched my
fosterer with all speed for the doctor of the district, while I
buckled on my dirk, and departed for the new manor-house of Glen Ora,
to seek an interview with Sir Horace, and crave for my mother a
little delay--that mercy which I disdained to seek for myself.

'The moon _is full_,' said Callum, as we separated; 'it is a lucky
time to undertake anything.'




CHAPTER XVI.

SIR HORACE.

I soon reached the large and handsome modern villa, which crowned the
plateau, where the square tower of the Mac Innons had been, for seven
hundred years, the landmark of the glens.  The hour was eight; but
the baronet and his friends were still at the dinner-table, and the
brilliance of the wax-lights in the four tall windows of the
magnificent dining-room, seemed to straggle with the bright flush of
evening that reddened the sky above the darkening mountains of the
west.

Through a spacious marble vestibule, adorned by gilded cornices,
marble statues, and deer's horns, I was ushered by the plushed and
powdered Mr. Jeames Toodles, into an illuminated billiard-room, and
here he asked me for my card.

'Card!' reiterated I, reddening, for I had never discovered a use for
such a thing before; 'no card is required; say that Allan Mac Innon
wishes to speak with Sir Horace, without a moment's delay.'

The valet gave a supercilious smile; but, on perceiving me throw a
hasty glance towards a rack of billiard-cues, he made a hasty
retreat.  After remaining for some time alone, and with no other
company than my own bitter and galling reflections, I found the valet
before me again; Sir Horace was just finishing dinner, and afterwards
had to confer with a gentleman on business.

'And cannot see me?' I exclaimed, making a stride towards the
speaker--a gesture which caused him to shuffle backward in terror; my
heather-coloured kilt and fierce free mountaineer bearing had in them
something new and appalling to him.

Mr. Toodles did not mean to say that exactly; Sir Horace would see me
in the course of a few minutes; meantime, would I join Captain
Clavering and Mr. Snobleigh, who were lingering over their wine,
before ascending to the drawing-room?  I bowed, and followed the
valet mechanically, with a breast that swelled with many strange
emotions.  If I committed, in thought, the double sin of covetousness
and envy on that occasion, when contrasting the humility, plainness,
and penury of my dilapidated home with the splendour and luxury I
beheld, it was not for myself, but for the sake of one whom I felt
assured would not be long spared to me now; and whom not even the
prediction of the Red Priest could protect from the hand of the
Spoiler.

From the walnut sideboard the liveried servants were removing the
dinner, the rich and overpowering odour of which filled that loftily
ceiled, heavily curtained and gorgeous dining-room.  To me it seemed
a scene from a romance.  The vases were richly gilt and mounted with
precious stones; the dessert, _entree_ dishes, the soup-tureens,
ashets, &c., with which the powdered lacqueys were trotting to and
fro, were all of silver exquisitely chased; so were the classic
wine-coolers, with the champagne in ice, and the ponderous branches
of six wax-lights each.  The wassail-bowl of silver had already made
its tour; and at a side-table was the coffee simmering, and served in
antique china and silver.

But the coffee was neglected, for Clavering, Snobleigh, and two or
three other sporting visitors, with Sheriff Mac Fee, were loitering
over their wine, fruit, and nuts; and the long polished table was
resplendent with tall crystal decanters of the baronet's rare old
port, vintage '34, sherry pure as amber, amontillado, first-growth
claret, and straw-coloured champagne, foaming in goblet-shaped
glasses, while old Hock, Stienberger, Malaga, and Moselle, stood in
battalion under the sideboard, or in a cluster under the gigantic
epergne.

'Welcome Mac Innon--delighted to see you, old fellow!' exclaimed
Clavering, assuming the part of host.

'Aw--aw--how aw you?' added Snobleigh.

'Toodles, a chair for Mr. Mac Innon--wish you had come sooner--Sir
Horace would have been happy to have seen you at dinner I am
assured--hope you have dined, though?  Ah--well, fill your
glass--Toodles, champagne here, and pass the claret-jug.'

Sad, anxious, and most unhappy, I was silent, and drained the crystal
goblet of champagne.  Then my spirit warmed a little, and I joined in
the conversation which naturally rose on local subjects, such as
deer-stalking, grouse-shooting, and the famous white stag of Loch
Ora, which many persons believed to be a myth, as no one could wound
or kill it.

Even Mr. Fungus Mac Fee, the sheriff, could speak on these matters;
but to me, always rather superciliously, because he knew but too well
that my family was fallen and poor; while he always deferred to Mr.
Snobleigh, who knew as much about deer-stalking as of squaring the
circle, or adjusting the longitude.  This sheriff knew intuitively
that I hated him.

After toadying to his party, spinning out a subsistence by scribbling
in magazines and papers in defence of it; after writing, with the
same laudable view, a history of Scotland, in which the clans were
handled with such severity, and one might suppose the soul of
Cumberland had been in his ink-bottle, Mr. Mac Fee found himself
sheriff of a county; and after denouncing on the hustings, and
through the medium of a journal (long notorious in Scotland for its
anti-nationality, its hatred of the Celtic race, and for being the
special utensil of the Government,) the waste of one administration,
he had no objection to accept of numerous sinecures for himself and
his connections, under their successors; hence, he scraped a
sufficient sum to purchase the small estate of Druckendubh.  He was
naturally coarse, argumentative, and full of vapour and authority;
but here, among men of undisputed wealth and position--at least, the
position which wealth insures to every blockhead in this conventional
age--Fungus Mac Fee was the most bland and suave of mankind.

'Any news to-day, Mr. Mac Innon?' asked the sheriff, raising his
impudent eyebrows.

'None, sir,' said I, sharply, for our Scottish placeman knew enough
of Highland courtesy to be aware that the prefix was offensive to me.

'Have you not heard that the Russians have crossed the Pruth in two
places, and mean to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia?'

'Yes; but I have other things to think of, Mr. Mac Fee, and I wish,
in my soul, that they were crossing the Braes of Loch Ora.'

'A deuced odd wish that!' said Captain Clavering, 'but perhaps you
don't like that straw-coloured champagne--try the pink.'

'Aw--try the claret-jug--you'll aw--find it rathaw the thing, said
the languid Snobleigh, smoothing his bandolined moustache; 'Sir
Horace is engaged in the library--aw--just now, with Mr. Snaggs--such
a howibble name!--on business.  Dem business--wish there was no such
thing in the world; Snaggs is always annoying Sir Horace about
something or other.'

My heart sank lower on hearing this; for even in this visit to the
baronet, fate seemed to have conspired against me; but I should have
remembered that naturally Sir Horace was frequently engaged in
consultations with Snaggs, for being of a proud and tyrannical
disposition, he was ever squabbling about rights and points of
etiquette; taking offence where none was intended, and waging a
legal--and to Snaggs most profitable--war, with the neighbouring
proprietors, farmers, shepherds, and poachers.

'Fine girl that was, whom we met at the gathering the other day,'
said the captain.

'Aw--vewy, for a Scots girl--but, aw--a little metaphysical,'
responded Snobleigh, sleepily cracking a nut.

'Magnificent hand and arm, though!'

'Aw--rathaw--but she was so dooced pwoud.'

'She will have something handsome, gentlemen,' said Mac Fee, draining
a glass of champagne at one vulgar gulp; 'when the people give place
to fine fat sheep on her land.  She is an heiress, and when six or
eight of the small farms are formed into _one_--and you are pleased
with her, captain?'

'f thought her the prettiest of all pretty girls--but flirting with
her--pass the claret, thanks--would be mere waste of powder.  I must
keep my ammunition for better game.'

'Aw--Laura Everingham, I presume,' said Snobleigh, with a little
spite in his eye and tone.

The Captain coloured slightly; a shade of annoyance crossed his brow,
and regardless that I and others were present, Snobleigh continued to
chatter away; and even this exasperated me, for misfortune had
rendered me unduly sensitive.

'I assure you, Clavering, that girl Everingham will come in for a
jolly good thing or two, when Sir Horace departs to a better world.
I--aw--fished it all out of old Snaggs the other night by quoting
Blair, and passing the bottle, so I'm a devilish good mind to--'

'What--pop the question, eh?'

'Aw--yes.'

'Then you may save yourself trouble, Snob, my boy, for she has
refused me already, and other two of the Household Brigade: but I
don't despair yet--for I have the governor's interest.'

'And you proposed--aw--the devil! this was rathaw an extensive
proceeding.  I thought that I knew how to manage horses and women
too.  For that, one requires considerable--aw--.'

'What?'

'Study--aw perseverance and care.'

'The ladies are infinitely obliged to you,' said Mac Fee.

'The future Mrs. Snobleigh particularly so,' laughed Clavering;
'Toodles, fill that devil of a claret jug--what the deuce is Sir
Horace about?'

'Snaggs and he must have arranged some pretty extensive clearances by
this time,' suggested the sheriff, with a furtive glance at me.

'In truth, Clavering,' said Snobleigh, who had been pondering a
little; 'I aw--would feel restless with a wife so simple and handsome
among the gay fellows of the Household Brigade.'

'Yes--you would be like the husband some one writes about, who,

  "While Suspicion robs him of his ease,
  Peculiar danger in a _red coat_ sees;
  Envies each handsome fellow whom he spies.
  And feels his _horns_ at every _cornet_ rise."

Eh--ha ha, ha!'

'Dem husbands--I hate them all.'

'Talking of the Brigade, have you heard of Jernyngham of your
battalion lately?'

'He was well cleaned out before he--aw--disappeared from London; but
don't know him now, poor devil.'

'It was at this "poor devil's" table you spent some of your happiest
hours,' said Clavering, reproachfully.  There was a pause, during
which I turned towards the door, sick of this empty conversation, and
impatient to see the baronet.  After the learned Mac Fee had
delivered himself for the tenth time of some stereotyped remarks on
the heat of the weather, and the excellence of the wine, Mr.
Snobleigh observed with his most languid air.

'I am tired of this kind of thing, and must go back to town.  Horrid
slow here in the 'Ighlands--and--aw--slow fellows all round about.
Laura Everingham is chawming, no doubt; and--aw--your sister,
Clavering, imparts quite a London air to the whole place; but
I--aw--still long for Town.  One always saves something, however, in
this bawbawous wegion--beg pardon, Mr. Mac Fee, but--aw--aw--'tis so.
Had Jernyngham been here, his stud had never been pounded at
Tattersall's--his commission at Greenwood's, or his plate by
aw--aw--the Lord's chosen people.  Now, for instance, in the matter
of gloves; in Town, I--aw--I take a walk--and spoil a pair; I take a
canter along Rotten Row, or in Hyde Pawk, another pair; dinner,
another pair, and for the opera or a ball, another pair,
and--aw--aw--so on.  And then when one is in debt, as of course
everybody is but low scoundrels, the--aw--the saving in many things
here is enormous; besides, one aw--acquires the habit of early
rising.'

'So the Highlands are not without their advantages?' said I.

'Aw--yes.  In London, if not for duty at Kensington or the Tower, I
breakfast at one, on coffee and a cigaw; but here I rise at ten
appetised like an 'Ighland 'awk--a glass of liqueur--tea, coffee,
ham, tongue, game, fowl--aw, aw--dinner ditto; and after knocking
about the balls a little, and having a _deux temps_ with Laura, or a
game at guinea points, then a devilled bone and champagne--then to
bed at two in the morning--at _two!_ aw--think of that Clavering--how
Gothic--oh--aw--infernally!'

'Now,' said the sheriff, 'what say you to our proposed little game at
écarté?'

'Bravo I--aw must have my revenge on Clavering; he walked into me for
aw--one thousand two hundred.'

'So much?' exclaimed Mac Fee, aghast.

'Aw yes.'

'I have his little bill for it, at three months, with a promise to
renew,' said Clavering, laughing.

'Then what shall we have to-night?'

'Whist--at crown points.'

'No higher?'

'No--I have a thousand pounds on that devilish horse at the Oaks, and
must trot easily.'

'Whist be it, then;' and here they rose to adjourn, leaving me
confounded by the ease with which they spoke of sums that to my
simple Highland comprehension seemed enormous.

'Toodles--aw order some pink champagne and cigars to the card-room.'

'Cigars if you will,' said Clavering; 'but no champagne; dem it,
no--I shall drink no more to-night of anything stronger than Father
Adam's pale ale, while playing with _you_,' and just as they all left
the dining-room by one door, I heard the voice of Sir Horace in
communication with Snaggs, approaching it by another.

'To-morrow will decide the affair,' said Sir Horace, pausing with his
fingers on the crystal door-handle.

'To-morrow or the day after, at latest, my dear sir,' responded the
bland voice of Snaggs.

'Of course I am deuced sorry for the old woman, and all that sort of
thing--for she must be very unhappy; but we have a great duty to
perform--a great duty to society, Mr. Snaggs, and old women must not
stand in the way of improvement.'

'To be sure, my dear Sir Horace; "every age," says the divine Blair,
will prove burdensome to those who have no fund of happiness in their
breast--and as for the young desperado her son, nothing whatever can
be made of him.'

'Of course not; his head is filled with such quaint ideas and old
Highland stuff, unsuited to modern times, habits, and usages, that he
is a mere wild colt, and twice I have been told, pulled out of his
stocking,--what do you call it?'

'Skene Dhu, or Black Knife, my dear sir,' suggested Mr. Snaggs.

'Ah yea--a skin doo, upon you, sir.  I know not why these Highland
fellows are allowed to bristle about with their daggers and skenes,
when there are laws passed against the wearing of arms.  But the
truth is, the sooner that this young fellow and his people are sent
off to America by the _Sutherland_, under Captain Sellars, the
better.  There are some fine swamps to drain, moors to cultivate, and
woods to cut down in the Cunadas; and as for that great ruffian
Cullum Dhu, who nearly murdered poor Toodles the other day--dem the
fellow, I'll have him transported!  Adversity teaches these fierce
spirits no lesson.'

'True, my dear Sir Horace,' chimed in the moralist; '"adversity,"
exclaims the divine Blair, "how blunt are all the arrows of thy
quiver, compared with those of guilt!"'

'Dem Blair--I am quite sick of him, too; but let us have a glass of
Moselle, and then we'll join the ladies in the drawing-room.  _You_
here, Mr. Mac Innon!' he exclaimed, with angry surprise on seeing me;
'how do ye do, sir,' he added, with a dark countenance; 'my friend
Mr. Snaggs and I have just closed a long conversation about you.'

'I am sorry to hear it, Sir Horace, for now I fear my visit here is
bootless.'

'You judge most correctly, if you have come to ask delay about my
projected clearances.'

There was a glare in the sharp eye, and a smile on the thin lips of
Snaggs, as Sir Horace said this.  I felt my eyes flash fire as anger
gathered in my heart; for heaven never intended me either for a
temporiser or a diplomatist.

'I was about to speak to you, Sir Horace, not of myself, but of my
mother, who is aged, sickly, infirm, and unable to comprehend how any
power on earth possesses a law to expel her from Glen Ora.'

'Now, young man, you irritate me!  This is the rock upon which all
you Celts split your very obtuse heads.  The good lady, your mother,
with the rest of the people on that portion of my estate, must learn
that the tenant has no right in the soil.'

'None whatever, legally or morally,' added Snaggs.

'_Your_ property!' I replied, trembling with passion; 'it would have
been as much as your head is worth to have said this to a Mac Innon
on the spot where you stand, a hundred years--ay fifty years ago.
But it is of my mother I would speak--'

'Nay, sir--excuse me--I will hear nothing; moreover, your presence
here is an unwarrantable intrusion; the ladies, Mr. Snaggs, await us
at coffee.'

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. SNOBLEIGH.

From the illuminated marble vestibule, I plunged out into the
darkness of the night, and goaded by my fierce and terrible thoughts,
was rushing down the avenue, when in my confusion I stumbled against
a marble Psyche, that stood in the centre of the carriage-way, about
a pistol-shot from the door, and fell, stunned and almost breathless
beside the pedestal.

I thought of my feeble mother about to be torn from the roof that had
sheltered her so long; I thought of my brave father now beneath the
sod, and of his fathers in that old ancestral burial-place, where
'shaded by sepulchral yew,' lay the warriors and the patriarchs of
our tribe, and where I would never lie; I thought of all that had
been, but could never be again; the stirring past, with all its
shadowy glory; the humiliating present with all its bitterness; the
dark and dubious future with all its doubts and fears; and a storm--a
devouring fever--raged within me!

Placing my hands upon my temples, I pressed my hot and throbbing brow
upon the cold marble pedestal, and endeavoured to reflect and to
breathe.

The three windows of the drawing-room, which in the French fashion,
were constructed to open down to the Portsoy marble steps that
descended to the lawn, were all unclosed, as the heat of the
atmosphere was great, and the luxury, lights, and music within made
me scan for a moment this magnificent apartment from the place where
I lingered.  It was crowded by objects of _virtû_, and the subdued
lights of the crystal chandeliers, and chaste girondoles, fell on
antique Sevrès and China vases; on oriental jars and Dresden china
plateaux; on the Warwick vase in verde antique; on velvet hangings
draperied up with gold; on Dianas and Apollos, &c.; on Rosso de
Lavanti marble pillars; on bronzes and Medician vases, glittering
antique buhl and or-molu tables, and all that might please the eye,
or gratify the whim of a moment.

The notes of a piano--one of Errard's best--and the voice of a female
singing, came towards me, and I raised myself from the ground on my
elbow to listen.  My heart beat wildly.  The air was soft and sad and
touching; and--though then unknown to me--it was the divine _Spirito
Gentil_ from the opera of Donizetti.  She who sang was Laura, and my
ears drank in every gentle note; the fierce conflict of pride and
passion died away within me; my heart was melted by the gentler
emotions that Laura's influence roused, and I could have wept--but
not a tear would come.

I could see her figure, with Clavering standing beside her, patting
time with his gloved hand, and turning over the leaves of the address
to Leonora.  I wished him any place but there.

Laura looked charming!

From the crystal girandoles that stood on the little carved brackets
of the piano, the light fell in bright rays over her black silk
dress, which, in its darkness, contrasted strongly with the pure
whiteness of her beautiful neck and delicate hands.  Her face was
full of sweetness and animation, and her soft voice so delightfully
modulated, was full of an enthusiasm that lent her usually pale cheek
a flush, as she sang that winning Italian air with all its requisite
pathos.

'Aw--vewy well--she does sing diwinely!' said a voice near me.
'Alboni--even little Piccolomini herself, could not surpass her.'

'Hush--pray,' said another.

'Aw--now it is ended--bravo!'

Close by me were Mr. Mac Fee the sheriff, and Mr. Snobleigh, smoking
each a choice cuba, and hovering so near the marble Psyche, that I
dared not move, lest I should be observed and suspected of
eaves-dropping.

'A dooced bad cigaw,' said Snobleigh, endeavouring to light a
refractory cabana, and swaying about in a manner that sufficiently
indicated how the fumes of the champagne had mounted into that vacuum
where his brains should have been; 'dem--I think your 'Ighland air
spoils them; and aw--aw--you admire Laura--eh; aw--now it draws; a
fine girl--say yes--why the devil don't you say yes?'

'Beautiful--and you are tender in that quarter?' simpered the servile
Mac Fee.

'Aw--yes, and have some devilish serious thoughts of matrimony, too.'

'Marriage is a serious thing, Mr. Snobleigh.'

'Aw--yes--demmed serious when one marries age, ugliness, or
aw--poverty; but with, with a charming young person like Miss
Everingham--it alters the case entirely.  But don't you observe, old
fellow, that Laura talks too much of that aw--aw--peculiar
individual--that species of outlaw, as Mr. Snaggs names him--'

'Young Mac Innon?'

'Dem! yes--but to teaze me of course.  What is that now?  Fanny
Clavering at her aw--aw--everlasting song--

  "I dare not seek to offer thee
    A timid love like mine--"

'Like hers indeed--aw--aw--ha! ha! it has been offered to half the
fellows in the Household Brigade.  Curse that pink champagne--it
makes one so devilish shaky in the aw--legs.  Yes--Laura has talked
so much about this 'Ighland colt, Mac Innon, ever since the
shooting-match, that I--aw don't half like it.  In fact, Clavering--a
good judge of both horses and aw--women--swears that she loves him.'

'You cannot be serious?'

'Aw--yes, frightfully serious.  But only think of a girl like Laura
troubling her--aw head about such a wild Highland Sawney Bean?  I
should like to see him handling my yacht, the _Bruiser_, in a stiff
nor'-easter off Cowes; taking the mettle out of a four-in-hand team;
aw--making up his book on the Derby; widing the winnaw at the Oaks;
knocking the balls about at billiards, or aw--aw--getting a child of
Judah to fork out the tip, or achieving anything else that savours of
town life, or of civilization.  The chawming Laura in love with him
indeed; 'pon my soul the idea is--aw too absawd!'

'Absurd, indeed,' chorused Mr. Mac Fee.

'Absawd--my dear fellow, absawd!' added Snobleigh, as he staggered
away, followed by the obsequious Mac Fee.

Laura spoke of me frequently, and Clavering thought she loved me!

Loved me--could it be credible, or was it the mere jest of a heedless
heart, that linked our names together--a linking that, in love, has a
nameless charm to the young, the timid, the tender, and the true.
What a tumult was raised in my breast by this casual revelation!  I
scarcely dared to breathe.  If aught was wanting to increase the
bitterness of the struggle waged by pride and love within me, it was
the words of the thoughtless Snobleigh.

But these bright hopes of a vague and joyous future--and all their
train of burning thoughts and ardent aspirations, were doomed to be
crushed and forgotten for a time, by the terrible tidings awaiting me
at my desolate home.

Midnight was close at hand, when, turning away from this abode of
luxury and splendour, where every comfort that wealth can procure
surrounded the cold and selfish Sir Horace and his pampered
household, I bent my steps towards the mountains, and by a narrow
path through a dark and moonless copsewood--or rather, an old
primeval forest of the Middle Ages, I hastened towards Glen Ora.

I had much to reflect on, and above all the flood of bitter and
anxious thoughts that rolled like a dark and tempestuous sea around
me, I saw the image of Laura Everingham; for, boy like, and full of
mountain poetry, legendary lore, and old enthusiasm, to me she
naturally became a goddess, and the guiding-star of all my hopes and
aspirations; while serving to temper with something of reason the
fiery anger with which I was tempted to regard the cruelty and
harshness of her father; who, like too many of our new Highland
proprietors, was but the slave of mammon and the tool of a cunning
factor.

While threading my way--somewhat hastily I confess--through a deep
and savage cairn, which was terrible of old as the shade of a
mysterious spirit--a rushing sound, a crashing of branches struck my
ear, and something white passed near me, like a sunbeam, or a flash
of fire.

'The white stag!' I exclaimed, in a breathless voice, and
involuntarily grasped my dirk, while the perspiration started to my
brow; for by an old tradition in the glen, it was affirmed, that
whenever danger was near the race of Mac Innon, a _white stag_
crossed the Braes of Loch Ora.

'My mother! my mother!' was my next thought, and like a mountain
deer, I sprang away to reach the old jointure-house of our family.




CHAPTER XVIII.

DEATH.

Dawn was stealing across the dun slopes of Ben Ora and the grey rocky
scalps of the Craig-na-tuirc, when I reached the crest of a hill
which overhung my mother's residence; and there I paused to draw
breath, and to survey a scene which, though familiar to me as the
features of my own face, never lost the charm of its lonely beauty.

Diminished by distance, the little thatched cottages in the glen
seemed less than molehills, but green and silent, dotting the slope
far down below, while above them rose the stupendous mountains piled
up, crest on crest, to heaven.  From the humble roofs, the smoke was
beginning to ascend in long spiral columns into the clear and ambient
air, as the poor, but thrifty housewives of the glen prepared their
fires of guisse-monaye--the bogwood and black peat.

In this vast Highland solitude where I paused the breeze bore to the
ear no sound of domestic life; no sheep bleated, as of old, on the
green hill side; no horse neighed or cow lowed in the ample glen
beneath, for the poor cottagers had long since parted with all for
sustenance; but there rang the ceaseless rush of the torrent, which
plashed and glittered as it tore through the corrie; the whirr of the
plover, the hum of the heather-bee, or the distant roar of the
rutting hind, as he rose from his dewy lair among the feathery
bracken beside yonder old grey battle-cairn.  Even these sounds were
faint or undefined, and all nature seemed as motionless and still, as
the stately stag with giant horns, that stood on a pinnacle of rock,
against the rosy flush of the eastern sky.  He seemed to be surveying
the scene; then he moved his lofty antlers, and lo! between me and
the gorgeous blaze of light that overspread the east, and threw out
in black relief the sharp jagged outline of the rocky hill, there
rose a forest of branching antlers, as, in obedience to their king, a
noble herd of deer, calves, hinds, and harts, three thousand head and
more, stood for a minute as if to show their whole array, and then
with slow and measured steps, descended and wound down the mountain
side, until they disappeared among the sandy ravines and bushy
corries which the streams and storms of ages have torn and riven in
the bosom of Ben Ora.

There had been a great stalking expedition in the forests of the
West, and the gillies of the Marquis of Drumalbane had been driving
the deer for many miles along the shore; hence the collection of this
vast herd, but amidst its masses I could discern no trace of a
_white_ stag.  Then, whence the vision of last night?  Was this
animal indeed supernatural, and the harbinger of evil, as tradition
affirmed it to be?

My gloomy forebodings increased as the brilliance of morning
descended from the mountain slopes into the deep and dreamy glens,
and as I hastened down the narrow path which led to my mother's
house.  No smoke was wreathing upward from its chimneys, and there
was an aspect of still life about it which surprised and alarmed me.
The door was wide open--an unusual circumstance.  Anon, I saw a
number of persons hastening to and fro between the cottages of the
glen, and a little crowd of men and women gradually collected round
the house.  A deadly terror smote my heart, and every pulse stood
still.  Then my ears tingled, as a cry of lamentation woke the silent
echoes of the valley.  I sprang down the mountain side, rushed
through the startled clachan, and at the door of the house met old
Mhari, her eyes red with weeping.  She threw her arms round me.

'My mother?' I exclaimed.

'She is dying!' replied the sobbing woman, in her own figurative
language; 'she must soon be laid in the Place of Sleep, with her feet
to the rising sun.'

'Dying!' I ejaculated.

'Why protract the poor lad's misery?' said a gentleman, who wore a
suit of accurate black, with a white neckcloth, and silver
spectacles, and whom I knew to be the doctor of the district, and a
great enemy of old Mhari, for whose universal specific for all
complaints (wild garlic boiled with May butter) he had a great
contempt; 'why add to what he must suffer?--tell him at once, that he
may bear his loss like a Christian and a man.  Mac Innon, your mother
is dead--God help you, my poor fellow!'

It was so--dead--and now I had not a relation, not a friend in the
world, but the poor people of the glen, to whom I was bound by the
common ties of clanship and descent.  On learning that I had gone to
visit Sir Horace, and knowing well my fiery temper and proud
disposition, my mother's gentle breast had been filled by a hundred
tender anxieties and thoughts of danger.  Finding herself alone for a
little space, animated by what purpose heaven only knows--perhaps by
a restless desire to breathe the fresh air of the glen for the last
time; perhaps to look for me, or perhaps to test the worth of the old
tradition, and so rid herself of a life that had become a burden;
inspired by some mysterious impulse, and endued thereby with more
than her wonted strength of thought and purpose, she had robed
herself in a plaid and wrapper, and left her bed unseen, for she was
found dead--dead on the rustic seat beside the porch, and
consequently _beyond_ the walls of the jointure-house.  Here she was
found by Callum Dhu, on his returning with our doctor, a dapper
little country practitioner, whose attempts to restore animation
proved utterly unavailing.

'Dhia!  Dhia!' was the exclamation of Callum; 'assuredly the curse of
the Red Priest is here!'

'Curse of--what do you say, my good man?' asked the doctor, with a
cross air of perplexity; 'it is the result of an inward complaint
under which she long laboured.  She was highly
susceptible--nervous--sickly and sensitive--I was always quite
prepared for this fatal termination.'

'But you never said so till now,' retorted Callum; 'so what avails
your skill.  Had she only kept _within_ the door she might have lived
long enough.'

I now felt myself above the reach of further misfortune.  I had been
the mark of Fate's sharpest arrows, and a proud but fierce emotion of
defiance swelled within me for a time.  Even Snaggs and the coming
terrors of the eviction were forgotten now.  Thus I felt buoyed up,
as it were, by a courage gathered from the very depth of my despair;
but anon, the sense of loneliness that fell upon me was crushing and
profound.

She who for years had watched over me, as only a mother watches over
the last of her little brood; she who in age I had tended, nursed,
and consoled, with a love, like her own, the most unselfish and
unwearied, had died at last, when I was absent, and when none was
near to close her eyes--to kiss her pallid lip.

'It is a warning!' exclaimed her old nurse Mhari.  'The men of
Glentuirc are gone--those of Glen Ora must soon follow.  Surd air
Suinard! chaidh Ardnamorchuan a doluidh!'[*]


[*] "Prepare Sainard, for Ardnamorchuan is gone to wreck!" a proverb.


Then came the funeral--all, all a dream to me.

The night had been dark and stormy, and in Glen Ora the keening of
the women, and the howling of the dogs, 'who knew that death was
nigh,' mingled with the wail of the bagpipe and the soughing of the
wind; and, like a dream, I see before me still the apartment hung
with white, and all its furniture shrouded in the same cold, dreary,
livery; the coffin lid bearing a vessel which contained a little
salt, and all the doors left wide open, to give free passage to the
departing spirit, which old superstition still averred was hovering
near its earthly tenement; the low-moaned songs, or the deep and
earnest lamentations of Mhari, Minnie, and other women of the glen;
the cold, stiff, and conventional prayer by the parish minister; the
wine and whisky, cake and cheese served round before 'the lifting,'
and the slow, solemn march of _Gil Chroisd_ (the servant of Christ),
which Ewen Oig and Gillespie Ruadh wailed forth on their great
mountain-pipes, as they headed the funeral procession, which departed
about sunrise for the burial-place of our tribe.

The morning dawned on murky clouds of red and amber hue, piled in
masses above Ben Ora, around whose rocky crest the ascending mist was
wreathed like a mighty cymar.  The sun arose, but gloomy, pale, and
watery; and, to me, all nature seemed to wear the livery of gloom and
woe.

The day was as dreary as our errand was mournful, and slowly the
procession, which was formed by the whole male population of the
glen, in number about a hundred men and boys, the aged supporting
themselves on their staffs, and leading their grandchildren by the
hand, wound over the hills, communing together on the virtues of the
deceased, and of that olden time, to which a falling people ever look
fondly back, as a faded woman to the days of her beauty--as the aged
to the days of their youth.

All the funeral arrangements were conducted in the modern, rather
than the ancient, Highland fashion.  Old Sergeant Ian Mac Raonuil,
who had served with my father in the Black Watch, had the charge of
marshalling the procession, and at certain distances on the road he
regularly cried 'halt-relief,' when four fresh men hastened forward
to bear the coffin, which was carried for four miles on the shoulders
of our people, until we reached the place of interment, on the shore
of a great salt loch, or arm of the sea.

The day was still lowering; the sounding sea of the stormy Hebrides
dashed its waves on the echoing beach; the eternal mist, like a
mighty shroud, rolled along the drenched hills and dripping heather;
and through it, as through a veil, the joyless sun, shorn of his
rays, seemed at times to hang in mid air, like an obscured lamp.  Our
hearts were heavy indeed.  Even the Lowland Scots are peculiarly
liable to be impressed by the appearance of nature at all times;
then, at such a time of sorrow and foreboding, how much more so were
we, who were bred among the stupendous scenery of the North, and by
our race and habits were the creatures of strong and gloomy
imaginations!  And then the slow, sad, and wailing march of _Gil
Chroisd_; how mournfully it rang between the silent mountains, and
woke the echoes of that lonely shore, where the long-legged heron, or
the gigantic sea-horse, were brooding on the slippery rocks, and
where the wiry Scottish pines cast their shadow on the breakers!

At a place named Coil-chro, or the Wood-of-hazel-nuts, a turn of the
path, as it wound over the headland, brought us in view of a
gentleman and two ladies on horseback, attended by a smart mounted
servant, clad in a grey surtout, and accoutred with a leather girdle,
laced hat, and black cockade.  The gentleman dismounted, and with
much politeness and good feeling, in imitation of the local custom,
remained on foot with head uncovered while the procession passed by.
At a glance I recognized Captain Clavering in this polite stranger,
and under the broad hats of the ladies the soft features of his
bright-eyed sister and the gentle Miss Everingham.  It was at this
moment that old Mac Raonuil cried 'halt-relief!' and while a change
took place in the bearers, Laura, whose eyes were full of tears,
brought her horse close to me, and holding out her gloved hand,
pressed and patted mine with great frankness and kindly sympathy.

'Heaven help you, poor Mr. Mac Innon,' she said; 'we all deplore your
bereavement, and feel only remorse and shame for the severity with
which my angry papa----but what can _I_ do?'

I kissed her hand, and she did not withdraw it; while the beautiful
expression that filled her eyes, to which her half-drooping lids lent
a wonderful sweetness, made my heart swell with tenderness and
gratitude; for human sympathy was doubly valuable, and hers was
doubly dear to me at a time so terrible; but again the shrill notes
of the wild pipe struck up--again the solemn procession went forward,
and a turn of the road hid Laura from my view--yet her eyes seemed
before me still, and her voice was lingering in my car.

A half mile further on brought us to the ancient burial-ground; it
was circular and surrounded by a low ruined wall of rough dry stones,
as it had once been a Druidical circle.  Here the grass grew with
peculiar richness and rankness, for the dead of more than two
thousand years lay there.  Old stones, graven with quaint runes, lay
half sunk, amid the moss and nettles, like the Celtic cross that
marked where the Christianized Scot had laid his dust in the same
grave with his pagan fathers, who had worshipped the God of Day and
the Spirit of Loda.  Close by stood an old chapel of the Kuldei,
dedicated to St. Colme, the Abbot of Iona.  It had been a ruin since
the Spaniards, under the loyal and noble Marquis of Tullibardine, had
landed in Glensheil, and fought the Government troops early in the
last century; but a vaulted corner of this venerable fane was still
used as a chapel by the poor Catholic Gael of the district.  Here a
rough deal table served them for an altar; a rough crucifix, and six
candles, in clay holders, stood thereon, with a few garlands of
freshly-gathered wild flowers, while heather was spread before it for
those who chose to kneel.  Near it was a miserable hut, or wigwam,
where Father Raoul Beg Mac Donuil (_i.e._, Little Father Ronald, the
son of Donald), a priest from the Scottish College at Valladolid,
dwelt in prayer, penury, and misery; for among the poor clansmen of
the impoverished and almost desolate West, the labours of the
Catholic clergy are indeed the labour of love and self-denial.

Three Mac Innons had been Abbots of Iona, and one of them built this
chapel.  In ancient times, when one of the house of Glen Ora died, a
grave was found in the morning ready dug; but by whose hands no
mortal knew--for none had ever dared to watch so said old tradition;
but even this mysterious sexton had left the country, unable perhaps,
as Callum Dhu affirmed, to breathe the air that was infected by
factors, gangers, and rural police.

Before entering the burying-ground we performed the deasuil, and went
round it _with the sun_.  The people insisted on this, and I had no
wish or will but theirs; besides, the Celt is a great stickler for
ancient customs.  The parish minister permitted Father Raoul to say a
prayer at the grave, for she who was gone had ever been kind to him,
as a priest of that faith in which her forefathers had lived and
died; and it is a noble feature in the Highland character, that
neither priestcraft, rancour, nor bigotry could ever warp or sever
the kindly ties of blood and clanship.

The Place of Sleep, or, as some still named it as in the Druid days,
The Place of the Stones, was one of those old yew-shaded graveyards
which still remain in many a desolate glen, to mark where our
expatriated people were wont to lay their dead.  Here we lowered her
into the narrow house.

A little shovelling, a little batting of sods, every stroke on which
went home to my aching heart, an uncovering of heads--a little time,
and all was over.  I felt more than ever alone in the world--for a
recollection was all that remained to me of my mother--my last
relative on this side of that remorseless grave.

The minister patted me on the shoulder--the old priest shook me
kindly by the hand, and led me away.  In vain did they tell me, in
hackneyed phrase, that those whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; my
rebellious spirit spurned the stereotyped idea.  I felt myself a
beggar and a lonely outcast--that all was over now, that every human
tie which bound me to my home (but had I now a home?) was torn
asunder for ever!

Omens of evil, such as serve to feed the superstitious mind, and to
make a deep impression on a people so filled with poetry and wild
fancies as our unlettered Gael, had not been wanting, as forerunners
of these calamities; and these omens had been duly remarked by the
aged dwellers in our glen, as the sure forerunners of direful events.

In the preceding winter, when the country was covered by snow,
Gillespie Ruadh and others averred, that early one morning they
discovered marks of the feet or talons of a gigantic bird, each
impression being at least twenty yards apart.  These tremendous
footmarks were traced across the glen, and over Ben Ora, from the
loch to the sea shore, where all trace of them was lost in the
flowing tide.  On hearing of this marvel, I hurried to the spot, but
a fresh fall of snow had obliterated these strange marks, which were
declared to indicate a departure of our people towards the western
sea.

Moreover of late, the white stag had been frequently seen, and had
even ventured to approach the lights in our cottage windows.

This animal, which the most expert of our foresters had failed to
slay, was a tall, powerful, and gigantic stag, with antlers of
remarkable size and beauty--royal antlers--_i.e._ having three points
on each horn.  These proud appendages it _never_ cast; at least none
had ever been found.  According to the unvarying story of the
hunters, stalkers, and keepers, it was known to have been in
existence for more than two hundred and fifty years; for Lachlan
Mohr's father, Torquil Mac Innon, who was slain by an arrow at the
battle of Benrinnes (excuse this antiquarianism, good reader, but
your Welshmen, Celts and Irishmen, are full of such old memories),
wounded it in the right ear, the half of which he shot away.
Thereafter a fleet and fierce, but stately white stag, minus an ear,
had roved, and was now affirmed to be roving, in the woods of Glen
Ora.

If this was indeed the same that Torquil covered with his long
Spanish arquebus, it must have rivalled those of Juvenal, or the
hawks of Ælian, which lived for seven hundred years.  Be this as it
may, if on the shores of Lochtreig there was a white stag which never
died, why should there not be another on the shores of Loch Ora? this
was deemed unanswerable.

The swift white stag which now haunted the woods of the Mac Innons
was certainly (as I had often seen by my telescope) minus the ear
which tradition alleged old Torquil shot away; and this miraculous
animal was affirmed to be the same which had passed the tent of
Lachlan in the night before he was slain at Worcester, and which
appeared before the calamities of Culloden.  It had been visible
often of late, and the poor unlettered Gael of the glen spoke of it
in whispers one to another as a certain warning of the total ruin
about to overtake them.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE EVICTION.

Whispering of these things, the men of the glen recrossed the
mountains, but slowly and silently, for the voice of the pipe was
heard no more on the gloomy heath; the boom of the climbing waves had
died away on the distant beach, and evening was reddening the dun
heathy slopes of the Ben when we drew near our home, and a cry of
alarm burst from those who were in front of our funeral party.  Large
columns of smoke were seen to ascend from the hollow, and to curl in
the clear air between us and the sky.

A chill came over the hearts of those who accompanied me.  As for
myself, I deemed, as I have said, that misfortune had shot the
sharpest shafts at me, and now that I had nothing more in this world
to care for, or to fear; but yet I felt a sore pang, when, on
arriving at a gorge of the hills, rightly named Gar-choine, or The
Place of Lamentation, for there the Campbells had once defeated the
Mac Innons, we came in sight of the beautiful natural amphitheatre of
Glen Ora, and saw thirty columns of smoke ascending from as many
cottages, and uniting in one broad and heavy cloud of vapour, that
rolled like mist along the mountain sides.  On the slope of the hill
were clustered a crowd of women and children, screaming and
lamenting, while at the far extremity of the glen, where the narrow
and winding road that led to Inverness dipped down towards the
Caledonian Canal, we perceived a train of carts laden with
furniture--the miserable household gear of our poor cotters; while
the bayonets of a party of soldiers who escorted it--like a Spanish
treasure or a Roman triumph--flashed a farewell ray in the setting
sun, for resistance had been anticipated by Mr. Ephraim Snaggs; and
thus he had borrowed an unwilling party from the detachment which
usually garrisons the secluded barrack at Fort William.

The glensmen paused on the brow of the hill which overlooked their
desecrated homes, and their voices rose with their clenched hands in
one heavy and terrible imprecation; then with a shout they rushed
down towards their wives and little ones, where a fresh scene of
grief and sorrow awaited them; for now we were homeless, and
'landless, landless,' as ever were the race of Alpine in the last
century.

Snaggs and the Sheriff had taken their measures well to evict the
people, destroy their dwellings, and seize the furniture when no
resistance could be offered; by choosing a time when all the men of
the glen were absent at my mother's interment.  Yet they took nearly
as many precautions before venturing up the side of the Loch Ora, as
if the clans were still in their most palmy days, when Lachlan Mohr
feasted his brave men on the best beeves of the Campbells, and had
five hundred targets, and as many claymores, hung in his hall.

The barbarous cruelties exercised by a neighbouring Duchess and a
canting Marquis upon the poor, had so greatly exasperated the Mac
Innons, that at fairs and elsewhere, they had been in the habit of
openly threatening an armed resistance to any attempt to evict them
from the glen, where they--the aboriginal race--had dwelt for ages
before Laird or Peer or feudal parchments had a name in the land.
Callum's character and mine were well known to be reckless, bold, and
even desperate; thus Messieurs Snaggs and Mac Fee took their measures
wisely, and accordingly selected the time for attack, when the whole
of the male population were at the grave of the Mac Innons.

The rural police of the adjacent districts were secretly ordered to
hold tryst in a wood about six miles distant.  There they arrived
about midnight, and received a harangue from Sheriff Mac Fee on the
majesty of the law; there an oath was administered to them, and there
Mr. Snaggs quoted Blair, and gave them that which proved much more
acceptable--a jorum of whisky and ale.  On mustering their forces,
these worthy officials found that, including themselves, the
Procurator Fiscal and a couple of clerks, with the police, they had
only thirty men, but as well armed with hatchets, crow-bars, levers
and pickaxes, as if they were about to invest the Redan.  Doubtful
still of success, application had been made to the Commandant at Fort
William for a Serjeant's party of twelve men from the Irish
Fusileers, with twenty rounds of ball-cartridge each, as there was a
fear that the same rifles which had done such wonders at the recent
Gathering, might cover the legal person of the great moralist.  Thus
the whole _possé_ marched in array of battle into the glen, where, to
the terror and dismay of the women, they appeared about half an hour
after the last of the funeral procession had disappeared over the
summit of the hill.

An immediate and indiscriminate attack was made upon the cottages and
on the old jointure-house; and amid the shrieks, outcries, tears and
lamentations of the women, the usual work of eviction and destruction
progressed with as much spirit as if Huske, Hawley, Cumberland and
Co., had left the infernal shades to visit upper air.  Delay and
mercy were craved alike in vain by these poor people.  In vain did
more than one young mother hold her new-born babe aloft; in vain did
the daughters of those who fought with Moore and Wellington, implore
pity, on bended knees, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, as they
clung about the knees of Snaggs and Mac Fee; but each was "sullen as
Ajax," and bent on upholding the dignity of the law and of wealth.
The inmates were summoned to come forth, and if they refused, were
roughly dragged out, some with babes at their breasts, and batoned
with such brutality, that the Irish Fusileers, whose hearts revolted
at the police, and who in their own land had seen too much of similar
work, used the butts of their muskets against the limbs of the law,
and thus offered some protection to our women.

Every article of furniture was flung out; box-beds were torn down;
chairs, tables, kail-pots, and kettles, spinning-wheels, caups,
quaighs and luggies, clothing and delft, were thrown on the sward,
and in many instances destroyed in a spirit of sheer recklessness.
Every little object which time, tenderness, or association made
valuable in the humble eyes of the cottagers was demolished or
carried off.  The domestic shrine was rifled; its _lares_
desecrated--its household gods destroyed.  Everything eatable or
drinkable was at once appropriated by the plunderers.  The thatch was
torn down; crow-bars and levers were applied to the huge
boulder-stones, which in many instances formed the corners of the
poor huts, and by one or two wrenches, the whole fabric was tumbled
in a heap of ruin.  The cabers and couples were cut through by saws
or axes; and thus every hut, house, barn, stable, and hen-roost were
destroyed.  The old jointure-house was gutted of its furniture, every
vestige of which was piled on carts with the miserable chattels of
the people, and driven off towards the nearest market-town; not an
article of my property escaped, save a few old seals and rings,
which, with my father's sword, old Mhari and Minnie concealed about
their persons.  Then the mansion was unroofed; the doors hewn down;
the windows dashed out; and the floors torn up and burned, to render
it totally uninhabitable.  Thus from house to house, from cot to cot,
and from barn to byre, went these ministers of destruction; the sick
were dragged from their beds; the aged mother of Alisdair Mac Gouran,
a woman in her ninetieth year, and whose grey head had not left her
pillow for three years, was borne out and flung on the damp hill
side.  Women scarcely recovered from the pains of maternity--and
others on the point of becoming mothers, were alike brought forth,
and those who resisted, or vainly attempted to save some prized
article, though of little value, were beaten with batons until forced
to relinquish their hold.

Seated by her fire, Widow Gillian (the relict of a soldier whose
patronymic was Ca-Dearg), and who was the mother of three sons in our
Highland Division, boldly refused to come forth, or to yield up her
husband's silver medals, of which they endeavoured to deprive her.
Rendered desperate and frantic, this woman, though aged, seemed stout
and active; she clung, shrieking, to the posts of her bed; but the
police tore her away.  Then she caught wildly at the jambs of a door;
but her fingers were soon bruised or broken by batons, and one
constable tired of her screaming, dealt her a blow which fractured
her skull, and covered her long grey hair with blood.  Then she
became insensible.  Flora, her daughter, one of the prettiest girls
in the glen, when seeking to defend her, received a kick in the
breast, from which she never recovered.

Fire was now applied to all the remaining cottages, and their roofs
of thatch, turf, and heather, with their old dry rafters of resinous
mountain pine, burned bravely.  The work of destruction was nearly
complete.

Then the sheriff mounted his horse; Snaggs bestrode his trotting
garron; the carts laden with such furniture as had not been burned,
broken, or deemed worthless, were put in motion; the few sheep and
cattle of the people were collected, and accompanied by the
constables who were laden with everything they could lay hands upon,
and surrounded by the pitying soldiers with their bayonets fixed,
Messrs. Fungus Mac Fee, Ephraim Snaggs, and the Fiscal, headed the
plunder of the glen, and departed, leaving that once beautiful little
mountain-village a heap of smoking ruins--every hut levelled flat, or
sinking amid smoke, flame, and dust--the jointure-house reduced to
four bare walls; while the women and their little ones, bathed in
tears, or covered with cuts, blood, and bruises, remained in a stupor
of silent astonishment and horror at this irreparable destruction,
which divested them of shelter, of food, furniture, clothing, and
everything, and just when the rain-charged clouds of night were
descending on the hills.

Let not the English reader deem this atrocious scene overdrawn.  In
Sutherland, Inverness, and Ross, in Moidart and the Isles, such have
been enacted with even greater brutality since the beginning of this
century.  Yet the brave, hardy, frugal and patient Highlanders have
endured it without complaint.  In form of law, murders have been
committed in open day--but then it was merely the manslaughter of a
few Highland paupers, to enforce the dignity of ducal wealth and the
majesty of feudal law.

'Thus it is,' says the brave old General Stewart, 'that the love of
speculating in the brute creation, has invaded these mountains, into
which no foreign enemy could ever penetrate, and has expelled a brave
people whom no invader could ever subdue.  It has converted whole
glens and districts, once the abode of a bold, vigorous, and
independent race of men, into scenes of desolation.'




CHAPTER XX.

DESOLATION.

Night came down on that scene of lamentation and woe--on more than
eighty human beings who were fashioned in the image of God, and were
yet denied such shelter as He accords to the fox and eagle; but
though their hearths were desolate, and their old hereditary but
humble homes demolished, the clearance could not be deemed complete,
until the people were entirely swept away from the country.

Callum and I obtained shelter with the old priest Father Raoul, who
afforded us a corner of his little hut; the poor man had but one
pallet--and there we remained for a day or two, considering what
steps should be taken to find food for those who were starving in the
now desolate glen, and moreover to provide for ourselves.

Thus I found a temporary home, within a few feet of the spot, where
she, to whom I had ever turned for consolation and comfort, advice
and sympathy, was taking her eternal rest.

Meanwhile fresh cruelties and scenes of horror took place in that
ill-fated glen, where the people were completely given up to the
malevolent fury of Snaggs, who, as a man of the law, had a truly
legal aversion to Highlanders.

The evicted formed a little bivouac on the heather.  In one place lay
a sick mother, stretched on a pallet, covered by her husband's plaid;
around her nestled her little ones, gazing with awe and terror at
this unusual scene; on the deathlike visage of one parent and the
stern despair that lurked in the eyes of the other.  Fires of turf
and rafters were kindled, and round these, in little booths of rugs
and plaids, nestled the younger children, and infants in cradles.
Amid these the elder children sported and played, ignorant of the
ruin that had come upon them, and in their heedless glee forming a
strong contrast to their grief-stricken parents, whose once high
spirit was crushed and broken now.  Such is the effect of tyranny,
starvation, and misrule!

The old soldier, Ian Mac Raonuil, burrowed a hole on the brow of a
hill under a rock, and spread his plaid over it.  Herein lay his
wife, nursing a sickly and delicate child, while he with his stouter
sons slept on the sward.  The air became chilly, and the cloudy sky
was overcharged with dew; thus many who were sick and ailing,
wandered about like ghosts on the midnight hill, unable to find
either shelter or repose.  Premature labour came on the wife of
Gillespie Ruadh; and there, on the bleak side of Ben Ora, the
wretched Highland mother brought her child into the world.  Before
morning she expired, and the aged widow Mac Gouran lay also a corpse,
not far from her; for before dawn, there came on a tempest of
lightning, wind, and rain, as if the very elements had conspired with
the petty tyrants of the glen, to destroy the homeless Mac Innons.
And while the blue lightning gleamed between the bare scalp of Ben
Ora and the rifted brow of the Craig-na-tuirc; while the rain like a
ceaseless torrent smoked along the soaking heather, and flooded every
rocky chasm and sandy runnel; while the wind swept over the hills as
if it would have torn up the heath by the roots, our poor people all
nestled together, and, lifting up their voices, sang a psalm with
touching piety.  Amid this tempest the mother and her youngling died;
and the beautiful Celtic superstition--that a woman who dies in
childbed, whatever her offences in life--is borne by angels straight
to heaven, was remembered now, as the people whispered it to one
another, and drew comfort from it.

The sufferings of the night left them more wretched than ever.

To shelter the women, and to veil the dead bodies from the view of
the children, a few cabers were propped together, and above these the
men spread their plaids and grey frieze coats; but ere long there was
a cry of alarm, and the infamous Snaggs, with a party of his
levellers and armed constables, came upon them again.  Then the
coverings were torn off; the cabers flung aside, and the sick and the
dead were remorselessly exposed to the blaze of the hot morning sun.
The booth which sheltered the children was demolished, and the wife
of Mac Raonuil was dragged from her hole on the hill-side.

In vain did she weep and hold up her babe; in vain did the sick
veteran, her husband, point to his wounded arm, his silver hairs, and
three war-medals; the only reply was fierce abuse for daring to seek
shelter, or to burrow, after a notice of removal had been duly served
upon them.

A few ducks and hens, which had been wandering and scraping among the
ruins of the cottages, were now collected and carried off by the
constables, lest they might afford a day's food to the homeless, who
were threatened with fresh vengeance by those jacks-in-office, if
found in the glen to-morrow.  Mr. Snaggs, who always spoke blandly,
quoted Scripture and Blair on the folly of resistance; the beauty of
submission to the will of God, and more especially of the new
proprietor, for 'go they must--a ship was coming round to Loch Ora
with sheep; and on the morrow there would arrive several hampers of a
new species of game with which Sir Horace meant to stock the glen.
Go then, my dear friends,' continued Mr. Snaggs, with a gloating eye
at Minnie, who was kneeling over some sick children; 'go, and the
Lord will provide for you in Canada--"for," as the divine Blair says,
"neither obscurity of station, nor imperfection of knowledge sink
below his regard those who obey and worship him."'

With this trite quotation, the elder and the factor whipped up his
pony, and departed with a couple of fat ducks dangling at its
saddle-bow.

Next morning, the keepers arrived with their hampers of game on a
cart, and as they entered the glen by the lower pass, the original
inhabitants retired by the upper, (bearing their dead, their dying,
the sick, aged, and little ones, slung in plaids over the shoulders
of the stoutest men,) towards the only shelter that remained to
them--and assuredly the last which the Gael would think of
adopting--the old ruined chapel of St. Colme upon the sea-beaten
rocks of the western coast, for, as no Highland landlord will allow
the evicted tenants of another to tarry within his bounds, the
graveyards alone are now the neutral ground.  There among the tombs
they formed a new bivouac above the long rank grass that wrapped
their fathers' dust.  Close by were the moss-covered and
lichen-spotted ruins of the old chapel, where the owl and the bat had
their nests, and where the sombre ivy grew in luxuriance--a place of
many solemn memories and many legendary terrors.

Location of every kind was refused by the adjacent proprietors; so
with a vast tract of wild and rugged mountains and pathless hunting
forests around them, our people were compelled to herd like cattle
within the circular wall of the burying-ground; for most of the
modern tyrants of the North share alike the love of game, the lust of
gold, and a horror of the Celtic race.

It was on the fourth day that the widow of the Ca-Dearg (whose head
had been fractured by the blow of a baton) died; and a cry for
vengeance against her murderers went up to heaven from the denizens
of that uncouth bivouac, as they committed her body to the earth; and
it was fortunate that all the rifles and weapons of the people had
been seized; for in Callum's breast and mine, there swelled up such a
glow of fury, that we would assuredly have committed some fierce and
retributive act, at which all Britain would have been startled.

'Are we slaves?' exclaimed Callum, furiously; 'I speak in English,
Mac Innon; for, thank heaven, the Gaelic is the _only_ language in
the world that has no word expressive of slavery.'

'A bootless boast,' said I, gloomily; 'and what matters it, when we
may be murdered with impunity?'

'Evil has come upon us like snow upon the mountains, unsought and
unsent for,' said he, as we closed the grave of the soldier's widow;
'poor old woman!  Her blood has been shed by a staff that bore the
royal crown and cypher--and for that crown her three brave sons are
fighting in the East.  A chial! a Highland soldier, or a Highland
soldier's mother, are of less value than a grouse or plover--a sheep
or a cow; for they cannot be shot for pleasure like the former, nor
fattened to feed the southern market like the latter; and it is for a
Government that treats us thus our soldiers fight and die!  _Is
samhach an obair dol a dholaidh!_'

'Alas, yes--silent is the progress of ruin!' I replied, repeating the
proverb; 'but had our glen been in Tipperary, at what premium would
the lives of Snaggs and Sir Horace been insured?'

'Sir Horace has driven us forth, that our glen may be peopled by wild
animals; _but if fire will burn_, by the five wounds of God, and by
the Black Stone of Scone, he will make little of that!' swore Callum,
in a hoarse Gaelic whisper.

There was a dark and savage gleam in his hazel eyes as he spoke; and
though aware that he referred to a project of vengeance, I cared not
then to ask what it was.

Old Mhari was the wise woman and chief adviser and mediciner of the
glen; she placed implicit belief in a hundred charms, spells,
traditions, and absurdities that have come down to us through long
and misty ages--yea, since the days of Fingal; for the supernatural
is full of charms to the mind of a mountaineer.  Thus Mhari was the
custodier of one of those sanctified girdles which were usually kept
in many Highland families, and which were bound about women in
childbed.  They were impressed with strange and mystic figures; and
the ceremony of binding was accompanied by words of Druidical origin;
but Mhari was sorely perplexed and bewildered when the wife of
Gillespie Ruadh expired amid the tempest, with this ancient girdle of
maternity around her.

In a revengeful spirit, that bordered on the necromantic malevolence
of the olden time, she fashioned an image of clay, which she named
'Ephraim Snaggs,' and selecting a time when the moon was full, placed
it in a runnel which distilled between the rocks from a lonely tarn,
among the sedges of which the dusky water-ouzel laid its eggs, and
where the lazy bittern, whose croak forebodes a storm, made its home;
and she believed that as the stream washed away the clay, and reduced
it to a shapeless mass, and from thence to mere mud, so would the
ungainly person of Mr. Ephraim Snaggs waste, pine, and decay: but
most unfortunately, and greatly to the injury of Mhari's local
reputation, this incantation of the nineteenth century turned out a
complete failure; for though the runnel washed away the image in less
than three days, Snaggs remained unharmed and well as ever; for we
frequently saw him trotting his pony along the mountain path which
led to the house of Sir Horace Everingham.

Though supported by the secret charity of the neighbouring clachans,
our poor people were meanwhile enduring great misery.  Their nights
were passed shelterless among the dreary shades of the dead--each
mother with her children clinging round her in terror and hunger; for
their principal sustenance had been herbs, mountain-berries, and cold
water.

Each morning they thanked God that another night was past; and each
night they thanked Him for the sorrowful day that was gone.  The wind
whistled drearily from the ocean round the open ruins, and over the
long grassy graves, and bare, bleak headland of St. Colme.  It seemed
to bear on its breath a wailing sound, like a dirge of the dying, as
it swept through the old yew-trees--but this, of course, was fancy.

With a heart that vibrated between love and hatred, anger and sorrow,
I thought of Laura Everingham.

If the regret she expressed so prettily and so pithily for her
father's previous severity and his Victor's cruelty was sincere, what
would her emotions be now?

But days passed away, and no message from her ever reached me at that
wretched hut, which the poor but hospitable priest had invited me to
share.  This neglect stung me to the soul, and caused an anger that
not even the memory of Laura's winning kindness, the strange
admissions of Snobleigh in the avenue, and the memory of her soft
smile or the beauty of her person could subdue; but I knew not that
during this, our time of calamity, she and Fanny Clavering were
paying a visit to a noble marquis, whose exterminating propensities
have made him famous as one of the chief '_Barriers_ to the
prosperity of Scotland.'

Meanwhile Sir Horace, Sheriff Mac Fee, and Mr. Snaggs, after a
voluminous correspondence with the Board of Supervision, had a
steamer despatched to Loch Ora, to convey our people to Glasgow,
where (without being landed) they were to be thrust like slaves on
board of a vessel bound for America.  Their final expatriation was
fully resolved on by the trio; and none of the evicted were consulted
either as to their wishes or destination, as they were alleged to be
poor and ignorant Celts, who knew no language but their native
Gaelic, and were helpless and stricken alike by poverty, sickness,
and a wholesome terror of the powers that be.

The night was pitchy dark and somewhat stormy, when our poor outcasts
saw the steamer that was to convey them for ever from their loved
Highland home, ploughing the lonely waters of the deep salt loch that
opened into the mountains; and a wail of despair ascended from the
bleak burial promontory, as they heard the roar of the escaping
steam, and the plunge of the descending anchor, when the vessel came
to her moorings.  Then the red light at her mast-head was watched for
hours by the doomed and expatriated clansmen with emotions which no
pen can describe, or pencil portray.

On this night it was averred that the _white stag_ had been seen to
hover near us in the gloom.

Low down along the base of Ben Ora, round the shore of the mirrored
loch, and in the dark glen they had left, our people saw a wondrous
blaze of light that illuminated the sky--that tinged the clouds with
wavering fire, and lit the cold grey rocks and hills--the waving
woods, and ghastly corries.  It widened and grew on every hand, that
marvellous sheet of flame, seeming to embrace the whole country in
its fiery grasp; and with shouts of fear and wonder, the poor people,
while gazing on this phenomenon, forgot for a time their own sorrows,
and the approaching hour of their final expatriation.




CHAPTER XXI.

THE HEATHER ON FIRE!

On this night Callum and I were loitering in the glen, among the
ruins of our once-peaceful and contented mountain hamlet; but
oppressed by sadness, on witnessing the new desolation of the place,
we wandered three or four miles away, and there older scenes of
barbarity awaited us.

We sat down on some piles of stones that were half shrouded by the
rising dog-grass, the moss, and the long feathery bracken.  These
marked the site of a few huts.  Here once dwelt a brave little
community named the Mac Ellars, one of whom had been my tutor, and
here I had attended his little school, bringing each day with me,
like other boys, a peat, as a contribution to his fire; for this is
the old Highland custom, and the urchin who failed to do so was
denied the privilege of warming his kilted legs for that day.  Here
often had I played the truant, and been threatened by my mother with
_the Druid_--that venerable bugbear of the Highland urchin.

The Mac Ellars were all brave and hardy men, whose progenitors had
occupied their 'holdings' since the days of Lachlan Mohr; and it was
with them that Callum made the famous riot in Glen Ora, when burning
the effigies of a certain English historian, and his miserable
Scottish imitator, for their falsehoods and absurd antipathy to the
clansmen and their national characteristics.  But the youth of the
clachan, twelve sturdy young lads, had been cajoled by a noble
marquis and the duchess, his mother, into the ranks of the Sutherland
Highlanders, and had marched to fight the Russians: _then_ their
cottages were levelled, and their aged parents were driven forth to
beg, to starve, or die--tidings, no doubt, but ill-calculated to
rouse the patriotism or fan the _amor patriæ_ of the poor Celtic
soldier, when chewing his green coffee in the frozen trenches of
Sebastopol, or sinking under disease, with other victims of treachery
and mismanagement, in the frightful hospital at Scutari; but
fortunately for our Government, the poor clansman is animated by a
love of home, which neither time can efface nor tyranny destroy.
Thus were the Mac Ellars rooted out--the young sent to storm
Sebastopol--the old to starve in the Lowlands, while the marquis and
his _passé_ mother were in a state of fervid Uncle Tommery, and,
inspired by Mrs. Stowe's romance, were the leaders and patrons of
anti-slavery meetings in the South, and fustian addresses to the
women of America.

The ruined cottages which are met with at every few miles, amid the
depopulated portions of our Highlands, dotting those vast glens which
are silent and voiceless now as the most savage wilds of Hudson's
Bay, or the great desert of Zahara, are well calculated to excite
emotions of melancholy, as being the last relics of an old and
departed race.

The wild gooseberry-bushes straggling among the stones; the old well,
half choked by sand or weeds; the half-flattened fences; the
garden-flowers growing rank among the encroaching heather, all told
us the visual melancholy tale; and Callum and I sat in silence on the
mossy stones, watching the daylight dying away beyond the distant
sea, and full of our own sad and bitter thoughts.

He seemed wholly intent on polishing the butt of a steel Highland
pistol, and while he did so, there hovered a dark and sombre aspect
of ferocity on his brow.

We were silent, I have said, for both were too much oppressed to
speak.  Suddenly a black cock appeared on a fragment of rock near us,
and clapped his wings as if in defiance.  Quick as lightning Callum
levelled the pistol and shot him dead; a moment the outstpread
pinions beat the heather, and then lay still, while the pistol-shot
was pealing among the echoes of the wilderness.  My fosterer
leisurely reloaded and brought the bird to me; it was large, weighing
more than five pounds, its sable plumage glazed all over with a
shining blue, and its stomach gorged with bilberries.

'I hope the report may not reach the ear of some rascally keeper,'
said I, throwing a hasty glance about me; 'if so, we shall be accused
of poaching.  It was a risk, Callum, to shoot that bird just now.'

'It is the last shot I may ever have on a Highland mountain,' said
Callum Dhu, with a fierce sigh; 'and with little regret would I have
put the same ball into the fat brisket of Sir Horace himself, if he
stood within twelve paces of me, on this red heather to-night.'

'For heaven's sake, Callum, do not speak thus,' said I; 'Sir Horace
is less to blame than his evil mentor, Snaggs--I believe that in
heart he is rather amiable.'

'Listen, Co-dhalta!' retorted Callum, turning upon me, and gazing
with a full and angry frown.  'You love this man's daughter, and I
like it as little as the good lady your mother (now, God rest her, in
her grave) would have done.  You love one who despises you--and yet
your blood is as red as any in Scotland!'

'She does not despise me!' I responded, almost fiercely.

'Yet loving her is folly.'

'A folly that makes me happy.'

'A folly that makes you miserable!  Will you remember her only as the
daughter of one who has the lives of Gillespie's wife and child, and
of the widow of the Oa-Dearg to answer for?'

'Sir Horace is no worse than the canting Marquis, or a hundred other
proprietors in the North.'

'That is saying but little--there are many great men in Scotland
still, deserving the dagger of Kirkpatrick and the bullet of
Bothwellhaugh--and great is the pity that such pretty things have
gone out of fashion.  The best tune Rory Dall ever played men will
tire of; and so I am tired of this Lowlander's tyranny.'

'He is no Lowlander, Callum,' said I, anxiously observing the fierce
expression of my companion.

'He is an Englishman, which is almost as bad.'

I burst into a fit of laughter at this remark.

'Ah--you laugh,' said Callum, grimly; 'let us see whose laugh will be
loudest to-morrow.  He has cleared the glen of men to make way for
game--let us see what he will gain by that--the club-footed ouzel.'

'How?' I asked, glancing in alarm at the pistol on which he was
carefully placing a percussion cap.

'This very night I shall fire the heather.'

'For heaven's sake, Callum,' said I, 'beware what you do; for the
consequent destruction of life and property may be terrible.'

'I care not--these lords and holiday-chiefs are destroying the
people--_let the people destroy the game that brings them gold_.  I
will fire the heather, I tell you!' he added, in a fierce Gaelic
whisper; 'by that blessed star which led the wise men to the cradle
of God, I have sworn to do so, and it shall be done, come of it what
may!'

I was about to speak again, when the clatter of hoofs rang on the
mountain-path, and Mr. Snaggs passed us on his shaggy-coated cob.
Anger swelled my breast on seeing him; but he bowed to us with an
ironical smile, and we saw--or thought we saw--that his eyes were
brilliant with malice at the success of that "ingenious ferocity"
with which he had extirpated the peasantry of the district.  He rode
slowly up the slope of the great Ben, and the outlines of his
ungainly figure and barrel-bellied charger appeared in dark relief
between us and the yellow flush that bathed the western sky.

'What errand takes him to the Craig-na-tuirc to-night?' I remarked.

'The devil only knows: perhaps to see the desolation he has made, and
whether any of our people have lit a fire in the glens below.  There
he goes--may evil follow, and destruction dog him close! may the
curse of the poor on whom he tramples, and the scorn of the rich whom
he worships, be his lot!  I'll show them a flame on Ben Ora to-night
that will startle all the Western Highlands!'

Callum drew forth his powder-horn, and after casting a keen but
furtive glance around him in the dusk, and after seeing Mr. Snaggs
fairly disappear in a hollow of the hills, he shook out the contents,
laying across the narrow mouth of the glen a train on the soft dry
heather and its bed of turf and decayed moss below.  Careless of the
event, and now resigned to whatever might follow, I observed him in
moody silence, and not without feeling within me that longing for
revenge which is so curiously mingled in the Celtic nature, with a
wild sense of justice and of injury.

'This is a crime against the law,' said I, in a low voice,
remembering that _muirburning_ is a serious offence in Scotland, and
that the Acts passed by the Parliaments of the first, third, fourth,
and fifth Jameses concerning it, are alike stringent and severe.

'Curse upon the laws,' grumbled Callum; 'if none were made, they
would never be violated,' and with these words he emptied the last
contents of his horn.  Again he looked round him.

The sun had set long since; the tints of the vast mountain had turned
from purple to black, and no living thing seemed to be stirring in
that intense solitude.  Callum stooped, and fired his pistol at the
train.  The powder flashed, and rose like a fiery serpent along the
grass; the dry summer-moss, the decayed leaves and dead ferns ignited
like tinder, and in a moment the thick heath and its bed of turf and
peat below were wrapped in smoke and flame--a flame that spread on
every hand, deepening and extending, as it rolled, like a devouring
and encroaching tide, mounting up the sides of the glen before the
soft west wind that blew from the dark waves of the salt lake.

Fiercely it crackled, smouldered, and burned, in those places where
the bracken or whins, the burr-docks, brambles, rank weeds, and gorse
grew thick; but in others it rolled steadily on with great rapidity,
spreading and widening in the form of a vast semi-circle, as if it
would embrace the whole country in its grasp.  As it mounted into the
higher portions of the landscape, and seized on the thickets of
silver birch and the resinous mountain-pine, the conflagration began
to crackle, roar, and hiss, and its flames to shoot aloft and
brighten against the sky like the wavering beams of the Northern
Lights, tinging the clouds with pink and purple hues.

Now sheep and cattle, horses, rabbits, foxes, and fuimarts, with
herds of frantic deer, fled before the flames; and screaming in their
terror and confusion, the muirfowl flew hither and thither, or hung
overhead among the vapour that shrouded the starry sky.  The scene
was strange, wild, and terrible; the more so that amid all this
general alarm of nature there was not heard the voice of man in
wonder or in fear; but the glens had been swept of their people, and
the beasts of the field and the birds of the air alone remained.

With astonishment and somewhat of awe, I gazed on this strange and
striking scene, while Callum Dhu surveyed it with a grim smile of
triumph and derision on his weather-beaten face, which was reddened
by the distant glow.

This was one of the most dreadful instances of muirburning that ever
occurred in Scotland: the flames travelled at the rate of one hundred
and fifty yards a minute, and soon embraced a front of nearly sixteen
miles in length, being four miles more than that tide of fire which
lately devoured the moors of Strathaven.

The whole of the muirlands--covered with short dry summer heather,
the thickets of fir and the game preserves round the base of Ben Ora,
from the mouth of the glen where we sat to the deep dark gorge of
Garchoine, from the shore of the loch on the east to the hazel wood
of Coilchro on the west, where the narrow path to St. Colme's chapel
overhangs the foaming sea--a semicircle, as I have said, of sixteen
miles--were sheeted in red and yellow flame.  Above the mighty
wreaths of smoke which rose from the blazing and falling plantations,
and from the remains of old primeval forests, towered the huge
mountain--the monarch of the western hills--like a dark and wonderous
dome.  At its base lay the loch gleaming in light, and seeming, in
this nocturnal blaze, like a mighty mirror zoned by the smoke and
fire, which gradually crept from the low districts upward to the
summit of the craigs and hills, where it played in streaks of deep
and fiery red, or flashed upward in forky and lambent flames before
it died away in vapour.

In the deep and naked ravines, and those places over which the fire
had passed, sweeping like a burning tide, the nests and lairs of the
game, with every trace of animal and vegetable life, passed away,
leaving only the bare black roots of the turf and heather, while vast
columns of smoke hung motionless, like giants in mid-air as if the
fires of the Day of Doom had sent them forth; and through these murky
masses the broad round moon at times peered dimly and darkly out,
like Fingal's shield, half hidden and half seen.

'Down, Mac Innon, down!' cried Callum, as a herd of terrified deer
came rushing like a living torrent down a narrow ravine, which was
threaded by a mountain stream, up the margin of which we were now
ascending, as being the safest pathway through this land of fire:
'Hoigh! look at Mac Gilonie's dun cattle, how they come thundering
down with the sparks at their heels!'

These words were barely uttered, when the frantic herd--three hundred
and more--were upon us, with all their branching antlers lashing the
air; but as we threw ourselves flat on our faces among the long
bracken and dog-grass, this four-footed tempest swept lightly over
us, and disappeared towards the seashore.

'There they go towards the Atlantic--dun deer and red foxes, fat
hares and long-eared rabbits, fuimarts, otters, and everything!  By
the blood that is in us, Sir Horace, but it is mighty little shooting
you or yours will have hereabout for these some years to come!  The
people have gone towards the sea, and your devilish game have
followed them.  But see,' added Callum; 'what is that--a man mounted
on a deer?'

'No, no--a pony.'

'How he gallops!  Dioul! my fine fellow, take care of your neck.'

'It is Snaggs!' said I.

'Snaggs--and he rides like fury--up hill too! now the pony falls--'

'He is down!'

'Up again--on foot, and he runs like a sow possessed by a devil
towards the Craig-na-tuirc, with the fire rolling at his heels,' said
Callum, rubbing his hands in fierce glee.

'Fire behind and a precipice in front.'

'Dioul--we are giving him claw for claw at last!'

'But we must save him, Callum--he will be scorched to death or dashed
to pieces.'

A fierce laugh was his only reply.  While all this passed in less
time than I have taken to record it, we dashed along the stony
ravine, guided by the rivulet, and though half-blinded by smoke,
reached the Ora, which was there overhung by the Craig-na-tuirc.  At
that moment a wild and despairing cry for succour rang in the air
above us.

'Ay, bay to the moon, false wolf--but there are few ears now in Glen
Ora to hear you!' growled Callum through his thick, rough beard, as
we began rapidly to clamber up the brow of the precipice, the summit
of which was shrouded by smoke, and streaked with fire like the
crater of a volcano.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE UISC DHU.

Hawks, gleds, and eagles, with a hundred birds of other kinds, whose
nests had been destroyed, were screaming, as if in anger or surprise,
and flapping their wings about us, in the mid and murky air, as we
clambered up, and thrice the wild cry of the despairing wretch
tingled in my ears, before we reached the summit, after a half-hour
of arduous exertion.

There, on the giddy verge, a strange sight awaited us.

Not far from the spot where Callum had rescued Sir Horace Everingham,
and at a place where the steep rocky brow of the cliffs overhung the
dark chasm through which the foaming waters of the black river
bellowed, roared, and forced a passage towards the sea, we saw the
miserable factor Snaggs dangling in mid-air like a crow, and clinging
to the branches of a tough but withered mountain-ash, and to its
stem, which--terrible to conceive!--projected over this dark
Cimmerian gulf.  Hemmed in on every side by the encroaching fire,
which ran at his heels, he had been forced to retreat upward to the
edge of the rock, and though all unused to feats of strength or
agility, excess of terror had supplied him with both; for when the
flames assailed the thick coating of turf, soft heather, and
crackling whins which covered the summit of the Craig, he was
compelled to take refuge in the branches of the mountain-ash, and to
these he clung, swinging above the dark vacuity below, with a
tenacity of clutch and a horror impossible to portray.

But now the same fire which had consumed the tufted whins, the turf
and heath, assailed the dry roots of the ash which twined among them,
and soon the whole fabric of the tree was in a blaze; and as its
fibres crackled and relaxed their tough grasp of the rocks and
smouldering turf, the stem began to sink and yield with its own
weight, and the weight of the fainting sinner who clung to it.

Such was the terrible tableau that awaited us on reaching a ledge of
rock close by it.

As seen by the fitful glimpses of the moon through gauzy clouds and
rolling smoke, the pale, white, ghastly visage of Snaggs was
appalling.  He still shrieked for succour and for mercy, and his
entreaties were but a succession of shrill screams like those of a
girl.  His eyes glared; foam hung upon his lips, and his tongue was
parched and swollen.  I would have hastened to proffer him
assistance, but the strong hands of Callum held me back by main force.

'Mercy to the merciless?' said he; 'nay--he shall have such mercy as
he gave the people of our glens--such mercy as he would have given my
poor Minnie at the Clach-na-greiné.  He is a fiend--so let him die a
fiend's death!  Ha--ha!  Mr. Snaggs--the tree is bending now; once it
rose at the angle of forty-five, now it is quite horizontal.  I wish
every factor hung on its branches like fruit for the devil.  Think of
the old widow of the Ca-Dearg, and her silver hair all clotted in her
blood; think of the cold, grey morning that dawned on the wet
mountain-side, when the dying wife of the Red Gillespie lay with her
new-born babe, and expired without a shelter from the blast!  Her
babe is now where you can never be--for it is among the flowers that
are gathered in heaven!  Think of the cruel advice you have given
this jolter-headed stranger--this Horace Everingham--whose presence
has been a curse to us.  Think of my Minnie and the evil you intended
for her.  Think of all your hypocrisy, your legal quirks and
quibbles, and of all the villanies of your past life, for the root of
the tree burns bravely, and will not last a minute more.  Ha! ha! ha!'

The love of life, the lust of gold, and the dread of death and hell
grew strong within the wretched soul of Snaggs, and his aspect became
frightful.  Matted by perspiration, his hair clung about his temples,
and his eyes were starting from their sockets.  With all the tenacity
that love of existence, conflicting with an awful fate, can impart to
the sinews of a coward, he clung to that withered ash, and swung
wildly over the hideous abyss, where the black water foamed two
hundred feet below.

Now his toes touched the brow of the rock, and anon his feet would
beat the empty air in vain!  The flames played about the roots; the
smoke almost choked him, and slowly, gradually, fearfully the stem
continued to sink and to yield, as the knotty fibres which so long
had grasped the rocks were relinquishing their hold at last.

'Mercy--mercy--mercy!' he shrieked.

'Such mercy as you gave the people in Glen Ora and Glentuirc--such
mercy as you have ever given the poor and the trusting, I give you
now--a tiger's mercy!' replied Callum, still holding me back, though
it was physically impossible for me to have afforded the least
assistance to Snaggs, circumstanced as he was then, and cut off from
us by the flaming tree.

'God--God!' gasped the miserable wretch.

'Call not on Him, hypocrite, for even He may fail one so steeped in
wickedness as you.  Hear me--I am Callum Dhu Mac Ian, on whom you
have never ceased to heap up insult, contumely, and contempt.  I am
well and young, and strong, having, with God's blessing, many years
of life before me, while you are now in the jaws of death.  You will
go down into the depth of that dark linn like a stone, Mr. Snaggs; a
splash, a bubble, and all will be over!  One sinner more will have
gone to his awful account--'

'Mercy!' he croaked.

The tree was still burning and bending!

'A time will come, a week, a month, a season perhaps, and the deep
waters of Loch Ora will give up the ghastly dead.  A corpse, swollen,
hideous and frightful beyond all humanity, will be cast upon the
pebbled beach, and it may lie there long undiscovered, amid gnats
that swarm in the sunshine of noon, and birds that scream in the
night--ay, very long, for our glens are desolate now, and for months
a human foot may never press the heather there.  That corpse will be
_yours_, Mr. Snaggs!  When found, it will excite awe and wonder, for
the foolish mother that bore you would not know her sinful son; but
anon horror and disgust will force the finders to cover it hastily up
with earth and stones; and there you will rot, Mr. Snaggs, while your
ill-gotten gear will be spent and enjoyed by others.'

'Oh, have mercy upon me!' howled Snaggs, who now ceased to make the
smallest exertion, as every movement served more and more to dislodge
the consuming root.  'Mercy--I tell you--mercy; my dear, good man,
have mercy!'

'Dioul! how long that tree holds on!' cried Callum, stamping his
foot; 'but now it bends! now it breaks!  Hoigh--one moment more and
all will be over, Mr. Snaggs!'

The white lips of the victim quivered; he was uttering a voiceless
prayer--or perhaps it was the more contortion and convulsing of his
features.  The fitful light of the moon, and occasionally the gleams
of the blazing heather and distant thickets, played on the rocks and
wild plants of the chasm, imparting a satanic effect to the episode.

Suddenly the tree snapped with a crash that made my heart leap, and
with a cry, amid a shower of sparks that flew upward, Snaggs vanished
with the half-burned stem into the black gulf below, where the fierce
and foaming mountain-torrent swept them away like autumn leaves,
towards the deeper waters of the Loch, and the more distant waves of
the Atlantic.

I never heard that his corpse was found.

'It is God's judgment,' said Callum, who had gazed frigidly at this
terrible sight, the realities of which I could not reconcile for a
time, or believe to be palpable and true.




CHAPTER XXIII.

THE RUINED COTTAGE.

'Those who do injuries to others,' says the delightful author of _I
promessè Sposi_, 'are not only accountable for the evil they inflict,
but also for the perversion of sentiment which they cause in their
victims.'  I am happy that this trite sentence occurred to me, for by
this mode of reasoning we shall find Mr. Snaggs alone guilty of
Callum's unusual hardness of heart, and, in short, the author of his
own untimely demise.

Chilled and almost terrified by the new and awful events of the
night, I hastened away by the route we had come, descending the face
of the rocks towards that part of the stream which lay below the
cascade, and proceeding along its banks among the wet water-docks and
green leaves which the fire, that was still raging in many parts of
the muirland district.  had failed to consume.  Midnight was past
now.  The moon was waning behind the summit of the scorched and
burning hills.  We were weary and looked about us for a shelter; but
in every direction the country seemed dotted by the fires which yet
smouldered in the thickets and morasses, reddening and flashing in
every puff of wind.

'Free--but homeless, houseless, penniless, and desperate!' said I.

'A chial!' responded my fosterer; 'how many brethren we have in this
wide world, which is all before us now!'

A ruined cottage afforded us a resting-place, and there we threw
ourselves down upon the thick soft grass that was springing up within
its four bare walls of turf and boulder-stones.  I was so overcome by
lassitude, that even the supernatural terrors of this place failed to
scare me from it, and Callum, who would rather have passed the night
in any other part of the mountains, could not leave me.  A mouthful
of whisky from his hunting-flask revived us, and to change the
current of my thoughts, which were incessantly and upbraidingly
reverting to the terrible scenes we had just witnessed, he told me
several wild and quaint stories of Dougald-with-the-Keys, the former
occupant of the ruined cottage, and in whose service Callum had been
when a boy.

Dougald was a smuggler and distiller of illicit spirits.  He had his
manufactory in a hollow of the adjacent morass, a high rock
overlooking which was the post of his scout.  Malie, his lynx-eyed
wife, generally watched for the hated exciseman, who might be
wandering along the road from Inverness or Tain.  He was named
Dougald-with-the-Keys, from a bunch of mysterious keys which he bore
at his sporran-belt.  These rattled when he walked, and gave him, it
was averred, a mysterious power; for once, when conveying to
Inverness two casks of the mountain-dew, slung across a stout pony,
two excisemen gave him chase, and being well mounted, were about to
make a capture of Dougald's distillation; but near the source of the
Ora he shook his keys at them, and plucking a sprig of rowan, planted
it by the wayside, uttering certain strange and terrible words.  On
approaching the sprig, the pursuers felt themselves constrained to
alight from their saddles, and to dance round it furiously,
hand-in-hand, while Dougald laughed and proceeded safely on his
journey towards the Highland capital.  The frantic and involuntary
gyrations of the unfortunate excisemen were continued for more than
two hours, until a passing shepherd pulled up the rowan-sprig,
dissolved the spell, and permitted them to fall prostrate on the
road, breathless, powerless, terrified, and resolved never more to
meddle with Dougald, who continued to smuggle and distil in success
and security, and had large sums to his credit, standing in the books
of various discreet retailers in the vicinity of the Clachnacudden.

Once upon a time Callum had been despatched thither for payment, and
was returning to the glen with a purse well filled with silver
'Georges,' and mounted on the active shelty which usually carried the
casks.  Pleased with the large sum he had to pay over to the gloomy,
fierce, and avaricious Dougald, he switched up the nag as he entered
the glen, and hastened on, for the double purpose of ridding himself
of this important cash, and obtaining his supper.

The cottage and its little outhouses were buried in obscurity when he
approached them; all was dark, yet the hour was not late, and, save a
real or fancied sound of lamentation, all was still.  According to
his usual custom, Callum rode straight to the stable door, slipped
from the bare-backed pony, which he had ridden in the Highland
fashion, in his kilt, sans bridle and crupper.  On opening the door,
for the purpose of bedding and foddering the little nag, he heard a
well-known rattling of keys.  The sound seemed to be in the air!  The
pony started--snorted--perspired and trembled; its eyes shot fire;
its fore-feet were firmly planted on the ground, and remained
immovable.  Again the keys were heard rattling, and between him and
the moon, Callum saw the figure of Dougald pass like a shadow along
the summit of the little garden wall.  The pony then sprang into the
stable with a convulsive bound.  An indescribable emotion--a horror
filled the heart of my fosterer; and closing his eyes, lest he might
see something still more appalling, he flung down a few armfuls of
hay and straw to the pony, locked the stable door, and sprang into
the cottage, to find Dougald stretched on the floor, a corpse, and
his wife, Malie, lamenting over him; for at the instant Callum had
seen his figure passing, as it were, through the air, he had sunk
down and expired of some disease unknown.

Such stories as these, and others, Callum related in low and
impressive whispers, and his powerful and poetical Gaelic, which
invested every trifle with pathos or with terror, were but ill
calculated to soothe a mind which ever and anon in fancy saw the pale
visage and glaring eyes of Snaggs; thus I was glad when the breaking
day began to brighten in the east, and we left the ruined hut of
Dougald the Smuggler to survey the country, which was all black,
burned, and desolate.  Its aspect was strange and terrible; a sea of
flame seemed to have rolled over it, sweeping every trace of life and
verdure from its surface.  The origin of that nocturnal fire was then
involved in mystery; but the game over eighteen square miles was
irretrievably destroyed, and Callum laughed in scorn.

'_Let this be a hint_ for our Highlanders!' said he.

The desolation of the scene was now complete, as that which Abraham
saw of old, when looking towards the cities of the Doomed, he beheld
the smoke of The Land of the Plain, ascending as the smoke of a
furnace.  A stripe of green was lingering on the lofty places, but
all was scorched below; thus

    "In mountain or in glen,
  Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower,
  Nor aught of vegetative power,
    The wearied eye may ken;
  But all its rocks at random thrown,
  Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone."

All this occurred only three years ago, but subsequent events have
rendered the concealment of poor Callum's name unnecessary now.

Three days elapsed before the fire exhausted itself, or was
extinguished, on the thickets being cut down in some places by the
axe, and the heather torn up in others, to bar their progress.

Meanwhile the sufferings of the poor evicted people, who were
bivouacked in the burial-ground of St. Colme, had been terrible.  In
their hunger and despair, some of them had made a species of meal or
flour from the leaves and seed of the wild mustard, and bruising them
together, had kneaded a kind of cake, which, when eaten with mountain
herbs, brought on deadly inflammations and fluxes, of which they died
so fast, that the frightful condition of the survivors reached the
ears of the humane in the Lowlands.  But why dwell on a subject that
is of daily occurrence in the Scottish Highlands, and with the hourly
horrors of which the columns of the northern press are constantly
filled?

A subscription was prepared for them, in common with the miserable
Rosses, who were then being driven out of Sutherland, and the starved
Mac Donnels, who were then hunted down like wild beasts in Glenelg;
but this relief was soon abandoned, through the malevolence of the
usual enemy of the Celtic population--a scurrilous Edinburgh print,
of which Mac Fee, in common with other small wits of the Scottish
Parliament House, was of course a supporter.  Charity thus arrested
and withheld, the result proved most fatal to the poor people of Glen
Ora, who died daily--the strong man and the tender child together.

At last, as I have stated, the authorities, who had been packing our
peasantry in ships like negroes from Africa, and despatching them in
naked hordes from Isle Ornsay and elsewhere to America and Australia,
proposed to the miserable remnant of the Mac Innons that they too
should sail for that far-off land of the West, where the sun of the
Celtic tribes is setting, and with something of despair they
consented, for the most cruel and terrible ultimatum--death by
starvation and exposure menaced them all.

I will pass over the touching scenes that ensued when the last of our
people were torn from their native district, every feature and memory
of which were entwined around their hearts--torn from their ruined
homes--their father's lonely graves--from all they had loved since
childhood, and when they were thrust, without regard to sex or age,
on board of a small steamer in Loch Ora, for conveyance to Glasgow,
where the great emigrant--or Celtic slave-ship, the _Duchess_,
awaited them.

Many of these poor people, after the usual custom of the evicted
Highlanders, made up little packages of earth--their native soil---to
bear it with them to the wilds of America, as a relic or memento of
their country; and in the hope that, in this little handful might be
the seeds of the heather-bell and other native plants and flowers.
Strong, deep, and undying is this pure and noble--this holy love of
home, in the Highland heart.  The unavailing sorrow, the unheeded
agony, the mental and bodily misery of our evicted emigrants is a
theme so constantly before the public, that we now regard the
depopulation of a valley as quite a usual occurrence, like the fall
of the leaf or the coming of summer; hence I will pass over this part
of iny narrative as briefly as possible.

The people sailed for Glasgow, and Callum and I, who were to follow
and join them in a day or two, stood on the shore of the loch, and
saw the steamer ploughing through its still blue waters, as it bore
away the sad and wailing freight.

Near us, on the beach, knelt a man in prayer; his white hairs were
glistening in the setting sun; his eyes were bent upon the lessening
steamer, and his hands were stretched towards her.  This was old
Father Raouil, who was sending his last blessing after those on whose
faces he would never look again.

Near him knelt Callum Dhu, with his bare knees in the sand, and his
rough sunburned face covered by his bonnet--for the strong man had
now given way, and was weeping like a child.

We are literally _the last of the clan_.

We watched the steamer till she diminished to a speck, and vanished
round a promontory; then we turned away, and, mechanically and in
silence, ascended the desolate mountains, a community of thought--a
unity of sentiment--leading us instinctively towards the deserted
glen, although neither home nor tie remained unto us there.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE WHITE STAG.

The excitement of this temporary separation over, my thoughts now
reverted to Laura Everingham, whom I had not seen since the day of my
mother's funeral, and from whom I was now on the verge of being
separated for ever--separated so hopelessly, that my heart sickened
at the contemplation.

Oh how different were my fate, my fortune and position from those of
that bright and happy girl, whose sunny English face and beaming eyes
spoke only of a heart that had never known care or thought or
bitterness.  Now budding from the spring of youth into the summer of
womanhood, her figure, though rather undersized, was beautiful and
graceful, lithe and faultless, as all her pretty little ways were
amiable and winning.  There was a romance in loving her--a
desperation in it that excited all my ardour; and (as Washington
Irving says) 'do not let us consider whatever is romantic as
incompatible with real life.'

My hitherto isolated existence had given me few opportunities of
seeing much of the world; hence, unhackneyed in its ways, I loved
Laura more deeply and devotedly than I was quite aware of until this
time of separation came.

Rambling erratically and in silence, Callum and I reached a
sequestered part of the banks of the Ora, which had escaped the fires
of the late conflagration.

The sun was setting now, and its golden rays played upon the water,
above the surface of which the salmon rose at times, while the heron
stalked among the sedges.  A few corn-patches, sown by those whose
hands would _never reap them_, were turning from pale green to warm
yellow on the southern slope of the hills; the heather about us was
in bloom; the wild flowers spread their fragrant garlands over the
volcanic rocks, and the honey-bee hummed drowsily in the summer
sunshine.

The scarlet berries of the mountain-ash kissed the sparkling current
of this beautiful river, which teemed with spotted salmon; but these
were all bought up for the southern markets, and it was as much as a
man's life was worth to drop a line into its waters.  All was solemn
silence round us now.  An occasional deer scrambling along a ridge of
rocks, and rolling the loose stones down the slope, where they
continued to rebound until the sound died in the hollow below; or the
splash of a large salmon, attempting to leap _up_ the falls of the
Ora, alone woke the echoes of the solitude.

A huge grey polecat, about three feet long, gazed at us from a
fragment of rock without moving, and with an expression of wonder in
its savage eyes; for by the result of the game-restrictions and other
Draconian laws of our Highland feudatories, God's image was becoming
somewhat as scarce in these districts as in Breadalbane, Sutherland,
or on the Braes of Lochaber.

As the sunset lingered on our magnificent native mountains, Callum
and I gazed about in silence.  Every spot had its old and quaint--its
terrible or beautiful--associations and traditions.  On one side lay
an inlet of the sea, blue, deep and overshadowed by the impending
rocks, which were alleged in the days of our fathers to have been the
haunt of the _Mhaidan Mhare_, or Water Virgin, a being with
snow-white skin and flowing golden hair, and having a melodious
voice, which mingled with the ripple of the waves, and foretold the
coming rain.  On the other side, deeper and darker still, lay a
lonely mountain pool, from the oozy depth of which the _Taru Uisc_,
or Water Bull, was wont to rise at midnight, to bellow horribly at
the waning moon, and to scare the little fairies who danced among the
velvet grass and blue bells, which covered the Sioth Dhunan, or Hills
of Peace, which Druid hands had formed perhaps three thousand years
ago, by the margin of their holy lake.  Between us and the flush of
the western sky rose the stupendous circle of their temple, the
blocks of which were said to be enchanted, so that one might count
them a hundred times, and never find the same number twice.  Farther
off rose a ridge named Druim-na-dears, or the Hill of Tears; for
there two hundred of our men, who joined the 42nd Highlanders, had
waved their bonnets in farewell for the last time, and of that two
hundred only _one_ came back to tell how his comrades had all
perished with Brigadier Howe, before the ramparts of Ticonderoga.

Thus every stone, and rock and linn around us, had their memories,
their poetry, their imaginary tenants or their terrors--their tales
of the times of old--and all these we were leaving for ever!

Our occasional communings and regrets, with many a long pause
between, were suddenly arrested by a shrill cry of terror.  We
started from the grassy bank on which we had been seated, and saw a
lady, wearing a broad hat and feather, and mounted on a little
mountain pony, coming at full speed down a narrow path towards the
deep and rapid stream, pursued by a furious stag--the far-famed
_white stag_ of Loch Ora!

With something of fear I gazed upon this gigantic animal, which,
since my infancy, I had been taught to believe had a supernatural
existence, and to be the forerunner of evil to the race of Mac Innon;
but the reiterated cry of the fair fugitive filled my heart with
other thoughts, on recognizing Laura Everingham, when wild with
terror, and pale, as the fear of a dreadful death could make her, she
rushed past me on her fierce little Highland garron.  My resolution
was formed in a moment; and before the stronger and perhaps braver
Callum Dhu, had arranged his thoughts on the subject, I had sprung
forward and unsheathed the skene which I always wore in my right
garter.  Rising superior to the flood of gloomy and despairing
thoughts which had made me their victim, and heedless whether the
terrible and traditionary stag slew me and ended all my sorrows at
the feet of Laura, I rushed upon it with my skene-dhu--a weapon only
four inches long.

The fury of my thoughts gave me treble strength, and insured me
victory.

The aspect of this animal was appalling; its red eyes shot fire; a
moment it paused, bellowing, roaring, and raking and stabbing, as it
tore up the purple heather with its giant antlers; but with a cry of
triumph I rushed full at him, and escaping by a blessed mercy his
terrible array of points, buried my sharp skene-dhu in his broad
chest.

Back went the noble head with its lofty antlers, the fore-legs were
extended, and the knees bent as the red life-blood gushed out in
torrents; but again and again my black knife was buried to its hilt
in the snow-white chest of the stag--the wondrous stag of the Mac
Innons!

His head rose and fell; his whole frame vibrated; he lolled out a hot
steaming tongue, and sank at my feet, dead--this strange creature of
a hundred gloomy legends--leaving me covered with gore--panting with
excitement, and with the hilt of my skene-dhu glued to my right hand
by the hideous puddle that had gushed upon it at each successive
death-blow.

Laura was saved, and by _me_!




CHAPTER XXV.

THE GAEL AND THE SAXON.

'Hoigh, Mac Innon!' exclaimed Callum Dhu, with a shout of triumph;
'such a feat has not been done since old Glengarry slew the wild stag
in the pass of Glendulochan!'

I lifted Laura (who was faint and almost sick with terror) from her
pony, and placed her on the soft grassy bank, where I besought her to
be calm, as all danger was now past; but, on perceiving that my right
hand and arm were drenched in blood, she uttered a cry, and clasping
my left hand in hers, asked me in the most moving terms whether 'I
was hurt--if I was safe--uninjured--to speak to her, to say whether I
was wounded or not?'

I forget alike her exact words and my answer; for we were both
trembling and confused; but in that moment of excitement each had
revealed to the other, more of mutual regard than any circumstance,
save danger, could have drawn forth.  On recovering a little, I
said,--

'For the act of to-day, I trust, Miss Everingham, that you will think
of me kindly when I am gone.'

'_Kindly!_' she exclaimed, while her blooming prettiness became
absolute beauty, as her fine eyes beamed, and her face filled with
ardour, and with an expression of gratitude and joy; 'ah how can you
speak so coldly--kindly?--say gratefully, lovingly, prayerfully.  You
will ever have all the gratitude--the esteem, my heart can feel!'

'Thanks, dear Miss Everingham,' I replied, kissing her hand, while my
voice and lips trembled; '_esteem_ is the first element of love.
Without it no passion can endure.'

She grew pale--looked down, and trembled.

'And you go?--'

'Yes.'

'But, when?' she asked, lifting her eyes sadly to mine.

'To-morrow.'

'And you return!--'

'Never.'

'Never?' she reiterated.

'Never--oh never!  I go to return no more.  It is the doom of our
race, my dear Miss Everingham.'

'Oh say not so--but here comes dearest papa to thank you in better
words than I can command.'

As she spoke, Sir Horace, accompanied by Miss Clavering, the Captain
and Mr. Snobleigh, came down the mountain-path at a furious gallop,
and with high alarm depicted in all their faces; however, a glance at
the dead stag, at Laura seated, smiling on the bank, and her pony
quietly cropping the grass beside her, explained in a moment that she
was in perfect safety.  Moreover, from the top of the hill, they had
seen me rush upon the stag, and lay it dead at my feet.  My
skene-dhu, dripping with blood, explained all the rest.

'Dearest Laura--and you are safe!' exclaimed Fanny Clavering,
flinging off her broad hat as she sprang from her pony, and hurried
to embrace her friend; 'oh heaven, my dear girl, I wish we were all
safe again in London, or at Elton Hall!  We have been little more
than six months in these atrocious Highlands, and yet we have first
had your papa--dear old stupid thing! nearly drowned; then we were
all but burned alive in the shrubbery the other night; and to-day you
on the verge of being torn to pieces by a wild animal!'

'Aw--aw--Miss Everingham--you would be wilful,' yawned Snobleigh,
'and would go--aw into that fwightful jungle, where we lost you--the
wood of--of--'

'Coil-chro.'

'Aw--yes--those devilish 'Ighland names!'

'I know of no better fun than to have a fine man of the Guards
essaying to get his lazy tongue round an Argyleshire, or a Galway
name.  And so it was you, my brave fellow, who slew this noble stag?'
asked the impulsive Fanny, blushing, as she laid her hand on the
shoulder of Callum, who was kneeling on the grass, and feeling the
dead animal with his hands.

'I--madam?--No; it was slain by the chief--my master; and it is a
deed that would long be remembered in Glen Ora, were there other
inhabitants now than the red-roes and the moor-fowl.'

'Aw--my dear fellow, get your hands washed, for weally that wed blood
is atwocious, 'pon my soul it is.'

'Stuff, Snobleigh,' said Captain Clavering; 'what the deuce does a
little blood matter?  You have done well and nobly, Mac Innon; but
you look a little pale--you are not hurt, I hope?'

'Not in the least.'

'Why don't you speak, Sir Horace?' said Miss Clavering, impetuously;
'have you not a tongue to thank him who saved your daughter's life?'

'I have a tongue, but not words, my dear Miss Clavering,' said the
cold and pompous baronet.  'You have saved my Laura from a terrible
death, sir,' he continued, addressing me with a warmth of manner
somewhat unusual in him; 'stay among us, Mr. Mac Innon, and I shall
leave nothing undone for your welfare--that is, if it is in my power,
of course.'

'Aw--of course,' chorused the languid Snobleigh.

'Do, Mr. Mac Innon,' added Fanny Clavering, bending her bright and
beautiful eyes upon me, while she laid her pretty hand upon my arm;
'do, and all the past shall be forgotten.'

'Your offer comes too late, Sir Horace,' said I, in a broken voice,
'though my heart is rent in two by this separation from my native
country--with that separation every tie is broken.  Restore the
people--restore that now ruined hamlet and desolate glen to what it
was a month ago; give me back my poor old mother from her cold grave
on yonder promontory, that grave to which your severity or the
cruelty of your underlings drove her, and _then_ speak of remaining
here; but not till then.'

'Arms are the natural profession of a Highlander,' said Captain
Clavering, putting a hand on my shoulder in his frank English way;
'could you, Sir Horace, not do something for him at the Horse
Guards?--Devilish sorry that I have no interest in that quarter
myself.'

'It would afford me the utmost gratification to do so,' replied the
stiff and pompous baronet, in his coldest manner; '_but_ really, the
fact is, I do not feel myself at liberty to ask a favour from any of
the present administration.'

'The deuce you don't?'

'Aw--of course,' hummed Snobleigh.

And there was an end of it; though I would have died rather than
accepted the smallest favour at his hands.  To be patronized by
_him_!  The idea was enough to call my mother's fiery spirit back to
earth.

As a huntsman, Callum was now, by mere force of habit, proceeding to
gralloch the stag with his sharpened skene; and as this work
progressed, unfortunately for the legends of our glensmen, he found
it to be--not two hundred years old--but a fine _warrantable stag_ of
at least six summers.

'Well, my friend, the fox-hunter,' said Clavering; 'could you not
stay among us--I'll take the odds on it, Sir Horace could do
something for you.'

'Likely enough,' said the baronet, mounting; 'you would make a
first-rate gamekeeper.'

'Many thanks, sir,' replied Callum, touching his bonnet with a fierce
and covert irony gleaming in his dark eyes; 'but the time has gone
past, Englishman, for that too; we go, we go to return no more!  You
purchased this land, true; any other depopulating game speculator
might have done so; but he who sold it to you--was it _his_ to sell?
It belonged to the people and not to him.  The land was God's gift to
the Gael; it is theirs, and all the produce thereof is theirs.'

'This is a thief's maxim,' said Sir Horace, sharply.

'To you it may seem so; but we have a saying among us--_Breac na
linne, slàt na coille, s'fiadh na fireach meirladh nach do gabh duine
riamh nair as_.

'What the devil is all that in English?  it sounds like the croaking
of frogs in a Dutch canal.'

'It means, that a fish from the stream, a stag from the mountain, or
a tree from the forest are no thefts, but the right of he who wants
them.'

'Why sirrah, this is poaching or trespassing, as Snaggs would tell
you, had he not disappeared so unaccountably.  I must teach these
Highland fellows, Clavering, to respect the sacred laws of property!
I have as much right to the wood and water, and game, as to anything
else.  "If the sun goes down on my property," says the _Man made of
Money_, "I have a clear title to that sunset; if the clouds, over my
land, are remarkably fine, they are my clouds."  A noble maxim!  Then
does not the same rule apply to the pheasants, plover, curlew, deer,
and foxes--eh?'

'You are a stranger here,' retorted Callum, 'and consequently know no
better.  God--blessed be his name!--never sent a little mouth into
the world without providing food for it.  There was a time when, in
these glens, we had food enough to spare; but, a chial! for the devil
came in breeks and took it away from us.'

'This bores me,' said Sir Horace: 'Clavering, assist Laura and your
sister to mount; we'll send some one for the stag.  Many thanks, good
fellow, for your cutting and carving it thus--but please to let it
alone.  Ah--a good evening and a safe voyage to you, Mr. Mac Innon,'
and with a brief nod, Sir Horace walked his shooting pony leisurely
up the slope.

Laura and Miss Clavering reluctantly followed him; but both bade me
kindly--the former silently--adieu.  I knew that in the twilight she
was weeping behind her veil, and my heart was deeply moved, for I
might never behold her again.  Snobleigh--the empty, vacant and
insipid Snobleigh--bowed and cantered after them; but Clavering
lingered still, and said,

'I feel sincere regret, Mac Innon, to see a bold young fellow like
you, flung upon this cold and faithless world--can I do anything for
you?'

'I thank you, sir--but know of nothing.'

'We are now at war with Russia--you have thus before you a noble
field for action.'

'And after the treatment I have experienced in my own country, I
should justly seek it in the Russian ranks.  You are right, Captain
Clavering--I thank you; war is the natural resource of the desperate
and poor; but alas!  I have neither interest nor money to enter the
service.'

'Deuced awkward--and we have no volunteering in this war.  But think
over all I have said, for it is a devil of a thing to take to felling
of trees and draining swamps in the Far West, leaving civilization
far behind you, and having the Pacific and the Red men in your front,
while your nearest chum dwells three hundred miles off--and there you
will fight with the Indians, the earth and the elements, to feed a
little herd of snivelling Yankees, who will grow up in hatred of the
land their fathers came from.  It won't do, my dear fellow--think
over it, and if I can do anything for you, drop me a line at Glen Ora
House, or at the Western Club, Glasgow, where I shall be in a day or
so, about the happiest piece of business in the world.  Adieu!'

With these words we separated, and Callum and I were left on the dark
hill-side; the last glow of sunset had faded away, and the mysterious
white stag of Loch Ora was lying at our feet dead, motionless, and
still as a drift of snow.




CHAPTER XXVI.

A LAST INTERVIEW.

To-morrow evening, the steamer from Loch Linnhe for Oban and Glasgow,
would touch at Loch Ora, and with it, Callum and I were to leave our
native district for ever.  The bitter, crushing, and painful sinking
of the heart that accompanied this conviction was increased by the
knowledge that never again would I see the face or hear the voice of
Laura.  Grinding poverty on one hand, and wealth on the other, had
reared a solid rampart between us; yet I still loved Laura, despite
the hopelessness of that love, which made me feel more bitterly than
ever that a poor gentleman is the most miserable of all God's
creatures.

Callum, my fosterer, though to me, ever gentle as a woman and
faithful as a dog, was alternately morose or silent, and appalled by
our approaching departure; and as he lay that night on some
freshly-pulled heather, in a corner of poor Father Raoul's humble
hut, I heard him sobbing under the tattered plaid which enveloped his
head and shoulders; for his gallant heart and strong resolution were
failing him at last.

My whole thoughts were of Laura now, for my hopeless separation from
her, conflicted with my regret on leaving my desolated home.  The
craving desire to see her once again became uncontrollable, and
desiring Callum to wait for me, by a near and familiar path--never
again to be trod by me--I hastened up the glen, which led directly to
the new manor-house of Glen Ora.

It was a narrow road which led of old to the stronghold of our tribe,
and there had been a time when none could have thought that a Mac
Innon would ever ascend it in such bitterness of soul as I then
endured.  The tower--the home of a race whose source even tradition
failed to trace--was demolished now, and the huge square modern villa
of the baronet crowned its site; but all unchanged with its shade of
silver birch was the bramble-covered path by which for ages

  'The hunter of deer and the warrior trod
    To his hills that encircle the sea.'

Everything spoke to me of home and farewell.  The murmur of the dark
pines that shaded the hills; the hiss of a little cascade, falling in
foam down the old grey rocks, like the end of a silvery scarf; the
sun lingering like a globe of fire above the dark shoulder of Ben
Ora.  The little cascade seemed to have its source in the clouds,
and, like a silver shower, the light wind flung its spray abroad upon
the turf and flowers.

A moment I lingered there, and thought it would be a boon to be dead
and buried in peace on that green mountain slope, where the heather
might wave and the deer bound over me; for the dread of dying in a
far distant land is strong in the heart of every mountaineer.

But enough of such thoughts and themes.

Full of them, however, I reached the new birchen avenue which led to
the elegant manor-house of Sir Horace Everingham, and without having
conceived how I should achieve the desired interview with Laura, or
what means to pursue.

I lurked among the trees and shrubbery, watching the windows for
nearly half an hour, fearing to be seen, hopeless of seeing her alone
if I saw her at all, and trembling with anxiety, for every moment was
of priceless value to me.  I saw the falling shadows lengthening to
the eastward, and knew that when the sun sank below the shoulder of
the Ben, the Highland steamer would be at the pier of the loch.

An exclamation of joy escaped me, as a drawing-room window which
unfolded to the floor was opened, and she--Laura herself--stepped out
into the gravel-walk of the garden, not a pistol-shot distant from
where I was concealed.

She was attired in a very becoming evening costume; she had her broad
hat slung by its ribbons over her left arm, and had an open volume in
her right hand.  She looked pale and thoughtful, but was neither sad,
nor bearing a trace of tears.  This disappointed me, as she must have
known that this was the eve of my final departure; but the claim I
had on her regard and memory was too slight--and among so many gay
friends and accomplished admirers, and amid so much luxury, it might
easily be effaced and forgotten.

My heart beat like lightning, as she approached and entered a
summer-seat, which was shrouded by a little dome, and four sides of
iron wire, in the fashion of a Turkish kiosk, and was covered
completely with roses and honeysuckle.  I quickly crept towards it,
and---as my evil fortune would have it--had only time to ensconce and
conceal myself among the ample laurel-bushes close by, when the voice
of the gay and laughing Fanny Clavering, who had been asleep, I
presume, in the arbour, fell suddenly on my ear, as she at once
resumed what appeared to be a former conversation.  To all this I was
compelled to listen.  It may be the reverse of etiquette to repeat
what passes in private, and still more so, aught we may chance to
overhear; but there would be a fearful hiatus in many a veracious
history, in mine in particular, without those opportune
eaves-droppings; besides, I believe that no man in this world could
resist the desire to listen, 'with all the ears in his head,' if he
deemed himself the subject of conversation between two pretty women.
Thus, as much that passed between these fair friends concerned
myself, I hearkened with an anxiety that was the more painful, as I
dared not, for very shame, avow or discover myself.

The two girls were seated near each other.  Laura had resigned her
book, and was twirling the ribbons of her broad summer hat round her
slender fingers.  Fanny had her white hands thrust into the pockets
of a very bewitching little black silk apron, and her beautiful
features, her fine eyes, and nose _retroussé_, wore the most droll
and arch expression in the world.

'Come now, Fanny, don't be silly,' said Laura.

'Is it possible that you have lived to the age of twenty without
having one dear little affair of the heart?'

'Not one, Fanny--and _you_?--'

'Oh, don't speak of my heart, pray--it has been broken twenty times.
But, don't you know, love, that an engagement of the heart is a most
delightful thing?'

'Perhaps so--but mine is only formed for friendship.'

'Fiddlestick! one lover is worth a hundred friends.'

'Nay, Fanny; I think _one_ friend worth a thousand lovers; and I
never met with a man capable of inspiring in me more than the merest
friendship.'

'And how about my brother Tom?'

'Nay, nay, Fanny; now don't look so archly.'

'Well, then--our young Highland friend?'

Laura was silent, and became very pale.

'Speak?'

'You are a dear droll!' said Laura, making an effort to laugh, after
a pause; 'well--_he_ is both handsome and winning.'

'But so innocent--so particularly verdant.'

'Yet that innocence of dissipated life charms me.'

'I am excessively amused!  But you cannot--dare not, encourage this
idea.  Love _him_--oh, Laura, such a _mésalliance_! the imaginary
chief of a beggarly burned up tract in the West Highlands.  The last
of the Mohicans!'

'_Mésalliance!_' reiterated Laura, with an air of pique; 'what is our
family, which dates from the Restoration, when compared to his,
which, for aught that I know, dates from the days of Ossian.'

'Immensely superior, I should say--for the gentlemen of Ossian's time
knew deuced little about making up a book on the Oaks, or knowing the
points of the winner of the Derby, as _I_ do--or of Bank-stock, or
shares or railway scrip, and so forth, as Sir Horace does.'

'But then, Fanny dear, think of what I owe him--that dreadful rescue
of yesterday?  Oh, there is nothing I admire so much as bravery in a
man!'

'But this is a boy.'

'Well--a brave boy--and are we much more than girls?'

'Such a little sophist it is!  If you run on thus I shall end by
loving that tall fellow who hunts the foxes.  I own to be immensely
delighted with him.  Is he not a love of a man, with his magnificent
black beard?'

'You have spoken more of _him_ than I have done of his master.'

'Perhaps I am in love with him,' said Fanny, with a roguish
expression in her beautiful eyes.

'Scarcely,' replied Laura, with a little reserve; 'for it is your
style to yawn and fret to-day over all that enchanted you yesterday.
You tire of everything.'

'And thus would very soon tire, I fear, of such a lover as your Allan
Mac Innon.  He is but a wild Highland boy--I should like a man with a
lofty presence--a man of whom I should feel proud, even when I had
tired of him, and ceased to love him.'

'Oh, Fanny!  I _am_ proud of him, in my own quiet and unobtrusive
little way.  He is so bold, so hardy, so active, and so manly!' said
poor Laura, blushing deeply at her own energy, while my heart beat
with tumultuous joy; 'his eyes, too--do they not tell the history of
a sad and thoughtful life?  He is like the Mac Ivor of Waverley.'

'There it is! you have caught the tartan fever, which is nearly as
bad as the scarlet one, and may be worse now, since the Line have
lost their epaulettes.  Well, I should like a lover of whom one would
not be ashamed to make one's husband.'

'Husband--'

Laura was silent; and, trembling with joy, I forgot all about poor
Callum Dhu, who was seated patiently with my baggage on the pier,
awaiting the steamer which was now coming down the loch.

'Young Mac Innon is so poor, so wild, so strange!' resumed the
painfully plain-spoken Fanny.

'These only make me the more his friend.'

'And we all know that "friendship in woman is kindred to love."  He
is quite like a young robber.'

'Well,' replied Laura, taking up her lively friend's rattling manner,
'I always thought it would be divine to marry a bandit!  When we
travelled from Rome to Naples, I looked daily for a handsome young
brigand in a sugar-loaf hat, velvet jacket, and those red bandages
which no outlaw is ever without--a Masseroni--a Fra Diavalo--but,
alas! none ever came, and we jogged as quietly along the Appian Way
as if it had been Rotten Row or the Canterbury-road.'

'But as we have had enough about Allan Mac Innon, now let us recur to
our constant theme--my brother Tom and his old suit--or his friend,
Snobleigh.'

_Recur_, thought I.

'I could _learn_ to love your brother, perhaps, Fanny, because he is
gentlemanly, kind, and lovable; but, as for Snobleigh--the fop, the
mouthing idler--who would propose just as coolly as he would light a
cigar, button his glove, or stroke a horse's knee, do not speak of
such an atrocity as marriage with him--and yet he has proposed to me
twice.'

'And been rejected?' asked Fanny, her dark eyes flashing with a
mixture of fun and pique.

'Yes--rejected, yet still he loiters here, devoid alike of spirit and
delicacy.'

'How did he receive your refusal?'

'Such was his provoking coolness, that I could have boxed his ears.
Stroking his buff-coloured moustache, which, as you know, finds him a
vast fund of employment, he adjusted his round collar and
long-skirted surtout, and yawned out, "Vewy well, Miss Lawa--it don't
mattaw--aw-aw--but, wemembaw that, the--aw--choicest gifts of God and
of the Gwenadiaw Gawds, are--aw-aw--at your feet."'

Fanny's loud and ringing laugh at her friend's description was
interrupted by the bell to dress for dinner; on which she murmured
something about her attire, and in her usual volatile manner, sprang
away, leaving Laura to follow her as she chose.

All that I had overheard proved unmistakably the interest I had in
Laura's heart--a discovery that proved the foundation of much joy and
pride and future misery to me.

All that followed is dim and wavering now, as a dream of years long
past.

She was about to leave the saloon, when I stood before her, trembling
in heart and in every limb.  She grew very pale on seeing me, and I
pressed her white passive hands to my lips and to my breast, and in
such language as the agony of the moment supplied, I thanked her for
the interest she took in one so miserable as I--and I prayed her to
remember me when gone, for never more would my voice fall on her ear;
I prayed, too, that God might bless her, and while thus pouring out
the long-treasured secret of my heart, without daring once to touch
her lips, though she stood beside me, pale and passive as a marble
statue, I sprang away, as the voice of Clavering was heard in the
shrubbery close by.  I reached the avenue, and leaving the park and
plantations far behind me, rushed like a deer down the glen to reach
the steamer.

There was yet time to pause a moment!

I looked back to the old primeval woods which shaded the
mansion-house of Glen Ora, and to the fire-scathed mountains that
overhung it.  Strange to say, I had now no bitterness in my heart,
for Laura was their heiress, and I loved her more than all the world.
I gave a parting glance at that beloved scenery now deepening in the
summer gloaming.  Glen Ora was dark and silent now--dark as if the
shadow of death lay on it--and silent and voiceless as the grave, the
last home of our people.

Sorrow and love were struggling in my heart, and sad, solemn, and
terrible thoughts rose within me.

As each familiar object faded away and melted into night, then came
to my heart the bitter conviction that I was a houseless wanderer,
with the wide world all before me--that I was without country,
friends, or home--but of the right mettle to become a brave and
reckless soldier.

My country indeed!

I would have cursed her!  What did I owe her? nothing.  But she owed
me a debt of blood--the blood of more than thirty of my own name and
kindred, who had perished in her reckless wars--dying bravely sword
in hand, and in the king's service--for in legions have the men of
the clans gone forth to battle for Britain, and now ruin, treachery,
extirpation and obloquy, with the garbage of the public press, are
heaped upon the remnant who remain.




CHAPTER XXVII.

DUMBARTON.

Callum Dhu, with my little baggage, had awaited me with some anxiety;
but I joined him at the pier in time to reach the steamer which was
to take us to the Clyde.

When I told him of all that had passed, his dark eyes flashed, and
his swarthy cheek glowed, and slapping his bare knee, he exclaimed:--

'Dioul! now or never is the time to make your fortune, like Donald
Gair or Robin Oig.  Marry the Englishman's daughter, and Glen
Ora--hill, wood, and water--shall all be ours again!'

But the monotonous flap-flap-flapping of the steamer's screw was the
only reply he heard, as she bore us away for ever.

We reached the noble Clyde in due time, and landed at Dumbarton, for
there we ascertained the _Duchess_ was to take on board our emigrants.

I have often thought of the truth of the poet's maxim, that there is
a culminating point in the life of every man, and woman too--a turn
of 'the tide,' which decides their destiny, and by which their future
is irrevocably fixed; and, as this chapter will show, the whole
current of my after-life has been changed by the simple circumstance
of this emigrant ship being at Dumbarton instead of Glasgow.  She was
not quite ready for sea--thus three weeks slipped away, during which
I lived at a hotel, frittering away the little funds I possessed,
while my poor emigrants (who were daily receiving fresh accessions
from the expatriated Rosses and Mac Donels) occupied certain old
storehouses and sheds upon the quays.

One day Callum and I were sitting at a sequestered part of the river,
surveying the stupendous rock of Dumbarton, which is cleft in two,
and rises like a mighty mitre of basalt from the channel of the
Clyde, strong and formidable in aspect, defended by cannon and by
venerable ramparts, from which the beautiful vale of the Leven, the
dark mountains of Arrochar, and the vast expanse of the azure river
are visible.  The shadow of many ages lay upon its hoary walls, for
it is the Balclutha of Ossian and of the Romans--the Dun Britton,
whence came 'the tall Galbraiths of the Red Tower,' so famed in
Celtic story.  Now its summits were wreathed in mist; the shades of
evening were closing on it, and the red gleam of bayonets appeared
upon its walls, as the sentinels of a Highland regiment trod to and
fro upon the same ramparts from which the soldiers of the Cæsars, in
nearly the same costume, had, eighteen hundred years ago, kept this
key of the Western Highlands and of the navigation of the Clyde.

As I gazed at the bayonets glittering ever and anon above the old
grey bastions, the words of Clavering came again and again to my
memory, and the longing to become a soldier, with a horror of
hopeless banishment as an emigrant, grew strong within me.  My father
had once belonged to this very regiment--the famous fighting --th
Highlanders.  My resolution was taken in a moment.  I would see their
colonel--I would speak with him--tell my wishes and depressing
circumstances, and frankly ask his advice.  Callum loudly applauded
this idea!

'He'll make a captain of you,' said he, with a confidence that was
certainly not based on a knowledge of the service.  'Who can say
nay?' he continued, with kindling eyes; 'a Mac Innon of Glen Ora
could never be less than a captain--Mona, Mon Dioul--no! and I shall
become a soldier too, and, with five and twenty more of our lads,
will follow you to the end of the world, and further!'

In ten minutes after this resolution was formed we were ascending the
steep pathway of the castle rock, while Callum whistled lustily an
interminable but most warlike pibroch.  Entering by the gate which is
at the foot of the fortress, and faces the south-east, we passed
several strong ramparts, and ascended an abrupt flight of steps into
the heart of the place, where the magazine stands, and the sword of
Sir William Wallace is preserved.  Here a few Highland soldiers who
were on guard, and who sat smoking and lounging on a deal form in
front of the guard-house, pointed out the quarters of their colonel,
in search of whom I immediately repaired; but was informed by an
orderly that he was in the mess-room, into which he at once ushered
me without much ceremony.

The apartment was large and plain; the windows afforded a view of the
mighty valley of the Clyde; the furniture consisted of thirty
hard-seated Windsor chairs, a long mahogany table, and side tables
strewed with newspapers and dog-eared army-lists.  Over the
mantelpiece hung an engraved portrait of Sir Colin Campbell, General
of the Highland Division, and a row of enormous stags' antlers and
skulls.

A handsome, but elderly man, with grizzled hair, becoming slightly
bald, and having an obstinate moustache that despised bandoline and
defied all trimming, and having a face browned by every climate under
heaven, was seated on one chair, while his spurred heels rested on
another.  He was immersed in the pages of the 'U.S. Gazette.'  He
wore green tartan trews and a red shell-jacket, with a sash over his
left shoulder; a plain Highland bonnet and a splendidly jewelled dirk
lay beside him; and close by was a decanter of peculiar mess port, a
glass of which he set down with a glance of surprise as Callum and I,
after the preliminary _single knock_ on the door, were ushered in by
the mess-waiter.

This officer was Colonel Ronald Crawford, who distinguished himself
so much in India, and of whom it was often said, that he was so brave
and cool, that he would not have winked even if a cannon ball had
shaved his whiskers.  He bowed politely to me--looked inquisitively
at Callum, who he no doubt supposed to be a recruit, and whose
tattered mountain garb was somewhat remarkable.  He stood dutifully,
bonnet in hand, about a yard behind me, eying the colonel dubiously,
as he might have eyed an ogre.

'I believe I have the honour to address Colonel Crawford of the --th
Highlanders,' said I.

'The same at your service,' said the colonel, rising, planting his
feet astride, and placing his back to the fire--a favourite
professional attitude.

'Mr. Allan Mac Innon,' said I, introducing myself with timid anxiety.

The colonel bowed again, and said, blandly,--

'In what can I serve you, Mr. Mac Innon?'

My story was briefly told, and he listened with considerable
interest, for he was too brave in heart to hear it without emotion.

'Your name is Mac Innon, and your father was, you mention, in the
--th Highlanders.  Did he serve once with the 1st Royal Scots?'

'Yes, in the war against the Pindarees, and fought at the battle of
Nagpore and the storming of Gawelghur.'

'I knew him, my lad, I knew him well,' said the old Colonel, pressing
both my hands in his; 'God bless me, but this is strange!  And you
are the son of old Allan Mac Innon of the Royals!--He saved my life
at Nagpore--.'

'Then _you_ are the officer, to save whom he made such a desperate
effort at the head of thirty men of the Royals, and whom he found
tied to the muzzle of a brass gun, which was loaded--'

'With round shot and grape, my boy! but he saved me, by cleaving with
one blow of his sword the rascally Arab who was about to apply the
match that would have blown me to shreds!  This was just within the
Durawazza gate, when poor Jack Bell of ours, with a company of the
Royal Scots and a party of Sappers, stormed it.  Bless my soul! and
you are really the son of my old chum and comrade, Allan Mac Innon?
Drink your wine, my lad, and tell me all this once again.'

In ten minutes we were quite old friends; another decanter of port
was ordered up, Callum was consigned to the care of the mess-waiter,
and then I made known my wishes to the colonel, who began alternately
to smile and look a little perplexed.

'You wish a commission--we are now at war to be sure; but there are
many difficulties.  Have you any interest?'

'None--all who might have served me have died in the army.'

'You cannot purchase?'

'I have not quite twenty guineas in the world.'

'Bless my soul!  Then there are the necessary studies--a curriculum
in fact--an examination and cramming at Sandhurst.  What languages do
you know?'

'English, a little French, and Gaelic.'

The old colonel burst into a fit of laughter.

'Come--I like this!  Did your father purchase?'

'No.'

'Then how did he join the Black Watch?'

'By bringing two hundred men to its ranks.'

'We are making the regiment up to two battalions--the full war
establishment; if, among your emigrants you could procure as many
volunteers as would entitle you to an ensigncy--'

'How many are required?'

'Five and twenty,'

'I can bring you that very number!' said I, rising and seizing my
bonnet.

'Nay, not so fast,' said the colonel, laughing, and filling my glass
again.  'Will they all pass the doctor's examination?'

'They are the flower of the district--strong, hardy, and athletic
men,' I replied, as the wine mounted into my head; 'men inured to a
life of poverty and toil; men who with no other covering than their
kilt and plaid have remained upon the frozen heather and in the open
air for weeks together, to stalk the wild red deer; men who with a
single bullet will kill a hawk or eagle in full flight, or bring the
most furious stag to bay--ay and slay it too, by one stroke of a
skene-dhu or a clubbed rifle!'

'Bravo! this is the stuff to make soldiers of!  Instead of five and
twenty, I wish you had five hundred such, _cho laidir Re
Cuchullin_--as strong as the Fingalian.  You see, my lad, I don't
forget my Gaelic.'

'The day will never come again, when five hundred such men will march
from the Braes of Loch Ora, colonel.'

He invited me to dine that day at the mess, where the splendor of the
plate, the richness of the Highland uniforms, the various wines, the
number and delicacy of the dishes, with the kindness and frank
good-fellowship of the officers, charmed and dazzled me; and as they
were all passionately fond of sporting, shooting, and deer-stalking,
topics in which I was quite at home, I conversed about them with an
ease, energy, and confidence which--when I forgot the pink
champagne--certainly surprised myself.

Anxious to have his battalion made up without delay, the colonel had
already written to the Horse Guards about me: bounties were high, and
men were scarce; my twenty-five volunteers were ready and willing,
and an answer was expected from the General Commanding-in-Chief
within eight days.

The night was far advanced before I left the castle.

Full of new thoughts, new hopes, and new life, my whole horizon
seemed to have become suddenly cloudless, bright, and sunny; Laura's
beautiful eyes were before me, and amid the mellowing influences of
the moonlight and the mess champagne, nothing seemed impossible for
me to achieve, and I felt happy, confident, and glorious.

The moon shone with silver splendor on the broad expanse of the
Clyde, and far across its bosom threw the shadow of Dumbarton's
double peak.  To me there seemed but one dark spot in the
landscape--the large emigrant ship, which lay at anchor in the
stream--the _Duchess_, which was to convey our poor and expatriated
people to their new homes in the Land of the West.

I will hasten over _their_ departure to America; the sailing of the
vessel was hurried next day, and they were thrust on board pell-mell,
like sheep.  I will not attempt to describe the parting between them
and the twenty-five who volunteered to share my fortune in the old
world, rather than become the pioneers of civilization and the
patriarchs of another race in the western hemisphere.  Callum and
Minnie parted for the time, with the usual promises of constancy, of
remembrance, and of writing until they met again, for she would not
leave her relations to become the wife of a soldier--and so we all
separated.

Alisdair Mac Gouran and the older of the expatriated, were full of
many misgivings; but aged people always are so; and the shrill cry of
sorrow and farewell which ascended from that crowded deck as the
fore-yard was filled, and when the anchor was apeak, went to my heart
like a dagger.  The elders of the tribe, whose tastes, habits, and
thoughts were bounded by the narrow horizon of their native glen,
were naturally filled with consternation by the idea of the new and
far-off land of their labours and eternal rest; but I now felt a
fresh hope--a new joy springing up within me, as the love of
adventure and the consciousness of freedom, so dear to a young and
buoyant heart, roused my energies and my enthusiasm, and I now longed
for the hour when I should belt on my sword, with the world for my
home, and the colours for my household gods.

I will refrain from detailing the cruelties and barbarities to which,
in their outward voyage, the last of the clan were subjected; how
they were decimated by starvation and fever; how the old perished
daily and the young lost health and heart together; and how the aged
Mhari and the young and blooming Minnie died off the foggy Bank of
Newfoundland.  On board the _Duchess_ a small allowance of meal with
a liberal quantity of brackish water was their daily food; but than
they were amply furnished with anti-slavery tracts, Addresses to the
Women of America, and shilling copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Whether or not it is owing to the apathy or incapacity of the
man--the solitary man--the supposed legal and diplomatic Briareus, to
whom the government of Scotland is intrusted, or to the utter
ignorance of that country betrayed by British legislators, that the
sufferings of our Celts arise, I pretend not to say.  The fault lies
somewhere.

Ignorance of Scottish affairs and of Scottish wants and wishes,
together with the criminal apathy of Scottish representatives and the
overwhelming influence of centralization, are doubtless the cause of
much of the misery and ruin of the Highland population; and the day
may come when Britain will find the breasts and bayonets of her
foreign legionaries, or the effeminate rabble of her manufacturing
cities, but a poor substitute for the stubborn clansmen of
Sutherland, Ross-shire, and Breadalbane.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

MY REGIMENT.

'To be Ensigns in the 2nd battalion of the -- Highlanders, Allan Mac
Innon, Gent., and John Belton, Gent., vice Dowb, promoted to the
Turkish Contingent.'

Such was the announcement which I read in a Gazette sent to my
lodgings one morning, about a fortnight after my first interview with
Colonel Crawford.  I now ceased to be 'gent.' in any sense of the
word, and found myself in one day a full-blown ensign, with a fortune
of 5_s._ 3_d._ per diem, and a passport to go where glory invited me,
in the shape of whistling-dicks and Minie-rifles.

Thus, thanks to the faith and love borne me by twenty-five peasant
lads of Glen Ora, now all duly attested and accepted soldiers, I had
surmounted the barriers of interest at the Horse Guards; the
necessity of pounding 500_1._ with Cox and Co., the puzzling,
cramming, and quizzing at Sandhurst, with a hundred minor annoyances.

Let the reader suppose my subscription to band-fund, mess-plate, and
commission fees all paid--three trifles amounting to twenty-one
guineas, by which one's first three months' pay is legally borrowed
under the Royal authority; let the reader imagine my outfit
procured--my uniform, camp-equipage, canteen, iron-bedstead, et
cetera, provided--and all to be paid for by Providence, or the
plunder of Sebastopol, if the aforesaid 5_s._ 3_d._ failed to do
so--and behold me, then, an ensign in a 'crack regiment,' and like
Don Juan--

  'Made up by youth, by love, and by an army tailor.'


In less than a month I was reported fit for duty, and joined my
company, into which the colonel had kindly enrolled my twenty-five
Mac Innons.  I had applied myself with such assiduity to the
mysteries of the goose-step, the right half-face, the left half-face,
and the right-about three-quarters-face, &c., that I gained the
respect of that dread man the adjutant, and the profound esteem of
the various sergeants to whom I was handed over in succession to
acquire the manual and platoon exercises, the use of the club and
broadsword, and to each of whom, at parting, the 'tip' of two days'
pay was necessary.  I soon won, too, the entire confidence of our
brave old colonel, who, in kindness and advice, acted to me more as a
father than a friend.

Great was the change this month had achieved in my fortunes!  In that
brief time I had seen our dwellings levelled to the earth! the glen,
which had been peopled for ages, laid desolate and bare; the muirs
consumed by fire, and all the land reduced to a voiceless solitude.
My mother was lying far away in her quiet grave--her old familiar
face was gone for ever: I was separated from Laura, and was now a
soldier, like my forefathers, with the wide world all before me.

Of John Belton, who was gazetted at the same time with myself, and
who became one of my chief friends, I shall speak frequently anon.
He was a handsome, lively, and light-hearted fellow, and we were a
pair of inseparables; but with all the charms of the new life that
had so suddenly opened before me, I was far from happy still.

After long thought, anxiety, and careful consideration, with a heart
inspired by love and hope, I ventured to write a timid letter to
Laura, expressing my admiration, my esteem, and undying regard for
her, all of which were strengthened by the knowledge that an early
and greater separation was at hand, as the regiment to which I had
been appointed was warring in the East, and I added, that in leaving
her, more than probably for ever, all my hopes and prayers were for
her happiness.

Cæsar, on the night before the great battle of Pharsalia, was not
more full of thought than I, while penning this letter to little
Laura Everingham.

I dared not ask her to write to me, yet I hoped she might do so;
indeed, for some days, I was certain she would reply.  I knew that
she would write politely, kindly, timidly, and perhaps with some
formality; but I longed to gaze upon the lines her pretty hand had
traced.  It would be a relic of her--a souvenir of buried hopes and
futile aspirations, when other days would come.

But day after day passed--a week elapsed--then, a fortnight, and yet
no letter came; and daily, while every pulse quickened with anxiety,
I watched the pipe-major (who acted as our regimental postman)
distributing his letters on parade; but, alas! none ever came for me.

My courage fell--day succeeded day, and still no letter.  Then hope
began to die; my nights were dreamy or sleepless, and my days full of
gnawing suspense.  Could Laura be ill?--then Fanny would write.  Had
she dismissed me from her mind? or had Sir Horace intercepted the
letter?  Thus I wearied myself with conjectures.  Should I write to
her again?  Pride said 'no;' yet that very pride which sprang from
wounded self-esteem was rendered the more bitter by its struggle with
much of honest tenderness, pure regard, and sincere regret that one I
loved so well should treat me with such cutting coldness and neglect.

I endured six weeks of much chagrin and suspense after writing that
unlucky letter from Dumbarton; but at last a crisis was put to my
artificial affliction.

One day Captain Clavering made his appearance at mess, in mufti; he
was the guest of Colonel Crawford, and expressed so much real
pleasure and satisfaction at meeting me again, that he quite won me
by his frankness.  He even went the length of offering me the use of
his purse, saying that I might repay him at any time--whenever it
suited me to do so.

'I know deuced well, my dear fellow, what it is to be under orders
for foreign service, having once had the misfortune to be in the
Line,' said he, 'and to have only five shillings and threepence per
diem, to find myself in messing, clothing, servant and servant's
livery, camp-equipage, and everything.  Snobleigh of ours--languid as
ever--has lost a devil of a bet on the Oaks, and has rejoined the
Guards at Windsor.  Fanny, my sister, is as Lola Montes--looking as
ever.  Sir Horace--you asked for Sir Horace--he is quite well and
hearty; busy about his new shooting-box in Glen Ora; and Laura--oh
Laura is more charming than ever, and full of anticipated happiness.'

As he said this, he stroked his black moustache, and gave me one of
the most knowing little winks; and it scorned to convey so much,
though I knew not what, that pique fettered my tongue, and a vague
sentiment of jealousy filled my heart.

'He is a fine fellow Clavering,' said the colonel, in a low voice, to
me;--'glad to see you know him.'

'Ah--yes--he is quite an old friend,' I replied, while fixing my gaze
on a diamond-and-pearl ring he wore on the engaged finger, and which
I recognized to have been worn by Laura.

'I knew his brother well--poor Bob Clavering, of the 5th--the
Northumberland Fusileers,' said Brevet-Major Duncan Catanagh, the
captain of our Grenadiers, a dark-visaged, rough, and black-bearded
soldier; 'and I had the narrowest escape in the world on the day he
was killed.'

'How?' asked several.

'We were both wounded in the action of Maheidpoor, in the Mahratta
war, and, with six others, were being conveyed from the field next
day in a waggon: the sun was blazing hot--ay, hot as fire!  Our
wounds were undressed; we were half dead of thirst, and the jolting
of the vehicle increased our sufferings to such a degree that I left
it, resolving to die quietly by the road side rather than endure such
misery longer.  The waggon was then being drawn along a road which
wound close to the abrupt brow of a tremendous precipice, and in one
minute after I stepped out, the horses became restive, plunged and
reared--the waggon went backward, and toppled over the rocks into the
valley, three hundred feet below, where the horses, wheels, and
framework, with my five miserable companions, were dashed to pieces!
I thought little of my escape then--but it has often come painfully
before me since.  Tom Clavering came into a handsome fortune by that
little _malheur_, and at once exchanged from the 5th to the Grenadier
Guards.'

'And the Mahrattas?' said Belton.

'Oh, they would soon have finished me,' said Catanagh, 'but for the
exertions of a cunning old Brahmin, who saved my life, and smuggled
me to Murray Mac Gregor's head-quarters, when he held Poonah with
only the Scots Royals against all the thousands of Ras Holkar.'

'Poonah,' said the old colonel, laughing, 'that was where you had
such a long flirtation with a pretty widow, whose husband, a
lieutenant of the 5th, had been blown from the mouth of a mortar by
the Mahrattas--eh?'

'Not at all--but pass the wine,' replied Catanagh, laughing and
reddening a little; 'besides, we speak of flirtation with an
unmarried female--one's cousin, for instance--but with a widow, it
assumes a--a--'

'A deeper character,' suggested the colonel.

'Yes--we then call it a _liaison_,' said Clavering, who had retired
to an open window and lighted a cigar.

'Clavering is in high spirits--'gad, the fellow's like champagne!'
said Catanagh.

'For the best of reasons,' whispered the colonel, whose voice went
through me like a galvanic shock; 'he is about to be _married_.'

'Indeed,' I rejoined, a desperate air of coolness struggling with the
painful interest this communication excited within me; 'to whom may I
ask?'

'A charming young girl--Miss Everingham--daughter and heiress of Sir
Horace Everingham, the Conservative M.P., who bought an estate in the
Highlands lately.'

The poor colonel smiled pleasantly and confidentially as he said
this, all unconscious that he was planting a dagger in his listener's
heart.

'By Jove, he will have something handsome with her,' said Ewan Mac
Pherson, the captain of our Light Company; 'Elton Hall is a
magnificent place, and then the Highland property--but when does the
little affair come off?'

'When he returns from the Crimea,' said Belton.

'The deuce--from the Crimea!'

'Nay, pardon me,' said the colonel; 'he is to be married almost
immediately, and is now _en route_ to Edinburgh after some of the
little necessary arrangements.'

'Of course--there will be the bride's _trousseau_ to order at a
fashionable _magazin des modes_--the usual case of jewels--the twelve
morning and evening dresses--the four dozen of everything necessary
for ladies fair.  Thank heaven, my marching luggage never consisted
of more than a portmanteau, an epaulette-box, and a boot-jack.'

'Perhaps so, Catanagh,' replied the bantering colonel; 'but little
Laura Everingham, with her English acres and funded property, is a
better prize than our Poonah widow, with all her rupees and indigo;
and drinking iced champagne at Elton Hall will be better than eating
chutney and pickled monkey, with the thermometer at 104° in the
shade--the punkah out of order, and not a breath of air to be had for
love or for money.  Pass the claret: gentlemen, fill your glasses--we
will drink to my friend Captain Clavering, of the Grenadier
Guards--happiness to him!'

The wine almost choked me; but mastering my emotion, I left the
mess-room, and sought my quarters.  There I tore off my red coat, for
it seemed to stifle me.  I threw myself upon my bed in an agony of
mind difficult to portray--an agony such as we feel but once in a
life-time; and I strove to be calm--to think--to reflect, and to
realize all that the colonel had said so heedlessly, but yet so
innocently, to torture me.

One fact stood palpably and painfully before me: Laura Everingham was
lost to me for ever!  It was, perhaps, a just punishment for the
vanity and presumption--or the folly--with which I had permitted a
fervent and enthusiastic heart to give full scope to a love which it
fostered in defiance of reason and of hope.  The tenor of the
conversation I had overheard in the arbour occurred to me again and
again.  I endeavoured to analyze it.  To me, there now seemed too
much lightness of heart and of expression in Laura, when on the eve
of a hopeless separation from one whom she knew to love her so
well--one then so humbled, so crushed and ruined as I--but perhaps
she could not have acted otherwise without exciting still more the
suspicion and the ridicule of Fanny Clavering.  Were her words to be
considered as really indicative of her secret thoughts?  Moreover,
what claim had I, so poor in all this world's gifts and gear, on one
so rich in all the gifts of heaven and earth?  None.  Nor was she to
blame for the secret love I had nourished and fostered in my heart
since the first moment of our acquaintance.  Yet her silence, her
pallor, her deep unspoken emotion when I left her, would seem to say
that I was not without an interest in her heart.  May she not,
thought I, have wept for me, and prayed for me, on the midnight
pillow, even as I, all lonely and unseen, had sighed and prayed for
her?

No--no; the light had vanished at last, and Laura was for ever lost
to me--a just punishment to one of the wildest fancies that ever
warmed a romantic heart.  The pearl ring, with a thousand 'trifles
light as air,' came in all their bitter, blighting strength, to
confirm the news of Clavering's marriage, and, covering my face with
my hands, I wept like a child.  Until that burning hour I knew not
the depth of my hopeless passion, or how much I had really loved Miss
Everingham.

The night was a miserable one to me, but it passed away like others;
and the sharp brass drum, and then the yelling war-pipe, as they rang
in the early morning air, waking the deep echoes of 'Balclutha's
walls of rock,' announced that 'to march' was now the order; and
first Jack Belton, and then Callum Dhu, burst breathlessly into my
room.

'What the deuce--why the champagne must have been strong last night,'
exclaimed Jack, on seeing me lying on my bed, and not in it; 'come,
my boy--bustle up--turn out--the route has come!'

'_The route_--for where?'

'The East,' cried he, flinging his cap up to the ceiling.




CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ROUTE--WE SAIL.

'The _route_--the _route_ has come!'  What a commotion that momentous
announcement makes in the little world of a barrack, as it passes
from mouth to mouth--from the commanding officer to the adjutant, and
from that indefatigable vizier to the sergeant-major--from mouth to
mouth, and room to room!

This important document, fresh under the seal of the
Adjutant-General's office at Edinburgh, stated in usual form, that
'it was Her Majesty's pleasure that one field officer, two captains,
four subalterns, six sergeants, three pipers, and two hundred rank
and file of the --th regiment of Highlanders be held in readiness to
march at such a time, as may be judged expedient, from the castle of
Dumbarton, and to embark on board such tonnage as may be provided for
their reception, and conveyance _to Constantinople_.'

The field-officer was our rough and bearded Major Duncan Catanagh,
K.H.; the captains were Mac Pherson and Logan; the subalterns,
Lieutenants Rigg and Johnstone, with two ensigns--viz., Jack Belton
and myself.

The _Vestal_, formerly a donkey-frigate of twenty-six guns, but now,
cut, lengthened, and fitted with a screw-propeller, and
transmogrified into a troop-ship, lay off Dumbarton, with her
top-sails loose and blue-peter at the fore-mast head.

We embarked next day.  I remember how much I was impressed by the
service-like aspect of our chosen two hundred, who were to join our
first battalion--all with their bonnets cased in oil-skins; their
white gaiters on; their great-coats rolled on the top of their packs;
their haversacks and wooden canteens slung above their accoutrements,
as they paraded in the grey light of the early morning, when the sun
was yet below the hills, and when the shrill 'gathering,' woke the
echoes of dark and shadowy Dumbarton.

On the roll being called, one of our men, Lance-corporal Donald Roy,
was reported to be absent.

'Absent,' reiterated the adjutant; 'devilish odd--were not all the
men of this detachment confined to barracks immediately on the route
arriving?

'Yes, sir--but Donald is not here.'

Under his moustache, the adjutant muttered something that sounded
very much like an oath.

'This looks ill,' said he, reddening with anger; 'a fellow bolts on
the eve of embarking for foreign service!  The sergeant of the main
guard and the sentries at the gate must be accountable for this.'

'Nay, I alone am answerable,' said Major Catanagh; 'Donald comes from
my native glen on the west bank of Loch Lomond; and late on the night
the route arrived, he came to me and said, "Major, _you_ know me
well--you have known me since we were boys, and can trust me.  My
mother died when we were fighting on the banks of the Indus, and she
is buried in the auld kirkyard of Luss; get me leave for a night,
that I may cross the hills to say one prayer at her grave before we
go, and I swear by the God that hears me to be at Dumbarton gate
before you march--ay before the pipes play reveille."'

'And you obtained leave for him from the colonel?'

'Yes.'

'Reveille was blown long since,' said the adjutant, with an
incredulous smile, 'and Donald has not yet appeared.  Sergeant Mac
Ildhui, mark him _absent_ in the Report.'

The kind major reddened in turn, for our adjutant was a Lowlander,
and did not believe in Highlanders; but Catanagh was a Celt, and
better knew the missing man.

'I will answer for him,' said he; 'Donald will be back in time, I
warrant him--where are his musket, pack, and accoutrements.'

'They are carried by his comrades.'

The hour for marching drew near; already the boats of the _Vestal_
awaited us; but there was no appearance of Donald Roy, so the 'next
man for duty,' was ordered to prepare to take his place.

The women had been balloted for at the drum-head; the two fortunate
wives who were to accompany us were clinging in joy to their
husbands' necks.  The unfortunates who had drawn _blanks_ were
filling the barrack square with noisy lamentations.  Adieux had been
said, and hands shaken.  Then the little column broke into sections
of threes, and with the whole band of the battalion in our front,
playing 'Lochaber no more,' and accompanied by our comrades'
cheering, we left the ancient castle of Dumbarton just as the sun
rose, and marched towards the landing-place.

As we proceeded to the bank of the river, a soldier, pale and
breathless, dashed into our ranks, raised his hand to his bonnet, and
cried aloud,--

'Major Catanagh--I am here!'

'Donald Roy!' exclaimed the soldiers with satisfaction, for this man
was a favourite with all, and moreover was a famous sword-player and
tosser of the caber.

'I knew that you would return, Donald,' said the major, with an
approving smile.

'I have travelled day and night, running like a deer, Major
Catanagh,' replied the soldier in a rapid whisper; 'I have had twelve
miles to go, and as many to return; but I am young and active, and
the ardour of grief bore me up, for I was determined to see the grave
of my mother before I left my native place, perhaps for ever; and may
heaven bless you, major, for the trust you have put in me.  I am
poor--but I never deceived any one.  Oh, major, I have seen the woods
of Cameron, the rocks of Ross-dhu, and the wilds of Rowardennan,
places that you and I know well--but may never look upon again.'

'We shall, Donald--please God, we shall both see them again,' said
Catanagh, with kindling eyes.

With kindly interest I looked on this pale and weary soldier, who
spoke in my native Gaelic; but I had soon other thoughts in my heart,
and in the ardour and excitement of embarking for foreign service and
the seat of war, with the brattle of the drum and the blare of the
brass band playing a stirring Scottish quick-step; the tread of
marching feet, and the gleam of fixed bayonets round me, I was soon
beyond the reach of tender or soft impressions.

The steam continued to roar at times through the safety-valve; the
band continued to play, and our comrades to cheer, as our detachment
went off in boat-loads to the _Vestal_, which was rapidly getting up
all her horse-power.  Her white canvas hung loose aloft, and her
decks were crowded by groups of the sombre rifles below; but until I
stood upon her poop and looked round me, I could scarcely realise the
truth of my position, or that all this new phase of life, so strange
to me, was not a dream.

The sun came up in his glory from the morning sea; the blue waters
rolled around us in light, and curled their crested waves before the
soft west wind.  The huge dark shadows of Balclutha's double Dun fell
far along the azure bosom of the Clyde, when the steamer's anchor was
apeak, and the propeller began to dash the water into foam astern,
making a sweep of nearly twenty feet at each impetuous turn, and
objects on the beach began to lessen, change or pass each other, and
we stood in groups looking at the fading mountains few of us might
ever see again.

Summer had passed away with all its bloom and verdure; no longer
laden with rosy blossoms,

  'Fruitful Clydesdale's apple bowers
  Were mellowing in the moon;'

the peach and the nectarine had glowed there in clusters and been
gathered, and now the woods of leafy green were being tinged by
russet brown and golden yellow.

On leaving the mouth of the Clyde, we found the water rough; the wind
blew keenly and chopped about; thus the _Vestal_ pitched and lurched
heavily off Ailsa Craig, amid the mist and spray.  This somewhat
damped the military pride of the youngsters, and as the motion
increased when we entered the North Channel, the very idea of
breakfast or dinner excited a qualmy horror within me; and the jokes
of Catanagh, Mac Pherson, and other older soldiers, failed to rouse
my spirit either to fun or anger--in short I was sick, miserably
sick, and would gladly have exchanged my hopes of a marshal's baton
and a tomb in Westminster for a safe footing on the nearest point of
land.

On, on we sped, and ere long a faint white line at the horizon marked
where the chalky brows of the Land's-end faded into the evening sea,
and we bade 'a long good night to old England.'

We had on board six companies of the Rifle Brigade--all jolly
fellows; and on recovering our 'sea legs,' we found the hours pass
delightfully.

The _Vestal_ was commanded by John Crank, an old, fiery, passionate
and red-faced naval lieutenant, who had served under Nelson as a
middy, and lost his 'starboard toplight, when boarding the _Holy
Joe_,' as he irreverently named the _San Josef_.

The proportion of tonnage for troops in a transport is two tons per
soldier; but on board our old donkey _Vestal_, the Highlanders were
stowed away with only eighteen inches per man for sleeping-room; and
as the weather grew warm on our approaching the Mediterranean, they
suffered great discomfort--and the poor women were crammed away among
the rank and file, unheeded and uncared for by all but their husbands.

I was subaltern of the watch, on the morning we anchored off
Gibraltar, where we remained for four and twenty hours, waiting for
despatches direct from London.  As soon as they arrived, the mail was
transferred on board the _Vestal_; the steam was again got up, and
long before evening, the giant peak, the tremendous rock-built
batteries of Gibel-al-taric--the rock of the old Moorish wars--faded
into the blue waters as we bore on towards that land of death and
battle, suffering and disaster, where Britannia was exchanging her
ancient oak leaves and laurels for the funeral cypress and the
baleful yew.




CHAPTER XXX.

THE TROOP-SHIP.

Among the letters and papers which reached our detachment at
Gibraltar, was a copy of the 'Morning Post,' which went 'the round'
of the officers--_i.e._--was perused by all in turn.

We were all seated jovially at the table, in the harbour of
Gibraltar; the bright sun was glistening on the waves which ran in
long and glassy ripples through the straits; the cabin-windows were
open; the cloth had been removed, and the decanters of sherry and
full-bodied old port were travelling round the well-polished mahogany
on their patent silver waggons.  We were idling over nuts and
peaches, talking, laughing and making merry on the prospects of the
war, when, judge of my emotions, on Major Catanagh, who had
entrenched himself behind the open pages of the 'Morning Post,'
suddenly raising his head and his voice together--

'Poor Tom Clavering!' he exclaimed; 'he has come to an untimely end
at last.'

'How?' asked several, pausing in their conversation; 'Clavering of
the Guards--who dined with us at Dumbarton?'

'Brother of Bob Clavering of the 5th?  Well?'

'He has come to an untimely end,' continued the major, and my heart
felt a pang as the captain's frank and handsome face came before me;
but I could neither analyse the major's expression of eye, or my own
emotions, as he added,--

'He has gone the way we must all go.'

'Dead!' I exclaimed, as hope mingled with my regret.

'No--married.'

'Married!' echoed several voices.

'As you will hear by this most magniloquent paragraph.'

'Read it, major--all news from home are welcome,' said Jack Belton.

'Married yesterday by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh.--'

'Who the deuce is he?' asked some one; 'we don't know such
dignitaries in Scotland.'

'Never mind, my boy--the "Morning Post" does--Married yesterday, by
the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh, Captain Thomas Clavering, second son of
the late Sir Anthony Clavering, of Clavering-corbet and
Belgrave-square, to Laura, the only and accomplished daughter of Sir
Horace Everingham, Bart, and M.P., of Elton Hall, Yorkshire and Glen
Ora.  The bride was most elegantly attired in white glacé silk,
covered with Brussels lace flounces, flowers and a magnificent
Brussels lace veil entwined with white roses and orange blossom.  She
was attended by twelve charming bridesmaids richly arrayed--six in
pink and six in white, who unbound their bouquets and strewed the way
with flowers before the wedded pair, from the porch of St. John's
church to the steps of the carriage.'

'By Jove! there's a peal of bells for you!' said Belton.'

'Think of Tom Clavering having the way before him strewed with
flowers.'

'After the ceremony, Sir Horace gave a splendid _déjeuner_ at his
residence in Edinburgh, and at four o'clock the beautiful bride and
gallant bridegroom left town, _en route_ for London, from whence it
is said they will follow the Guards to the Crimea in the elegant
yacht of Augustus Frederick Snobleigh, Esq., or in the _Fairy Bell_,
the well-known yacht of Sir Horace.'

This pompous and inflated notice, which excited much merriment at the
mess-table, fell heavily and sorely on me.  Every word of it was like
a death-knell--yet I loitered calmly and placidly, as old Duncan
Catanagh read it with a comical smile in his grey Highland eye, and
with a quizzical emphasis on certain portions of it.  No one who saw
me sitting there, so quietly and so pale (I could perceive my face in
an opposite mirror), would have dreamed there was such a hell raging
in my heart.

But alas! this world is full of strange fancies and misplaced
affections.

Though I was fully prepared or this marriage, the notice of it, so
plainly and palpably _in print_, was a source of great agony to me;
but amid the noise and bustle of the transport, the constant change
of scene in the Mediterranean, and the reckless gaiety of those
around me--those brave and light hearts, who amid the mud and gore of
the rifle-pits were to find 'glory or the grave,' I had fortunately
little time left for reflection.  Knowing my secret, and sympathising
with me, honest Jack Belton, left nothing unsaid or undone to draw me
from myself; to wean me as it were from my own thoughts, and to fix
my attention more on the events that lay before us than those which
were past and irremediable for Jack's maxim, like his favourite song,
was ever,--

  'To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly,
  For the true end of life is to live and be jolly.'


All day long, with our revolver pistols, we practised at bottles or
old hats slung from the mainyard arm; and in this feat none but
Callum Dhu could beat Jack Belton, who had been one of the most
successful pupils in our new school of musketry at Hythe.  In the
evening we had the fine brass band of the Rifles, who gave us the
best airs from _Il Travatore_ and _La Traviata_; then we sang glees
on the poop, or danced to the bagpipes on the main-deck, leaving
nothing undone to beguile the tedium of a sea-voyage; for there _is_
a tedium even in the beautiful Mediterranean; and daily we exchanged
salutes and cheers with troop-ships and war-steamers, French,
British, and Sardinian, returning with sick and wounded men from the
land towards which we were hastening.

Many of these vessels were imperial transports, on their way to
Marseilles; and they had generally in tow a sailing-vessel, also
crowded by the miserable convalescents of Scutari and Sebastopol; and
hourly, while they were within sight, we saw the ensign half hoisted,
and the dead launched off to leeward--sans shroud or coffin or other
covering than their blood-stained uniform, their Zouave cloak, or
grey greatcoat, all tattered and torn by the mud of the rifle-pits
and toil of the trenches.

After bidding adieu to the Cape de Gata, that long ridge of rocks
which lie on the eastern limits of Almeria, and form the last point
of Spain, we sighted Tavolaro, a promontory at the southern extremity
of Sardinia.  On that evening I had some trouble in saving my
irritable follower Callum Dhu from being put in irons, for beating a
rifleman who had been making fun of his Celtic peculiarities.  On,
on, we sped, with the smoke from our funnel pouring a long and vapory
pennant astern.

We landed the Rifles at Malta, and took on board ten pieces of
battering-guns--forty-eight pounders--for the Crimea, and ere long
saw a gorgeous sunset deepening on the green Sicilian hills.  In due
time we were among the countless isles of the Greek archipelago--the
Andælat Denhisa (or sea of islands, as it is named by the Turks),
with the stern and rocky shore of the Morca frowning on our lee from
the deep azure sky of the Levant.

The Ægean was covered with foam, and as we ran through the narrow
strait that divides the charming isle of Scio from the vast continent
of Asia, the sides of our steamer, the shrouds, our rough coats--even
our hair and moustaches, were encrusted with salt from the flying
spray, as we sped on past Milo, Hydra, and other isles of a thousand
old classic memories; and after passing and saluting the castles of
the Dardanelles, bore up for Gallipoli, at thirteen knots an hour,
with full steam, and every sail set that would draw fore and aft.

Let not my readers fear that I am about to afflict them with a
history either of the war or the siege of Sebastopol, or even with
the now-hackneyed description of Constantinople.  Fortunately for
myself, I never saw either the Malakoff or the Redan, though my
regiment did, to its cost; and though quartered in its vicinity, duty
or destiny prevented me from seeing much of the far-famed city of
Stamboul.  We have had enough and to spare of the East and Eastern
War of late; thus I mean to confine myself entirely to my own
adventures, which will prove more than enough to fill my volume,
without the introduction of any extraneous matter.




CHAPTER XXXI.

THE REEFS OF PALEGROSSA.

No French girl, waiting for her lover, was ever more impatient than I
to see the enemy, yet it was my fate never to plough the waters of
the Euxine.

In company with the _Mahmoudieh_, a small Osmanli steam-brig of ten
guns, we had left astern the narrow channel of the Hellespont, and
the lights of Gallipoli had sunk into haze and darkness on our
larboard quarter, as we steamed, but slowly, into the sea of Marmora.

The night, at first, was calm, but intensely dark, yet on we
glided--on, on--over the waste of waters, our almost noiseless speed
forming a strange contrast to the silence and sleep of the hundreds
on board, who were borne forward through the seething foam and
whirling water, as the revolving screw urged on the sharp-prowed
frigate--an even course before us, a long white wake of froth astern;
no light visible, save a faint ray near the binnacle, or that red and
dusky gleam which shoots at times upward from the engine-room, when
the iron jaws of the hot furnace are unclosed for a moment, and a
flash of fiery radiance falls on the mysterious intricacies of the
clanking machinery, and on the dark and swarthy visages of the
engineer and his mates.

So thought Belton and I, as we trod the deck together, cigar in
mouth, while gliding over the darkened waters of the Propontis.

Our coal was becoming scarce, for after an hour the engines almost
ceased, and every stitch of canvas she could carry was set upon the
vessel; but this was continued only for a time, as before midnight a
gale came on, and the sails were rapidly reduced, and we lost sight
of the _Mahmoudieh_, with her crescent and lantern glittering at her
foremast-head.

Jack Belton was officer of the watch, and about fifty of our men were
on deck in their forage-caps and greatcoats, ready to bear a hand
whenever they were required, in working the ship and general deck
duty.  As he scanned the horizon of the dark sea of Marmora, and saw
a peculiar white streak at its utmost verge, Captain Crank swore a
few nautical oaths, and bent his piercing solitary eye aloft on every
yard and rope and sail, to see, as he said, 'if she drawed properly.'

'What headland is that, now rising like a dark cloud upon our
larboard bow?' I inquired, with great suavity, as our skipper was not
in a mood to be trifled with.

'Cape St. George--and a d--ned unpleasant place it may prove to _us_,
if the wind shifts, and we find it on our lee,' he answered, in a
voice not unlike a growl, as he turned his red and weather-beaten
visage to windward.  'How's her head?' he snappishly asked the
midshipman of the watch.

'East and by north, sir.'

'Keep her so, and if the wind veers round, call me;' and, with a
general scowl round about him, he entered the poop.

As the night waxed older, the seamen, who generally have peculiar and
intuitive instincts about the weather--mysterious forebodings which
they cannot account for or explain, looked anxiously ahead, as the
dark clouds deepened on our ocean path, and the hurrying scud tore
the foam from the tops of the lifted billows.  The crew seemed
restless, and gathered together in whispering groups about the
forecastle and lee side of the main deck.

'I think we will have a rough night, sir,' said the middy of the
watch, in a low voice, to old Crank, who had come again upon deck.

'And a dangerous one, too,' he answered, adding, to the chief mate,
'let both watches be kept on deck, for I don't think it worth their
while to turn in now; double reef the foresail and
main-top-sail--quick, Mr. Gasket!  Send all the topgallant-yards on
deck--handsomely a bit--bravo!  Now make all fast, and keep a sharp
look out there forward.'

With these words, and a last glance at the compass, in the light of
which his red face glowed like a stormy moon, our gallant skipper
again descended from the poop and entered his cabin, to consult the
chart through the mellowing influence of a glass of stiff brandy grog.

At nine o'clock an order had been given to batten all the port-lids,
and ship the dead-lights.

These warnings and precautions detained me long, and somewhat
anxiously, on deck, till the bellowing wind and the bitter spray,
which showered over the ship like rain, fairly drove me below; but
knowing less, or caring less, about the actual risk we ran, after
playing chess for an hour or two with Major Catanagh, and hearing
some prosy old stories about the Mahrattah war and Bob Clavering of
the 5th, I 'turned in,' and wearied by a long day spent in the keen
sea-breeze, after a prayer that Laura might be happy though she had
deserted me for ever, I was soon fast asleep and dreaming of
Sebastopol.

From this comfortable state I was suddenly awakened by a frightful
uproar on deck, the bellowing of the wind through the rigging; the
creaking of the timbers; the grating and straining of the guns in
their lashings; the jarring, swaying, and pitching of the ship, as
she rose on one billow, and plunged surging deeply into the dark
watery trough of another.  The lamp in my cabin swung madly about in
its brass slings; at last the crystal globe was clashed to pieces;
the light went out, and I was in darkness.

I thought of that dreadful storm in the Euxine, which in the
preceding November had nearly destroyed an entire fleet of transports
and store-ships, strewing the shores of the Crimea with shattered
wrecks and unburied bodies; and with a new sensation of alarm in my
heart, I sprang from bed and proceeded to dress; at that moment I
heard the excited voice of Jack Belton in the great cabin.

'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' cried he, 'turn out--breakers are ahead!  Mac
Innon---Mac Pherson--Major, on deck--on deck, for heaven's sake; the
ship will strike in ten minutes!'

The appalling announcement brought every officer from his cabin in
such garments as he could grasp and don on the instant; and we
hurried to the poop.  It was only by clinging to the rail and
stanchions that we could retain our footing on the lofty poop, over
which the white foam was sweeping.  The waist seemed full of water;
the strong cordage bent or snapped, and streamed about like whipcord;
the foresail, main-topsail, and gib strained and flapped like
thunder, for the ship would not obey her helm; four men stood by the
wheel, and a chaos of darkness, water, foam, noise, and uproar, were
around me; and I had no distinct impression of anything, but that our
large ship, borne by the stormy wind and furious current, with all
her deck crowded by human beings, was drifting, at the rate of nine
knots an hour, towards a line of foam ahead, that marked where the
breakers curled on the beach.  But what beach--whether it was the
classic shore of Roumelia, of Asia Minor, the Isle of Marmora, or the
rocks of Coudouri, we knew not, for the binnacle, with its compasses,
had been swept away by a wave which made a clean breach over the ship
about midnight, sweeping three men away, with the poor middy of the
watch.

The black sky was moonless and starless.

I looked upon Major Catanagh, who stood near me shivering, half clad
and clinging to a timber-head, his grey hair matted to his face by
the drifting spray.  Old Duncan was brave as a lion; but he was a
husband--he was a father, and from the wild black tumult of the waves
that boiled around us--

                                  'His eyes
    Were with his heart, and that was far away,'

in a little cottage half buried among roses and woodbine, on the
western bank of Loch Lomond, where, at that hour so terrible to him,
his poor wife lay perhaps sleepless on her pillow, listening to the
wind that soughed round the craigs of Ross Dhu, and thinking of him,
with their little ones hushed in dreamless slumber around her.  Poor
Duncan's softer soul was stirred within him.  His face was pale; his
eyes were stern and sad; and if his spirit quailed in that awful
hour, it was not with fear, for he had faced death on many a field.

Those and those only who have been in such a place, where every wave
swept some brave soul into eternity, and where every gust of wind
bore the cry of despair and the knell of death, can tell what
Catanagh felt; and I read his thoughts rightly, for he turned to me
abruptly, and warmly pressing my hand, said,--

'Thank heaven, Allan, that you have none left behind you to love or
to regret--none to weep for you! no wife to leave to the starvation
of a widow's pension--no puir wee ones to cast upon a cold and
faithless world!'

I thought more of Laura than of this thankfulness; and as my heart
swelled with the bitter knowledge that my fate might never be
regretted, all fear and anxiety died away within it.  I became
totally indifferent, and felt myself really the only unconcerned
spectator present.

Callum Dhu having sprung to my side, threw his strong arm round me,
as if to break the force of the waves which every instant flooded the
deck; several soldiers followed him, and came crowding on the poop,
for as death seemed before us, discipline and etiquette seemed alike
to be forgotten.

The rudder chains had given way, and the ship was driving alternately
broadside and stern on, towards the line of breakers, above which we
could discern the outline of a dark and rocky shore.

'She will strike in ten minutes!' cried one of the mates.

The men became excited, and tumultuous cries ascended from the waist.

'Clew up--cut away the masts--lower the boats!'

Then followed shouts, disputes and struggles for spars, booms, and
hen-coops.

'Silence fore and aft--silence!' cried old Crank, through his
trumpet; 'boatswain, pipe away the barge and cutter--be ready to
lower away the boats, man the pumps, and stand by to cut away the
masts the moment she strikes!'

'Be cool, Highlanders--be cool, and fall into your ranks, my lads!'
cried Major Catanagh, perceiving that the crowding of the soldiers
upon the deck impeded the movements of the seamen; 'fall in here
across the main-deck: bugler sound the assembly--sound, my boy.'

Long and loudly blew the little bugle-boy the familiar barrack-yard
call, and strangely and wildly, at that terrible moment, it rang upon
the roaring wind, which seemed to tear the very notes off at the
bugle mouth, and sweep them to leeward with the hissing foam.

'Fall in, my lads--fall in, and keep in order.  If the boats can save
us, we shall be saved the more readily by being in order to leave the
ship.  If she splits below us, then we shall die in our ranks like
British soldiers, and like our father's sons--hoping everything from
a gracious God and fearing nothing.  Remember your discipline, my
lads, and keep up your hearts--mine has not sunk yet, though like
many among you, I have a dear wife and bairns at home in Scotland.
Close in, shoulder to shoulder, and remember the glorious example of
Seton and his Highlanders in the _Birkenhead_.'

A faint hurrah responded to this brief speech, and like a dark mass
in their soaked great coats, the poor fellows immediately formed in
their ranks, four deep across the deck in front of the poop, where
they stood in silence and in order awaiting either death or
deliverance with that calmness and fortitude for which no soldiers in
Europe can surpass our own braves.

I took my place on the left flank, and Callum Dhu was close beside
me, with a coil of rope in his hand, and a small hen-coop which he
had torn from a part of the ship, and which he defended from all by
his drawn bayonet; but not for his own use or safety.  Amid all the
terrors of that awful night, Callum's whole anxiety was for me.  The
crews of the boats stood by the davits and hoisting-tackles, ready to
lower away on the order being given, though there was little hope of
either cutter, dingy, or whale-boat living in such a sea.  The well
was sounded; and now we began to hear the clank of the pumps, while a
group of men stood by the masts ready to cut away everything fore and
aft; but the carpenter and his mates were saved that trouble, for
just as the huge ship surged broadside on among the white breakers,
she gave two fearful lurches--there was a shock that made her vibrate
from her trucks to her keel, and snapping like a hazel twig, the
strong mainmast, though built of Meniel fir, and cramped with forty
iron rings, went by the board with a crash like thunder.

The main-topmast of course, and the fore and mizen-topmasts, with all
their debris of yards, ropes, blocks and chain-sheets, came
clattering down in ruin and confusion among us, killing two men and
wounding others.  The shrouds snapped like threads, and then all this
wilderness of top-hamper was swept away to leeward, and dashed to
shreds upon the rocky shore.

Father Neptune and old Æolus had proved alike inimical to us, and
thus in a moment did our once-gallant old frigate become a hideous
and hopeless wreck, dismasted, defaced, and bulged upon a coast
unknown.

The night was as dark as if we were in the bowels of the earth; yet
from the whiteness of the foam that covered all the waves which
boiled over the ghastly reef, there came a species of reflected light
that revealed the horrors of our situation.  The wind still blew
furiously in fierce and heavy gusts; drenching us with spray; yet
there stood our little band in their ranks, orderly and calm, as if
upon parade--brave, firm, and God-fearing men--expecting every
instant that the ship would go to pieces!

The fall of the masts and top-hamper greatly eased the _Vestal_, and
she gave no immediate indications of that general breaking up which
we had all so much reason to dread.

'Where are we--on what coast?' was the question we asked of each
other a hundred times.

'Daylight will show,' was the invariable answer, and watches were
impatiently consulted, and the horizon scanned for the first
indication of dawn.  Some brandy was hoisted up from below; an
allowance per man was served round, and, as old Crank said, 'Never
was a raw nip more welcome.'

As the wind lulled on the approach of morning, the sea went down; the
spray ceased to deluge the deck, and we all sought our cabins to
procure such warm and dry clothing as might have escaped the
invasions made by the waves into our premises.

A faint streak that glittered along the far verge of the horizon,
marked the quarter of the sky where the sun would appear, and never
was its gleam more welcome, for now the storm had completely lulled,
and as the ship remained firmly bulged upon the rock, with her lower
hold half filled with water, we felt ourselves comparatively safe.
An order was given to lower away the boats; and having now fairly
escaped the horrors of the shipwreck, we began to look calmly about
us.

A flood of saffron light spread over the eastern quarter of the sky;
then, radiating like the points of a mighty star, the sun's rays shot
upward and played upon the dispersing clouds which turned to deep
crimson, and then the sea beneath them seemed to roll in alternate
waves of sapphires and rubies, till he rose in all his splendour, and
then one long and mighty blaze of dazzling light flashed steadily
from the horizon to the shore, filling with a sunny glory all the sea
of Marmora.

Now we could perceive the land distant about a mile; the shore was
green and fertile; to the eastward rose the towers of an old
fortified town, the domes and tall slender minarets of which were
glittering in the sun.  A little lower down lay a promontory covered
with ruins.  To the westward was a cape, under the lee of which were
a number of Levantine craft with long lateen-yards that tapered away
aloft, and their striped or brown shoulder-of-mutton sails, creeping
out from the creeks and inlets where they had found shelter during
the squall of the past night.

The carpenter reported, that without powerful assistance, there was
no possibility of getting the ship off, and as no British, French, or
Sardinian steamer was in sight, Crank stamped about the deck in a
high state of mental excitement and irritation, while fear of Greek
pirates and Natolian robbers, whose armed boats are ever on the prowl
in these seas, made Catanagh, at his suggestion, order our men to
accoutre and parade with their arms and ammunition on deck, where an
inspection was made, and our two hundred Highlanders were found to be
in complete fighting order.

'What say you now, Captain?' asked Catanagh; 'do you know the coast?'

'Only too well, Major--it is Roumelia, and we are in the gulf of
Salonica.'

'That town on the promontory--'

'Is Heraclea, with the ruins of some old devilish Greek place close
by.'

'Then we are on classic ground?'

'Damned deal too classic for my taste!' grumbled Crank; 'we are
ashore, sir, on the Palegrossa rocks.'

'Is there a Turkish garrison in Heraclea?'

'Undoubtedly, for there is a population of about seven
thousand--principally fishermen--and the town is fortified.'

'All right--let me get my men ashore, and we shall march in.  The
officer commanding must find us quarters.  I long to stretch my legs
on dry land again.'

Old Crank proved right; we were really wrecked upon those dangerous
rocks which lie about the two little isles of Venetica, in the Bay of
Salonica, about ninety miles from the mouth of the Dardanelles, and
fifty from Constantinople, by the coast road.

A careful inspection of the _Vestal_ proved that our carpenter's idea
of getting her safely off, under any circumstances, was quite
impracticable.  She was firmly wedged and bulged between two masses
of rock, and was so seriously injured that even were steam power
procured sufficient to drag her into deep water, she would instantly
sink.  Thus all hope of preserving the shattered hull of our old
donkey-frigate was abandoned; and as the sea was now calm, and she
might be some weeks of going to pieces, we prepared to hoist up the
battery guns, the ship's carronades, the stores, &c., and make other
arrangements for disembarking by the boats with all due order and
regularity.

Our men were paraded on deck, accoutred in heavy marching order, with
their knapsacks, wooden canteens, greatcoats, and haversacks.  The
luggage, spare arm-chests, and squad-bags, were all brought up from
below, and everything in the form of stores, clothing, and articles
of value, were prepared for landing.  Captain Crank, with Major
Catanagh and an interpreter, were pulled ashore in the pinnace, with
a well-armed crew, to make arrangements with the Turkish authorities
for our reception and transmission to Constantinople.

With considerable interest--if not with some anxiety--we watched them
and the pinnace disappear round a wooded promontory; and evening had
almost deepened on the land and sea before they returned with
intelligence that they had despatched tidings of our situation to the
officer commanding at Scutari, and had made arrangements with Mir
Alai Said, a Turkish colonel, who commanded in Heraclea, to afford us
quarters in the barrack of that town.

We passed that night in the wreck.  She was firm and motionless as
the rocks on which she lay; but the occasional surging of the sea
against her shattered sides, and the gurgling of the water, as it
ebbed and flowed in the lower hold, together with the natural fear
that some portion of her might give way in the night, kept us all
anxious and wakeful; though Jack Belton was the life of our little
party, and favoured us with his usual ditty--

  'To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly,
  Since the chief end of life is to live and be jolly.'

Though, like myself, he had only his pay, Jack was the most heedless
of all heedless fellows.  His father had been ruined, or nearly so,
by a plea which had been before the Scottish Lords of Council and
Session for the last fifty years; and which, in the hands of an able
advocate and sharp-practising agent, like our friend the
late-lamented Snaggs, bade fair to go on for another half century.

We idled away the chilly hours, muffled in our cloaks, regimental
plaids, and paletots or bernous, à la Bedouin, over cigars, wine, and
brandy-and-water, singing songs, telling stories, and practising the
Highland feat of sheathing and unsheathing the claymore with both
hands turned outwards, and playing other pranks, till again the
bright sun of Asia shone upon the sea of Marmora, and after tiffin of
biscuit, brandy, and junk, we paraded, to disembark upon the old
historic shore of Roumelia.

I went off in the first boat with Mac Pherson (the captain of our
Light Company), Jack Belton, Callum Dhu, and about thirty privates.
We pulled away clear of the wreck into blue water, and then steered
towards the shore, where three Turkish officers, on horseback, were
waiting to receive us.  After pulling for more than a mile through a
sea which shone like burnished gold, and the transparent waves of
which enabled us to perceive, at a vast depth below, the rank
luxuriance of its dark green weeds, spreading their broad and
tremulous leaves over a bed of snow-white sand, we reached the point
indicated by Captain Crank as our landing-place.  It was a rough and
barren part of the coast, where the rocks were piled over each other
in confusion, with a coarse bulbous plant, like a crocus, which
spread its crooked leaves between the gaping interstices of the
stones.  No bushes or trees were there; but there were vultures,
storks, and cranes, that hovered over the ruins of an old Roman wall,
and flapped their wings upon the prostrate columns of a Corinthian
temple, that lay half-merged among the waters of the encroaching sea.

As our boat grounded, the three Turkish officers--each of whom wore
the scarlet _fez_ (which is named from the city of Fez), with its
gold military button, the tight blue surtout, and crooked sabre,
which make up the invariable costume of all in the service of the
Sultan--brought their horses near, and as we sprang ashore, accorded
to us the usual military salute; and one--a lieutenant--in very
tolerable French, bade us welcome to the land of the Osmanli.

Mir Alai Said and the Mulazim (_i.e._, lieutenant) Ahmed were both
handsome men, with keen Asiatic features, and dark eyes that
glittered with somewhat of the cunning expression peculiar to all of
Oriental blood; but the third, of whom the reader will hear more in
future chapters, the Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz, was a Yuze Bashi, or
captain of artillery, and wore the blue uniform, gold epaulettes, and
laced belt and trousers of the corps of Bombardiers.  He was a
punchy, shaggy-browed, solemn, stately, and sulky-looking old Turk,
with a heavy grizzled moustache; a skin of the hue of mahogany, and
an eye that seemed to be for ever watching you, and you only.
Besides, he spoke a little absurd broken English, which he picked up
at Acre, during the war against Mehemet Ali.

While our men were scrambling ashore from the boats, as each in
succession came in and grounded, we asked the Mir Alai what were the
news from the seat of war?

'We have fought a brave battle on the Ingour,' replied the colonel,
rather haughtily, as it is not the etiquette of the Turkish service
for juniors to question a senior.  'Omar Pasha, with 20,000 Osmanlis,
crossed the river in Mingrelia, in the face of a desperate fire of
cannon and musketry; and fighting, with the water up to their
armpits, stormed the position from 16,000 Russians, whom they forced
to retreat.'

'And the Czar, whom God confound, has left the Crimea,' added the fat
Captain Hussein Ebn al Ajuz; 'may the Prophet burn the Russian liars,
who eat blood and swine's-flesh, and take usury!  May he transform
their young men into apes, and their old ones into swine, as he did
those who, of old, offered incense to idols!'

'Amaum!  Amaum!' muttered the other two, under their thick moustaches.

Mac Pherson, who had served long in India, retained his gravity; but
Belton, on catching a twinkle of my eye, laughed aloud at these
quaint expressions of hatred, which were uttered in a strong jargon
of Turkish and queer French.

'And Kars--does it still hold out?'

'Mashallah! have you not heard?' they exclaimed.

'No--we have been at sea.'

'Kars is valueless as the cleft of a date-stone!' said the Mir Alai.

'Then it has fallen!' we exclaimed together.

'It capitulated through famine to that dog and son of a dog,
Mouravieff.  The garrison of the brave Ingleez Pasha marched out with
the honours of war, and delivered themselves up to the Russians as
prisoners; thus 8,000 true Believers are detained; but a number of
militia-men have been liberated by Mouravieff, who found in the city
one hundred and thirty pieces of cannon.'

'And Sebastopol?'

'Still holds out manfully and desperately,' said the Mir Alai; 'but
what do I see?--women coming ashore--and, oh, Mohammed! without the
vestige of a yashmack to cover their faces.'

'Your soldiers,' said the Yuze Bashi, 'are kilted like Arnaouts, and
all giant in stature as Og the son of Anak.  Your Mir Alai says he
has two hundred of them--how many wives have they?'

'Four,' said I.

'Four!' reiterated the Mir Alai; 'O, Mohammed! what do we hear?'

'Our government permitted only two women per company in the
transport.'

'Four wives for two hundred men!' exclaimed the punchy old Yuze Bashi
of the Bombardiers, turning up his round black eyes in wonderment,
and gathering the most peculiar ideas from my words; 'one wife for
fifty men!  It is enough to make every hair in the beards of the
seventy imaums stand on end with astonishment!'

'Hush,' whispered the Mir Alai, in a tone of rebuke; 'beware what you
say, Hussein; they have come to fight with us against the Muscovites,
and may the Prophet--he who knoweth all things--shed a ray of light
upon the darkness of their souls!'

'Amaum!' mumbled the lieutenant, who, as in duty bound, applauded all
that the Mir Alai said; 'but oh, Allah! only _two_ wives per company!'




CHAPTER XXXII.

THE YUZE BASHI.

Leaving a small party under Lieutenant Logan, of ours, to protect the
landing of the baggage and stores, accompanied by our three Turkish
acquaintances, we forded a stream, with pipes playing and bayonets
fixed, and crossing the promontory, marched towards Heraclea, which
lies at the bottom of a little bay, and on the land side is defended
by walls, though somewhat old and rent; and in a short time we
marched in, making its streets of old dilapidated and worm-eaten
timber houses; its domed mosques, and tall white-painted minars; its
ruined palace of Vespasian; its Greek café; its Jewish bazaar; its
whirling windmills; its stony and slippery thoroughfares and old
ruins of the Grecian days, ring to the sharp rat-tat of the British
brass drum and to the skirl of three great Scottish war-pipes, from
the chanters and nine deep drones of which our pipers poured the
stirring 'Haughs of Cromdale,' with such effect, that the
big-breeched, long-bearded, stupid-looking old Turks, who sat smoking
on carpets and platforms at the doors and in the street, with
yataghans and pistols in their red-shawl girdles; the lively Greeks,
in tarboosh, short jacket, and blue inexpressibles; the sharp-visaged
Jews and solemn Armenians, all opened their round black eyes, and
threw up their hands in wonder, as we wheeled up towards the fortress
in sections of threes, with arms sloped, our tartans waving, and
black feathers flaunting in the wind.

A fry of little Osmanli gamins, barelegged, though wearing short wide
breeches and the red fez with its long tassel, scampered about us,
gamboling, uttering shrill cries of wonder, and styling us
Janissaries, Arnaouts, Albanians, Giaours, and anything but Britons;
and thus escorted, we reached the spacious Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, or
barrack of the Bombardiers, where a battalion of Turkish infantry was
under arms to receive us; and with ranks open, presented arms in a
manner which would have done no discredit to any other European
troops, their drums beating, and the officers saluting with the edge
of their Damascus sabres outwards--as it is turned inward to none but
the Sultan himself.

The officers of this battalion had done their best to provide us with
a handsome collation--so handsome and luxurious indeed that, after
our recent hardship, the very memory of it is enough to make one
whistle; and apart from certain peculiarities, we found them very
pleasant, quaint, and conversible fellows, though very few of them
could boast of education sufficient to entitle them to add the envied
appendage of _effendi_ to their names.  Their language, like that of
the better class of Osmanli, was a mixture of Persian and Turkish,
while that of their soldiers, like the jargon of the peasantry and
boatmen of the Bosphorus, was Turkish alone: but in this these
Orientals resemble ourselves; for in Britain the language of the
educated people is alike distinct from the Scottish tongue and the
dialects of the old Saxon.

'Mac Innon, here is to our noble selves!' said Catanagh, in Gaelic.
'How do you like the Roumelian wine?'

'It seems thin and poor.'

'Dioul! but it is more pleasant for you to be drinking it here, than
be imbibing sherry-cobblers and cocktail among the Yankees.'

'True,' said I with a sigh, as I thought of the evicted men of Glen
Ora.

At this entertainment, the sulky old Yuze Bashi, warmed by the
forbidden juice of the grape (of which being animated by our example
he partook rather freely, notwithstanding the anathemas of him whose
sabre cleft the moon in twain--Mohammed 'the Holy Camel Driver'),
seemed to conceive a sudden favour for me, and in his strange jargon
of French and Arabic, with a few hiccups between, gave me an account
of himself and of the Sultan's service.

He was named, it would appear, Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz (or the son
of the old woman), as his mother had been a cast-off slave of Mehemet
Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt; and his paternal parent was supposed to be
a certain enterprising corporal of Mamelukes, who died with a
bowstring about his neck for borrowing the silver lamps of a mosque
at Suez.  Little Hussein became a soldier, and fought at the battles
of Koniah and Homs, in the war against Mehemet Ali; and in these
affairs had cut off various heads, and stowed away innumerable
Egyptian ears in the mysterious depths of his red Oriental breeches,
all to his own great satisfaction and contentment--as a head was
worth a piastre, and a pair of ears sold before Reschid Pasha's tent
for ten paras.

At the rout of Koniah he had saved the _only_ pair of Turkish colours
which escaped the furious advance of the Egyptian infantry--viz.,
those of Scherif Bey's regiment--by stuffing them into his voluminous
regimental breeches, wherein various bullets lodged harmlessly
thereafter during the retreat; for this and other acts of devotion,
he was rewarded by the government of Rodosdchig, a little fortress a
few miles from Heraclea; and after making the pilgrimage, partly by
steamer, to Mecca; after drinking of the Zemzem well, and of that
which flows at Midian where Moussa watered the flocks at Jethro, and
rolled from its mouth a stone which the united strength of Jethro's
seven shepherds failed to move; after kissing the holy Kaaba, and
flinging a few stones at an imaginary devil, he returned in a mingled
state of beer and beatitude to his fortress.  There, since 1842, he
had spread his carpet, reposed in the lap of a charming odalisque,
and smoked his chibouque in contentment and peace; and
there--nathless his being a Hadjeè, and the builder of a little gilt
mosque--he drank and swore like any enlightened Christian of the
western world.

Fat, cunning as Lucifer, sensual as a sybarite, and intensely
illiberal, he was a fair specimen of the old Turk of the worst kind;
and if the curve be the line of beauty, then the shins of Hussein,
like those of most Osmanlies, were perfection.  His ears were set
high on his head; his forehead was low and narrow; his eyebrows
nearly met, and thus betokened a cruel and revengeful nature.  He
gave me, however, a little insight into the economy of military life
in the sultan's service.

'Our regiments,' said he, 'all consist of four battalions, and each
battalion is commanded by a cole agassi (major), and has one
standard.  A colonel or lieutenant-colonel commands the whole, with
one great standard--the banner of the prophet--upon whose name be
glory!  Each battalion has its squad of slaves, who carry water on
the march and bear the wounded from the field of battle.  So strict
is the etiquette maintained in our service by officers, that they
never dine with subordinates in rank; hence the jovial messes of
Frangistan excite only our wonder; and to see a great Mir Alai, who
commands four thousand bayonets, drinking wine with a poor little
devil of an ensign, would astound the whole Turkish army.  Even in
the street a superior officer always walks half a pace before an
inferior; thus I have seen five officers all walking along a street
at once in _echelon_, and maintaining a conversation at the same
time.  None among us wear beards under the rank of general--with a
few exceptions.  A junior officer always rises and salutes a senior
on the latter entering a room, and cannot seat himself again without
his permission, or appear before him without his fez, belt, and
sabre.  Our Turkish privates receive about four shillings _Ingleez_
per month; but our lord the Sultan provides for their food and
clothing over and above their pay.'

I thanked the old fellow for this information, which did not impress
me highly with the position of an officer under his Majesty
Abdul-Medjid; and after a time Jack Belton and I, tired of the
entertainment, and of hearing lamentations for the fall of Kars, and
description of a palace of silver--solid silver--which the Sultan was
to build in London when he visited the Queen of the Ingleez; so,
carefully loading our revolvers, and placing them in our belts, we
took our regimental swords and dirks, and set forth for a ramble in
the dusk, regardless of the warnings of Catanagh and the Mir Alai
Saïd, who told us that strangers were never safe from assassination
and robbery after sunset.  However, we took with us Callum Dhu, who,
in addition to his bayonet, carried a heavy cudgel cut in the wood of
_Coilchro_; and a regular adventure of some kind--no matter what--was
the very thing we required to enliven us a little, after our long
sea-voyage, and our recent bibulous _déjeûné_ with the Turkish
officers.

When off duty, honest Callum was seldom a moment from my side.  The
Gael have a proverb, which says, 'affectionate to a man is his
friend, but a foster-brother is the life-blood of his heart;' and
faithful as one of my own blood could have been, was the gallant Mac
Ian to me!

As we stumbled along the narrow and muddy streets, we soon remarked
the total absence of everything that resembled a petticoat, for the
Turkish females in their hideous wide pantaloons and ghostly
yashmacks were unlike aught that was human, as they flitted among the
few shops which the town contained.  The sun had long since set, and
the night was dark.  There is no twilight in Turkey, where the
sunshine and darkness succeed each other suddenly at certain seasons.

'I miss nothing so much here as the petticoat, God bless it!' said
Belton, 'for you must allow, Allan, that it is a very interesting and
somewhat mysterious garment.'

'Charmingly so! and the more its amplitude, the more its mystery,'
said I.

'I don't half like those abominable Turkish trousers on the women;
but it is the very devil never to see their faces!  We will get over
that difficulty somehow--for to be sad about trifles----'

'Hush, for heaven's sake, don't sing here like a wandering Arab,'
said I, interrupting the invariable song (that Jack gave us nightly
with the third allowance of wine) as we found ourselves before an
illuminated Khan.




CHAPTER XXXII.

THE KHAN.

Before the façade of this edifice, a row of illuminated lanterns of
various gaudy colours hung on orange-trees, while through its open
door and arches of trellis-work came the hum of voices, a warm glow
of light that gushed into the pitchy obscurity without, and the
perfume of roasting coffee, with the fragrant odour of stewing
kabobs.  The building was spacious, and contained every requisite
comfort as some one says somewhere, 'but clean sheets and a Christian
bed.'

Entering, we found a number of Turks, all well armed of course,
seated on mats round a species of raised divan; they were smoking and
were attended by long-haired Greek girls, who were tripping about
with their beautiful feet bare and stockingless, supplying these
heavy-brained but true Believers with coffee in diminutive cups, or
tobacco bruised with apples for their long chibouques, paper for
cigarettes, and kabobs on wooden skewers, with caviar, olives, and
cheese.

As we entered, all raised their dark and glittering eyes to scan us,
by the light of a huge gilt lantern that hung from a dome in the
centre of the Khan.

'Salaam aleikum,' said we, touching our caps.

'With you be Allah,' muttered all present; and the keeper of the
Khan, a lively Greek in wide blue breeches, a tight brown jacket, a
white apron and glittering skull cap, hurried forward to attend us.

As an excuse to remain and to observe the company, rather than from
any necessity for refreshment, we asked for coffee and a slight
supper.  In a few minutes we had the first, black and fragrant, with
milk, hot cake, and a preserve of grapes boiled with walnuts, all
placed before us upon two little trays in a corner of the apartment,
where a charming young Greek girl, with her black hair plaited over
her delicate white ears, arrayed the mats and cushions for us; then
cigars were brought, and seating ourselves, we proceeded to refresh
and inspect the goodly company.

Little or no notice was taken of us by these lumbering and ponderous
Orientals, for whom even the emotion of curiosity would be too
exciting.  Yet the large and crowded hall of this Roumelian khan
presented one of the most striking scenes I have witnessed.

Therein seemed all the races of the Turkish empire at coffee and
chibouques.

The old Effendi, grave, solemn, pretentious, and stupid; his turban
white as snow, or green, to mark his descent from the Holy Prophet;
his beard black as night; his nose fierce and aquiline; his eyes
sparkling, and his heavy moustache curling over the amber mouth of
his long chibouque; his scarlet nether garments and buff boots; his
ample shawl, long caftan, and gilded dagger completing the picture.
The noble Albanian, in his red jacket embroidered with blue cord; his
ample white kilt (like ours, above the knee); his red-bandaged hose;
his yataghan, musket, and brass-butted pistols.  The sombre Armenian,
with his long beard and flowing robes, his grave and respectful
visage surmounted by an enormous kalpec of black felt.  The handsome
and lively Greek, unabashed by the presence of his Turkish tyrants,
and all chatter, fun, and gaiety; closely shaved and bare-legged;
with a blue turban, short trousers, and black shoes.  The hardy
Islesman in his shaggy capote; the modern Turkish artillery officer,
in his tight surtout with gold fringe epaulettes; his little fez,
with its brass plate; his red trousers strapped tightly under French
glazed boots; his gold belt and keen Damascus sabre--oriental in
face, but decidedly occidental in dress, and almost in idea; for the
corps of _Topchis_ were all organised _à la Franque_ by the Sultan
Selim.  There, too, was a fierce and scowling Tartar--dropped Heaven
knows from where--but armed to the teeth, with dagger, pistols, bow
and arrows, toasting dough-balls in the brazier.  A moolah and a
dervish in their grey felt caps that taper like an extinguisher: and
lastly, there was a disgusting Stamboul Jew, crushed in aspect,
cunning in eye, with contracted brow and blubber lip; avaricious in
soul and unyielding in purpose.  A few black slaves, hideous in face
and scanty in attire, but very intent on _backsish_, may complete
this sketch of a picturesque group--or if aught be wanting, let me
mention the powerful form of Callum Dhu, in his belted plaid, green
kilt, and white sporran, as he sat hobbing and nobbing with a dervish
over a dish of mutton ham; though honest Callum knew as much of the
language and ideas of the dervish as he did about the nature and
habits of 'the Dodo and its kindred.'

The conversation generally consisted of occasional and disjointed
remarks, with long pauses between.

The war was less spoken of than the prices of tobacco, maize, rice,
silk, cotton, and wheat, and other products of the land; but Jack and
I could glean that they were not a little proud of the circumstance,
that the little Turkish war-steamer, the _Mahmoudieh_, and a Hadriote
brig, by steering in another direction, had escaped the storm which
threw our vessel on the reefs of Palegrossa.

'Each of these fellows is quite a bijou,' said Jack Belton; 'I would
give the world to have them all at home and comfortably ensconced in
a handsome caravan, and to become their Barnum throughout Britain.'

'What are the news from Europe?' asked the Turkish officer of
Topchis, in French.

'Very unimportant,' replied Belton; 'in the west, the eyes of all men
are turned to the east, and nothing is heard of, thought of, or
spoken of, but this protracted siege of Sevastopol--while
diplomatists seem to be splitting straws at Paris and Vienna.'

'Splitting straws?' pondered the literal Turk, 'Glory be to Allah!  A
strong employment for generals and viziers--have they no grooms to
chop their straw?'

A sudden commotion in the street without, and the irregular tramp of
men marching, attracted the attention of all the loiterers in the
khan; and as several Turks left their pipes and mats, and with their
hands on their weapons, hurried to the door, Belton and I sprang up
to see what was the matter.

The gleam of arms and the blaze of torches lightened in the dark and
muddy street, as a party of six Turkish marines, in their blue
uniforms and red fez caps, with crossed belts and fixed bayonets,
escorted a Greek prisoner towards the barrack of the Bombardiers.
After saying a few words to his guard, the prisoner paused at the
open window of the khan, which faced the street, and begged 'a
draught of cold water in the name of God.'

The keeper was about to give it, but paused; for the delinquent was
his countryman, and the eyes of many armed Turks were fixed with a
lowering expression on both.

During this brief pause, I scrutinized the prisoner.

He was a young man, as nearly as I could judge, about
five-and-twenty: his features were no less remarkable for their manly
beauty than singular in their character.  His long hair, which hung
in heavy locks from under his little blue Greek cap, were black as
night; his eyes and his smart moustache were jet; but his features
were wan, sickly, and as ghastly as those of a corpse.  His attire
was the splendidly-embroidered blue jacket, white kilt, and bandaged
hose of an Albanian officer--but all frayed, torn, and disfigured.
His appearance was singularly striking, and that nothing might be
wanting to complete it, and excite our sympathy, on his wrists were
two massive steel fetters, which were joined by a heavy iron chain.

Again he pointed to his parched lips, and hoarsely begged a cup of
water.

From the hand of a Turk who stood near us I snatched a cup of
wine--that Thracian wine which Pliny commended in the happier days of
Greece--and handed it to the poor Albanian.  A glance of deep
gratitude flashed from his dark expressive eyes, as, thirstily and
joyfully, he drained the cup and returned it to me with a graceful
bow.  With a few words of apology, I handed it to the Turk, but that
personage drew back with a scowl on his brow, and, with a hand on his
poniard, tossed the cup away.

The Greek kissed both his fettered hands to me, and retired: the
fixed bayonets flashed again around him, and the dark group
disappeared; but his glance of thankfulness was still before me, and
it sunk deep into my heart.

'Bono!' said an old Moolah, who was named Moustapha, in approval of
what I had done; ''twas a good action, Frank, and thy better angel
will write it ten times down in Heaven.'

'Who is this Greek?' I inquired, of the fat old Yuze Bashi Hussein,
who at that moment entered the khan, shouting imperiously, 'Hola,
Boba!--Here woman, coffee!'--and the speed with which his wants were
supplied, almost before he had seated his amplitude upon a carpet,
showed that our captain of Bombardiers was not a person to be trifled
with.  He hated Greeks, but his animosity was confined only to the
males of that race.  Though he scowled at the keeper of the khan, he
leered at his wife who attended us.  She was a pretty woman of Scio,
who wore the grotesque costume of that island--a braided red jacket,
with a short padded green skirt.  On her head was a small cap, from
which hung a veil on the sides of her face and gracefully down her
back; a circlet of Paphian diamonds, or rock crystals, from Baffo,
glittered round her pretty neck, on which the huge eyes of the Yuze
Bashi gloated from time to time.  But to resume--'Who is this Greek?'
I asked.

'The worst of traitors: 'grumbled Hussein.  'Every one who comes into
this world is touched by the devil, who attends at his birth
_unseen_; but Inshallah!  Shaitaun must have taken a rough hold of
our Greek!  He was an officer--a mulazim in the regiment of Albanians
who garrisoned this place before we came here.'

'An officer!' I reiterated, in astonishment.

'And chained thus!' added Belton, in the same tone.

'Now, by the seventh paradise, but you astonish me!' said the Captain
Hussein, opening his great oriental eyes.  'Do you forget that the
man is only a Greek, and that the Greeks, like the Russian, are all
beasts--as Zerdusht the Prophet was, who married his grandmother, and
who will have a bridle of fire in his jaws at the last day.'

'His crime--'

'Was desertion.  He was stationed at the battery near the mouth of
the harbour, and fled one night in an open boat, taking with him four
Albanian soldiers.  They rowed across the Sea of Marmora to the isle
of that name; and after lurking for a time among its marble quarries,
feeding on nuts like so many squirrels, they sailed over to Natolia,
where they were taken in the Sangiac of Bigah, and made prisoners.
The four Albanian soldiers were shot on the instant; but he has been
sent here, on board the _Mahmoudieh_--yonder war-steamer now at
anchor in the bay--and to-morrow, before the sun is at its height, he
shall be shot to death in the Valley of the Little Mosque.'

'After all he has endured?'

'Poor fellow!'

'Mashallah!  Human life is only a deceitful enjoyment,' replied
Hussein, who was an inveterate quoter of the Koran; 'but may I never
see Paradise if his story is not a strange one; I shall tell it to
you--'tis a tale, like any other, and I heard it all, being one of
the court-martial at Bigah which sentenced him to die.'

After draining his little coffee-cup, refilling the capacious bowl of
his pipe, and taking a few prodigious whiffs, the Yuze Bashi related
the following story, which--with the reader's permission--I will
rehearse in my own words; and while he spoke, the noble figure,
stately presence, pale beauty, and splendid eyes of the manly
Albanian Greek, seemed ever and painfully to be before me.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

STORY OF THE GREEK LIEUTENANT.

Sixteen years ago, when the Allied Powers united to assist the Sultan
in his conflict with old Mehemet Ali, then pasha of Egypt, and
nominally his vassal, the insurgent garrison of Acre was successfully
bombarded, as all the world knows, by the British fleet, under the
flag of Commodore Sir Charles Napier, who on that occasion
distinguished himself with his usual skill, bravery, and intrepidity.
The fortress was taken in a few hours; but the destruction and
slaughter were fearfully augmented by the explosion of a magazine of
powder and live bombs, by which the venerable ramparts of St. John
were reduced to a pile of blackened ruins.  The roar of the exploding
powder was appalling; from the low headland of Acre there ascended
into the pure blue Syrian sky a mighty column of smoke and dust.  The
lonely Kishon was startled in its stony bed; every mosque, khan, and
bazaar in the city rocked to its foundation, while the whole waters
of the bay were agitated by the concussion and rolled in foamy
ripples on the rocks of Cape Carmel.

In that explosion one thousand five hundred brave soldiers who had
escaped the dangers and withstood the horrors of the bombardment were
in a moment swept into eternity.

Of the many who perished, none was more universally regretted by the
Egyptian garrison, and even by the British commander, than Demetrius
Vidimo, a Greek captain, who served the Pasha, in mere hatred of the
Sultan and of the Turks, who were the tyrants of his people--a hatred
in which he was sustained by his wife, who was the daughter of a
Sciote patriot of high rank.  Demetrius had participated in all the
horrors of the Greek struggle for independence, when the men of
Missolonghi, after a year's siege of hardship unparalleled, and after
defying all the united power of Turkey and of Egypt--after having a
hundred thousand bombs and balls shot among them, buried themselves
in the ruins of the city.  He had seen the pyramid of Grecian skulls
that rose near the grave of Bozzaris; he had seen the horrors of the
massacre of Scio, when fifty thousand frantic Turks drenched the
loveliest of the Ægean Isles in blood, slaying sixty thousand Sciotes
in its streets, and carrying thirty thousand into hopeless slavery.
He had seen the manly boys and beautiful girls of Greece sold at a
dollar a-head in the streets of Smyrna.  He had seen their mothers
ripped open by the Turkish sabre and the handjiar, and the children
torn reeking from the womb and dashed against the walls of Athens,
for the wildest beasts of Africa or India were mild as tender lambs
when compared to the merciless, brutal, and unglutted soldiery of
Mahmoud the Second.  He had seen the slave-market of Stamboul crowded
with Grecian captives--brave men struggling and raving in their
futile vengeance against the Osmanlies; and women--the pale virgin
and the weeping mother--shrinking in the agonies of separation from
all they loved, and in horror of their lewd and sensual purchasers,
who bought them from the troops for the value of twelve cartridges, a
pipe-stick, or a piastre, and dragged them away to slavery, and worse
than slavery, in their harems, dens, and anderuns at Stamboul.

He had seen all these things, and the soul of Demetrius was fired by
a thirst for undying vengeance upon the oppressors of his people.

He was an Albanian, and chief of one of the eight tribes of the
Scutari mountains.  Hardy, brave, reckless to a fault, and fired
alike by enthusiasm and revenge, he had distinguished himself on a
thousand occasions against the Turks; and at the previous storming of
Acre--eight years before--when Ibrahim Pasha, at the head of forty
thousand Egyptians and Arabs, besieged it for six months, the Grecian
Captain Vidimo in every assault was conspicuous, both by his bravery
and his picturesque Albanian costume; for wherever death was to be
found or danger sought and glory won, there towered the figure of
Vidimo, in his skull-cap, with his long hair flowing under it; his
fleecy capote flung loosely over his shoulder; his white kilt and
scarlet buskins, leading on the van of battle, and handling in rapid
succession the long musket, the crooked sabre, deadly yataghan and
pistols, which are the native weapons of the Albanian mountaineer.

But he perished in the explosion at Acre, and so there was an end of
him, greatly to the regret of his comrades, and very much to the
grief of the Yuze Bashi Hussein, who had set his whole heart upon
taking the valiant Greek dead or alive, and laying his head at the
feet of Mahmoud the Second, to claim the promised reward.

The Turks were furious! not even his body was to be found, though the
Sultan had offered a princely sum for it; and amid all the heads hewn
off after the bombardment, there was not one found that would pass
muster as having belonged to Vidimo, whose face was well known by a
peculiar sabre cut which he received at the defence of Missolonghi in
1826.

After the capture, Ali Pasha, and Hussein Ebn al Ajuz, with other
officers of the corps of Bombardiers, enjoyed to their hearts'
content the pleasure of slicing off the head of the dark Egyptians,
or stuffing their pockets with tawny ears, and with something better
still the various good things to be picked up in the bazaars, the
great khan, the Franciscan monastery, the Greek church, the Armenian
synagogue, and other places where the unbelieving dogs of Jews and
Christians presumed to worship in any other fashion than that
proscribed by the holy camel-driver.

During his minute researches in a certain flat-roofed mansion near
the Castle of Iron, the enterprising Hussein and several of his
soldiers discovered a female, of great beauty, with two children, a
boy and a girl, concealed in an alcove; and while the poor little
ones with terror in their wild black eyes, screamed and clung to the
skirt of their pale mother, the soldiers of Hussein, with brandished
weapons, and fierce Turkish imprecations, dragged them forth.  The
woman was too handsome to be sacrificed: so Hussein, who had a
special eye to female loveliness, saved her at once, by sabring one
of his Majesty's soldiers and pistolling another, to cool the ardour
of the rest; but now, a dozen or more of Turkish officers, flushed
alike by blood, which is enjoined by the Koran, and by wine, which is
forbidden by it, crowded into the apartment.

The beauty of the captive inflamed them all, and a furious contention
ensued, as to who should possess her.

She offered a thousand Xeriffs as the ransom of her honour and her
children's lives; but the princely guerdon was received and rent from
her, with shouts of derision.

Then Ali Pasha asserting his senior rank, seized her rudely.

'Hold!' she exclaimed, in a piercing voice and with a nobility of
gesture which made even _him_ draw back; 'I am a Christian woman--the
daughter of a Sciote noble, and the widow of him who died to-day,
Demetrius Vidimo, and these are his children, Constantine and
Iola--we shall die together!' and with these words, she took from her
bosom a coral cross and tied it round the neck of her little boy,
believing him to be in more imminent danger than her daughter.

Again the Turks uttered a fierce derisive shout; but stood
irresolute, when confronted by this Greek woman, whose aspect awed
them.

She was clad in black, as being indicative of her fallen fortune; a
snow-white kerchief covered her head, and gave a Madonna-like
expression to her deep, black, thoughtful eyes, and soft but marble
features; for she possessed, in its greatest purity, all the classic
beauty of the ancient Greek women--a clear complexion, and long thick
tresses, dark as the northern night.  She was lovely, feminine, and
sad in her expression, for in her time she had seen those things
which were more than enough to banish smiles for ever from her face;
yet, unblanched by past sorrow or by present danger, her lips
were--strange to say--alluringly rosy, as her teeth were dazzingly
white.

Her form was tall and full, and maternity had given a charming
roundness to the slenderness of figure which usually falls to the lot
of Greek women.

Inflamed by the desire of possessing a captive so fair, every Turk
stood by with pistol and sabre in hand, resolved to die rather than
yield her to another.  The stern altercation was fierce and noisy;
and there amid that terrible group, pale, and, like Niobe, all in
tears, with her younglings clinging to her skirts, the widowed mother
stood, trembling in her soul, for she knew that such mercy as tigers
accord would be the mercy given to her.

'Since all cannot possess--by everything that is holy! let us all
destroy her!' cried Hussein, levelling a pistol.

'Allah--Allah!  Amaum!  Amaum!' cried Ali Pasha, and the crowd of
Turks.  A confused discharge of pistols took place, and pierced by
more than twenty balls, the mother fell dead with her blood spouting
over her children, and so ended the dispute; for the sun set at that
moment, and they all hastened out, to kneel and say the _Salât al
Moghreb_, or evening prayer, so Hussein was left in possession alike
of the dead body, of the children, and the premises.

After rifling the corpse of its rings and jewels, he took away the
orphans to make slaves of them.

Perceiving that the girl, Iola, then in her sixth year, promised to
be beautiful, he kept her; the boy, Constantine, he gave to Ali
Pasha, colonel of the Bombardiers, who made a soldier of him, and in
time he became a lieutenant of Albanians in the service of the
Sultan--but he never forgot the cause for which his father
fought--vengeance for Greece, or the death which his mother died; and
thus, seeking the first opportunity of leaving a service so hateful
as that of Abdul Medjid, he had deserted from Heraclea; but was
retaken, tried and sent back by the _Mahmoudieh_ steam-ship, and on
the morrow was to die.  The cry of the exterminating angel would be
heard, and an Unbeliever would perish like a withered bud, or like a
palm-tree struck by lightning.

I cannot express the aversion we felt for the old Yuze Bashi, who
with singular coolness related the part he had borne in this
barbarous episode of the Egyptian revolt; and which, with occasional
whiffs of his chibouque, he related as quietly as one might do the
account of a little shooting excursion, or the result of a pic-nic
party, and nothing more.

'And Iola--the daughter,' I asked; 'what became of her?'

'That I cannot tell you,' said he; 'she is never named to me now.'

'Does she know of the fate that hangs over her brother?'

'No!'

'She is dead, then?'

'To him--and to the world, at least.'

'Which means that she is--'

'Married--exactly.'

'So inquiries might only be unpleasant, if not dangerous?'

'Yes.'

'But when her brother is to die?'--began Belton.

'She shall never know of it,' replied Hussein.  'What useful end
would be served by conveying the information to her.  She would weep,
and the tears of women are a great annoyance now, since we cannot
apply the bastinado without permission from a Kadi or Moolah.  Bah!
this Constantine Vidimo is only a Greek, and one ball will kill him:
in a moment all will be over.'

'Only a Greek!' reiterated Belton, who had been poring over the
_Corsair_ on our outward voyage; 'are not the Greeks human beings?'

'Scarcely--know you not, O Frank! that the Lord of the world hath
sealed up their hearts and their hearing, and veiled their sight by a
dimness.'

Tired of the Yuze Bashi and his barbarous ideas, we rose to bid him
farewell and leave the khan; but he, having a wholesome terror of
Ghoules, Guebres, and Genii in the dark, resolved on accompanying us
to our quarters; for he too had rooms in the Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci.
Thus we found the impossibility of shaking him off, and as we
stumbled on, arm-in-arm with this epauletted assassin, followed step
for step by Callum Dhu, through the dark, muddy, and unpaved streets
of Heraclea, he told us various other pretty little episodes of
himself and Ali Pasha.

The name of the latter must be familiar to the reader, as being the
Turkish General of Brigade whose infamous abduction and murder of a
young and beautiful Greek girl in the suburbs of Varna lately roused
the indignation of the French commandant, by whose humane exertions,
for the FIRST time in Oriental history, an Osmanli was tried for the
murder of a Christian; and consequently Ali Pasha, the Brigadier;
Lieutenant Mohammed Aga, his aide-de-camp; Hussein Aga, his steward;
and Corporal Moustapha, appeared before a tribunal, which, of course,
acquitted them; for every hair in the beard of a true Believer is
worth all the benighted souls in Christendom.




CHAPTER XXXV.

THE EXECUTION.

With the melancholy story of Constantine Vidimo in my mind, the
reader may imagine with what emotion I heard the Turkish drums
beating in the barrack-yard for the punishment parade next morning,
and our three pipers playing the _gathering_, for our little
detachment, as a portion of the Allied troops, had to attend the
painful scene.

Callum Dhu, now a smart and active soldier, appeared punctually to
accoutre me with my pipe-clayed belt, sword, &c., and while the sun
was yet below the sea, I issued into the shady square of the
Coumbazadjilar-Kislaci, where our sergeants were calling the roll,
and where the battalion of the Mir Alai Saïd, with short blue tunics,
scarlet trousers, and tarbooshes, were falling in by companies, while
a few _topchis_, or gunners, were being slowly and laboriously
paraded and mustered by the ponderous Yuze Bashi Hussein.

The parade was soon formed, and the two commanding officers, Mir Alai
Saïd and Major Catanagh, mutually complimented each other on the
appearance of their men; and, in truth, this Turkish battalion, in
efficiency, order, and discipline, would have done no discredit to
any army in Europe.  Their faces were dark and fierce, keen and
Asiatic; their words of command, like their names, sounded wild and
barbaric, as _ours_ must have been to them; but, with a few
exceptions, every manoeuvre and tactic were modelled after our own.

While expressing astonishment and even merriment at the large plumed
bonnets, hairy sporrans, and bare knees of our men, the Mir Alai was
delighted by their athletic figures.  The jewelled dirks,
claw-pistols, and basket-hilted claymores of the officers excited his
interest, and he vowed by the beard of the Prophet that he had never
before seen weapons of such a fashion or of finer workmanship.

'Stout fellows all,' said he, in strange English, as he patted the
shoulder of Callum, who was a flank file; 'their hands will soon be
hardened by carrying the brass-butted musket.'

'If they do not become food for powder and the Russian worms,
colonel,' replied Catanagh.

The sun rose above the sea of Marmora, and at that instant the shrill
wild voice of the muezzin from the lofty minaret of an adjacent
mosque pierced the silence and purity of the morning with the summons
to early prayer.

Then the Turkish battalion, which had been standing at ease, with
ordered arms, and formed in open columns of companies at quarter
distance, bent their heads in prayer, and many produced their beads
of cedar-wood, and commenced their orisons with a fervour that
impressed us with no small respect for these poor Moslem soldiers;
but after a time the sharp drum beat a roll, the whole battalion
started to 'attention'--the bayonets were fixed--the arms
'shouldered,' and as the _right_ was assigned to us, the whole
presented arms, with drums beating, and their single colour flying,
as we marched out to the place of execution, with our pipes playing.
The Osmanlies followed, with their brass band, cymbals, bells,
tambourines, and triangles, performing something that was meant for a
march; but its measure was more wild and barbaric than pleasing.

The morning was brilliant; on our left the sea of Marmora shone like
an ocean of glass, and the rakish little Greek caiques were shooting
out upon its bosom from the shady creeks and sunny inlets, where they
had been anchored overnight.

Marching out by an ancient gate, which was encrusted by carving and
old inscriptions, and covered by ivy and acanthus-leaves, we
traversed a causeway coeval perhaps with the days of Zeuxis and the
palace of Vespasian, and reached a little hollow, which was
surrounded by groves of the olive, the emblem of peace--the tree
which Minerva gave to Greece, and which, as the poets say, was
grasped by Latona in her maternal throes.

It was a lonely place, and no sound was heard there but the coo of
the wild pigeon or the flapping of a stork's wing, as he sat on a
prostrate column, the rich Corinthian capital of which was almost
buried among luxuriant creepers, weeds, and wild flowers.  In this
valley stood a little gilded mosque, having a shining dome, and two
taper minarets, like gigantic candlesticks, the tops of which, to
complete the resemblance, seemed to be lighted; but this was merely
the sun's rays tipping with fire their bulbous-shaped roofs of
polished brass.  Around towered a group of solemn cypresses, which
cast their shadows on the marble slabs, the green mounds, the
turbaned headstones, and gilded sarcophagi that marked where many a
true Believer lay.

A little apart from these, a new grave freshly dug was yawning darkly
among the green grass and dewy morning flowers.

Beside it knelt the Greek officer, and near him were twelve Turkish
soldiers, with their bayonets fixed.

As we halted in the valley, and formed three sides of a hollow
square, a bell jangled in the mosque, and the Hafiz Moustapha, and
moolah or priest, wearing long robes and a turban of green cloth,
came slowly forth, bearing the Koran in his hand; and now a chill
fell on all our hearts, for to us this scene and all these
preparations were solemn, strange, and new.

I gazed with deep interest at the poor young Greek, who was still
upon his knees, and who seemed to have given up all his soul to God
in prayer and outpouring of the heart--and as I surveyed his face, so
pure and cold, so noble and severe in its classic beauty, all the
episodes of his dark and terrible story came before me; and at that
time I felt an abhorrence of all Osmanli in general, and our
bulbous-shaped Yuze Bashi in particular.  Of all who were present his
visage expressed the least concern, for to him the shooting of a
Greek was infinitely of less moment than the shooting of a crow.

The poor Albanian!

On rising from his orisons, he looked calmly about him; but nowhere
save in our own ranks did he meet with eyes of sympathy.  Perhaps we
had somewhat of a fellow-feeling for a bare-kneed soldier whose garb
so nearly resembled our own, for the white camise of the mountaineer
of _Albania_ and the tartan kilt of the mountaineer of _Albany_ are
as nearly identical as the old tradition of that mutual descent from
one stock would make us, a tradition strangely corroborated by the
old classic names of Hector, Æneas, Helen, and Constantine being
still preserved among the Highland clans.  But enough of this
legendary fustian.

Constantine Vidimo was drawing nearer our ranks, when again the bell
rang in the mosque; and shrinking back to the side of the newly-dug
grave, he folded his arms and gazed fiercely at the Turks.

The spiritual consolation of a Greek priest of his own religion was
denied him in this terrible hour, the bitterness of which the old
wretch named Moolah Moustapha left nothing unsaid to enhance, for he
was an ancient Mohammedan, who could remember the 'good old times'
when the true Believer had the power of forcing every Christian dog,
however high in rank, to sweep the muddy streets of Stamboul before
him at his caprice and whim.

With his hands crossed on the Koran, which he pressed to his breast;
with his long white beard spreading over it, and his long green robe
falling in heavy folds from his shoulders to the grass, he faced the
Turkish troops, and strung together a number of disjointed quotations
from the Koran, which, as Belton whispered, were mere incentives to
bloodshed and bigotry.

'Oh, true Believers! wage war against such of the Infidels as are
near you--let them find no security in you, and know that God is only
with those who fear him.  Should the divine vengeance fall upon you
either by day or by night, believe that the wicked have hastened it
upon you.  The Believer dieth happy, a possessor of Eden, through
which flows rivers of wine and sherbet; he is adorned with bracelets
of fine gold, and he is clothed in silken garments of fine green
cloth; glory surrounds him; he sleeps in a couch of pearl, with his
head pillowed on the soft bosom of a black-eyed girl, and his reward
is to dwell for ever in the abode of delight; but _thou_, oh Greek!
after appearing at the last day, chained to the geni who seduced
thee, shall broil for ever in the dark caves of everlasting fire--a
poor bubble, swept down the burning torrents of the river of Woe!'

To all this I could perceive that the Turkish soldiers listened with
considerable impatience; for there is, I believe, a natural antipathy
springing up between the military and the religious of the Ottoman
empire.  Being rough, and not ungenerous, the Turkish soldier
despises the moolahs, muftis, imaums, dervishes, calanders, and
fakirs, for their cunning, avarice, hypocrisy, and secret immorality;
while they, in turn, rail at and preach against the soldiers for
wearing tight pantaloons, relinquishing the turban for the fez,
learning to drink raki, and generally for following a little too
closely the customs of Europe.

'Have a righteous fear of Mohammed, oh, Believers!' resumed the Hafiz
Moustapha, 'and you will die in the faith, and find the Koran the
only sure cord to heaven; but,' he added, turning his face to us, for
this moolah had been a soldier--_a corporal of Grenadiers_--in his
youth, as the reader shall learn more at length; 'but may the holy
Prophet, who sees all that night veils and day enlightens--who
knoweth and heareth all things, bless these infidels, who have come
to fight for the land of Islam!'

'Amaum! amaum!' muttered the Mir Alai Saïd, as he waved his sabre
impatiently to the mulazim commanding the party of twelve soldiers,
whose muskets were to despatch the prisoner, and a chaoush (sergeant)
who stood on their flank, armed with a pistol, carefully examining
its lock and priming.

An onboshi (corporal) approached with a handkerchief to bind up the
eyes of the Greek lieutenant; but scorning alike to kneel or be
blindfolded, he stood boldly confronting the firing party at the
distance of thirty yards, fearlessly and firm.  He drew a cross from
his breast--the coral cross of Hussein's savage story--the cross his
mother had tied around his neck at Acre, and after kissing it, he
held it up in our view, and said in somewhat broken English--

'It is the emblem of your faith--the religion in which I die.  Let
not these Turkish swine defile it when I am gone.  Who among you
Christian men will take it from my hand, and keep it as the last gift
of a wretch who never knew what it was to be happy?'

'I will!' exclaimed I, starting forward.

He grasped my hand, and his beautiful dark eyes flashed with dusky
fire, as he waved his right arm with pride, and exclaimed--

'Now, dogs--I am ready for you!'

His aspect and bearing were splendid.

Stern and unyielding as the Prometheus of Æschylus, braving the fury
of his tyrants, and scorning to sue for mercy or stoop his haughty
head, the noble Greek stood before the levelled muskets that were to
destroy him.

'_Nishan ale!_'  (ready--present) cried the Turkish commander of the
platoon.

'_Atesh!_' (fire)

Flame flashed from the twelve iron tubes; twelve bullets whistled
shrilly past us, and the reports rang like thunder in the narrow
valley, scaring the stork from the ruined column, and the wild
pigeons from the olive-grove.  The smoke curled upward in the pure
atmosphere, and the poor Greek officer lay prone on the grass,
breathing heavily, with blood pouring in streams from his throat and
bosom.  Three balls had pierced him, yet he was not dead.

Now something like a groan ran along our ranks, for at that moment
the chaoush with the pistol approached the dying man, placed the
muzzle to his ear, and coolly and deliberately blew out his brains!

So ended this scene of blood.

* * * *

Our bagpipes yelled again, and the Turkish drums and flutes rang
merrily in that valley of olives, as we wheeled from hollow square
into open column, and breaking into sections, marched back to the
barracks; but my heart felt sick and sore, and oblivious of the
martial display, I thought only of the coral cross which I had taken
from the dead man's hand, and of the barbarous mode in which I had
seen his mutilated and coffinless remains thrust into the grave, and
hastily earthed up, by the water-carriers, or Nubian slaves, of the
Mir Alai Saïd's regiment.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

IN 'ORDERS,' FOR DUTY.

After this event, for some days I avoided the Yuze Bashi Hussein, for
whom I had conceived a horror in consequence of the tragic story of
Constantine Vidimo, whose fate made a deep impression on the whole of
our little mess, but on none more than myself--for I had, as related,
addressed him twice, and it was to me that his relaxing hand had
slowly yielded up the coral cross, which I resolved to preserve as a
souvenir of our service in the East.  We ceased to invite the Yuze
Bashi to mess, where his bulbous figure, preposterous and goat-like
beard, diminutive scarlet fez, frogged surtout, long crooked sabre,
and comically ferocious visage, were an endless source of amusement,
wit, and caricature; but judge of my annoyance when I found that, in
consequence of this modern Bashaw having conceived a vehement fancy
or friendship for me, I was to be separated from the jovial society
of my brother-officers, and to be detached--on his especial
application--with one sergeant, one piper, and thirty rank and file,
to the castle of Rodosdchig, his military government or commandery,
which lay about thirty miles distant.

'For what purpose is this detachment detailed?' I asked rather
angrily at mess, on the day I read the announcement in orders, as
being the will and pleasure of our Brevet-Major commanding.

'To strengthen the stout captain's little garrison of Topchis.'

'But why?'

'They are in danger of an attack from certain armed and
insurrectionary Greeks, whom the secret agency of some Russian
priests are omitting no means of inflaming and exciting to discontent
against the authority of the Sultan and his Pashas.'

'Why are Turks not sent--the Mir Alai has eight hundred of them here
in garrison?'

'He does us the honour to believe that red-coats will more completely
awe the malcontent Greeks.'

'In this service I may get a slash from a yataghan, or a ball from a
brass-barrelled pistol sans credit and honour.'

'Not at all,' said Belton; 'either will be quite as honourable as a
shot from the Rifle Pits, or a splinter from a Whistling Dick out of
the Redan.'

'Which, by-the-by, none of us are likely to see,' grumbled Catanagh,
draining a long glass of Kirklissa wine, with an angry sigh.

By this time our Major had communicated with the British military
authorities at Constantinople, detailing the loss of the _Vestal_,
and that he had obtained quarters for his men in the Bombardiers'
Barracks at Heraclea, or _Erekli_, as the Turks name it; and, by a
messenger, he was instructed to remain in his present cantonment
until further orders, as there was every prospect now of hostilities
ceasing, and our presence would not be required with Sir Colin
Campbell and the Highland Brigade.

At this time, January 3rd, 1856, we had fifty-eight thousand British
soldiers in the Crimea; a Council of War, composed of British and
French general officers, had assembled in Paris, and Russia had
accepted the Austrian propositions as a basis for the negotiation of
a peace.  The despatch to the Major concluded by stating, that the
French had blown up Fort St. Nicolas at Sebastopol, where our miners
were busy destroying the magnificent docks.  With this long document
going the round of the mess-table, we gulped down our disappointment
and the Roumelian wine together, on the evening before I marched with
this devil of a Yuze Bashi to his castle of Rodosdchig; and our
enthusiastic hopes of a protracted war--a war that from the mouth of
the Danube would roll like a flame over Hungary, Poland, and
Italy--our hopes of rapid promotion, of French medals and crosses of
the Legion of Honour, dwindled down into tame and vapid surmises as
to the disbanding of second battalions, and the parsimonious
reduction of additional captains, lieutenants, and ensigns.

'So we shall be here till further orders,' observed the Major, in
conclusion.

'Abominable ill luck!' said Jack Belton.

'Instead of being at Sebastopol, in at the death.  and the glory of
the affair,' chimed the captain of our Light Bobs, 'we shall be
learning to smoke opium and sit crosslegged, to relish pillau, eat
hash, and pepperpot with our fingers.'

'And to rub up our _Alpha_, _Beta_, _Gamma_, _Delta_, and so forth,
to make love to the charming Haidees of Roumelia--but, waiter, see
who knocks at the door!' added the Major, as a rat-tat rang on the
painted door of the long room which was fitted up for our temporary
mess, and the walls of which were painted in arabesques with pious
quotations from the Koran.

The Highlander in his kilt, who acted as one of our mess-waiters,
opened the door and ushered in our acquaintance, the fat Yuze Bashi,
who, having a lively recollection of the bright, amber-coloured
sherry, and full-bodied old port, which we had saved from the bulged
hull of Her Majesty's steam-transport _Vestal_, visited us as often
as propriety would allow; for he was a cunning old dog, who willingly
gave up his chance of the slender houris in Heaven for a cup of good
wine and the plump and substantial houris of earth.

Carrying his pipe and, of course, his paunch before him, he entered
with a prodigious salaam and bowed to us all; then he ogled the
decanter, and sat down near Catanagh, who was too polite and too much
of a soldier not to accord him a welcome.

We spoke of European politics, of which the obtuse brain of the Yuze
Bashi, Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ojuz, knew as much as he did about
electricity, the longitude, the 'philosoplry of the infinite,' a good
pun, or anything else, which is incomprehensible to an Oriental mind.

Belton spoke of the Greek girls, and then the old fellow became
lively, and looked roguishly out at the corners of his sly black eyes.

'Inshallah!' said he; 'I do love pretty girls with all the zeal of a
true Believer.  Mohammed! yes--I have played some strange pranks in
my time among the fair-haired Tcherkesses, and the black-eyed
Cockonas of Bucharest--the City of Delights--as its name imports.
Yes, and there are some pretty ones in Egypt too, who have good
reason to remember the Hadjee Hussein.  But my heart has long been
fixed upon obtaining a Russian.  They are large, those Muscovites,
and plump and fair-skinned, round and white as eggs; and, please God,
I shall perhaps have a couple of them yet.'

'Scarcely,' said Belton, 'for we are on the eve of a peace; so,
Captain, your chances are small.'

His eyes flashed fire at the idea of a peace.

'Good can never come of it!' said he; 'we shall have all these
battles to fight over again; all these fortresses to take and to
defend; and the Muscovite swine may yet wallow upon the shores of the
Golden Horn, if Britain and France are false to us, and we are false
to ourselves!  Yet Heaven, they say, was with us in this war.'

'They--who?'

'Mashallah! by "they," one means that mysterious personage on whom
one fathers everything that lacks a better authority.'

'Bono!' said the major; 'well, captain--they say--'

'That at Silistria ten thousand angels, in green dresses, were
visible to all the Faithful, fighting against the God-abandoned
Russians.  The Hafiz Moustapha counted their ten green banners with a
thousand under each.  Even the English newspapers repeated that.'

'I remember to have read it,' said I.

'Yes,' resumed Hussein, gathering confidence on my corroboration;
'ten thousand, like those who fought for Islamism, in the war of the
Ditch, and at the battle of Bedr, against the Koreish; but instead of
iron maces, which shot forth fire at every stroke, our Silistrian
angels appeared as well-appointed infantry.'

'By the breeches of the Prophet!' muttered the Major, in an under
tone; 'only think of ten thousand well-appointed angels, in heavy
marching order--all with sixty rounds of ball-cartridge at their
blessed backs!'

'But if it pleases our lord the Sultan, who is God's shadow upon
earth, to make peace with these grovelling Russian curs--if he thinks
that hell is sufficiently full of them--why should I, who am unworthy
to kiss his slippers, dare to advise?'

'Of course--so fill your glass, Captain Hussein, and pass the
bottles.'

'Abdul Medjid,' continued our fat guest, who began to wax guttural,
slow, and prosy, as the fumes of the wine mounted into his oriental
cranium--'Abdul Medjid, though he rejoiceth in the titles of Lord of
the Black and White Seas; Master of Europe, Asia, and Africa; Lord of
Bagdad, Damascus, Belgrade, and Agra; the Odour of Paradise--the
Ke-ke-keeper of the Holy Cities of Jerusalem, Mecca, and
Medina--is--is--'

'Is devilishly in want of the "ready," I believe,' said Belton,
rather abruptly, closing a sentence the end of which Hussein had lost.

After making various ineffectual efforts to resume where he hud left
off so suddenly, and to regain the thread of his subject, which
Jack's abrupt interruption had somewhat entangled, Hussein dropped
his bearded chin upon his breast, and after a snort or two, let his
chibouque fall, as he dropped into a deep sleep, overcome by the
wine, of which he had partaken too freely, and the strength of which
was too potent for him.

'Now,' said Catanagh, 'here is a good specimen of the modern Turk,
who has retained all the vices, and none of the virtues, of his
ancestors.  Selfish, sensual, ignorant, and brutal, he is a
Mohammedan only in those things which minister to his luxury.  But
the old world is changing fast, and here the new has not much to
recommend it.  Ancient things are passing away, and in the slaves who
crouch beneath the Turkish yoke we look in vain for the sons of those
who fought at Marathon, and who died at Thermopylæ.  Green be the
grass and bright the flowers that there grow, say I!  Omnibuses have
rattled through the gate of the Ilissus; a matter-of-fact Scotsman
has ploughed up the plains of Marathon, and gas-lamps have shed their
light upon the Acropolis.  The 'Maid of Athens' (as Stephen tells us
in his book) has become plain Mrs. George Black, the wife of King
Otho's Scotch superintendent of police, and the buxom mother of
various little Blacks--so much for romance and for the land of Homer
in the age of steam!  Turks are practising the polka and,
_deux-temps!_ coals have been found in Mount Calvary, and Albert
Smith has stuck 'Punch's' posters on the Pyramid; the Highland
bagpipe, that fifty years ago rang in the streets of Bagdad and Grand
Cairo, has now sent up its yell at the Golden Horn, and the mosque of
St. Sophia has echoed to the rattle of the _British Grenadiers_.  We
have come to the end of all things, and may light our pipes with
Æschyrus and Herodotus.

  'Xerxes the great did die,
  And so must you and I.'

Try these cheroots, Mac Innon, and please pass the wine, Jack; we
must drink to Allan--a pleasant march to Rodosdchig, and may we soon
have him safe back again, to be under my illustrious command, if not
quite under this auspicious mahogany!'




CHAPTER XXXVII.

I MARCH TO RODOSDCHIG.

With a sergeant and thirty rank and file--one of whom was Callum Dhu,
and with a piper playing at their head, I marched out of Heraclea,
and by an old paved path of the Sultan Solyman, took the coast road
to Rodosdchig.  My men were in heavy marching order; their
feather-bonnets cased in oilskins; their great-coats rolled; their
wooden canteens, haversacks, and white gaiters on.  We were
accompanied by the portly Yuze Bashi; but as the day proved to be
Friday, which is set apart by the Mohammedans for prayer and worship,
he made it an excuse for being lazy, and instead of riding beside me
on horseback, which, as a soldier, he ought to have done, he marched
like a prince of Bourbon, _i.e._, travelled in his snug araba or
Turkish carriage, where he sat, trussed up among soft cushions, and
given up to dozing over his pipe and the Prophet.

Jack Belton accompanied me for three or four miles westward of the
town, as far as an old Roman bridge, which crosses a river with a
name that no jaws save those of a Believer were ever meant to
compass; and there bidding me warmly adieu, he galloped back to
breakfast and to morning parade.

We passed the head of the olive valley, where the poor Greek officer
had been so barbarously executed; and all the terrible scene of that
morning came fresh upon my memory.  In the distance lay the sea and
the grey rocks of Palegrossa, whereon was the rent and gaping hull of
the _Vestal_.

The atmosphere soon became oppressively hot--singularly so for that
season of the year, and consequently I seldom saw the round visage,
or heard the guttural voice of the Yuze Bashi, save when he stormed
at a passing carrier, whose string of laden mules raised a dust on
the highway; or when he swore at the terrified Boba of some wayside
khan, who was long in supplying him with sherbet or iced water, for
which supplies, by the way, he seldom seemed to pay, save in threats
and maledictions.

At one of these temporary halts near a khan, a poor old Jew, wearing
the blue turban and blue boots enforced on those of his religion,
approached with great timidity, and with a humility which to me--the
son of a free soil--was painful and oppressive, offered some cigars
and tobacco for sale.

'Do not buy of him,' said Hussein, pulling sharply back the curtains
of his araba; 'he is a Jew, and will cheat you--they are all cheats,
believing that, at most, they shall only endure for eleven months the
fires of hell--for such is their accursed creed.  Oho! is this you,
Isaac Ebn Abraha, who keeps the little booth in the new Frank street
of Stamboul?'

'The same, at the service of my lord,' replied the old Israelite,
bending his white head.

'The gold of the English and French has been rattling into your
coffers like hailstones, I have been told, Isaac?'

The Jew shook his head in dissent, and bent it lower, to conceal his
cunning eyes.

'Oho!  I lie, then, do I?' exclaimed this Turkish bully; 'had other
than you done this, I had smote him on the mouth with the heel of my
slipper!  Begone,' he added, spitting full in the cigar vender's face.

I remonstrated, as a fierce gleam shot from the hollow eyes of the
old Jew, and he slunk away.

'Bah!' said the Yuze Bashi; 'we tolerate the existence of Jews,
Armenians, and Greeks, because, if we destroyed them, what would the
true Believers do for slaves?'

'We meet few of them hereabout, at all events,' said I; 'the whole
country seems to become more waste and barren as we advance.'

'True,' replied the puffing Osmanli, with a fierce flashing in his
dark eye, and a sardonic grin under his grey moustache; '_where the
Sultan's horse has trod there grows no grass_.'

And, with this fatally true Turkish proverb, he sank back among his
downy cushions, and left me to march on in silence or commune with
Callum Dhu.

After passing Carga on our left, and Turcmeli on our right, after
crossing one or two streams, and pursuing a road from which, upon our
right flank, we had bright glimpses of the blue sea of Marmora; after
passing many of those green tumuli, or old warrior-graves, which stud
all the land of Roumelia; after seeing only flights of vultures,
cranes, and storks, or an occasional string of laden mules,
progressing towards Stamboul, a march of twenty miles found us in a
beautiful little valley, watered by a stream which flowed from a
fountain in the basement of a gilded mosque, and surrounded by
beautiful groves of pale green olive-trees, the orange, and the
mimosa, with the crisped foliage of the dwarf oak, the broad and
luxuriant leaves of the wild vine, and the graceful acacia, which
Mohammed--in his 56th chapter--promises shall bloom again in Paradise.

This was not far from Karacalderin, a small town on the right flank
of the coast road.

The grass was green and soft as velvet; a thousand wild flowers
studded its verdure, and loaded with perfume the southern breeze that
breathed up the valley from the sea of Marmora, and proved to us all
delightful as a cold bath after our hot day's march.

Evening was approaching now; the giant poplars and cypresses that
surrounded the little mosque, which marked where some dead Santon
lay, were throwing their lengthening shadows far across the valley;
and on my announcing that I would halt here for the night, my
soldiers gladly threw off their knapsacks and piled their arms;
Callum lighted a large fire, with all the adroitness of a Highland
huntsman, and with some jest about there 'being little chance of
firing the heather _here_,' heaped on the branches of the dwarf oaks,
which we hewed remorselessly down by our bill-hooks.

The Yuze Bashi, though he grumbled savagely under his beard at the
annoyance of having to halt (as he feared to proceed alone through a
district full of armed and unscrupulous Greek peasantry), was
compelled to make the best of our delightful little bivouac, and
while my men made a meal of the cold meat which had been brought in
their haversacks, he shared with me a cold pillaff of fowl and rice,
and a jolly magnum bonum of Kirklissa wine.

Discovering another in the recesses of the araba, I abstracted it
_sans ceremonie_, and despite all Hussein's angry remonstrances,
handed it to my soldiers, and as it proved to be well dashed with
brandy, they passed it from man to man until each had his share, and
then they all began to talk, sing, and be merry.

'Bless their hearts!' says Charles Lever, 'a little fun goes a long
way in the army;' and any man who has ever spent an hour in the
company of soldiers will find it so.

They were all happy as crickets round that bivouac fire, for actual
service softens cold etiquette, and relaxes the iron band of
discipline without impairing it, especially among Scots and Irishmen;
and while the blaze of the ruddy flame shot upward, and tipped the
olive-trees with light as fresh fuel was heaped upon it, while the
orient sunset died away and deepened into azure night, on the calm
Grecian sea and lovely classic shore, we sat in that romantic valley
clad in the same martial garb our hardy sires had worn in the days of
Remus and Romulus, telling old stories of our native land, or singing
those songs, which, when we were so far away from it, made the hearts
within us melt to tenderness, or swell with pride and fire.

While the old, gross, and sensual Yuze Bashi lay half hidden among
the down cushions of his araba and dozed away over his narguillah of
rose-water, I sang a mess-room stave or two to amuse my men; and by
doing so won their hearts still more, I am assured, than even my
previous and studied kindness to them had done.  Then I called on
Callum Dhu for his quota of amusement, and at once his fine bold
manly voice made the valley ring, as he gave us that fiery song in
which his warlike ancestor, Ian Lom Mac Donel, the Bard of Keppoch,
has embalmed the victory of the great Montrose at Inverlochy.

He sang it in his native Gaelic, and as he poured it forth his
swarthy cheek was seen to glow and his eyes to flash--ay, even the
muscles of his bare legs, on which fell the glow of the wavering
watch-fire, seemed to quiver and be strung anew with energy as all
the fire of Ian Lom filled the heart of his descendant--for through
(my nurse) his mother, Callum came of Ian's race.

The song cannot be known to my English readers; but as it is in that
bold ballad style they love so well, I may be pardoned in quoting two
verses of it from a little historical work that may never cross the
Tweed;[*] and as he sang, the voices of his thirty comrades united
with singular force and harmony in the chorus:--

      'Heard ye not! heard ye not!
        How that whirlwind the Gael,--
      Through Lochaber swept down
        From Lochness to Loch Eil?--
      And the Campbells to meet them
        In battle array,
      Came on like the billow--
        And broke like its spray!
  _Long, long shall our war song exult in that day!_

      'Through the Braes of Lochaber
        A desert were made,
      And Glen Roy should be lost
        To the plough and the spade;
      Though the bones of my kindred,
        Unhonoured, unurned,
      Marked the desolate path
        Where the Campbells have burned.--
  _Be it so! from that foray they never returned!_' &c.


[*] See Turner's Collection.


So intent were we on the song--so much had it absorbed our faculties
and fixed our hearts and eyes, that we had not heard the challenge of
Donald Roy, who was stationed as a sentinel near the road; nor until
its conclusion did we perceive that a stranger had joined us, and was
standing propped upon a long and knotty staff, surveying us with eyes
of wonder, and with an interest that was not unfriendly, for a smile
lighted all his features as I rose to greet him.  on recognising the
wandering Moolah Moustapha, whom I had met at the Khan in Heraclea,
and who had officiated on the morning when the Greek Lieutenant,
Constantine Vidimo, was shot.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE VISION OF CORPORAL MOUSTAPHA.

He accorded to us the usual greeting, and contrary to the use and
wont of ignorant Dervishes and Moolahs, who dislike soldiers in
general and infidels in particular, he seated himself by our fire and
partook at once of some bread and meat which were offered him by
Callum, but shook his averted head when the leathern flasks of wine
and potent raki were held towards him by Sergeant Mac Ildhui.

'Nay, nay,' said he, 'wine and gaming are alike forbidden by the
Koran--yet there was a time when I was daily and nightly addicted to
both.'

'And when did you reform, reverend Moolah?' I asked.

'When I ceased to be a soldier,' he answered with a quiet smile.

'A soldier!' I reiterated; 'have _you_ then been one of ourselves?'

'Yes, Aga, and one who could handle _this_ with the best man among
you,' he replied, snatching up a musket and fixing and unfixing the
bayonet with an adroitness that none but a practised soldier can
achieve.  This old man was spare and brawny, quick of speech and
sharp in eye.  'Yes--I was a soldier of Scherif Bey's regiment, and
fought at the battles of Ilonis, of Athens, and of Koniah.'

'Yes, by the beard of the Prophet,' exclaimed the Yuze Bashi, waking
up suddenly; 'and you it was, O most worthy Moustapha! who assisted
me to save the colours of the Scherif, by stuffing them into my
regimental breeches.  Mashallah! 'twas well, it was not the standard
of Islam, for where were the mortal breeches which would have held
_that_?'

'True, O gallant Yuze Bashi; and the same battle of Koniah which made
thy fortune on earth, while it marred mine here, made it, I trust, in
Paradise.'

'You were left on the field?' said Hussein.

'Pierced by a ball.'

'May dogs defile the grave of him who shot it!'

'Nay, nay, Hadjee Hussein, that bullet brought light and repentance
to me; for until that day so fatal to the fortune of our lord the
Sultan in Egypt, I was a very wretch--an apostate--a scoffer--an
unbeliever in the prophet--yea, a veritable Janissary!'

'But a brave soldier, Hafiz Moustapha.'

'My lord is pleased to be merry.'

'By the night and all that it enfolds in its shades, I am _not_,
Moustapha!  I speak but the truth of you, Hafiz.  You were ever a
brave soldier as any in the ranks of Islam--as any in the army of
Mahmoud II., though somewhat of a visionary.'

The old Moolah crossed his hands upon his breast, and bowed down his
bearded face in reply.

'And did you see much of war and battles in those days, reverend
Moolah?' I asked.

'Enough and to spare.'

'Mashallah!' exclaimed Hussein, 'I have seen him carrying six
Egyptian heads at once by the top knot, a handful of them all grasped
like a cluster of gourds, and I have seen him with four-and-twenty
ears all strung like herrings on his ramrod, when Egyptian ears sold
as high as ten paras each.  Beard of Khalid!  I have sent a bushel of
them more than once to the tent of Reschid Pasha.  Moustapha went
hand in hand with the wild Koords in roasting and impaling our
prisoners--for what are Egyptians but curs like the Greeks?'

'Curs of a darker hue.'

'True, oh reverend Moolah--though it is said, if thou wishest to
please the eye, take a Circassian maid; but if for pleasure and
voluptuousness, try an Egyptian one.'

'And did you tire of slaughter or of soldiering?' I asked, not being
naturalist enough to ponder long over the last remark--a proverbial
one in the East.

'Of neither, though I saw enough of both while under Scherif Bey; but
in my youth I was good and pious, and knowing all the Koran and Bible
by heart, was styled _Hafiz_, which meaneth _Bible-reader_.  I became
a soldier, and fell into evil ways.  I had a vision--a vision, O
Frank! such as seldom opens up to mortal eyes,' he continued,
pointing upward, while his eyes flashed with a red unearthly glare,
and his whole face flushed from his brow to his long white beard;
'and from that hour I was a changed man.  I ceased to regard the
things of this life, or be solicitous of aught on earth--where I
should find food in the morning or rest at night--looking forward
only to death as the gate through which I should pass to Paradise.  I
was once avaricious as a Jew, but now my heart is expanded; all that
the sun enlightens would I give in charity, had it been mine.  I, who
had been often red to the elbows in the blood of slaughtered Greeks
and dark Egyptians, now shrank from blood as from a flaming fire; I
who had no more conscience than a Bedouin of the desert, and less
remorse than an African savage, now see my sins of omission and
commission--all my deeds of sorrow and cruelty, performed in the days
of my ignorance and trouble, rising like a stupendous column in the
very path that leads direct to the place of our abode--to the garden
of pleasure--the paradise of the blessed.  After the battle of Koniah
I was a changed man, yea changed as if _the black drop of original
sin had been wrung out of my heart_.'

'Tell the Frankish officer the story, O Hafiz--my old brother
soldier; for though you were but an onbashi and I a captain, I look
back with pride to the days when we unsheathed our swords in the same
field beneath the green banner of Beschid Pasha,' said Hussein.

'The Frank may but mock me as the Ingleez do all strangers,' said the
old Moolah, with a species of growl in his tone, as he glanced
uneasily at my soldiers, most of whom had already dropped asleep.

I laid a hand on my breast, and expressed a hope that he would not
think so meanly of me.

'No, no, I shall answer for him,' said the Yuze Bashi; 'it ill
becometh a young soldier to mock the white beard of an old one.
Moreover, what sayeth the Koran?  "O Unbelievers, I will not worship
that which ye worship, nor will ye worship that which I worship.  Ye
have your religion, and I have my religion," and there is an end of
it, say I, Hadjee Hussein.  'Tis a story as well as another, and I
delight in stories--they always set me to sleep.'

'I will tell you in a few words,' replied the old Moolah, adjusting
his high conical cap of grey felt, and disposing his mighty beard
over the breast of his robe; 'but I presume that you, O valiant Yuze
Bashi, have heard it before?'

'By the spout of the holy Kaaba, most reverend Hafiz; and by the holy
camel's blessed hump I never did!' said the irritable Yuze Bashi,
giving the coils of his arguillah a kick, and smoking away at the
amber mouth-piece.

'It made noise enough in the camp of the Sultan's troops.'

'Then I hope it may make a noise here too, for the place is quiet
enough,' retorted Hussein, who was in a furious pet at all this
unnecessary delay.

'You must know, O Frank!' began the Moolah, 'that I was a corporal in
the third Orta or battalion of Scherif Bey's regiment, in the army of
the Grand Vizier, Reschid Pasha, and warred against the revolted
Egyptians of Mehemet Ali; and was wounded by a bayonet at Homs in the
Pashalick of Damascus, where we fought a desperate battle on the
right bank of the Orontes; I lost the tip of my right ear at the
battle of Athens when fighting against the Greeks, and had a mouthful
of teeth driven down my throat by a half-spent Russian bullet at
Navarino; but all these wounds were as nothing when compared to one I
received at the fatal defeat of Koniah in Asia Minor, where in the
winter of 1247, by the reckoning of the Hejira, Ibrahim Pasha,
defeated Reschid and cast everlasting disgrace on the banners of the
Sultan.

'All his reverses in the Russian wars had failed to teach generalship
to Reschid Pasha, who, with the fugitives of Homs, had halted at the
thrice-blessed city of Koniah, where a snow-covered plain of sixty
miles in extent gave ample room for the Osmanlies, forty-five
thousand in number, to fight the fifteen thousand Egyptian curs at
Ibrahim.  Brave to a fault--for he was the son of a Koordish chief
and a Georgian slave--old Reschid led the charge of Horse, which, by
its failure, lost the battle.  Vain was the fury of the Koordish
Cavalry, and vain the fiery valour of the bare-kneed Albanian Guard!
The battle was lost by us, and the banner of the Sultan was trod to
the dust by the steeds of the desert.  All our cannon were taken.  O
day of calamities!--and all our standards!'

'Except _one_,' urged Hussein, parenthetically.

'Yes, most valiant Yuze Bashi--except one, after assisting you to
save which, a musket-shot pierced my breast, and, half-choked in my
blood, I sank powerless on the field; and on becoming faint, remember
no more of that unfortunate battle, though its roar was so great that
one might have supposed all hell was being dragged by chains to
judgment, as the Prophet says, it shall be, on the great and
inevitable day.

'When consciousness returned, the sun was setting beyond the
snow-covered mountains, and faint and blue their spotless cones rose
like the waves of a frozen sea around the distant walls of Koniah.
On the gilded domes of its twelve great mosques, and the hundred
minars of its lesser shrines, fell the last rays of that sinking sun;
and full of thoughts of awe and death, I turned me, in penitence and
grief, from the horrors of that lost battle-field, and bent my head
in prayer as the shrill cries of the muezzins reached me from the
tall steeples of the Sultan Selim and of Sheik Ibrahim; and as I
prayed, the dying sunset faded on the snow-capped hills and gilded
domes; the minarets grew dark and cold, and ghastly mountain-piles
turned to purple tints as the night set in, deep, calm, and
beautiful.  The stars were sparkling above the silent city and that
dreadful battle-plain.  A painful and burning thirst oppressed me;
and while crawling towards a spring that bubbled near me in the
moonlight, I again became unconscious.

'Glory be to Allah and to his Prophet!  Amid that unconsciousness or
stupor which oppressed me there came at times a sense of pain in my
smarting wound, and of thirst in my parched throat, while the gurgle
of the fresh, cool fountain sung drowsily in my ear, like the murmur
of a distant multitude.

'Recollection came again, and I saw the fountain sparkling in the
moonlight, which tipped with silver the blue and white water-lilies,
and every floweret, leaf, and shrub, for all was bright and clear as
in the brightest and clearest noon.

'While gazing at the glittering water with longing eyes, lo!  I
suddenly beheld before me the beautiful figure of a woman--a nymph
lovely beyond all earthly loveliness.  Dazzling as Ayesha, the
best-beloved wife of Mohammed, and fair as the rose of Cashmere, her
exquisite form, was discernible through the only garment she wore, a
slight cymar of green--the colour sacred to the Prophet--and her
smooth round limbs were white as the driven snow.  Her slender neck,
her curved shoulders, and tapered arms, were modelled in the most
charming symmetry; a faint blush was on her soft cheek, and the
expression of her large dark eyes was such as I dare not trust myself
to describe, for they possessed a lustre and a winning sweetness
which confused, fascinated, and bewildered me.  Long and black as
winter night, her glossy tresses fell upon her white shoulders, and
half shrouded her swelling bosom.

'The air around her was filled with delicious perfume.  She spoke to
me; but for a time I knew not what she said; for with her voice there
seemed to come a stream of gentle music from a distance; and by its
melody I was filled with a rapture such as never fired my soul, or
swept my nerves before.

'Her sparkling eyes were full of conscious power; her radiant smile
was full of conscious loveliness, tempered by all the pride of purity
and innocence; for know, O Frank! that she who stood before me was
one of the Hûr al Oyn--the black-eyed girls of Paradise--the
ever-blooming brides of the faithful, though I knew it not then; but
imagined--sinner that I was!--that some Naide of old, or some
lascivious goddess of the lying Greeks had come to earth again.

'"Moustapha," said the maiden, "thou shalt not be one of those who
will perish in this world and pass away with it on that day when the
mighty hills shall roll like smoke before the dreadful wind, that is
to blow from the east."

'"How, O beautiful one?" I asked, while trembling with a more than
mortal joy.

'"Because, know, Hafiz Moustapha, that the blessed finger of the
Prophet is on thee."

'"Upon me--a mite--an atom!"

'"He remembereth the leaves of the forest, O Hafiz! and the grains of
sand on the sea-shore.  He is the father of all wisdom."

'"I am but a poor corporal of foot," said I, remembering the rattan
of our adjutant, which I had felt more often than the finger of the
Prophet.

'"A weak mortal, assuredly--but a true Believer."

'"Bechesm!  Upon thy beautiful eyes be it, that I am."

'A fire seemed to rage within me, and I strove to reach and embrace
her; but in vain, for lo! there suddenly rose around her a hedge of
thorns and brambles--the fuel of hell--that pricked and tore my
heated flesh.

'The maiden smiled with all her alluring sweetness of lips and eyes,
and almost laughed as she held up a beautiful hand to deprecate my
folly; while the wound in my breast caused me almost to swoon with a
sudden pang of agony.

'"What is your name?" I asked.

'"Noura."

'"Which meaneth--"

'"Light."

'"And why without garments?"

'"Because garments are a sign of the disobedience of our first
parents, and in our blessed abode that disobedience is forgotten.  Al
Araf separates us from those by whom it is remembered with sorrow,
and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.  Think, O Hafiz Maustapha, think
of what is before thee!  Thou hast neglected alms, and scoffed at
prayer; blinded by vice, thou hast forgotten all about punishment
hereafter; and intoxicated by the grosser pleasures of earth, thou
hast dared to doubt those which were to come, yet vaunted thyself a
true Mussulman--being a liar and a hypocrite, even as Abdallah Elen
Obba was a liar and a hypocrite before thee."

'At these words a deadly terror fell upon my soul, for the eyes of
the maiden gleamed with a lurid light as she spoke.  I wept and said--

'"What shall I do, O lovely one, to merit Paradise?"

'"Fear the Holy Prophet--keep his laws--and love me."

'"Love _you_!" I said, and stretched my arms in ecstasy towards her;
but, with a cry of astonishment and despair, as her figure melted
away and I saw only the cold fountain plashing in the pale moonlight.
Then there descended upon me a darkness and a horror, amid which I
felt a soft hand grasping mine with a touch that thrilled me, and the
voice of Noura whispered in my ear--

'"Come, Moustapha, come!  Ascend to Paradise, where two-and-seventy
such as I await thee with smiles and with impatience."

'Now by all the devils that shaved the Queen of Saba!' shouted the
irreverend Yuze Bashi; 'think of that! two-and-seventy wives all to
be had for mere belief, which costs nothing, when I have paid a
thousand xerifs, and not an asper less, for one Circassian, in my
lifetime.'

'Peace!' exclaimed the moolah, with a brow and tone of severity;
'peace, Hussein Ebn al Ajuz; or, by the souls of the seven lawgivers,
I shall cease.  Allah is indeed most merciful that he does not smite
thee deaf, and dumb, and blind.

'In a moment, grief, pain, and darkness passed away--and light,
music, and perfume, with a myriad brilliant figures and objects, all
beaming with a celestial glory, were around me.  Then a holy joy
filled all my soul, for I knew that I had left the earth, with its
petty cares and wretched vanities, far, far away below the seven
heavens and the mansions of the moon; and that now the Garden of the
Blessed--the Eden of old--the Januat al Ferdaws of the Faithful--was
before me.

'O Mahmoud resoul Allah!  May the angels of victory sweep away the
dust from beneath thy feet, and may their wings shield all who
believe in thee!  O strange it is that I should have seen these
things, and yet live to speak of them on earth!

'I was in that wondrous Garden of Paradise from which our first
parents were expelled, when Adam, was hurled downward on the Isle of
Serendib,[*] where his footmark yet remains upon a mountain-top; and
when Eve fell near Mecca, where the marks of her two knees, as she
knelt, are yet to be seen, sixty musket-shot apart, for their stature
was gigantic.  After that prodigious fall, they were separated two
hundred years, for the vast earth was all a silent desert then.  But
to resume:


[*] Ceylon.


'Had it not been promised that he who looks on Paradise becomes
endued with the strength of a hundred of the strongest men, I must
have sunk under the scenes of more than mortal splendour, pleasure,
and delight that passed before my bewildered senses; for, as the
Koran sayeth, they were such things _as eye hath not seen, ear hath
not heard, nor the heart of man conceived_.

'I was in an ecstasy!  A blessed ardour--a glorious joy swelled all
my heart with love, religion, and purity.  A brilliant halo was
around me--a light without cloud--as in Khorassan, the land of the
Sun, and nothing that is there has a shadow, for light is everywhere.

'After passing a lake of brilliant water, that was whiter than milk,
a month's journey in compass, and surrounded by as many goblets as
there are stars in the firmament--each goblet formed of a single
emerald, and containing a liquid so precious that he who drinks
thereof shall never thirst more, I was ushered by two shining angels
through seven lofty gates, in seven walls that were built of
sparkling diamonds and gleaming rubies, into the Jannat al Ferdaws,
or abode of the blessed.  At the seventh I was clothed in the richest
robes of silk and brocade, chiefly of a green colour; and these
robes, like the bracelets of gold and silver, and the crown of mighty
pearls with which they encompassed my brows, were taken from the
full-bursting flowers of Paradise that grew on each side of the way
by which we journeyed.  Before me went a long train of shadowy
slaves, bearing silken carpets, litters, soft couches, downy pillows,
and other furniture--each article being embroidered with more
precious stones than all Asia could furnish in a thousand years.

'After a feast such as Mohammed alone could conceive, for the _lobe_
of a single fish on that wondrous table would dine seventy thousand
hungry Ingleez, I was conducted along garden-walks of musk and amber;
the earth of the parterre seemed like the finest wheaten flour, and
therein grew all the flowers of Paradise--each parterre being
lovelier than all Suristan, the Land of Roses; for the leaves were of
emeralds, the buds and petals of rubies, the stalks of burnished
gold, and the slender twigs of polished silver, all gleaming and
glittering under a stupendous blaze of sunlight.

'Passing kiosks of golden wire entwined with roses, wherein were
youths and damsels in amorous dalliance; passing the mighty
Toaba--the tree of happiness, which bears all the fruits, and meats,
and food the world ever knew, with a myriad others all of tastes
unknown to mortals, and every leaf of which is a melodious tongue,
and the stem of which would take the swiftest Barbary steed a
thousand years to compass; passing fountains of water, milk, honey,
and wine, all flowing on pebbles of ruby and pearl, through beds of
camphire, saffron, and amber---I was led on--on--through shrubberies
of precious stones and golden-bodied trees, on every branch of which
hung a thousand little bells, and there sat a thousand singing-birds,
which united with the leaves of the Toaba in filling the air with
divine praises and bewildering harmony--on--on--until we reached a
pavilion hollowed and fashioned of a single pearl, no less than four
parasangs broad, and nearly sixty Turkish miles in length--every part
of it, without and within, gleaming with sentences from the Koran,
written in rubies and jacinths.

'Here stood eighty thousand slaves, all clad in shining garments, and
three hundred beautiful damsels, each bearing three hundred golden
and porcelain dishes, each dish containing three hundred kinds of
food, awaited me on bended knees, with their charming faces bowed to
the silken carpets; three hundred others bore precious vessels filled
with fragrant wine; and in what language, O Frank, shall I refer to
the two-and-seventy wives, the Houris, who awaited me there, each
reclining in her couch, hollowed of a single pearl--the Hûr al Oyn,
the black-eyed, high-bosomed girls of Paradise, who are created not
of clay, like mortal women, but of the purest musk, and are without
blemish--maidens on whose faces of celestial beauty none may look and
live without a miracle; for I seemed to see all at a glance, though
the Prophet says, these things would take the most faithful of men a
thousand years' journey to behold.[*]


[*] See Sale's 'Koran.'


'Each coach whereon a maiden lay was a throne glorious as that of
Solomon, the Star of the Genii; and each Houri had no other veil to
her naked loveliness than the flowing tresses of her perfumed and
shining hair.

'As my dazzled eyes swept round this vast apartment, they lighted on
a familiar form; it was that of Noura, the nymph of the fountain; and
as I recognised her, she stretched her snowy arms towards me, with
her soft alluring smile, as the fire of love and conscious beauty lit
up her large black eyes.  Her light etherial blood coursed through
her veins; I hung in rapture over her, and half faint with joy and
agitation, clasped her to my breast.

'Then the curtains of the pavilion fell around us, drawn by unseen
hands, and the voices of the singing-trees, the golden birds, and
fairy bells without, became hushed or died away, as I sank entranced
upon the tender bosom that panted under mine; and when impressing
upon her warm lip the first kiss that man had ever printed there, lo!
a sleep fell upon me--a deep and dreamless sleep--O Mahmoud resoul
Allah! that I should ever have awakened from it!'

The moolah paused in great excitement; the perspiration stood upon
his wrinkled forehead, and rolled over the glistening hairs of his
snowy beard; his dark eyes glared with a hollow gleam, and his breath
came thick and fast.

'Proceed, moolah,' said Hussein, quietly, amid a puff of smoke; 'and
you awakened, where?'

'On the verge of the snow-covered battle-field of Koniah, and close
beside the fountain where I had fallen into a swoon; the chill dews
of night were upon me, the bright clear moon rode through its
loftiest mansions; the pale fountain was murmuring and plashing on
its pebbled bed beside me; the lotus was drooping on its stalk; I was
still accoutred as a soldier--a poor corporal of Scherif Bey, and my
hand rested on the cold, hard barrel of my musket.

'Paradise and all its glories had vanished with the sleep that sealed
my eyes!

'Again I was a poor soldier, lying bruised on that lost and moonlit
battle-field, with the dew and the cold hoar frost whitening upon me.

'Bismillah!

'Slowly I staggered up, and felt for the wound in my breast--and O,
wonder of wonders!  Though my blue uniform was still perforated by
the passage of the ball, the blood had disappeared, and the wound had
closed; it was well and whole--and of all that bloody gash, a little
scar alone remained!

'I threw myself upon the earth towards the Keblah--the Holy City of
Mecca; and I vowed seven times--by the seven gates of Paradise--by
the souls of the seven lawgivers--and by all the lights of the
faithful--to become a good, a pious, and a new man; and from that
hour I ceased to be a soldier, a reveller, a dicer, and a gamester; I
became a moolah, and went through all Greece and Asia Minor,
preaching the faith of the Koran and of the only Prophet--Mahmoud
resoul Allah--for there is no God but God, and the Camel Driver is
his Prophet!'

Such was the vision of the old corporal Moustapha!




CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE TURKISH VEIL.

With this strange story hovering in my mind, and the Yuze Bashi
asleep in the cushioned recess of his araba, I paraded and marched
off my detachment from the valley at the first peep of early dawn
next day.  I bade farewell to the old moolah Moustapha--the
ex-corporal of Scherif Bey--and gave him one of the small Turkish
notes (which are printed on thin yellow paper, and are worth about
ten shillings sterling) for the benefit of his mosque; and feared
that if he was not slightly defective in brain, he had at least but a
slight acquaintance with the goddess whose billet is popularly said
to be at the bottom of a well.

Along a road bordered by rare plants and gorgeous flowers; between
groves of orange, lemon, and fig trees, all growing in wild
luxuriance, and among myrtle-scented fields, we continued our march
by the shore of the sea of Marmora, the voices of my thirty soldiers
all uniting at times in one merry chorus, as they trod the old paved
causeway of the great Sultan Solymon, many of whose works are, by the
ignorant, ascribed to the Genii--just as our Scottish peasantry aver
their old ruins to be the work of Picts or of the fairies--and before
mid-day, we saw the little town of Rodosdchig rise before us, with
the blue sea washing its old grey walls; with its dark cypresses and
white minarets; its harbour full of quaint caiques; and its old
castle of the Greeks, on which was the red Turkish standard, with an
oval centre, bearing the three crescents of the Prophet.

As we marched in, the drum beat at the guard-house, and a guard of
lubberly Turkish militiamen scrambled from around a logwood fire,
where they had been toasting kabobs and dough-balls; they stood to
their arms, and gave us a military salute.  The officer at their head
still retained at his neck the ancient gilt gorget, now long disused
in our service.

We were immediately beset by Greek kabob-roasters, and
sherbet-venders, from the arched gates of the bazaars, and a crowd of
wondering Osmanlies, whom the strange sound of the Highland warpipe
brought forth from every door, where they had been squatted on
carpets, dozing over opium, coffee, and chibouques; yet though
louder, more martial, and more shrill, our pipe is almost similar to
the instrument now used by the kilted mountaineers of Albania.

Not a woman was visible, though at times a veiled head and two
brilliant eyes appeared at the wire lattices which opened to the
unpaved and unlighted streets.

We marched into the old castle, of which the Yuze Bashi was
commandant, governor, or suzerain, and as such was the terror of all
Rodosdchig.  He was the only officer there at present, though the
quaint old Greek towers of the last emperor were garrisoned by his
company of Bombardiers, and were mounted by ten iron twenty-four
pounders and two ten-inch mortars.  On the walls towards the sea were
several old and useless, but enormous, brass guns, covered with
Turkish letters and pious sentences, with piles of moss-grown marble
shot between them.  The stockades in many places had disappeared, for
our thrifty commandant had sold them when his piastres became scarce,
to the kabob-roasters, for firewood.

On resuming his command, the first act of Hussein was to
cudgel--almost to death--the chaoush of the main-guard, for some real
or imaginary fault; an act which gave us an odd idea of Turkish
discipline.

'What think you of this, Callum?' said I, with smile; 'suppose an
officer were to cudgel you?'

'I would drive my skene into his heart with as little remorse as I
would gralloch a dead deer,' was the reply of my henchman, frowning
at the idea.

My men occupied a portion of the miserable Turkish barrack, and I had
rooms assigned to me in a tower, the windows of which faced the sea;
and as the furniture was furnished by the government of His Majesty
the Sultan, it could scarcely be expected to be much more luxurious
than the birch-table, two Windsor-chairs, the iron coal-box and
elegant pair of bellows usually issued from the stores of Her
Brittanic Majesty to an officer in garrison.

That evening I dined--or supped--which you please (for the hour
rendered the meal dubious)--with the Yuze Bashi, whose portion of the
castle was magnificently fitted up.  His servants were black slave
girls.  We had neither forks, chairs, nor a table.  We sat on
cushions, and ate pillaff and paties of Gallipoli oysters with our
fingers, from platters placed on little stools; we tore the fragrant
kabobs from their wooden skewers with our teeth--rent the fowls
asunder by the simple process of inserting the finger and thumb;
drank sherbet of sugar and musk dashed with French brandy; then came
iced Grecian wine, and, lighting our pipes, we gave thanks to the
Prophet for the good things of this land, and subsided among the
silken cushions with a sigh of satisfaction.

By the inquiring Callum Dhu I was given to understand that my friend
the Yuze Bashi had a wife; but, as it would have been discourteous to
have asked for her, as he studiously avoided ever recurring to the
circumstance of her existence; and, moreover, as a Turk can never
introduce his wife to any man save a most intimate friend, and then
only on receiving his solemn word of honour never to mention so
singular a departure from the established Mohammedan custom, I had no
hope of being blessed by seeing even the slipper of the commandant's
earthly helpmate; and so I thought no more about it--besides, wives
are most brittle and perilous ware to meddle with in Turkey.

Several weeks passed away monotonously at the castle of Rodosdchig.
I soon knew every street, bazaar, mosque, bezestien, coffee-house,
khan, and kabobki in the place as well as if they were my own
property; the old Greek ruins in the neighbourhood; the dumpy Doric
columns of what had been a temple, when beauty was worshipped in
Thessaly and Thrace, lying among a wilderness of luxurious weeds and
plants, with the snakes crawling over them, had all been, again and
again, delineated in my sketchbook; the round towers of the old
castle that overhung the sea; the sea itself, with its Greek caiques,
Turkish xebeques, and quaint fisherboats, soon became as familiar to
me as the murmur of its waves on the lucks below my barrack-room
window.

To divert my ennui, fortunately for myself, as my after-adventures
proved, I applied all my energies to the study of the monotonous and
crack-jaw gibberish of the Turks; and, with the assistance of
'Madden's Grammar,' &c., was able to master the sonnets of the old
Pasha, or General, Sermet Effendi; and of Partiff, whose rhymes in
honour of the Sultan and of Omar Pasha are to be seen gilded above
the gates of all the edifices erected by the Government; Jachiened,
the _Gulistan_, or 'Rose Garden of Sadi of Shiraz,' and the 'Pleasing
Tales of Khoja (Master) Nazir-il-adeen Efendi;' and I still remember
one charming old Persian story of the Garden of Paradise, which was
described as being _still extant_ in Asia, but concealed among remote
and inaccessible mountains, and to be reached only through long
caverns and by a subterranean river; and therein were ever summer
bloom and floral beauty, and all the animals were tame and loving, as
before the fall of our first parents--the lamb lying down beside the
lion, and the panther beside the goat, as some old dervish, who--like
my friend the corporal--had been there, called upon every hair in his
silver beard to testify.

The morning and evening parades of my little party followed each
other in unvarying succession; but the riotous, bloodthirsty, and
insurrectionary Greeks, of whom the Yuze Bashi had spoken so much at
our mess in Heraclea, were as quiet as the plodding denizens of the
most rural district in England.

The bluff Yuze Bashi Hussein (may his shadow never be less!) was now
my crowning bore, and I soon saw enough of him to make me avoid his
friendship, and to inspire me with a dislike for him, still stronger
than even the story of the Greek Lieutenant Vidimo had done.

Though the rent of his government, exclusive of his pay, was one
hundred and twenty purses, or about 600_l._ per annum, Hussein had a
large garden, which he forced the soldiers of the Sultan to
cultivate, and the produce of which he sold to the inhabitants _at
his own prices_, which were always rising and never falling.  By this
means he nearly doubled his pay; while, by selling the powder and
shot of the batteries to Levant coasters and Greek pirates, he nearly
trebled it; and then, to make up the deficiency at head quarters, the
returns of his garrison for 'ball-practice' were enormous.

Then he had secured a handsome sum for the head of his younger
brother, which, like a good and loyal servant of the Prophet's
earthly shadow, he had transmitted to the Seraglio gate in a jar of
salt; for this unlucky brother, having fled from Stamboul, where he
had been engaged in an intrigue with a lady of the Household, and
having wounded the Kislar Aga with his handjiar, became well worth a
thousand piastres, dead or alive.

Such was Hussein Ebn al Ajuz.  He was a man utterly devoid of scruple
or principle.

'A Greek,' said he, 'once dared to dispute with me on religion--but I
soon silenced him.'

'How?' I asked.

'By running my handjiar into his heart.'

'The devil!--that was a convincing argument.'

'A _sharp_ one, at all events,' was the cool reply.

He made his hatred of the Greeks a never-failing source of revenue.
If a merchant of that humbled race gave an entertainment, and our
commandant was not invited, he would send an onbashi and three
soldiers, with fixed bayonets, to extinguish the lights, disperse the
guests, and bring before him the master of the house, who was
therefore ordered to pay down so many piastres, as a fine, for
disturbing the neighbourhood--for the ponderous Turk is lord of the
soil, while the lively and more intelligent Greek is but its serf and
villein--being what the Englishman was to the Norman knight eight
hundred years ago.

I avoided the Yuze Bashi, no difficult matter, as he spent half the
day, seated on a carpet in a corner, smoking his bubbling narguillah
and drinking brandy-and-water; and now having no resource but my own
thoughts, or Callum Dhu, whose conversation was generally of old and
regretful memories, my spirits began to sink, for I had no longer the
daily good fellowship of our merry little mess, or the frank
joviality of Jack Belton to bear me up.  Left thus entirely to myself
in that gloomy old castle of the Greeks, my mind reverted to other
days and other scenes, and the face of Laura--lost to me for
ever!--came frequently before me with a distinctness that made my
heart ache, though I sought--but in vain--to thrust the painful
thought and winning image from me.

One evening, according to my usual wont since I had become wayward
and moody, alone (as Callum was on guard), but accoutred with my
claymore, dirk, and loaded revolver (for in this district nobody
ventures abroad unarmed), I wandered beyond the walls of Rodosdchig,
to a grove of cypresses, where the wild grapes grew in luxuriance,
and where I could pluck them with the dew of evening on their purple
clusters.  A little farther on lay one of those quiet Mohammedan
cemeteries which are so poetically named by the Orientals the Cities
of the Silent.  There the ghost of each true Believer is supposed by
the superstitious to sit invisibly at the head of its own grave.

Near this burial-place were the ruins of what had been an old Greek
hermitage, in the days when poor anchorites 'sought to merit heaven'
by drinking cold water and chewing dry peas.

On this evening the City of the Silent rang with the merry voices of
a group of Turkish ladies.  Clad in bright-coloured dresses, they
were sitting on carpets, among the green resting places, drinking
sherbet, eating _bon-bons_, and smoking pretty little chibouques,
while a few slaves and sullen eunuchs hovered near them in
attendance.  As I passed these veiled fair ones, I heard a few shrill
exclamations of wonder, while their dark rolling eyes seemed to
sparkle with peculiar lustre through the holes in their snow-white
yashmacks.

On the verge of this cemetery, and apart from the group, I passed a
solitary lady, who was culling a bouquet of flowers from among the
turbanned headstones; and who, in pursuit of this innocent object,
had wandered to some distance from her companions.  Attracted by the
singular grace which pervaded all her actions, I hovered near her,
and affected to read the epitaphs gilded on the marble tombs; but
perceiving that her bracelet--which was composed of those magnificent
opals which dart fire, and by the Orientals are believed to be found
only where thunder has fallen--was lying on the grass, I hastened to
restore it, and to clasp it on her wrist.  With a hurried bow, and a
sweet smile sparkling in her eyes, she permitted me to perform this
little act; and while doing so, I was charmed by the delicate beauty
of her arm and gloveless hand.

The bracelet was clasped, and I was on the point of touching my cap
and retiring, when, either by accident or design--from all I knew of
Turkish wives, I half suspected _the latter_--her bouquet fell from
her hand, and the flowers were scattered about her.

'Mashallah!' she exclaimed, and laughed.

Though I knew well that if seen near her, or with her, a dose of
bamboo-canes or a bullet, perhaps, might repay my temerity, I
deliberately gathered up the flowers, and tieing them with a ribbon,
presented them to her, with a few Turkish compliments, and begged
permission to retain a rose, as a gift from her.

She at once accorded it, giving me, at the same time, a full, deep,
and piercing glance through the square opening of her yashmack.

Oh, those speaking eyes!  How well this woman knew their dangerous
power!

I see them yet in imagination, for heaven never created aught more
beautiful than the eyes of this Turkish damsel.  She touched my hand
slightly, and said, while casting a hurried glance about her,

'Where shall we meet again?'

The '_we_' made my heart leap!

'Meet again?--at this hour to-morrow evening--among these ruins,'
said I, entering recklessly into what might prove a dangerous
rendezvous; and then, waving a kiss to me, my beautiful Unknown
hurried through the cypress-grove and rejoined her gay companions.

It was all arranged and over in a moment!




CHAPTER XL.

A LOVE ADVENTURE.

The next day passed slowly, and I thought of my love affair--(for a
love affair I had determined to consider it)--with some anxiety: the
path to Cupid in the East being strewn with more daggers than roses;
for a panther in its hungry wrath is a lamb when contrasted to a Turk
animated by a fit of jealousy; and that my unknown was the
better-half of some dreamy Osmanli I had not the least doubt.  I
carefully loaded my revolver--placed all my money in my purse, to be
ready for any emergency, and buckled on my dirk and claymore, as if I
had been about to escalade the Malakoff or make a dash at the Redan,
instead of merely meeting a pretty girl.  I then set forth to keep my
appointment, just as the Yuze Bashi was dropping off into his usual
evening doze, and just as the long shadows of the towers and
cypresses were falling to the eastward; and the muezzins on the upper
galleries of the minarets were watching for the first dip of the
sun's flaming disc, to shout the shrill summons to evening prayer.

Had I forgotten Laura?

Alas for the weakness of the human heart!  I fear that after I saw my
beautiful Oriental I had no memory for aught beyond that epoch in my
history--for a time at least.

Though the evening was delightful, few persons were abroad; and after
leaving the town, an old, white-bearded Grecian monk, wending his way
staff in hand and wallet on back, was the only person I met; as with
a beating heart I sought the sequestered ruins of the ancient
Christian chapel and hermitage.

Once or twice a fear that I might have been lured here for some
deadly purpose, and that her rendezvous was but a wicked snare,
flashed upon me.

The scene was beautiful.  On one hand lay the cemetery with its grove
of tall and solemn cypresses; on the other rose a marble rock
surrounded by an old rampart, having ruined towers, from which the
cannon of the Greeks had poured their stone-shot upon the fierce
Timariots of the Sultan Mohammed the Second, the founder of the new
Empire.  Amid these old ramparts the antique outline of a gilt dome
and the white minar of a little mosque cut the evening sky.  At the
base of the rock a stream flowed from a ruined arch into a marble
basin, over which flourished the beautiful leaves of the acanthus,
under the shade of the graceful and delicate olive-tree.

The sun was setting with gorgeous brilliance; the western sky was all
a lurid red, as if the whole horizon was in flames, and the shadows
of three gigantic Grecian Doric columns of white marble--ascribed to
the Genii in the times of old--were thrown far across the landscape.
From the shattered cornice and four triglyphs which still surmounted
them, some long and pendant creeping plants swung like garlands on
the evening wind, that came from the deep and blue Propontis.

The shadows began to deepen; the horizon paled.  The birds had ceased
to sing; but the little snakes were hissing vigorously under the
broad leaves of the acanthus and the dewy lentisuculus--for in ten
minutes night would be on.

There was a sound; and my unknown, in her white yashmack and flowing
robes, came before me like a graceful spirit, and quite as suddenly.
Her hands were placed joyously and confidingly in mine, and her
eyes--the loveliest of all those dark and soul-lit oriental eyes that
seem to swim in their own lustrous glory--were beaming upon me.  I
was bewildered--confused--dazzled!

I felt the impossibility of resisting the fascinations of two such
loving eyes.  The inside of the delicate lids were blackened with
kohol, and the ends of her slender fingers were tinged with
rosyhenna--yet she spoke with somewhat of a Greek accent.

'Tell me your name, my beautiful one?' I whispered, retaining her
soft hands in mine.

'Iola,' was the half-breathed reply.

'Iola--anything more?'

'Mashallah! what more would you require me to say?'

'Do you live in Rodosdchig?'

'Yes--but why do you inquire?'

'Because all that concerns you must be full of tender interest to me.'

'So soon!  You have not known me quite five minutes.'

'I have known you four and twenty hours; yet when I gaze into your
beautiful eyes, Iola, I seem to have known you for a life-time.'

'You love me then?' she exclaimed, as her large eyes filled with
light and merriment.

'Oh, Iola! who could see you without loving you, tenderly and
passionately?'

'Inshallah!'

'You are not a Turk?

'Turk--no!  I am a Greek,' she answered, in a changed voice, and
drooping of the eyelid.

I attempted to remove her yashmack; but she exclaimed,--

'In the name of Allah, not yet--not yet!' and shrinking laughingly
back, with pretty coquetry, prevented me from doing so.

After a little flirtation, and permitting me to kiss her hands as
often as I pleased, from a few words she let fall, greatly to my
alarm, I suspected that she _was_ a married Moselema; but I was now
too much involved with her to 'hang fire,' as we say at mess; and too
much attracted by her beauty--though I had seen but little of it--to
relinquish the chance of enlivening my dull detachment duty by a
little love affair--though death, perhaps, should hover near it.  The
imminent risk we ran enhanced the charm of this new acquaintance.
The darkness was deepening, for in these climates there is little
twilight; and alarmed by the sombre aspect of the ruins, which were
haunted, of course, by a Ghoule, Iola (a charming name!); started
from my side, and insisted on retiring.

'Take these three rose-buds,' said I, for flowers are the language of
love among the Asiatics; 'three on one stem.  Iola--they are
emblematic of the three qualities of love.'

'Of love?' she reiterated, in a tremulous whisper.

'Sprightly, secret, and sincere love, as ours shall be.  Will you
accept of them from me?'

She trembled like one about to do a guilty thing; but took them with
a blush and something like a sob of joy; yet this excitable little
one would not permit me to kiss her!

'You will wear them for my sake, Iola?'

'There is danger in doing so--yet I will treasure them even when
faded, like the jewel of Prince Giamschid; and what is my reward?'

'Your reward?' I faltered, while reddening in turn.

'Yes, for the danger.'

'One dear little kiss--or a thousand if you will let me give them!' I
exclaimed, and threw my arm round her.

She drew down the yashmack, and I pressed my lip to hers, again and
again.

Until this moment my Oriental had never perhaps known what love was.
Risk, life, death, all were forgotten!  I remembered only the charm
and the opportunity.

'And so in Frankistan, the rose is also an emblem of love?' she
whispered, as we walked slowly hand in hand towards the town, the
lights of which were sparkling in the distance.

'Yes, Iola.'

'Alas!'

'Why?'

'Because the rose lives but for a day--and if it should be so with
love?'

'Why that thought, and why these doubts--my love will live for ever,
Iola!'

(_For ever_?  Alas! where were a heedless passion and two bright eyes
hurrying me?)

'It is indeed delightful to have one's life thus entwined with
another (and you will be always in Rodosdchig, I hope?); to have a
double existence and double joy, as if we lived in the Rose Garden of
Sadi.'

'Ah--but I fear your existence is so entwined already: your husband,
Iola?'

She uttered a faint cry of anger, and thus I found my conjectures
right.

'My husband!' she exclaimed; 'talk not of him!  He bought me as he
did his horse, in the common market-place.  He never asked me to love
him.  O that were a condescension too much for a proud Turk!  I am a
Mohammedan now; but I was a Christian born, and am by blood a Greek,
and my dead ancestors, who lie at Smyrna and at Scio, would raise
their fleshless hands against me, could they know me as I know myself
to-day.  My husband bought me from a ruffian, reckless as himself.  I
was bathed, perfumed, and led to his arms.  Bismillah! speak no more
of my husband!'

These words removed every vestige of scruple in my heart.  A
purchased slave! could I ever view her as a wedded wife?  But now she
drew her feradjee close about her, and fled from my side without a
word of to-morrow, or of meeting again; for we had unconsciously
approached too near one of the town-gates, where, as she had
previously mentioned, a _dumb_ slave awaited her.  Here I lost sight
of her, having pledged my word of honour neither to follow nor to
make inquiries after her.

My heart sank as she left me; and the idea of this delicate and
beautiful woman being bought and sold in a market-place, and being
now the wedded slave of a sensual Moslem, made me writhe and ponder
deeply, as I walked along the dark and muddy streets of Rodosdchig.
The town was now sunk in silence, and not a sound was heard, save the
occasional howling of wild and wandering dogs--the faithful but
'unclean beasts,' of the ungrateful Koran.

'Love begetteth love,' so my heart was sorely troubled.  I could no
longer doubt that this beautiful Oriental loved me.  Her dark but
brilliant eyes were full of it.

Her sighs but half suppressed as she had hung upon my shoulder; her
cheek alternately pale and flushed, were also full of it.

Her tremulous voice--her conversation and manner--her very silence
spoke of it--this deep fount of passion opened up within her ardent
heart for the _first_ time, and yet--pardon me for the chilling close
to my sentence--she had been some years _married_.

For two evenings I went to the ruins, but she did not come again.  I
was well nigh my wit's end, and more than once narrowly escaped a
stab from a handjiar, or a shot from a pistol, as I rambled about the
bazaars and bezestiens, running after every woman whose figure
resembled Iola's, and poking my nose closer to their yashmacks than
Oriental propriety permits; so close, indeed, that I was once nearly
having my heels turned up by the ferashes of a mufti, despite my red
coat and claymore.

Restless, thoughtful, anxious and abstracted--haunted by a pair of
beautiful eyes that were the object of my waking thoughts in the
morning, the last at night, and the source of many a lonely hour of
reverie between, I was deeply in love with her before I knew the
whole truth, or saw the full danger of our position; and even when
cold reason displayed both, I was more charmed than startled by the
novelty of this new passion.

And she loved me, the possessor of those beautiful eyes!

Oh, there was something delicious in the thought that this attractive
woman, so bright, so brilliant, so happy in spirit--she who
unconsciously attracted me to her, as in a better sphere she would
have attracted all--even as the sun in his glory is said to absorb
the atoms in the air--should love me!

Who was she?  Where was she?

Oh, for Aladdin's lamp, or the ring of the Genii!

A thousand dazzling and daring schemes of elopement suggested
themselves to me, for Laura's loss and desertion had made me reckless
of consequences; but first I had to discover Iola among the
closely-veiled hundreds of Kodosdchig; a task about as vain as the
proverbial one, of attempting to find a needle in a haystack.




CHAPTER XLI.

A STRANGE TASK.

Returning one evening, dispirited and provoked after a second
unsuccessful visit to the Ruined Hermitage, on entering the castle of
Rodosdchig, I was informed by Callum that the Yuze Bashi had been
inquiring for me everywhere, urgently and angrily.  Surprised to hear
this, I repaired at once to his quarters, and was introduced without
ceremony; for the unfortunate captain of Bombardiers was considerably
perturbed, and in great tribulation.

I found him seated on a carpet, in a corner of an apartment, the
walls of which were, as usual, covered with pious sentences from the
Koran.  He was smoking a narguillah, through a crystal vase of
rose-water, and the window, through which he usually watched the sun
dip behind the hills, was open, to admit the sea-breeze, for he was
flushed and feverish.  An urgent despatch had come from the Seraskier
and Kiaja Kiatibi, summoning him to appear without a moment's delay
at Constantinople, on peril alike of his military button and his head.

'Beard of Ali!' he exclaimed, 'is not this alarming?'

'Rather,' said I, remembering that the first-named official was
generalissimo of the Sultan's forces, and that the second was
minister for the Home Department; and now the memory of a thousand
peculations, local oppressions, extortions, and tyrannies came
appallingly before Hussein, who, in his administration at Rodosdchig,
had been about as tenderhearted as a Madras collector.  Besides, he
knew that he had ever been savagely severe with his men; for that
obedience which is simple subordination in the European soldier,
degenerates into mere slavery in the Turk.

Poor Hadjee Hussein Ebn al Ajuz felt his respected head wag somewhat
loosely on his shoulders; but while he prepared to depart at once for
Stamboul, in his selfish alarm for himself, the actual interest of
his wife and household were nearly forgotten.

His wife; here was a devil of a dilemma!  What was to be done?  The
question would have puzzled the seven wiseacres of the East, had they
been with us.

'And now,' said Hussein, relinquishing his narguillah with a sigh,
and belting his sabre about his portly person; 'I look to _you_ for a
great service.'

'If I can serve you in anything, command me.'

'I shall not be gone many days.'

'Take care, Hussein; I would bet a month's pay, or a quarter's field
allowance, against the chances of your ever coming back again.'

'Bismillah! don't say so, pray--I _shall_ come back!'

'And this service?' said I.

'Is to take charge of my wife in my absence.'

'I beg pardon--did I hear you aright? to take charge of----'

'My wife,' continued Hussein, grinding his teeth; 'there is none
other here to whom I can apply.  The Moolah Moustapha, curses on him!
is--I know not where; and there is no Turkish officer in the castle,
save myself.  You are a beyzadeh (gentleman's son) as well as a
soldier.  I can trust you.'

'But your wife, Yuze Bashi--'tis a perilous trust, especially in
Turkey.'

'I have no resource,' said he, stamping his feet with rage; 'none--I
must leave this in ten minutes, and cannot apply to my soldiers, and
still less to yours, to act for me in this delicate matter.'

'Excuse my plainness--but I do not like the duty.'

'I like you the better for this sincerity, and trust you the more.'

'But----'

'But me no buts!  You are like Sadd Ebn Kais, who said to the Prophet
on his march to Tabuc, "Give me leave to stay behind, and expose me
not unto temptation;" because, as the Koran hints, he dared not trust
himself among the black-eyed girls of Greece.  Your scruples are
just; but remember, they who do good shall obtain good, even in this
world.'

'I have never seen the lady,' said I, doubtfully; 'is she beautiful?'

The Yuze Bashi knit his brows, for this was approaching forbidden
ground; but he answered,

'Beautiful as a Houri, and young--so young that I might be her
father; so you must watch over her and guard her as if she was
concealed by the seven blessed doors of the Prophet Zacharias.'

'So I am to be the guardian of a Turkish harem--what next?' thought I.

'You have still doubts,' said Hussein, with increasing irritation.
'Listen to me; when I was in the castle of Selyvria, my subaltern,
afterwards the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, was suddenly ordered to
join the train of artillery then embarking for the Crimea, and it was
on peril of his head that he loitered for a moment, after receiving
the summons of the Seraskier.  Here was just such a dilemma as mine;
but he came to me, saying,

'Hussein, you must be unto me as _my brother_; my purse, my wife, and
my household, I leave in your safe keeping.'

'You have my word of honour,' said I.

'It is unnecessary,' said he, 'for I believe in you.'  And so he
sailed for the Euxine.

'For three months I had charge of his young and pretty wife.  I never
saw her; but my servants by turns watched the house, allowing none to
enter--none at least but Ali Pasha, who paid me a hundred piastres
for every visit; so you see I was very strict, and daily sent my
grandfather, who was a decrepit old man, to ask if she required
anything.'

'And the subaltern Mohammed Saïd?'

'Came back no more.'

'How?'

'He died a major at the passage of the Alma.'

'And his wife?'

'When her jewels were sold, married Hussein Aga (the steward of Ali
Pasha), who paid me fifty piastres each time he left his slippers at
the door.  But you are an Ingleez--I can trust you to guard my wife
better than I guarded the wife of Saïd--so watch her well, though she
is pure as the daughter of Imraun, and gentle as the west wind, or
the memory of a love we have lost when young.'

In ten minutes afterwards this coolest, queerest, and most cunning of
all Yuze Bashis, had poised his huge bulk on the saddle of a fleet
horse.  With many sore misgivings, and terrors of the Seraskier and
the Kiaja Kiatibi, he took his departure for Stamboul, leaving me in
full possession of the fortress, and, more than all, of his wife,
about whom, although I had not seen her, I felt some curiosity as he
had acknowledged her to be young and beautiful as a Houri.

The plot of my Greek adventures was thickening!

'In love with the wife of one Turk, and solemnly requested, in a
fatherly way of course, to look after the rib of _another_!' says
Jack Belton, in one of his letters, which I received about this time
by the hand of a mounted Koord.  'An arduous duty for a subaltern,
Allan, but beware of meddling with such matters in Turkey!  If the
Horse Guards make light of dangers risked in the field of Mars, they
will make lighter still of those encountered in the field of Venus.
Allons, my boy! on the llth February, Fort Alexander at Sebastopol
was blown up and entirely destroyed.  There is no word of our moving
in that direction yet, though it is said that a costermonger's ass
would not exchange duties with our poor fellows in the trenches.  I
send you a box of prime cheroots; the last month's "Army List," the
last Scotch newspaper, "Punch," and the corkscrew you required so
much, and wishing you safe back again with your pins under the mess
mahogany, remain, ever yours,

'J. BELTON

'Heraclea, March 1856.'




CHAPTER XLII.

TWO CHARMING EYES.

If Hussein imagined that Callum Dhu and I were to watch his premises,
and to guard the bower of his lady-love, even in the slender way that
he watched those of the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, he was very much
mistaken; for, beyond an extra injunction to the sentinel at the gate
to admit no man into the little fortress without my express
permission I troubled myself no more about the matter; but this order
would have proved no bar to an enterprising Turkish lover, or an
intriguing Turkish wife, as the apartments of the Yuze Bashi had
windows and a private door, which opened into a beautiful rose-garden
without the walls; and the stockades, which once formed a barrier in
that direction had all been sold long since by the avaricious Hussein
for firewood.

The evening of the day after his departure was drawing near when I
bethought me of my Unknown Beauty at the Ruined Hermitage, and before
bending my steps in that direction, I lingered on the beach for a
time, below the castle-wall, in the hope that she might pass that way.

The town was hidden by the weather-beaten masses of the old castle,
the round towers of which had for ages formed a landmark to the sea.
Reddened under the western sun, the ocean seemed on fire towards its
verge, and the clouds were piled over each other, like mountains of
burnished brass, or gold and flame, but ever crumbling, changing, and
forming anew, as they rolled along the horizon, in all the splendour
of an oriental sunset.  A gorgeous orange tint was spreading over
everything; the distant capes and headlands, isles, and rocks, were
all tinged with amber and violet hue or fiery red; and mirrored in
that shining sea which blended into yellow and crimson as its waves
rolled away towards the marble island of Marmora.

Among the rocks on which this strong old castle of the Grecians
stood, the dwarf oak, the flowering arbutus, the broad-leaved bay,
the fragrant myrtle, the _spini Christi_ of the gallant Crusaders,
the fig, the olive, the golden orange, and the luscious pomegranate,
with its brown and husky bulbs, were all growing in luxuriance; while
over all some giant plane-trees--which, by a marvel, had escaped the
cupidity of Hussein, though their stems were seven feet thick--spread
their shady branches.  The castled promontory was a place of groves,
of flowers, and of perfume.

Lingering there, and thinking, almost with a sigh, that such a land
was worthy of a better race, there fell something at my feet.

It was three rose-buds--the faded three I had given to my veiled fair
one a few nights ago!  I started and looked up, just as the white
hand that had dropped them was withdrawn from a casement in the old
castle-wall close by, and not ten feet from where I was sitting, and
where I had been musing for an hour past with Strabo and Herodotus
and their old memories, conflicting in my mind, with the recollection
of her magnificent eyes, when I found them beaming upon me!

She was still muffled in her yashmack and feradjee, yet I knew her in
a moment.

'Iola!' I exclaimed; 'you here?'

'Here, where I first saw you,' said she, smiling, and waving a kiss
towards me in the prettiest little flirting way imaginable.

'What--are you then--'

'The lady of whom you have such solemn charge.'

'The wife of the Yuze Bashi?'

'The wife of Hussein Ebn al Ajuz,' she added, with a gleam in her
black eyes.

'His prisoner, rather, poor Iola! what have you to live for?'

'Those who love me--for them I live, and for them only.  I am _your_
prisoner at present, for Hussein has gone to Stamboul with terror in
every hair of his beard.

'Ah, Iola, you are worthy of a brighter and a better sphere than your
husband can ever assign you.  There are some things I wish you could
understand; but the Mohammedan can form no conception of the position
assigned to your sex among the Franks of the western world, where the
influence of Christianity and of chivalry have served to exalt and
purify the character of woman.'

'I _do_ know all this,' she answered, impetuously, 'for I am come of
Albanian blood, and love the Christians, though they bow their heads
and bend their knees before gilded idols and painted pictures; for
among our mountains the Mussulmen cling to the memory of their
Christian fathers, and, on certain days, say a prayer at the old
stone crosses that mark where they lie.  Moreover, I have been taught
that it was the place assigned to Mary, the first Christian woman,
that gave a nobility and purity to the women of Frangistan.  I know
this, for I am a Greek by birth, though a Mohammedan by faith; and,
oh, blessed be the Moolah Moustapha, he who revealed unto me the
divine teachings of the Koran.  Yet,' she added, with tears, and in a
tremulous voice, 'I can remember my dear, dear mother, teaching me to
kiss the little cross of the Christian's triple God!'

I winced a little at this peculiar phrase.

'Your mother--you remember her, then?'

'Oh, yes--yes! tall, beautiful, pale, and sad!' she added, throwing
her white hands and dark eyes upwards; 'her blood--her hot
blood--came over me as she died!'

'Iola! her blood--then she was killed?'

'Murdered--she was barbarously murdered before my eyes--for she was a
Greek, and the wife of the gallant Demetrius Vidimo.'

'Good heavens--what is this you tell me?'

'The truth,' she added, weeping; 'the terrible truth--you have heard
of my father, then?'

'And you are--'

'Iola Vidimo.'

'The sister of Constantine--'

'Oh, Mohammed! how know you that?  I had a brother--a dear little
brother, so named.  Can you tell me aught of him?  Speak--speak--have
you lost your tongue?'

I had much to tell her, but how was I to fashion the tidings that her
brother had been shot in the presence of her husband; and that
he--Hussein--was one of those brutal soldiers who, after a vain
contention for the person of her mother, had so barbarously pistolled
her!

'Do you know this coral cross, Iola?'

She uttered a cry.

'It was my beloved mother's, and on that awful day at Acre, sixteen
years ago, she tied it round the neck of my boy-brother, when we were
separated.  Tell me about Constantine--does he live?'

'It is a long story, Iola, and one that cannot be related here; but
you forget yourself--you are excited--your voice may be overheard,
and I may be seen.  Where can we meet--at--the Hermitage?'

'No.'

'Where?'

'Here.'

'Here?'

'In these apartments.'

'If I am discovered?' I urged, with a heart that vibrated with
strange emotions.

'Where so safe as within a pistol-shot of your own soldiers?'

'True--but your honour, Iola?'

'Is in my own keeping--do you hesitate?' she added, with a flash in
her magnificent eyes.

'Dearest Iola, I will be here in an hour after sunset--but how to
reach the window?'

'Leave that to me.'

'Hush!'

'Some one comes,' she exclaimed, and shut the latticed-window, as I
hurried away in a tumult of thought.

The interruption proceeded only from a wandering Arab, who was drunk
with raki, and chaunted aloud the glories of the starlight, which, in
his hot and sultry clime, is loved better than the sunshine.

'Leili--Leili!  O night--night!' was the burden of his monotonous and
intrusive ditty, for which I felt a decided inclination to punch his
head.

I was aware that in forming this appointment with Iola I was making a
sad breach in the trust Hussein had been compelled to repose in me;
but what the deuce was I to do?  An oriental woman is not to be
trifled with; for love and hate are strong and sudden passions under
an eastern sun; and while heartily despising and wholly disliking
Hussein on one hand, I felt myself dazzled and fascinated by his
imprisoned odalisque on the other.  Then I remembered his cool
admissions of the hundred piastres of Ali Pasha, and the fifty
piastres of Hussein Aga, the steward, and my scruples melted away.

I lighted one of Jack Belton's 'prime cheroots,' and sat down to
think over the matter, and viewed it through the mellowing medium of
a glass of brandy-and-water.  I resolved to finish my flirtation with
all propriety and speed; looked at my watch, and longed exceedingly
for the dark hour, which, in that climate, follows the sinking of the
sun.

Alas! how weak are the best resolutions of the human heart, when
opposed to the magic influence of _two charming eyes_!




CHAPTER XLIII.

I SCALE THE WINDOW.

When remembering Laura Everingham and the pleasant days of other
times, I sighed with mingled regret and bitterness.  Was it the old
love for her that could not be crushed, or the new love for my
beautiful Oriental that I could but imperfectly comprehend, and which
had so much of stirring novelty and imminent danger among its chief
allurements?

Perhaps I found myself a little in that dilemma which---I trust all
fair ladies will pardon the avowal--is not uncommon among
men--_loving two women at once_--'a way we often have in the army,'
as Belton would say.

The new passion which had seized me was certainly strengthened by a
sentiment of pique at Laura (oh, Laura, I could love you still!); yet
this passion, improper, unwarrantable, name it as you will, friend
reader, for this beautiful and too facile Moslem, filled all my heart
and fired my imagination with a thousand romantic fancies.  I saw all
her danger and my own.  One moment I lamented the evil chance which
had sent me on this solitary duty, and cast me in her path; and the
next, I looked at my watch, impatient of the lagging sunset.

Thus did love fire, and reason cool me by turns.

'I know,' says a recent writer, 'that five feet eight inches of
female flesh and blood, when accompanied by a pale complexion, black
eyes, and raven hair, is synonymous with strong passions and an
unfortunate destiny.'  And most unfortunate was your destiny, poor
Iola!

Ah, those beautiful eyes!  How sadly they put all one's wits and
self-possession to flight--by their arrows routing horse, foot, and
artillery.

I regarded her as a caged bird longing for freedom.  I could not
conceive it possible that the wife of a Turk--especially such a
devilish and unmitigated Turk as the fat Yuze Bashi Hussein--should
be otherwise than most unhappy; for the Mohammedan deems women the
mere appendage of a household--a necessary comfort among others; a
handsome wife, a cup of coffee, and a well-filled chiboque, are the
mainsprings of life in the eyes of a true Believer--unless we add a
hot bath and a savoury kabob.

With these reflections, an hour after sunset, I found myself in the
dewy twilight, under her window, and among those richly-wooded rocks
on which the sea of Marmora was rolling in ripples of violet, blue,
and gold.

It was one of those brilliant nights when all the constellations are
visible, and the poor Mohammedan believes that all the imps of earth
are climbing to Heaven, to pry into the actions and overhear the
conversation of the blessed, who occasionally pelt and slay them with
the falling stars.

I waited for a little time, and then her lattice slowly--I thought
reluctantly--unclosed; and two white hands were clapped gently
together.

I replied to the signal; the stem of a date-tree and the tough
branches of a wild vine enabled me to reach the window with ease, and
in a moment I found myself within the sanctum sanctorum of a
Mohammedan house--the anderun, or female apartments of the Yuze Bashi
Hussein.

Iola was trembling; she drew her yashmack closely about her face, and
hastened to shut the casement.  Her eyes were full of tears, and that
she had been seized by some unusual qualm, or terror of these
proceedings, was but too apparent.  This was unpleasant, as it gave
me the sensation of being somewhat of a conspirator, at least.

The successful peculations of Hussein had enabled him to make the
apartments of his Greek wife magnificent.  The roof was all of blue
velvet, painted with the figures of birds and flowers.  The walls
were hung with silk, in alternate broad red and white stripes, on
which shone gilded sentences from the Koran.  An exquisite Persian
carpet covered the floor, on which were a profusion of velvet and
embroidered cushions of the softest and lightest down arranged in the
form of couches; and there were two little stools bearing
coffee-trays and chiboques.  The lower end of the apartment, which
was divided in two by festooned curtains of the finest muslin, was
hung with leopard-skins, and trophies of Turkish and Arabian arms of
the keenest steel--sabres, handjiars, carbines, pistols, lances,
matchlocks, and ancient horsetailed standards, arranged, in the form
of stars, round Tartar shields of brown bull-hide, all glittering
with knobs of burnished brass.  The perfume of rich pastiles and wood
of aloes, burning in tripods of bronze, and the fragrance of six tall
candelabra full of fresh flowers, pervaded the apartment, which was
lit by two large lamps of fine oil, the smoke of which was consumed
by cream-coloured globes, that diffused a warm and voluptuous light.

To complete the picture of this remarkable apartment, let me remind
the reader of Iola, who, shrinking a little from me, stood in the
centre of it, with irresolution and timidity in her air and eyes.

She wore the hideous feradjee of the Turkish women, which enveloped
her whole form, permitting little of its oriental symmetry to be
seen; yet from amid its ample folds I could discern her hands, which
were gloveless, and her little feet, which had embroidered slippers,
and the faultless form and delicacy of which there were no stockings
to conceal.

Her black and brilliant eyes, expressive, languishing, and inquiring,
arch and smiling by turns, were now bent on me, timidly and
imploringly, under their long lashes and dark eyebrows, which were
well arched, defined, and full of character--a charming thing in
every girl.  Through the thin yashmack, or veil of fine muslin, which
concealed the lower part of her face, after that abominable fashion
which the restless jealousy of their male tyrants imposes on the
women of the East, I could discern that her features were beautiful.
Her turban was of muslin, sprigged with gold; she had an ivory
pomander ball of attar-gul in one hand; a finely-embroidered
handkerchief and a sandal-wood rosary from Mecca in the other.

The respect with which she was treated was puzzling and confusing to
her, as a Turkish woman; for in her country the fair sex are kept in
a state of subjugation so strict, that a sister dare not sit in her
younger brother's presence without first obtaining permission.

I attempted to take her hands, but she withdrew them, and crossed
them on her bosom.

'Iola,' said I, tenderly; 'have you ceased to love me?'

'I know not,' she replied, sadly; 'for, as the Koran says, it
belongeth to Allah alone to fathom the human heart--and I cannot
fathom mine.'

'You are doubtful of your own emotions.'

'I am sad--very sad--having much reason to be so.'

'Allow me to remove this veil, for Heaven's sake, dear Iola!' I
continued, trembling with the earnestness of my own sentiments; 'do
not repel me.'

She was passive, and I hastened to remove both the feradjee and the
horrid yashmack; and then her fine figure appeared in a close velvet
jacket, sleeved only to the elbow, cut low at the neck and open at
the bosom; and her hair was gathered about her beautiful head in
massive braids, like perfumed and sable silk.  She trembled and
blushed excessively, for, by the Mohammedan law, aged women who are
past the time of marriage _alone_ may lay this veil aside.

Her white neck and arms were encircled by strings of Turkish rose
pearls, made from the leaves of freshly-culled roses, bruised to a
paste, and dried and rolled in oil of roses and musk, and which,
being thus beautifully polished and pleasantly perfumed, are
favourite ornaments in the East.

She had all that combination of spiritual and voluptuous loveliness
which her Grecian sires of old worshipped in the olive-groves of
Paphos, and in the temples of Cyprus and Cytheria, when the power of
Juno's rival was supreme.

I drew her gently towards me, but still she averted her timid and
downcast face.

'Iola--why this change?' I asked, in a pettish tone; 'have you ceased
to love me now?'

'I have not ceased to love you,' she answered, while trembling
painfully; 'at first you merely struck my fancy, when passing daily
in the castle-yard, where you seemed so different in air, so free in
step and bearing, from the slow, heavy-headed, and crook-legged
soldiers of Hussein; but now you--you--'

'What?'

'Have keenly touched my heart.  Alas!' she continued, weeping; '_now_
I am more a slave than ever the piastres of Hussein, or the promise I
gave him, before the Kadi, made me!'

'Be wary, Iola--remember that your servants may hear us, and our
position is full of danger.'

'There is no danger,' she replied, bitterly; 'they are all
dumb--voiceless as marble statues.'

'Dumb?'

'Mutes--tongueless--and two are deaf, or rendered so.'

'Horrible!  For what reason?'

'To prevent their being indiscreet.'

'A wise precaution.'

'So my husband thinks--but a cruel one.'

After a pause, she added, 'Would to Allah that he had left me in the
care of his friend, the Moolah Moustapha!'

'Why?'

'Can you ask me?  The Moolah is said to know--like Solymon Ebn
Daood--the language of the birds; and every kind of secret knowledge;
and thus he had watched over the wanderings of my heart.'

'Nay, dearest Iola, these scruples and coquettish regrets come
somewhat late--and one kiss--'

'Bismillah!  In the name of the most Merciful, touch me not!' she
exclaimed, with a coy alarm that was rather chilling; but she was too
late: my kiss was on her pouting lip, and she did not repulse me--for
she felt assured, by the night and the silence around us, that no ear
was there to overhear us, and no mortal eye but mine to see her
unveiled beauty.

Here endeth the first lesson.




CHAPTER XLIV.

TEMPTATION AND FOLLY.

Never while life remains shall I forget the hours of delight I passed
with Iola.

I know that it was wrong--exceedingly wrong--and blamable in me to
have yielded to the tempting peril of engaging in this flirtation--to
give my regard for Iola its mildest term--but what could I do?  And
having once yielded to the allurement, and encouraged her in it, how
could I fly or avoid her?

I met her no more at the Ruined Hermitage, or at the green City of
the Silent, for such interviews were full of peril; but I met her
again and again, in the seclusion of her own apartments, into which
not even the tongueless and mutilated slaves of Hussein could
penetrate without a signal being given and permission accorded from
within.  Thus we had an interview every evening, and had much
delightful conversation, and many an hour of mute reverie.

How strange and alluring were those long, deep, and dangerous
reveries, which were full of beatings of the heart, and tender
meanings which the pen cannot depict, and no written language can
convey!

My word plighted to the absent Hussein--my honour, and more than all,
her honour--yea, her very life, were in peril, yet I trifled with
both, like the heedless, reckless, and it may be, selfish boy I was!

Poor Iola!

I related the story of her brother's desertion, recapture, trial, and
the death he suffered so courageously in our presence at Heraclea.  I
mentioned the two little incidents which brought me in personal
contact with him; first in the public khan, and secondly at the last
terrible scene in the valley of the mosque, where from his dead hand
I took the little coral cross, which by a strange course of events I
was now enabled to suspend upon the bosom of his sister; and as I did
so, I thought of all that high-spirited and noble Albanian soldier
would have felt had he seen that sister, now a Mahommedan, (the wife
of one of those barbarous Osmanli who pistolled his stately mother at
Acre,) and hanging in all her loveliness, dissolved in tears and
grief upon the bosom of a stranger--a soldier of Frangistan!

I deemed it well for Hussein, well for Iola, and particularly
fortunate for myself, that the fiery young lieutenant of Albanians
was sleeping in his quiet grave, where the slaves of the Mir Alai
Saïd had laid him.

Tempered by politeness, and by that respect and deference to a female
which have come down to us from the days of the Crusaders and the
Cavaliers, the manner of a European lover is so different from the
bearing of an Oriental one, that there can be little wonder if the
heart of a Mahommedan woman is easily won by the stiff-hatted,
tight-coated, and long-trousered denizen of that ample and mysterious
district known to her only as Frangistan.  In the matter of love and
wedlock, the Turkish woman has as little idea of freedom as the Turk
has of the arguments advanced by S. Bufford, gent.--a certain learned
pundit, who, in the reign of King William III., wrote an Essay
'against persons marrying _without their own consent_.'

'Oh, that I had the right to love you, as I have the right to hate
the Yuze Bashi Hussein!' said Iola, after one of her long silences.
'Oh the odious!  May the heel of my slipper be ever on his mouth--and
yet--and yet he is my husband!'

'I wince always at that word in your pretty mouth, Iola!'

'In loving you, I cease to love him---if indeed I ever loved him.
Allah did not create woman with two hearts--with one under each
breast, as the Moolah Moustapha affirms.'

'But our love is full of sadness as well as peril, Iola--for a day is
coming when I must leave you.'

'Oh, leave me not!' she exclaimed, passionately.  'Must my love be
sacrificed to this coarse and untutored Osmanli?  The day after you
leave me I shall have ceased to live.'

'Leave you I must, Iola.'

'Why?--when?'

'When ordered--for I, too, have Yuze Bashis and Mir Alais and Pashas
who command me.'

'By the love with which you have inspired me!' she said in a piercing
whisper, with her black eyes flashing in brilliance through their
tears; 'I conjure you to take me with you, for I cannot live without
you, and without you I must die!'

With these words she threw herself upon my breast, heedless of
everything.

'I will take you with me, Iola, if I can--'

'Nay you must--you shall!'

'Yes--yes, at all hazards.'

'Why should I die so young?'

'You will go with me--I promise you,' I replied, heedless of the
future; and then she gave me a smile of confiding fondness that would
have melted the heart of our old friend Bluebeard.

'My husband will be here anon, and his jealousy--'

'Well--fear him not, Iola; jealousy gives a relish to love--just as
musk does to sherbet, or pepper to a kabob,' said I, gaily.

'But alas,' said she, with a shudder, 'the jealousy of a Turk is
terrible!  Could I teach Hussein that love and respect--or love and
affection are two distinct sentiments?'

'Give me but the love, Iola, and bestow the affection on whom you
please.'

'Allah!' she exclaimed, with a shudder, and a gleam of terror in her
expressive eyes, as she shrunk from my arm; 'what if _you_ should be
Hussein?'

'I Hussein--I the Yuze Bashi?' I asked, in astonishment.

'Yes--O Mahmoud! there is a strange sparkle in your eye.'

'How could such a thing be?' I asked, smiling at her simplicity.

'Genii give men the power to assume the forms, faces, and voices of
others for a time,' she replied, a little reassured; 'have you never
heard so?'

'Never.'

'How strange!  Have you not heard of the wise Sultan Solymon, and his
magic ring--of the evil Geni Sakhur, and how they changed forms and
faces for forty days?'

'Never, on my honour.'

'Listen, and I will tell you,' said she, clasping her white hands
upon my left shoulder, and reclining her brow upon my cheek, while
her speaking eyes were lifted up to mine, as we reclined among the
soft and silky cushions; 'listen, and I will tell you a story--oh, a
very wonderful story--of things that happened long long ago,' she
continued, while her fine eyes diluted and filled with light; 'long
before Othmon the Bonebreaker sat on the Sultan's throne, and long
before Palæologus perished beneath the cimitars of the
Janissaries--but kiss me once again before I begin.'

The request was soon granted, and in her pretty little prattling way,
Lola told me the following tale of wonder and magic.




CHAPTER XLV

STORY OF THE WISE KING AND THE WICKED GENI.

'Once upon a time there was a king of Sidon, who had a daughter, and
in beauty she surpassed all the maids of Asia.  You must know that
this was in the days when all the kingdom of Frangistan was hidden in
darkness, and when none dwelt there but little men who lived on human
flesh, whose faces were in their stomachs, who had but one leg, with
which they made prodigious leaps in the dark from the summit of one
hill to the summit of another, and when there dwelt in Assyria a
mighty Sultan, named Solymon Ebn Daood, who ruled all the land that
lies between the Euphrates on the east and the Mediterranean on the
west, and from Mount Taurus on the north to Arabia on the south.

'He was a great and wondrous king; for after he slew--as an offering
unto heaven--those thousand winged horses which came to him out of
the sea near Damascus, Allah gave him power over the wind, by which
he could cause it to blow at his will, over the hot deserts of
Arabia, over Suristan, the Land of Roses, and over his own blessed
realm.  The Koran tells us, that on this wind, he could transport his
mighty throne--the star and work of the Genii--from Damascus unto the
hot shores of the Indian sea, in a single day; and unto him were
subjected all the winged Genii; all the blue devils who dive for
pearls in the sea of Kolzom, and those who build cities of gold and
silver, and palaces of precious stones.

'Having gone to war with the king of Sidon, whose territories he had
desolated by a cold north wind, he resolved to besiege the city, and
ordered his magic carpet to be spread without the gates of Mecca, and
it reached therefrom half-way to Jidda on the seashore.  This carpet
was a mighty piece of green silk fabricated by the Genii, who did all
that he commanded them to do, as we are told in the 22nd Chapter of
the Holy Koran.  On this carpet stood the throne whereon he was
seated, and around it were all his army, horse and foot, bowmen and
spearmen, slingers and swordsmen, marshalled by Asaf the vizier.

'The moment they were all in order, he commanded them, to the number
of a hundred thousand, to keep steady in their ranks, and avoid the
_edge_ of the carpet; then he placed his magic signet ring to his
lips, and lo!  There came a wind out of the eastern sky which lifted
up the carpet, with the throne, the troops, and all that were
thereon, and bore it through the air so swiftly that like the shadow
of a cloud, they traversed all the blue vault of heaven, above
Khaibar, where the well of bitter water flows; over the mountains
that look down on Tabuc; over Arabia the Rocky; over the domes of
Jerusalem, and the dark waves of the Dead Sea, and over Acre, until
they alighted on the sea shore of Phoenicia, near the city of Sidon,
which stands on a plain that extends two miles inward from the ocean;
and this was but the journey of half a day to Solymon and his
air-borne host.

'In great terror, the king of Sidon, when he saw this vast cloud
darkening all the sky above the city, shut up his daughter Jerada,
who had black hair that hung down to her knees, and who had eyes that
were larger than her mouth; he placed her in a great round tower,
which stands upon a mountain near the sea, and was built for him by
the Geni Sakhur, who was his chief friend.  But Solymon assaulted the
city, sacked and destroyed its manufactories of linen and fine purple
dyes, its schools of commerce and astronomy.  He slew the king, while
Asaf stormed the tower upon the mountain, and capturing the beautiful
Jerada, brought her safely to Mecca before nightfall, and before the
cry for evening prayer had rung from the minarets of the temple; and
with her were his throne, his soldiers, and all the plunder of the
Phoenician capital covering the magic carpet--and all this was but
the task of one day.

'But with all his power, this mighty Sultan now became the slave of
his slave, and the worshipper of his bondswoman; for Jerada was
beautiful as a houri of Paradise.  Her figure was tall and full of
majesty and grace.  Her beauty was like her bearing, noble as became
the daughter of a king.  Her voice was sweetly modulated, and of all
his three hundred and ten wives, not one could wile or soothe the
soul of Solymon like Jerada, when her snowy arms were thrown around
the harp, and she sang the songs of Palestine.  Veiled by long black
lashes, her eyes were violet coloured, and of a deep, strange, and
mournful tint and expression--as she never forgot that she was the
daughter of Sidon's fallen king.  Her skin was white as the foam on
the sea; her hands and arms were exquisite; her manner soft and
polished; her spirit gentle; her intelligence quick; her wit
brilliant; and as his own unfathomable soul, the great lord of all
Assyria loved her.

'But in her secret heart, Jerada never ceased to lament the fall of
Sidon and her father's fate; and a thousand times did Solymon
surprise her in her chamber, weeping bitterly.  Then his heart smote
him for the wrong he had done to one so fair, and he desired the
Genii to fashion an image of the slaughtered king, and to mould it of
wax, painted like life; to clothe it in fine robes of Tyrian purple,
and to set upon its head the captured crown of Sidon.  This image was
placed in the chamber of Jerada, where she and her maidens wept at
its feet and worshipped it morning and evening for the term of
_forty_ days; but, on Asaf the vizier discovering this wicked
practice, he hastened in terror to Solymon and said,

'"Dost thou permit this foul idolatry?  If so, the curse that fell on
Ad will fall on thee, and this worship of a waxen image must not be
permitted in the palace."

'When Solymon heard these words, he drew his cimitar, and by one blow
destroyed the work of the Genii, and it vanished with a whistling
sound.  He chastised the beautiful Jerada by shutting her up in a
tower, on the door of which he placed his magic seal; and then he
went out into a wild and desert place, where he wept over the evils
that had followed the fall of Sidon, and made supplications to Allah,
crying aloud, as the blessed Koran tells us,

'"Oh forgive me, and accord unto me a kingdom which may not be
obtained by any one after me, for thou art the giver of thrones."[*]


[*] See "Koran," xxxviii.


'But Allah resolved to chastise his negligence, and it happened
thus:--

It was the custom of this great sultan, when he bathed or perfumed
himself, to intrust his magic ring or signet, on the possession of
which depended all his power and his kingdom, to one of his fairest
favourites; and one day, when retiring to the bath, he placed it on
the finger of Jerada, for with all his wisdom the wisest man--yea,
even Solymon--may be but a fool before a beautiful woman.  Jerada, as
she gazed upon the ring, thought of her aged sire and fallen
Sidon--of his nameless grave and her fallen fortune, and uttered a
wish for "vengeance."

At that moment there was a tremulous motion in the air, and the Geni
Sakhur, the friend of her father--the spirit who had built the great
tower which yet stands upon the mountain over against Sidon, appeared
before her _in the likeness of Solymon_, and received from her the
wonderful ring.  Then the eyes of the Geni sparkled with triumph; he
breathed upon it, and lo! when the Sultan came from the bath, he was
an old and withered man, so changed in aspect that none knew him; and
then, mocked by the courtiers, threatened by Asaf the vizier, hooted
by the pages and beaten by the guards, he was driven from the palace
gates, and forced to wander in the desert, eating dates, berries, and
wild fruits for the space of _forty_ days, returning ever and anon to
beg alms at the gates of Mecca, and at the porticos of his own palace.

'Here he saw the Geni Sakhur, on the terraces and in the gardens,
clad in his royal garments, wearing his likeness and having his
voice, toying with the lovely Jerada and the most beautiful of the
ladies, who crowded his magnificent household, and the pious soul of
this king--the mightiest that ever swayed the sceptre of
Assyria--swelled with futile rage, for his ring was on Sakhur's
finger, and he was powerless as the meanest slave.

'Moreover, this evil Geni, by the power of which he became possessed,
governed the whole kingdom, and while seated on its throne, made such
startling alterations in the laws, that Solyman, when he heard them
proclaimed by sound of trumpet and timbrel at the brazen gates of
Mecca, rent his garments and wept, while the astonished Asaf threw
dust upon his head and beard in grief and wonder.

'At length _the forty days_, the exact period during which the waxen
image had been worshipped under Solymon's roof, were expired; and
then the devil Sakhur, with a yell of laughter, sprang from the
throne on which he had been seated, with Jerada by his side, and to
the terror of the faithful Vizier Asaf, and of all the courtiers,
spread out his dusky wings, and ascending straight into the air, flew
away with a speed that made him cleave the sky like a bird; and as he
winged his way to the home of the Genii in the mountains of Kaf, he
flung the magic ring of Solymon into the sea of Galilee.

'As it cleft the deep blue waters, its glittering stones and shining
gold caught the eye of a large and silvery fish, which immediately
swallowed it; but soon thereafter the fish began to writhe in great
agony, and was cast by the ebbing tide upon the yellow sands near the
then ruined and desolate city of Sidon.

'It happened that the Sultan Solymon, in form and face an old man,
bent with years and clad in tattered garments, was wandering in
hunger and destitution, along the sands, eating shell-fish, when he
espied this large and silvery tenant of the deep, writhing on the
shore; he straightway killed it by a stone, and making a fire of the
wood called markh, which if rubbed together will burn, be it ever so
green, he prepared to cook it, and lo! from its belly there dropped
the golden ring--the magic signet by which the power of all Assyria
was held--and with a prayer of joy he placed it on his finger!

'In a moment he recovered his stately stature, his manly beauty, his
youthful face and curling beard; and by uttering a wish, found
himself in the hall of his palace at Mecca, where he gave thanks unto
Allah, and proceeded at once to punish Jerada and the evil Geni
Sakhur.  The beautiful daughter of Sidon he enclosed in a flinty rock
on Mount Horeb, and there, by a touch of his ring, sealed her up for
ever.  The Geni, by a whispered wish, he dragged shrieking through
the air from the far and snowy recesses of Kaf.  Then tying a huge
stone to his neck, he flung him headlong into the lake of Tiberias in
Galilee, near which stands a town built by Herod; but the Geni
instantly changed his form, and arose from the lake in the form of a
small worm, which crept towards Solymon, intent on revenge.

'Now, as we all know, it would take a small worm a great many years
to creep from the Lake of Tiberias to Jerusalem, where the Sultan
Solymon was then finishing the great temple which was to stand there
for ever in lieu of the tabernacle of Moosa.  He employed a million
of Genii to complete the work, and they toiled at it day and night,
and over every Genii was a warden, who made his secret mark upon
their work, and these spirits had secret signs and words by which
they knew each other--the signs and words that were written on the
seal of Solymon.  But this mighty sultan perceiving that he was
becoming aged, and that his end was drawing nigh, prayed to Allah,
that, when he died, his death might be concealed from the Genii, who,
if they discovered it, would all fly back to Kaf, and leave
unfinished that gorgeous temple, which was yet to be the wonder of
the world.

'And kind Allah ordained it should be thus.

'When Solymon died--for who among us would live for ever?--his spirit
passed away as he stood at prayer, leaning on his long staff of
plane-tree--the wood of the ark--and this staff supported his dead
body erect and fresh, and comely as when in life, and as if he was
still overseeing the work, for a year and a day, until the Genii were
placing the last golden pomegranate on the shining summit of the
temple, in the centre of which shone _a vast eye_ that seemed to be
behold everything; and all this while, the impatient worm was still
creeping towards the dead Sultan.

'The worm reached the staff and gnawed it through; then on the very
instant the temple was completed in all its parts, the body of the
Sultan fell heavily to the ground; his golden crown rang on the
marble pavement; and now, with a yell of rage, the overtasked Genii
found that they had been deluded, and that their master had been dead
for a year and a day!

'Thus it is that the twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran saith these
words:--

'"When we decreed that Solymon should die, nothing revealed his death
unto them except the _creeping thing_ of the earth, which gnawed his
staff, and then his body fell down."

'Such was the story of the Wise King and the Wicked Geni.'

----------

'And Jerada,' said I, laughing, 'did she still remain sealed up in
the rock, or did the death of Solymon dissolve the spell?'

'Jerada wept and prayed sorely, for she had not deceived Solymon; but
had been herself deceived by the wicked Geni Sakhur, who, as a
traitor and falsifier, was worthy of the most severe death, the just
could inflict--'

'Right, O Allah!' exclaimed a hoarse fierce voice behind us; 'right,
wretch, and you have named your own sentence!'

A low cry of terror left the white lips of Iola, and springing to my
feet, I found myself confronted by the two flaming eyes, the levelled
pistols, and the portly person of the furious Yuze Bashi, Hussein Ebn
al Ajuz!




CHAPTER XLVI.

HUSSEIN'S WRATH.

While listening to this old Arabian legend, which fell so prettily
from the lisping tongue of Iola, I never thought of Hussein, who,
having transacted with the Seraskier his business, which merely
concerned the shipment of certain guns and shot for Varna, was then
galloping along the paved road to Rodosdchig.

Intent upon the dark and tender eyes, the white neck, and soft
tresses of Iola, I did not hear the ruffle beaten on the brass drum
of the Main-guard as he cantered into the court; nor did I hear the
tramp of his horse or his heavy foot-fall on the old Greek marble
stair, or in the anteroom; nor did I remember in any way that a being
so ungainly and so decidedly unwelcome existed in the world, until
the muslin hangings were fiercely rent asunder, and he stood before
us, his countenance livid with just rage, his dark eyes gleaming like
two live coals, and his long brass-barrelled Turkish pistols levelled
at us, one in each hand.

I had no weapon but my sword, which I immediately unsheathed, while
instinctively placing myself between him and the mute and
terror-stricken Iola, who sank grovelling before him, bowing her
beautiful head to the carpet, and murmuring only--

'Mercy! mercy! vai! vai! woe--woe!'

Alarm for her, and shame for myself, deprived me of utterance.  I
could only interpose the long, glittering blade of the Highland
claymore between us, and gaze on Hussein's angry front, debating
whether or not I should slash him across the fingers, lest he might
shoot one or both of us; and I remembered poor Callum Dhu and his
thirty comrades, who would be at the mercy of Hussein's hundred
Bombardiers, and might, moreover, be exposed to the fury of the
populace, from whom not even the Greek Archbishop of Rodosdchig could
protect them.

'Oh, face of brass and heart of steel! what do I see?' he exclaimed.
Then uttering that expression of grief which is so frequently in the
mouths of Mohammedans, he rent his white beard, and cried, 'We are
God's, and unto Him we shall return!  You have darkened the light of
my eyes, oh Frank! but may the fiends have me if I take not a sure
and terrible vengeance for this!'

'Hear me?' I implored, without knowing what to say.

'Nay--stir not a step, or these balls shall whistle through your
brain!'

'Yuze Bashi, hear me, I beg of you, and you shall know all.'

'All!' he reiterated, stamping with rage; 'ye shall wish yourselves
like the brutal Greeks, from whom this woman sprang--deaf and dumb
and without understanding--before the measure of my vengeance is
full.  Her fate she knows; but for _thee_, accursed Frank--thou who
hast reft me of her, who was to be unto me a garment and a comfort,
as the blessed Koran saith--by the seven heavens and the seven
earths, and by the hand that hung and cleft the moon in the
firmament, I will have your heart to tread beneath my heel; but first
the ferashes shall apply the bastinado until every toe you have has
dropped from your feet in blood!  Hallo, Chaoush!  Hallo, Onbashi!'

'Do with me as you please, Effendi, but spare her.'

'As for her, the hand of a profligate Christian has touched her--a
hand which defiles all it touches--yea, even the food of a dog; so,
from this hour, she is alike divorced--thrice, I say it, divorced,
divorced and accursed by Hussein!'

With these words, he pulled both triggers at once; but the pistols,
having old flint locks, by the mercy of heaven, flashed in the pan
and hung fire.  Then, finding the necessity of immediate action, just
as he was about to draw his sabre, I grasped him by the gilded
waist-belt, and hurling him, with all my force, back upon the
cushions which lay piled upon the floor behind him, I locked Iola
into an inner apartment--kissed her cold hands, and rushed by a back
door to the foot of the staircase.  Then crossing the castle-yard, I
regained my quarters, where I was immediately joined by Callum Dhu,
who, ever kind and watchful, had been awaiting my return.

Alarmed, on seeing me spring in with my sword drawn, and excitement
in my eye,

'In the name of the devil, co-dhalta,' said he, 'what is the matter?'

I told him that I had been visiting the wife of the commandant; that
he had returned suddenly, and finding us at coffee, had been seized
by a fit of jealousy, and nearly pistolled me; but that I had knocked
him down, and made my escape.

This explanation was all truth, and yet was but a compromise between
it and falsehood; and so I thought Callum suspected, for his keen
dark Highland eye loured; his face flushed for a moment, and he gave
me a glance of scrutiny such as he had never ventured to do as my
fosterer in Glen Ora, and still less since we had joined the
regiment.  Beside all this, Callum Dhu was sufficiently well read in
the writings of Morier, Frazer, Slade, and Franklin to know that the
domestic privacy of an oriental household cannot be trifled with,
and, after a moment's reflection--

'Glen Ora,' said he--for he never forgot my old Highland
patronymic--'evil will come of all this, for you have been unwary;
and there will be the life of one--it may be three--lost.  Have you
thought of that?'

'I _have_ thought of it,' said I, irritated on finding a Mentor in
him; 'and I tell you, Callum, that I care not whose life is lost, if
the poor innocent Greek girl I have compromised is saved from the
ferocity of this Turkish officer.'

'True--but how?' was the calm query.

'How--I care not how; but saved she must be, Callum.  As for that
true type of an Eastern tyrant--the ignorant, sensual, and avaricious
Hussein--what care I for him?'

'Yet he trusted to your honour, Allan Mac Innon!'

I felt the quiet reproach, and dared not follow up my own thoughts,
for I felt how weak is the human heart, and vain the resolves of
human reason, when opposed to the wiles of beauty.  Lest some outrage
should be attempted upon me, as we knew not what lengths the Yuze
Bashi's wrath might carry him, Callum suggested that one of our men
should be posted, with his bayonet fixed and musket loaded, at the
foot of the stair which ascended to the tower wherein we had our
quarters; and, to watch over the safety of Iola, my faithful fellow
proposed that he and Donald Roy, who was a sharp-witted, active, and
hardy West-Highlander, should guard by turns the residence of the
exasperated governor of Rodosdchig; and after these arrangements, I
sat down to write to Jack Belton for his advice, and composed the
letter, and my own mind, over a devilled bone, a bottle of Kirkissa
wine, and cigar.

During my conference with Callum we heard various noises and cries of
alarm proceeding from the quarters of the Yuze Bashi; and each of
these sounds had a terrible echo in my heart, for, when believing
that they proceeded from the apartment of Iola, the main strength of
my fosterer scarcely sufficed to restrain me from rushing out, sword
in hand, to her assistance.

All became quiet after a time.  Then we heard the clatter of horse's
hoofs, as a mounted messenger galloped from the fort, which made me
suspect that our Yuze Bashi had sent some awkward instructions to the
Bostandgi Bashi of the police; or worse still, to some of the lawless
Bashi-Bozouks, an orta or regiment of whom, were cantoned at Carga,
not far from us; but ere long, we learned that it was only a slave,
dispatched by Iola for a certain learned Jewish Hakim, who arrived in
due time, and reported, that after imprecating a torrent of
maledictions on 'the chief of the bare-legged _Yenitcheries_,' as he
termed the brave steady lads of her Britannic Majesty's --
Highlanders, the Yuze Bashi had suddenly become speechless and black
in the face; that his eyes had started in their sockets, and he
became senseless, as if ghoules or ghinns were strangling him; that
he was recovered only by bleeding and having his temples bound with a
fillet, on which were traced the signs of the Zodiac.  After this, he
was able to make known that he wished to see the Moolah Mustapha, who
had accordingly been sent for.

The plain English of all this I supposed to be, simply, that Hussein,
being very short in stature, stout, pursy, and thick-necked, in his
phrenzy had brought on a fit of apoplexy, the effects of which--if
they had no better cure than the signs of the Zodiac--I believed
would at least keep him quiet until I was recalled to Heraclea by
Major Catanagh, an event for which I now devoutly prayed.




CHAPTER XLVII.

SEQUEL TO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

A morning or two after this, there was no small consternation
existing among the soldiers of my little band at Rodosdchig, when
Dugald Mac Ildhui, my sergeant, paraded them as usual, and neither
Callum Dhu nor his master were forthcoming.  Corporal Donald Roy was
despatched to make inquiries, but returned to the parade with tidings
that he had knocked repeatedly at Mr. Mac Innon's door without
receiving any answer; and as it was open, he had ventured to peep in,
and saw but too plainly that his camp-bed had not been slept in
over-night; that the last fragment of an unextinguished candle was
still burning, but streaming and guttering on the table; that his
sword and belt and some of his uniform lay strewed about; but that
neither he nor Callum Dhu had been seen since last night, when the
Turkish sentinel at the barrier-gate thought he perceived them both
pass hurriedly out, and take the path which led towards the sea.

The faithful sergeant and his corporal spent that day, all the next,
and all the succeeding in vain surmises and in futile inquiries; no
trace of their officer and missing comrade was to be found; and as
the story of Hussein's rage and imprecations against me, for causes
unknown, had by some means--perhaps through the chaoush or onbashi of
the Bombardiers--reached the little band of Celts, they began to look
darkly and inquiringly in each other's faces, while vague whispers of
assassination gained strength and corroboration among them.  The
sergeant and his corporal had been among the wandering Highland
dancers who went to Paris in 1848, and were so near being shot by the
Republican troops for appearing kilted and plaided, with dirk and
claymore, in the Place de Carrousel; and having imbibed thereafter a
great doubt of, and detestation for, all foreigners whatsoever, they
came to the conclusion that we had met with an untimely end.

The circumstance of a boat being found by a Galiondgi adrift near the
castle, containing an officer's regimental sash, spotted with blood,
and a Highland private's Glengarry bonnet, increased this terrible
mystery, and led the soldiers to believe that, beyond a doubt, the
unfortunate Ensign Mac Innon and his _fidus Achates_ had become food
for the fishes of the Propontis, and the whole beach around the bay
was searched in vain for their bodies.

The sergeant--a sober, steady, and brave soldier, one of the many who
were daily forced from their homes into our ranks, for he was an
evicted Sutherland Highlander (evicted because he was unable to pay
the marriage-tax of forty shillings now daily and illegally exacted
by the grasping factors of the north and west Highlands from the
people, to keep the number of the population down)--procured a thin
yellow sheet of Turkish paper, and after holding a solemn council of
war, in which a vote of vengeance was unanimously passed on the Yuze
Bashi, who was still under the Jewish Hakim and the signs of the
Zodiac, he squared his elbows, made a broad margin, carefully nibbed
his pen, and proceeded to prepare an official report to Major
Catanagh, recounting the strange disappearance of the officer
commanding the detachment; and this report caused no small excitement
at the mess-table when it reached Heraclea.

Some weeks elapsed before this mystery was cleared up; and the origin
of it all was as follows:--

One evening, after the arrival of the Moolah Moustapha, of whose
presence at the fortress I had an intuitive dread, an unusual bustle,
and then a dead silence were remarked in the apartments of the Yuze
Bashi; and in half an hour after sunset, Callum Dhu, with his dark
face flushed and excited, came in haste to inform me, that a
boat--one of those straight prowed and heavily-built craft, called by
the Turks a kochamba--with several men in it, had come from the
harbour round the promontory of the castle, and was now close to the
sea staircase, a flight of steps hewn in the rocks near the lower
gun-battery.  He added more startling intelligence.

A loud whistle, as a signal, had been given by someone in this boat,
and thereafter two men, one of whom he suspected to be the Moolah
Moustapha, had left the postern gate, half leading and half dragging
a veiled woman, 'who sobbed heavily,' concluded.  Callum, 'but who
made not the least resistance, as if all hope in her heart was dead,
poor thing!'

I cannot express the horror with which I heard this information.
Innumerable stories of Turkish cruelty, of the burial of living
women, sacked and drowned in the Bosphorus; of the gashed and mangled
bodies of others that have been found across the cables of our own
ships, or were raked up by them, as they swung at their anchors by
the Golden Horn; of bodies stranded and torn by jackals on the shore
at Pera, with a thousand real and imaginary instances of the terrible
result of oriental jealousy and domestic cruelty, flashed upon my
memory, and I determined to save Iola from the dreadful fate
impending over her, or to die in the attempt.

In the beginning of Islamism--women who were supposed to have broken
their vows were stoned to death, or immured in a stone wall; for the
fourth chapter of the Koran commands that they shall be "imprisoned
in separate apartments until death release them."

'You are my foster brother, and will stand by me, Callum?' said I,
grasping his hand.

'To the death will I stand by you; but on what errand go you now?'

'To save this woman.'

'The wife of the Yuze Bashi.'

'Yes--the Greek girl, Iola.'

'From what?'

'Death!'

'Death?'

'Yes--yes! hand me my dirk and the shot-belt for the revolver; get
your bayonet.  The Yuze Bashi means to drown his wife in a sack--'

'Dhia! it is horrible!--like a puppy-dog.'

'Or, it may be, to behead her by a slash of a yataghan.  If either
takes place, her blood will be on our heads, Callum--on mine, at
least.'

'I don't understand all this; but, dioul!  I will follow YOU
anywhere, Mac Innon--so lead on.'

I slung my dirk and revolver-pistol to my belt; Callum buckled on his
bayonet; we hurried from the castle, and soon reached the
landing-place, where a few boats were usually moored.

The night was dark and cloudy; no moon was visible, and the sea of
Marmora lay between its headlands like an ocean of ink; yet, by
stooping low, I could perceive between me and the white streak that
lingered at the horizon a large boat, containing several dark
figures, being pulled like a great funeral barge, silently and
rapidly to seaward.

''Tis those we are in search of,' said Callum, as we leaped on board
of a little Greek caique, slashed through the painter, shipped the
oars, and pulled sturdily and breathlessly after them.

In such a land as Turkey, where, in 1808, the Sultan Mahmoud II.
could quietly, and quite as a matter of course, or as a piece of
state policy, strangle his deposed brother Mustapha IV., together
with his infant son; and also command four of his female slaves to be
sacked and drowned, because they were likely to increase the royal
family by presenting him with four little Harem-zadehs; where even
his son, the present Sultan Abdul Medjid, with all his vaunted
civilization, has committed more than one act of domestic barbarity,
more especially the assassination of the two little princes, his
nephews; and where too many of the atrocities recorded by travellers
in all ages are _still_ perpetrated, I knew all that hung over the
doomed wife of Hussein; all I had to repent of, and all I had to fear!

Ill-fated Iola!

While all the rest of the world has been pushing on the rapid march
of _progression_, Turkey like Spain, has stood still.  The Turkish
woman, says the Baron de Tott, when inspired by an irresistible love
and desire of freedom, overcomes every obstacle, and at times escapes
from the harem, her domestic prison.  'These unfortunate creatures,'
he continues, always carry off their jewels with them, and consider
nothing too good for their lover.  Blinded by their unhappy passion,
they do not perceive that this wealth often becomes the cause of
their destruction.  The villains to whom they fly never fail at the
end of a few days to punish their temerity, and ensure the possession
of their effects by a crime which, however monstrous, the government
is least in haste to punish.  The bodies of these miserable women,
stripped and mangled, are frequently seen floating in the Port (of
Constantinople) under the very windows of their murderers; and these
dreadful examples, so likely to intimidate the rest, and prevent such
madness, neither terrify nor amend.'

But to resume: surely, steadily, and lustily, with all our strength,
Callum and I shot the light caique after the great dark barge of
these voyagers in the dusk, at every stroke causing her to fly
through the seething water as with each effort of the bending oars we
almost lifted her into the air, and made the black waves boil in her
white wake astern.  The clatter and straining of our oars between the
tholing pins, and the noise made by the caique as it surged through
the water, soon gained the attention of the rowers in the large boat,
which was now about half a mile from the shore, and they paused for a
minute to observe us.  Then one black figure stood erect, and peered
into the gloom of the darkened sea.

He was the Moolah Moustapha.

The voice of one in authority now warned us to keep off, for the
large boat contained two topchis, of Hussein's company, and four
armed policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi, with one or two galiondgis.

'Dioul!' exclaimed Callum; 'what is he saying?'

'That they will fire, if we do not keep off.'

'How many of them are there?'

'One--two--six--seven, if not more.'

'Including the Moolah?'

'Who is almost nobody.'

'Two to six, at least,' pondered Callum.

'But I have six shots in my revolver.'

'If I had only my old rifle here,' sighed Callum, 'I could pick them
all off like black-cocks!'

Two pistols flashed from the kochamba, and threw a sudden gleam
across the water; but their bullets whistled harmlessly over us.
Exasperated by this, my foster-brother cried,

'Kill every mother's son of them, Mac Innon--quick--before they
reload again!'

But I dared not fire, lest one of those dark figures should be Iola.

'Pull hard,' said I; 'we are not twenty yards apart now; board and
attack them with your bayonet--I'll make good use of my dirk, believe
me!'

'Fire--fire! are they not three to one?'

'One Highlandman is equal to three Turks any day.'

'True, Mac Innon,' exclaimed Callum, entering at once into the spirit
of the attack; 'hoigh--hurrah!'

But never was assault more fatally devised, or more signally
unsuccessful.

In a moment the prow of the caique came with a frightful crash
against the quarter of the lumbering kochamba; the shock threw me
forward upon the thwarts, by one of which I was severely cut and
bruised about the face, while I narrowly escaped three pistol shots,
one of which grazed and slightly wounded Callum's left hand; but our
misfortunes were only beginning; for in the concussion I lost my
revolver-pistol.  On relinquishing the oar, and springing up, I
instinctively grasped for it at my waist-belt--but alas! the pistol
was gone.  For a moment I groped wildly and fruitlessly about the
bottom of the caique, without finding it; and then, as no time could
be lost, with my naked dirk, I sprang madly on board the kochamba,
followed by Callum, who made free use of his bayonet, and now a
deadly struggle took place; the Turks assailing us with batons, drawn
sabres, and the brass knobs of their long-barrelled pistols, amid a
storm of yells and barbarous maledictions.

Grasping one powerful galiondgi by the waist, Callum flung him fairly
overboard, tossing him into the air like an India-rubber ball; and he
was left by his fatalist friends to sputter and sink, or scramble on
board as best he could.

The huge boat swayed from side to side, plashing and surging heavily,
while we fought and grappled like wild animals; but though
individually more than a match for any of the Osmanlies present,
Callum and I were overborne by their number, and must inevitably have
been shot, stabbed and tossed overboard, but for the exertions and
authority of the Moolah Moustapha, who would not allow them to slay
us; but under pain of his everlasting curse and displeasure,
commanded them to spare our lives, "as he had eaten bread and salt
with us."  Though four of the fellows whom we encountered, and with
whom we had exchanged several buffets, blows, and stabs in the dark,
belonged to the unscrupulous force of the Bostandgi Bashi, or Police
Inspector on the banks of the Bosphorus and its adjacent villages,
the voice of the Moolah, who ordered us to be taken alive, proved all
powerful.  We were soon beaten down, and severely, roughly, even
brutally, tied like sheep with a wet rope which lay steeping in the
bilge at the bottom of the boat; and while we were lying helplessly
there, the revengeful Osmanlies trampled and spat upon us, reviling
us at the same time with such epithets as can only come from a
vituperative Turkish tongue.

'Allah burn you, you dog's sons--you imps of Shaitaun!' said one whom
they frequently named Zahroun, and who seemed to be half Bostandgi
and half seaman.

'The drunken Inglees--whose dogs are they?' asked another, mockingly.

'They worship the devil, like the wild Yezidies of Iraun--the
children of hell, and are false as the falsest Yahoudi.  Dirt be upon
their beards!' said the ferocious Zahroun.

'Son of Shaitaun,' said another, kicking me so severely that I
thought my right arm was broken, 'it is your khismet (destiny) to die
here, and I know not why the simple Moolah spares you.'

'Infidel that you are,' said a fourth, 'your khismet is written on
your forehead by the finger of the prophet--and it is a skinful of
the cold Bosphorus.'

To all this, the others added coarse and vulgar ribaldry, such as one
might expect from the boatmen and Bostandgi of the Bosphorus, a
depraved and murderous class at all times; and my heart swelled with
honest rage when I thought of the futile war we had waged for those
insensate Turks, whose name had not been heard in battle since our
army landed in the Crimea, and who, with all their boasted valour,
had fled at Balaclava, and left a single Highland regiment--"_the
thin red streak_" of Sir Colin Campbell--to receive in line the
charge of all the Russian cavalry!

But now the Moolah raised his voice.

'Bismillah--peace, I command you, peace!  Allah permits them yet to
live, and dare such as ye to repine?  We come not here to brawl or to
revile, but to fulfil the decrees of Allah as spoken by his prophet,
upon whose memory, name, and grave be all the blessings of the
faithful.  The home of a true Believer--the anderun of a true
Mussulman--one fearing God, obeying his Koran, and walking in the
shadow of the prophet, has been violated, and the Koran and the law
say, that a terrible punishment must follow!'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered Zahroun and all the others present, while a
moan from the stern of the boat drew my eyes towards Iola.

* * * * *

Would that I could blot from my memory the dreadful scene that
followed!

Worn by nights and days of weeping--exhausted by unavailing prayers
for pity, and paralyzed by terror, there seemed to be no life left in
her slender and delicate form, save what a short, quick, and heavy
sob indicated, as her small and tremulous hands were tied by a cord
behind her back; and, calm and pale as death itself, she submitted to
her fate without a murmur.

'Moustapha--insensate Moolah!' I exclaimed, in an agony of mind,
'hear me--hear me!  Have you no pity?--no mercy?--no compassion for
those who have been cruelly tempted?'

'Peace, accursed,' replied the Moolah, in a stern whisper, '_we tempt
ourselves_.'

As a degradation, the executioners had torn away the yashmack of
muslin from her face, and its pale beauty and divine resignation were
sad, sublime, and maddening to me; but a large, coarse sack was
hastily drawn over her by Zahroim, who seemed an adept in the work;
he tied it securely to her slender ankles, and saw her form no more.

A cry escaped me, and a half-suppressed groan from Callum Dhu, as
these inhuman wretches launched her headlong into the deep.

She sunk like a stone! * * * * * *

On the black waves of that midnight sea there rose a few bubbles, and
a ripple or two, that widened round us, and then all was over!  A
voice broke the stillness; it was that of the Moolah praying.  He was
repeating the first chapter of the Koran; a short chapter held in
great veneration by the Mohammedans, who use it us a prayer, and deem
it the quintessence of the whole writings of the Prophet.

'Allah latif magid!' (Allah is gracious!) he exclaimed, with a loud
voice: 'the Lord of all creatures--the most merciful the King of the
day of judgment!  Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg
assistance.  Direct us in the right way--in the way of those to whom
Thou hast been gracious--not of those against whom Thou art incensed
and who go astray.'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered all the ruffians, bowing their heads, as
they shipped their oars again, and now the huge and lumbering
koehamba was slowly pulled away from the place; from that hideous
grave--the inky wafers that had swallowed up Iola Vidimo.

In the morning I was beloved by a beautiful woman--at night by an
immortal but scarcely purer spirit; and with eyes full of tears for
her who had passed away, I gazed upward on the starlit sky of Greece.

The passages of that night seemed all a hideous and incredible dream.

Iola was the most artless of all earthly beings, for in many things
she was a mere child, and can aught be nearer angels, or more akin to
heaven, than a child?  But so perished this unhappy one; so pure, so
unstained and beautiful--the victim of a pitiless destiny!




CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE TURKISH BOAT.

Our craft had been for some time in motion before I became aware that
a large lateen sail was hoisted on it, and was filled to the
extremity of its long and tapering yard; and that our course was
directed, not to Rodosdchig, but up the sea of Marmora, towards the
north-east.

I demanded of the Moolah Moustapha whither he was conveying us, but
received no answer.  Again and again I made the same request, each
time with growing anger and vehemence, and each time adding threats
of what our Government would say, or do, or require, curiously
oblivious that I had, in my own person, outraged the civil and
religious laws of Turkey, such as they are; but still the Moolah
disdained to accord me the slightest answer or recognition, and sat,
with his hands folded in his green robe and crossed upon his breast;
his high felt cap pulled over his beetling brows; his keen and
glittering eyes fixed upon the eastern quarter of the sky, where the
dawn was shedding a rosy tinge over all the land and sea; and the
rough galiondgis or boatmen, and the pistolled, sabred, tarbooshed,
and bearded policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi were equally taciturn,
though Zahroun scowled and swore at us from time to time.

Now I conceived that they might be conveying us to one of the old
castles at the mouth of the Bosphorus, or perhaps to Constantinople,
but the distance was rather too great to be traversed in an open boat
at the season of the year.

Day dawned at last; morning brightened on the Grecian hills, and the
outline of many a grim old tower and ruined temple, crowning the grey
rocks and storm-beaten headlands, stood in dark relief against the
blushing east.

Upon that sea, which mirrored all the morning sky, I gazed with a
shudder of horror, for it was the grave of my poor Albanian girl, and
her pale, wan face, her beautiful eyes, and angelic smile, came
before me with painful distinctness; while, with a morbid grief, I
endeavoured to imagine on what coral bed, in what deep and
unfathomable rift or abyss of that huge watery tomb, on which the
waves were shining in the orient sun, her charming form had found a
last resting place.

Poor Iola!  I could not yet realize her death, or the conviction that
if I was to go back to Rodosdchig I would not meet her at the Ruined
Hermitage, in the express cemetery, or in the silken-hung apartments
of Hussein, where I had last spent an evening with her.  The events
of the last night still seemed all a hideous nightmare, or the memory
of some terrible phantasmagoria.

'It is long before we become assured of the loss of those we value,'
says a charming female writer; so her dying glance was still
lingering before me, and shall be so, in years to come, when other
memories may have been swept away and effaced, like footprints on the
shore of an ebbing sea.

With emotions of rage and hatred, difficult alike to express and to
control, I turned from her destroyers, and hid my face in my hands,
as this bitterness was replaced by anguish and remorse.

The kochamba continued to run at great speed before a sharp breeze
which blew direct from the narrow Dardanelles, and the rocky capes,
the sandy bays, and wooded inlets opened and closed again in rapid
succession, as we passed them with a flowing sheet, and ere long
Callum and I recognised the flat-roofed town and barracks of
Heraclea, with the old ruins of the age of Vespasian, and the white
foam curling on the rocks of Palegrossa, where the timbers of the
_Vestal_ lay--a rent and weedy hull.

I now hoped that the Moolah and his ruffians meant to land us there,
and deliver us up to our own commanding officer, and with this idea
my spirit rose a little.  The familiar faces of our mess came
before me; rough Duncan Catanagh, with his old legends about Loch
Lomond and stories of the Mahrattah war: frank Jack Belton, and
others among whom I had felt happier than ever I hoped to be after
the time I had laid my mother in her lonely Highland grave, and since
I had been driven from Glen Ora into the wide and selfish world; but
this gleam of liberty faded away, for the kochamba still bore on; her
head was kept to the seaward, and in another hour Heraclea was left
astern.

What could be the Moolah's object, and whither was he going?

Ere long a British screw-steamer-of-war--a frigate under easy sail,
and with her steam up--passed us to leeward, on her way apparently
for the Bosphorus, and Callum and I gathered new hope as she came
close to us, with her scarlet ensign swelling proudly on the morning
breeze, and with the sun shining through her open gun-ports.  I arose
in the boat, believing that my scarlet uniform might arrest the
attention or excite the suspicion of those on board; but I was
instantly thrust down below the thwarts; a pistol was held to my head
by Zahroun; then a tarpaulin, was thrown over Callum and me, to
conceal us more completely from any prying eye that might be aloft in
the steamer's rigging, and steadily, swiftly, and monotonously the
kochamba continued to cleave the glittering waves and run along the
coast of Roumelia.

Our Turkish captors were all smoking opium and coarse Latakia in
taciturn composure; some had small chibouques, and others cigarettes
made up of paper and tobacco, from those little embroidered bags
which an Osmanli is seldom without.

Several hours had now elapsed since Callum and I had been tied so
roughly by ropes, and these being wetted by the salt spray, had
shrunk to a degree that caused us intense and acute pain.  My hands
became red, swollen, stiff, and benumbed; and with something of
satisfaction I saw the lateen-sail trimmed anew, the helm put up, and
the prow of the kochamba turned inwards a town which we were nearing.
But, still my mind was painfully full of Iola--my poor victim--for
conscience made her seem as much the victim of my folly or
recklessness--term it as you will--as of the cruelty of that Osmanli
dog her husband, whom I had registered a hundred vows to pistol on
the first opportunity.

Could I have recalled the events of the last few weeks Iola had still
been spared, for my rashness would now have been tempered by reason
and the ties of honour; and she had still been a thing of life and of
this earth, enjoying the monotonous and secluded existence accorded
to a Turkish wife--varied only by an evening ramble in the City of
the Silent with the gossips of adjacent harems and anderuns.

The kochamba bore straight and steadily on, and as we neared the
harbour, every object increased along the shore, and soon we were in
smooth water and between the piers.

This, then, was the place of our destination, and here it was that
probably poor Callum and I were to figure before one of those
absurdly solemn courts of muftis and kadis who sit in every Turkish
town to play the farce of Justice, and whose code of law is the
verbose and obscure Koran of Mohammed, and the Koran alone.

Again I ventured to question the Moolah.

'What place is this?'

'Selyvria, in the Sandjiack of Gallipoli,' was the brief reply, as
the boat came sheering alongside the low and slimy mole.  Then the
yard was lowered, and the flapping sail stowed away; the long oars
were unshipped, and the painter run through one of the enormous iron
rings on the quay.

We were ordered to land, and lost no time in doing so; then the
policemen of the Bostandgi drew their sabres and conducted us into
the town, where an increasing crowd of chattering Greeks and
gambolling young Turkish _gamins_, with brown, bare legs and red
tarbooshes, followed us through the muddy and unpaved thoroughfares
with shrill cries of astonishment, amid which the incessant
'Mashallah,' 'Inshallah,' and 'Allah Ackbar,' were the most prominent.

The sun had set now and the aspect of the sea and land was
magnificent.

Throned in the eastern heavens, the soft and silver moon was in all
her clearest splendour.  The studded belt of Orion and the
constellation of the Scorpion united with her in filling the wide
blue vault of night with lustre, and all the waves of Marmora seemed
to be tipped with blue fire and to be rolling in liquid light.

Built on the slope of a hill, the terraced houses of Selyvria were
irregular, quaint, and queer, like those of all Turkish towns, and
they rose above each other like the seats of an amphitheatre.  The
hill was green, and on its summit rose a fortress of the Greek
Empire--old, say some, as the days of Selys, who founded the city.
The lower, or Turkish town, is without enclosure, though an embattled
wall connects the outer row of houses, above which rise the domes of
its khan and several mosques.

On leaving the town we were conducted along an ancient bridge of
about forty arches, the shadows of which were thrown by the moonlight
far across the salt sea-marsh, over which it is built.  Thence
proceeding by a part of the paved road that leads to Stamboul, and is
formed of blocks of basalt, we found ourselves beneath the walls of a
grim and dilapidated castle, which stands close to the sea-shore.  On
one hand the waves of the Propontis lay rolling in shining ripples on
the yellow beach, and inland, on the other, spread a wilderness of
wild vines and cherry-trees, with massive Grecian columns, tottering
or prostrate among them, and beyond these a spacious burial-place,
with all its shadowy, huge, and solemn cypresses, standing like a
rank of giant spectres in the brilliant moonlight.

Above our heads towered the black parapets, the peering cannon, and
the red-capped sentinels of the Turkish castle.  Then the wild and
strange voices of the Osmanli soldiers were heard, as the Onbashi of
the Bostandgis conferred with the Mulazim who commanded the guard;
the heavy doors were opened, and as we entered a cold and dark
archway, we heard the chink of bolt and bar and swinging-chain, as
the barrier was secured behind us; and then the ropes were untied
from our almost powerless hands--an inexpressible relief!

'Dioul!' muttered Callum, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'we were
better at home in desolate Glen Ora, even under Snaggs the factor,
than here.'

Before I could reply, we were pushed through a side door, and thrust
down a flight of steep and slimy steps, into a hot, close, and
noisome place, where the sights, sounds, odours, and horrors that
awaited us, require an entire chapter to themselves.




CHAPTER XLIX.

THE BAGNIO.

'Truth is strange--stranger than fiction.'

Never were words more expressive of what is passing around us daily
in the world, even in its most matter-of-fact scenes and phases of
life.  Many a deep and bitter romance is occurring beside us, amid
the bustle of the railway train; on the deck of the departing
steamer; with the regiment embarking for foreign service, or with the
disbanded soldier returning to search for his parent's cottage, and
finding perhaps a manufacturing town, where he had left a rural
village; amid the hum of the streets, in the brilliance of the
crowded ball-room--in all these are thoughts and wishes, fears and
aspirations, known only to Him who reads the hearts of all.  Hence
though my autography may seem a romance to the reader, it is a true
and painful history to me.

Thus, as I have related, on the very day the late treaty of Peace was
signed at Paris--to wit, the 30th March, 1856, or according to the
Mohammedan Hejira, 1271--Callum Dhu and I found ourselves inmates of
a Turkish Bagnio, an event of much more importance to us than the
definement of the Bessarabian frontier, the fall of Sebastopol, or
the acceptance of the "five points" by Russia.

We were thrust into a large, vaulted apartment, in the sunk or
ground-floor of the fortress.  It was damp, and pervaded by an
atmosphere so fœtid, hot, and humid, that for a time it was all
but overpowering, and denied us free respiration.  A dim iron lantern
hung from a pillar on one side, and shed a cold and wavering light
into the misty dungeon, which was half seen and half sunk in shadow.

This darkness seemed dotted at certain distances by swarthy visages,
fiercely browed and blackly bearded, with wild gleaming eyes; and on
our British uniforms being seen, the clanking of chains rang on all
sides, with incessant yells of

'Bono Johny!'

'No Bono!'

'Barek-allah--no Bono!'

And after a time, Callum and I could perceive that we were surrounded
by about fifty prisoners, all of whom were chained to the four walls,
and almost within arms length of each other.

'Ingleez!  Ingleez!' shouted one.

'Giaours of Frangistan!'

'May they all go to Jehannum!'

''Tis their kismet.'

'And who can avert it?'

'Bono--bono!'

'No bono--wallah!'

'Hah-ha!  Hah--ha!'

Such were the cries and yells we heard on all sides, mingled with
groans, idiot or ferocious laughter, brutal jests and scurrility, in
all the dialects of the Bosphorus and the Levant.  Many of these
prisoners were nude, or nearly so, and their muscular limbs and olive
skins were fretted by the massive and rusty fetters which confined
them to the walls on each side.  Others were clad in every diversity
of oriental costume, fashion, and colour.  We could perceive the blue
gown of the Jew; the torn but ample white robes of the Armenian; the
gay cap of the short-trousered Greek; the fur pelisse of the
hawk-eyed Tartar; and the red tarboosh that covered the woolly head
of the Egyptian; but all these men were squalid, tattered, and beyond
description, filthy.  Assassination, robbery, and a thousand crimes
of the deepest die, were legibly stamped on the hideous fronts of
this crew of hardened desperadoes; and we shrank from their touch, on
each side, as we hovered in the middle, and kept carefully beyond
their reach, for I had once heard of a prisoner who was placed in a
Turkish bagnio unchained, a privilege which so greatly exasperated
his fettered companions, that they flung, beat, kicked, and tore him
from man to man, until his mangled corpse defied their further
efforts at insult or torture.

Most of these prisoners, as I afterwards ascertained, were men who
had committed those foul murders and robberies, such as, since the
war, are nightly occurring in the dark, unlighted, unpaved, and
narrow streets of Stamboul--that Stamboul, boasted by the Turks as
'the refuge of the world--the city full of faith;' and these fierce
denizens of the prophet's patrimony, would all, ere long, receive the
reward of their crimes in some form of law; for though the land is
almost lawless, its punishments, like its people, are barbarous and
severe.

For several days and nights Callum and I remained together in this
hideous place, ignorant of what fate had in store for us; whether we
were to be detained there in hopeless captivity; whether we were to
be brought before a court of malevolent muftis and ignorant kadis; or
whether we were to be delivered to our own military authorities; to
the Turkish, or to that enterprising ambassador who has immortalised
himself by the _anxiety_ and diplomatic _energy_ he evinced during
the defence of Kars; and from whom, by his conduct on that occasion,
we had so much to expect in the form of protection and aid!

By day, Callum and I paced to and fro in the centre of this dreadful
place, keeping apart from all our companions, and we soon became
almost as oblivious of _their_ presence, as they were of ours; and
during this monotonous time our sole employment was watching the long
flakes of misty light which streamed through four iron-grated
apertures or narrow slits down to the Bagnio; and which, like four
palpable objects, passed slowly round from one side of the dungeon to
another, as the sun declined and day faded away.  At these holes the
Turkish sentinel, with his scarlet fez, dark moustachioed face, and
cunning eye, was seen at times peering into the place to see if "all
was right;" and through these apertures, I was told, they had been
wont to fire ball-cartridge, when any unusual commotion took place
among the prisoners.

At night we crouched together in a corner, somewhat apart from the
rest, and weary of communing, surmising, and conjecturing, slept the
sleep of the anxious and worn--that waking and painful doze, which is
but a succession of nightmares and visions, till dawn again struggled
through the misty atmosphere, to light up the quaint forms and
ferocious faces of these fettered wretches, and to bring the Turkish
guard, with their daily allowance of black bread and fresh water,
when again would begin the usual chorus of laughter, groans, and
curses, mingled with the swinging and clashing of fetters and chains,
bolts and padlocks of rusty iron.

Among the unfortunates confined in this place I discovered two who
were treated by our guards with more kindness and respect than the
other prisoners, and whose stories somewhat interested me.

One was hopelessly insane; and the other, who was indeed sunk to the
lowest depth of misery and dejection, informed me that they had been
lieutenants (Mulazims) in the Turkish military service.




CHAPTER L.

THE TWO TURKISH LIEUTENANTS.

'I am Achmet Effendi,' said the latter, a handsome but pale, sad, and
emaciated young man; 'I was a lieutenant in the old regiment of
Scherif Bey, and, as a mere boy, served in the campaign of Egypt.  My
younger friend whom you see here so heavily visited by heaven and the
prophet, that his mind is gone or possessed by a devil, so that he
requires chains and bars three times heavier than the most powerful
villain here, is Ali Effendi, a Mulazim of artillery, and there is
none better or braver in the army of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan.

'He was with that Turkish army which on the 28th October, 1853,
crossed the Danube, and on the 4th of the following month won the
victorious battle of Oltenitza, where he slew the aide-de-camp of the
Russian General, and found those important despatches which informed
us, but alas! too late, of the intended attack upon Sinope, where
four thousand five hundred of the Faithful were slaughtered by the
dogs of the Czar.

'Ali Effendi was next engaged and severely wounded at the battle of
Kalaphat on the 8th of January, 1854--you may still see the scar of
the Russian bullet on his bare right arm, above the iron fetter.  Ali
is tall--he was then handsome and winning; a clever poet and maker of
verses; an expert player on the guitar, but poor; for, like myself,
he had only one hundred and twenty piastres per month, as a
lieutenant en seconde, of Topchis.

'For five years he had loved and been beloved by the daughter of a
wealthy Stambouli merchant, and he had received her plighted troth.
You may know all the danger, the difficulties, and the deadly snares
that hover round a Turkish love; yet the skilful Ali had surmounted
and escaped them all, and won the love of Saïda.  But her father
discovered them, and he was inexorable, of course--fathers always are
so, for they are the evil Genii of all love stories, and so he
proposed to barter or sell her to Ali Pasha himself!

'Poor Ali, my friend, was marched off with his brigade of artillery
to fight the Russians under Mouravieff at Kars, and the unhappy Saïda
was in despair when the Pasha sent the dressmakers from the bazaar to
measure her for the bridal attire and pearl slippers.  Then her grief
and fury could no longer be controlled; and bruising the crystal
pendant of a lamp to powder, she drank it in a cup of sherbet and
expired, with the name of Ali on her lips, and a copy of his last
farewell verses, written on fine silk, pressed to her heart.

'Kars fell!  Its garrison was captured, but Ali escaped the Cossacks
of Mouravieff, and hastened home to find Saïda, not as of old, at her
chamber window to answer the tinkling of his lute at night, when the
quiet stars looked down on the blue Bosphorus, and the thousand
lights of Stamboul were shining on its waters; but to seek her green
grave among the silent ones at Pera, and he was almost beside himself
with grief.  Three days he remained on his knees at her
resting-place, until he had read over all the hundred and fourteen
chapters of the Koran, and covered the grass with flowers.  Then he
placed above her a gilded tomb, on which he wrote in charming verses
the whole history of their hopeless love; and this tomb cost the poor
lieutenant nine hundred piastres.  Beside that tomb he swore a
dreadful vow to slay both Ali Pasha and her father.

'While this rash vow was trembling on his lips, that father of
cruelty and avarice, the old merchant, tottering on his staff, and
with tears rolling down his white beard, appeared under the tall and
sombre cypresses of the cemetery; and then the frantic Ali,
transported with rage, sprang up from amid the flowers of Saïda's
grave, and drawing a pistol from his girdle, shot him dead!

'From that moment Ali became a maniac, and the sultan sent him here.
Allah has dried up his brains; but He is ever merciful and just; so
whether my poor comrade shall recover, and be as he was in other
times, a merry companion, a true friend, and gallant soldier, I know
not; our kismet is in the hands of God and the Prophet, whose holy
finger traced it, at the moment of our birth, upon our infant
brows.'[*]


[*] Ali _did_ recover, and is now a _cole agassi_ (major) of the
Turkish artillery at Hunkiar Skellessi: but being, as Jack Belton
says, in full possession of his senses, vows he will never think of
marriage more.


'A mournful story, Achmet Effendi,' said I, gazing with deep interest
on the hollow cheek, lack-lustre eyes, and wasted form of this brave
young officer, who had seen as much service, and fought with the
gallant Williams at Kars; 'but, if I may inquire, what brought _you_
here?'

'Love, also,' he answered, with a smile, and then a frown of anger on
his olive brow.  'A few words will tell you all.  My father is the
Bashi-katib or military secretary of the Egyptian Contingent.  The
orta or battalion to which I belonged, and still belong--'

'Still belong?' I reiterated, glancing at his fetters,

'Yes,' said he, colouring, 'you shall hear.'

'I was in cantonments at Pera, when I became acquainted with a lady
who was wont to walk, unattended either by slaves or
carpet-spreaders, in the great cemetery there--'

'Ah!' said I, with mournful interest.

'Her figure was graceful; her brow like alabaster; her eyes--strange
in our sunny land--were a deep and bewitching blue, for her mother
had been a Russian lady, stolen from the shores of the sea of Azof.
Her eye-brows were brown, and arched, like the moon of the Prophet,
and never did the divine Hafiz of Iraun pen a sonnet on a face more
beautiful than hers; and as Jammee the Iraunee sings in his ode, I
was miserable when absent from her.

  'Oh! in what place soe'er I stray,
  By midnight, morning, or by day,
    Thou art the inmate of my breast;
  I cannot linger, cannot stay,
  But thy sweet image with me aye
    Abides my bosom's dearest guest!'

Yet she was _another's_, and by one of the contrarieties of our
nature for that reason, more perhaps than for her loveliness, did I
love her! she was--'

'A wife?'

'No.'

'What then?'

'A slave.'

'Well?' said I, thinking it was only a distinction without a
difference among 'the Faithful.'

'Her master was in the service of the Kislar Aga, so you will
perceive at once that she was a dangerous person to meddle with.  The
arrival of the allied troops in the Bosphorus had attracted the
attention of all in Stamboul, so Pera was almost deserted.  Zarifa,
by a prettily-arranged bouquet of flowers, asked me to visit her, and
I did so, taking care, however, to arm me well.  I had my sabre and a
pair of pistols, which I loaded carefully, in case of being surprised
by the Kislar Aga or any of the black guardians of the Royal
Seraglio.  I had with me a fleet horse, one of those
carefully-trained barbs which are used by our Turkish cavalry, and
are drilled to close to the right and close to the left; to dress
back, or forward, at a single word of command; to remain beside the
rider if he falls, or to drag him out of the press by their teeth.
Leaving my horse concealed in an olive-thicket, without perceiving
that I was watched and followed by a Moolah, named Moustapha, who had
been a corporal in my regiment, I entered the garden of the Kislar
Aga's country-house, and there Zarifa received me in a
beautifully-gilded kiosk, covered with tendrils of the myrtle, the
passion-flower, the gorgeous azalea, and the Damascus rose.  There
soft carpets were spread; hot coffee, sherbet, wine, and a chibouque
awaited me--and more than all, Zarifa, in all her beauty, with her
yashmack thrown aside!

'Reclining on that soft carpet, with my arm around the yielding waist
of my love--a pipe on one hand, a cup of Greek wine on the other, I
was in the seventh heaven!

'The roses were sparkling in the new-fallen rain, which had just
refreshed the earth with a shower, and the sun was exhaling it, as he
came up in his splendour; the breeze was laden with the melody of the
joyous birds, and the large drops hung like diamonds on every flower
and tree, while the perfume of the orange-groves, of the violet-beds,
and of the china jars of heliotrope, loaded the air with delicious
fragrance; everything spoke to my heart of love, delight, and
silence, as I pressed my lips to those of Zarifa!

'At that moment the gleam of three or four bayonets appeared above
the garden wall; the door of the kiosk was dashed in; I sprang to my
feet, with a hand on my sabre, to be confronted by the scowling
Moolah, who, I found, to my rage, had surrounded me by a guard from
the nearest police-station.  In short, the ruffians of the Bostandgi
Bashi were upon me!

'Zarifa uttered a shriek, as I rushed from her, to find my horse
captured, and bayonets opposed to me, breast-high.  I was obliged to
surrender at discretion, and on being deprived of my arms, was thrust
into an araba, and, with the terrified and weeping girl, was taken
before a corrupt and cunning kadi.

'"Remember," said I, "that I am the son of tho Bashi-katib, and the
grandson of the Seraskier."'

'"You are wise to boast of your ancestry since you cannot boast of
yourself," sneered the Moolah.

'"Did not the Prophet cast eyes of evil on Zeinab, the wife of Zeid,
his adopted son, from whom he cajoled her away and then married her;
and Zeinab, thereafter, vaunted that she was above all the other
wives of Mohammed, since their marriage was made in heaven?"

'"Peace, blasphemous kite!" exclaimed the kadi.

'He then asked me, according to our law, when a man is discovered in
the society of an unmarried woman, if I would wed Zarifa?

'But I remained silent.

'Zarifa was beautiful, and I loved her--true; but to marry the slave
of a servant of the Kislar Aga, the Chief Eunuch to that son of a
slave, the Sultan; I--a Mulazim--on one hundred and twenty piastres
per month.  Wallah! the thing was not to be thought of!  I refused,
and was sentenced to pass two years in chains.  Zarifa was given to a
deserving chaoush of cavalry as a wife, and I was sent here as a
prisoner, and as such must remain a few months longer."

'And you were sentenced to pass two years in chains?'

'Two years, Effendi.'

'Heavens,' thought I, 'should such be my sentence, what will become
of Callum Dhu, and what will be the fate of my commission, which I
value as my own life!'




CHAPTER LI.

DREAMS AND LONGINGS.

'If I were cast into a deep pit,' saith the quaint Hobbes, 'and the
devil put down his cloven-foot, I would take hold thereof, to be
drawn out by it.'

This is an apt, but somewhat fallacious application of the mode of
working ascribed, with what truth I say not, to the Jesuits, viz.,
that we may do evil if good should come of it; and of the system
upheld by the philosopher of Malmesbury, 'that it is lawful to make
use of an ill instrument to do ourselves good.'

Callum and I, though sunk in dejection, dispirited, and exasperated,
and feeling ourselves fitted to attempt or encounter anything
desperate to achieve our liberty, had scarcely reached the climax
referred to by the learned Hobbes.  I thought of bribery; but my
foster-brother, though poor as a cadger, was proud as a king, and
with some scorn rejected my proposal to tamper with our not
over-scrupulous Turkish guards and turnkeys.

These officials (as Achmet Effendi informed me), by the connivance of
the governor and his subalterns, could favour or permit the escape of
the worst malefactor committed to their care, if there were friends
without, who were ready to pay down the requisite number of piastres,
on receipt of which their names would at once be struck off the books
of the Bagnio as dead.

'Suppose cholera should break out here?' said I, one day, when almost
suffocated by the overpowering malaria of the prison.

'In the name of mercy do not think of it!' replied the Turkish
lieutenant; 'I have seen that dreadful pest more than once within
these walls, and all the Koran says of hell cannot equal the horrors
of the scene.  The dead, collapsed, pale, and frightful, have lain
among us in their chains for days, until the governor, by offers of
liberty, bribed some of the prisoners, and by threats of death forced
others, to convey them from this vault, into which the vilest of his
slaves refused to enter.'

These brief conversations increased my desire to leave the place.  My
horror of it; my anger at being detained; my anxiety for the issue,
and for the construction which the regiment might put upon my
unaccountable disappearance, with a thousand other exciting
reflections, rendered me at times only fit company for a maniac.
Often my spirit sank to the lowest ebb; and, crouched at the foot of
a pillar, with my head resting on kind Callum's brawny shoulder, I
have slept, or striven to sleep, through the long and dreary hours of
a monotonous night, after the equally long and dreary hours of a
horrible day.  And even these snatches of uneasy slumber were filled
by countless dreams, visions, and thoughts of incidents long past,
and places, faces, and voices far, far away.

Amid all this misery I thought much of Iola, who was now where her
errors would be more lightly judged than by the sons of men.

Strange it was that when I dreamt of her--her death, that scene of
horror, seemed all _a dream_, that had passed away with night and
sleep.  She was again alive and beside me, as of old, with her soft
angelic smile!  Again her lips were warm and breathing; and her
breath came hot and fragrant, as her white bosom palpitated against
mine.  Dear Iola!  Then the atmosphere seemed dense and full of
languor; again I was trembling, dazzled, and confused with delight,
as she lay within my arms in all her Oriental beauty, waking in my
heart a thousand thoughts and aspirations hitherto unknown to me.

Then her face would fade like the dissolving views of a
magic-lantern; melting half away, it changed and brightened into
another that resembled Laura Everingham; then I would start with a
convulsive shudder and awake, to find around me the grizzly,
unshaven, and dreadful visages of my Asiatic and Turkish companions,
with all the horrors of that earthly hell, the Mohammedan Bagnio.

Many a time the scenery of my native land came before me.  Again, in
fancy, I trod the purple heath, and heard the roar of the Uisc-dhu,
as it thundered over its steep precipice into the black linn below;
again I saw my mother's grave, and the old jointure-house shining in
the sunlight; the lofty scalp of Ben Ora capped with the snows of the
past winter, and its sides clothed with bronze-like thickets of larch
and pine; again I saw the azure loch on which the wild swans floated,
bordered by its groves of silver birch, of wavy ash, and the rowan
with its scarlet berries; and out of that deep, dark, and
pestilential vault, the desolate glen of the Ora passed thus before
me like a panorama, with all its moss-grown hearths and roofless
homes; the waving woods, the rocks, and mountains, shining under a
glorious sun.

On waking from dreams like these my spirit sank lower, but sturdy
Callum never quailed, for he cuffed and kicked the Turkish prisoners,
and sang 'The Brown-eyed Maid,' or whistled endless and interminable
pibrochs, as he said, 'just to relieve his mind and let off the steam
a little.'

Anon I was with the regiment again--'roughing it,' among rough and
gallant spirits, who hovered round me in all the glittering
appurtenances of Highland chivalry.  I heard the comic song, the
glee, the laughter of the mess; or I was again at sea on board the
_Vestal_, passing over the waste of water like a floating spirit, and
gliding along the dim and distant coasts of France and Spain--that
seemed pale and blue by sunny day, and dark by starry night--or lit
only by the solitary light-houses that burned like ocean-stars upon
the horizon's tremulous verge; on--on--on the wings of steam,
swiftly, silently, and mysteriously.

Iola still!

It would come before me again and again, that face of tender beauty
and reproachful sadness.  Her eyes were ever on me, by night, when
all was darkness and profundity; and in the day-time, when the misty
flakes of sunshine fell through the prison-bars, in waking or in
sleeping, they were ever gazing on me--those dark and sad, but sweet
imploring eyes.

Eve fell even in Paradise--why not Iola?

With such thoughts for my companions, how heavy was my sorrow, how
dull and monotonous my captivity!

At last, even Callum, who could boldly face all those disagreeables
which usually rise like dust along the roadway of life, began to sink
under the weariness of our existence in this hideous place; and once,
to my surprise, I discovered tears hovering in his eyes.

'Co-dhalta,' said I, kindly, placing a hand on his shoulder; 'what
are you thinking of?'

'I am thinking, Mac Innon, of that green place where God gives rest
to the weary--the old kirkyard at home, where your mother and mine,
too, are sleeping under the shadow of the old stone cross; and I was
pondering on----'

'What?'

'_Our_ chances of ever being laid beside them.'

'Let us rather think of escape.'

'To work, then,' said Callum, briskly; 'let us not continue to waste
what little Father Raoul was wont to term the poor man's best
inheritance?'

'What may that be, Callum?'

'_Time_,' was the pithy reply.

This brief conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two more
prisoners, who were immediately greeted by the usual appalling chorus
of yells, cries, curses, and laughter, together with that clattering
accompaniment of chains, bolts and fetters, which had so strangely
startled Callum and me on our first entrance to this Cimmerian and
infernal abode.




CHAPTER LII.

THE GALIONDOI.

Escorted by a party of Turkish police, or personages armed with
similar authority, and accoutred with yataghan and pistols, of
course, for these are as indispensable to an Osmanli as his nose and
eyes, our new companions who entered were two hideous and ferocious
Asiatic Turks, with receding foreheads, sharp temples, ana shaggy
eyebrows--black and sinister eyes--hooked noses and long moustaches,
having a savage curl, round almost to their ears.  While they were
being secured by the legs to the wall, a gleam of sunlight from one
of the grated slits fell upon them, and I recognised Zahroun and
another of the Turks who had assisted the Moolah Moustapha in
committing Iola to her dreadful tomb amid the waters.

I stepped towards them, with a dark frown on my face and a twitching
in my hands, as if I could have sprung upon their throats; and Callum
followed me close, with a gleam in his dark eye that betokened
mischief.

Zahroun recognised us, and pointed his dirty brown fingers at me with
mockery, while his companion gave us but a scowl and a sullen stare.

'Chaoush,' said I, to the sergeant of the guard, 'of what have these
men been guilty?'

'Murder and piracy,' replied the soldier, briefly, as he drew a key
from the fetter-lock of Zahroun.

'Murder!--where?--near Rodosdchig?'

'No--for murdering a Frankish officer off the coast of Natolia a
night or two ago, in a solitary caique; but they are safe enough till
the ferashes of the Bostandgi Bashi lead them out to take their last
view of the setting sun.'

Yells, hoots, and groans, whistling and laughter, greeted the chaoush
as he retired, and I turned away with aversion from the two wretched
assassins who had been added to the number already round us.  But
their arrival excited a little curiosity in this strange community,
and by those who were chained on each side of them, and opposite,
they were loudly and vociferously pressed to relate the story of
their crime and the cause of their incarceration there.

It was briefly told, for the Turk is neither verbose nor
circumlocutory.

They, and a few others, all well armed in a fleet caique, were
hovering about the coast of Natolia, on the look-out for any smaller
craft they might be able to overpower or pick up, when they
discovered, in a creek of the opposite Isle of Marmora, an English
pleasure-yacht ashore, wedged upon the sand, and left almost dry, as
her crew, without the assistance of a large steamer, were totally
unable to get her off.  Barek Allah! here was a prize!  A well-found,
taut-rigged, sharp-prowed, and strong English yacht, of some three
hundred tons, pierced for twelve eight-pounder carronades, and
handsomely fitted up.

In those disorderly times, when the shores of Asia Minor were
swarming with lawless bands, and Greece was vibrating with incipient
insurrection, what havoc could be made in the Archipelago with such a
craft as this English yacht!  But then her owner was a sturdy, burly
old infidel, who, since she had gone ashore, had stuck a huge cutlass
and four pistols in his girdle.  He had a well-picked crew of forty
men, all well armed, and who loved fighting better than idleness, for
these Ingleez galiondgis were the very devil!  He had on board, also,
a British officer from Sebastopol, and two Ingleez ladies, beautiful
as the houris of Paradise, moon-faced and cushion-hipped (and here
the hideous Asiatic rolled his black goggle eyes, and licked his
blubber lips), and so the yacht with her twelve brass guns, plunder,
et cetera, was deemed well worth venturing one's hide under pewter
and steel for.

While Zahroun and his companion Abdul Basig watched her in a little
caique, pretending to fish by day and to sleep in an adjoining creek
by night; others, their comrades in many a crime, were scouring all
the sea-port towns about Rodosdchig and the Natolian coast, to muster
enough of lads on whom, by old experience, they could depend--choice
and sturdy sons of the handjiar and pistol, to assist in surprising
the grounded yacht some cloudy night when the moon was below the
horizon, and no help was nigh; for with enough of hands she could
easily be boarded in the dark--the throats of the Ingleez cut from
clew to earring, and then the whole craft, with all her plunder,
provisions, women, wine, plate, and everything, would belong to the
captors.  Inshallah! was it not a notable speculation?

'One evening,' continued this exulting ruffian, 'Abdul and I were
hovering near the creek in our caique, looking at the stranded yacht,
and admiring her beautiful mould, and clean run under the counter, as
she lay with a heel over to her port side, when suddenly, while we
were speaking, her colours were run up to the foremast-head to gain
our attention, and a giaour on deck waved his hat to us.  Then we
pulled alongside, but cautiously and slowly.

'The Effendi to whom she belonged had grown weary of lying in a few
feet of water among the woods of that secluded creek, and impatiently
proposed that, for so many piastres, we should convey the bearer of a
message towards the mouth of the Dardanelles, where he would be sure
of falling in with one of the many British cruisers, whose captain
would at once lend him all the assistance necessary, on merely
mentioning his name; for this stout old infidel in the square-tailed
coat, white trousers, and straw hat, evidently deemed himself a great
man in his own country; and so perhaps he may be, for Abdul tells me
that it is an island of white chalk, where the sun never shines, and
whose shores are surrounded by a thousand leagues of mud; and that
its mountains are peopled by Arnaouts, who wear a striped camise
round their middle like yonder giaour (pointing to Callum Dhu), and
that they have tails--Allah Ackbar!--of which, however, they are
deprived by the Moolahs at their birth.

'Be that as it may, we agreed with the Frankish Effendi to take his
messenger to a castle of the Dardanelles, and for three hundred
piastres, which were at once paid over the capstan-head, to set off
that very night.  Before he left the yacht, his messenger, a handsome
Ingleez captain--a Yuze Bashi in the Guards, and bearded like a
Janissary, or like all those infidels who come from the war, kissed
the unbelieving women before descending to our boat--kissed them
before us all, without their yashmacks; and then we put off, set our
sail, shipped the sweeps, and pulled away to sea.

'The night was beautiful, and muffled in a coat which had a hooded
cape like that of a Bashi Bozook, the Ingleez captain lolled in the
stern-sheets of the caique, smoking cigars, speaking, as all these
Ingleez do, about the weather, and looking upward at the stars, or
back to the Isle of Marmora, where he had left his two wives, for
such I took the women to be; but now the Isle was diminished to a dim
blue speck upon the waters, and we could no longer see the creek
where the yacht lay.

'He had a fine ring on the fourth finger of his left hand; it flashed
as he gave us each a few cigars, and lit a fresh one for himself.  He
had a noble gold watch (all these infidels have such), and he looked
at it from time to time, as he hummed a song, and after telling us to
"pull like devils, as we should be well paid," fell fast asleep, for
he feared nothing.

'Abdul and I continued to pull, but less vigorously than before.  We
looked slyly at each other, and thought of the watch and the ring.
The sea was very quiet and smooth; there was not a ripple on it, and
no eye beheld us, but the winking stars.  The infidel-dog slept
soundly, and he was smiling in his sleep, as he dreamt perhaps of his
two Ingleez wives, or his island of mud and fog, for we could see his
white teeth shining under his dark moustache in the starlight.  We
were some miles off Cape Karaburun, for we could see its lighthouse
glimmering on our lee.  Everything was quiet and lonely as it may
well be upon the midnight ocean.  We exchanged another glance, and in
a moment more, the throat of the infidel was gaping with a red slash
of my handjiar, which nearly cut his head off!

'Abdul Rasig made a snatch at the gold watch, and just as we tossed
him overboard, I tore off the diamond ring with my teeth, and, Allah
Kebir! a mouthful of his unclean flesh came off with it; but here it
is--the ring, not the flesh!'

In the excitement of his narrative the wretch forgot himself so much
as to exhibit the ring.  It was a chaste little jewel--a pure
diamond, set round with pearls; and on beholding it, I started back
as if a thunderbolt had burst at my ear.

That identical ring I had seen a hundred times on the finger of Laura
Everingham; and I had last observed it, to my pique and grief, on the
hand of her lover--her husband Clavering--when he dined at our mess
in the Castle of Dumbarton!

Astonishment and horror chained all my faculties, and meanwhile the
exulting Zahroun continued his revolting narrative.

'We flung him over, and he sunk like a stone; then we put the helm
up, and bore away for the river Ustuola, our point of rendezvous on
the coast of Natolia--a lonely place, where all our armed caiques
were to meet for attacking and taking the yacht.  But a storm came
on; wallah! a storm of wind and lightning, a flash of which shaved my
left whisker clean off, as you may see; we were driven up the Sea of
Marmora, and after losing both sweeps and sail, were drifting at the
mercy of the wind and tide, when an armed boat of the Bostandgi
Bashi--may dogs defile his beard!--overhauled us, just when we were
quarrelling and mauling each other about the respective merits of the
watch and ring, for Abdul Rasig was wrathful at the splendour of my
diamond, vowing, that for every para the watch was worth I had got a
piastre, and a para being worth only the thirtieth part of a piastre,
four of which now go to make a shilling Ingleez, we loudly accused
each other of murder and robbery, like the fathers of fools.

'The Kadi before whom we were brought carefully wound up the watch,
applied it to his ear, and as it ticked to his satisfaction, he
solved the matter by depositing it in his judicial pocket.  He would
also have quieted me, by slipping my ring on his finger, but I placed
it in my mouth, and swore, by every hair in the boards of the two
hundred and twenty-seven thousand prophets of Islam, that I had
swallowed it; then we were marched off to the Bagnio, and so are
here.'

'Ay, here we are, a thousand burning curses on your folly!' growled
Abdul; 'for the four caiques will leave the mouth of the Ustuola on
the fourth night from this; the yacht will be boarded and taken, and
neither of us will be there to share the plunder or the pleasure; and
wallah!  I had set my whole soul on having one of those white-skinned
Ingleez women!'




CHAPTER LIII.

A ROW IN THE BAGNIO.

It is impossible for me to analyze my thoughts or reflections, on
hearing this terrible relation of Clavering's lonely and helpless
butchery in his sleep, by the hands of villains such as these Turkish
galiondgis.

Poor Tom Clavering! his well-whiskered face and manly figure came
vividly before me, as I had last seen them in Dumbarton Castle, when
he seemed the jolliest of our merry mess; and when full of joy at his
approaching marriage, and all thoughtless that I was his rival, he
spoke to me of his love for Laura; of her beauty, and that which was
better than beauty, her worth; and when, in the fulness of his heart,
he generously placed his purse at my service with all the frankness
of a soldier and of an English gentleman.

But he was gone, and Laura was a widow now.

A widow at two-and-twenty, or thereabout!

Here was food for thoughts of hope and ardour, for now she would be
free to choose another; and though the pale image of Iola still
hovered painfully and oppressively before me at times, I felt that I
loved Laura still.  Then came the crushing and startling thought of
the dangers which menaced her, and the words of the villain Abdul
were yet tingling in my ears.

'_The caiques will leave the Ustuola on the fourth night from this,
and the yacht will be boarded and taken!_'

Taken by those Greek pirates and Turkish outlaws whose savage
barbarity have long made terrible the shores and isles of the Ægean
sea!

So Laura was with me in this land so distant from our home; she was
within a few miles of me, and a great longing seized my soul--a
longing to look once more upon her face--to hear her voice again; the
voice that in other times had thrilled through my inmost heart, which
now began to 'ache with the thought of all that might have been;' but
it stood still, forgetting almost to beat, while my blood ran cold at
the reflection that I was a prisoner, and totally incapable of
assisting, warning, or protecting her or her friends.

All my soul seemed now to be with that stranded yacht on the Isle of
Marmora, which was more than forty miles distant, as a bird would fly.

Oh, to be free! my longing and my horror were fast becoming
insupportable.

How often had the same unavailing exclamation left my lips, as with
clenched hands, and teeth that gnawed my nether lip, I trod to and
fro in wretchedness, despondency, and bitterness of heart, in the
narrow passage or aisle formed by the double line of captives chained
on each side of the Bagnio.

I had long since discovered the futility of attempting to soften,
bribe, or terrify the chaoush who commanded the guard, for he feared
us, as prisoners of the Moolah Moustapha; thus the rascal seemed
incorruptible.

The story of Clavering's fate, and the adventure of the diamond-ring,
haunted me as much as the doom that overhung the yacht of Sir Horace
and her crew.  Could I rest while, almost within arm's length of me,
there was this jewel which had been on the white hand of a pure and
innocent English girl like Laura Everingham (and which, moreover, had
been her gift to a brave and honest hearted fellow like Clavering)
remaining in possession of a vile and polluted assassin like Zahroun?

Twenty times I stepped towards him, with the intention of clutching
his throat, though he seemed to possess thrice my strength; and I as
often drew back on reflecting that, in case of a brawl, I might be
torn to pieces by the prisoners if I came within arm's length of
them, or perhaps I might be shot by the guards from without, as
Achmet Effendi informed me that, on scuffles ensuing, they frequently
fired through the gratings, without the least remorse or ceremony;
and he added, that if we escaped a round of ball-cartridge we would
assuredly be chained, like the rest, to the walls.

To Callum Dhu I translated the horrible story of Zahroun, and the
honest heart of my foster-brother was fired with rage and sorrow when
he heard the fate of Captain Clavering.  The frank and manly bearing
of the English Guardsman, with his love of old Highland sports, had
made a most favourable impression on the mind of my follower, whose
heart was apt to become somewhat encrusted by jealousy and prejudice
on the approach of strangers; and now, whispering fiercely in my ear,
he swore by the stones of Iona to tear the head off the shoulders of
Zahroun.

The sunset had faded away; the eight reflections of the eight narrow
slits which, from a shady verandah, admitted light into our vault,
had disappeared from the stained and dirty walls; the place was so
dark that we could not see each other's faces, as on this night the
chaoush of the Turkish guard had omitted to light the lantern which
usually swung from a pillar of our den; or perhaps the quartermaster
of the castle had no oil in store; but what ever the reason may have
been, we were left quite in the dark when I finished my translation
of the story, and then Callum Dhu, filled by a sudden tempest of
Highland fury, and regardless of all consequences, sprang upon
Zahroun, and seizing him by the throat, endeavoured to hurl him
beneath his feet; but the bare-legged and bare-armed galiondgi was
brawny, muscular, and strong as himself, so the struggle that ensued
between these two athletes was alike fierce and terrible!  Their
hard, constrained breathing; their half-suffocated exclamations,
threats, and execrations in hoarse Gaelic on one hand, and guttural
Turkish on the other, were drowned amid the noise made by the
prisoners, who began their usual infernal chorus of shrieks, yells,
oaths, and laughter, with loud and impetuous inquiries on all hands
as to what was the matter, while the general row was increased by the
swinging and dashing of chains.

'Callum!  Callum!' I exclaimed, 'here are lights--the Turkish guards
may fire upon us.'

'Let them blaze away!' was the answer of Callum, who, wholly intent
on battling with his ferocious antagonist (whom he had now beaten to
the ground, and on whose brawny chest he had planted his kilted
knees), heeded me not, for his Celtic blood was fairly up, and his
mouth, moreover, was full of it, as Zahroun, with one of his iron
fetters, had given him a blow on the jaws.  While they continued to
fight thus, like two wild panthers, writhing, twisting, and
struggling, sundry pleasant adjectives in their different languages
were resorted to.

'Dioul!' was freely invoked on one side, and all the genii of hell,
with the beards of the twelve imaums, and the same reverend
appendages of the two hundred and twenty-seven thousand prophets of
Islam wore summoned in vain on the other, while the storm of swinging
chains and clamorous voices rang in the arched vault like the
bellowing of a stormy sea.

A red light flashed fitfully through one of the iron gratings, and
the swarthy visage, heavy moustache, and scarlet fez of the Turkish
sergeant appeared, as he held up a flaring torch and gazed in, with
something of wonder and alarm in his dark and dilating Asiatic eyes.
The iron door was hastily opened, and several soldiers, clad in short
blue jackets, and tight red trousers, ran down the steps, and
preceded by the chaoush with the torch, began to lay about them on
all sides with bamboo rods, caning all without discrimination.

As the sergeant rushed forward, a prisoner, in sheer mischief, put
out a foot and tripped him up.  With a malediction the
non-commissioned officer fell flat on his face, with the burning link
almost in his mouth, by which--Barek Allah!--his sacred moustaches
were scorched off in a moment; and as the light went out, two or
three of his comrades fell over him in the dark, increasing the
confusion.  A hand now grasped mine with fierce energy.  It was
Callum's.

'Now,' said he, 'now or never! follow me!'

And he dragged me up the steps and through the open door, which we
could easily distinguish by a faint light beyond it.  As we issued
into the yard before the Turkish guard-house, Callum, with admirable
presence of mind, closed the barrier of the vault, turned the key,
and by an additional wrench broke it in the lock, leaving the chaoush
and his soldiers to fight or fraternise with the prisoners, as they
pleased.

'Let us be but through the outer barrier, and we are free!' said I.

The night was starry but dark, for the moon had not yet risen, and an
increasing wind rolled the waves of the Propontis on the rocky beach.

There was no time for calm deliberation; no leasure to undo an error,
for we had nothing to guide our decision but the quickness of
instinct and the rapidity of desperation.  Our lives would be lost or
won in less than five minutes--a dreadful reflection to me, even now,
when all the danger is over and I sit in my quiet quarters writing of
what is all happily past.

The gate was closed and secured by a transverse wooden bar.  Muffled
in his blue greatcoat, the Turkish sentinel stood near it, with his
musket on his shoulder, and the long bushy tassel of his scarlet cap
drooping down his back.  I could mark his sharp Asiatic features
defined against the sky.  He stood still and motionless as a bronze
statue, with his lacklustre eyes fixed on the stars, and absorbed
apparently in one of those waking dreams peculiar to those Osmanlies
who spend their spare paras in opium and raki.

'Mac Innon,' whispered Callum, 'to you I leave the undoing of the
gate; give me the sentinel to manage--'

'You will not kill him?' said I, hurriedly, seeing that there was a
wild gleam in Callum's eyes, and that he had, between his teeth, a
skene-dhu, which, by being concealed in his hose, had hitherto
escaped the search of our captors.

'Kill him? not if I can help it; but I would rather be shot here,
sir, than go back to that infernal prison.  Dioul! do you hear how
the old chaoush is bellowing at the door?'

Roused by the unusual noise, the dreamy sentinel turned his head half
round to listen, and at that moment Callum sprang upon him, and
grasped his throat with a clutch into which he threw all the muscular
strength of his sinewy arms and fingers.  The swarthy visage of the
poor Turk became distorted; his eyes almost started from their
sockets, and the musket fell from his shoulder.  I snatched up the
weapon, and (while Callum hurled the soldier to the ground)
endeavoured to throw off its iron hooks a solid cross bar that
secured the wicket in the gate, which was composed of strong vertical
palisades.

This bar was secured in its place by a chain and large brass padlock,
the key of which was probably at the belt of the chaoush, whose
outcries we dreaded would momently rouse the rest of his comrades in
the little fortress.

Heavens, what a chaos were then my thoughts!  All seemed a dream, and
we did everything as if in a dream; yet all we did was wisely and
correctly done.  I unfixed the bayonet from the musket; inserted its
triangular blade into the loop of the padlock; grasped the socket
with my right hand, the point with my left, and using the weapon as a
lever, wrenched it fiercely round, and burst the impediment.  Thus
the chain which secured the bar was loosened; the wicket stood open,
and the sentinel lay breathless on the ground.

'I hope the poor fellow will soon recover--he was only doing his
duty,' said I.

'He'll be able to bawl for help in three minutes; Dioul! if he does,
I'll go back with my skene and gralloch him like a dead deer; see he
is stirring already!' said Callum, as we leaped through the gate; and
intent only on placing the greatest possible distance between
ourselves and the Bagnio of Selyvria, hastened along the sea-shore,
avoiding the high road which traverses the rugged coast, and which we
naturally supposed would be the first line of search and of pursuit.




CHAPTER LIV.

FLIGHT.

The shore was sandy, broken here and there by masses of black rocks,
and fringed by groves and thickets, which afforded every means of
concealment, if we were pursued.  Moreover, many little caiques and
fishing-craft were moored in the creeks and inlets for nearly three
miles beyond Selyvria: thus we had every means of escape to seaward,
if closely pressed by the soldiers from the castle.  I had still the
sentinel's loaded musket; but was resolved to toss it into some pool
of water or olive-thicket when day dawned, lest the circumstance of
having it in my possession might excite remark or suspicion; and we
intended to pass ourselves off to the Osmanlies as shipwrecked
British prisoners, escaped from a Greek pirate--a story probable
enough, if told at a moderate distance from Selyvria.

A hundred times we paused anxiously to listen, assured that we heard
the noise of pursuit, rising above the far-sounding murmur of the
eternal sea that rolled upon the sandy beach.  Now it seemed the
baying of dogs; then the tramping of horses on the paved road that
led to the bridge of the Saltmarsh; next it was the tread of men's
feet and the clink of accoutrements; but these were all the effect of
an over-excited fancy; for after listening breathlessly, with heads
stooped low, we became assured that there was no sound in the night
air, but the sighing of the wind through the olive and orange groves,
and the murmur of the Propontis as it broke on the silent shore.

We were progressing in the direction of Heraclea, where Major
Catanagh lay with the rest of our comrades and the regiment of the
Mir Alai Saïd.  Callum urged that we should lose no time in repairing
there, and insuring our own safety; but I was more intent on reaching
Rodosdchig, where I could draw off my little party, embark them in
boats, and sail for the opposite Isle of Marmora, as I had now no
thought in this world but to save or rescue Sir Horace and his
friends from the danger that menaced them.

'But if our detachment has been recalled from Rodosdchig?' said
Callum; 'what then?--we have been absent several weeks, I think,
though I forgot to reckon the time in yonder atrocious den.'

I had not thought of this chance, and it puzzled me.

Major Catanagh, may have been ordered to join at head-quarters, for
all that we know to the contrary, sir, and may have marched for
Constantinople, said he.

Still my resolution was not altered.

'Let us reach Rodosdchig,' said I, doggedly.

The silent night wore away; pale Phosphorus, the morning star of the
old Greeks, melted into the rosy sky of sunrise, as the god of day
ascended from the distant Ægean sea, and tipped the hills and castles
of the Dardanelles with fire.  The waves of the Propontis gleamed in
gold, and rolled like liquid light upon its fertile shores.  We found
ourselves in a lonely place, where the sea broke in surf on one hand,
and on the other lay a marshy waste, where buzzards and vultures
seemed the only living things, with a few of those solemn-looking
storks, which are so often to be found perched on the roofs of
Turkish houses; or peeping out of nests of twigs and clay, made under
their eaves.

Day had now fully broken.  I concealed the bayonet in my sleeve as a
weapon of defence; but threw the musket into the sea.  Then Callum
and I put our sorely-soiled uniforms into the best order, and though
the amount of hair which flourished around our visages gave us rather
a Crimean aspect, it mattered not in Turkey, and we stepped forward
with growing confidence, looking about for some one to direct us, as
the dome and minarets of a mosque (like a punch-bowl between two
champagne bottles) appeared at a distance, and indicated the vicinity
of a town.

Near a well on the wayside, we found an old woman, of an aspect
rather Ghoulish, with her eyes shining through the holes in her
yashmack, which was carefully drawn over her head, though her poor
mammary region was bare and flat as a drumhead.  She was filling a
vase of most classical aspect, with the pure water of the circular
well, over which drooped the long branches of a solitary date-palm.

On my inquiring the name of the little town which was now visible
above the orange-groves, she hastily flung down her pitcher in great
alarm, and muttering something about 'Franks and Giaours,' fled from
us.

'The devil's in the cailloch,' said Callum; 'does she take us for
ogres?'

Rather discouraged by the impression our appearance seemed to make,
we pressed on towards the town, beyond which we saw a chain of
snow-capped hills, sparkling in the sunshine like cones of polished
silver.  We studied our plans and distances over and over again; and
I shuddered as I thought of the hopeless captivity that might succeed
our recapture--the danger that hung over the Everinghams--the
dreadful Bagnio; and with that recollection there came before me in
fancy the careworn smile of poor Achmet Effendi, and his miserable
comrade the lieutenant of artillery, who were still lingering there.

I knew well the danger and the difficulty attending two unarmed
strangers travelling on foot in such a country as Turkey; for at the
present hour I need scarcely remind the reader that even in the
streets of Stamboul, notwithstanding the presence of regular troops
and patrols of armed police, robberies and assassinations of every
description, by the handjiar, the pistol, the bludgeon, and
strangulation, are of constant occurrence in open day.  If such is
the case in the capital of 'the Lord of the Black and White Seas, and
Keeper of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem,' our
prospects in his rural districts were not very encouraging.

By the side of a rivulet we found a dreamy Osmanli reclining under an
orange-tree, regaling himself on dates and cold water, with a paper
cigar in his mouth.  He was basking in the sunshine, and believing
himself, perhaps, in the Garden of Delights, though minus the river
of fragrant wine, the fruits of the giant Toaba, and the caresses of
the black-eyed girls, with their limbs of snow, and scanty cymars of
green.

With the usual greeting, I inquired if he knew the town now before us.

He replied in the affirmative; but the name I cannot now remember,
and no map that I have seen bears it.

'Whence come you?' he inquired.

'Frangistan.'

'That I can perceive--but how?'

'By a ship.'

'Allah Kebir!  I did not expect you to fly.'

'Of course not--she was wrecked upon the coast.'

'And you escaped?'

'Narrowly, as you may see--all we possess is upon us, and we are
almost famished.'

'Bismillah! now I remember having smoked pipe with you once.'

'Where, Aga?'

'In the khan at Heraclea.'

'I think I remember you,' said I; though in truth I had no
recollection of the worthy man whatever.

'I have some dates and the spring-water here; but you are welcome to
both.  Eat with me, and we shall be friends.  I am no Aga, but a
humble dealer in cherry-sticks, and having sold all my stock in
Selyvria, am now returning home.'

'To yonder town?'

'Exactly.'

'Has it a Kadi?

'Yes, and none in Roumelia knoweth better the hundred and fourteen
chapters of the Koran.  Whenever his carpet is spread, heels are
turned up and heads sliced off in a twinkling!  Wallah! he knows the
law well, Hadjee Sohail Ebn Amru; and more than all, he is my elder
brother, and has built for the public use a mosque and fountain,
surrounded by cypresses and mulberry-trees.  I had the misfortune to
come into existence a little later than he, so our father left him
every asper he had in the world: thus the Kadi Sohail is a rich
dealer in shawls, silks, and carpets, while I am a poor vender of
cherry-sticks; but what seek you of the Kadi?'

'Not money, my friend.'

'You are wise--what then?'

'Horses to take us to Stamboul.'

'But who will pay for them?'

'Our ambassador.'

'Wallah!' replied the pipe-stick vender; 'all the world say he is
breaking his heart about the fall of Kara; but all the world are
liars, I think.  However, as you came to fight for the Faithful,
horses you shall have, if my brother the Kadi can find them.'

The acquaintance of this garrulous fellow was quite a boon to us; and
encouraged by his free and talkative manner, and not a little amused
by the airs of patronage and protection he assumed, we stepped boldly
into the town, giving out, on all hands, that we required horses for
Stamboul.

I found that these Turks were fast making me as sly and reserved as
themselves.




CHAPTER LV.

RESUME MY COMMAND.

Assisted by our new friend, we reached the house and bazaar of the
Kadi Sohail Ebn Amru, who, on our uniforms, and hearing that we
required two horses for the Sultan's service, after wonderfully
little delay, ordered that they should be procured, _i.e._, taken, or
forcibly pressed, from the first or nearest persons who were not
included in the circle of his acquaintance.  While the nags were
being brought, the seller of pipe-sticks bustled about, and set
before us a repast of mutton-ham, cheese, white bread, and Kirkissa
wine, and we seated ourselves on some of those soft carpets of Irann,
which are the pride of the Stambouli housewives.

The Kadi was not present, being closeted in an inner apartment with a
stranger, a brother Hadjee, whom he appeared to treat with great
reverence.  Ere long he came out, and invited us to enter and
'partake of coffee with his friend, who had travelled a long way on
foot and was weary.'

'A friend?' said I, hesitating.

'Yes, Aga.'

'A soldier?'

'No--a Moolah.'

'But a Moolah may not like us.'

'He is sure to do so.'

'But then we are soldiers,' I continued, still hesitating; 'and
Moolahs hate all soldiers.'

'Mashallah!' said the Kadi; ''tis the famous Hadjee Moustapha, who
has himself been a soldier, and a brave one too.'

We were both confounded by lighting on this devil of a Moolah even
here!  I scarcely dared now to whisper our danger to Callum, lest the
visitor might overhear, as a partition formed of striped cloth,
covered with sentences from the Koran alone separated us; and if
discovered by him, all the wealth of Karoon (Crœsus) could not
save us.  While pondering what excuse to make, and finding that the
more I pondered the more obstinate my invention became, luckily the
horses--two fine Arabs--ready accoutred, with high demi-pique
saddles, and having bridles and cruppers covered with brass knobs and
long red tassels, were led up by grooms wearing each a red fez and
voluminous blue breeches; then bidding the Kadi and his brother
farewell, and hastily leaving a receipt and order on the regimental
paymaster for the alleged value of the horses, if not safely
returned, we trotted 'away,' as we said, 'for Stamboul;' and then,
from the street corner, started at full gallop for Bodosdchig.

The town we left was garrisoned by two battalions of the Egyptian
contingent, consisting entirely of _one-eyed men_.  So great is the
horror of military service in the land of Pharaoh in this age of
steam, that the people mutilate themselves in such numbers to avoid
soldiering, that the Pasha has been compelled to enrol those having
right eyes in one regiment, and those having left eyes in another.

We rode at great speed, and when the sun was verging towards the long
chain of the Tekir mountains, we saw before us the crenelated walls,
the old castle, the flat roofs, the gilded mosques and white minars
of Bodosdchig, with the tall, solemn cypresses, and the green City of
the Silent, where I had first met Iola; and there lay the ruined
hermitage of St. Basil amid its beautiful groves, and the Holy Well
still sparkling in the setting sunshine.  My heart filled with tender
memories, and I shuddered when I saw her dreadful grave--the waves of
the blue Propontis--gleaming far beyond the landscape; but I thrust
away such thoughts, and gnawing my nether lip, strove to think only
of Laura and the desperate task I had before me.

Laura and Iola!

The struggle is a sore one, when there is but _one_ heart for _two_
loves!

As we approached the castle, all heedless of the clamour excited
among the usually inert and sullen Turks by our appearance when
galloping through the muddy streets, Callum uttered a shout of
satisfaction on seeing the red coat, the green tartans, and
glittering bayonet of a Highland sentinel at the castle gate.

'Now God and Mary be thanked, our men are here yet!' exclaimed he, in
Gaelic.

As we rode in, our comrades hurried forth to meet us, and in a trice
we had Serjeant Mac Ildhui, Corporal Donald Roy, and every man of my
little detachment around us with clamorous tongues, and hands
outstretched in joyous congratulation, with many an inquiry, while
the Turkish guard of Topchis looked on with a sullen and dogged stare
from under their bushy eyebrows.

Roused by their clamour, an officer in a scarlet jacket and tartan
trews, with a Turkish fez, a bearded chin, and a meerschaum in his
mouth, jumped over a window on the ground-floor, and joined the group
in the castle-yard.

'Mac Innon--Allan Mac Innon!' he exclaimed.

'Jack Belton!'

We shook hands warmly as I dismounted.

'By all the powers, where have you been?  In the hands of the evil
genii?'

'Where I cannot tell you, at present.'

'We all feared you had bid farewell----'

'To what?'

'The great scuffle of life.'

'Not at all--but how came you here?'

'To take command of your detachment, when Serjeant Mac Ildhui
reported your lamentable demise, and we had the big drum covered
respectably up with crape, and funeral knots tied on our sword-hilts.
We are to march to-morrow, so had you been a few hours later, we had
been off for Stamboul.'

'Fortunate!' said I, with a glance at Callum; 'but you must delay
your march a little time, Jack.  I have a small expedition cut out
for you--'

'Of a warlike nature?'

'Yes.'

'And I have some news for _you_.'

'Indeed!'

'We are both gazetted Lieutenants, _vice_ Cameron and Moray,
dead--one of wounds at Sebastopol, the other of cholera at
Scutari--poor fellows!  So we have two commissions to wet--I,
yours--and you, mine.  I have another box of cheroots and some prime
Cavendish, with a jar of Kirkissa wine.  Come along--I'll hear all
your news in my room--'

'And the Yuze Bashi--how is he?'

'Oh, a most unamiable old fellow--in the sick-list still, having been
powdered and pilled by a Jew Hakim, till he cannot move.'

'Long may he remain so!' said I, revengefully, as we entered Jack's
quarters.

In a few minutes I had refreshed myself, changed my attire, anil sat
down to such a repast as Jack's servant could prepare in haste; we
lighted our cigars; Jack drank his wine out of a tumbler, and I mine
out of a cream-jug, as our utensils were meanly and in a dilapidated
condition.  Jack smoked in silence and patience, waiting to hear a
story which I knew not how to begin, as I was loth--exceedingly
loth--to account for that remarkable cruise undertaken by Callum and
me at night; so there was a long silence, during which Jack whiffed
away, and then he stared inquiringly at me.

'You sigh?' said he; 'what the deuce is the matter?  Fill your cup
with wine again--and drink, my boy.  Remember the mess-room song--

  'Since the chief end of life is to live and be jolly,
  To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly.'

_En avant_!  What have you been about, Allan?  We heard that you had
been making love to a Haidee--a flower of "the Isles of Greece," or
some Turkish odalisque--but you lost her?  Never mind, my boy--she'll
soon prove, "though lost to sight, to memory _queer_," when we change
quarters.'

I quieted Jack's raillery by a grave relation of my adventures; and
his wonder, anger, and resentment were excited alternately by the
horrors I had undergone, and by the heartless assassination of poor
Clavering; but the moment I mentioned the danger of the yacht, he
started to his feet, exclaiming--

'O hang it! this can never be permitted!  We can't march for Heraclea
to-morrow.'

'Of course not, with this devilish business on the tapis.'

'It is our duty--our bounden duty--to march at once with every man we
have, and to save Sir Horace and his people from these butcherly
Mohammedans.'

'March?--sail you mean!' said I.

'And we must get a craft to-night--it is not yet too late,' he
exclaimed, looking at his watch.

'Callum! call Serjeant Mac Ildhui--our lads must all be in marching
order, with haversacks and ammunition, an hour before daylight
to-morrow.'

'Very well, sir.'

'Bravo!' added Jack; 'we shall cut a dash, and have a little war on
our own account.'

'An entire column in the "Times" to ourselves.'

'And a sketch in the "Illustrated News," of course.'

'There go the pipes for tattoo--fill your wine-horn again, Allan!
Here's success to our expedition in the morning!'




CHAPTER LVI.

'BIODH TREUN!'

The morning was cold and frosty, though in the last days of February.
The sun was yet below the horizon; but all the sea that stretched
away towards the mouth of the Bosphorus on one hand, and the
Dardanelles on the other, was covered by a golden brilliance; and a
rosy gleam in the east indicated the quarter from which, without any
lingering twilight, he would climb at once the azure sky.  No cloud
shaded the surface of the latter, and scarcely a ripple seemed to
curl the still and beautiful bosom of the Propontis.

Callum brought me my only heir-loom, the old claymore, on the blade
of which my father--in some old Flemish camp, when serving under
York--had written the two words, _Biodh Treun_ (be valiant).  I stuck
my revolver and dirk in my belt, and descended to the parade-ground
full of enthusiasm and hope.

My little band of Highlanders mustered in the chill morning with
alacrity.  They were all in light marching order, and in addition to
their arms and accoutrements, carried only their greatcoats and
wooden canteens.  I carefully inspected their ammunition, and then
marched them to the landing-place, where a large kochamba, which had
been procured overnight, and which was manned by eight stout
galiondgis, awaited us.  Before marching out, I had no little
difficulty in explaining to the Yuze Bashi's second in command the
nature of the expedition on which we were departing, and that we must
necessarily return for our baggage, knapsacks, and squad-bags, before
marching to Heraclea.  To the Major I despatched a mounted Topchi,
with a letter acquainting him with my return to my party, my late
adventures, and the nature of the service on which I had gone--a
service of which I was convinced he would approve, as the necessary
protection of British subjects had forced me upon it, and as there
was no vessel of war near with which I could communicate, and, save
my Highlanders, no other armed force on which I could rely.

Of these Highlanders, whose task was now to save Sir Horace from the
pirates, _eight_ were evicted Mac Innons of Glen Ora; and in the
ranks I heard them recalling to each other the day 'when the glen was
desolated,' as we marched from the castle with our pipe playing, and
embarked in the kochamba; then we shipped eight long sweeps, with two
men to each, hoisted the long and tapering lateen sail, and stood out
of the harbour of Rodosdchig, with a fair wind that bore us away
southward for the Isle of Marmora.

As we put to sea, Callum urged me in a whisper to have the boat's
head shot first to starboard--'_the deisuil_,' as he said, 'in honour
of the sun'--an old superstitious custom, for which, like many
others, he was a great stickler; and as I had the tiller-ropes, it
was at once complied with.

My fellows were all lively and merry at the prospect of a brush with
any one; and this duty seemed a stirring change after the dull
monotony of mounting guard in that old castle, whose shadow fell far
across the shining water, and where their only companions were the
stolid, opium-drugged, big-breeched, raki-drinking, and
chibouque-smoking Topchis of the Yuze Bashi Hussein.

With their broad chests heaving, and their bearded faces flushed by
exertion as they bent to their task, Callum Dhu, Donald Roy, and
Serjeant Mac Ildhui sang an old Highland boat-song, to which the
rowers kept time with their broad-bladed sweeps, that flashed like
fire as they threw the silver spray towards the rising sun--the
glorious sun of Asia, which filled all that morning sea with his
dazzling splendour--and while the piper played in the prow, all the
soldiers joined in parts, their thirty voices making the sky ring
when they united in one volume, to the astonishment of the immovable
Turks, and to the great amusement of Jack Belton, who enjoyed our
enthusiasm, but laughed like a Lowlander at the strange words of the
chorus, which suited the action of the oars, and were somewhat to the
following purpose:--

  '_Horo, horo, horo elé,
  Horo, horo, horo elé;
  Hu ho i o 'sna ho elé,_' &c.


'Well, 'pon my soul,' said Jack, as he lolled in the stern-sheets of
the boat, polishing the barrel of a finished Colt with the ashes of
his cheroot, 'this is better fun than blowing on the flute, or
pumping on an accordion all day long in one's barrack-room for lack
of something to do.'

'Wait,' said I, 'until you have seen Fanny Clavering; your mind will
then be fully occupied.'

'By love for her?'

'Of course.'

'Query--is she beautiful?'

'I don't think Heaven ever created another so brilliant and so
fascinating.'

'Indeed! you quite interest me.  The deuce!  I shall be in danger of
losing both life and liberty; but I don't mean to wed in a hurry.'

'Fanny has a handsome fortune--she is rich.'

'Money is nothing to a sub of a year or two's standing.'

'True--but we may remain jolly subs long enough now.'

'Don't think of it, pray--but alas! peace will soon be proclaimed
now, as we have polished off the imperial boots of His Majesty of
Russia, and all the additional battalions must be reduced.'

'Fanny's bright hazel eyes--'

'Will not lure me into matrimony, pin-money, and baby-jumpers.  I
mean not to think of such things until I require cotton caps,
water-gruel, and hot bottles at night; until I give up the polka,
relinquish my pipe, and vote the mistletoe a most improper appendage
to a Christmas chandelier; when I consider music a bore, and babies
_not_ a bother; when I deem flirtation disgraceful, and prefer a
quiet game at crown-points to whirling with Maria or Louisa in the
_deux temps_--I shall think of it seriously, and prepare to take upon
my knee a little Jack Belton, and sing "Ride a cock horse to Bambury
Cross," or of old "Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall," and so forth.'

While Jack ran on thus, Callum Dhu, who sat near me with his belt and
jacket off, pulling the stroke oar, was listening to him with a quiet
smile, for he liked his rattling, off-hand manner.

'Callum,' said I, '_you_ remember Miss Clavering?'

'Many a time, sir, I have led her pony up Ben Ora, and round the
Craig-na-tuirc!  Who that ever saw her could forget her?' he replied,
as his eye sparkled and his cheek flushed, while he gave fresh energy
to tugging at the bending sweep; 'She was ever so gay, so beautiful,
so joyous and flattering!'

'And Miss Everingham, too,' I added, in a low voice; 'Mrs. Clavering,
I should say.'

Callum gave me a glance full of deep and sorrowful meaning; but he
only bit his proud nether lip, and bent more lustily to the oar.  He
was as full of ardour at the prospect of risking his life in defence
of these two ladies as if he was the accepted lover of them both; for
poor Callum's heart was chivalrous as it was kind and true; and
though, like himself, more than one soldier in that huge lumbering
boat had good reason to curse the intrusive name of Everingham, and
that feudal law which enabled a landlord to evict the people, they
were all ready to face fire and water, shot and steel, to rescue him
and his friends from the perils that surrounded them.  Fresh hands
were laid on the oars; the sun attained its meridian height; the
outlines of the Isle of Marmora began to rise higher to the
southward; sturdily pulled the Highland oarsmen, and still their
strange wild chorus was wafted to leeward on the Grecian sea--

  '_Horo, horo, horo el,
  Horo, horo, horo elé;
  Hu ho i o 'sna ho elé._'




CHAPTER LVII.

THE ISLE OF MARMORA.

I gazed alternately on the distant island that was now rising faint
and blue from the shining sea, and on the huge lateen sail that
tapered far away aloft upon its slender yard, which resembled a
fishing-rod, while Belton still lounged in the stern-sheets, and
lunched on sliced Bologna sausages, biscuits, and sherry.

'Yonder Isle of Marmora has some interest for me,' said he; 'I had an
uncle who got his wife out of that identical place.'

'From the marble quarries, perhaps.'

'Not at all--he was no Pygmalion.  He was first-lieutenant in the
flagship here, about ten years ago, and being in hopeless ill health,
was landed, with six months' leave to remain at the house of an
Armenian merchant, who treated him with great kindness, and whose
daughter--young and lovely, of course--nursed him with the most
enchanting tenderness.  So whether it was owing to the fresh breezes
from the Propontis, the cool wines of old Greece, or the charms of
the soft maid of Armenia, I know not; but before the six months were
up, mine uncle reported himself to the Admiral as "fit for duty," and
joined his ship.  He thought very sadly about his Armenian for a
time, and felt very restless in his cot at night; but soon dismissed
her from his thoughts, as the ship had to be painted and overhauled,
and sent home to Portsmouth.  A year after he was with our fleet at
Stamboul, and while rambling there with a brother captain--for he had
his own frigate then--they entered the slave-market in disguise.
There he saw--what?--his beautiful Armenian friend--his kind little
nurse--the daughter of his hospitable entertainer--offered for sale
as a slave!  She knew him, and in tears and agony stretched her
pretty hands towards him; for she was a Christian woman, and felt
keenly all the horrors of her situation.  Her story was soon told.
Her father's ships had perished at sea; his wealth had passed away;
he died, and his Turkish creditors had remorselessly seized
everything, even to the carpet his daughter sat on.  Then they seized
her too, and offered her for sale--and there she stood, with a ticket
on her breast, and her price marked thereon.

'For sale!  My uncle was an honest fellow--he damned their eyes all
round, and swore he felt it in his heart to flog one-half Stamboul
and keelhaul the other.  An Unbeliever cannot purchase women; but my
uncle knew a Turkish officer, who was an Irishman--Bim Bashi
O'Toole--who, for a dozen of wine, undertook to manage the affair; so
for four hundred guineas he bought the fair Armenian, and married her
at the ambassador's chapel.  Then he brought her home in his own
frigate.  He is now posted, a C.B., on half-pay, and resides with his
Armenian wife, and six little half-Scotch, half-Armenian imps, in one
of the prettiest villages in Strathearn; so you see, Mac Innon, this
classic island of Marmora has quite a family interest for me.'

While Jack ran on in this fashion, I was wholly occupied in thinking
of two soft eyes, and a certain fair, pale, English face, with its
chestnut braids and rosy lips, and of a low sweet voice, that seemed
already whispering in my ear--the voice of Laura, whose tones had
come to me so often in the dreams of night.  In imagination I again
beheld her, and that peculiar _individuality_ which indicates every
one by habit, gesture, form, and smile, came all before me in one
gush of memory.

The nut-brown sail, with its broad, black stripes, bellied out in the
light wind that played over the ripples of the noonday sea, but ere
long the wind grew light, and as it died away, the sail flapped
heavily and the kochamba lurched and rolled upon the glassy swell.

The day drew on, and soon the rosy tints of sunset lingered on the
shore, bathing with a ruby gleam each wooded bay and rocky cape that
stretched into the dim and azure haze, far, far away.  The coast of
Roumelia seemed all of sapphire hue; the little Isle of Coudouri
beamed from the blue sea like a huge amethyst sparkling with
diamonds--these were the casements of its little town, that were
glittering in the western light.

The Isle of Marmora now looked close and high, and I sighed for the
lagging wind, as we lay becalmed about four miles off its western
promontory, and one mile due east of Coudouri, with the sea darkening
fast around us, and the stars coming out one by one from the sky of
brilliant amber.

While we continued to scan the coast with our telescopes, as it was
in this part of the Isle the yacht was ashore, Jack Belton discovered
the masts and hull of a smart schooner, which lay pretty high up in
one of the sandy bays that now opened upon our view; and this we had
no doubt was the craft we were in quest of, as the position in which
she lay, and her appearance, exactly corresponded to what we had
heard of the _Fairy Bell_, Sir Horace's vessel.  Being somewhat tired
by the exertions of the past day, my soldiers and the galiondgis had
relinquished their oars, and sat gazing dreamily either at the glassy
water or the little black speck which indicated the hull of the yacht
ashore.

'Suppose the islanders were to rise upon us, and assist these
Oriental ticket-of-leavers!' said Belton.

'You are most unpleasantly suggestive,' said I; 'but let them rise,
they are welcome.'

'Indeed!'

'Yes.  With thirty Highlandmen, I would not fear to face three
hundred Greeks.'

'Even those of Leonidas?'

'Yes, Jack--even those of Leonidas!'

'Bravo!--but this may prove more than a mere melo-dramatic
performance.'

'It may--but ha!--what is that?' I exclaimed.

'A gun--a flash on the shore!'

'Another!'

'And another!'

'Now, heavens above, what may this mean?'

'The pirates.'

'The pirates already!'

'We have been anticipated by the four caiques!' cried several voices.

'Out with the sweeps and oars!--down with the mast and yard!--in with
the sail!' I commanded, with excited energy, and the orders were
obeyed with alacrity.

'Clap on to the sweeps now!'

'Give way, my boys--give way with a will!' said Belton.

Flash after flash came rapidly and redly from the dark and wooded
bay; the boom of carronades pealed over the water, and then came the
patter of small arms.

My soul was full of anxiety; I panted rather than breathed, for I was
without a doubt that we had been anticipated--that those wretches had
commenced their attack, and that Sir Horace was fighting gallantly,
like a brave English gentleman.

'But see,' said Callum, to whom I had freely communicated all my
fears, 'there are three or four vessels now rounding the promontory
and entering the bay, for good or for evil?'

'The telescope, Jack--the telescope, for God's sake!--thank you,'
said I, adjusting it for a night observation, as the darkness had now
almost set in; but I could distinctly perceive four long, low, and
sharply-built caiques, full of men, many of whom appeared to be armed
with muskets, pulled swiftly round a black promontory of rock which
jutted into that sea of amber, and each in succession shot swiftly
into the wooded bay.

Several brilliant rockets now hissed upward into the blue sky; and as
their sparkles descended in a shower among the woods, or on the
rippled water all became dark and still--so deathly still, that I
heard only the beating of my heart, and the half-suppressed breathing
of the rowers, three of whom were bending on every sweep, and the
splashing of the water, as we neared the eastern headland of the
little bay in which the yacht was beached, and into which these dark
and mysterious craft had glided so noiselessly.




CHAPTER LVIII.

THE FAIRY BELL.

The Island of Marmora--the Elephonesos of the ancients--is a
dependency of an Anatolian Sanjiack, and lies sixty miles south-west
of Stamboul.  It is about ten miles long, and has a miserable little
town of romantic-looking wigwams on its southern coast, and a Turkish
pharos on a promontory towards the Bosphorus.  Of old, it was famous
for its marble quarries, but now is noted only for sterility, and its
meagre population of bare-footed and blue-breeched Greek fishermen.

The bay, however, which we were now stealthily entering, was richly
wooded; but many of the trees were bare, for the black gusts of the
last autumn had swept both sea and shore; but there the wild almond
was wont to shed its silver blossoms in spring, and even now, the
wild thyme, the caper-shrub, the rose-laurel, the woodbine, and the
china-rose, made all the inlet beautiful; nor were the scarlet lotus,
or the graceful date-palm, which an Oriental poet likens to a young
beauty bending her head; or the soft perfume of the sweet El-caya
tree of Yemen, wanting to complete the charm of this dark and shady
cove.  Softly we stole in, with handkerchiefs tied round our sweeps
to muffle them; and while we pulled swiftly, keeping close in shore,
and under the deep shadow thrown by the woods upon the starlit water,
we carefully loaded and capped our fire-arms, all of which were
fortunately Minie rifles, as my detachment belonged to the Light
Company.

Now at the end of the bay the moon rose broad and full, and as her
giant disc heaved up in all its bright effulgence from the shining
sea, a column of light flashed from the horizon into the wooded
creek, and displayed its sylvan scenery.

We could see the yacht--the _Fairy Bell_--as she lay in the shallow
water careened to port; she was tautly rigged; her foremast was
strong; her mainmast tall, and tapering away aloft like the finest
willow wand.  Her hull was long and low; her breadth of beam was
great, and the copper on her sharp bows shone like burnished gold in
the moonlight; her decks were flush, level, and had twelve
carronades--all of which, however, were quite useless, by the
elevation of their muzzles on one side, and the consequent depression
on the other; and I saw at a glance that, unless vigorously defended,
this smart little yacht, the flower of Cowes, the pink of the Channel
squadron, and the winner of five silver cups which adorned the
library at Elton Hall, would fall a prey to these piratical caiques.

We were all nearing her rapidly; but fortunately the dark shadow of
the wooded shore completely veiled the kochamba, while the caiques
were fully visible in the blaze of a moonlight that filled the bay.
A half-shout, half-cheer, from the crew of the yacht--now distant
from us about five hundred yards--announced that her people were on
the alert.  Then a garland of fire zoned her low black gunwale round,
as a volley of fire-arms was poured upon the approaching boats, and
crashed through their planking.

'Hurrah!' cried Jack Belton; 'the old M.P. is quite up to the mark, I
think!'

'Keep close in--keep in the shadow,' said I; 'or, by Jove! we may
come in for a dose of that, too, before they know who we are.'

'That fire was well directed,' said Callum.

'It has staggered those devils in the boats--I see them throwing
aside their oars,' added Jack.

'Stretch out--stretch out!' I exclaimed, drawing my sword; 'and be
ready, every man of yous to fire the moment I give the word!'

It was most unfortunate for the yacht that her guns were rendered
useless by her heel to port; but the fire of her small-arms was
brisk; and a yell replied, as the caiques, which had been warily
pulled in a line duly astern of her, now dashed upon her quarters,
and a vigorous attempt was made by the Turks to board.  In the
moonlight we could see the momentary gleam of sabres as they were
brandished, and of bayonets as they were pointed; the flashing of
pistols, and the appearance of dark faces and darker figures, as they
strove to gain a footing on the side-chains, and to force a passage,
by fighting, to the schooner's deck, but were thrust over by the
bayonet or beaten down by the clubbed musket; and were dashed,
wounded and bleeding, into the sandy and blood-stained water, which
took them up to the girdle, or little above it.  With all their
efforts, it was evident the yachts-men would have the worst of it ere
long, for some of the Greek villains had just forced a passage to the
deck, when one more stroke of the sweeps brought us within sure range.

'Now, Highlanders,' cried I, 'ready!--present!--you can pick off
these fellows like a covey of partridges.'

'Or sparrows on a midden,' added Callum, as thirty Minie rifles,
levelled low, were fired out of the gloomy shade, and thirty
spherical rifled bullets whistled among the dark crowd which filled
the caiques.

'Keep up your fire, my lads,' cried I, 'and give way--stretch out!' I
added to the galiondgis; 'close up--let us only come hand to hand
with them; pull right across the stern of the yacht, and rake the
boats alongside.'

This enabled us to sweep the caiques on both sides of her; and my men
kept up a brisk fire.  As they had sixty rounds each, there was no
danger of their running short of ammunition.  Yells of fear and rage
were now blended with those of pain, and the water was full of dead
and wounded wretches, from among whom some forty or fifty of the
survivors were frantically endeavouring to escape; and to the
astonishment of the yachts-men, who were totally unable to comprehend
from what quarter this unexpected succour had come, the attack was
abandoned with precipitation; and two of the caiques were pulled
rapidly away, while the others floated alongside, deserted by their
crews; for all who were not lying dead on the thwarts, or struggling
with wounds and broken limbs in the water, had scrambled ashore and
fled.

The attack had been made by not less than sixty outlaws--all
savage-looking Suliotes, half-black Natolians, wild Arabs, and
Candiote mariners.  Of these nearly twenty had been sent to their
last account; but the affair was not over yet.

Four or five had fought their way on board the yacht; but when our
fire had swept the water alongside, they all sprang overboard, save
one, who concealed himself in one of the quarter-boats, at the moment
we boarded the schooner.

As I ascended the side, a strange-looking personage, clad in a
light-blue uniform jacket minus tails, a pair of checked Tweed
trousers, and wearing a cavalry helmet of unique form, appeared to
welcome us.  He was armed with a large sabre, and though his upper
lip had been put on the war establishment, and wore a grisly
moustache--and though the costume he had so hastily donned was partly
the uniform of the South Pedlington Yeomanry, of which he was
Lieutenant-Colonel, I had no difficulty in recognising the sleek
round visage and well-curved paunch of old Sir Horace Everingham, all
breathless and blown, and decidedly more 'out of sorts' than ever I
had seen him, when toiling up my Highland hills at home.

'Never was aid more opportune, my dear sir,' said he; 'from whence
have you come with your soldiers--from the clouds?  Awful business
this--but I expected it--I shall complain to our ambassador--those
d----d ungrateful Greeks!  I shall address the House on the
subject--I will expose it in the "Times" newspaper--I will, sir, by
Heaven!'

Close by the baronet stood his _fidus Achates_, the pale and
affrighted Mr. Jeames Toodles, whom he had barbarously forced to
remain on deck, and who, having no idea of how to handle any lethal
weapon, had spread before him an immense gig umbrella, which loomed
in his front like the shield of Achilles, and which he had
successfully held between him and 'the dark Suliotes,' whom he
believed to be nothing else than veritable Bashi Bozooks, of whom he
had seen some appalling sketches in the 'Illustrated London News.'

Several of the fugitives, from among the dark foliage on shore, were
now firing with their muskets and pistols, and had wounded some of
us.  We pulled vigorously towards the beach, and opened a random fire
of musketry upon those lurkers in the jungle; but now there came a
shrill cry from the deck of the yacht.  I looked back, and for a
moment saw the light dress of a lady flutter in the moonlight--and
then there was a heavy splash in the water alongside, as she was
flung overboard.

It was Fanny Clavering, who, impelled by an irresistible curiosity,
had peeped on deck, and had at that instant been seized and tossed
over the gunwale by the pirate who was concealed in the quarter-boat.

This pirate was Zahroun, the galiondgi, the wretch whom I had left in
the Bagnio, but who had escaped from thence, heaven alone knows how
(unless aided by Clavering's ring), to share in the horrors of this
night attack, which he had so carefully and daringly projected.

In another moment we saw this brawny villain standing on the beach,
with the light form of Fanny in his arms (but I knew not that the
girl was Fanny then); and a sickly terror that she might be Laura
palsied every thought and energy.  At arms' length he held her up
triumphantly above him, and uttered a cry of derision and defiance:

'Allah ho Ackbar!'--a cry, half-laugh, half-yell--as he opposed her
light and drooping figure to the levelled muskets which we dared not
discharge.  I sprang into the water, with my claymore in one hand,
and a loaded revolver, with a single barrel but having six chambers,
in the other.  Yet I could not fire a single shot for the same reason
that withheld the truer aims of Belton and our soldiers, lest the
ball might miss the vulture and hit the dove.  Callum Dhu followed me
close, with his rifle cocked; but as we advanced from the water, up
the sandy and pebbled beach, Zahroun ran hurriedly inland, and while
we pursued, once, twice--ay thrice, the dark wood was streaked with
light, as pistols were fired from the jungle at us, but happily
missed.

Now on a little plateau of rock, in the full blaze of the moonlight,
the brawny and bandy-legged figure of Zahroun appeared against the
sky in dark and strong outline.  He grasped his captive by her hair
with his left hand; she was on her knees beside him, and with his
right arm held aloft, he flourished a long keen Turkish handjiar,
which flashed with a blue gleam, for it is a weapon deadly as the
creese of a Malay.

'Now, now, foster-brother!' cried I, to Callum Dhu, in Gaelic, 'by
God's love and your mother's bones, fire true!'

He knelt down on one knee, and quick as thought took aim; his keen
and hawk-like eye glanced along the smooth rifle-barrel--there was a
flash--a sharp report; the form of Zahroun wheeled frantically round
for a moment in the air, and then fell flat beside his rescued
prisoner.

'Dioul!' said Callum, as he coolly reloaded, and cast about his
musket; 'tha chried mi gu'n d'thoir am fear ad tuille trioblaidh
dhuinn!'  (The devil!  I don't think yonder lout will trouble us
more.)

But he was mistaken; for again the figure of Zahreun staggered wildly
up, and he fired a pistol at random, and, in revenge, full at us.  I
felt a sharp twinge in my left side, as if a hot iron had seared me
suddenly.  I became giddy, and as I tottered, the dread of leaving
life and all the world entered my soul, vividly and painfully.

'O Callum!' I exclaimed, and fell backward into his arms; 'the
villain has shot me!'

A volley rang in my ears as the Highlanders poured all their shot and
vengeance on Zahroun, who fell prone to the turf, literally riddled
by rifle-balls.

Callum's deadly aim, by bringing this savage down and arresting his
upraised knife, had averted a great calamity, and saved the life of
Fanny Clavering.  Another second had seen our terrified beauty laid
at the feet of the galiondgi a corpse.

Fanny knew and felt all she owed to Callum, for she had seen him
kneel and aim when others shrank from the perilous task; and as he
sprang lightly up the rock, and tenderly raised her, she impulsively
threw herself with a burst of transport into his arms; for in a
moment she recognized her former acquaintance and guide over the
steep craigs and heath-clad mountains of Glen Ora.

'Callum Dhu--Callum Mac Ian!' she exclaimed, 'and you it is who have
saved me--oh Callum, how I shall love you!'

The features of Callum were strongly marked, and bore evidence of
deep and bitter thoughts, and of ready passions.  His eyes were keen,
and, by turns, fierce and thoughtful, sad, and winning.  His bearing
was soldier-like; his moustaches were smartly trimmed; his eyebrows
were thick and well defined.  Fanny, a constitutional coquette,
brought all her batteries to bear upon the handsome Highlander; and
the moment that her native spirit of fun and flirtation replaced her
terror of death, she would have no other hand and no other arm than
those of her 'preserver, her dear, dear old friend Callum,' to
conduct her to the yacht, and assist her up the side on board.

There, too, I was conveyed in an almost inanimate state; and the
alarm for my safety was greatly increased by the total absence of any
medical attendance.

I shall not describe the grief of honest Callum, or the terror of
Laura Everingham, who during the past conflict had been seated, pale
and in tears, in the cabin of the yacht; nor her cry of anguish, on
seeing the poor young officer of the Highlanders, who had come so
miraculously to their aid, borne senseless and bleeding into her
father's cabin; nor shall I attempt to detail her wild glance and
speechless astonishment, when the blunt baronet returned to tell her
'that this unfortunate fellow was no other than Allan Mac Innon, the
son of old Glen Ora, the wild Highland boy she had known at home!' *
* * * * *

It was long before poor Laura could realize the truth of this
information, or the terrible tidings of Clavering's death, which,
after the hurly-burly was over, she learned from Jack Belton and
Callum Dhu next morning.




CHAPTER LIX.

A GLEAM OF OTHER DAYS.

The firing which we had heard on coming in sight of the yacht was
caused by Sir Horace, who, to soothe his impatience, had been
discharging his carronades.  Moreover, from an old Greek pilot, who
dwelt on the little isle of Coudouri, he had received some hints,
that unless the yacht was speedily got to sea, she might be attacked
some night and plundered.

In this affair several of the yachts-men were killed, and several
severely wounded; but all the Highlanders escaped, save Donald Roy,
who had one of his bare legs slashed by a yataghan; the son of old
Ian Mac Raonuil, who received a pistol-shot through the left
shoulder, and another lad from my glen, a son of Alisdair Mac Gouran,
who was bruised by a musket-butt; but the surgeon of the
_Mahmoudieh_, the Turkish steamer, which came in a day or two after,
and who proved to be a clever Milanese, soon put all our cuts and
scars right, and pronounced me out of danger, though two of my ribs
were broken on the left side, and I was weak as a child from
over-excitement and loss of blood.  His injunctions moreover were,
that I was not to be removed; but there was no chance of that, while
Laura and Fanny hovered like guardian angels near my cabin-door, and
while the burst of gratitude that swelled the heart of Sir Horace, on
finding himself rescued by Her Majesty's troops, and by my personal
exertions, remained in his bosom--all aristocratic, externally
frigid, and exclusive as it was.

'Removed!' he reiterated, 'no, no--he shall make my yacht his
home--and every Highlander shall make it his home.  They must remain
on board till the schooner returns to Constantinople (she had left it
three weeks ago, on her return to England), and I will be accountable
for them all to their commanding officer.  I am an M.P., as well as a
Lieutenant-Colonel--yes, Lieutenant-Colonel of the gallant South
Peddlington Yeomanry, or Prince Alfred's Own Carbineers, the terror
of the mining districts.'

Jack Belton and Sergeant Mac Ildhui with twenty men had a hunt--a
regular stalking-match--over the island for the fugitive pirates; but
not one was to be found; they had all vanished like the three hundred
and sixty idols of Mecca, when the prophet waved his enchanted lance.
Then Jack conceiving that it would be much more pleasant to proceed
to Stamboul in the yacht of Sir Horace, when there were two charming
young ladies on board, with the best of good living, prime port, and
'no end' of pink champagne and hermetically-sealed provisions, than
to march on foot from Rodosdchig to Heraclea, and from thence to the
Golden Horn, warmly seconded the baronet's grateful invitation, and
sent a despatch to Major Catanagh, detailing Sir Horace's wish, and
warmly commending his zeal for Her Majesty's service.  He also sent
the pinnace of the Mahmoudieh for our men's knapsacks, squadbags, and
baggage; and while the lubberly Believers, who formed the crew of
that imperial steamer, were endeavouring, with all the force of their
paddles, engines, and hawser, to drag the yacht into deep water when
the tide flowed, Jack was quietly seated in the cabin--about a month
after all these troubles--beside Fanny at the piano, turning over the
leaves of her music, and gazing sentimentally on her glossy tresses
and white hands, while she warbled away, and in a low voice told him
how 'she dared not seek to offer him, a timid love like hers;' till
our matter-of-fact Jack was quite overcome, and the merry Fanny,
already recovering from the shock of late events, was filled with
laughter at the triumph of her own beauty, and the success of her
brilliant coquetry.

She had already forgotten poor Snobleigh, who, after doing his duty
bravely in the trenches before the Sedan, was found one morning cold
and stiff, with his sword and a half-finished cigar beside him.  He
had been slain in the night by the splinter of a 'whistling-dick,'
_i.e._, a ten-inch shell, and was now taking his eternal rest with
the gallant Blair, and eleven other officers of the Household
Brigade, on Cathcart's Hill.

At last the yacht was got fairly afloat, and was anchored in the
stream.  Her sails were bent anew, her running rigging rove, and the
testy old baronet longed for the time that should find him under
weigh to lay his grievances personally before our ambassador.

Beating against a head-wind, that blew straight from the Bosphorus,
the _Fairy Bell_ was close-hauled on the starboard tack.  It was
evening now; the wind was light; a warm glow bathed all the shore,
and tinted with amber and crimson the waves that rolled upon the
beach from Ogia to the Point of St. Stephen.

I had been insensible, or weak and dozing, for many days and many
nights--in short, I must have been feverish and delirious for some
time previous; and on this evening, when the cool sea-breeze from the
open cabin-window fanned my cheek, and the bright waves ran merrily
past in the setting sunshine, I first became aware of existence; the
painful phantasmagoria of sickness passed away, and I felt conscious
of the rippling water, the warm sun, and the flowers that stood in
vases near me.  I had dreams of Laura Everingham, and of her pretty
face prying into mine--that face, the soft features of which were
almost fading from my memory like a dream of other years.  I
remembered sounds of music that had come to me in sleep; soft
perfumed hands that had touched me; subdued lights, and whispering
voices, and then long, dull, and monotonous silences.  I started and
awoke to life!  Laura's well-remembered voice was in my ear, and
speaking to me--every accent was painfully yet delightfully distinct.

The voice of Laura--could it be?  Was the tender memory of Iola--were
all the events of the past year--but a dream?  Or was the hope that
had brightened other days coming back to me again?

Who has not felt the nameless, the indescribable thrill, amounting
almost to a pang of joy, that shoots through the heart after a long,
and it might be, hopeless separation, when the old familiar voice of
one beloved--a friend, relation, or lover falls upon the ear?

I drew back the curtain--there was a light step on the carpet; a
little hand was placed in mine, and two blue eyes looked kindly and
tenderly on my face with a sad smile, such as Laura alone could give.

'Oh, Laura!' I whispered, in a breathless voice, 'I have suffered
much--very much since we last met.'

'And I, too, have suffered,' said she, weeping.

'You?--oh--I remember now.' I added, pressing a hand upon my brow,
and endeavouring to rally all my thoughts; 'did not some one die--and
then we had some fighting?'

But my brain became giddy and I closed my eyes, yet I still felt the
pressure of Laura's little hand, as it lay trembling in mine.  My
heart vibrated to its pulses, for in this there was a dangerous and
alluring novelty that bewildered me.  Sleep seemed to come upon me
again, and of that interview I remember no more.

Again it was evening, and the sun, as he set behind the faint blue
hills of Roumelia, shed a blaze of yellow glory over the vast extent
of Constantinople, gilding its embattled towers, its tall white
galleried minarets, topped with glittering crescents, its gilded
domes of dazzling brightness, and its dense masses of terraced roofs,
filling every casement apparently with lamps of burnished gold.  The
green foliage of the Seraglio Garden and of the Prince's Island; the
white walls of Scutari, the strong tower of Galata, Pera, the
residence of the Franks, were all sparkling in light; and the forest
of masts and gay ensigns that crowded the Golden Horn seemed to be
countless as the light caiques that shot over the ripples of the
Bosphorus.

Long and black rows of cypresses cast their shadows to the east,
lengthening, as the sun departs; then, hark! the red evening guns
peal from the strong tower of the Seraskier; the ships of war reply,
and the muezzins, from a thousand mosques, shout the shrill cry 'to
prayer!' while over tower and temple, cypress-grove and guarded ship,
over the Seven Towers, the giant façade of the Seraglio, and over all
the sparkling sea the sunlight dies away.

We were at anchor off the city, and stretched upon a cushioned sofa,
I gazed languidly at all this from the stern windows, as the yacht
swung round with the stream.

Laura was beside me; Sir Horace had gone ashore to confer with the
ambassador; Fanny was with Jack Belton in the outer cabin, as the
tinkling of a piano informed me--and, as Laura timidly seated herself
by my side, Callum Dhu, my constant, my kind and faithful attendant,
retired on deck.

I felt happy; for after a separation so long and so hopeless, and
having the certainty of a separation before us again, to be with her
was to enjoy perfect happiness.

'Laura,' said I, 'I feel as if in a dream--while addressing you, and
when uttering your name.'

'A dream?'

'From which I fear to waken.'

'Dream on, then, dear Allan, if it delights you.'

'My life at home was all an agony of suspense and continued
mortifications, even while hope, however faint and slender, lasted;
but how shall I describe the torture that life became, after hope
itself faded away, and I lost you--lost you for ever!'

Laura answered only with her tears, and a long pause, filled up by
tender smiles and mute caressing glances or a pressure of the hand
ensued.  All was forgiven and forgotten.

My letter from Dumbarton she had _never received_.  So this imaginary
neglect, which had stung me so deeply, was at once explained away.

And what of poor Iola?  Was my love for her forgotten quite?

Here, in my own extenuation, I cannot do better than quote a
paragraph from one of the most pleasing of our female writers--one
alike charming for the brilliancy of her style and the beauty of her
person, when referring to a man's first and other loves:--

'He spoke no more than truth when he told you that you were his ideal
of love and loveliness.  The woman who is so beloved may have
successors, as she may have had predecessors; but rivals--properly so
called--she can have none.  Lone and different as the moon in a
heaven full of stars, she remains in the world of that man's heart.
He has known other women and he has known HER.  It may be the love of
his youth, or the wife of his old age--first love, or last love--it
matters not.  _The_ love--the one love that fulfils all the
exigencies of illusion, all the charms of sense, and all the
pleasures of companionship, comes but _once_ in a man's life-time.
The rest are substitutes, make-shifts for love.  To them in vain he
shall affirm or deny that which they desire or dread to hear.  In his
heart a shadow sits enthroned, who for ever bends down to listen--to
watch those who would approach him--and bar them out, with whispers
of sorrowful comparison, and the delight of remembered days.'

During my passion for Iola I believed that Laura's marriage had freed
me from every tie to _her_--a bitter freedom certainly.

The story of Clavering's horrid fate had been told to her long since
by Jack Belton, and on my recovery, her natural sorrow was one of the
first things that piqued and galled me, the more so as poor Tom's
miniature, done in Thorburn's best style, seemed to be constantly
winking at me out of a brooch on Laura's breast.  I referred to this,
and she gave me a sad smile.

'Poor Clavering was well worthy of all my esteem,' said she; '_that_
sentiment he possessed to the full, Allan, but my love--never!  Oh,
never! for it was yours, and yours only, dear Allan,' she added,
sobbing on my shoulder.  'He knew that he possessed my purest esteem
when he married me, and hoped that love would follow the marriage
into which papa's impetuosity hurried me--a vain and too often a
wicked hope.  Advised by some, cajoled by others, quizzed by a few,
seriously urged by the many, and overawed by papa, I consented to
become his wife, and no time was given for reflecting or retracting.
You were lost to me, and other love I had none; so the day came at
last which was to make your Laura Everingham his Laura Clavering--the
fatal day came and the hour!  The vows were said; the mute assent was
given; _this_ gold ring was placed upon my finger--there was a
kissing of friends to undergo--a murmur of voices, and a hum of
congratulation.  I heard the marriage-bells jangling overhead and
felt myself lifted into a carriage.  I had fainted, and remember no
more of that day--but that poor Clavering was all tenderness and
kindness.'

I sighed bitterly at this description; and then felt something of joy
and triumph as Laura placed her cheek caressingly to mine, while with
her sweet eyes the very sunshine seemed to brighten as she smiled
with the same smile that first shed a light upon my path in life, and
taught me that I had a heart to lose.

'Ah, Laura,' I exclaimed, 'I have but one request to make of heaven.'

'And it is----'

'That you will love me as of old.'

'Dearest Allan, my heart never wavered in its love for you; though my
affections were forced upon another, my soul was ever with you.  Take
courage, Allan, you will soon recover, and all will yet be well.'

'I have no wish to recover!' I exclaimed, with a sudden burst of
renewed bitterness.

'Allan!'

'None.  I wish that Zahroun's shot had pierced my heart; I can never
win you, for your father hates me, and will never consent to our
marriage!'

'_He does not hate you_, my dear boy,' exclaimed the hearty voice of
old Sir Horace, as he started forward from a corner of the cabin,
where he had been for some time an unknown observer of this scene;
'he does not hate you--but he loves and regards you, as you deserve
to be loved and regarded, for he owes you a debt of eternal
gratitude; he owes you life and more than life--the safety and honour
of his dear little Laura.  Take her, Allan Mac Innon, and with her
take your old ancestral glen, wood and water, rock and mountain--and
may God bless you both, and make you happy as you deserve to be!'




CHAPTER XL.

FAREWELL.

After the interesting tableau with which the last chapter concludes,
the reader may consider that to say more were a useless task; but
there are others in this narrative for whom I trust he--or she--may
have conceived a little affection as well as for myself.

My friend, Jack Belton, was excellent at all manner of flirtation,
and had an inimitable way of hanging sentimentally over a believing
young lady's chair, and quoting Byron, or even Shelly, and giving her
to know with all point and tenderness how, if

  '----the sunbeams kiss the earth,
    And the moonbeams kiss the sea,
  What are all these kissings worth,
    If _thou_ kiss not _me_?'

And Jack was always sketching or copying music for the girls about
the garrison--_i.e._, making the band-master do so, and passing it
off--like a rogue as he was--for his own.  He was dazzled by Fanny
Clavering; but his surprise and chagrin were great, to find that,
when promenading the deck, she was quite as much enchanted with her
old friend Callum Dhu as with himself.

'A private!' muttered Jack, stroking his bandolined moustache;
'demme, the girl's mad!'

After a time, he discovered that she was more than a match for him--a
perfect flirt, who knew the language of the _fan_, as well as any
girl of Cadiz or Almeria.

In the evenings when they sat on the deck, viewing the scenery of the
Bosphorus, Jack was always by Fanny's side, watching her bright and
beautiful face, and her sparkling eyes, that glanced waggishly
upward, from under the prettiest of pink parasols with a long wavy
fringe.  Here would this coquettish Fanny deal her battery of smiling
shots and wicked shells alternately at Jack Belton and my Highland
follower, whom on some cunning pretence or other she contrived to
keep pretty constantly about her; and on whom, to the unbounded wrath
of Jack, she gave the especial care of her little Maltese spaniel--a
silky-haired and Lillyputian cur, with a pug nose, a snappish eye, a
silver collar and bell, all being the parting gift of some forgotten
lover in the Rifles at Valetta.

Seated thus, with Jack by her side, and the handsome 'Callum in
attendance,' as she phrased it, Fanny would speak to the latter of
his home, of the Highlands, of Glen Ora, and poor Callum's honest
heart was so completely won, that the memory of his dead Minnie was
forgotten.  He could have worshipped this beautiful English lady who
knew so much about the clans and of other times, when that oppression
of the poor, which now crieth to God for vengeance, was unknown in
the land of the Gael; and who said so many kind and bewildering
things to him; and though his plainness, his honesty, and manliness
gained her respect--even as the heavy debt she owed him won her
gratitude--his handsome face and noble figure, with his sincere eye
and respectful manner, made so favourable an impression on the
brilliant Fanny, that though making in her little heart, a vow for
the thousandth time, not to coquette with the poor private soldier,
she could not resist it; and the end of it all was, that the biter
was bitten; for the dazzling Fanny fell in love with my henchman,
even as the friend of my "Lady Lee," the proud and imperious Orelia
Payne, did with her corporal of Dragoons.

Though a coarse red coat covered the broad breast of Callum Dhu,
Fanny felt all his sterling worth, over the artificial flutterers who
had surrounded her so long; and his superior officer, the fashionable
Jack Belton, informed me with undisguised chagrin, 'that while my
demmed fellow was present on deck, Miss Clavering seemed to have eyes
for no one else.'

The end of all this coquetting, promenading, piano-playing, and
music-turning, et cetera was, that our lively flirt consented one
evening to become the lawful spouse of John Belton, Esq., of Her
Majesty's --th Highlanders, but--after secretly pounding enough out
of her many thousands to buy her Celtic lover a commission in the
Turkish contingent--she levanted before daybreak, and was privately
married at the chapel of the British Embassy to--_Callum Dhu_!

This little mésalliance rather soured Sir Horace, and intensely
disgusted Jack, who quite forgot the fag-end of his mess-room ditty,
_anent_ being 'sad about trifles,' and started in a rage to join our
first battalion at Balaclava.

I have procured sick-leave, as the doctors aver that the devil of a
bullet made such a hole in my side that nothing will close or cure it
but my native Highland air.

I am to return home--home to Glen Ora in the _Fairy Bell_, the yacht
of Sir Horace, and _we_ are to be married in due time after our
arrival; for the worthy baronet, after mature consideration, was
pleased to reiterate his consent, without apparently caring a jot
about what that bugbear 'the world,' would say.

The old M.P. had met this personage--'the world,' in Parliament, and
in the borough for which he is Member; he had met him at Almack's; at
Crockford's; at Véry's; at the Opera; at Meurice's in Paris, and he
marvelled in secret what this awful inquisitor, whose whereabouts is
so dangerously vague, would say to the fact of his only daughter and
heiress not becoming the wife of any of the _blasé_ Honourables or
sporting Peers to whom gossip had alternately assigned her; but
simply plain Mrs. Allan Mac Innon, the wife of a hero, with only Her
Majesty's 6_s._ 6_d._ per diem.

He took another glass of Moselle; pondered a little, and thought it
was all for the best.

And so think I!  With Laura for my bride, I would not envy Alexander
of all the Russias on his throne.

The hearths of the people shall again be lit in Glen Ora; from the
wilds of the Far West I will call the survivors home; and there, at
least, the image of God shall no longer give place to grouse and
deer--to sheep and dogs!

Reality never equalled anticipation, say casuists and moralists; but
those fellows seldom smell gunpowder, and moreover never saw, never
loved or were beloved by such a girl as Laura Everingham.



THE END



BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.