No, no. Tell us! repeated twenty voices.
You dont know? said Bob, with a fine oratorical movement. Ill tell you then. Theyve been a-sendin clothes, powder, rifles, flour, and whisky to the Creeks! Two full shiploads have they sent. Here it is! yelled Bob, taking another paper from his pocket, and dashing it upon the table.7
A breathless silence reigned during the reading of the important paragraph, while Richards and myself were making almost superhuman efforts to restrain our laughter. Bob continued
You see, men, they want to get the scalpin plunderin thieves back agin over the Mississippi into Georgiaay, and perhaps into Alabama too. And theyre holdin meetins and assemblies in their favour, and say that we owe our independence to these Creeks; and talk about their chiefsone Alexander the Great, and Pericles, and Plato, and suchlike names that we give our niggers. And the cussed Redskins are fightin against another chief whom they call Sultan, and who lives upon Turks island. Where shall we get our salt from now, I should like to know?8
The storm that had been for some time brewing, now burst forth with a roar that shook the rafters of the log-built tavern. Although immeasurably tickled by Bobs speech, Richards and I had struggled successfully with our disposition to laugh. At this moment, however, a stifled giggling was heard behind us, which immediately attracted the attention of Bob and his friends. A spy! a spy! shouted they; and there was a sudden and general rush to the door, through which an unfortunate adherent of the opposite party had sneaked in to witness their proceedings. The poor devil was seized by a dozen hands, and dragged, neck and heel, before Bobs tribunal, to account for his intrusion. He set up a howl of terror, and probably pain, that immediately brought to his assistance a whole regiment of his friends, who were assembled in the adjacent tavern. A furious fight began, from which Richards and myself hastened to escape. We made our way into the kitchen, and thence into a court at the back of the house.
Stop! said a whispering voice, as we were groping about in the darkness; you are close to a pool that would drown an ox. I guess you wont refuse my invitation now?
It was no less a person than Mr Isaac Shifty; and we began to consider whether it would not really be better to put ourselves under his guidance. Indoors we could hear the fight raging furiously. We paused to think what was best to be done. Suddenly, to our great astonishment, the noise of the contest ceased, and was replaced by a dead silence. We hurried through the kitchen to the field of battle, and found that the charm which had so suddenly stilled the fury of an Alabamian election fight, was no other than the arrival of the constable and his assistants, who had suddenly appeared in the midst of the combatants. Their presence produced an effect which scarcely any amount of mere physical force would have been able to bring about; and a single summons in the name of the law to keep the peace, had caused the contending parties to separatethe intruding one retiring immediately to its own headquarters.
We passed a quiet and tolerably comfortable night, except that Bob thought proper to favour us with his society, so that we lay three in one bed. Before break of day he got up, and went away. Tired as we were, it was much later before we followed his example. Upon entering the common room of the tavern, we found it empty, but bearing pretty evident marks of the recent conflict. Chairs, benches, and tables, lay in splinters upon the floor, which was, moreover, plentifully sprinkled with fragments of broken jugs and glasses; and even the bar itself had not entirely escaped damage. On repairing to the stable, to pay Cæsar a visit, I found my gig, to my no small mortification, plastered all over with election squibsHurras for Bob Snags! and the like; while poor Cæsars tail was shorn of every hair, as close and clean as if it had been first lathered and then shaved. Our breakfast, however, was excellentthe weather fine; and we set out upon our journey to Florence under decidedly more favourable auspices than those that attended us on the preceding day.
THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE
The most poetical chronicler would find it impossible to render the incidents of Montroses brilliant career more picturesque than the reality. Among the devoted champions who, during the wildest and most stormy period of our history, maintained the cause of Church and King, the Great Marquis undoubtedly is entitled to the foremost place. Even party malevolence, by no means extinct at the present day, has been unable to detract from the eulogy pronounced upon him by the famous Cardinal de Retz, the friend of Condé and Turenne, when he thus summed up his character:Montrose, a Scottish nobleman, head of the house of Grahamethe only man in the world that has ever realized to me the ideas of certain heroes, whom we now discover nowhere but in the Lives of Plutarchhas sustained in his own country the cause of the King his master, with a greatness of soul that has not found its equal in our age.
But the success of the victorious leader and patriot, is almost thrown into the shade by the noble magnanimity and Christian heroism of the man in the hour of defeat and death. It is impossible now to obliterate the darkest page of Scottish history, which we owe to the vindictive cruelty of the Covenantersa party venal in principle, pusillanimous in action, and more than dastardly in their revenge; but we can peruse it with the less disgust, since that very savage spirit which planned the woful scenes connected with the final tragedy of Montrose, has served to exhibit to the world, in all time to come, the character of the martyred nobleman in by far its loftiest light.
There is no ingredient of fiction in the historical incidents recorded in the following ballad. The indignities that were heaped upon Montrose during his procession through Edinburgh, his appearance before the Estates, and his last passage to the scaffold, as well as his undaunted bearing, have all been spoken to by eyewitnesses of the scene. A graphic and vivid sketch of the whole will be found in Mr Mark Napiers volume, The Life and Times of Montrosea work as chivalrous in its tone as the Chronicles of Froissart, and abounding in original and most interesting materials; but, in order to satisfy all scruple, the authorities for each fact are given in the shape of notes. The ballad may be considered as a narrative of the transactions, related by an aged Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his grandson, shortly before the splendid victory of Killiecrankie:
ICome hither, Evan Cameron,
Come, stand beside my knee
I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
Theres shouting on the mountain side,
Theres war within the blast
Old faces look upon me,
Old forms go trooping past.
I hear the pibroch wailing
Amidst the din of fight,
And my old spirit wakes again
Upon the verge of night!
Twas I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochabers snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose.
Ive told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochys shore.
Ive told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tamed the Lindsays pride;
But never have I told thee yet
How the Great Marquis died!
A traitor sold him to his foes;9
O deed of deathless shame!
I charge thee, boy, if eer thou meet
With one of Assynts name
Be it upon the mountains side,
Or yet within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or backd by armed men
Face him, as thou wouldst face the man
Who wrongd thy sires renown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down!
They brought him to the Watergate10
Hard bound with hempen span,
As though they held a lion there,
And not a fenceless man.
They set him high upon a cart
The hangman rode below
They drew his hands behind his back,
And bared his lordly brow.
Then, as a hound is slippd from leash,
They cheerd the common throng,
And blew the note with yell and shout,
And bade him pass along.
It would have made a brave mans heart
Grow sad and sick that day,
To watch the keen malignant eyes
Bent down on that array.
There stood the Whig west-country lords
In balcony and bow,
There sat their gaunt and witherd dames,
And their daughters all a-row;
And every open window
Was full as full might be,
With black-robed Covenanting carles,
That goodly sport to see!
But when he came, though pale and wan,
He lookd so great and high,11
So noble was his manly front,
So calm his steadfast eye;
The rabble rout forbore to shout,
And each man held his breath,
For well they knew the heros soul
Was face to face with death.
And then a mournful shudder
Through all the people crept,
And some that came to scoff at him,
Now turnd aside and wept.
But onwardsalways onwards,
In silence and in gloom,
The dreary pageant labourd,
Till it reachd the house of doom:
But first a womans voice was heard
In jeer and laughter loud,12
And an angry cry and a hiss arose
From the heart of the tossing crowd:
Then, as the Græme lookd upwards,
He caught the ugly smile
Of him who sold his King for gold
The master-fiend Argyle!
The Marquis gazed a moment,
And nothing did he say,
But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale,
And he turnd his eyes away.
The painted harlot at his side,
She shook through every limb,
For a roar like thunder swept the street,
And hands were clenchd at him,
And a Saxon soldier cried aloud,
Back, coward, from thy place!
For seven long years thou hast not dared
To look him in the face.13
Had I been there with sword in hand
And fifty Camerons by,
That day through high Dunedins streets
Had peald the slogan cry.
Not all their troops of trampling horse,
Nor might of mailéd men
Not all the rebels in the south
Had borne us backwards then!
Once more his foot on Highland heath
Had steppd as free as air,
Or I, and all who bore my name,
Been laid around him there!
It might not be. They placed him next
Within the solemn hall,
Where once the Scottish Kings were throned
Amidst their nobles all.
But there was dust of vulgar feet
On that polluted floor,
And perjured traitors filld the place
Where good men sate before.
With savage glee came Warristoun14
To read the murderous doom,
And then uprose the great Montrose
In the middle of the room.
Now by my faith as belted knight,
And by the name I bear,
And by the red Saint Andrews cross
That waves above us there
Ay, by a greater, mightier oath
And oh, that such should be!
By that dark stream of royal blood
That lies twixt you and me
I have not sought in battle field
A wreath of such renown,
Nor dared I hope, on my dying day,
To win the martyrs crown!
There is a chamber far away
Where sleep the good and brave,
But a better place ye have named for me
Than by my fathers grave.
For truth and right, gainst treasons might,
This hand has always striven,
And ye raise it up for a witness still
In the eye of earth and heaven.
Then nail my head on yonder tower
Give every town a limb
And God who made shall gather them.
I go from you to Him!15
The morning dawnd full darkly,
The rain came flashing down,
And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt
Lit up the gloomy town:
The heavens were speaking out their wrath,
The fatal hour was come,
Yet ever sounded sullenly
The trumpet and the drum.
There was madness on the earth below,
And anger in the sky,
And young and old, and rich and poor,
Came forth to see him die.
Ah, God! That ghastly gibbet!
How dismal tis to see
The great tall spectral skeleton,
The ladder, and the tree!
Hark! hark! It is the clash of arms
The bells begin to toll
He is coming! he is coming!
Gods mercy on his soul!
One last long peal of thunder
The clouds are cleard away,
And the glorious sun once more looks down
Amidst the dazzling day.
He is coming! he is coming!
Like a bridegroom from his room,16
Came the hero from his prison
To the scaffold and the doom.
There was glory on his forehead,
There was lustre in his eye,
And he never walkd to battle
More proudly than to die:
There was colour in his visage,
Though the cheeks of all were wan,
And they marvelld as they saw him pass,
That great and goodly man!
He mounted up the scaffold,
And he turnd him to the crowd;
But they dared not trust the people,
So he might not speak aloud.
But he lookd upon the heavens,
And they were clear and blue,
And in the liquid ether
The eye of God shone through:
Yet a black and murky battlement
Lay resting on the hill,
As though the thunder slept within
All else was calm and still.
The grim Geneva ministers
With anxious scowl drew near,17
As you have seen the ravens flock
Around the dying deer.
He would not deign them word nor sign,
But alone he bent the knee;
And veild his face for Christs dear grace
Beneath the gallows-tree.
Then radiant and serene he rose,
And cast his cloak away:
For he had taen his latest look
Of earth, and sun, and day.
A beam of light fell oer him,
Like a glory round the shriven,
And he climbd the lofty ladder
As it were the path to heaven.18
Then came a flash from out the cloud,
And a stunning thunder roll,
And no man dared to look aloft,
For fear was on every soul.
There was another heavy sound,
A hush and then a groan;
And darkness swept across the sky
The work of death was done!