CHAPTER II.
MY HERO--BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE.
There was one subject, and one only, upon which, boy though I was, I dared to differ from my grandfather. And that related to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the so-called "rebellion" of 1745.
If it was rebellion for Prince Charles to attempt in fair and honest fight to win back the throne that belonged of right to the ancient Stuart line, then was I, at the age of seven, one of the rankest little rebels that ever waved a wooden sword and cut off the heads of tansies, imagining every one of them to be a fallen foe.
Nor could you have wondered at it, had you but heard the sweet and plaintive songs my mother sang,
"As she rocked me in my cradle, Or crooned* me on her knee-- And I would not sleep, she sang so sweet, Those dear old songs to me."
* Crooned: sang low lullabies.
It has been said, dear boy and girl readers, that I, the author of this book, have Jacobite tendencies. This is not the truth. I love the Queen as only Scotsmen can love her; I have served her loyally, and would to-morrow, or to-night, spill my last drop of blood fighting for her and my native land. I love her all the better because she has some of the old Stuart blood in her veins. _But_--listen--had I been a man, or even a lad, in the --45, I would have done as my ancestors, the Gordons, did, side by side with those of Lord George Gordon Byron--I would have fought till the bitter end for Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Yes, and I love the Queen as much as I hate and despise the atrocious memory of ----, but stay! I will not even write his name in the same sentence as that of her kind Majesty.
The memory, I was going to say, of the "bloody Duke of Cumberland," who stained our Highland heather with the blood of old, white-haired men and helpless babies.
It is told of this fiend, that, while walking across the fatal field of Culloden after the battle, and accompanied by one of his officers, a poor Highland soldier sat in the agonies of death against a bank, looking towards them.
"Shoot me that grinning Scot!" cried the Duke.
The reply of the officer was that of a brave Englishman and a true soldier.
"Your Grace," he said, "I am your humble servant, but not your executioner."
The inhuman coward--all cruel men are cowards--then seized a musket from one of his attendants and, rushing forward, shot the man himself.
* * * * *
One hundred and fifty years have passed and gone since the battle in which the once bright sun of the Royal Stuarts set behind the red clouds of battle on Culloden Moor, but the memory of the terrible atrocities committed by the Duke and his minions dwells in the hearts of the Highlanders, as if they had been committed but yester e'en.
Tourists to the land of green heath and shaggy wood see or know little, if anything, of this. The Scots are far too proud to speak of what their forefathers suffered after the "rebellion," to strangers or foreigners. But in many a humble cottage home, by mountain, stream, or sea, those sweet old Jacobite songs are still sung, and their pathetic music, and no less pathetic words, never fail to bring the "saut,* saut tear" to the eye of the listener.
* Salt.
And the songs never fail to lead to a story of the terrible times, told by the low fire of logs and peats that burns upon the hearth; told, in all probability, by the head of the house to the big-eyed, eager-faced bairnies that gather round his knee, and drink in every word. But the ending of the true tale is invariably somewhat as follows:
"And now, children, let us thank our Heavenly Father that we live in times of peace, under the reign of a pious Queen, and shall never see the babe torn from the young mother's arms to be tossed on bayonets, while she is dragged to death and worse. Come, bring the Book, and then for bed."
The Scots are of the poetic temperament. This, among those who dwell amidst the wild mountains, is somewhat imbued with superstition, but all are musical to the core and from the core. There is just this difference between the Celt and the Saxon, or purely English--the latter have no natural love for music until it is taught to them; even then, seldom indeed it is a sacred fire burning on the heart as its altar, but your Celt, be he Scotch or Irish, sings without book-teaching, sings as naturally as does the mavis in the bonnie woods, or the lintie on the golden furze.
Ah! me, but those old, old songs are plaintive and sorrowful even to a degree, yet tender and sweet beyond compare. They seem to have been written with the very heart's blood of the heroes who died for their native land.
But the fate of Prince Charlie, instead of crushing the patriotism of his countrymen, only intensified it, and around his memory are woven many of the sweetest, saddest ballads we possess. Some South Britons pretend to despise these--Germans or Italians do not--but bide a wee till war comes, and this country has to bleed and to suffer, and then even John Bull will know the power that song has, either to cheer the soldier in his camp, or lead him on to death or victory.
On hearing the soldiers singing in their camp on the night before the battle of Inkermann, someone feelingly wrote:
"'T was strange in that dark hovel drear, With war's impending horrors near, Those homely, doric tones to hear; Or list the vocal flow Of sad, but sacred, home-love, blent With chivalrous and hold intent, And thoughts on deadly conflict bent, And battle's wildest throe.
"No recreant will that soldier prove Within whose valiant breast The gentle thoughts of woman's love, With warlike ardour rest."
Well, I am not ashamed to confess that it was the songs sung by mother, or "crooned," rather than sung, that made a little rebel of me at seven years of age. But the stories of the awful tragedies and sufferings of the clans, with many of which I count kinship, had much to do with it. The story of our Prince and his deeds of valour took strong hold of an imaginative child.
That sweet old song, "He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel," how well do I recollect it of my father, as he sang it. Let me give but a verse or so, it is so expressive of the feeling of those by-gone warlike days.
[Illustration: HE'S OWRE THE HILLS THAT I LO'E WEEL.]
HE'S OWRE THE HILLS THAT I LO'E WEEL.
DUET.
1st VOICE. With animation.
He s owre the hills that I lo'e weel. He s owre the hills we
2nd VOICE.
daur na name; He's owre the hills a - yont Dumblane, Wha soon will
get his welcome hame. My Fa-ther's gane to fight for Him, My
brith-ers win - na bide at hame, My mith-er greets* and
prays for them, And 'deed she thinks they're no to blame.
He's owre the hills. &c The whigs may scoff, and the whigs may jeer, But ah! that love maun be sincere, Which still keeps true whate'er betide, And for his sake leaves a' beside.
* Greets--Weeps.
There is something so thoroughly expressive of true patriotism in those last two lines:
"My mither greets and prays for them, And 'deed she thinks they're no' to blame."
That Scottish mother is like a Spartan of old. The Spartan handed her son his large shield before he went to battle. "Go, my son," she would say, "to battle against the foe. You fight for the ashes of your fathers, for the temples of your gods. Here is your shield. Come back with it or on it."
And the Highland mother says, "Here is your sword, my own boy. Never heed my foolish tears. Go fight for your Prince, and lawful King, and I will stay at home to pray."
And even the young soldier's sister must speak with a dash of naiveté and pluck:
"What lads ere did, our laddies will do, Were I a laddie, I'd follow him too."
* * * * *
But the martial fire and spirit in that true soldier-song:
"Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philabeg,* Down by the Tummel and banks o' the Garry, Saw ye the lads, wi' their bonnets and white cockades, Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie?"
so fired my young blood, as my father sang it, that it took a whole hour in the field of tansies with my wooden sword to allay my excitement.
* Kilt.
I followed all the story of our Prince, and the humour of Johnnie Cope's defeat used to make me chuckle with glee. In my imagination I could see the wild and impetuous rush of the Highlanders, dashing on like a mountain torrent that nothing could withstand. Wedge-shaped was their first formation, firing their pistols but once, then dashing them at the heads of the foe, as they drew their claymores and dirks, and charged, while slogan after slogan rent the morning air. I could see the foe as they backward reeled, dazed and astonished; I could see the Prince, with his bonnie yellow hair floating on the breeze, as he led on his fiery soldiers. Then the flight and the race.
Ah! it was in the race that Johnnie Cope, the general, showed his skill. He won that, though he couldn't win the fight. He not only outstripped his pursuers, but took the cake from his own followers. They literally were his followers now. And the song makes Cope say of the Highlanders:
"If I'd stayed any longer, They'd have broken my legs, So I bade them good-day In the morning."
But then, my hero's story took the wrong turning. The clansmen quarrelled among themselves, and many forsook his cause. Thus--disaster.
A disaster that culminated at Culloden.* In his beautiful song--wedded to music so charming--the Anglo-Scottish bard, Lord Byron, speaks of the Gordons, his ancestors, thus:
"Shades of the dead, have I not heard your voices Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale? Surely the soul of some hero rejoices, And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale. Round Loch-na-garr, while the stormy mist gathers, Winter presides in his cold, icy car; Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers! They dwell 'mid the tempests of dark Loch-na-garr.
"Ill-starred, though brave, did no vision foreboding Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause? Ah! were ye then destined to die at Culloden, Tho' victory crowned not your fall with applause? Still were ye happy, in death's earthy slumbers; You rest with your clan in the caves of Brae-mar, The pibroch resounds to the piper's loud numbers, Your deeds to the echoes of dark Loch-na-garr."
* To English readers: The "o" is long, as it is in Balmoral and Oban.
But the sorrows of my hero Prince made him all the dearer to me.
I used to cry when my mother sang that touching ballad, "O, wae 's me!* for Prince Charlie."
* Woe is me!
I could in fancy see the little bird coming to the hall-door, and singing my Prince's sorrow, and the old man, whose son was slain, weeping as he listens to that "lilt o' dool and sorrow."
"O! when I heard the wee bird sing, The tears came dripping rarely, I took the bonnet aff my head, For weel I lo'ed Prince Charlie."
And the birdie sings on:
"Dark night came on, the tempest howled Got o'er the woods and valleys, And where was't that our Prince lay doon, Whose home should've been a palace?
"He rolled him in his Highland plaid That covered him but sparely, And slept beneath a bush o' broom, O! wae 's me for Prince Charlie!"
But my mother consoled me when she told me of his wanderings through the Highland wilds, and that although
"O'er hills that were by right his own, He roamed a weary stranger; On every side pressed hard by want, On every side by danger,"
still he ever found a kindly welcome in the houses, or rather huts, of the peasantry, who shielded him and bielded him, though thirty thousand pounds was offered for his head. Then came his romantic escape and "Flora Macdonald's Lament."
But one winter's evening--I mind it well--while I sat at Auld-da's fireside, I broached the subject of Prince Charlie for the first time---and for the last.
He kicked a burning log till the sparks flew up the chimney, and I could see a red spot burning on his cheek.
But he soon cooled down.
"Ah! dear boy," he said, "never speak of the Pretender to me. Your father's kin were rebels to a man, but your mother's forbears, the Robertsons of the Braes of R----, were royalists all.
"It was for this very reason that, when compelled to become a soldier, I joined the 1st Regiment or Royal Scots.
"So old is this regiment, Williamie, that it was called for fun, 'Pontius Pilate's Guards.'
"That regiment was at Culloden, on the right and royal side, and in it fought your ancestors, boy, and mine. Robertsons even from Struan itself.
"The Duke of Kent was my colonel. The Duke of Kent was our dear Queen's father, a daughter of the regiment we well might call her."
* * * * *
I remembered then that once when the Queen was ailing, I had seen the old man shed tears, and it occurred to me now to put the following silly question:
"Auld-da, do you love the Queen--much?"
At this moment I think I can see the mild blue eyes he turned upon me.
"Love her, boy? Love my Queen? Don't I pray for her every night? And I had the high honour of once talking to her when she was little more than a baby. She a baby--I a simple soldier. Yes, boy--I--love--the Queen.
"Her father was the means of saving my life," he said, after a pause.
"Tell me that story."
"Not to-night. Some other time.
"But as for your Prince Charlie," he added, giving that log of wood another kick, "why, that much for him and his cause, which ended even as that log will end, in smoke and sparks----"
"And in blood," I ventured to put in.
He paid no heed to that remark.
"There's a verse of an old Scotch song," he said, "that goes thus:
"'O, but you've been long o' coming, Long, long, long o' coming; O, but you've been long o' coming, But you're welcome, Royal Charlie.'
"Well, we soldiers of the gallant 1st used to sing that, but we put the 'royal' in the right place:
"'O, but you've been long in coming, But you're _royal-welcome_, Charlie.'"
I was silent for a time, now. I was watching the sparks and the rolling smoke.
But I was just as much a rebel as ever.
"So," I said at last, "my father's clan, the Gordons, fought at Culloden, and my mother's, the Robertsons, also."
"True, boy, true, and both under a different banner."
"How funny!"
"Ah! laddie, war is a terrible thing, and there was little fun at Culloden, and less after it.
"And our family on the Braes of R---- would have been killed, and their houses laid in ashes by the Pretender's flying and vanquished troops, had not a special Providence seemed to intervene.
"And thereby hangs a tale, dear child."
"A story, Auld-da? A story with fighting in it? O, tell us, tell us."
"To-morrow, then, boy, to-morrow, if we are both spared."
So I said good-night, and left him dreaming over the fire, thinking over the earthly past, and the future that, for him, was all beyond the grave.