A Legend of Montrose

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"The foregoing account of this unfortunate transaction, I am well aware,
differs materially from the account given by Wishart, who alleges that
Stewart had laid a plot for the assassination of Montrose, and that he
murdered Lord Kilpont in consequence of his refusal to participate in
his design. Now, I may be allowed to remark, that besides Wishart having
always been regarded as a partial historian, and very questionable
authority on any subject connected with the motives or conduct of those
who differed from him in opinion, that even had Stewart formed such a
design, Kilpont, from his name and connexions, was likely to be the
very last man of whom Stewart would choose to make a confidant and
accomplice. On the other hand, the above account, though never, that I
am aware, before hinted at, has been a constant tradition in the family;
and, from the comparative recent date of the transaction, and the
sources from which the tradition has been derived, I have no reason to
doubt its perfect authenticity. It was most circumstantially detailed as
above, given to my father, Mr. Stewart, now of Ardvoirlich, many years
ago, by a man nearly connected with the family, who lived to the age of
100. This man was a great-grandson of James Stewart, by a natural son
John, of whom many stories are still current in this country, under his
appellation of JOHN DHU MHOR. This John was with his father at the time,
and of course was a witness of the whole transaction; he lived till
a considerable time after the Revolution, and it was from him that
my father's informant, who was a man before his grandfather, John dhu
Mhor's death, received the information as above stated.

"I have many apologies to offer for trespassing so long on your
patience; but I felt a natural desire, if possible, to correct what I
conceive to be a groundless imputation on the memory of my ancestor,
before it shall come to be considered as a matter of History. That he
was a man of violent passions and singular temper, I do not pretend to
deny, as many traditions still current in this country amply verify;
but that he was capable of forming a design to assassinate Montrose, the
whole tenor of his former conduct and principles contradict. That he was
obliged to join the opposite party, was merely a matter of safety, while
Kilpont had so many powerful friends and connexions able and ready to
avenge his death.

"I have only to add, that you have my full permission to make what use
of this communication you please, and either to reject it altogether, or
allow it such credit as you think it deserves; and I shall be ready at
all times to furnish you with any further information on this subject
which you may require, and which it may be in my power to afford.

"ARDVOIRLICH, 15TH JANUARY, 1830."

The publication of a statement so particular, and probably so correct,
is a debt due to the memory of James Stewart; the victim, it would
seem, of his own violent passions, but perhaps incapable of an act of
premeditated treachery.

ABBOTSFORD, 1ST AUGUST, 1830.




II. INTRODUCTION (Supplement).

Sergeant More M'Alpin was, during his residence among us, one of the
most honoured inhabitants of Gandercleugh. No one thought of disputing
his title to the great leathern chair on the "cosiest side of the
chimney," in the common room of the Wallace Arms, on a Saturday evening.
No less would our sexton, John Duirward, have held it an unlicensed
intrusion, to suffer any one to induct himself into the corner of
the left-hand pew nearest to the pulpit, which the Sergeant regularly
occupied on Sundays. There he sat, his blue invalid uniform brushed
with the most scrupulous accuracy. Two medals of merit displayed at his
button-hole, as well as the empty sleeve which should have been occupied
by his right arm, bore evidence of his hard and honourable service.
His weatherbeaten features, his grey hair tied in a thin queue in the
military fashion of former days, and the right side of his head a little
turned up, the better to catch the sound of the clergyman's voice, were
all marks of his profession and infirmities. Beside him sat his sister
Janet, a little neat old woman, with a Highland curch and tartan plaid,
watching the very looks of her brother, to her the greatest man upon
earth, and actively looking out for him, in his silver-clasped Bible,
the texts which the minister quoted or expounded.

I believe it was the respect that was universally paid to this worthy
veteran by all ranks in Gandercleugh which induced him to choose
our village for his residence, for such was by no means his original
intention.

He had risen to the rank of sergeant-major of artillery, by hard service
in various quarters of the world, and was reckoned one of the most tried
and trusty men of the Scotch Train. A ball, which shattered his arm in
a peninsular campaign, at length procured him an honourable discharge.
with an allowance from Chelsea, and a handsome gratuity from the
patriotic fund. Moreover, Sergeant More M'Alpin had been prudent as well
as valiant; and, from prize-money and savings, had become master of a
small sum in the three per cent consols.

He retired with the purpose of enjoying this income in the wild Highland
glen, in which, when a boy, he had herded black cattle and goats, ere
the roll of the drum had made him cock his bonnet an inch higher, and
follow its music for nearly forty years. To his recollection, this
retired spot was unparalleled in beauty by the richest scenes he had
visited in his wanderings. Even the Happy Valley of Rasselas would have
sunk into nothing upon the comparison. He came--he revisited the loved
scene; it was but a sterile glen, surrounded with rude crags, and
traversed by a northern torrent. This was not the worst. The fires had
been quenched upon thirty hearths--of the cottage of his fathers
he could but distinguish a few rude stones--the language was almost
extinguished--the ancient race from which he boasted his descent
had found a refuge beyond the Atlantic. One southland farmer, three
grey-plaided shepherds, and six dogs, now tenanted the whole glen, which
in his youth had maintained, in content, if not in competence, upwards
of two hundred inhabitants.

In the house of the new tenant, Sergeant M'Alpin found, however, an
unexpected source of pleasure, and a means of employing his social
affections. His sister Janet had fortunately entertained so strong a
persuasion that her brother would one day return, that she had refused
to accompany her kinsfolk upon their emigration. Nay, she had consented,
though not without a feeling of degradation, to take service with the
intruding Lowlander, who, though a Saxon, she said, had proved a kind
man to her. This unexpected meeting with his sister seemed a cure
for all the disappointments which it had been Sergeant More's lot to
encounter, although it was not without a reluctant tear that he
heard told, as a Highland woman alone could ten it, the story of the
expatriation of his kinsmen.

She narrated at great length the vain offers they had made of advanced
rent, the payment of which must have reduced them to the extremity of
poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live
and die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which
had announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the
strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind
howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled
to the tune of "HA TIL MI TULIDH" (we return no more), with which the
emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries
of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often
heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival.
A bard, the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the
natives of the glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of
the veteran, and of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:--

Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander,
Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border?
Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander,
Wasting the glen that was once in fair order?

What added to Sergeant More M'Alpin's distress upon the occasion was,
that the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition
and common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of
the expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More's
principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what
degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now
wrought in his sentiments towards him.

"I cannot curse him," he said, as he rose and strode through the room,
when Janet's narrative was finished--"I will not curse him; he is the
descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man
hear me name his name again." And he kept his word; for, until his dying
day, no man heard him mention his selfish and hard-hearted chieftain.

After giving a day to sad recollections, the hardy spirit which had
carried him through so many dangers, manned the Sergeant's bosom against
this cruel disappointment. "He would go," he said, "to Canada to his
kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of
their fathers. Janet," he said, "should kilt her coats like a leaguer
lady; d--n the distance! it was a flea's leap to the voyages and marches
he had made on a slighter occasion."

With this purpose he left the Highlands, and came with his sister as far
as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada.
But winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a
spring passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among
us for the few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the
respectable old man met with deference and attention from all ranks
of society; and when spring returned, he was so satisfied with his
quarters, that he did not renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was
afraid of the sea, and he himself felt the infirmities of age and hard
service more than he had at first expected. And, as he confessed to the
clergyman, and my worthy principal, Mr. Cleishbotham, "it was better
staying with kend friends, than going farther, and faring worse."

He therefore established himself and his domicile at Gandercleugh, to
the great satisfaction, as we have already said, of all its inhabitants,
to whom he became, in respect of military intelligence, and able
commentaries upon the newspapers, gazettes, and bulletins, a very
oracle, explanatory of all martial events, past, present, or to come.

It is true, the Sergeant had his inconsistencies. He was a steady
jacobite, his father and his four uncles having been out in the
forty-five; but he was a no less steady adherent of King George, in
whose service he had made his little fortune, and lost three brothers;
so that you were in equal danger to displease him, in terming Prince
Charles, the Pretender, or by saying anything derogatory to the dignity
of King George. Further, it must not be denied, that when the day of
receiving his dividends came round, the Sergeant was apt to tarry longer
at the Wallace Arms of an evening, than was consistent with strict
temperance, or indeed with his worldly interest; for upon these
occasions, his compotators sometimes contrived to flatter his
partialities by singing jacobite songs, and drinking confusion to
Bonaparte, and the health of the Duke of Wellington, until the Sergeant
was not only flattered into paying the whole reckoning, but occasionally
induced to lend small sums to his interested companions. After such
sprays, as he called them, were over, and his temper once more cool, he
seldom failed to thank God, and the Duke of York, who had made it much
more difficult for an old soldier to ruin himself by his folly, than had
been the case in his younger days.

It was not on such occasions that I made a part of Sergeant More
M'Alpin's society. But often, when my leisure would permit, I used to
seek him, on what he called his morning and evening parade, on which,
when the weather was fair, he appeared as regularly as if summoned by
tuck of drum. His morning walk was beneath the elms in the churchyard;
"for death," he said, "had been his next-door neighbour for so many
years, that he had no apology for dropping the acquaintance." His
evening promenade was on the bleaching-green by the river-side, where
he was sometimes to be seen on an open bench, with spectacles on
nose, conning over the newspapers to a circle of village politicians,
explaining military terms, and aiding the comprehension of his hearers
by lines drawn on the ground with the end of his rattan. On other
occasions, he was surrounded by a bevy of school-boys, whom he sometimes
drilled to the manual, and sometimes, with less approbation on the part
of their parents, instructed in the mystery of artificial fire-works;
for in the case of public rejoicings, the Sergeant was pyrotechnist (as
the Encyclopedia calls it) to the village of Gandercleugh.

It was in his morning walk that I most frequently met with the veteran.
And I can hardly yet look upon the village footpath, overshadowed by
the row of lofty elms, without thinking I see his upright form advancing
towards me with measured step, and his cane advanced, ready to pay me
the military salute--but he is dead, and sleeps with his faithful Janet,
under the third of those very trees, counting from the stile at the west
corner of the churchyard.

The delight which I had in Sergeant M'Alpin's conversation, related
not only to his own adventures, of which he had encountered many in the
course of a wandering life, but also to his recollection of numerous
Highland traditions, in which his youth had been instructed by his
parents, and of which he would in after life have deemed it a kind of
heresy to question the authenticity. Many of these belonged to the wars
of Montrose, in which some of the Sergeant's ancestry had, it seems,
taken a distinguished part. It has happened, that, although these civil
commotions reflect the highest honour upon the Highlanders, being indeed
the first occasion upon which they showed themselves superior, or even
equal to their Low-country neighbours in military encounters, they have
been less commemorated among them than any one would have expected,
judging from the abundance of traditions which they have preserved upon
less interesting subjects. It was, therefore, with great pleasure, that
I extracted from my military friend some curious particulars respecting
that time; they are mixed with that measure of the wild and wonderful
which belongs to the period and the narrator, but which I do not in the
least object to the reader's treating with disbelief, providing he
will be so good as to give implicit credit to the natural events of the
story, which, like all those which I have had the honour to put under
his notice, actually rest upon a basis of truth.




III. A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.




CHAPTER I.

Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun,
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks.--BUTLER.

It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which
agitated Britain during the seventeenth century, that our tale has its
commencement. Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of
intestine war, although its inhabitants were much divided in political
opinions; and many of them, tired of the control of the Estates of
Parliament, and disapproving of the bold measure which they had
adopted, by sending into England a large army to the assistance of
the Parliament, were determined on their part to embrace the earliest
opportunity of declaring for the King, and making such a diversion
as should at least compel the recall of General Leslie's army out of
England, if it did not recover a great part of Scotland to the King's
allegiance. This plan was chiefly adopted by the northern nobility, who
had resisted with great obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and
Covenant, and by many of the chiefs of the Highland clans, who conceived
their interest and authority to be connected with royalty, who had,
besides, a decided aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion, and
who, finally, were in that half savage state of society, in which war is
always more welcome than peace.

Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent
causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation, which the Scotch
Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands, began to assume a
more steady, avowed, and systematic form, as part of a general military
system.

Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the
moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it. They
considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader or name of
consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists,
or even to direct the efforts of those desultory bands, whom love of
plunder, perhaps, as much as political principle, had hurried into
measures of hostility. It was generally hoped that the quartering a
sufficient number of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland
line, would have the effect of restraining the mountain chieftains;
while the power of various barons in the north, who had espoused the
Covenant, as, for example, the Earl Mareschal, the great families of
Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the Grants, and other Presbyterian clans,
might counterbalance and bridle, not only the strength of the Ogilvies
and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine, but even the potent family
of the Gordons, whose extensive authority was only equalled by their
extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.

In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the
spirit of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence
of the Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention
of Estates was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in
the Highlands, already exorbitant, had been still farther increased
by concessions extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was
indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise
than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue
of state, than to control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the
numbers of his clan, and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it
was led, might, it was supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of
their chief; and as the Campbells had already severely humbled several
of the neighbouring tribes, it was supposed these would not readily
again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.

Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--Fifeshire being in a
peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
north of the Forth and Tay,--the Scottish Convention of Estates saw no
danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the
English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means
of which accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the
defensive, when in full career of triumph and success.

The causes which moved the Convention of Estates at this time to take
such an immediate and active interest in the civil war of England, are
detailed in our historians, but may be here shortly recapitulated. They
had indeed no new injury or aggression to complain of at the hand of the
King, and the peace which had been made between Charles and his subjects
of Scotland had been carefully observed; but the Scottish rulers were
well aware that this peace had been extorted from the King, as well by
the influence of the parliamentary party in England, as by the terror
of their own arms. It is true, King Charles had since then visited the
capital of his ancient kingdom, had assented to the new organization of
the church, and had distributed honours and rewards among the leaders of
the party which had shown themselves most hostile to his interests; but
it was suspected that distinctions so unwillingly conferred would be
resumed as soon as opportunity offered. The low state of the English
Parliament was seen in Scotland with deep apprehension; and it was
concluded, that should Charles triumph by force of arms against his
insurgent subjects of England, he would not be long in exacting from the
Scotch the vengeance which he might suppose due to those who had set
the example of taking up arms against him. Such was the policy of the
measure which dictated the sending the auxiliary army into England; and
it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory of their reasons for giving
this timely and important aid to the English Parliament. The English
Parliament, they said, had been already friendly to them, and might
be so again; whereas the King, although he had so lately established
religion among them according to their desires, had given them no ground
to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had found his promises
and actions inconsistent with each other. "Our conscience," they
concluded, "and God, who is greater than our conscience, beareth us
record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of both
nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a legal
way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell, the
Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs,
the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET
UNICUM REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy."

Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in
certain future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we
shall proceed to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal
influence with the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which
they entertained of the King's good faith.

The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by
a poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly
by Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until
they had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even
of country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier's
principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel,
or to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men
of this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character--NULLUM VITAE GENUS
ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPECTU MERCEDE CONDUCTI,
MILITANT. To these mercenary soldiers, as well as to the needy gentry
with whom they were mixed in command, and who easily imbibed the same
opinions, the success of the late short invasion of England in 1641 was
a sufficient reason for renewing so profitable an experiment. The good
pay and free quarters of England had made a feeling impression upon the
recollection of these military adventurers, and the prospect of again
levying eight hundred and fifty pounds a-day, came in place of all
arguments, whether of state or of morality.

Another cause inflamed the minds of the nation at large, no less than
the tempting prospect of the wealth of England animated the soldiery.
So much had been written and said on either side concerning the form
of church government, that it had become a matter of infinitely more
consequence in the eyes of the multitude than the doctrines of
that gospel which both churches had embraced. The Prelatists and
Presbyterians of the more violent kind became as illiberal as the
Papists, and would scarcely allow the possibility of salvation beyond
the pale of their respective churches. It was in vain remarked to
these zealots, that had the Author of our holy religion considered any
peculiar form of church government as essential to salvation, it would
have been revealed with the same precision as under the Old Testament
dispensation. Both parties continued as violent as if they could have
pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their intolerance,
Laud, in the days of his domination, had fired the train, by attempting
to impose upon the Scottish people church ceremonies foreign to their
habits and opinions. The success with which this had been resisted, and
the Presbyterian model substituted in its place, had endeared the latter
to the nation, as the cause in which they had triumphed. The Solemn
League and Covenant, adopted with such zeal by the greater part of the
kingdom, and by them forced, at the sword's point, upon the others, bore
in its bosom, as its principal object, the establishing the doctrine and
discipline of the Presbyterian church, and the putting down all error
and heresy; and having attained for their own country an establishment
of this golden candlestick, the Scots became liberally and fraternally
anxious to erect the same in England. This they conceived might be
easily attained by lending to the Parliament the effectual assistance of
the Scottish forces. The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful party in
the English Parliament, had hitherto taken the lead in opposition to the
King; while the Independents and other sectaries, who afterwards, under
Cromwell, resumed the power of the sword, and overset the Presbyterian
model both in Scotland and England, were as yet contented to lurk under
the shelter of the wealthier and more powerful party. The prospect
of bringing to a uniformity the kingdoms of England and Scotland in
discipline and worship, seemed therefore as fair as it was desirable.