If this suggestion was acted on later, if James was allowed to escape from Edinburgh Castle that he might become a spy, as he did, the lieutenants, the sergeant, and the porter were very scurvily treated. The game of justice was not played with much scrupulousness by the English Government.
IX
A GENTLEMAN OF KNOYDART
The modern autobiographical romance of adventure has perhaps been overdone. The hero is always very young and very brave; he is mixed up with great affairs; he is a true lover; he marries the heroine, and he leaves his Memoirs (at six shillings) to posterity. Stereotyped as is the method, and mechanical as are most of the novels thus constructed, it is interesting to compare with them a set of genuine Memoirs, which actually are what the novels pretend to be.
Colonel John Macdonell, the author of the Memoirs, was of the Scottos family, a branch of the House of Glengarry. Indeed, in the male line the chiefs of Clan Donald are now represented by the head of the Scottos branch, not to enter on the old controversy as to the chiefship of Clan Ranald. Our Colonel was born in 1728, and was therefore a boy of eighteen in 1746. He had already been conversant with great adventures; he had seen Rome and his King, had been thrice wounded in one engagement of the Italian wars, and had relinquished his excellent prospects in the Spanish service to fight for the White Rose. An emissary between the Duke of York (not yet Cardinal) and the Prince, the bearer of a treasure in gold, our hero arrived in the Highlands just after Culloden. Robbed by the wicked Mackenzies, associated with the last rally of the loyal clans, betrayed by a cousin to a Hanoverian dungeon, young Macdonell must needs fall in love, at this juncture, with his future wife. He insults his enemies, cows the traitor who denounced him (or another traitor), marries his lady, retires to Canada, and, dying in 1810, leaves his Memoirs to his children.
What more can be asked from a hero? ‘Oh, Colonel Macdonell and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, which of you imitated the other?’ the critic is tempted to exclaim. But, if the real Colonel John ‘does it more natural,’ the fictitious David Balfour ‘does it with the better grace.’ The good Colonel never, of course, discourses to us about his contending emotions, or dilates, like Mr. Balfour, on the various trains of casuistry which meet in his simple soul. He never describes a place, nor a person, not even when he meets his King, the Duke of York, or the Duc de Fitzjames; he only describes action, vividly enough. He leaves out the love-interest, with the merest allusion; and thus, though the Colonel played a heroic part in romantic occurrences, he did not write a romance. He arranges his recollections ill, ignoring essential facts, and, later, dragging them in very awkwardly. His Memoirs are such as an elderly warrior of his period would naturally pen; they illustrate the chaotic condition of Highland morals and manners in 1745-54, and introduce us to figures familiar in the Prince’s campaign of Scotland.[106]
Scotus, Scottos, or Scothouse, the estate of the Colonel’s family, lies in the south of Knoydart, and on the north side of the entrance to Loch Nevis, just opposite to the Aird of Sleat in Skye. On the north of Knoydart, and on the south shore of Loch Hourn, is Barisdale, the seat of the Colonel’s cousin, Col of Barisdale, the tallest man and the greatest robber, ruffian, and traitor of Clan Donald. Universal testimony, from that of the Chevalier Johnstone to the Whig Manuscript of 1750, applauds the family of Scottos as brave gentlemen, honest in the midst of ‘a den of thieves’ (says our Whig author), loyal when loyalty had most to tempt or discourage it. Our Colonel’s father was a younger son of old Scottos. He resided at Crowlin; concerning his means of life we learn nothing, but the Colonel was always well supplied with money in his boyhood. The clan were Catholics, and John’s father, in 1740, sent the boy, then aged twelve, to be educated at the Scots College in Rome. He was accompanied by a lad of fourteen, Angus Macdonald, of the Clan Ranald family. From Edinburgh they sailed to Boulogne, and in Paris were entertained by Mr. George Innes, head of the Scots College and brother of Thomas Innes, the first really critical writer on early Scottish history. From Paris the pair of boys went, partly by water, partly in a calèche, to Avignon and Marseilles, whence they embarked for Toulon. Here they met with the following adventure, which may be given as an example of the Colonel’s style in narrative, though it had no sequel. Most of his adventures led to nothing, unlike the course of fiction:—
‘One night, as we walked through the streets and were cracking nuts, my comrade, who was somewhat roguish, observed a Monsieur with a large powdered wig, and his hat under his arm, going past us; he took a handful of nuts from his pocket and threw them with all his force at the Frenchman’s head, which unfortunately disordered his wig. Monsieur turned upon and collared him; by good luck a Spaniard was of our party, who instantly ran to the relief of my comrade and gave the Frenchman a severe drubbing. We then adjourned to a tavern, when our Spaniard, calling for a bottle of wine, brought me to a private room, and after bolting the door, to my great terror and surprise, drew a stiletto with his right hand from his left bosom, and made me to understand by signs that with that weapon he would have killed the Frenchman, if he had proved too strong for him. He then took a net purse out of his pocket wherein there appeared to be about a hundred Spanish pistoles, and made me an offer of a part: I made him a low bow, but, not standing in need of it, would not accept of his liberality, for I thought I had enough, being always purse-bearer for myself and companion. My friend made sometimes free with my pockets, merely to try if I should miss anything, and was happy to find that I made a discovery of his tricks by immediately missing what he took in that way.... I bought out of our stock two large folding French knives, by way of carvers, in case of any sinister accident.’
Such an accident of travel presently occurred. A Mr. O’Rourk of Tipperary, on his way to study at Rome, introduced the boys to a certain Mr. Creach, late of the Irish brigade in Spanish service. Mr. Creach, finding Master Macdonell alone in his room, tried to rob him. Macdonell flew at the man; Angus Macdonald entered; the pair threw Creach on the ground, and John had his ‘carver’ out, with a view to cutting Creach’s throat, when O’Rourk interfered with this wild Celtic justice. Arrived in Rome, the boys found that the fame of their exploit had preceded them and done them good service, as they were reckoned lads of spirit.
John, though the youngest pupil in the lowest class of the seminary, was advancing rapidly in his studies when, in the winter of 1743, Prince Charles rode out of Rome to a hunting-party, and, disguised as a Spanish courier, continued his course as far as Antibes. France had invited him, though, when he arrived, she neglected him. John now conceived that, in the event of the Prince’s landing in England, ‘My clan would not be the last to join the young Charles.... This set my brains agoing, which were not very settled of themselves. I got disgusted with the life of a student, and thought I would be much happier in the army.’