"Can you be so dull as not to guess? It was in the ever-memorable and ever-glorious campaign under His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, whom heaven long preserve! It was in 1746, just thirty years ago. Look at these scars,' he added, showing me several sword wounds that were visible among his thick white hair. 'I got these at Culloden, from Bland's dragoons, when fighting for Scotland and King James VIII.'
"'You must be an old man?' said I.
"'Old,' he exclaimed; 'I am barely fifty—young enough to fight and ripe enough to die for my new home, this land of America, to which I was banished as a slave with many more of my clan and kindred.' He was now warming with his subject and the recollections of the past. 'There is,' he resumed, 'a pass in the hills here that reminds me of my native glen in Croy. Often I go there and sit on the 16th April, as the fatal day comes round, when outnumbered, three to one, by British and Hanoverians, the Highland swordsmen went down like grass on Culloden moor, before the withering fire of grape and musketry! Then the river that flows into Lake George seems the Nairn—the water of Alders; yonder open moorland seems the plain of Drummossie, and the distant farm among the pine-trees passes for Culloden House. Afar off in the distance the bastions of Ticonderoga become those of Fort George, that jut into the Moray Firth, and yonder wooded mountain, as yet without a name, seems to me like wild Dun-daviot; and then as with the eyes of a seer, it all comes before me again, that April day, with its terrible memories! Then,' he continued, with flashing eyes, as he pointed across the plain, 'then I seem to see the white battle-smoke rolling over the purple heather, and the far extended lines of the hell-doomed Cumberland reaching from Bland's scarlet horse on the right to the false Lord Ancrum's blue dragoons upon the left—these long and steady lines of infantry, Barrel's, Munro's, the Fusiliers, the Royals, and all the rest, in grim array, three ranks deep, the colours waving in the centre, the bayonets glittering in the sun. On the other,' his voice failed him, and almost with a sob, he continued, 'on the other hand, I see the handsome Prince, the idol of all our hearts, on his white horse, half shimmering through the smoke and morning mist, and then the loyal clans in all their tartans, with target and claymore: Murray on the right, and Perth on the left, in the centre Athol, Lochiel, Appin, Cluny, and Lovat, Keppoch, Glengarry, and others with wild Lord Lewis and old Glenbucket in the rear! Then once again from yonder pine forest I seem to hear the war-pipes playing the onset, and a thrill passes over me. I feel my sword in my hand"—he dashed down his rifle and drew his claymore—'I draw down my bonnet; I hear the wild cheer, the battle cry of Righ Hamish gu bragh! pass along the line, as with heads stooped and targets up, we burst like a thunderbolt through the first line of charged bayonets! In a moment it is dispersed and overborne—it is all dirk and claymore, cutting, hewing and stabbing. On yet, on—and whoop! we break through the second line; on yet, through the third, and the day may be our own! Its fire is deadly and concentrated; I am beside the aged and white-haired Keppoch, my chief—all our people have fallen back in dismay before the fire of musketry and the treachery of the Campbells, who turned our flank. Keppoch waves his bonnet; again I hear him cry My God! my God! have the children of my tribe forsaken me? Again the bullets seem, to pierce me, and we fall to the earth together—and so the wild vision passes away!'
"While pouring forth all this, the Highland exile seemed like one possessed, and in his powerful imagination, I have no doubt that while speaking, the present snow-clad landscape passed away, and in fancy he saw the moor and battle of Culloden all spreading like a bloody panorama before him. Until he sheathed his sword I was not without uneasiness lest he might fill up the measure of his wrath by cutting and carving on me.
"'At last it was all over,' he resumed quietly and sadly; 'and then came the butchery of the wounded by platoon firing and the desecration of the dead. Sorely wounded and faint with loss of blood, I found myself on the skirt of the field near the wall which the Campbells had broken down to enable the light dragoons to turn our right flank.
"'Weary with the battle of the past day, a soldier was leaning against the wall, screwing a fresh flint into the lock of his musket. On seeing me move, he mercifully gave me a mouthful of water from his wooden canteen, and bound up my head with a shred torn from my plaid. I then begged him to help me a little way out of the field, as I was the sole support of an aged mother, and must live if possible. The good fellow said it was as much as his life was worth, were it known that he had spared mine; but as he, too, had an old mother in the lowlands far away, for her sake he would run the risk of assisting me.
"'The morning was yet dark and we were unseen. He half carried, half dragged me for more than a mile, till we reached a thicket where I was in safety from the parties who were butchering the wounded. Some of these burned my mother's hut and bayonetted her on the threshold.
"'I offered the soldier the tassels of my sporran or the silver buttons of my waistcoat as a reward, but he proudly refused them. I then pressed upon him my snuff-mull, on the lid of which my initials were engraved——'
"'And he took it?' said I, eagerly.
"'He did, but with reluctance; and then I asked his name, that I might remember it in my gratitude——'