It consisted of three horses of very diminutive size; two of which were intended to carry Miss Graham and myself, and the third to transport our baggage. This last was caparisoned somewhat like a gipsy's ass, with two panniers slung across his back by means of a rope that seemed composed of his own hair. Into one of these panniers the gille trushannich[22] pushed Miss Graham's portmanteau; and finding that mine was too light to balance it on the other side, he added a few turfs to make up the difference. Besides this domestic, we were each provided with a sort of running footman[23], whose office it was to keep pace with our horses and to lead them at any difficult or dangerous step; and our equipage was completed by six or seven sturdy Highlanders, who, in mere courtesy to their chieftain's daughter, had walked fifteen or twenty miles to escort her home.
Thus guarded, we set out; our attendants, seemingly without effort, keeping pace with the horses. With all of them Miss Graham occasionally conversed in their native tongue; and I could perceive that they answered her with perfect readiness and self-possession; but none of them ever accosted her until he was addressed, nor could she prevail with any of them to wear his bonnet while she spoke.
Henry's name was so often repeated by them all, that I felt no small curiosity to learn more minutely the subject of their conversation. But though I had resumed my Gaelic studies under Charlotte's tuition, I was not yet sufficiently initiated to follow the utterance of a native; and my friend had already begun to smile so slily at my questions concerning her brother, that the very circumstance which awakened my curiosity made me half afraid to gratify it. At last, looking as unconscious as I could, I asked Charlotte on what subject her servant was speaking with such ardour. 'My friend Kenneth,' answered she emphatically, 'is reminding me of an expedition of Henry's to extricate his nurse's sheep from the snow. But talk to him yourself; he speaks English.—Kenneth, poor Miss Percy cannot speak Gaelic; so tell her that story in English. I know you like to speak a good word for your friend Henry.'—'If he were here,' said Kenneth, making a gesture of courtesy, which did not absolutely amount to a bow, 'he would need nobody to speak a good word for him to a pretty lady.' He then related very minutely how Henry and he had climbed the rocky side of Benarde; and, from a crag midway in the precipice, had rescued the whole wealth of a Highland cottager.
'And do you in the Highlands think nothing of risking your lives for a few sheep?' said I.
'Do you not think, lady,' said Kenneth, 'that I had a good right to risk my life for my own mother's beasts? And you know the young gentleman was not to be forbidden by the like of me. His life! I would not have ventured a hair of his head for all the sheep in Argyll.' Then speaking to my special attendant, he uttered, with great emphasis, a Gaelic phrase, which obliged him to translate, signifying, that 'a man's friend may be dear, but his foster-brother is a piece of his heart.'
'My mother,' continued Kenneth, 'would have lost the best-beloved lamb of her fold, if Mr Henry had not followed me that day; for the frost had seized me; and I would have laid me down to sleep for a far-off waking; but Mr Henry drew me, and carried me, and I do not know what he made of me, but the first sound I heard was my mother crying, "Och chone a rie, mo cuillean ghaolach." Blessings on his face for her sake! for had it not been for him, she would have had none but a fremd hand to lay the sod on her.' Kenneth had obeyed his lady's command; and he now modestly fell back, as if disclaiming further right to attention.
'Surely Charlotte,' cried I, 'you are the happiest sister in the world. How deep, how indelible, are the attachments which your brother seems to awaken! Though he has been so long a stranger among them, these people are absolutely enthusiastic in his praise. It is strange! I never saw any thing like affection in servants, except in a novel.'
Charlotte looked at me with an aspect of amazement; but she was too polite either to charge me with the true cause of my ill fortune, or to acquit me at the expense of my countrymen. 'Henry will not let his friends here forget him,' said she; 'for, however engaged, he never forgets them. He sends them advice, encouragement, reproof, and whatever else they most need. Poor Henry! I remember a letter which he wrote to acquaint me with one of the severest disappointments of his life—a letter written in the midst of toil and bustle. It contained an order for comfortable bedding for his bed-ridden nurse.'
'But how could your brother,—how could your parents allow a mere prejudice to banish him from such strong attachments? Surely he could have felt no self-reproach for giving evidence against a common thief, a miscreant who attempted his life!'
'I don't know,' said Charlotte, doubtingly. 'Neil Roy was a well-born gentleman; and in many respects a very honest man. Besides, where the punishment is so unjustly disproportioned to the offence, it is not very pleasant to be concerned in inflicting it. However, it was not that affair alone which first drove my brother from home. Cecil was partly right, and partly wrong, in the account she gave you. My mother, you know, was a stranger; and though she was one of the best and most respectable of women, yet it was natural that she should retain some of the prejudices of her country. My father intended settling Henry in a farm, or educating him for the church; but my mother, I believe, would have thought either little less than burying him alive. However, she must have submitted to necessity if the affair of Neil Roy had not assisted her in persuading my father to send Henry away. Her health, too, was so fast declining, that my father could refuse her nothing. So poor Henry was made a peace-offering to my mother's relations, who would never have any connection with her after her marriage with a Highland rebel—as they were pleased to call the best born and the most loyal in the land! Oh, Ellen! it sometimes goes to my heart to think he should owe so much as a shoe-latchet to those who dared to look down upon his father. But whatever may happen, Henry can never regret having obeyed a parent.'