“Major Campbell,” he added, “you have known me since I was a child; you know my country and kindred, and you believe I shall never bring you to any blame by a breach of the promise I now make to be with you in full time to be delivered up in the castle.”
At the present day a soldier would no more think of making such a proposal than an officer would dream of entertaining it. But Major Campbell was a kind-hearted man. He had known the prisoner from childhood, and had the fullest confidence in his honesty and good faith. Though aware that the non-appearance of the prisoner would entail the most serious consequences to himself, he unhesitatingly complied with his request, and Macmartin returned to Glasgow, had an interview with his friend, transacted his business, and started before daylight for Edinburgh to redeem his pledge. Being dressed in the uniform of his regiment, he was afraid to travel by the main road lest he should be apprehended as a deserter, and took a circuitous route through the woods; the result was that, though he escaped detection, he failed to reach Edinburgh at the appointed hour.
As Major Campbell approached the city his anxiety increased. He caused the party to march slowly, in the hope that he might still appear; but, finding no pretext for further delay, he was at length obliged to march the remaining prisoners to the Castle. Just as he was in the act of handing them over to the governor of the prison, and before the latter had time to examine whether the number of prisoners tallied with the report, poor Macmartin rushed up, pale with anxiety and fatigue, and trembling with apprehension lest his generous benefactor should suffer through his absence. A few moments later, and all would have been discovered; as it was, he was able to join his fellow-prisoners without attracting the notice of the governor, and to explain the cause of his temporary absence to Major Campbell, who used often to allude to the incident in after-life as a proof of the high spirit of honour which prevailed among his men.
It is satisfactory to add that Macmartin’s life was spared. All the prisoners were tried, and four of their number condemned to be shot; but only one of them underwent this punishment. From the narrative of these mutinies the inference is undeniable that they were caused not so much by the insubordinate spirit of the Highlanders as by the injustice with which they were treated by the military authorities. During the present century our Highland regiments have served in every quarter of the globe, and have been as distinguished for their subjection to discipline as for their valour in the field.
CHAPTER VIII.
OUR HIGHLAND REGIMENTS—continued.
The Highland regiments have always been distinguished for their attachment to their native land. This feeling prevails more or less among the inhabitants of all mountainous countries, where the grand and the sublime in nature is so deeply imprinted on the mind in childhood as, in all after years, to exercise a powerful influence upon the imagination. It was for this reason that the national air of the Swiss, the “Ranz des vaches,” was prohibited in armies composed partly of natives of Switzerland, its familiar notes bringing back their snow-clad mountains and deep glens so vividly to their remembrance that they could no longer resist the temptation to desert in order to revisit the scenes of their infancy. The same deeply-rooted feeling, as we have seen, led the Highlanders at first to confine their services to the land of their birth, and to break forth into mutiny when an unscrupulous government attempted to break faith with them. Once embarked, however, for foreign service, much as they longed for “the land of the mountain and the flood,” a high principle of honour prevented them from deserting their colours. Patiently they waited till permitted to return, when the love of country sometimes displayed itself in a way that reminds the classical reader of Ulysses’ return to his beloved Ithaca. Thus, when the 42nd Highlanders landed at Port Patrick in 1775, after an absence from Scotland of thirty-two years, many of the old soldiers leaped on shore with enthusiasm and kissed the earth, which they grasped in handfuls. This occurrence would be appreciated by the writers of Punch, who, among other quips at the expense of the Scotch and their erratic tendencies, inform us that the North British railway is the only one which yields no returns. As a matter of fact, the exodus from the North is only temporary, and side by side with the love of adventure and gain, an ardent feeling of patriotism is to be found in the heart of every Scotchman. This feeling it is that induces him to toil beneath the burning sun of the tropics, and to visit the most distant parts of the globe in search of that wealth which, once acquired, enables him to “go back” to his native land and enjoy the fruits of his industry.
The warm desire to revisit the land of his birth enables the Highlander to submit to the most trying privations without a murmur, and to resist the strongest temptations to desert to the enemy. During the war carried on by the English against Hyder Ali in India, more than a hundred men of Macleod’s Highlanders fell into the hands of that bloodthirsty despot, who tried in every way to induce them to enter his service. Finding that his most liberal offers had no effect, he tried to break their spirit by acts of cruelty. They were treated with every indignity; their only food was unwholesome rice, doled out to them in quantities barely sufficient to sustain life. They were exposed to the burning heat of the sun by day, and to the unhealthy dews that descend by night. Daily their numbers were reduced by disease; death stared them in the face. They had but to renounce their religion and their country to obtain the amplest rewards from the tyrant into whose hands they had fallen, but they preferred death to dishonour. Such a fact is creditable to the Highlanders; more—it is honourable to humanity itself. There is no spectacle so noble, says an ancient writer, as that of a good man struggling against adversity; these Highland prisoners had to engage in that struggle with little or no hope of deliverance in their time of trouble.