yet was his form as erect and his mind as clear as when in youth he trod his native glens.
My father soon drew him into a conversation to which their juvenile companion was an eager and retentive listener. The chief tenor of it was concerning the state of Scotland, and the prevailing sentiment of her people in the north, before the last hapless scion of the Stuarts made the fatal attempt which resulted in utter defeat and ruin to all connected with it. In the course of their chat, and as his intellect was aroused and excited by the subject, a narrative of his own personal knowledge of those matters and share in the conflict fell unconsciously, as it were, from his lips.
He was a young lad at the time his father’s clan gathered to the rallying-cry of the Camerons for the field of Culloden. Young as he was, he fought by his father’s side, and saw him slain with multitudes of his kin on that scene of carnage. He was among the few of his clan who escaped and succeeded by almost superhuman efforts in rescuing their families from the indiscriminate slaughter which followed. Among the rocks and caves of the wild hills and glens with which they were familiar they found hiding-places that were inaccessible to the destroyers who were sent out by the merciless Cumberland, but their sufferings from cold and hunger were beyond description. In the haste of their flight it was impossible to convey the necessary food and clothing, and the whole country was so closely watched by scattered bands of soldiers that there was no chance of procuring supplies. Insufficiently clad and fed, and very imperfectly sheltered from the wild storms of those bleak northern regions, many of the women,
the children, and the aged people perished before it was possible to accept offers made by the British government of founding colonies in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada for those who, persistently refusing to renounce the Catholic faith, would consent to emigrate. Large rewards and the most tempting inducements were held out to all who would surrender their faith, embrace Protestantism, and remain among their beloved hills.
So intense is the love of country in the hearts of this brave and generous people that many could not tear themselves away from scenes inwoven with their tenderest affections, but remained, some to enjoy in this world the price of that apostasy which imperilled their eternal interests for the next, while multitudes sought the most remote and unapproachable nooks of the rugged north, and remained true to their religion in extreme poverty and distress, with no hope of alleviation. Our aged narrator joined a band of emigrants from the neighborhood of Loch Ness, and came to the dreary wilderness where the present village has grown up. My father expressed his surprise that they should have chosen a place so entirely different in all its features from their native scenes, in preference to the hilly parts of Canada, where it would seem that they would have been more at home.
“Na, na!” exclaimed the venerable old man, his dark eye kindling with the fire of youth, while he smote the ground with his staff, as if to emphasize his dissent—“na, na; sin’ we could na tread our native hills, it iss better far that we had nane! I think the sicht of hills withoot the heather wad drive me mad! Na, na; it iss far better that we should see nae hills!”
His touching recital of the wrongs sustained by his people at the hands of their ruthless conquerors, and the bitter sufferings they endured for the faith, awakened my deep and enduring sympathy.
My father questioned whether, after all, it would not have been better for them to have submitted in the matter of religion, accepted the liberal terms offered under that condition, and remained contented in their beloved homes, rather than make such cruel sacrifices, for themselves and the helpless ones dependent upon them, in support of a mere idea, as the difference between one religion and another seemed to him. The old man rose in his excitement to his feet, and, standing erect and dignified, with flashing eyes exclaimed: “Renounce the faith! Sooner far might we consent that we be sold into slavery! Oh! yes; we could do that—we could bow our necks to the yoke in this world that our souls might be free for the next—but to renounce the faith! It iss that we could na do whatever; no! not the least one among us, though it wass to gain ten kingdoms for us in this warld!”
My father apologized for a suggestion which had such power to move him, remarking that he was himself quite ignorant concerning the Catholic religion, and, indeed, not too well informed as to any other; upon which the hoary patriarch approached him, laid his hand upon his head, and said with deep solemnity: “That the great God, who is ever merciful to the true of heart, might pour the light of his truth into yours, and show you how different is it from the false religions, and how worthy that one should die for it rather than yield the point that should seem the most trifling; for there iss nothing connected