The old man procured a pick-axe, a shovel, and a rope, and insisted on being let down, out of a port-hole, close to the breach. Some of his more juvenile companions offered to attend him. “No!” he replied, “you are too young to be shot yet; as for me, I am old and deaf, and my loss would be no great matter.” Persisting in his adventure, in the midst of the firing, Dan was slung and lowered down, with his implements of action on his shoulder. His first difficulty was to beat away the dogs. The French levelled their pieces—they were on the instant of firing at the hero!—but an officer, perceiving the friendly intentions of the sailor, was seen to throw himself across the file: instantaneously the din of military thunder ceased, a dead, solemn silence prevailed, and the worthy fellow consigned the corpse to its parent earth. He covered it with mould and stones, placing a large stone at its head, and another at its feet. The unostentatious grave was formed, but no inscription recorded the fate or character of its possessor. Dan, with the peculiar air of a British sailor, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and attempted to write
“Here you lie, old Crop!”
He was then, with his pick-axe and shovel, hoisted into the town, and the hostile firing immediately recommenced.
A few days afterwards, sir Sidney, having been informed of the circumstance, ordered old Dan to be called into the cabin.—“Well, Dan, I hear you have buried the French general.”—“Yes, your honour.”—“Had you any body with you?”—“Yes, your honour.”—“Why, Mr. —— says you had not.”—“But I had, your honour.”—“Ah! who had you?”—“God Almighty, sir.”—“A very good assistant, indeed. Give old Dan a glass of grog.”—“Thank your honour.” Dan drank the grog, and left the cabin highly gratified. He was for several years a pensioner in the royal hospital at Greenwich.
THE “RIGHT” LORD LOVAT.
The following remarkable anecdote, communicated by a respectable correspondent, with his name and address, may be relied on as genuine.
For the Table Book.
An old man, claiming to be “the right lord Lovat,” i. e. heir to him who was beheaded in 1745, came to the Mansion-house in 1818 for advice and assistance. He was in person and face as much like the rebel lord, if one may judge from his pictures, as a person could be, and the more especially as he was of an advanced age. He said he had been to the present lord Lovat, who had given him food and a little money, and turned him away. He stated his pedigree and claim thus:—The rebel lord had an only brother, known by the family name of Simon Fraser. Before lord Lovat engaged in the rebellion, Simon Fraser went to a wedding in his highland costume; when he entered the room where the party was assembled, an unfortunate wight of a bagpiper struck up the favourite march of a clan in mortal enmity with that of Fraser, which so enraged him, that he drew his dirk and killed the piper upon the spot. Fraser immediately fled, and found refuge in a mine in Wales. No law proceedings took place against him as he was absent, and supposed to have perished at sea. He married in Wales, and had one son, the old man abovenamed, who said he was about sixty. When lord Lovat was executed his lands became forfeited; but in course of time, lord L. not having left a son, the estates were granted by the crown to a collateral branch, (one remove beyond Simon Fraser,) the present lord, it not being known that Simon Fraser was alive or had left issue. It is further remarkable that the applicant further stated, that both he and his father, Simon Fraser, were called lord Lovat by the miners and other inhabitants of that spot where he was known.