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Phantom Regiment; or, Stories of "Ours"

<h3> CHAPTER XXVI. THE PHANTOM REGIMENT—THE QUARTERMASTER'S STORY. </h3> Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvellous, still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous districts of the northern kingdom; for "the Schoolmaster" finds it no easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the prejudices of more than two thousand years. I was born in Strathnairn, about the year 1802, and, on the death of my mother, was given, when an infant, to the wife of a cotter to nurse. With these good people I remained for some years, and thus became cognizant of the facts I am about to relate. There was a little romance connected with my old nurse Meinie and her gudeman. In their younger days they had been lovers—lovers as a boy and girl—but were separated by poverty, and then Ewen Mac Ewen enlisted as a soldier, in the 26th or Cameronian Regiment, with which he saw some sharp service in the West Indies and America. The light-hearted young highlander became, in time, a grave, stern, and morose soldier, with the most rigid ideas of religious deportment and propriety: for this distinguished Scottish regiment was of Puritan origin, being one of those raised among the Westland Covenanters, after the deposition of king James VII. by the Estates of Scotland. England surrendered to William of Orange without striking a blow; but the defence of Dunkeld, and the victorious battle of Killycrankie, ended the northern campaign, in which the noble Dundee was slain, and the army of the cavaliers dispersed. The Cameronian Regiment introduced their sectarian forms, their rigorous discipline, and plain mode of public worship into their own ranks, and so strict was their code of morals, that even the Non-jurors and Jacobins admitted the excellence and stern propriety of their bearing. They left the Scottish Service for the British, at the Union, in 1707, but still wear on their appointments the five-pointed star, which was the armorial bearing of the colonel who embodied them; and, moreover, retain the privilege of supplying their own regimental Bibles. After many years of hard fighting in the old 26th, and after carrying a halbert in the kilted regiment of the Isles, Ewen Mac Ewen returned home to his native place, the great plain of Moray, a graver, and, in bearing, a sadder man than when he left it. His first inquiry was for Meinie. She had married a rival of his, twenty years ago. "God's will be done," sighed Ewen, as he lifted his bonnet, and looked upwards. He built himself a little cottage, in the old highland fashion, in his native strath, at a sunny spot, where the Uisc Nairn—the Water of Alders—flowed in front, and a wooded hill arose behind. He hung his knapsack above the fireplace; deposited his old and sorely thumbed regimental Bible (with the Cameronian star on its boards,) and the tin case containing his colonel's letter recommending him to the minister, and the discharge, which gave sixpence per diem as the reward of sixteen battles—all on the shelf of the little window, which contained three panes of glass, with a yoke in the centre of each, and there he settled himself down in peace, to plant his own kail, knit his own hose, and to make his own kilts, a grave and thoughtful but contented old fellow, awaiting the time, as he said, "when the Lord would call him away." Now it chanced that a poor widow, with several children, built herself a little thatched house on the opposite side of the drove road—an old Fingalian path—which ascended the pastoral glen; and the ready-handed veteran lent his aid to thatch it, and to sling her kail-pot on the cruicks, and was wont thereafter to drop in of an evening to smoke his pipe, to tell old stories of the storming of Ticonderago, and to ask her little ones the catechism and biblical questions. Within a week or so, he discovered that the widow was Meinie—the ripe, blooming Meinie of other years—an old, a faded, and a sad-eyed woman now; and poor Ewen's lonely heart swelled within him, as he thought of all that had passed since last they met, and as he spake of what they were, and what they might have been, had fate been kind, or fortune roved more true. We have heard much about the hidden and mysterious principle of affinity, and more about the sympathy and sacredness that belong to a first and early love; well, the heart of the tough old Cameronian felt these gentle impulses, and Meinie was no stranger to them. They were married, and for fifteen years, there was no happier couple on the banks of the Nairn. Strange to say, they died on the same day, and were interred in the ancient burying-ground of Dalcross, where now they lie, near the ruined walls of the old vicarage kirk of the Catholic times. God rest them in their humble highland graves! My father, who was the minister of Croy, acted as chief mourner, and gave the customary funeral prayer. But I am somewhat anticipating, and losing the thread of my own story in telling theirs. In process of time the influx of French and English tourists who came to visit the country of the clans, and to view the plain of Culloden, after the publication of "Waverley" gave to all Britain, that which we name in Scotland "the tartan fever," and caused the old path which passed the cot of Ewen to become a turnpike road; a tollbar—that most obnoxious of all impositions to a Celt—was placed across the mouth of the little glen, barring the way directly to the battle-field; and of this gate the old pensioner Ewen naturally became keeper; and during the summer season, when, perhaps, a hundred carriages per day rolled through, it became a source of revenue alike to him, and to the Lord of Cawdor and the Laird of Kilravock, the road trustees. And the chief pleasure of Ewen's existence was to sit on a thatched seat by the gate, for then he felt conscious of being in office—on duty—a species of sentinel; and it smacked of the old time when the Generale was beaten in the morning, and the drums rolled tattoo at night; when he had belts to pipeclay, and boots to blackball; when there were wigs to frizzle and queues to tie, and to be all trim and in order to meet Monseigneur le Marquis de Montcalm, or General Washington "right early in the morning;" and there by the new barrier of the glen Ewen sat the live-long day, with spectacles on nose, and the Cameronian Bible on his knee, as he spelled his way through Deuteronomy and the tribes of Judah. Slates in due time replaced the green thatch of his little cottage; then a diminutive additional story, with two small dormer windows, was added thereto, and the thrifty Meinie placed a paper in her window informing shepherds, the chance wayfarers, and the wandering deer-stalkers that she had a room to let; but summer passed away, the sportsman forsook the brown scorched mountains, the gay tourist ceased to come north, and the advertisement turned from white to yellow, and from yellow to flyblown green in her window; the winter snows descended on the hills, the pines stood in long and solemn ranks by the white frozen Nairn, but "the room upstairs" still remained without a tenant. Anon the snow passed away, the river again flowed free, the flowers began to bloom; the young grass to sprout by the hedgerows, and the mavis to sing on the fauld-dykes, for spring was come again, and joyous summer soon would follow; and one night—it was the 26th of April—Ewen was exhibiting his penmanship in large text-hand by preparing the new announcement of "a room to let," when he paused, and looked up as a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky; a red gleam of lightning flashed in the darkness without, and then they heard the roar of the deep broad Nairn, as its waters, usually so sombre and so slow, swept down from the wilds of Badenoch, flooded with the melting snows of the past winter. A dreadful storm of thunder, rain, and wind came on, and the little cottage rocked on its foundations; frequently the turf-fire upon the hearth was almost blown about the clay-floor, by the downward gusts that bellowed in the chimney. The lightning gleamed incessantly, and seemed to play about the hill of Urchany and the ruins of Caistel Fionlah; the woods groaned and creaked, and the trees seemed to shriek as their strong limbs were torn asunder by the gusts which in some places laid side by side the green sapling of last summer, and the old oak that had stood for a thousand years—that had seen Macbeth and Duncan ride from Nairn, and had outlived the wars of the Comyns and the Clanchattan. The swollen Nairn tore down its banks, and swept trees, rocks, and stones in wild confusion to the sea, mingling the pines of Aberarder with the old oaks of Cawdor; while the salt spray from the Moray Firth was swept seven miles inland, where it encrusted with salt the trees, the houses, and windows, and whatever it fell on as it mingled with the ceaseless rain, while deep, hoarse, and loud the incessant thunder rattled across the sky, "as if all the cannon on earth," according to Ewen, "were exchanging salvoes between Urchany and the Hill of Geddes." Meinie grew pale, and sat with a finger on her mouth, and a startled expression in her eyes, listening to the uproar without; four children, two of whom were Ewen's, and her last addition to the clan, clung to her skirts. Ewen had just completed the invariable prayer and chapter for the night, and was solemnly depositing his old regimental companion, with "Baxter's Saints' Best," in a place of security, when a tremendous knock—a knock that rang above the storm—shook the door of the cottage. "Who can this be, and in such a night?" said Meinie. "The Lord knoweth," responded Ewen, gravely; "but he knocks both loud and late." "Inquire before you open," urged Meinie, seizing her husband's arm, as the impatient knock was renewed with treble violence. "Who comes there?" demanded Ewen, in a soldierly tone. "A friend," replied a strange voice without, and in the same manner. "What do you want?" "Fire and smoke!" cried the other, giving the door a tremendous kick; "do you ask that in such a devil of a night as this? You have a room to let, have you not?" "Yes." "Well: open the door, or blood and 'oons I'll bite your nose off!" Ewen hastened to undo the door; and then, all wet and dripping as if he had just been fished up from the Moray Firth, there entered a strange-looking old fellow in a red coat; he stumped vigorously on a wooden leg, and carried on his shoulders a box, which he flung down with a crash that shook the dwelling, saying,— "There—dam you—I have made good my billet at last." "So it seems," said Ewen, reclosing the door in haste to exclude the tempest, lest his house should be unroofed and torn asunder. "Harkee, comrade, what garrison or fortress is this," asked the visitor, "that peaceable folks are to be challenged in this fashion, and forced to give parole and countersign before they march in—eh?" "It is my house, comrade; and so you had better keep a civil tongue in your head." "Civil tongue? Fire and smoke, you mangy cur! I can be as civil as my neighbours; but get me a glass of grog, for I am as wet as we were the night before Minden." "Where have you come from in such a storm as this?" "Where you'd not like to go—so never mind; but, grog, I tell you—get me some grog, and a bit of tobacco; it is long since I tasted either." Ewen hastened to get a large quaighful of stiff Glenlivat, which the veteran drained to his health, and that of Meinie; but first he gave them a most diabolical grin, and threw into the liquor some black stuff, saying,— "I always mix my grog with gunpowder—it's a good tonic; I learned that of a comrade who fell at Minden on the glorious 1st of August, '59. "You have been a soldier, then?" "Right! I was one of the 25th, or old Edinburgh Regiment; they enlisted me, though an Englishman, I believe; for my good old dam was a follower of the camp." "Our number was the 26th—the old Cameronian Regiment—so we were near each other, you see, comrade." "Nearer than you would quite like, mayhap," said Wooden-leg, with another grin and a dreadful oath. "And you have served in Germany?" asked Ewen. "Germany—aye, and marched over every foot of it, from Hanover to Hell, and back again. I have fought in Flanders, too." "I wish you had come a wee while sooner," said Ewen gravely, for this discourse startled his sense of propriety. "Sooner," snarled this shocking old fellow, who must have belonged to that army, "which swore so terribly in Flanders," as good Uncle Toby says; "sooner—for what?" "To have heard me read a chapter, and to have joined us in prayer." "Prayers be d—ned!" cried the other, with a shout of laughter, and a face expressive of fiendish mockery, as he gave his wooden leg a thundering blow on the floor; "fire and smoke—another glass of grog—and then we'll settle about my billet upstairs." While getting another dram, which hospitality prevented him from refusing, Ewen scrutinised this strange visitor, whose aspect and attire were very remarkable; but wholly careless of what any one thought, he sat by the hearth, wringing his wet wig, and drying it at the fire. He was a little man, of a spare, but strong and active figure, which indicated great age; his face resembled that of a rat; behind it hung a long queue that waved about like a pendulum when he moved his head, which was quite bald, and smooth as a cricket-ball, save where a long and livid scar—evidently a sword cut—traversed it. This was visible while he sat drying his wig; but as that process was somewhat protracted, he uttered an oath, and thrust his cocked hat on one side of his head, and very much over his left eye, which was covered by a patch. This head-dress was the old military triple-cocked hat, bound with yellow braid, and having on one side the hideous black leather cockade of the House of Hanover, now happily disused in the British army, and retained as a badge of service by liverymen alone. His attire was an old threadbare red coat, faced with yellow, having square tails and deep cuffs, with braided holes; he wore knee-breeches on his spindle shanks, one of which terminated, as I have said, in a wooden pin; he carried a large knotted stick; and, in outline and aspect, very much resembled, as Ewen thought, Frederick the Great of Prussia, or an old Chelsea pensioner, or the soldiers he had seen delineated in antique prints of the Flemish wars. His solitary orb possessed a most diabolical leer, and, whichever way you turned, it seemed to regard you with the fixed glare of a basilisk. "You are a stranger hereabout, I presume?" said Ewen drily. "A stranger now, certainly; but I was pretty well known in this locality once. There are some bones buried hereabout that may remember me," he replied, with a grin that showed his fangless jaws. "Bones!" reiterated Ewen, aghast. "Yes, bones—Culloden Muir lies close by here, does it not?" "It does—then you have travelled this road before?" "Death and the Devil! I should think so, comrade; on this very night sixty years ago I marched along this road, from Nairn to Culloden, with the army of His Royal Highness, the Great Duke of Cumberland, Captain-General of the British troops, in pursuit of the rebels under the Popish Pretender——" "Under His Royal Highness Prince Charles, you mean, comrade," said Ewen, in whose breast—Cameronian though he was—a tempest of Highland wrath and loyalty swelled up at these words. "Prince—ha! ha! ha!" laughed the other; "had you said as much then, the gallows had been your doom. Many a man I have shot, and many a boy I have brained with the butt end of my musket, for no other crime than wearing the tartan, even as you this night wear it." Ewen made a forward stride as if he would have taken the wicked boaster by the throat; his anger was kindled to find himself in presence of a veritable soldier of the infamous "German Butcher," whose merciless massacre of the wounded clansmen and their defenceless families will never be forgotten in Scotland while oral tradition and written record exist; but Ewen paused, and said in his quiet way,— "Blessed be the Lord! these times and things have passed away from the land, to return to it no more. We are both old men now; by your own reckoning, you must at least have numbered four-score years, and in that, you are by twenty my better man. You are my guest to-night, moreover, so we must not quarrel, comrade. My father was killed at Culloden." "On which side?" "The right one—for he fell by the side of old Keppoch, and his last words were, 'Righ Hamish gu Bragh!'" "Fire and smoke!" laughed the old fellow, "I remember these things as if they only happened yesterday—mix me some more grog and put it in the bill—I was the company's butcher in those days—it suited my taste—so when I was not stabbing and slashing the sheep and cattle of the rascally commissary, I was cutting the throats of the Scots and French, for there were plenty of them, and Irish too, who fought against the king's troops in Flanders. We had hot work, that day at Culloden—hotter than at Minden, where we fought in heavy marching order, with our blankets, kettles, and provisions, on a broiling noon, when the battle-field was cracking under a blazing sun, and the whole country was sweltering like the oven of the Great Baker." "Who is he?" "What! you don't know him? Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho! come, that is good." Ewen expostulated with the boisterous old fellow on this style of conversation, which, as you may easily conceive, was very revolting to the prejudices of a well-regulated Cameronian soldier. "Come, come, you old devilskin," cried the other, stirring up the fire with his wooden leg, till the sparks flashed and gleamed like his solitary eye; "you may as well sing psalms to a dead horse, as preach to me. Hark how the thunder roars, like the great guns at Carthagena! More grog—put it in the bill—or, halt, d—me! pay yourself," and he dashed on the table a handful of silver of the reigns of George II., and the Glencoe assassin, William of Orange. He obtained more whiskey, and drank it raw, seasoning it from time to time with gunpowder, just as an Arab does his cold water with ginger. "Where did you lose your eye, comrade?" "At Culloden; but I found the fellow who pinked me, next day, as he lay bleeding on the field; he was a Cameron, in a green velvet jacket, all covered with silver; so I stripped off his lace, as I had seen my mother do, and then I brained him with the butt-end of brown-bess—and before his wife's eyes, too! What the deuce do you growl at, comrade? Such things will happen in war, and you know that orders must be obeyed. My eye was gone—but it was the left one, and I was saved the trouble of closing it when taking aim. This slash on the sconce I got at the battle of Preston Pans, from the Celt who slew Colonel Gardiner." "That Celt was my father—the Miller of Invernahyle," said Meinie, proudly. "Your father! fire and smoke! do you say so? His hand was a heavy one!" cried Wooden-leg, while his eye glowed like the orb of a hyæna. "And your leg?" "I lost at Minden, in Kingsley's Brigade, comrade; aye, my leg—d—n!—that was indeed a loss." "A warning to repentance, I would say." "Then you would say wrong. Ugh! I remember when the shot—a twelve-pounder—took me just as we were rushing with charged bayonets on the French cannoniers. Smash! my leg was gone, and I lay sprawling and bleeding in a ploughed field near the Weser, while my comrades swept over me with a wild hurrah! the colours waving, and drums beating a charge." "And what did you do?" "I lay there and swore, believe me." "That would not restore your limb again." "No; but a few hearty oaths relieve the mind; and the mind relieves the body; you understand me, comrade; so there I lay all night under a storm of rain like this, bleeding and sinking; afraid of the knives of the plundering death-hunters, for my mother had been one, and I remembered well how she looked after the wounded, and cured them of their agony." "Was your mother one of those infer——" began MacEwen. "Don't call her hard names now, comrade; she died on the day after the defeat at Val; with the Provost Marshal's cord round her neck—a cordon less ornamental than that of St. Louis." "And your father?" "Was one of Howard's Regiment; but which the devil only knows, for it was a point on which the old lady, honest woman, had serious doubts herself." "After the loss of your leg, of course you left the service?" "No, I became the company's butcher; but, fire and smoke, get me another glass of grog; take a share yourself, and don't sit staring at me like a Dutch Souterkin conceived of a winter night over a 'pot de feu,' as all the world knows King William was. Dam! let us be merry together—ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! and I'll sing you a song of the old whig times." "'O, brother Sandie, hear ye the news,                 Lillibulero, bullen a la! An army is coming sans breeches and shoes,                 Lillibulero, bullen a la! "'To arms! to arms! brave boys to arms!                 A true British cause for your courage doth ca'; Country and city against a kilted banditti,                 Lillibulero, bullen a la!'" And while he continued to rant and sing the song (once so obnoxious to the Scottish Cavaliers), he beat time with his wooden leg, and endeavoured to outroar the stormy wind and the hiss of the drenching rain. Even MacEwen, though he was an old soldier, felt some uneasiness, and Meinie trembled in her heart, while the children clung to her skirts and hid their little faces, as if this singing, riot, and jollity were impious at such a time, when the awful thunder was ringing its solemn peals across the midnight sky. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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