CHAPTER X
CULLODEN
I have neither space nor heart to attempt a history of our brilliant butill-starred campaign. Surely no more romantic attempt to win a throne wasever made. With some few thousand ill-armed Highlanders and a handful oflowland recruits the Prince cut his way through the heart of England,defeated two armies and repulsed a third, each of them larger than his ownand far better supplied with the munitions of war, captured Carlisle,Manchester, and other towns, even pushed his army beyond Derby to a pointlittle more than a hundred miles from London. Had the gentlemen of Englandwho believed in our cause been possessed of the same spirit of devotionthat animated these wild Highlanders we had unseated the Hanoverians outof doubt, but their loyalty was not strong enough to outweigh theprudential considerations that held them back. Their doubts held theminactive until too late.
There are some who maintain that had we pushed on from Derby, defeated thearmy of the Duke of Cumberland, of which the chance at this time was good,and swept on to London, that George II would have been sent flying to hisbeloved Hanover. We know now in what a state of wild excitement thecapital city was awaiting news of our approach, how the householdtreasures of the Guelphs were all packed, how there was a run on the Bankof England, how even the Duke of Newcastle, prime minister of GreatBritain, locked himself in his chamber all day denying admittance to allin an agony of doubt as to whether he had better declare at once for theStuarts. We know too that the Wynns and other loyal Welsh gentlemen hadalready set out to rally their country for the honest cause, that cautiousFrance was about to send an army to our assistance.
But all this was knowledge too late acquired. The great fact thatconfronted us was that without a French army to assist, our Englishfriends would not redeem their contingent pledges. We were numerically ofno greater force than when we had set out from Scotland, and the hazard ofan advance was too great. General Wade and the Duke of Cumberland wereclosing in on us from different sides, each with an army that outnumberedours, and a third army was waiting for us before London. 'Tis justpossible that we might have taken the desperate chance and won, as thePrince was so eager that we should do, but it was to be considered that asa defeated army in a hostile country, had the fortune of war declaredagainst us, we would surely have been cut to pieces in our retreat. ByLord George Murray and the chiefs it was judged wiser to fall back andjoin Lord John Drummond's army in Scotland. They declared that they wouldfollow wherever the Prince chose to lead, but that they felt strongly thata further advance was to doom their clansmen to destruction. Reluctantlythe Prince gave way.
On the 6th of December, before daybreak, the army began its retreat, whichwas conducted with great skill by Lord George Murray. Never were men moredisappointed than the rank and file of the army when they found that aretreat had been resolved upon. Expressions of chagrin and disappointmentwere to be heard on every hand. But the necessity of the retreat was soonapparent to all, for the regulars were now closing in on us from everyhand. By out-marching and out-maneuvering General Wade, we beat him toLancaster, but his horse were entering the town before we had left thesuburbs. At Clifton the Duke of Cumberland, having joined forces withWade, came in touch with us, and his van was soundly drubbed by ourrear-guard under Lord George, who had with him at the time the Stewarts ofAppin, the Macphersons, Colonel Stuart's regiment, and Donald Roy'sMacdonalds. By great good chance I arrived with a message to Lord Georgefrom the Prince in time to take part in this brilliant little affair. Withhis usual wisdom Lord George had posted his men in the enclosures and parkof Lowther Hall, the Macdonalds on the right of the highway, ColonelStuart in close proximity, and the Macphersons and the Appin regiment tothe left of the road. I dismounted, tied my horse, and joined the RedMacdonald's company where they were lying in the shrubbery. We lay there adevil of a while, Donald Roy smoking as contented as you please, I in astew of impatience and excitement; presently we could hear firing over tothe left where Cluny Macpherson and Stewart of Ardshiel were feeling theenemy and driving them back. At last the order came to advance. Donald Royleaped to his feet, waved his sword and shouted "Claymore!" Next moment wewere rushing pell-mell down the hillside through the thick gorse, overhedges, and across ditches. We met the dragoons in full retreat across themoor at right angles toward us, raked them with a cross fire, and comingto close quarters cut them to pieces with the sword. In this littleskirmish, which lasted less than a quarter of an hour, our loss wasinsignificant, while that of the enemy reached well into the threefigures. The result of this engagement was that our army was extricatedfrom a precarious position and that Cumberland allowed us henceforth toretreat at leisure without fear of molestation.
Of the good fortune which almost invariably attended our variousdetachments in the North, of our retreat to Scotland and easy victory overGeneral Hawley at the battle of Falkirk, and of the jealousies andmachinations of Secretary Murray and the Irish Prince's advisers,particularly O'Sullivan and Sir Thomas Sheridan, against Lord GeorgeMurray and the chiefs, I can here make no mention, but come at once to thedisastrous battle of Culloden which put a period to our hopes. A number ofunfortunate circumstances had conspired to weaken us. According to theHighland custom, many of the troops, seeing no need of their immediatepresence, had retired temporarily to their homes. Several of the clanregiments were absent on forays and other military expeditions. TheChevalier O'Sullivan, who had charge of the commissariat department, hadfrom gross negligence managed to let the army get into a state borderingon starvation, and that though there was a quantity of meal in Invernesssufficient for a fortnight's consumption. The man had allowed the army tomarch from the town without provisions, and the result was that at thetime of the battle most of the troops had tasted but a single biscuit intwo days. To cap all, the men were deadly wearied by the long night marchto surprise the Duke of Cumberland's army and their dejected return toDrummossie Moor after the failure of the attempt. Many of the men andofficers slipped away to Inverness in search of refreshments, being on theverge of starvation; others flung themselves down on the heath, sullen,dejected, and exhausted, to forget their hunger for the moment in sleep.
Without dubiety our plain course was to have fallen back across the Nairnamong the hills and let the Duke weary his troops trying to drag hisartillery up the mountainsides. The battle might easily have beenpostponed for several days until our troops were again rested, fed, and ingood spirits. Lord George pointed out at the counsel that a further reasonfor delay lay in the fact that the Mackenzies under Lord Cromarty, thesecond battalion of the Frasers under the Master of Lovat, the Macphersonsunder Cluny, the Macgregors under Glengyle, Mackinnon's followers, and theGlengary Macdonald's under Barisdale were all on the march to join us andwould arrive in the course of a day or two. That with thesereinforcements, and in the hill country, so eminently suited to our methodof warfare, we might make sure of a complete victory, was urged by him andothers. But O'Sullivan and his friends had again obtained the ear of thePrince and urged him to immediate battle. This advice jumped with his ownhigh spirit, for he could not brook to fall back in the face of the enemyawaiting the conflict. The order went forth to gather the clans for thefight.
To make full the tale of his misdeeds came O'Sullivan's fatal slight tothe pride of the Macdonalds. Since the days of Robert the Bruce andBannockburn it had been their clan privilege to hold the post of honour onthe right. The blundering Irishman assigned this position to the Atholemen in forming the line of battle, and stubbornly refused to reform hisline. The Duke of Perth, who commanded on the left wing, endeavoured toplacate the clan by vowing that they would that day make a right of theleft and promising to change his name to Macdonald after the victory.Riding to the Duke with a message from the Prince I chanced on a man lyingface down among the whin bushes. For the moment I supposed him dead, tillhe lifted himself to an elbow. The man turned to me a gash face the colourof whey, and I saw that it was Donald Roy.
"Ohon! Ohon! The evil day hass fallen on us, Kenneth. Five hundred yearsthe
Macdonalds have held the post of honour. They will never fight on theleft," he told me in bitter despair and grief. "Wae's me! The red deathgrips us. Old MacEuan who hass the second sight saw a vision in the nightof Cumberland's ridens driving over a field lost to the North. Death onthe field and on the scaffold."
I have never known a man of saner common sense than Donald Roy, but whenit comes to their superstitions all Highlanders are alike. As well I mighthave reasoned with a wooden post. MacEuan of the seeing eyes had predicteddisaster, and calamity was to be our portion.
He joined me and walked beside my horse toward his command. The firing wasby this time very heavy, our cannon being quite ineffective and theartillery of the English well served and deadly. Their guns, charged withcartouch, flung death wholesale across the ravine at us and decimated ourranks. The grape-shot swept through us like a hail-storm. Galled beyondendurance by the fire of the enemy, the clans clamoured to be led forwardin the charge. Presently through the lifting smoke we saw the devotedMackintoshes rushing forward against the cannon. After them came theMaclaughlans and the Macleans to their left, and a moment later the wholeHighland line was in motion with the exception of the Macdonalds, whohewed the turf with their swords in a despairing rage but would neitherfight nor fly. Their chief, brave Keppoch, stung to the quick, advancedalmost alone, courting death rather than to survive the day's disgrace.Captain Donald Roy followed at his heels, imploring his chieftain not tosacrifice himself, but Keppoch bade him save himself. For him, he wouldnever see the sunrise again. Next moment he fell to the ground from amusket-shot, never to speak more. My last glimpse of Captain Roy was tosee him carrying back the body of his chief.
I rode back at a gallop along the ridge to my troop. The valley below wasa shambles. The English cannon tore great gaps in the ranks of theadvancing Highlanders. The incessant fire of the infantry raked them. Fromthe left wing Major Wolfe's regiment poured an unceasing flank fire ofmusketry. The Highlanders fell in platoons. Still they swept forwardheadlong. They reached the first line of the enemy. 'Twas claymore againstbayonet. Another minute, and the Highlanders had trampled down theregulars and were pushing on in impetuous gallantry. The thin tartan lineclambering up the opposite side of the ravine grew thinner as thegrape-shot carried havoc to their ranks. Cobham's and Kerr's dragoonsflanked them _en potence_. To stand that hell of fire was more than mortalmen could endure. Scarce a dozen clansmen reached the second line ofregulars. The rest turned and cut their way, sword in hand, through theflanking regiments which had formed on the ground over which they had justpassed with the intention of barring the retreat.
Our life-guards and the French pickets, together with Ogilvy's regiment,checked in some measure the pursuit, but nothing could be done to save theday. All was irretrievably lost, though the Prince galloped over the fieldattempting a rally. The retreat became a rout, and the rout a panic. Asfar as Inverness the ground was strewn with the dead slain in that ghastlypursuit.
The atrocities committed after the battle would have been worthy ofsavages rather than of civilized troops. Many of the inhabitants ofInverness had come out to see the battle from curiosity and were cut downby the infuriated cavalry. The carnage of the battle appeared not tosatiate their horrid thirst for blood, and the troopers, bearing in mindtheir disgrace at Gladsmuir and Falkirk, rushed to and fro over the fieldmassacring the wounded. I could ask any fair-minded judge to set upagainst this barbarity the gentle consideration and tenderness of PrinceCharles and his wild Highlanders in their hours of victory. We never slewa man except in the heat of fight, and the wounded of the enemy werealways cared for with the greatest solicitude. From this one may concludethat the bravest troops are the most humane. These followers of the Dukehad disgraced themselves, and they ran to an excess of cruelty in anattempt to wipe out their cowardice.
Nor was it the soldiery alone that committed excesses. I regret to have torecord that many of the officers also engaged in them. A party wasdispatched from Inverness the day after the battle to put to death all thewounded they might find in the inclosures of Culloden Park near the fieldof the contest. A young Highlander serving with the English army wasafterwards heard to declare that he saw seventy-two unfortunate victimsdragged from their hiding in the heather to hillocks and shot down byvolleys of musketry. Into a small sheep hut on the moor some of ourwounded had dragged themselves. The dragoons secured the door and firedthe hut. One instance of singular atrocity is vouched for. Nineteenwounded Highland officers, too badly injured to join the retreat, secretedthemselves in a small plantation near Culloden-house, to which mansionthey were afterward taken. After being allowed to lie without caretwenty-four hours they were tossed into carts, carried to the wall of thepark, ranged against it in a row, and instantly shot. I myself was awitness of one incident which touches the butcher of Cumberland nearly. IfI relate the affair, 'tis because it falls pat with the narrative of myescape.
In the streets of Inverness I ran across Major Macleod gathering togetherthe remnant of his command to check the pursuit until the Prince shouldhave escaped. The man had just come from seeing his brave clansmen moweddown, and his face looked like death.
"The Prince-- Did he escape?" I asked. "I saw him last trying to stem thetide, with Sheridan and O'Sullivan tugging at his reins to induce aflight."
The Macleod nodded. "They passed through the town not five minutes ago."
I asked him whether he had seen anything of Captain Roy Macdonald, and hetold me that he had last seen him lying wounded on the field. I had himdescribe to me accurately the position, and rode back by a wide circuittoward Drummossie Moor. I had of course torn off the white cockade and putit in my breast so as to minimize the danger of being recognized as afollower of the Prince. My heart goes to my throat whenever I think ofthat ride, for behind every clump of whins one might look to find awounded clansman hiding from the riders of Cumberland. By good providenceI came on Captain Macdonald just as three hussars were about to make anend of him. He had his back to a great stone, and was waiting grimly forthem to shoot him down. Supposing me to be an officer of their party thetroopers desisted at my remonstrance and left him to me. Donald Roy waswounded in the foot, but he managed to mount behind me. We got as far asthe wall of the park when I saw a party of officers approaching. Hastilydismounting, we led the horse behind a nest of birches till they shouldpass. A few yards from us a sorely wounded Highland officer was lying.Macdonald recognized him as Charles Fraser, younger of Inverallachie, theLieutenant-Colonel of the Fraser regiment and in the absence of the Masterof Lovat commander. We found no time to drag him to safety before theEnglish officers were upon us.
The approaching party turned out to be the Duke of Cumberland himself,Major Wolfe, Lord Boyd, Sir Robert Volney, and a boy officer of Wolfe'sregiment. Young Fraser raised himself on his elbow to look at the Duke.The Butcher reined in his horse, frowning blackly down at him.
"To which side do you belong?" he asked.
"To the Prince," was the undaunted answer.
Cumberland, turning to Major Wolfe, said,
"Major, are your pistols loaded?"
Wolfe said that they were.
"Then shoot me that Highland scoundrel who dares look on me soinsolently."
Major Wolfe looked at his commander very steadily and said quietly: "Sir,my commission is at the disposal of your Royal Highness, but my honour ismy own. I can never consent to become a common executioner."
The Duke purpled, and burst out with, "Bah! Pistol him, Boyd."
"Your Highness asks what is not fitting for you to require nor for me toperform," answered that young nobleman.
The Duke, in a fury, turned to a passing dragoon and bade him shoot theyoung man. Charles Fraser dragged himself to his feet by a great effortand looked at the butcher with a face of infinite scorn while the soldierwas loading his piece.
"Your Highness," began Wolfe, about to remonstrate.
"Sir, I command you to be silent," screamed the Duke.
The trooper presented
his piece at the Fraser, whose steady eyes neverleft the face of Cumberland.
"God save King James!" cried Inverallachie in English, and next momentfell dead from the discharge of the musket.
The faces of the four Englishmen who rode with the Duke were stern anddrawn. Wolfe dismounted from his horse and reverently covered the face ofthe dead Jacobite with a kerchief.
"God grant that when our time comes we may die as valiantly and as loyallyas this young gentleman," he said solemnly, raising his hat.
Volney, Boyd, and Wolfe's subaltern uncovered, and echoed an "Amen."Cumberland glared from one to another of them, ran the gamut of all tintsfrom pink to deepest purple, gulped out an apoplectic Dutch oath, and dugthe rowels deep into his bay. With shame, sorrow, and contempt in theirhearts his retinue followed the butcher across the field.
My face was like the melting winter snows. I could not look at theMacdonald, nor he at me. We mounted in silence and rode away. Only once hereferred to what we had seen.
"Many's the time that Charlie Fraser and I have hunted the dun deer acrossthe heather hills, and now----" He broke into Gaelic lamentation andimprecation, then fell as suddenly to quiet.
We bore up a ravine away from the roads toward where a great gash in thehills invited us, for we did not need to be told that the chances ofsafety increased with our distance from the beaten tracks of travel. A manon horseback came riding behind and overhauled us rapidly. Presently wesaw that he was a red-coated officer, and behind a huge rock we waited topistol him as he came up. The man leaped from his horse and came straighttoward us. I laid a hand on Captain Roy's arm, for I had recognized MajorWolfe. But I was too late. A pistol ball went slapping through the Major'shat and knocked it from his head. He stooped, replaced it with the utmostcomposure, and continued to advance, at the same time calling out that hewas a friend.
"I recognized you behind the birches, Montagu, and thought that you andyour friend could use another horse. Take my Galloway. You will find him agood traveller."
I ask you to believe that we stared long at him. A wistful smile touchedhis sallow face.
"We're not all ruffians in the English army, lad. If I aid your escape itis because prisoners have no rights this day. My advice would be for youto strike for the hills."
"In troth and I would think your advisings good, sir," answered Donald."No glen will be too far, no ben too high, for a hiding-place from thesebloody Sassenach dogs." Then he stopped, the bitterness fading from hisvoice, and added: "But I am forgetting myself. God, sir, the sights I haveseen this day drive me mad. At all events there iss one English officerCaptain Macdonald will remember whatever." And the Highlander bowed withdignity.
I thanked Wolfe warmly, and lost no time in taking his advice. CaptainRoy's foot had by this time so swollen that he could not put it in thestirrup. He was suffering a good deal, but at least the pain served todistract him from the gloom that lay heavy on his spirits. From thehillside far above the town we could see the lights of Inverness beginningto glimmer as we passed. A score of times we had to dismount on account ofthe roughness of the ground to lead our horses along the steep incline ofthe mountainsides, and each time Donald set his teeth and dragged hisshattered ankle through bracken and over boulder by sheer dour pluck.Hunger gnawed at our vitals, for in forty-eight hours we had but tastedfood. Deadly weariness hung on our stumbling footsteps, and in our gloomyhearts lurked the coldness of despair. Yet hour after hour we held oursilent course, clambering like heather-cats over cleugh and boggymoorland, till at last we reached Bun Chraobg, where we unsaddled for asnatch of sleep.
We flung ourselves down on the soft heather wrapped in our plaids, but forlong slumber was not to be wooed. Our alert minds fell to a review of allthe horrors of the day: to friends struck down, to the ghastly carnage, tofugitives hunted and shot in their hiding-places like wild beasts, to themistakes that had ruined our already lost cause. The past and the presentwere bitter as we could bear; thank Heaven, the black shadow of the futurehung as yet but dimly on our souls. If we had had the second sight andcould have known what was to follow--the countryside laid waste with fireand sword, women and children turned out of their blazing homes to perishon the bleak moors, the wearing of the tartan proscribed and made a crimepunishable with death, a hundred brave Highlanders the victim of thescaffold--we should have quite despaired.
Except the gentle soughing of the wind there was no sound to stir thesilent night. A million of night's candles looked coldly down on an armyof hunted stragglers. I thought of the Prince, Cluny, Lord Murray, Creagh,and a score of others, wondering if they had been taken, and fell at lastto troubled sleep, from which ever and anon I started to hear the wildwail of the pibroch or the ringing Highland slogans, to see the flamingcannon mouths vomiting death or the fell galloping of the relentlessHanoverian dragoons.
In the chill dawn I awoke to a ravening hunger that was insistent to benoted, and though my eyes would scarce believe there was Donald Roy cockedtailor fashion on the heath arranging most temptingly on a rock sconesandwiches of braxy mutton and a flask of usquebaugh (Highland whiskey). Ishut my eyes, rubbed them with my forefingers, and again let in the light.The viands were still there.
The Macdonald smiled whimsically over at me. "Gin ye hae your appetite wi'you we'll eat, Mr. Montagu, for I'm a wee thingie hungry my nainsell(myself). 'Deed, to mak plain, I'm toom (empty) as a drum, and I'mthinkin' that a drappie o' the usquebaugh wad no' come amiss neither."
"But where in the world did you get the food, Donald?"
"And where wad you think, but doon at the bit clachan yonder? A very guidfreend of mine named Farquhar Dhu lives there. He and Donald Roy are farben (intimate), and when I came knocking at his window at cock-craw he wasno' very laithe to gie me a bit chack (lunch)."
"Did you climb down the mountain and back with your sore ankle?"
He coloured. "Hoots, man! Haud your whitter (tongue)! Aiblins (perhaps) Iwass just wearying for a bit exercise to test it. And gin I were you Iwadna sit cocking on that stane speiring at me upsitten (impertinent)questions like a professor of pheelosophy, you muckle sumph!"
I fell to with a will. He was not a man to be thanked in words. Long sinceI had found out that Captain Roy was one to spend himself for his friendsand make nothing of it. This was one of his many shining qualities thatdrew me so strongly to him. If he had a few of the Highland faults he didnot lack any of the virtues of his race.
Shortly we were on our way once more, and were fortunate enough beforenight to fall in with Cluny and his clan, who having heard of our reversehad turned about and were falling back to Badenoch. At Trotternich wefound a temporary refuge at the home of a surgeon who was distantlyrelated to the Macdonald, but at the end of a fortnight were driven awayby the approach of a troop of Wolfe's regiment.
The course of our wanderings I think it not needful to detail at length.For months we were forever on the move. From one hiding-place to anotherthe redcoats and their clan allies drove us. No sooner were we fairlyconcealed than out we were routed. Many a weary hundred miles we trampedover the bleak mountains white with snow. Weariness walked with us by day,and cold and hunger lay down with us at night. Occasionally we slept insheilings (sheep-huts), but usually in caves or under the open sky. Werewe in great luck, venison and usquebaugh fell to our portion, but moreoften our diet was brose (boiling water poured over oatmeal) washed downby a draught from the mountain burn. Now we would be lurking on themainland, now skulking on one of the islands or crossing rough firths incrazy boats that leaked like a sieve. Many a time it was touch and go withus, for the dragoons and the Campbells followed the trail like sleuths. Wefugitives had a system of signals by which we warned each other of theenemy's approach and conveyed to each other the news. That Balmerino,Kilmarnock, and many another pretty man had been taken we knew, and scoresof us could have guessed shrewdly where the Prince was hiding in theheather hills.