Chapter Chapter 24 · A STAG-HUNT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

. A STAG-HUNT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Shall this be a long or a short chapter? This is a question in which

you, gentle reader, have no vote, however much you may be interested in

the consequences; just as you may (like myself) probably have nothing

to do with the imposing a new tax, excepting the trifling circumstance

of being obliged to pay it. More happy surely in the present case,

since, though it lies within my arbitrary power to extend my materials

as I think proper, I cannot call you into Exchequer if you do not think

proper to read my narrative. Let me therefore consider. It is true that

the annals and documents in my hands say but little of this Highland

chase; but then I can find copious materials for description elsewhere.

There is old Lindsay of Pitscottie ready at my elbow, with his Athole

hunting, and his “lofted and joisted palace of green timber; with all

kind of drink to be had in burgh and land, as ale, beer, wine,

muscadel, malvaise, hippocras, and aqua-vitæ; with wheat-bread,

main-bread, ginge-bread, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose,

grice, capon, coney, crane, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake,

brissel-cock, pawnies, black-cock, muir-fowl, and capercailzies”; not

forgetting the “costly bedding, vaiselle, and napry,” and least of all

the “excelling stewards, cunning baxters, excellent cooks, and

pottingars, with confections and drugs for the desserts.” Besides the

particulars which may be thence gleaned for this Highland feast (the

splendour of which induced the Pope’s legate to dissent from an opinion

which he had hitherto held, that Scotland, namely, was the—the—the

latter end of the world)—besides these, might I not illuminate my pages

with Taylor the Water Poet’s hunting in the braes of Mar, where,—

Through heather, mosse, ’mong frogs, and bogs, and fogs,

’Mongst craggy cliffs and thunder-batter’d hills,

Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chased by men and dogs,

Where two hours’ hunting fourscore fat deer kills.

Lowland, your sports are low as is your seat;

The Highland games and minds are high and great.

But without further tyranny over my readers, or display of the extent

of my own reading, I shall content myself with borrowing a single

incident from the memorable hunting at Lude, commemorated in the

ingenious Mr. Gunn’s essay on the Caledonian Harp, and so proceed in my

story with all the brevity that my natural style of composition,

partaking of what scholars call the periphrastic and ambagitory, and

the vulgar the circumbendibus, will permit me.

The solemn hunting was delayed, from various causes, for about three

weeks. The interval was spent by Waverley with great satisfaction at

Glennaquoich; for the impression which Flora had made on his mind at

their first meeting grew daily stronger. She was precisely the

character to fascinate a youth of romantic imagination. Her manners,

her language, her talents for poetry and music, gave additional and

varied influence to her eminent personal charms. Even in her hours of

gaiety she was in his fancy exalted above the ordinary daughters of

Eve, and seemed only to stoop for an instant to those topics of

amusement and gallantry which others appear to live for. In the

neighbourhood of this enchantress, while sport consumed the morning and

music and the dance led on the hours of evening, Waverley became daily

more delighted with his hospitable landlord, and more enamoured of his

bewitching sister.

At length the period fixed for the grand hunting arrived, and Waverley

and the Chieftain departed for the place of rendezvous, which was a

day’s journey to the northward of Glennaquoich. Fergus was attended on

this occasion by about three hundred of his clan, well armed and

accoutred in their best fashion. Waverley complied so far with the

custom of the country as to adopt the trews (he could not be reconciled

to the kilt), brogues, and bonnet, as the fittest dress for the

exercise in which he was to be engaged, and which least exposed him to

be stared at as a stranger when they should reach the place of

rendezvous. They found on the spot appointed several powerful Chiefs,

to all of whom Waverley was formally presented, and by all cordially

received. Their vassals and clansmen, a part of whose feudal duty it

was to attend on these parties, appeared in such numbers as amounted to

a small army. These active assistants spread through the country far

and near, forming a circle, technically called the “tinchel,” which,

gradually closing, drove the deer in herds together towards the glen

where the Chiefs and principal sportsmen lay in wait for them. In the

meanwhile these distinguished personages bivouacked among the flowery

heath, wrapped up in their plaids, a mode of passing a summer’s night

which Waverley found by no means unpleasant.

For many hours after sunrise the mountain ridges and passes retained

their ordinary appearance of silence and solitude, and the Chiefs, with

their followers, amused themselves with various pastimes, in which the

joys of the shell, as Ossian has it, were not forgotten. “Others apart

sat on a hill retired,” probably as deeply engaged in the discussion

of politics and news as Milton’s spirits in metaphysical disquisition.

At length signals of the approach of the game were descried and heard.

Distant shouts resounded from valley to valley, as the various parties

of Highlanders, climbing rocks, struggling through copses, wading

brooks, and traversing thickets, approached more and more near to each

other, and compelled the astonished deer, with the other wild animals

that fled before them, into a narrower circuit. Every now and then the

report of muskets was heard, repeated by a thousand echoes. The baying

of the dogs was soon added to the chorus, which grew ever louder and

more loud. At length the advanced parties of the deer began to show

themselves; and as the stragglers came bounding down the pass by two or

three at a time, the Chiefs showed their skill by distinguishing the

fattest deer, and their dexterity in bringing them down with their

guns. Fergus exhibited remarkable address, and Edward was also so

fortunate as to attract the notice and applause of the sportsmen.

But now the main body of the deer appeared at the head of the glen,

compelled into a very narrow compass, and presenting such a formidable

phalanx that their antlers appeared at a distance, over the ridge of

the steep pass, like a leafless grove. Their number was very great, and

from a desperate stand which they made, with the tallest of the

red-deer stags arranged in front, in a sort of battle-array, gazing on

the group which barred their passage down the glen, the more

experienced sportsmen began to augur danger. The work of destruction,

however, now commenced on all sides. Dogs and hunters were at work, and

muskets and fusees resounded from every quarter. The deer, driven to

desperation, made at length a fearful charge right upon the spot where

the more distinguished sportsmen had taken their stand. The word was

given in Gaelic to fling themselves upon their faces; but Waverley, on

whose English ears the signal was lost, had almost fallen a sacrifice

to his ignorance of the ancient language in which it was communicated.

Fergus, observing his danger, sprung up and pulled him with violence to

the ground, just as the whole herd broke down upon them. The tide being

absolutely irresistible, and wounds from a stag’s horn highly

dangerous,[*] the activity of the Chieftain may be considered, on this

occasion, as having saved his guest’s life. He detained him with a firm

grasp until the whole herd of deer had fairly run over them. Waverley

then attempted to rise, but found that he had suffered several very

severe contusions, and, upon a further examination, discovered that he

had sprained his ankle violently.

[* The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the stag’s horns was

accounted far more dangerous than those of the boar’s tusk:—

If thou be hurt with horn of stag, it brings thee to thy bier,

But barber’s hand shall boar’s hurt heal, thereof have thou no fear.]

This checked the mirth of the meeting, although the Highlanders,

accustomed to such incidents, and prepared for them, had suffered no

harm themselves. A wigwam was erected almost in an instant, where

Edward was deposited on a couch of heather. The surgeon, or he who

assumed the office, appeared to unite the characters of a leech and a

conjuror. He was an old smoke-dried Highlander, wearing a venerable

grey beard, and having for his sole garment a tartan frock, the skirts

of which descended to the knee, and, being undivided in front, made the

vestment serve at once for doublet and breeches.[*] He observed great

ceremony in approaching Edward; and though our hero was writhing with

pain, would not proceed to any operation which might assuage it until

he had perambulated his couch three times, moving from east to west,

according to the course of the sun. This, which was called making the

“deasil,”[**] both the leech and the assistants seemed to consider as a

matter of the last importance to the accomplishment of a cure; and

Waverley, whom pain rendered incapable of expostulation, and who indeed

saw no chance of its being attended to, submitted in silence.

[* This garb, which resembled the dress often put on children in

Scotland, called a “polonie” (that is, “polonaise”), is a very ancient

modification of the Highland garb. It was, in fact, the hauberk or

shirt of mail, only composed of cloth instead of rings of armour.]

[** Old Highlanders will still make the “deasil” around those whom they

wish well to. To go round a person in the opposite direction, or

wither-shins (German _wider-shins_), is unlucky, and a sort of

incantation.]

After this ceremony was duly performed, the old Esculapius let his

patient’s blood with a cupping-glass with great dexterity, and

proceeded, muttering all the while to himself in Gaelic, to boil on the

fire certain herbs, with which he compounded an embrocation. He then

fomented the parts which had sustained injury, never failing to murmur

prayers or spells, which of the two Waverley could not distinguish, as

his ear only caught the words Gasper-Melchior-Balthazar-max-prax-fax,

and similar gibberish. The fomentation had a speedy effect in

alleviating the pain and swelling, which our hero imputed to the virtue

of the herbs or the effect of the chafing, but which was by the

bystanders unanimously ascribed to the spells with which the operation

had been accompanied. Edward was given to understand that not one of

the ingredients had been gathered except during the full moon, and that

the herbalist had, while collecting them, uniformly recited a charm,

which in English ran thus:—

Hail to thee, thou holy herb,

That sprung on holy ground!

All in the Mount Olivet

First wert thou found.

Thou art boot for many a bruise,

And healest many a wound;

In our Lady’s blessed name,

I take thee from the ground.[*]

[* This metrical spell, or something very like it, is preserved by

Reginald Scott in his work on Witchcraft.]

Edward observed with some surprise that even Fergus, notwithstanding

his knowledge and education, seemed to fall in with the superstitious

ideas of his countrymen, either because he deemed it impolitic to

affect scepticism on a matter of general belief, or more probably

because, like most men who do not think deeply or accurately on such

subjects, he had in his mind a reserve of superstition which balanced

the freedom of his expressions and practice upon other occasions.

Waverley made no commentary, therefore, on the manner of the treatment,

but rewarded the professor of medicine with a liberality beyond the

utmost conception of his wildest hopes. He uttered on the occasion so

many incoherent blessings in Gaelic and English that Mac-Ivor, rather

scandalized at the excess of his acknowledgments, cut them short by

exclaiming, “Ceud mile mhalloich ort!” (that is, “A hundred thousand

curses on you!”) and so pushed the helper of men out of the cabin.

After Waverley was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue—for

the whole day’s exercise had been severe—threw him into a profound, but

yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an opiate draught

administered by the old Highlander from some decoction of herbs in his

pharmacopœia.

Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over, and

their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus and all

his friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a question how

to dispose of the disabled sportsman. This was settled by Mac-Ivor, who

had a litter prepared, of “birch and hazel-grey,”[*] which was borne by

his people with such caution and dexterity as renders it not improbable

that they may have been the ancestors of some of those sturdy Gael who

have now the happiness to transport the belles of Edinburgh in their

sedan-chairs to ten routs in one evening. When Edward was elevated upon

their shoulders he could not help being gratified with the romantic

effect produced by the breaking up of this sylvan camp.[25]

[* On the morrow they made their biers

Of birch and hazel grey.

_Chevy Chase_.]

The various tribes assembled, each at the pibroch of their native clan,

and each headed by their patriarchal ruler. Some, who had already begun

to retire, were seen winding up the hills, or descending the passes

which led to the scene of action, the sound of their bagpipes dying

upon the ear. Others made still a moving picture upon the narrow plain,

forming various changeful groups, their feathers and loose plaids

waving in the morning breeze, and their arms glittering in the rising

sun. Most of the Chiefs came to take farewell of Waverley, and to

express their anxious hope they might again, and speedily, meet; but

the care of Fergus abridged the ceremony of taking leave. At length,

his own men being completely assembled and mustered, Mac-Ivor commenced

his march, but not towards the quarter from which they had come. He

gave Edward to understand that the greater part of his followers now on

the field were bound on a distant expedition, and that when he had

deposited him in the house of a gentleman, who he was sure would pay

him every attention, he himself should be under the necessity of

accompanying them the greater part of the way, but would lose no time

in rejoining his friend.

Waverley was rather surprised that Fergus had not mentioned this

ulterior destination when they set out upon the hunting-party; but his

situation did not admit of many interrogatories. The greater part of

the clansmen went forward under the guidance of old Ballenkeiroch and

Evan Dhu Maccombich, apparently in high spirits. A few remained for the

purpose of escorting the Chieftain, who walked by the side of Edward’s

litter, and attended him with the most affectionate assiduity. About

noon, after a journey which the nature of the conveyance, the pain of

his bruises, and the roughness of the way rendered inexpressibly

painful, Waverley was hospitably received into the house of a gentleman

related to Fergus, who had prepared for him every accommodation which

the simple habits of living then universal in the Highlands put in his

power. In this person, an old man about seventy, Edward admired a relic

of primitive simplicity. He wore no dress but what his estate afforded;

the cloth was the fleece of his own sheep, woven by his own servants,

and stained into tartan by the dyes produced from the herbs and lichens

of the hills around him. His linen was spun by his daughters and

maidservants, from his own flax; nor did his table, though plentiful,

and varied with game and fish, offer an article but what was of native

produce.

Claiming himself no rights of clanship or vassalage, he was fortunate

in the alliance and protection of Vich Ian Vohr and other bold and

enterprising Chieftains, who protected him in the quiet unambitious

life he loved. It is true, the youth born on his grounds were often

enticed to leave him for the service of his more active friends; but a

few old servants and tenants used to shake their grey locks when they

heard their master censured for want of spirit, and observed, “When the

wind is still, the shower falls soft.” This good old man, whose charity

and hospitality were unbounded, would have received Waverley with

kindness had he been the meanest Saxon peasant, since his situation

required assistance. But his attention to a friend and guest of Vich

Ian Vohr was anxious and unremitted. Other embrocations were applied to

the injured limb, and new spells were put in practice. At length, after

more solicitude than was perhaps for the advantage of his health,

Fergus took farewell of Edward for a few days, when, he said, he would

return to Tomanrait, and hoped by that time Waverley would be able to

ride one of the Highland ponies of his landlord, and in that manner

return to Glennaquoich.

The next day, when his good old host appeared, Edward learned that his

friend had departed with the dawn, leaving none of his followers except

Callum Beg, the sort of foot-page who used to attend his person, and

who had now in charge to wait upon Waverley. On asking his host if he

knew where the Chieftain was gone, the old man looked fixedly at him,

with something mysterious and sad in the smile which was his only

reply. Waverley repeated his question, to which his host answered in a

proverb,—

What sent the messengers to hell,

Was asking what they knew full well.[*]

[* Corresponding to the Lowland saying, “Mony ane speirs the gate they

ken fu’ weel.”]

He was about to proceed, but Callum Beg said, rather pertly, as Edward

thought, that “Ta Tighearnach (i.e. the Chief) did not like ta

Sassenagh _duinhé-wassel_ to be pingled wi’ mickle speaking, as she was

na tat weel.” From this Waverley concluded he should disoblige his

friend by inquiring of a stranger the object of a journey which he

himself had not communicated.

It is unnecessary to trace the progress of our hero’s recovery. The

sixth morning had arrived, and he was able to walk about with a staff,

when Fergus returned with about a score of his men. He seemed in the

highest spirits, congratulated Waverley on his progress towards

recovery, and finding he was able to sit on horseback, proposed their

immediate return to Glennaquoich. Waverley joyfully acceded, for the

form of its fair mistress had lived in his dreams during all the time

of his confinement.

Now he has ridden o’er moor and moss,

O’er hill and many a glen,

Fergus, all the while, with his myrmidons, striding stoutly by his

side, or diverging to get a shot at a roe or a heath-cock. Waverley’s

bosom beat thick when they approached the old tower of Ian nan

Chaistel, and could distinguish the fair form of its mistress advancing

to meet them.

Fergus began immediately, with his usual high spirits, to exclaim,

“Open your gates, incomparable princess, to the wounded Moor Abindarez,

whom Rodrigo de Narvez, constable of Antiquera, conveys to your castle;

or open them, if you like it better, to the renowned Marquis of Mantua,

the sad attendant of his half-slain friend Baldovinos of the Mountain.

Ah, long rest to thy soul, Cervantes! without quoting thy remnants, how

should I frame my language to befit romantic ears!”

Flora now advanced, and welcoming Waverley with much kindness,

expressed her regret for his accident, of which she had already heard

particulars, and her surprise that her brother should not have taken

better care to put a stranger on his guard against the perils of the

sport in which he engaged him. Edward easily exculpated the Chieftain,

who, indeed, at his own personal risk, had probably saved his life.

This greeting over, Fergus said three or four words to his sister in

Gaelic. The tears instantly sprung to her eyes, but they seemed to be

tears of devotion and joy, for she looked up to heaven and folded her

hands as in a solemn expression of prayer or gratitude. After the pause

of a minute, she presented to Edward some letters which had been

forwarded from Tully-Veolan during his absence, and at the same time

delivered some to her brother. To the latter she likewise gave three or

four numbers of the “Caledonian Mercury,” the only newspaper which was

then published to the north of the Tweed.

Both gentlemen retired to examine their despatches, and Edward speedily

found that those which he had received contained matters of very deep

interest.