The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  What want these outlaws conquerors should have But history's purchased page to call them great, A wider space, an ornamented grave? Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.

  BYRON.

  The funeral obsequies being over, the same flotilla which had proceededin solemn and sad array down the lake prepared to return with displayedbanners, and every demonstration of mirth and joy; for there was butbrief time to celebrate festivals when the awful conflict betwixt theClan Quhele and their most formidable rivals so nearly approached. Ithad been agreed, therefore, that the funeral feast should be blendedwith that usually given at the inauguration of the young chief.

  Some objections were made to this arrangement, as containing an evilomen. But, on the other hand, it had a species of recommendation, fromthe habits and feelings of the Highlanders, who, to this day, are wontto mingle a degree of solemn mirth with their mourning, and somethingresembling melancholy with their mirth. The usual aversion to speakor think of those who have been beloved and lost is less known to thisgrave and enthusiastic race than it is to others. You hear not only theyoung mention (as is everywhere usual) the merits and the character ofparents, who have, in the course of nature, predeceased them; but thewidowed partner speaks, in ordinary conversation, of the lost spouse,and, what is still stranger, the parents allude frequently to the beautyor valour of the child whom they have interred. The Scottish Highlandersappear to regard the separation of friends by death as something lessabsolute and complete than it is generally esteemed in other countries,and converse of the dear connexions who have sought the grave beforethem as if they had gone upon a long journey in which they themselvesmust soon follow. The funeral feast, therefore, being a general customthroughout Scotland, was not, in the opinion of those who were to shareit, unseemingly mingled, on the present occasion, with the festivitieswhich hailed the succession to the chieftainship.

  The barge which had lately borne the dead to the grave now conveyedthe young MacIan to his new command and the minstrels sent forth theirgayest notes to gratulate Eachin's succession, as they had latelysounded their most doleful dirges when carrying Gilchrist to his grave.From the attendant flotilla rang notes of triumph and jubilee, insteadof those yells of lamentation which had so lately disturbed the echoesof Loch Tay; and a thousand voices hailed the youthful chieftain as hestood on the poop, armed at all points, in the flower of early manhood,beauty, and activity, on the very spot where his father's corpse had solately been extended, and surrounded by triumphant friends, as that hadbeen by desolate mourners.

  One boat kept closest of the flotilla to the honoured galley. Torquilof the Oak, a grizzled giant, was steersman; and his eight sons, eachexceeding the ordinary stature of mankind, pulled the oars. Like somepowerful and favourite wolf hound, unloosed from his couples, andfrolicking around a liberal master, the boat of the foster brethrenpassed the chieftain's barge, now on one side and now on another, andeven rowed around it, as if in extravagance of joy; while, at the sametime, with the jealous vigilance of the animal we have compared it to,they made it dangerous for any other of the flotilla to approach so nearas themselves, from the risk of being run down by their impetuousand reckless manoeuvres. Raised to an eminent rank in the clan by thesuccession of their foster brother to the command of the Clan Quhele,this was the tumultuous and almost terrible mode in which they testifiedtheir peculiar share in their chief's triumph.

  Far behind, and with different feelings, on the part of one at least ofthe company, came the small boat in which, manned by the Booshalloch andone of his sons, Simon Glover was a passenger.

  "If we are bound for the head of the lake," said Simon to his friend,"we shall hardly be there for hours."

  But as he spoke the crew of the boat of the foster brethren, orleichtach, on a signal from the chief's galley, lay on their oars untilthe Booshalloch's boat came up, and throwing on board a rope of hides,which Niel made fast to the head of his skiff, they stretched to theiroars once more, and, notwithstanding they had the small boat in tow,swept through the lake with almost the same rapidity as before. Theskiff was tugged on with a velocity which seemed to hazard the pullingher under water, or the separation of her head from her other timbers.

  Simon Glover saw with anxiety the reckless fury of their course, and thebows of the boat occasionally brought within an inch or two of the levelof the water; and though his friend, Niel Booshalloch, assured him itwas all done in especial honour, he heartily wished his voyage mighthave a safe termination. It had so, and much sooner than he apprehended;for the place of festivity was not four miles distant from thesepulchral island, being chosen to suit the chieftain's course, whichlay to the southeast, so soon as the banquet should be concluded. Abay on the southern side of Loch Tay presented a beautiful beach ofsparkling sand, on which the boats might land with ease, and a drymeadow, covered with turf, verdant considering the season, behind andaround which rose high banks, fringed with copsewood, and displaying thelavish preparations which had been made for the entertainment.

  The Highlanders, well known for ready hatchet men, had constructed along arbour or silvan banqueting room, capable of receiving two hundredmen, while a number of smaller huts around seemed intended for sleepingapartments. The uprights, the couples, and roof tree of the temporaryhall were composed of mountain pine, still covered with its bark. Theframework of the sides was of planks or spars of the same material,closely interwoven with the leafy boughs of the fir and otherevergreens, which the neighbouring woods afforded, while the hills hadfurnished plenty of heath to form the roof. Within this silvan palacethe most important personages present were invited to hold highfestival. Others of less note were to feast in various long shedsconstructed with less care; and tables of sod, or rough planks, placedin the open air, were allotted to the numberless multitude. At adistance were to be seen piles of glowing charcoal or blazing wood,around which countless cooks toiled, bustled, and fretted, like so manydemons working in their native element. Pits, wrought in the hillside,and lined with heated stones, served as ovens for stewing immensequantities of beef, mutton, and venison; wooden spits supported sheepand goats, which were roasted entire; others were cut into joints,and seethed in caldrons made of the animal's own skins, sewed hastilytogether and filled with water; while huge quantities of pike, trout,salmon, and char were broiled with more ceremony on glowing embers. Theglover had seen many a Highland banquet, but never one the preparationsfor which were on such a scale of barbarous profusion.

  He had little time, however, to admire the scene around him for, assoon as they landed on the beach, the Booshalloch observed with someembarrassment, that, as they had not been bidden to the table of thedais, to which he seemed to have expected an invitation, they had bestsecure a place in one of the inferior bothies or booths; and was leadingthe way in that direction, when he was stopped by one of the bodyguards,seeming to act as master of ceremonies, who whispered something in hisear.

  "I thought so," said the herdsman, much relieved--"I thought neither thestranger nor the man that has my charge would be left out at the hightable."

  They were conducted accordingly into the ample lodge, within which werelong ranges of tables already mostly occupied by the guests, while thosewho acted as domestics were placing upon them the abundant though rudematerials of the festival. The young chief, although he certainly sawthe glover and the herdsman enter, did not address any personal saluteto either, and their places were assigned them in a distant corner, farbeneath the salt, a huge piece of antique silver plate, the only articleof value that the table displayed, and which was regarded by the clanas a species of palladium, only produced and used on the most solemnoccasions, such as the present.

  The Booshalloch, somewhat discontented, muttered to Simon as he took hisplace: "These are changed days, friend. His father, rest his soul, wouldhave spoken to us both; but these are bad manners which he has learnedamong you Sassenachs in the Low Country."

 
To this remark the glover did not think it necessary to reply; insteadof which he adverted to the evergreens, and particularly to the skinsand other ornaments with which the interior of the bower was decorated.The most remarkable part of these ornaments was a number of Highlandshirts of mail, with steel bonnets, battle axes, and two handed swordsto match, which hung around the upper part of the room, together withtargets highly and richly embossed. Each mail shirt was hung over a welldressed stag's hide, which at once displayed the armour to advantage andsaved it from suffering by damp.

  "These," whispered the Booshalloch, "are the arms of the chosenchampions of the Clan Quhele. They are twenty-nine in number, as yousee, Eachin himself being the thirtieth, who wears his armour today,else had there been thirty. And he has not got such a good hauberk afterall as he should wear on Palm Sunday. These nine suits of harness, ofsuch large size, are for the leichtach, from whom so much is expected."

  "And these goodly deer hides," said Simon, the spirit of his professionawakening at the sight of the goods in which he traded--"think you thechief will be disposed to chaffer for them? They are in demand for thedoublets which knights wear under their armour."

  "Did I not pray you," said Niel Booshalloch, "to say nothing on thatsubject?"

  "It is the mail shirts I speak of," said Simon--"may I ask if any ofthem were made by our celebrated Perth armourer, called Henry of theWynd?"

  "Thou art more unlucky than before," said Niel, "that man's name is toEachin's temper like a whirlwind upon the lake; yet no man knows forwhat cause."

  "I can guess," thought our glover, but gave no utterance to the thought;and, having twice lighted on unpleasant subjects of conversation, heprepared to apply himself, like those around him, to his food, withoutstarting another topic.

  We have said as much of the preparations as may lead the reader toconclude that the festival, in respect of the quality of the food, wasof the most rude description, consisting chiefly of huge joints of meat,which were consumed with little respect to the fasting season, althoughseveral of the friars of the island convent graced and hallowed theboard by their presence. The platters were of wood, and so were thehooped cogues or cups out of which the guests quaffed their liquor, asalso the broth or juice of the meat, which was held a delicacy. Therewere also various preparations of milk which were highly esteemed, andwere eaten out of similar vessels. Bread was the scarcest article at thebanquet, but the glover and his patron Niel were served with two smallloaves expressly for their own use. In eating, as, indeed, was then thecase all over Britain, the guests used their knives called skenes, orthe large poniards named dirks, without troubling themselves by thereflection that they might occasionally have served different or morefatal purposes.

  At the upper end of the table stood a vacant seat, elevated a step ortwo above the floor. It was covered with a canopy of hollow boughs andivy, and there rested against it a sheathed sword and a folded banner.This had been the seat of the deceased chieftain, and was left vacantin honour of him. Eachin occupied a lower chair on the right hand of theplace of honour.

  The reader would be greatly mistaken who should follow out thisdescription by supposing that the guests behaved like a herd of hungrywolves, rushing upon a feast rarely offered to them. On the contrary,the Clan Quhele conducted themselves with that species of courteousreserve and attention to the wants of others which is often found inprimitive nations, especially such as are always in arms, because ageneral observance of the rules of courtesy is necessary to preventquarrels, bloodshed, and death. The guests took the places assigned themby Torquil of the Oak, who, acting as marischal taeh, i.e. sewer ofthe mess, touched with a white wand, without speaking a word, the placewhere each was to sit. Thus placed in order, the company patientlywaited for the portion assigned them, which was distributed among themby the leichtach; the bravest men or more distinguished warriors ofthe tribe being accommodated with a double mess, emphatically calledbieyfir, or the portion of a man. When the sewers themselves had seenevery one served, they resumed their places at the festival, and wereeach served with one of these larger messes of food. Water was placedwithin each man's reach, and a handful of soft moss served the purposesof a table napkin, so that, as at an Eastern banquet, the hands werewashed as often as the mess was changed. For amusement, the bard recitedthe praises of the deceased chief, and expressed the clan's confidencein the blossoming virtues of his successor. The seannachie recited thegenealogy of the tribe, which they traced to the race of the Dalriads;the harpers played within, while the war pipes cheered the multitudewithout. The conversation among the guests was grave, subdued, andcivil; no jest was attempted beyond the bounds of a very gentlepleasantry, calculated only to excite a passing smile. There were noraised voices, no contentious arguments; and Simon Glover had heard ahundred times more noise at a guild feast in Perth than was made on thisoccasion by two hundred wild mountaineers.

  Even the liquor itself did not seem to raise the festive party above thesame tone of decorous gravity. It was of various kinds. Wine appeared invery small quantities, and was served out only to the principal guests,among which honoured number Simon Glover was again included. The wineand the two wheaten loaves were indeed the only marks of notice which hereceived during the feast; but Niel Booshalloch, jealous of his master'sreputation for hospitality, failed not to enlarge on them as proofsof high distinction. Distilled liquors, since so generally used inthe Highlands, were then comparatively unknown. The usquebaugh wascirculated in small quantities, and was highly flavoured with adecoction of saffron and other herbs, so as to resemble a medicinalpotion rather than a festive cordial. Cider and mead were seen at theentertainment, but ale, brewed in great quantities for the purpose, andflowing round without restriction, was the liquor generally used, andthat was drunk with a moderation much less known among the more modernHighlanders. A cup to the memory of the deceased chieftain was the firstpledge solemnly proclaimed after the banquet was finished, and a lowmurmur of benedictions was heard from the company, while the monksalone, uplifting their united voices, sung Requiem eternam dona. Anunusual silence followed, as if something extraordinary was expected,when Eachin arose with a bold and manly, yet modest, grace, and ascendedthe vacant seat or throne, saying with dignity and firmness:

  "This seat and my father's inheritance I claim as my right--so prosperme God and St. Barr!"

  "How will you rule your father's children?" said an old man, the uncleof the deceased.

  "I will defend them with my father's sword, and distribute justice tothem under my father's banner."

  The old man, with a trembling hand, unsheathed the ponderous weapon,and, holding it by the blade, offered the hilt to the young chieftain'sgrasp; at the same time Torquil of the Oak unfurled the pennon of thetribe, and swung it repeatedly over Eachin's head, who, with singulargrace and dexterity, brandished the huge claymore as in its defence.The guests raised a yelling shout to testify their acceptance of thepatriarchal chief who claimed their allegiance, nor was there any who,in the graceful and agile youth before them, was disposed to recollectthe subject of sinister vaticinations. As he stood in glittering mail,resting on the long sword, and acknowledging by gracious gestures theacclamations which rent the air within, without, and around, SimonGlover was tempted to doubt whether this majestic figure was that of thesame lad whom he had often treated with little ceremony, and began tohave some apprehension of the consequences of having done so. Ageneral burst of minstrelsy succeeded to the acclamations, and rock andgreenwood rang to harp and pipes, as lately to shout and yell of woe.

  It would be tedious to pursue the progress of the inaugural feast, ordetail the pledges that were quaffed to former heroes of the clan, andabove all to the twenty-nine brave galloglasses who were to fight in theapproaching conflict, under the eye and leading of their young chief.The bards, assuming in old times the prophetic character combined withtheir own, ventured to assure them of the most distinguished victory,and to predict the fury with which the blue falcon, the emblem of theClan Quh
ele, should rend to pieces the mountain cat, the well knownbadge of the Clan Chattan.

  It was approaching sunset when a bowl, called the grace cup, made ofoak, hooped with silver, was handed round the table as the signal ofdispersion, although it was left free to any who chose a longer carouseto retreat to any of the outer bothies. As for Simon Glover, theBooshalloch conducted him to a small hut, contrived, it would seem,for the use of a single individual, where a bed of heath and moss wasarranged as well as the season would permit, and an ample supply ofsuch delicacies as the late feast afforded showed that all care had beentaken for the inhabitant's accommodation.

  "Do not leave this hut," said the Booshalloch, taking leave of hisfriend and protege: "this is your place of rest. But apartments are loston such a night of confusion, and if the badger leaves his hole the toadwill creep into it."

  To Simon Glover this arrangement was by no means disagreeable. He hadbeen wearied by the noise of the day, and felt desirous of repose. Aftereating, therefore, a morsel, which his appetite scarce required, anddrinking a cup of wine to expel the cold, he muttered his eveningprayer, wrapt himself in his cloak, and lay down on a couch which oldacquaintance had made familiar and easy to him. The hum and murmur,and even the occasional shouts, of some of the festive multitude whocontinued revelling without did not long interrupt his repose, and inabout ten minutes he was as fast asleep as if he had lain in his own bedin Curfew Street.