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Although from day to day we people in London knew not whether before the sun set the dreaded pibroch of the Highland Clans might not be heard at Charing Cross, and the barbarian rout of Caterans that formed the Prince, I mean the Chevalier, I mean the Pretender's Army, scattered all about the City, plundering our Chattels, and ravaging our fair English homes; although, for aught men knew, another month, nay another week, might see King George the Second toppled from his Throne, and King James the Third installed, with his Royal Highness Charles Edward Prince of Wales as Regent; although it was but a toss-up whether the Archbishop of Canterbury should not be ousted from Lambeth by a Popish Prelate, and the whole country reduced to Slavery and Bankruptcy; yet to those who lived quiet lives, and kept civil tongues in their heads, all things went on pretty much as usual: and each day had its evil, and sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.
When this Charles Stewart returned to these kingdoms, did the malignants bring him back? They had tried it with strong hand, but they failed, I trow. Could James Grahame of Montrose, and his Highland caterans, have put him again in the place of his father? I think their heads on the Westport told another tale for many a long day.
The Bailie, who by no means relished these warlike counsels, here pulled forth an immense watch, of the colour, and nearly of the size, of a pewter warming-pan, and observed it was now past noon, and that the Caterans had been seen in the pass of Ballybrough soon after sunrise; so that, before the allied forces could assemble, they and their prey would be far beyond the reach of the most active pursuit, and sheltered in those pathless deserts, where it was neither advisable to follow, nor indeed possible to trace them.
This step was indeed necessary, Tully-Veolan having become a very unpleasant, and even dangerous place of residence for an unprotected young lady, on account of its vicinity to the Highlands, and also to one or two large villages, which, from aversion as much to the Caterans as zeal for presbytery, had declared themselves on the side of Government, and formed irregular bodies of partisans, who had frequent skirmishes with the mountaineers, and sometimes attacked the houses of the Jacobite gentry in the braes, or frontier betwixt the mountain and plain.
And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands. Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to compound with the Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a head.
Yet I had thought that could they have done nought else, they might at least have flung themselves into the mountain country, where these bare-legged caterans could have held their own amid their native clouds and mists. All taken, you say! It is a lesson and a warning to us.
Neither did the front indicate absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes for musketry, and iron stanchions on the lower windows, probably to repel any roving band of gypsies, or resist a predatory visit from the caterans of the neighbouring Highlands. Stables and other offices occupied another side of the square.
"Son David," said the King, "you give an undue license to your tongue." "Nay, Sir, I am mute," replied the Prince. "I had no purpose to disturb your Highness, or displease the father prior, who, with so many miracles at his disposal, will not face, as it seems, a handful of Highland caterans."
M'Whirtle, instead of setting your men to break down the door, as if they were Highland caterans on a foray?" "We bade you open in the king's name," the magistrate said, "and you withstood us, and it will be hanging matter for you, for you have aided the king's enemies." "The king's enemies!" Ronald said in a tone of surprise.
The story of the bridegroom carried off by caterans on his bridal- day is taken from one which was told to the author by the late Laird of Mac-Nab many years since. To carry off persons from the Lowlands, and to put them to ransom, was a common practice with the wild Highlanders, as it is said to be at the present day with the banditti in the south of Italy.
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