The True Story Book Part 15

There seemed nothing for it, therefore, but for Johnstone to return at daybreak to the house of Mr. Gordon, where he had spent the previous night. At daybreak, however, he was roused by a fearful disturbance in the courtyard below, occasioned by the quarrels of some stray soldiers.

For a moment he thought death was certain, but the soldiers had no suspicion of his presence in the house, and as soon as they had settled their affairs took themselves off elsewhere.

Mr. Rollo proved a broken reed, and the Chevalier found, after a few minutes' talk with his brother-in-law, that if he wished to reach the Continent he must not count on a pa.s.sage in the merchant ships to help him. He therefore, after consultation with his friends, came to the conclusion that his best plan was to make for the Lowlands, and to this end he set out for Edinburgh as soon as possible. Of course this scheme was beset with difficulties and dangers of every kind. The counties through which he would be forced to pa.s.s were filled with Calvinists, inspired with deadly hatred of the Jacobite party. To escape their hands was almost certainly to fall into those of the soldiery, and over and above this, government pa.s.sports were necessary for those who desired to cross the Firths of Forth and Tay.

But, nothing daunted, Johnstone went his way. He was pa.s.sed in disguise from one house to another, well-fed at the lowest possible prices (he tells us of the landlady of a small inn who charged him threepence for 'an excellent young fowl' and his bed), till at last he found himself in the region of Cortachy, the country of the Ogilvies, who one and all were on the side of the Prince. At Cortachy he was quite secure, as long as no English soldiery came by, and even if they did, the mountains were full of hiding places, and there was no risk of treachery at home. Two officers who had served in the French army, Brown and Gordon by name, had sought refuge here before him, and lay concealed in the house of a peasant known as Samuel. They implored him not to run the risk of proceeding south till affairs had quieted down a little, and he agreed to remain at Samuel's cottage till it seemed less dangerous to travel south.

It would be interesting to know what was 'the gratification beyond his hopes' which Johnstone gave Samuel when they parted company some time after. It ought to have been something very handsome considering the risks which the peasant had run in his behalf, and also the fact that for several weeks Johnstone and his two friends had shared the scanty fare of Samuel and his family. They had 'no other food than oatmeal, and no other drink than the water of the stream which ran through the glen.

We breakfasted every morning on a piece of oatmeal bread which we were enabled to swallow by draughts of water; for dinner we boiled oatmeal with water, till it acquired a consistency, and we ate it with horn spoons; in the evening, we poured boiling water on this meal in a dish, for our supper.'[18] Even this frugal diet could not be swallowed long in peace, for shortly after their arrival, Samuel's daughter, who lived at the mouth of the glen, came to inform her father that some English troops had been seen in the neighbourhood, and whenever there was any chance of their appearing in the glen Johnstone and his friends had to take refuge in the mountains.

One day this woman arrived with the news that the soldiery were hovering dangerously near, and had taken several notable prisoners. Upon this the fugitives decided to leave their shelter at daybreak the following morning and to make the best of their way to the Highlands, where they would be sure of finding some rocks and caverns to hide them from their foes.

This resolution once taken, they all went early to bed, and there Johnstone had a dream which he relates with many apologies for his superst.i.tion. He fancied himself in Edinburgh safe from the snares of his enemies, and with no fears for the future, and describing his adventures and escapes since the battle of Culloden to his old friend Lady Jane Douglas. The impression of peace and happiness and relief from anxiety was so strong that it remained with him after he woke, and after lying turning the matter over in his mind for another hour, informed Samuel (who had come to rouse him with the intelligence that his companions had already set off for the mountains) that he had altered his plans and intended to go straight to Edinburgh. In vain the old man argued and entreated. Johnstone was determined, and that same evening he set forth on horseback with Samuel for his guide, and made straight for the nearest arm of the sea, which he describes, though quite wrongly, as being only eight miles from Cortachy.

To reach this, they were obliged to pa.s.s through Forfar, a town which, being a Calvinistic stronghold, the Chevalier can never mention without an abusive epithet. But here poor Samuel, whose nerves had doubtless been strained by the perpetual watching and waiting of the last few weeks, was frightened out of his senses by the barking of a dog, and tried to throw himself from his horse. At this juncture, Johnstone, who knew that to be left without a guide in this strange place meant certain death, interfered promptly. 'He was continually struggling to get down,'

he says,[19] 'but I prevented him by the firm hold I had of his coat. I exhorted him to be quiet; I reproached him; I alternately entreated and menaced him; but all in vain. He no longer knew what he was about, and it was to no purpose I a.s.sured him that it was only the barking of a dog. He perspired at every pore, and trembled like a person in an ague.

Fortunately I had an excellent horse, and galloped through Forfar at full speed, retaining always fast hold of his coat. As soon as we were fairly out of the town, as no persons had come out of their houses, poor Samuel began to breathe again, and made a thousand apologies for his fears.'

As the day broke and they drew near Broughty Ferry, where Johnstone intended to cross the Firth of Tay, the Chevalier dismounted, and being obliged to part from his horse, offered it as a present to Samuel, who declined the animal from motives of prudence. It was then turned loose in a field (the saddle and bridle being first thrown down a well), and the wayfarers proceeded on their way. Only a few minutes later, they were joined by an acquaintance of Samuel's, who seems to have been of a curious turn of mind, and cross-questioned him as to where he was going and why. Samuel, with more readiness than could have been expected from his recent behaviour, invented a story that sounded plausible enough, explaining Johnstone to be a young man whom he had picked up on the road, and had taken into his service at low wages, owing to his want of a character. The stranger was satisfied, and after a prolonged drink they separated, when Samuel informed Johnstone that the man was one of the 'greatest knaves and cheats in the country,' and that they would a.s.suredly have been betrayed if he had discovered who they were.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

They arrived at the Ferry about nine in the morning, and by Samuel's advice, the Chevalier immediately sought the help of Mr. Graham, a gentleman of Jacobite family, then living at Duntroon. After a warm welcome from Mr. Graham, who gave him all the entertainment he could without the knowledge of his servants, a boat was engaged to convey him across the Firth about nine that night. Mr. Graham did not, however, dare to be his guide down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, but gave him careful directions as to his following an old woman who had been provided for this purpose. But all Mr. Graham's precautions would have been useless, had not chance once more favoured the Chevalier. His protectress decided that it would be dangerous to allow him to loiter about the sh.o.r.e while the boat was getting ready for sea, so she told her charge to wait for her on the road on top of the hill, and she would return and fetch him when all was ready. Half an hour pa.s.sed very slowly: the sun was sinking, and the Chevalier grew impatient. He left the road by which he had been sitting, and lay down in a furrow a few yards off, nearer the brow of the hill, so that he might perceive his guide at the earliest moment. Scarcely had he changed his quarters, than he heard the sound of horses, and peeping cautiously out, 'saw eight or ten hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.s in the very place he had just quitted.' No sooner were they out of sight, than the old woman arrived, trembling with fright. 'Ah!' she exclaimed in a transport of joy, 'I did not expect to find you here.' She then explained that the hors.e.m.e.n were English dragoons, and that they had so threatened the boatmen engaged by Mr. Graham that they absolutely refused to fulfil their compact. This was a terrible blow to the Chevalier, but he declined to listen to the old woman's advice and return for shelter to Mr. Graham, and after much persuasion, induced his guide to show him the way to the public-house by the sea-sh.o.r.e. Here he was welcomed by the landlady, whose son had been likewise 'out' with the Prince, but neither her entreaties nor those of the Chevalier could move the boatmen from their resolution. They even resisted the prayers of the landlady's two beautiful daughters, till the girls, disgusted and indignant with such cowardice, offered to row him across themselves.

'We left Broughty Ferry,' he writes in his memoirs, 'at ten o'clock in the evening, and reached the opposite sh.o.r.e about midnight.' He then took an affectionate leave of his preservers, and proceeded, footsore as he was, to walk to St. Andrews. At this time Johnstone seems to have felt more physically exhausted than at almost any other moment of his travels; and it was only by dint of perpetually washing his sore and bleeding feet in the streams he pa.s.sed, that he managed to reach St.

Andrews towards eight o'clock. He at once made his way to the house of his cousin, Mrs. Spence, who, herself a suspected person, was much taken aback by the sight of him, and hastily sent a letter to a tenant farmer living near the town, to provide the fugitive with a horse which would carry him to Wemyss, a seaport town on the way to Edinburgh. The old University city does not appear to have made a favourable impression on the Chevalier. He declares that no town 'ever deserved so much the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah,'[20] and this, not from any particular wickedness on the part of the inhabitants, but because they were supposed to be Calvinists. However, his sentiments must have been confirmed when the farmer declined to take his horses out on a Sunday, and, lame as he was, Johnstone had no choice but to set out on foot for Wemyss. Halfway, he suddenly remembered that close by lived an old servant of his family, married to the gardener of Mr. Beaton, of Balfour. Here he was housed and fed for twenty hours, and then conducted by his host, a rigid Presbyterian, to a tavern at Wemyss, kept by the mother-in-law of the gardener. By her advice they applied to a man named Salmon, who, though a rabid Hanoverian, could be trusted not to betray those who had faith in him. It was hard work to gain over Salmon, who was proof against bribery, but at last it was done. By his recommendation Johnstone was to lie till dawn in a cave near Wemyss (a place whose name means 'caves'), and with the first ray of light was to beg a pa.s.sage to Leith from some men who were with Salmon part owners of a boat. In this cave, which, notwithstanding its narrow entrance, was deep and s.p.a.cious, the Chevalier was glad to repose his weary bones. But, after dozing about an hour, he was 'awakened by the most horrible and alarming cries that ever were heard.'[21] His first thought was that Salmon had betrayed him, and he retreated to the interior of the cavern, c.o.c.ked his pistol, and prepared to sell his life dearly. Soon, however, the swift movements accompanying the noise convinced him that it did not proceed from men, for 'sometimes the object was about my ears, and nearly stunned me, and, in an instant, at a considerable distance. At length I ceased to examine any more this horrible and incomprehensible phenomenon, which made a noise in confusion like that of a number of trumpets and drums, with a mixture of different sounds, altogether unknown to me.'

Effectually aroused by the whining of the owls and bats (for these, of course, were the authors of all this disturbance), Johnstone fixed his eyes on the sea to note the first entrance of the fishing boats into the harbour. He then went down to the sh.o.r.e and began to make the bargain as directed by Salmon, and the fishermen agreed to land him at Leith for half-a-crown. But alas! once more his hopes were blighted. He was in the act of stepping into the boat, when Salmon's wife appeared on the scene, and forbade her husband to go to Leith that day, still less to take a stranger there. Neither Salmon nor Johnstone dared insist, for fear of rousing the woman's suspicions, and after a short retreat in the cave in order to collect his thoughts, he returned to the tavern at Wemyss, to consult with the friendly landlady. Thanks to her, and with the help of one or two people to whom she introduced him, Johnstone at last arrived at the house of one Mr. Seton, whose son had formerly served with Johnstone in the army of the Prince. Here he remained eight days, vainly seeking to find a second man who could aid the fisherman who had already promised to put him across, though it does not appear why Johnstone, who had already observed[22] that he was able to row, did not take an oar when his own head was at stake.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At last affairs were brought to a crisis, by rumours having got abroad of the presence of a fugitive on the coast. Things seemed in a desperate condition, when young Seton threw himself into the breach, and agreed to help Cousselain, the fisherman, to take the Chevalier to Leith. They were actually launching the boat when the inhabitants of the village, alarmed by the noise they made, raised a cry that a rebel was escaping, and the two oarsmen had barely time to conceal themselves without being discovered. However, in flat defiance of everyone's advice, and, as it turned out, in spite of the drunken state of Cousselain, Johnstone resolved to repeat the attempt in an hour's time, taking in the end, as he might have done at the beginning, his place at the oar. For a few moments they breathed freely; then the wind got up, and the waves, and, what was perhaps more dangerous, the drunken Cousselain, who had been placed in the bottom of the boat. 'We were obliged to kick him most unmercifully in order to keep him quiet,' observes Johnstone, 'and to threaten to throw him overboard if he made the least movement. Seton and myself rowed like galley slaves. We succeeded in landing, about six in the morning, on a part of the coast a league and a half to the east of Edinburgh,[23] near the battlefield of Gladsmuir.' Here he parted with his deliverers, tenderly embracing young Seton, and presenting to the 'somewhat sober' Cousselain a gratification beyond his hopes.

After taking a little of the food with which Mr. Seton had provided him, he determined to seek refuge for a few days with an old governess, Mrs.

Blythe, wife of a small shipowner at Leith. Blythe himself was another of the many 'rigid Calvinists and sworn enemies of the house of Stuart'

to whom Johnstone entrusted his safety during his wanderings, and never once had occasion to repent it. Mr. Blythe, indeed, combined the profession of Calvinist with that of smuggler, and had numerous hiding places in his house for the concealment of contraband goods, which would prove equally serviceable, as Johnstone told him, for 'the most contraband and dangerous commodity that he had ever had in his possession.'

Though Johnstone had reached the goal of his desires, his perils were by no means at an end. English soldiers visited the house, and could with difficulty be persuaded to admit the exemption pleaded by Mr. Blythe. In consequence of this event, Johnstone accepted the offer of an asylum made him by Lady Jane Douglas, in her place at Drumsheugh, half a league away. So his dream came true, and after all his wanderings he was safe with Lady Jane, telling the story of his adventures. He remained with her for two months, unknown to anyone but his hostess and the gardener, reading all day, and only taking a walk at night, when the household was in bed. At the end of that time, when Lady Jane and his father were of opinion that he might safely go to London, and thence abroad, fresh rumours as to his whereabouts began to arise, and fearing the immediate visit of a detachment of English soldiers, he was concealed for a whole day under a huge hayc.o.c.k, so overcome by the heat that he could hardly breathe, in spite of a bottle of water and another of wine, with which he was provided.

This measure, which after all was needless, for no soldiers came, was the last trial he had to undergo before leaving Scotland, and here we must part from him. In France, which he made his home, he became the friend of many eminent men, and was aide-de-camp in Canada to the Marquis de Montcalm. But the end of his life was sad, and he died in poverty.[24]

FOOTNOTES:

[14] P. 211.

[15] P. 215.

[16] P. 217.

[17] P. 229.

[18] P. 249.

[19] P. 257.

[20] P. 274.

[21] P. 295.

[22] P. 271.

[23] P. 308.

[24] From _Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone_. Longmans. London, 1822. The Memoirs were written in French, and deposited in the Scots College at Paris. They were communicated to Messrs. Longman by Robert Watson, the adventurer, who, under Napoleon, was Princ.i.p.al of the Scots College. The Chevalier left a granddaughter, who corresponded on the subject of the Memoirs with Sir Walter Scott.

_THE ADVENTURES OF LORD PITSLIGO_

WHEN Prince Charles came to Scotland in 1745, to seek his grandfather's crown, no braver and no better man rode with him than Lord Pitsligo. He was now sixty-seven years of age, for he was born in 1678, ten years before James II. was driven out of England. As a young man he had lived much in France, where he became the friend of the famous Fenelon, author of 'Telemaque.' Though much interested in the doctrines of Fenelon, Lord Pitsligo did not change his faith, but remained a member of the persecuted Episcopal Church of Scotland. In France he met the members of the exiled Royal family, whom he never ceased to regard as his lawful monarchs, though Queen Anne, and later the First and Second Georges, occupied the throne of England. When the clans rose for King James, the son of James II., in 1715, Lord Pitsligo, then a man of twenty-seven, joined the forces under his kinsman, Lord Marr. His party was defeated, and he went abroad. He did not stay long with James in Rome, but was allowed to return to his estates in Scotland. Here he lived very quietly, beloved by rich and poor. But, in 1745, Prince Charles landed, and the old Lord believed it to be his duty to join him. He had, as he says, no keen enthusiasm for the Stuarts, but to his mind they were his lawful rulers. So aged was he, and so infirm, that, when he left a neighbour's house before setting out, a little boy brought a stool to help him to mount his horse. 'My little fellow,' he said, 'this is the severest reproof I have yet met with, for presuming to go on such an expedition.' Lady Pitsligo in vain reminded him of the failure of 1715.

'There never was a bridal,' he replied, 'but the second day was the best.' The gentlemen of his county thought that they could not do wrong in following so learned and excellent a man, so they all mounted the white c.o.c.kade and rode with him. He arrived just too late for the victory of Preston Pans. 'It seemed,' said an eye-witness, 'as if religion, virtue, and justice were entering the camp under the appearance of this venerable old man.' When he wrote home, he said, 'I had occasion to discover the Prince's humanity, I ought to say tenderness: this is giving myself no great airs, for he showed the same dispositions to everybody.' In the fatigues of the campaign, the Prince, who was young and strong, insisted on Lord Pitsligo's using his carriage, while he himself marched on foot at the head of his army.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

After the defeat of Culloden, Lord Pitsligo hid among the mountains, living on oatmeal, moistened with hot water. They had not even salt to their brose; for, as one of the Highlanders said, 'Salt is touchy,'

meaning expensive. Yet these men, who could not even buy salt, never betrayed their Prince for the great reward of thirty thousand pounds, nor any of the other gentlemen in hiding. Possibly they did not believe that there was so much money in the world. Lord Pitsligo had made up his mind not to go abroad again, but to live or die among his own people. At one time he lay for days hidden in a damp hole under a little bridge, and at other times concealed himself in the mosses and moors. Here the lapwings, flitting and crying above him, were like to have drawn the English soldiers to his retreat. His wife gave him two great bags, like those which beggars carried; in these he would place the alms which were given to him, and in this disguise he had many narrow escapes. Once he saw some dragoons on the road behind him, but he was too old and too ill to run. He was obliged to sit down and cough, and one of the dragoons who were in search of him actually gave him some money as they pa.s.sed by, and condoled with him on the severity of his cough.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Lord Pitsligo often hid in a cave on the coast of Buchan. Here was a spring of water welling through the rock, and he carved a little cistern for it, to pa.s.s the time. He was fed by a little girl, too young to be suspected, who carried his meals from a neighbouring farm. One day he was sitting in the kitchen of the farm, when some soldiers came in, and asked the goodwife to guide them to Lord Pitsligo's cave. She said, 'That travelling body will go with you,' and Lord Pitsligo conducted the soldiers to his hiding place, left them there, and walked back to the farm. But the following adventure was perhaps his narrowest escape.

In March 1756, and of course long after all apprehension of a search had ceased, information having been given to the then commanding officer at Fraserburgh, that Lord Pitsligo was at that moment in the house of Auchiries, it was acted upon with so much promptness and secrecy, that the search must have proved successful but for a very singular occurrence. Mrs. Sophia Donaldson, a lady who lived much with the family, repeatedly dreamt on that particular night that the house was surrounded by soldiers. Her mind became so haunted with the idea, that she got out of bed, and was walking through the room in hopes of giving a different current to her thoughts before she lay down again, when, day beginning to dawn, she accidentally looked out at the window as she pa.s.sed it in traversing the room, and was astonished at actually observing the figures of soldiers among some trees near the house. So completely had all idea of a search been by that time laid asleep, that she supposed they had come to steal poultry; Jacobite poultry-yards affording a safe object of pillage for the English soldiers in those days. Under this impression Mrs. Sophia was proceeding to rouse the servants, when her sister having awaked, and inquiring what was the matter, and being told of soldiers near the house, exclaimed, in great alarm, that she feared they wanted something more than hens. She begged Mrs. Sophia to look out at a window on the other side of the house, when not only soldiers were seen in that direction, but also an officer giving instructions by signals, and frequently putting his fingers on his lips, as if enjoining silence. There was now no time to be lost in rousing the family, and all the haste that could be made was scarcely sufficient to hurry the venerable man from his bed, into a small recess behind the wainscot of an adjoining room, which was concealed by a bed, in which a lady, Miss Gordon of Towie, who was there on a visit, lay, before the soldiers obtained admission. A most minute search took place.

The room in which Lord Pitsligo was concealed did not escape: Miss Gordon's bed was carefully examined, and she was obliged to suffer the rude scrutiny of one of the party, by feeling her chin, to ascertain that it was not a man in a lady's night-dress. Before the soldiers had finished their examination in this room, the confinement and anxiety increased Lord Pitsligo's asthma so much, and his breathing became so loud, that it obliged Miss Gordon, lying in bed, to counterfeit and continue a violent coughing, in order to prevent the high breathing behind the wainscot from being heard. It may easily be conceived what agony she would suffer, lest, by overdoing her part, she should increase suspicion, and in fact lead to a discovery. The _ruse_ was fortunately successful. On the search through the house being given over, Lord Pitsligo was hastily taken from his confined situation, and again replaced in bed; and as soon as he was able to speak, his accustomed kindness of heart made him say to his servant, 'James, go and see that these poor fellows get some breakfast, and a drink of warm ale, for this is a cold morning; they are only doing their duty, and cannot bear me any ill-will.' When the family were felicitating each other on his escape, he pleasantly observed, 'A poor prize had they obtained it--an old dying man!' That the friends who lived in the house,--the hourly witnesses of his virtues, and the objects of his regard, who saw him escape all the dangers that surrounded him, should reckon him the peculiar care of Providence, is not to be wondered at; and that the dream which was so opportune, as the means of preventing his apprehension, and probably of saving his life, was supposed by some of them at last to be a special interposition of Heaven's protecting shield against his enemies, need not excite surprise. This was accordingly the belief of more than one to their dying hour.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

After some fifteen years, the English Government ceased to think Lord Pitsligo dangerous. He was allowed to live unmolested at the house of his son, where he died in 1762, in his eighty-fifth year. 'He was never heard to speak an ill word of any man living,' says one who knew him well, and who himself spoke many ill words of others.[25] Lord Pitsligo left a little book of 'Thoughts on Sacred Things,' which reminds those who read it of the meditations of General Gordon. His character, as far as its virtues went, is copied in the Baron Bradwardine, in Sir Walter Scott's novel of 'Waverley.'[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Dr. King, of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford.

[26] _From Thoughts Concerning Man's Condition and Duties in this Life_.

By Alexander, Lord Pitsligo. Edinburgh: Blackwood. 1854.