with Ponto, Piro, Basta, and
O'Bronte, are left by ourselves in the Tent. Before we proceed farther,
it may not be much amiss to turn up our little fingers--yestreen we were
all a leetle opstropelous--and spermaceti is not a more "sovereign
remedy for an inward bruise," than is a hair from the dog's tail that
bit you an antidote to any pus that produces rabies in the shape of
hydrophobia. Fill up the quaich, Hamish! a caulker of Milbank can harm
no man at any hour of the day--at least in the Highlands. Sma' Stell,
Hamish--assuredly Sma' Stell!

Ere we start, Hamish, play us a Gathering--and then a Pibroch. "The
Campbells are coming" is like a storm from the mountain sweeping
Glen-More, that roars beneath the hastening hurricane with all its
woods. No earthquake like that which accompanies the trampling of ten
thousand men. So, round that shoulder, Hamish--and away for a mile up
the Glen--then, turning on your heel, blow till proud might be the
mother that bore you; and from the Tent-mouth Christopher will keep
smart fire from his Pattereroes, answered by all the echoes.
Hamish--indeed

"The dun-deer's hide
On swifter foot was never tied--"

for even now as that cloud--rather thunderous in his aspect--settles
himself over the Tent--ere five minutes have elapsed--a mile off is the
sullen sound of the bagpipe!--music which, if it rouse you not when
heard among the mountains, may you henceforth confine yourself to the
Jew's harp. Ay, here's a claymore--let us fling away the scabbard--and
in upon the front rank of the bayoneted muskets, till the Saxon array
reels, or falls just where it has been standing, like a swathe of grass.
So swept of old the Highlanders--shepherds and herdsmen--down the wooded
cliffs of the pass of Killiecrankie, till Mackay's red-coats lay redder
in blood among the heather, or passed away like the lurid fragments of a
cloud. "The Campbells are coming"--and we will charge with the heroes in
the van. The whole clan is maddening along the Moor--and Maccallum More
himself is at their head. But we beseech you, O'Bronte! not to look so
like a lion--and to hush in your throat and breast that truly Leonine
growl--for after all, 'tis but a bagpipe with ribands

"Streaming like meteors to the troubled air,"

and all our martial enthusiasm has evaporated in--wind.

But let us inspect Brown Bess. Till sixty, we used a single barrel. At
seventy we took to a double;--but dang detonators-