al discharge of cannon-shot from the Castle at
the Highland guards as they were withdrawn from its vicinity to join
their main body, Callum, with his usual freedom of interference, reminded
him that Vich lan Vohr's folk were nearly at the head of the column of
march which was still distant, and that 'they would gang very fast after
the cannon fired.' Thus admonished, Waverley walked briskly forward, yet
often casting a glance upon the darksome clouds of warriors who were
collected before and beneath him. A nearer view, indeed, rather
diminished the effect impressed on the mind by the more distant
appearance of the army. The leading men of each clan were well armed with
broad-sword, target, and fusee, to which all added the dirk, and most the
steel pistol. But these consisted of gentlemen, that is, relations of the
chief, however distant, and who had an immediate title to his countenance
and protection. Finer and hardier men could not have been selected out of
any army in Christendom; while the free and independent habits which each
possessed, and which each was yet so well taught to subject to the
command of his chief, and the peculiar mode of discipline adopted in
Highland warfare, rendered them equally formidable by their individual
courage and high spirit, and from their rational conviction of the
necessity of acting in unison, and of giving their national mode of
attack the fullest opportunity of success.

But, in a lower rank to these, there were found individuals of an
inferior description, the common peasantry of the Highland country, who,
although they did not allow themselves to be so called, and claimed
often, with apparent truth, to be of more ancient descent than the
masters whom they served, bore, nevertheless, the livery of extreme
penury, being indifferently accoutred, and worse armed, half naked,
stinted in growth, and miserable in aspect. Each important clan had some
of those Helots attached to them: thus, the MacCouls, though tracing
their descent from Comhal, the father of Finn or Fingal, were a sort of
Gibeonites, or hereditary servants to the Stewarts of Appin; the
Macbeths, descended from the unhappy monarch of that name, were subjects
to the Morays and clan Donnochy, or Robertsons of Athole; and many other
examples might be given, were it not for the risk of hurting any pride of
clanship which may yet be left, and thereby drawing a Highland tempest
into the shop of my publisher. Now these same Helo