olk 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 easting 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 broadsword, 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 Mac-Couls, 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 Helots, though
forced into the field by the arbitrary authority of the chieftains under
whom they hewed wood and drew water, were, in general, very sparingly
fed, ill dressed, and worse armed. The latter circumstance