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--we stick to the flint. "Flint," says Colonel Hawker, "shoots strongest into the bird." A percussion-gun is quicker, but flint is fast enough; and it does, indeed, argue rather a confusion than a rapidity of ideas, to find fault with lightning for being too slow. With respect to the flash in the pan, it is but a fair warning to ducks, for example, to dive if they can, and get out of the way of mischief. It is giving birds a chance for their lives, and is it not ungenerous to grudge it? When our gun goes to our shoulder, that chance is but small; for with double-barrel Brown Bess, it is but a word and a blow,--the blow first, and long before you could say Jack Robinson, the gorcock plays thud on the heather. But we beg leave to set the question at rest for ever by one single clencher. We have killed fifty birds--grouse--at fifty successive shots--one bird only to the shot. And mind, not mere pouts--cheepers--for we are no chicken-butchers--but all thumpers--cocks and hens as big as their parents, and the parents themselves likewise; not one of which fell _out of bounds_ (to borrow a phrase from the somewhat silly though skilful pastime of pigeon-shooting), except one that suddenly soared half-way up to the moon, and then