The Black Colonel

The Black Colonel, by James
Milne

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Title: The Black Colonel
Author: James Milne
Release Date: June 14, 2007 [EBook #21834]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE BLACK COLONEL
BY
JAMES MILNE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL THE EPISTLES OF ATKINS
JOHN JONATHAN AND COMPANY NEWS FROM SOMEWHERE
MY SUMMER IN LONDON THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS

"A tale of the times of old, of the deeds of the days of other years."
Ossian.

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
LONDON
MCMXXI.

TO J. T. M., WHO KNOWS THE
STORY OF THE BLACK COLONEL

Chapters and Contents
I. WE MEET IN THE PASS II. TRAPPED BY THE RED-COATS III.
OVER THE HILLS OF HOME IV. THE OPENING ROAD V. A
CAIRN OF REMEMBRANCE VI. THE FINGER OF FATE VII. A
PARLEY AND A SURPRISE VIII. THE CONQUERING HERO IX.
'TWIXT NIGHT AND MORN X. THE WAY OF A WOMAN XI.
THE CRACK OF THUNDER XII. RAIDERS OF THE DARK XIII.
THE WOUND OF ABSENCE XIV. THE CARDS OF LOVE XV.
NEWS FROM SOMEWHERE XVI. THE WOOIN' O'T! XVII. A
SONG OF OTHER SHORES XVIII. MY GARDEN OF CONTENT

Personal and Particular
The strangest thing about this tale is that it happened, though not, may
be, as I here relate it; which is merely to seek, in a humble spirit, the
great company of George Washington, who could not tell--a story!
That of the Black Colonel came to me in scraps of talk from my mother
when, as Byron grandly sang of himself, "I roved, a Young Highlander,
o'er Dark Lochnagar," a wild landscape beloved of Queen Victoria, at
Balmoral, for, you see, the eminences will come in. My mother had it
from her people, a Forbes family long planted in the brave uplands of
Deeside, and I was taken a generation nearer to it in the conversation of
my grandfather, whose folk were on the no less brave uplands of
Donside. Nay, he could remember, what my own father, born like him,
and myself, in the Forbes Country, first stirred me by saying, when the
Red Coats still garrisoned the Castle of Braemar and the Castle of
Corgarff, old Grampian strongholds where they had been installed to
overawe the Jacobites of the Aberdeenshire Highlands.
The "Seventeen-Forty-Five," with the "Standard on the Braes o' Mar . . .
up and streamin' rarely" for Bonnie Prince Charlie, saw fiery times in
those remote parts, and knew times of dule afterwards, and the
difficulty about any authentic tale of events, is that, in its passage down
time, from mouth to mouth, it necessarily loses immediacy of phrase,
even of fable, and that rude frame of living and loving, fighting and
dying, in which it was originally set. But human nature does not change,
we only think it does in changed circumstances, and if Jock
Farquharson, of Inverey, could return from the Hills of Beyond and
read our chronicle of himself and others, why, he might recognize it,
which would mean, perhaps, that some of the romantic colour, the
dancing atmosphere, and the high spirit of adventure of those ancient
years, has been saved from them. It was little he did not know about the
gallantries and the intrigues of war-making and love-making, holding
them the natural occupations of a Highland gentleman, even when he
had become a "broken man" and an "outlaw"; as you may now, if you
please, go on to learn, with many other things of surprise, diversion and
quality.

J. M.
THE CALEDONIAN CLUB, LONDON, Midsummer Day, 1921.

THE BLACK COLONEL
I--We Meet in the Pass
We might have gone by each other in the Pass, the Black Colonel and I,
if his horse had not kicked a stone as we came together. It struck my
foot and then a rock, making a rattle in the dark night. You know how
noise gains when you cannot see the cause of it, and all your senses are
in your ears.
"Woa, Mack!" said the Black Colonel to his beast; "can't you stand still
with those mettlesome legs of yours? You may," he went on, more to
himself than to the horse, "need them to-night, for our friend, Captain
Ian Gordon of his Hanoverian Majesty's forces, is late, and when a man
is late it generally bodes trouble; for a woman anyhow, I might confess