Early the next morning, the purpose of their meeting being over, and
their sports damped by the untoward accident, in which Fergus and all
his friends expressed the greatest sympathy, it became a question how to
dispose of the disabled sportsman. This was settled by Mac-Ivor, who had
a litter prepared, of 'birch and hazel grey,'
[On the morrow they made their biers,
of birch and hazel grey.--CHEVY CHASE.]
which was borne by his people with such caution and dexterity as renders
it not improbable that they may have been the ancestors of some of
those sturdy Gael, who have now the happiness to transport the belles
of Edinburgh, in their sedan chairs, to ten routs in one evening.
When Edward was elevated upon their shoulders, he could not help being
gratified with the romantic effect produced by the breaking up of this
sylvan camp. [The author has been sometimes accused of confounding
fiction with reality. He therefore thinks it necessary to state, that
the circumstance of the hunting described in the text as preparatory to
the insurrection of 1745, is, so far as he knows, entirely imaginary.
But it is well known such a great hunting was held in the Forest of
Braemar, under the auspices of the Earl of Mar, as preparatory to the
Rebellion of 1715; and most of the Highland Chieftains who afterwards
engaged in that civil commotion were present on this occasion.
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