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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 54083 ***</div>
<h1><span class="smcap">Sketch-Book of the North</span></h1>
<div class="newpage p4 ad">
<p class="center larger"><i>OTHER WORKS BY GEORGE EYRE-TODD.</i></p>
<hr class="narrow" />
<p class="p2 in0 in4 sans bold">
Byways of the Scottish Border.<br />
Anne of Argyle.<br />
Vignettes of the North.<br />
Four Months of Bohemia.<br />
Scotland Picturesque and Traditional.
</p>
<p class="p2 center"><i>Also, Edited by the same</i>,</p>
<p class="in0 bold">
<span class="sans">The Abbotsford Series of Scottish Poets.</span> 7 Vols.<br />
<span class="sans">Ancient Scots Ballads, with their Traditional Airs.</span>
</p>
</div>
<div id="i_frontis" class="newpage p4 figcenter" style="max-width: 22.8125em;"><img src="images/i_004.jpg" width="365" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<hr />
<p class="newpage p4 center vspace xxlarge">
<span class="gesperrt bold"><span class="bb">SKETCH</span>-BOOK</span><br />
<span class="xxsmall">OF THE</span><br />
<span class="gesperrt bold">NORTH</span></p>
<p class="p2 center vspace large wspace"><span class="small">BY</span><br />
GEORGE EYRE-TODD</p>
<p class="p2 center small vspace wspace">ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD, A. MONRO, S. REID<br />
AND HARRINGTON MANN</p>
<p class="p2 center wspace"><i>Fifth Thousand</i></p>
<p class="p2 center vspace wspace">EDINBURGH AND LONDON<br />
<span class="larger">OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER</span><br />
1903
</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
</div>
<table id="toc" summary="Contents">
<tr class="small">
<td> </td>
<td class="tdr">PAGE</td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Roman Road</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Black Douglas</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_2">8</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In the Shadow of St Giles’</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_3">16</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Weaving Village</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_4">23</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Where the Clans Fell</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_5">30</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Tam o’ Shanter’s Ride</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_6">37</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Old Tulip Garden</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_7">45</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">By the Blasted Heath</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_8">52</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Among the Galloway Becks</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_9">59</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In Kilt and Plaid</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_10">66</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">At the Foot of Ben Ledi</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_11">74</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Cadzow Forest</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_12">81</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Fisher Town</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_13">88</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Loch-side Sunday</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_14">95</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Glen of Gloom</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_15">103</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Across Bute</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_16">110</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">With a Cast of Flies</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_17">118</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">From a Field-Gate</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_18">125</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">vi</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">School-Days</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_19">133</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Loch-side Strath</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_20">140</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Highland Reel</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_21">147</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Arran Ride</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_22">154</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">By a Western Firth</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_23">161</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Island Picnic</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_24">168</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Tennis in the North</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_25">176</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Through the Pass</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_26">183</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Highland Morning</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_27">190</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Till Death us Part</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_28">198</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Forest Wedding</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_29">205</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Loch Lomond Ice-bound</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_30">212</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Hallowmas Eve</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_31">220</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Hogmanay</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_32">228</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">vii</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
</div>
<table id="loi" summary="Illustrations">
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Signal of Death</span> (<i>see <a href="#Page_10">p. 10</a></i>)</td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. Monro</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
<tr class="smaller">
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td class="tdr"><i>facing page</i></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thoughts of Home</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. Monro</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_4">4</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Web Returned</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. S. Boyd</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_28">28</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Death of Keppoch</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>Harrington Mann</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_32">32</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">On the Blasted Heath</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. Monro</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_58">58</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jeanie</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. S. Boyd</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_60">60</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Throwing the Hammer</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. S. Boyd</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_72">72</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Massacre of Glencoe</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. Monro</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_108">108</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Gentle Art</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>S. Reid</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_120">120</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Forbidden Waters</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>S. Reid</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_136">136</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Murray’s Curse</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. Monro</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_144">144</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Archie</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. S. Boyd</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_170">170</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">Serve!</span>”</td>
<td class="tdl"><i>S. Reid</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_180">180</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Last Hour</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>A. S. Boyd</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_204">204</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Seven Miles of Ice</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>S. Reid</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_216">216</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Trongate of St Mungo</span></td>
<td class="tdl"><i>S. Reid</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_232">232</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_1">A ROMAN ROAD.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Still</span> and soft with the mild radiance of
early spring the afternoon sunshine sleeps
upon the rich country, moor and woodland and
meadow, that stretches away southward towards
the Border. The top of a ruined tower far off
rises grey amid the shadowy woods, and a river,
like a shining serpent, gleams in blue windings
through the russet valley-land, while the smoke
of an ancient Border town hangs in the distance,
like an amber haze, above the side of its narrow
strath. Northward, too, league upon league,
sweep the rich pasture-lands of another river
valley. The red roofs of more than one peaceful
hamlet glow warm there among the bowering
road-avenues of ancient trees. And afar at the
foot of the purple mountain to the west lies the
grey sequestered abbey of the Bruce.</p>
<p>North and south upon that rich landscape
history marks with a crimson stain the field of
many a battle; and though peace and silence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2">2</a></span>
sleep upon it to-day in the sunshine, hardly is
there hamlet or meadow in sight whose name does
not recall some struggle of bygone times. Across
these hills a hundred and forty years ago Prince
Charles Edward led the last raid of the clans, and
before his time the battlefields of Douglas and
Percy, of Cumberland and Liddesdale, carry the
mind back into the mists of antiquity, out of which
looms the sullen splendour of more classic arms.</p>
<p>Here, straight as a swan-flight along the ridge
of the watershed, commanding the country for
miles upon either side, still runs the ancient
highway of Imperial Rome. From the golden
milestone of Augustus in the Capitol, in a line
scarce broken by the blue straits of the sea,
ran hither the path of that ancient Power. Of
old, along these far-stretching arteries came
pulsing in tidal waves the iron blood of the
stern heart beating far away in the south.
From the wooded valleys below, the awed
inhabitants doubtless long ago looked up and
wondered, as the dark masses of the legions
came rolling along these hills.</p>
<p>Tide after tide, like the rising sea, they rolled
to break upon the Grampian barriers of the
North. Here rode Agricola, his face set towards<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3">3</a></span>
the dark and mist-wrapt mountains beyond the
Forth, eager to add by their conquest the word
“Britannicus” to his name. Here by his side, it
is probable, rode the courtly Tacitus, his son-in-law,
to describe to future ages the Scotland of
that time, “lashed,” as he knew it, “by the
billows of a prodigious sea.” Southward here,
stern and intent, once sped the swift couriers
bearing to Rome tidings of that great battle at
Mons Grampus, where the bodies of ten thousand
Caledonians slain barred the northward march of
the Roman general. Southward, again, along
this road it is almost certain has passed the
majesty of a Roman Emperor himself. For in
the year 211 the Emperor Severus, ill and angry,
leaving fifty thousand dead among the unsubdued
mountains of the North, was borne out of Scotland
by the remnant of his army, to die of chagrin
at York. And here, long ago, by his flickering
watch-fire at night, the Roman sentinel, perhaps,
has let his thoughts wander again sadly to his
home by the yellow Tiber two thousand miles
away, to the vine-clad cot where the dark-eyed
sister of his boyhood, the little Livia or Tessa,
would be ripening now like the olives, with no
one to care for and protect her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4">4</a></span></p>
<div id="ip_4" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30.8125em;"><img src="images/i_015.jpg" width="493" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>Fifteen hundred years ago, however, the last
yellow-haired captives had been carried south to
whet the wonder of the populace in the triumph
of a Roman general. Fifteen hundred years ago
the power of the Imperial city had begun to
wane, and the tide of her conquest ebbed along
these hills. The eagles of the empire swept
southward to defend their own eyrie upon the
Palatine, and here, along the highways they had
made, died the tramp of the departing legions.
The tides of later wars, it is true, have flowed
and ebbed across the Border. Saxon and Norman,
both in turn, have set their faces towards the
North. But later nations kept lower paths, and,
untrodden here along the hill-tops, like the great
Roman Empire itself, this chariot-way of the
Cæsars has looked down upon them all. Forsaken,
indeed, and altogether lonely it is now.
Torn by the rains of fifteen centuries, and overgrown
with the tangle of a thousand years, the
roadway that rang to the hoofs of Agricola is
haunted to-day by the timid hare, while overhead,
where the sun glittered once on the golden eagles
of the legions, grey wood-doves flutter now among
the trees. But, strongly marked by its moss-grown
ramparts, it still bears witness to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5">5</a></span>
might of its makers, and, affording no text for
the sad <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Sic transit gloria mundi</i>, it remains a
Roman defiance to time, like the defiance of all
true greatness—<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Non omnis moriar</i>.</p>
<p>Greater benefits than these roads of stone did
the Roman bring to the lands he conquered.
The tread of the victorious legions it was that
broke the dark slumber of Europe, and in the
onward march of the western nations the footsteps
of the Cæsars echo yet upon the earth.
Rome, it is true, ploughed her empire with the
sword, but in the furrows she sowed the seeds of
her own greatness; and these seeds since then
have grown to many a stately tree. Fallen, it
may be, is the splendour of the “city upon seven
hills”; but east and north and west of her rise
the younger empires of her sons. Augustus from
his gilded Capitol no longer rules the world, and
the gleam of the steel-clad legions no longer
flashes along these old forsaken highways among
the hills; but the earth is listening yet, spell-bound,
to the strains of the Latin lyre, and
wherever to this hour there is eloquence in the
west, there flourishes the living glory of the
Roman tongue.</p>
<p>To-day, with the coming of spring in the air,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6">6</a></span>
there are symbols enough on every hand of the
great Past that is <em>not</em> dead. The bole of the
giant beech-tree here, it is true, has itself long
since ceased to put forth leaves; but, springing
upward from its strength, a hundred branches are
spreading aloft the promise of the budding year.
The dry brown spires of foxglove that stand six
feet high in the coppice near, dropped months
ago their purple splendours; but thick already
about their roots the green tufts of their seedlings
are pushing up through rich mould and warm
leaf-drifts of bygone autumn to fill the place anon
with tenfold glory. From the gnarled roots of
the ancient thorn-hedge hangs many a yellow
tress of withered fern; yet the life of the fallen
fronds is, even now, stirring underground, and
from the brown knobs there before long will rise
the greenery of another year. Already, here and
there, in sunny nooks, a spray of the prickly
whin has burst into blossom of bright gold. A
little longer, and the mossy crannies of the ruined
dyke will be purple with the dim wood-violet.
And soon, in the steep corner of the immemorial
pasture that runs up there under the edge of the
wood, the deep sward will be tufted with creamy
clusters of the pale primrose.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7">7</a></span>
A pleasant spot it is to linger in, even on this
early spring day, for the sunshine falls warm in
the mossy hollow of the road, and rampart and
thicket overhead are a shelter from the wind.
Resting on the dry branch of a fallen pine, one
can gaze away southward over the landscape
that the Romans saw; and, fingering through
a pocket volume of some old Augustan singer,
it is possible to realise something of the iron
thought that stirred them to become masters of
the world.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8">8</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_2">THE BLACK DOUGLAS.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Under</span> the great eastern oriel at Melrose,
where the high altar of the abbey once
stood, lies buried the heart of King Robert the
Bruce. Elsewhere, far off at Dunfermline, in
Fife, the body of the Scots King was entombed.
Some seventy years ago, when workmen in that
ancient Scottish capital were repairing the ruined
church, they came upon a marble monument,
broken and defaced. Digging below, amid the
mould of the sepulchre, they found the skeleton
of a tall man. Fragments of cloth-of-gold lay
about it, and the breast-bone had been sawn
through; and by these signs the workmen knew
that they had found the resting-place of the
King. There, as one who was present has said,
after the silence and darkness of five centuries,
was seen the head that had planned and changed
the destinies of Scotland; there lay the dry bone
of the arm that on the eve of Bannockburn
had at one blow slain the fierce De Bohun.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9">9</a></span>
But the Bruce’s heart, embalmed and cased
in silver, bearing its own strange romantic
story, lies apart in the Border Abbey. Around
the place of its rest, in that fallen and mouldering
fane, lie the race that took from the heart
their armorial cognisance—the lords of the great
house of Douglas.</p>
<p>Hot and stirring was the Douglas blood, and
hardly a battlefield of the Middle Ages in Scotland
but was stained with some of its best.
Derived far back amid the mists of antiquity,
none could tell how the race arose, and it was
wont to be a boast with the house that none
could point to its “first mean man.” There is
a tower in Yarrow by the Douglas (<em>dhu glas</em>,
black water) Burn which is said to have been
the stronghold of “the Good Lord James”; and
amid the fastnesses of Cairntable in Lanark
there is another Douglas Water and Douglas
Castle. From one of these, no doubt, in ancient
Scots fashion, the family took its name; but
when that happened, and what the story was
of its early days, must remain a tale untold.
The house’s mediæval greatness began, however,
with the rise of Robert the Bruce, and from
that time onwards its deeds mark with stain or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10">10</a></span>
blazon every page of Scottish history. Lords
of the broad Scottish Border, east and west,
their hands were sometimes stronger than the
King’s. At one time a Douglas could ride to
the field with twenty thousand spears at his
back, and the gallop of the Douglas steeds
sometimes was terrible alike on the causeway
of Edinburgh and on the moorland marches of
Northumberland. Douglas Earls and Knights
fought as leaders through all the wars of David
Bruce. A dead Douglas in 1388 won the famous
fight with Hotspur on the moonlit field of Otterbourne.
At Shrewsbury, in the days of Robert
III., Henry IV. of England himself ran close to
being hewn in pieces by the Earl of Douglas;
and for gallantry on the battlefields of France
this same great Earl was invested by the French
King with the Dukedom of Touraine. The fame
of Scottish chivalry for three hundred years was
blown abroad under the Douglas name; for
courtesies and blows alike were exchanged by
the race on many battlefields besides those of
the northern Borderland. Not that dark deeds
are lacking in their history. Dark deeds belonged
to their times. But in the tilting-yard or on the
tented field were to be met no fairer foes. Nor<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11">11</a></span>
was their heroism all of the sword-and-buckler
order, or confined to one sex. The finest thing
recorded of the race, after all, was done by a
woman. On that dark February night in 1437,
when James I. was murdered in the Blackfriars
Abbey at Perth, when the noise and clashing
was heard as of men in armour, and the torches
of the coming assassins in the garden below cast
up great flashes of light against the windows of
the King’s chamber, was it not a Catherine
Douglas who, for lack of a bolt, thrust her own
fair arm into the staples of the door?</p>
<p>The fortunes of the family culminated in the
reign of James II. Whatever its origin had
been, in that reign the race had attained an
eminence more dazzling, perhaps, than that of
any subject before or since. Earls of Douglas
and Wigton, Lords of Bothwell, Galloway, and
Annandale, Dukes of Touraine, Lords of Longueville,
and Marshals of France, they had inter-married
more than once with the Scottish Royal
House itself. Members of the family also held
the Earldoms of Angus, Ormond, and Moray.
What wonder that they lifted haughty heads,
and began to look askance at the Royal power?
Then it was that the Stuart King stooped to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12">12</a></span>
treachery, and then was done the darkest deed
that ever sullied the Stuart name.</p>
<p>Already, in the boyhood of James, a youthful
Earl of Douglas and his brother had been
betrayed and slain by the King’s Ministers.
For this transaction, however, the King was in
no way to blame. The young Earl was his
guest in the Castle of Edinburgh, and when at
the treacherous feast the black bull’s head, the
sign of death, was placed upon their table, James
had wept piteously and begged hard for the lives
of his friends. It was later, when another Earl
was lord upon the Border, that the King made
murder his resource. For this act, it must be
said, James had strong provocation. Douglas
had been honoured by him, had been made
Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, and had
abused that honour. He had flouted the King’s
authority, and slain the King’s friends, and,
having been commanded by letter to deliver up
to James’s representative the person of a subject
unjustly imprisoned by him, he delivered him
up “wanting the head.” Finally, with two great
Earls of the North, he had entered into an open
league against the King. All this, however, cannot
palliate the King’s resource, cannot absolve<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">13</a></span>
the tragic scene in that little supper-chamber in
the Castle of Stirling. There the great Earl was
under the protection of the King’s hospitality,
when James, bursting into rage at his taunts
and at his refusal to abandon the treasonous
compact, suddenly cried, “By Heaven, my Lord,
if you will not break the league, this shall!”
and, drawing his dagger, stabbed Douglas to
the heart.</p>
<p>This deed brought the family fortunes to
a climax, and for three years Scotland was
blackened by the raging of the Douglas Wars.
From Berwick to Inverness the country was
wasted by the struggles of the partisans. Stirling
and Elgin were burned, and, amid famine and
pestilence, the troubles of the wars of Edward
seemed come again on Scotland: so great had
grown the power of these Border lords. At last,
however, the King and the Earl came face to
face. Each led an army of forty thousand men,
and only the small river Carron ran between
them. By the combat of the morrow, it seemed,
would be known whether James Stuart or James
Douglas should wear the Scottish crown. But
the Earl’s heart was seen to fail, and on the
morrow, when he awoke, he found his camp<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14">14</a></span>
deserted. Of all his host of the previous day
not a hundred followers remained. Nothing was
left him but flight; and, turning his back, as a
Douglas had never done before, he made his
way to England. Twenty years later, having
been captured by one of his own vassals in a
petty skirmish on the Border, he was sent to
end his days as a monk in the Fifeshire Abbey
of Lindores.</p>
<p>Thus ended the great line of the Earls of
Douglas, a race whose history for three hundred
years had been the history of Scotland, and
whose foot had twice, at least, been set upon
the step even of the throne. From the house’s
latter days of turbulence and ambition there is
pleasure in turning back to those earlier years
when the Good Lord James rode at the Bruce’s
saddle-bow, and the patriotism of groaning Scotland
rallied round the coupled names of Douglas
and the King. No later deed can dim the
lustre of those years, and nothing in history can
outshine the last scene in the life of the Knight
who strove to carry the Bruce’s heart to the
Holy Land. Himself hemmed round by the
Moors on that Spanish plain, in his effort, it is
said, to succour a friend, the Earl took from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">15</a></span>
his neck the casket containing the King’s heart.
“Pass first in fight,” he cried, “as thou wert
wont to do! Douglas will follow thee, or die!”
Then, throwing the casket far among the enemy,
he rushed forward to the place where it fell, and
was there slain. Well would it have been for
the race of Douglas had they ever remained true
as that ancestor to the service of their King!</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">16</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_3">IN THE SHADOW OF ST GILES’.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Night</span> in Edinburgh! The traveller may
have seen the sun set over the lagoons
of Venice; he may have watched the moon rise
behind the Acropolis of Athens; but he has
seen nothing finer or more inspiring than is
shown him by the sparkle of the frosty stars in
this grey metropolis of Scotland. From the
terraced pavement of Princes Street, that unmatched
boulevard of the modern city, looking
across the dark chasm where once surged the
waters of the North Loch, he sees the form of
the Old Town rise, from Holyrood Palace low
in the eastern meadows to the castled rock high
at the western end, a dark mass all against the
southern sky. Yellow lines of light mark the
modern bridges spanning the abyss below, and
windows still glowing—dim loopholes in the
perilously high old houses beyond—bespeak the
inhabitants there not yet all asleep. But these
are forgotten in the witchery of the sight, when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">17</a></span>
the clouds part, and the silvery starlight is
shaken down upon the ancient city; when behind
the broken sky-line of roofs and gables the clear
moon comes up, and hangs, a lustrous jewel,
among the pinnacles of St Giles’.</p>
<p>Nor is it only the magic of the sight that
stirs strange pulses in the blood. Standing at
night in the Roman Coliseum, it seems still
possible to hear majestic echoes of an older
world. But the Scotsman under the shadow of
“high Dunedin” is moved, as nowhere else, by
memories of old glory and old sorrow. Here to
a Scottish heart the past comes back. Here
sighed the fatal sweetness of Rizzio’s lute. Here
rang the wild clan-music of Lochiel. Among
these old walls, however, something more is to
be remembered than the deeds of high fame.
Ever and again, it is true, amid the gloom of
half-forgotten centuries, there is caught the glitter
of some historic pageant. Out of the silence
about the Cathedral one seems to catch the
chime of fuming censers and the roll of coronation
litanies, with, perchance, the sonorous accents
of a Gavin Douglas, poet-bishop of Dunkeld; and
one thrills again to hear the boom of the Castle
cannon as the Fourth James rides gallantly away<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">18</a></span>
to his death. But behind all this a more tender
interest touches the heart. What of the real
inner life of those centuries bygone—the loves and
sorrows, burning once, and poignant as ours are
to-day, which have passed out of sight among
the years, and been forgotten? Of some of
these, indeed, Sir Walter Scott has written the
story on the dark curtain of the past with a pen
of fire. But for countless others there is not
even the poor consolation of a recorded name.
Occasionally, however, amid the seething of
history, or in some half-remembered old song, a
reference occurs, and a glimpse all too brief is
had into some tender and mournful story. And
so one sees that, behind the glitter of a Stuart
chivalry, of brave and splendid deeds before the
world, sometimes there lay a shadow, the sigh of
a breaking heart, the stain of unavailing tears.</p>
<p>Who knows the early history of that Lady of
Loch Leven, mother of the Regent Murray?
Grimly enough she is painted by Scott in her
old age as the keeper of Queen Mary. Yet
assuredly once she was lovely and young, and
had strange beatings of heart as she listened to
the whispers of her Royal lover, that all too
gallant James V. What was their parting like,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">19</a></span>
when the parting came? Was there the last
touch of regretful hands, a remorseful caress
from the royal lips, a passionate farewell? Or
was there only the cruel news by alien mouths
that her place was filled by another, that she
had been forsaken? No one can tell us now.</p>
<p>Then what of the Lady Anne Campbell of
Argyle, at one time betrothed to Charles II.?
The youthful Prince, aged twenty, had been
crowned gorgeously, after the ancient manner of
the Scottish Kings, at Scone. But King only in
name, with England still under the iron rule of
Cromwell, and only a faction in Scotland devoted
to his cause, his immediate fortunes were entirely
in the hands of the Scottish leader, the crafty,
covenanting Marquis of Argyle. Reaching ever
higher in ambition, and dazzled by the weird
vision of the race of MacCallum More mounting
the throne, Argyle proposed that Charles
should marry his daughter. Needy and reckless,
and eager to attach Argyle to the Royalist cause
by the golden bands of hope, the King pretended
consent. Alas for the Lady Anne! What maiden
could keep still her heart when wooed by so
royal a lover? For wooing there must have
been, to keep up the pretence of betrothal, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">20</a></span>
how was the maiden to know that those words
and looks, and, it may have been, those warmer
caresses, were all no more than a diplomacy?
And when the crash came, with Cromwell’s defeat
of the covenanting army at Dunbar, and the
revelation that she had given up her all and
had been deceived—how bitter, how cruel the
discovery! The contemporary Kirkton relates
circumstantially that “so grievous was the disappointment
to the young lady, that of a gallant
young gentlewoman, she lost her spirit, and turned
absolutely distracted.”</p>
<p>Then there is a pitiful little song, unprinted
and all but forgotten,<a id="FNanchor_A" href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">A</a> sung to a quavering,
pathetic old tune, and relating in quaint ballad
fashion something of the story of one Jeanie
Cameron, an adherent of Prince Charles Edward
in the rebellion of 1745. It narrates how the
maiden, having fallen sick, not without a suspicion
of its being heart-sickness, and all cures
of the leeches failing, was prescribed “ae bricht
blink o’ the Young Pretender.” So she sate her
down and wrote the Prince “a very long letter,
stating who were his friends and who were his
<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">21</a></span>foes.” This letter she had closed, and was just
“sealing with a ring,” when, as used to happen
in ballad story, “ope flew the door, and in came
her King.” Poor young lady!—</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She prayed to the saints and angels to defend her,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And sank i’ the arms o’ the Young Pretender.<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Rare, oh, rare! bonnie Jeanie Cameron!<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Nor is this pretty romance merely an invention
of the poet’s brain. One of the family by whom
the song has been preserved happened, it seems,
in the latter part of last century, to be buying
snuff in a shop in Edinburgh, when a beggar
came in. Nothing was said before the stranger;
but the shopkeeper, as if it were an accustomed
dole, handed the beggar a groat. Afterwards,
in reply to a remark of his customer as to the
delicacy of the beggar’s hand which had received
the coin, the shopkeeper revealed the fact that
the recipient of his charity was no man, but a
woman, and no other than Jeanie Cameron, a
follower of the Chevalier. Her story, so far as
he knew it, was sad enough. She had followed
the Prince to France, hoping, no doubt, poor
thing! to resume there something of the place
she had believed herself to hold in his affections.
Alas! it was only to find herself, like so many<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">22</a></span>
others, forgotten, cast off, an encumbrance to a
broken man. And then, with who can tell how
heavy a heart, she made her way home, only to
discover that her family had shut their door
upon her, and cut her adrift. So, for these
many years, she had wandered about forlorn and
lonely, supported by a few charitable bourgeois
in the streets of Edinburgh—she who could look
back upon the day when she had loved and
been loved by a Stuart Prince.<a id="FNanchor_B" href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">B</a></p>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a id="Footnote_A" href="#FNanchor_A" class="fnanchor">A</a> It has now been included in “Ancient Scots Ballads with
their Traditional Airs.” Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson, 1894.</p>
<p><a id="Footnote_B" href="#FNanchor_B" class="fnanchor">B</a> This account of the latter days of “Mrs Jean Cameron” finds
corroboration in a footnote to the second volume of Chambers’s
“Traditions of Edinburgh.”</p></div>
<p>Such are some of the stories which find no
place in history, but whose consciousness sheds
a tragic and tender interest about this grey old
capital of the North. Who will say that they
are not as well worth thought as the trumpetings
of herald pursuivants and the clash of
warlike arms?</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">23</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_4">A WEAVING VILLAGE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Out</span> of the way, in this quiet hollow of the
Ayrshire hills, something remains yet of
the life of a hundred years ago. Elsewhere the
puffing of steam may have taken the place of
toil by hand, but here in the long summer days,
from morning till night, the click-clack of the
looms is still to be heard, and within every second
window up the length of the village street, the
dusty frames are to be seen moving regularly
to and fro. Pots of geranium and fuchsia are
set sometimes in these windows, and through the
narrow doorways the cottage gardens can be seen
behind, carefully kept, and ablaze just now with
wallflower borders and pansies. Sadly, however,
is the place decayed from its prosperity of old.
Little traffic comes now to the wide, empty street.
The carrier’s waggon is an object of interest when
it puts in an appearance. The baker’s van may
be the only vehicle of an afternoon; and twice
a week only comes the flesher’s cart. Butcher<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">24</a></span>
meat, it is to be feared, is but seldom seen on
some of the village tables; and, when work is
more than usually scarce, many must put up with
but “muslin-broth.” Here and there a roofless
ruin, breaking the regular line of dwellings, tells
of a decaying industry. In the sunny inn-door
at the head of the village the brown retriever
may rouse himself, once in the afternoon, to
inspect the credentials of some vagrant terrier;
and, but for the faint click-clack of the looms
all day, and the appearance, once in a while, of
a woman with a pair of stoups to draw water at
the village well, the place might seem asleep.</p>
<p>Yet a hearty trade once throve on the spot.
Every house had its loom going, sometimes two;
and there was always work in plenty. Weavers’
wives could go to kirk then in black-beaded
bonnets and flowered Paisley shawls, and the
Relief Kirk minister got his stipend of eighty
pounds a year nearly always paid. In those
times the carrier’s cart used to have business in
the village every day; merchants from Glasgow
came bidding against each other for work in a
hurry; and four of the weavers at once have
been known to have sons at college studying
for the ministry. Those were the days when the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">25</a></span>
village kept a watchful eye upon the religious
and political movements of the country. Before
the Stamp Duty was removed from newspapers,
the weavers subscribed in clubs and took out
their weekly sheet, which was passed from
shop to shop, read and digested, and thoroughly
threshed out in the door-step debates, when a
knot of neighbours would gather between the
spells of work. In this way the great Reform
Bill was fully discussed and settled here long
before it passed the House of Commons; and
the absorbing question of the Disruption, which
gave birth to the Free Church, was thoroughly
argued and thought out on its merits.</p>
<p>True to the traditions of their craft, of course,
most of the weavers were the reddest of Radicals,
and the progress of the Chartist movement excited
the keenest interest among them. The work at
the looms was to a great extent mechanical, and
while they pushed the treadles and pulled the
shuttles to and fro, the weavers had time to
think; and shrewd thinkers and able debaters
many of them became, ready at the hustings
with questions on the Corn Laws, the freeing of
the slaves, and the Irish grievances, which were
apt to put a political candidate to some trouble.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">26</a></span>
He had not their advantage of the daily
“argufying” and the Saturday night debates at
the village inn. There was a tradition that in
the room where this club met, the poet Burns
had once spent an evening, and the fact lent an
additional zest to his song, which they never
tired of quoting,—“A man’s a man for a’ that.”</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A king can mak’ a belted knight,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">A marquis, duke, and a’ that;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But an honest man’s aboon his might,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Guid faith he maunna fa’ that.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">The industry of the village has died hard. Amid
decaying trade the weavers kept to their looms,
and many a pinch was suffered before one after
another laid down his shuttle. Their feelings
are not difficult to understand. As boys they
had played about the village well. As young
men they had wandered with their sweethearts—that
delicious time—down the woodland roads
around. Memories had grown about them and
their old homes during the long years of work.
In the kirkyard not far off lay the ashes of
mother or wife or child. But the merchants had
ceased to come to the village, and it was a
weary walk for the poor weavers to carry their
webs all the way to Glasgow, to hawk them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">27</a></span>
from warehouse to warehouse, and sometimes to
have the choice at last of accepting a ruinous
price for them, or of taking them home again.</p>
<p>It was after a bootless errand of this sort that
old John Gilmour was returning to the village
one night in late October some forty-three years
back. Honest soul, through all his straits he
had never owed a neighbour a penny. That
night, however, his affairs had come to a critical
pass, and the morrow held a black look-out for
him. His web was still on his back, not an
offer having been got for it in town, though he
knew the workmanship to be his best. Upon its
sale he had depended to pay for the winter’s
coals, and the necessaries of the morrow; for on
the day previous the last of his carefully guarded
savings had been spent. Moreover, his wife and
he were growing old, and could hardly look
forward to increased energy for work. And he
was bringing home bad news. Their second son
(the eldest had run away to sea eleven years
before) had broken down in his attempt to teach,
and, at the same time, push his way through
the Divinity Hall, and had been ordered by the
doctor to stop work for the winter altogether.
How was the old man to break all this disastrous<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">28</a></span>
news to his wife? The web was heavy, but his
heart was heavier.</p>
<p>He had reached the fork of the road close by
the old disused graveyard of the parish, and was
thinking a little bitterly of the reward that
remained to him from his long life of hard work,
and of how quiet and far from care those were
who lay on the other side of the low dyke under
the green sod, when a hackney carriage came
up behind, and the driver stopped to ask the way
to ——.</p>
<p>“Keep the left road,” said the old man, and
was resuming his walk, when a bearded face
appeared at the carriage window.</p>
<p>“That seems a heavy bundle you are carrying.
Are you going my way?”</p>
<p>Once inside, the old weaver found his companion
looking at him intently.</p>
<p>“You have had a long walk this day, surely?
Have you no son to carry so heavy a load for
you?”</p>
<p>Ay, he had two sons, Gilmour said: but one
was lost at sea, and the other was struggling at
college.</p>
<p>“You live alone, then?” asked the questioner,
tremulously.</p>
<div id="ip_28" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25.75em;"><img src="images/i_041.jpg" width="412" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">29</a></span>
No, thank God! he had a kind wife at home,
who had been his consolation through many a
dark hour.</p>
<p>“Thank God!” echoed the younger man.</p>
<p>The carriage rolled on and entered the village.
The weaver pointed to his house, and they stopped
there. The stranger helped him out with his web,
and entered the house with him.</p>
<p>“It’s just the web back, guidwife,” he said.
“But dinna look sae queer like. I’se warrant I’ll
sell it the morn. An’ here’s a gentleman has
helpit me on the road. Hae ye onything i’ the
hoose to offer him?”</p>
<p>But the wife was not thinking of the web or
the distress of the morrow. Her eyes were on
the stranger, and the corners of her lips were
twitching curiously. He had not spoken, but as
he removed his hat she sprang towards him.</p>
<p>“It’s Willie!” she cried; “it’s Willie!” And
her arms were about his neck, and, half laughing
and half crying, she buried her face on his
breast.</p>
<p>It was Willie. He was the first who came back
to the village from the gold-fields of Ballarat.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">30</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_5">WHERE THE CLANS FELL.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">What</span> richer picture could the eye desire
than this sunlit glory of harvest colour
amid the Highland mountains? The narrow
sea-loch itself below gleams blue as melted
sapphire under the radiant and stainless sky;
around it, on the rising slopes, the corn-fields,
rough with fruitful stooks, spread their yellow
ripeness in the sun; amid them shine patches
of fresh soft green where the second clover has
been cut; while above hang the sheltering woods,
like dark brown shadows; and, over all, the
surrounding hills, bloom-spread as for a banquet
of the gods, raise their purple stain against the
blue. Only far off, above the dim mountains of
amethyst in the North, lies a white argosy of
clouds, like some convoy of home-bound India-men
becalmed on a summer sea.</p>
<p>There has been no sound for an hour but the
whisper of the warm autumn wind that the farmer
loves for winnowing his grain, the drone of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">31</a></span>
velvety bee sometimes in the blue depth of a
hare-bell, and the crackle of the black broom-pods
bursting in the heat. The furry brown
rabbits that pop prudently out of sight in the
mossy bank are silent as shadows; the red
squirrel that runs along the dyke top and disappears
up a tree makes no chatter; and even
the shy speckled mavis that bobs bright-eyed
across the path is voiceless, for among the birds
this is the silent month.</p>
<p>Less and less, as the narrow road rises through
the fir woods, grows the bit of blue loch seen
far behind under the branches, and the little
clachan in the warm hollow over the brow of
the hill is shut from the world on every side by
the deep and silent forests of fragrant pine.
Wayside flowers are seeding on the time-darkened
thatch of these sequestered dwellings. There,
with branches of narrow pods, the wallflower
clings; and the spikes of the field-mustard ripen
beside the golden bullets of the ox-eyed daisy.
On a chair at the door of one of the cottages
an ancient granny is sunning herself, counting
with feeble fingers the stitches on her glancing
knitting wires. A frail old body she is, set here,
neat and comfortable, by some loving hand, to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">32</a></span>
enjoy, it may be, the sunshine of her last autumn
on earth. Withered and wrinkled are her old
cheeks with the cares of many a winter, and it
seems difficult to recall the day when she was a
ripe-lipped, merry reaper in the corn-fields; but
under her clean, white mutch the grey old eyes
are undimmed yet as they watch, heedful and
lovingly, the movements of the little maid tottering
about her knee. Where are her thoughts as
she sits there alone, hour after hour, in the silent
sunshine? Is she back in the dusk among the
sweet-scented hay-ricks, listening with fluttering
heart to the whispers of her rustic lover? Is it
a sunny doorway where she sits crooning for
happiness over the baby on her knee? the little
one that is all her own—and his. Or is it a
winter night as she kneels in the flickering light
by the bedside, feeling the rough, loving hand
relax its grasp, while she sees the shadow pass
across the wistful face, and knows with breaking
heart that she is alone? These are the peaceful
scenes of peasant life; alas, that they should ever
be darkened by the shadow of the sword!</p>
<div id="ip_32" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 29.4375em;"><img src="images/i_047.jpg" width="471" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>Granny can speak no English, or she might
have something to say of the great disaster that
befell the clans on the moor close by in her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">33</a></span>
father’s time. For not far beyond the little
clachan the road emerges on the open heath, and
there, where the paths cross, lies the great, grey
boulder on which the terrible duke stood to
survey the field just before the battle. Not even
then was he aware how nearly his birthday
carousals of the night before, at Nairn, had been
surprised and turned into another slaughter of
Prestonpans. So perilously sometimes does the
sword of Damocles tremble over an unconscious
head. His troops, well rested and provisioned,
were fresh as that April morning itself, while the
poor clansmen in the boggy hollow to the right,
divided in their councils, and famishing for treacherous
lack of bread, were exhausted by the
fruitless twenty-four mile surprise march of the
night. Yet they came on, these clansmen, half
an hour later, like lions; plunging through the
bog, sword in hand, in the face of the regulars’
terrific blaze of musketry, cutting Cumberland’s
first line to pieces, and rushing on the second
line to be blown to atoms at sword’s length.</p>
<p>The yellow corn is being shorn to-day where
the clans were mowed down then. Here was
spilt the best blood of the Highlands. Close by,
the brave Keppoch, crying out as he charged alone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">34</a></span>
before the eyes of his immovable Macdonalds
that the children of his tribe had forsaken him,
threw his sword in the air as a bullet went
into his heart. Wounded, at the tall tree to the
west fell Cameron of Lochiel; and in the little
valley beyond, the defeated Prince Charles, as he
fled, paused a moment to bid his army a bitter
farewell. The road here at the corn-field’s edge
dips a little yet, where the fatal bog once lay,
and ten yards to the left still springs the Dead
Men’s Well, to which so many poor fellows
crawled during the awful succeeding night to
allay the tortures of their thirst before they died.
Here the gigantic MacGillivray, leader that day
of the clan M’Intosh, fell dead as, with his last
strength, he bore to the spring a little wounded
boy whom he had heard at his side moaning
for water.</p>
<p>A better fate the bravery of these men deserved,
misguided though they might be; for the victors
gave no quarter to wounded or prisoners, and the
soul shudders yet at thought of the horrors that
followed the battle. It was not enough that disabled
men should be clubbed and shot, and barns
full of them burned to ashes; but to this day in
many a quiet glen lie the remains of hamlets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">35</a></span>
ruined in cold blood, and tales are told of the
dark vengeance taken by the victorious soldiery
upon defenceless women, little children, and old
men. Well was it, perhaps, for those who had
fallen that they lay here at rest under the
heather—they could not know the cruel fate of
wife or child. To other lips was left the wail
for “Drummossie; oh, Drummossie!” At rest
they were, these hot and valiant hearts, plaided
and plumed as warriors wish to lie, in their long
bivouac under the open heaven. Not the first
nor the last of their race, either, were they to
fall, scarred with the wounds of war; for, less
than a mile away, under the lichened cairns of
Clava, do not the ashes rest of the chiefs their
ancestors, slain in some long-forgotten battle of
the past, and waiting, like these, for the sound
of the last <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">réveille</i>?</p>
<p>Here, on each side of the road, can still be
made out the trenches where the dead were
buried, according to their tartans it is said; and,
while the rest of the moor is purple with heather,
these sunken places alone are green. On the
edge of the corn-field rises a stone, inscribed
“Field of the English; they were buried here”;
and at the end of each trench on the moor stands<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">36</a></span>
a rude slab bearing the name of its tribe. A
singular pathos attends two of these stones, on
which is written, not M’Intosh or Stewart or
Fraser, but “Mixed Clans.”</p>
<p>Round the oval moorland of the battle rise
thick fir-woods now, dark and mournful. Sometimes
the winds of the equinox, as they roar
through these, recall the deadly rolling musketry
of long ago. But the air to-day scarcely whispers
in the tree-tops, and sunshine and silence sleep
upon the resting-place of the gallant dead. Only
some fair, white-clad girls, who have come up
from Inverness to read the battle inscription on
the great boulder-cairn, are plucking a spray of
heather from the Camerons’ grave.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">37</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_6">TAM O’ SHANTER’S RIDE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Never</span> is a man more conscious of his
manhood than when, with bridle in hand
and a good horse under him, he takes the road
at a gallop. As his steed stretches out and the
hoof-beats quicken, as the milestones fly past and
the cool air rushes in his face, he casts care to
the winds, his pulse beats stronger, he rejoices to
breathe and to live. The pride and the pleasure
of this experience have ever appealed to the poets,
and the ringing of horse-hoofs echoes through
the verse of all ages—in the warrior chants of
Israel; through the sounding Virgilian lines; to
the reverberating rhythm of the “Ride from Ghent
to Aix.” But the maddest, most riotous gallop
of all is, perhaps, that of the grey mare Meg and
her master from Ayr to the Shanter farm.</p>
<p>Burns was never more fortunate in his
subject than when thus fulfilling his promise of
providing a legend for “Alloway’s auld haunted
kirk.” He did not, it is true, with the nice precision<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">38</a></span>
of the Augustan laureate, trim his verse
to a mechanical imitation of sound; but the wild
rush and deftness of the movement of the poem,
the quick succession of humour on pathos, scene
upon scene, the ludicrous, the startling, the horrible,
carry away the breath, and suggest more vividly
than any mere measuring rhythm the mad daring
of that midnight ride.</p>
<p>There is a little, old-fashioned, deep-thatched
inn still standing where the street leads southwards
out of Ayr. Under its low, brown-raftered
roof it is yet easy to imagine how the veritable
hero, Tam, may have sat with his cronies “fast
by the ingle, bleezing finely,” while “the night
drave on wi’ sangs and clatter,” and the storm
outside hurled itself fruitlessly against the little
deep-set window. It would need all the liquor
he had imbibed to fortify the carouser for that
fourteen-mile ride into Carrick. A midnight
hurricane of rain and wind would be no pleasant
encounter on that lonely road, to say nothing of
the eerie spots to be passed, and at least one
point more than a trifle dangerous. But Tam
o’ Shanter was a stout Ayrshire farmer, and,
moreover, he was accustomed to face worse
ragings than those of the elements; so it may<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">39</a></span>
be supposed that, when he had hiccupped a last
goodbye to his friends, and, leaving the warm
lights of the inn streaming into the street behind
him, galloped off into the blackness of the night,
it was with no stronger regret than that he must
go so soon. Half a mile to his right, as he
bucketed southward along the narrow road, he
could hear the ocean thundering its diapason on
the broad beach of sand, and at the places where
he crossed the open country its spray would
strike his cheek and fly inland with the foam
from Maggie’s bit. Sometimes, when the way
lay through belts of beech and oak woods, the
branches would roar and shriek overhead as they
strove with maniac arms against the tempest.</p>
<p>The old road to Maybole, and that which
Tam o’ Shanter took, ran a little nearer the
sea than the one which did duty in Burns’
time, and still serves its purpose; and about a
mile out of Ayr it crosses the small stream at
the ford where “in the snaw the chapman
smoored.” Here, on the newer road, a curious
adventure is said to have befallen the poet’s
father. There was formerly no bridge across
this stream; and the legend runs that William
Burnes, a few hours before the birth of his son,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">40</a></span>
in riding to Ayr for an attendant, found the
water much swollen, and was requested by an
old woman on the farther side to carry her
across. Notwithstanding his haste he did this;
and a little later, on returning home with the
attendant, he was surprised to find the woman
seated by his own fireside. It is said that when
the child was born it was placed in the gipsy’s
lap, and she, glancing into its palm, made a
prophecy which the poet has turned in one of
his <span class="locked">verses:—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He’ll hae misfortunes great and sma’,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But aye a heart aboon them a’;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">He’ll be a credit till us a’—<br /></span>
<span class="i4">We’ll a’ be prood o’ Robin.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">If all gipsy predictions were as well fulfilled as
this concerning the poet, the dark-skinned race
assuredly would be far sought and courted.</p>
<p>A few strides beyond the stream his grey mare
had to carry Tam past a dark, uncanny spot—“the
cairn whare hunters fand the murdered
bairn.” It was covered then with trees, and one
of them still stands marking the place. To the
left of the old road here, and hard by the newer
highway, lies the humble cottage, of one storey,
where Robert Burns was born. It has been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">41</a></span>
considerably altered since then, having been used
until recently as an alehouse, and further accommodation
having been added at either end. But
enough of the interior remains untouched to allow
of its original aspect being realised. The house
is the usual “but and ben,” built of natural stones
and clay, and neatly whitewashed and thatched.
In the “but,” the apartment to the left on entering
from the road, there is little alteration; and
it was here, in the recessed bed in the wall, that
the poet first saw light. The plain deal dresser,
with dish-rack above, remains the same, and the
small, square, deep-set window still looks out
behind, over the fields his father cultivated. An
old mahogany press with drawers still stands next
the bed; the floor is paved with irregular flags;
and the open fireplace, with roomy, projecting
chimney, occupies the gable. An extra door has
been driven through the south-east corner to allow
the profane crowd to pass through, and a larger
window has been opened towards the road that
they may see to scratch their names in the
visitors’ book; but the rest of the apartment,
towards the back, is little changed, if at all, since
the eventful night when “Januar’ winds blew
hansel in on Robin.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">42</a></span>
The hour of his ride was too dark, however, for
the galloping farmer to see so far over the fields.
A weirder sight was in store for him.</p>
<p>A few hundred yards farther on, when, by a
well which is still flowing, he had passed the
thorn, now vanished, where “Mungo’s mither
hanged hersel,” just as the road plunged down
along the woody banks of Doon, there, a little
to his left,</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">glimmering through the groaning trees<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Kirk Alloway seemed in a bleeze.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">The grey walls of the little kirk are standing
yet among the graves, though the last rafters
of the ruined roof were carried off long since to
be carved into mementos. The tombs of Lord
Alloway’s family occupy one end of the interior,
and a partition wall has been built dividing off
that portion, but otherwise the place remains
unchanged. The bell still hangs above the
eastern gable, and under it remains the little
window with a thick mullion, the “winnock
bunker” in which the astonished farmer, sitting
on his mare, and looking through another
opening in the side wall, saw the queer musician
ensconced.</p>
<p>A more eerie spot on a stormy night could<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">43</a></span>
hardly be imagined, the trees shrieking and
groaning around, the Doon roaring in the darkness
far below, while the thunder crashed overhead,
and the lurid glare of lightning ever and again
lit up the ruin. But with the unearthly accessories
of warlocks and witches, corpse-lights and open
coffins, with the screech of the pipes, and grotesque
contortions of the dancers, the place must pass
comparison in horror. Yet, inspired by “bold
John Barleycorn,” the farmer stared eagerly in
on the revels, till, fairly forgetting himself in the
height of his admiration, he must shout out “Weel
dune, Cutty Sark!” Then, in a moment, as every
reader is aware, the lights went out, the pipes
stopped, and the wrathful revellers streamed after
him like angry bees. A few bounds of his mare
down that narrow, winding, and rather dangerous
road would carry Tam to the bridge, and the
clatter of terrified Maggie’s hoofs as she plunged
off desperately through the trees seems to echo
in the hollow way yet. All the world knows
how she carried her master in safety across the
keystone of the bridge at the cost of her own
grey tail. The feat was no easy one, for the
single arch (still spanning the river there) was
high and steep and narrow.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">44</a></span>
Beyond the Doon the old road rises inland,
bowered high with ash and saugh trees, to the
open country; and Tam, pale and sober no
doubt, but breathing freer, had still twelve long
miles before him to the far side of Kirkoswald
in Carrick, where sat his <span class="locked">wife—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Gathering her brows like gathering storm,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">45</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_7">AN OLD TULIP GARDEN.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap a"><span class="smcap1">A</span> quiet, sunny nook in the hollow it is,
this square old garden with its gravelled
walks and high stone walls; a sheltered retreat
left peaceful here, under the overhanging woods,
when the stream of the world’s traffic turned off
into another channel. The grey stone house,
separated from the garden by a thick privet
hedge and moss-grown court, is the last dwelling
at this end of the quiet market-town, and, with
its slate roof and substantial double storey, is of
a class greatly superior to its neighbours, whose
warm red tiles are just visible over the walls.
It stands where the old road to Edinburgh dipped
to cross a little stream, and, in the bygone driving
days, the stage-coach, after rattling out of the
town, and down the steep road here, between
the white, tile-roofed houses, when it crossed the
bridge opposite the door, began to ascend through
deep, embowering woods. But a more direct<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">46</a></span>
highway to the capital was opened many a year
ago; just beyond the bridge a wall was built
across the road; and the grey house with its
garden was left secluded in the sunny hollow.
The rapid crescendo of the coach-guard’s horn
no longer wakens the echoes of the place, and
the striking of the clock every hour in the town
steeple is the only sound that reaches the spot
from the outside world.</p>
<p>The hot sun beats on the garden here all day,
from the hour in the morning when it gets above
the grand old beeches of the wood, till it sets
away beyond the steeple of the town. But in
the hottest hours it is always refreshing to look
over the weather-stained tiles of the long low
toolhouse at the mossy green of the hill that
rises there, cool and shaded, under the trees.
Now and then a bull, of the herd that feeds in
the glades of the wood, comes down that shaded
bank, whisking his tawny sides with an angry
tail to keep off the pestering flies, and his deep
bellow reverberates in the hollow. In the early
morning, too, before the dewy freshness has left
the air, the sweet mellow pipe of the mavis, and
the fuller notes of the blackbird, float across from
these green depths, and ever and again throughout<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">47</a></span>
the day the clear whistle of some chaffinch comes
from behind the leaves.</p>
<p>Standing among the deep box edgings and
gravelled paths, it is not difficult to recall the
place’s glory of forty years ago—the glory upon
which the ancient plum-trees, blossoming yet
against the sunny walls, looked down. To the
eye of Thought time and space obstruct no
clouds, and in the atmosphere of Memory the
gardens of the past bloom for us always.</p>
<p>Forty years ago! It is the day of the fashion
for Dutch bulbs, when fabulous prices were paid
for an unusually “fancy” specimen, and in this
garden some of the finest of them are grown.
The tulips are in flower, and the long narrow
beds which, with scant space between, fill the
entire middle of the garden, are ablaze with the
glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers they are
and tall, each one with a gentle pedigree—for
nothing common or unknown has entrance here—and
crimson, white, and yellow—the velvet petals
of some almost black—striped with rare and
exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their
large chaste chalices. The perfection of shape
is theirs, as they rise from the midst of their
green, lance-like leaves; no amorous breeze ever<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">48</a></span>
invades the spot to dishevel their array or filch
their treasures; and the precious golden dust
lies in the deep heart of each, untouched as yet
save by the sunshine and the bee. When the
noonday heat becomes too strong, awnings will be
spread above the beds, for with the fierce glare,
the petals would open out and the pollen fall
before the delicate task of crossing had been done.</p>
<p>But see! through the gate in the privet hedge
there enters as fair a sight. Ladies in creamy
flowered muslins and soft Indian silks, shading
their eyes from the sun with tiny parasols, pink
and white and green,—grand dames of the county,
and grander from a distance; gentlemen in blue
swallow-tailed coats and white pantaloons—gallants
escorting their ladies, and connoisseurs
to examine the flowers—all, conducted by the
owner, list-book in hand, advance into the garden
and move along the beds.</p>
<p>To that owner—an old man with white hair,
clear grey eyes, and the memory of their youthful
red remaining in his cheeks—this is the gala
time of the year. Next month the beds of
ranunculus will bloom, and pinks and carnations
will follow; but the tulips are his most famous
flowers, and, for the few days while they are in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">49</a></span>
perfection, he leads about, with his old-world
courtesy, replying to a question here, giving a
name or a pedigree there, a constant succession
of visitors. These are his hours of triumph.
For eleven months he has gone about his beloved
pursuit, mixing loams and leaf-moulds and earths,
sorting, drying, and planting the bulbs, and tending
their growth with his own hand—for to whose
else could he trust the work?—and now his toil
has blossomed, and its worth is acknowledged.
Plants envied by peers, plants not to be bought,
are there, and he looks into the heart of each
tenderly, for he knows it a child of his own.</p>
<p>Presently he leads his visitors back into the
house, across the mossy stones of the court where,
under glass frames, thousands of auricula have
just passed their bloom, and up the railed stair
to the sunny door in the house-side. He leads
them into the shady dining-room, with its
furniture of dark old bees-waxed mahogany,
where there is a slight refreshment of wine and
cake—rare old Madeira, and cake, rich with eggs
and Indian spice, made by his daughter’s own
hand. Jars and glasses are filled with sweet-smelling
flowers, and the breath of the new-blown
summer comes in through the open doors.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">50</a></span>
The warm sunlight through the brown linen
blind finds its way across the room, and falls
with subdued radiance on the middle picture on
the opposite wall. The dark eyes, bright cheeks,
and cherry mouth were those of the old man’s
wife—the wife of his youth. She died while the
smile was yet on her lip, and the tear of sympathy
in her eye; for she was the friend of all, and
remains yet a tender memory among the neighbouring
poor. The old man is never seen to
look upon that picture; but on Sundays for
hours he sits in reverie by his open Bible here
in the room alone. In a velvet case in the
corner press lies a silver medal. It was pinned
to his breast by the Third George on a great
day at Windsor long ago. For the old man,
peacefully ending his years here among the
flowers, in his youth served the king, and fought,
as a naval officer, through the French and Spanish
wars. As he goes quietly about, alone, among
his garden beds, perchance he hears again sometimes
the hoarse word of command, the quick
tread of the men, and the deep roar of the
heavy guns as his ship goes into action. The
smoke of these battles rolled leeward long
ago, and their glory and their wounds are alike<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">51</a></span>
forgotten. In that press, too, lies the wonderful
ebony flute, with its marvellous confusion of silver
keys, upon which he used to take pleasure in
recalling the stirring airs of the fleet. It has
played its last tune; the keys are untouched
now, and it is laid past, warped by age, to be
fingered by its old master no more.</p>
<p>But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with
antique grace their courtly acknowledgments, he
attends the ladies across the stone-paved hall to
their carriages.</p>
<p>Forty years ago! The old man since then has
himself been carried across that hall to his long
home, and no more do grand dames visit the
high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet
above it; the warmth of summer beats on the
gravelled walks; and the flowers, lovely as of
old in their immortal youth, still open their stainless
petals to the sun.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">52</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_8">BY THE BLASTED HEATH.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">The</span> barometer has fallen somewhat since last
night, and there are ominous clouds looming
here and there in the west; but the sky remains
clear blue overhead, the white road is dry and
dazzling, and the sun as hot as could be wished.
Out to the eastward the way turns along the
top of the quaint fisher town, with its narrow
lanes and throng of low thatched roofs, till at
a sudden dip the little bridge crosses the river.
Sweet Nairn! The river has given its name to
the town. A hundred and forty years have
passed since these clear waters, wimpling now
in the sun, brought down from the western
moors the life-blood of many a wounded Highlander
fallen on dark Culloden. The sunny
waters keep a memory still of the flight of the
last Prince Charles.</p>
<p>Like a crow-flight eastward the road runs
straight, having on the left, beyond the rabbit
warren, the silver sand-beach and the sea, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">53</a></span>
on the right the fertile farm-lands and the farther
woods. The white line glistening on the horizon
far along the coast to the east, is a glimpse of
the treacherous hillocks of the Culbin shifting
sands. They are shining now like silver in the
calm forenoon; but, as if restless under an eternal
ban, they keep for ever moving, and, when stirred
by the strong sea-wind, they are wont yet to rise
and rush and overwhelm, like the dust-storm of
the Sahara. For two hundred years a goodly
mansion and a broad estate have lain buried
beneath those wastes, and what was once called
the Garden of Moray is nothing now but a
desolate sea of sand. They say that a few
years ago an apple-tree of the ancient manor
orchard was laid bare for some months by a
drift, that it blossomed and bore fruit, and again
mysteriously disappeared. Curious visitors, too,
can still see, in the open spaces where the black
earth of the ancient fields is exposed, the regular
ridges and furrows as they were left by the flying
farmers; and the ruts of cart-wheels two hundred
years old are yet to be traced in the long-hidden
soil. Flint arrowheads, bronze pins and ornaments,
iron fish-hooks and spear-points, as well
as numerous nails, and sometimes an ancient<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">54</a></span>
coin, are to be picked up about the mouldered
sites of long-buried villages; but the mansion of
Kinnaird, the only stone house on the estate,
lies yet beneath a mighty sandhill, as it was
hidden by the historic storm which in three days
overwhelmed nineteen farms, altered by five miles
the course of a river, and blotted out a prosperous
country-side. Pray Heaven that yonder
terrible white line by the sea may not rise again
some night on its tempest wings to carry that
ruin farther!</p>
<p>Over the firth, looking backward as the highway
at lasts bends inland, the red cliffs of Cromarty
show their long line in the sun, and, with the
yellow harvest-fields above them, hardly fulfil
sufficiently the ancient name of the “Black Isle.”
Not a sail is to be seen on the open firth, only
the far-stretching waters, under the sunny sky,
bicker with the “many-twinkling smile of ocean.”
Here, though, two miles out of Nairn, where the
many-ricked farmhouses lie snug among their
new-shorn fields, the road rises into the trim
village of Auldearn.</p>
<p>Neat as possible are the little gardens before
the cottages, bright yet with late autumn flowers.
Yellow marigolds glisten within the low fences<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">55</a></span>
beside dark velvety calceolarias and creamy
stocks; while the crimson flowers of tropeolum
cover the cottage walls up to the thatch, and
some pale monthly roses still bloom about
the windows. A peaceful spot it is to-day,
yet a spot with a past and a grim tale of a
hundred years before Culloden. Here it was
that in 1645 Montrose, fighting gallantly for the
First Charles, drove back into utter rout the
army of the covenanting Parliament. On the
left, among sheepfolds and dry-dyke inclosures,
lay his right wing with the royal standard;
nearer, to the right, with their backs to the hill,
stood the rest of his array with the cavalry; and
here in the village street, between the two wings,
his few guns deceived the enemy with a show of
force. It was from the church tower, up there
in front, that Montrose surveyed the position;
and below, in the little churchyard and church
itself, lie many of those who fell in the battle.
They are all at peace now, the eastern Marquis
and the western, Montrose and Argyle: long ago
they fought out their last great feud, and departed.</p>
<p>The country about has always been a famous
place for witches, and doubtless the three who
fired Macbeth with his fatal ambition belonged<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">56</a></span>
to Auldearn. Three miles beyond the village
the road runs across the Hardmuir, and there it
was that the awful meeting took place. The
moor is planted now with pines, and the railway
runs at less than a mile’s distance; but even
when the road is flooded with sunshine, there
hangs a gloom among the trees, and a strange
feeling of eeriness comes upon the intruder in
the solitude. On the left a gate opens into
the wood, and the witches’ hillock lies at some
distance out of sight.</p>
<p>Utterly silent the place is! Not a breath of
air is moving, and the atmosphere has become
close and sultry. There is no path, for few
people follow their curiosity so far. Dry ditches
and stumps of old trees make the walking
difficult; withered branches of pine crackle
suddenly sometimes under tread; and here and
there the fleshy finger of a fungus catches the
eye at a tree root.</p>
<p>And here rises the hillock. On its bald and
blasted summit, in the lurid corpse-light, according
to the old story,</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The weird sisters, hand in hand,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Posters of the sea and land,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Thus do go about, about,<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">57</a></span>
when Macbeth, approaching the spot with Banquo,
after victory in the west over Macdonald of the
Isles, exclaims:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">So foul and fair a day I have not seen!<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">and the hags, suddenly confronting the general,
greet him with the triple hail of Glamis, Cawdor,
and King.</p>
<p>The blasted hillock was indeed a fit spot for
such a scene. Not a blade of grass grows upon
it; the withered needles and cones of the pines
lie about, wan and lifeless and yellow; and on
one side, where the witches emptied their horrid
caldron, and the contents ran down the slope,
the earth remains bare, and scorched, and black.
Even the trees themselves which grow on the
hillock appear of a different sort from those on
the heath around.</p>
<p>Antiquaries set the scene of fulfilment of the
witches infernal promptings—Macbeth’s murder
of King Duncan—variously at Inverness, Glamis,
and Bothgofuane, a smithy near Forres. Popular
tradition, however, points to Cawdor, and less
than seven miles from the fatal heath the
Thane’s great moated keep frowns yet among
its woods.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">58</a></span>
But what is this? The air has grown suddenly
dark; the gloom becomes oppressive; and
in the close heat it is almost possible to imagine
a smell of sulphur. A flash of lightning, a rush
of wind among the tree-tops, and a terrible crash
of thunder just overhead! A moment’s silence,
a sound as if all the pines were shaking their
branches together, a deluging downpour of rain,
and the storm has burst. The spirits of the air
are abroad, and the evil genius of the place is
awake in demoniac fury. The tempest waxes
terrific. The awful gloom among the trees is lit
up by flash after flash of lightning; the cannon
of thunder burst in all directions; and the rain
pours in torrents. The ghastly hags might well
revisit the scene of their orgies at such a moment.</p>
<div id="ip_58" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26.6875em;"><img src="images/i_075.jpg" width="427" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>It is enough. The powers of the air have conquered.
It is hardly safe, and by no means
pleasant, to remain among the pines in such a
storm. So farewell to the deserted spot, and a
bee-line for the open country. To make up for
the wetting, it is consoling to think that few
enthusiasts have beheld so realistic a representation
of the third scene of Macbeth.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">59</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_9">AMONG THE GALLOWAY BECKS.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">It</span> rained heavily at intervals all night, and,
though it has cleared a little since day-break,
there is not a patch of blue to be seen
yet in the sky, and the torn skirts of the clouds
are still trailing low among the hills. The day
can hardly brighten now before twelve o’clock,
and as the woods, at anyrate, will be rain-laden
and weeping for hours, the walk through “fair
Kirkconnel Lea” is not to be thought of. The
lawn, too, is out of condition for tennis. But
see! the burn, brown with peat and flecked with
foam, is running like ale under the bridge, and
though the spate is too heavy for much hope of
catching trout down here, there will be good
sport for the trouble higher up among the
moorland becks. Bring out the fishing-baskets,
therefore, some small Stewart tacklings, and a
canister of bait. Put up, too, a substantial
sandwich and a flask; for the air among the hills
is keen, and the mists are sometimes chilly.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">60</a></span>
Wet and heavy the roads are, and there will
be more rain yet, for the pools in the ruts are
not clear. The slender larch on the edge of the
wood has put on a greener kirtle in the night,
and stands forward like a young bride glad amid
her tears. If a glint of sunshine came to kiss
her there, she would glitter with a hundred rain-jewels.
The still, heavy air is aromatic with the
scent of the pines. By the wayside the ripening
oats are bending their graceful heads after the
rain, like Danae, with their golden burden, while
the warrior hosts of the barley beyond hold their
spiky crests white and erect.</p>
<p>The long, springing step natural on the heather
shortens the road to the hills; and already a
tempting burn or two have been crossed by the
way. But nothing can be done without rods;
and these have first to be called for at the
shepherd’s.</p>
<div id="ip_60" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26.5625em;"><img src="images/i_079.jpg" width="425" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>A quiet, far-off place it is, this shieling upon
the moors, with the drone of bees about, and the
bleating of sheep. The shepherd himself is away
to the “big house” about some “hogs,” but his
wife, a weather-grey woman of sixty, with rough
hospitable hands and kindly eyes, says that
“maybe Jeanie will tak’ a rod to the becks.”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">61</a></span>
Jeanie, by her dark glance, is pleased with the
liberty; and indeed this lithe, handsome girl of
fifteen will not be the least pleasant of guides,
with her hair like the raven’s wing, and on her
clear features the thoughtful look of the hills.</p>
<p>Here are the rods, straight ash saplings of
convenient length, with thin brown lines.</p>
<p>“Ye’ll come back and tak’ a cup o’ tea; and
dinna stay up there if it rains,” says the goodwife,
by way of parting.</p>
<p>Jeanie is frank and interesting in speech,
with a gentle breeding little to be expected in
so lonely a place. She has the step of a deer,
and seems to know every tuft of grass upon the
hills. There is not so much heather in Galloway
as in the West Highlands. A long grey bent
takes its place, and on mossy ground the white
tufts of the cotton grass appear.</p>
<p>But here is a chance for a trial cast. A small
burn comes down a side glen, and, just before it
joins the main stream, runs foaming into a deeper
pool. Keep well back from the bank, impale a
tempting worm on the hook, and drop it in just
where the water runs over the stones. Let the line
go: the current carries it at once into the pool.
There! The bait is held. Strike quickly down<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62">62</a></span>
stream: the trout all swim against the current.
But it is not a fish; the hook has only caught
on a stone. Disentangle it, and try again. This
time there is no mistaking the wriggle at the
end of the rod; with a jerk the hungry nibbler is
whipped into the air, and alights among the grass,
a dozen yards from his native pool. A plump
little fish he proves, his pretty brown sides spotted
with scarlet, as he gasps and kicks on <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">terra firma</i>.</p>
<p>Not another trout, however, can be tempted to
bite in that eddy; the fish are too well fed by
the spate, or too timid. “There will be more to
catch,” says Jeanie, “higher up the becks.” She
is right. Perhaps the trout in these narrow
streamlets are less sophisticated than their kind
lower down, for in rivulets so narrow as almost
to be hidden by the bent-grass there seem plenty
of fish eager to take the bait. These are darker
in colour than the trout in the river, taking their
shade from the peat, and though small, of course,
averaging about a quarter of a pound in weight,
are plump, and make merry enough rivalry in
the whipping of them out.</p>
<p>But the mists droop lower overhead, and a
small smirring rain has been falling for some
time; so, as Jeanie, at least, has a fair basketful,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">63</a></span>
it will be best to put up the lines, discuss a
sandwich under the shelter of the birches close
by, and hold a council of war.</p>
<p>Desolate and silent are these grey hillsides.
Hardly a sheep is to be seen; the far-off cry of
the curlew is the only sound heard; and as the
white mists come down and shroud the mountains,
there is an eerie, solemn feeling, as at the near
presence of the Infinite. Something, however,
must be done. The rain is every moment coming
down more heavily, and the small leaves of the
birches afford but scant protection. Off, then;
home as fast as possible! The mountain maid
knows a shorter way over the hill; and lightly
and swiftly she leads the Indian file along the
narrow sheep-path. On the moor, amid the grey
mist and rain, appear the stone walls of a lonely
sheepfold; and just below, in the channel of the
beck, lies the deep pool, swirling now with peaty
water and foam, where every year they wash the
flocks.</p>
<p>The shepherd’s wife appears at her door. Her
goodman is home. A great peat fire is glowing
on the warm hearth, and she is “masking the
tea.” “Ye’ll find a basin of soft water in the
little bedroom there, and ye’ll change ye’re coats<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">64</a></span>
and socks, and get them dried,” says the kindly
woman.</p>
<p>This is real hospitality. The rough coats and
thick dry socks bespeak warm-hearted thoughtfulness;
and a wash in clean water after the
discomforts of fishing is no mean luxury. The
small, low-raftered bedroom, with quaintly-papered
walls, and little window looking out upon the
moors, is comfortably furnished; and the stone-floored
kitchen, clean and bright and warm, with
geraniums flowering in the window, has as pleasant
a fireside seat as could be desired. Why should
ambition seek more than this, and why are so
many hopeless hearts cooped up in the squalid
city?</p>
<p>Here comes Jeanie down from the “loft,” looking
fresher and prettier than ever in her dry
wincey dress, with a little bit of blue ribbon at
the throat. The tea is ready; her mother has
fried some of the trout, and the snowy table is
loaded with thick white scones, thin oatmeal cakes,
home-made bramble jelly, and the freshest butter.
Kings may be blest; but what hungry man needs
more than this? The shepherd, too, is well-read,
for does not Steele and Addison’s “Spectator”
stand there on the shelf, along with Sir Walter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">65</a></span>
Scott, Robert Burns, and the Bible? With fare
like this for body and mind, man may indeed
become “the noblest work of God.”</p>
<p>But an hour has passed, too quickly; the rain
has cleared at last, and away to the south and
west the clouds are lifting in the sunset. Yonder,
under the clear green sky, glistens the treacherous
silver of the Solway, and as far again beyond it
in the evening light rises the dark side of Skiddaw,
in Cumberland. The gravel at the door
lies glistening after the shower, the yellow marigolds
in the little plot are bright and opening,
and the moorland air is perfumed with mint
and bog-myrtle. A hearty handshake, then,
from the shepherd, a warm pressing to return
soon from his goodwife, a pleasant smile from
Jeanie, and the road must be taken down hill
with a swinging step.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">66</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_10">IN KILT AND PLAID.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap al"><span class="smcap1">All</span> dust has been swept from the causeways
by the clear wind from the firth, as if in
preparation for this great gala-day of the North.
Unusual stir and movement fill the streets of the
quiet Highland town, and the bright sunshine
glitters everywhere on jewelled dirk and brooch
and skeandhu. The clean pavements are ringing
far and near with the quick, light step of the
Highlander, and, from the number of tartans to
be seen, it might almost be thought that the
Fiery Cross was abroad, as in days of old, for
the gathering of the clans.</p>
<p>Sad enough are the memories here of the last
war summons of the chiefs. High-hearted, indeed,
was the town on the morning when the clans
marched forth under “Bonnie Prince Charlie”
to do battle for the Stuart cause. But before
an April day had passed, the gates received
again, flying from fatal Culloden, the remnants
of the broken chivalry of the North, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">67</a></span>
streets themselves shook under the thunder of
the Lowland guns.</p>
<p>The wounds of the past, however, are healed,
the feuds are forgotten, and the clouds of that
bygone sorrow have been blown away by the
winds of time. A lighter occasion now has
brought gaiety to the town, and the heroes
of the hour go decked with no ominous white
cockade. Already in the distance the wild
playing of the pipes can be heard, and at the
sound the kilted clansmen hurry faster along
the streets; for the business of the day is on
the greensward, and the hill folk, gentle and
simple, are gathering from far and near to witness
the Highland games.</p>
<p>A fair and appropriate scene is the tourney-ground,
with the mountains looking down upon
it, purple and silent—the Olympus of the North.
The eager crowd gathers thick already, like bees,
round the barricade. Little knots of friends there,
from glens among the hills, discuss the chances
of their village hero. Many a swarthy mountaineer
is to be seen, of pure Celtic blood, clear
eyed and clean limbed, from far-off mountain
clachan. Gamekeepers and ghillies there are,
without number, in gala-day garb. And the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">68</a></span>
townspeople themselves appear in crowds. On
every side is to be heard the emotional Gaelic of
the hills, beside the sweet English speech for which
the town is famous, and only sometimes one
catches the broader accent of a Lowland tongue.</p>
<p>The lists have just been cleared, and the
“chieftain” of the day has gathered his henchmen
around him. The games are about to
begin.</p>
<p>Yonder go the pipers, half a dozen of them,
their ribbons and tartans streaming on the wind.
Featly they step together to the quick tune of
the shrill mountain march they are playing.
Deftly they turn in a body at the boundary,
and brightly the cairngorms of their broad silver
shoulder-brooches flash all at once in the sun.
No wonder it is that the Highlander has the
tread of a prince, accustomed as he is to the
spring of the heather beneath his feet, and to
music like that in the air. The Highland garb,
too, can hardly fail to be picturesque when it is
worn by stalwart fellows like these.</p>
<p>The programme of the games is very full, and
several competitions are therefore carried on at
the same time. Here a dozen fleet youths speed
past on the half-mile racecourse. Some lithe<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">69</a></span>
ghillies yonder are doing hop, step, and leap to
an astonishing distance. And, farther off, five
brawny fellows are preparing to “put” the heavy
ball. Out of the tent close by come some sinewy
men, well stripped for the encounter, to try a bout
of wrestling. A pair at a time, they wind their
strong arms about each other, and each strains and
heaves to give his rival a fall. One man scowls,
and another smiles as he picks himself up after
his overthrow—the sympathy of the crowd goes
largely by these signs. Most, however, display the
greatest good-humour, and every one must obey
the ruling of the umpire. Gradually the two
stoutest and heaviest men overcome the rest; and
at last, the only champions remaining, they stand
up to engage each other. The grey-headed man
has some joke to make as he hitches up his belt
before closing, and the bystanders laugh heartily
at his pleasantry; but his opponent evidently looks
upon the contest too seriously for that. Hither
and thither they stagger in “the grips,” the back
of each as rigid as a plank at an angle of forty-five
degrees. More than once they loosen hold
for a breath, and again grasp each other, till at
last, by dint of sheer strength, the grey-headed
wrestler draws the younger man to himself, and,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">70</a></span>
with a sudden toss, throws him clear upon the
ground.</p>
<p>The slim youths at the pole-vaulting look like
white swallows as they swing high into the air
on their long staves to clear the bar; and a roar
of applause from the far end of the lists, where
the dogged “tug of war” has been going on,
tells that one of the teams of heavy fellows straining
at the rope has been hauled over the brink
into the dividing ditch. The brawny giants who
were throwing the axle a little while ago are
just now breathing themselves, and will be tossing
the mighty caber by and by. And ever and
anon throughout the day there float upon the
breeze the wild strains of the competing pipers—pibrochs
and strathspeys and “hurricanes of
Highland reels.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile the grand pavilion has filled. Lord
and lady, earl and marquis and duke are there.
And beside these are others, heads of families,
who count their chieftainship, it may be, through
ten centuries, and who are to be called neither
esquire nor lord, but just —— of that Ilk. Chiefs
by right of blood, they need no other title than
their name.</p>
<p>The presence of so much that is noble and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">71</a></span>
illustrious lends a feudal interest to the games,
and imports to the rivalry something of that
desire to appear well in the eyes of the chief
which was once so powerful an influence in the
Highlands. The young ghillie here, who has out-stripped
all but one competitor at throwing the
hammer, feels the stimulus of this. He knows
not only that his sweetheart’s eyes are bent
eagerly upon him from the barrier at hand, but
that he has a chance of distinguishing himself
before his master and “her ladyship,” who are
watching from under the awning yonder. So he
breathes on his hands, takes a firm grasp of the
long ash handle, and, vigorously whirling the
heavy iron ball round his head, sends it with
all his strength across the lists. How far
has it gone? They chalk the distance up on
a board—95½ feet. There is a clapping of
hands from the crowd, and a waving of white
kerchiefs from the pavilion. He is sure of
winning now, and the shy, pretty face at the
barrier flushes with innocent pride. Is he not
<em>her</em> hero?</p>
<p>There, on the low platform before the judges,
go the dancers, two after two. They are trimly
dressed for the performance, and wear the thin,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">72</a></span>
low-heeled Highland shoes, while the breasts of
some of them are fairly panoplied in gold and
silver medals won at former contests. Mostly
young lads, it is wonderful how neatly they
perform every step, turning featly with now one
arm in the air and now the other. Cleverly
they go through the famous sword dance over
crossed claymores, and in the wild whirl of the
Reel o’ Tulloch seem to reach the acme of the
art.</p>
<div id="ip_72" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;"><img src="images/i_093.jpg" width="600" height="486" alt="" /></div>
<p>But in the friendly rivalry of skill and strength
the day wears on. The races in sacks and over
obstacles, as well as the somewhat rough “bumping
in the ring,” have all been decided; the “best
dressed Highlander” has received his meed of
applause; and the sun at last dips down behind
the hills. Presently, as the mountain-sides beyond
the river are growing grey, and their shadows
gather upon the lists, the spectators melt by
degrees from the barricades, and in a slow stream
move back into the town. By and by the
Assembly Rooms will be lit up, and carriages
will begin to arrive with fair freights for the
great Caledonian Ball. But, long before that,
the upland roads will be covered with pedestrians
and small mountain conveyances with family<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">73</a></span>
parties—simple folk, all pleased heartily with
their long day’s enjoyment, and wending their
way to far-off homes among the glens, where
they will talk for another twelvemonth of the
great feats done at the gathering here by Duncan
or Fergus or Hamish.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">74</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_11">AT THE FOOT OF BEN LEDI.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Sit</span> here in the stern of the boat, and let her
drift out on the glassy waters of the loch.
After the long sultry heat of the day it is refreshing
to let one’s fingers trail in these cool waters,
and to watch the reflection of the hills above
darkening in the crystal depths below. Happy
just now must be the speckled trout that dwell
in the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering
sun rolls ablaze in the zenith there are
few mortals who will not envy the cool green
domain of the salmon king. But now that the
sunset has died away upon the hills, like “the
watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air
begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and
from the undergrowth about the streamlet that
runs close by into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel
send forth more liquid pipings. The
cuckoos, that all day long have been calling to
each other across loch and strath, now with a
more restful “chuck! chu-chu, chu, chuck!” are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">75</a></span>
flitting, grey flakes, from coppice to coppice,
preparatory to settling for the night The grouse-cocks’
challenge, “kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!” can
still be heard from their tourney-ground on the
moraine at the moor’s edge; and from the heath
above still comes the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl”
of the whaup. These sounds can be heard far
off in the stillness of the dusk.</p>
<p>But listen to this mighty beating of the waters,
and look yonder! From the shadow of the
hazels on the loch’s margin comes the royal bird
of Juno, pursuing his mate. In his eager haste
he has left the water, and with outstretched
neck, beating air and loch into foam with his
silver wings, he rushes after her. She, with the
tantalising coyness of her sex, has also risen from
the water, and, streaming across the loch, keeps
undiminished the distance between herself and
her pursuer. At this, finding his efforts vain, he
gives up the chase, subsiding upon the surface
with a force which sends the foam-waves curling
high about his breast. Disdainfully he turns his
back upon the fair, and, without once inclining
his proud black beak in her direction, makes
steadily for the shore. This, however, does not
please the lady. She turns, looks after her inconstant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">76</a></span>
lover, and, meeting with no response,
begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly
again at this, with snowy pinions erect, neck
curved gallantly back, and the calm waters foaming
round his breast, he surges after her, ploughing
up the loch into shining furrows. Again the coy
dame flees, again and again the same amorous
manœuvres are gone through, and when night
itself falls, the splendid birds will still be dallying
over their long-certain courtship. No plebeian
affair is the mating of these imperial denizens of
the loch. Seldom do mortals witness even this
wooing of the swans.</p>
<p>More commonplace, though not, perhaps, less
happy, are the three brown ducks and their
attentive drake, which having, one after another,
splashed themselves methodically on the flat stone
by the margin of the loch, now swim off in a
string for home. Young trout are making silver
circles in the water as they leap at flies under
the grassy bank; and the keen-winged little
swallows that skim the surface, sometimes tip the
glassy wave with foot or wing.</p>
<p>Before the daylight fades there are beautiful
colours to be seen on shore. The fresh young
reeds that rise at hand like a green mist out of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">77</a></span>
the water deepen to a purple tint nearer the
margin. The march dyke that comes down to
the shallows is covered with the red chain-mail
of a small-leaved ivy; and the gean-tree beside it,
that a week or two ago raised into the blue sky
creamy coral-branches of blossom, still retains
something of its fragile loveliness. On the stony
meadow beyond, the golden whinflower is fading
now, but is being replaced by the paler yellow
splendour of the broom. The rich blush-purple
of some heathy banks betrays the delicate blossom
of the blaeberry, and patches of brown show
where the young bracken are uncurling their
rusty tips.</p>
<p>And silent and fair on the mountain descends
the shadowy veil of night. Darkening high up
there against the sapphire heaven, the dome-topped
hill, keeping watch with the stars, has
treasured for twenty centuries strange memories
of an older world. Whether or not, in the earth’s
green spring, it served as a spot of offering for
some primeval race, no man now can tell. But
long before the infant Christ drew breath among the
far-off Jewish hills, grave Druid priests ascended
here to offer worship to their Unknown God.
On the holy Beltane eve, the First of May, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">78</a></span>
concourse gathered from near and far, and as the
sun, the divine sign-manual set in the heavens,
arose out of the east, they welcomed his rising
with an offering of fire. From sea to sea across
dim Scotland, from the storm-cloven peaks of
Arran to the sentinel dome of the Bass, could
be seen this mountain summit; and from every
side the awed inhabitants, as they looked up and
beheld the clear fire-jewel glittering on Ben Ledi’s
brow, knew that Heaven had once more favoured
them with the sacred gift of flame. For the
light on the mountain-top, like the altar fires of
the Chaldean seers on the hills of the East of old,
was understood to be kindled by the hand of
God; every hearth in the land had been quenched,
and the people waited for the new Bal-tein, or
Baal-fire from Heaven, for another year.</p>
<p>Rude these people may have been—though
that is by no means certain,—but few races on
earth have had a nobler place of worship than
this altar-mountain, which they called the Hill
of God.</p>
<p>The climber on Ben Ledi to-day passes, near
the summit, the scene of a sad, more modern
story. On the shoulder of the mountain lies a
small, dark tarn. It is but a few yards in width,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">79</a></span>
yet once it acted a part in a terrible tragedy.
Amid the snows of winter, and under a leaden
heaven, a funeral party was crossing the ridge,
when there was a crash; the slow wail of the
pipes changed into a shriek of terror, and a
hundred mourners, with the dead they were
carrying, sank in the icy waters to rise no more.
That single moment sufficed to leave sixty women
husbandless in Glen Finglas below. No tablet
on that wind-swept moor records the half-forgotten
disaster; only the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s
waves fills the discoverer with strange foreboding;
and at dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may
be seen, like souls of the departed, haunting the
fatal spot.</p>
<p>On a knoll at the mountain foot, where the
Leny leaves Loch Lubnaig, lies the little Highland
burial-place to which the clansmen were
bearing their dead comrade. Only a low stone
wall now remains round the few quiet graves;
but here once stood the chapel of St Bride,
and from the Gothic arch of its doorway Scott,
in his “Lady of the Lake,” describes the issuing
of a blithesome rout, gay with pipe-music and
laughter, when the dripping messenger of
Roderick Dhu rushed up and thrust into the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80">80</a></span>
hand of the new-made groom the Fiery Cross
of the <span class="locked">Macgregors—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“The muster place is Lanrick mead;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Well did the poet paint the parting of bride and
groom; and to-day on the mossy stones of the
little burial-place are to be read the wistful words
of many who have bid each other since then a
last good-bye. Surely the arcana of earth’s
divinest happiness is only opened by the golden
key of love. Sweet, indeed, must be that companionship
which unclasps not with resignation
even when sunset is fading upon the hills of
life, and the shadows are coming in regretful
eyes, but would fain stretch forth its yearnings
through the pathways of a Hereafter. Simple
and lacking excitement may be the lives of the
folk who dwell under these hills, but something
of the sublime surely is latent in hearts whose
hopes extend beyond a time when heaven and
earth shall have passed away.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">81</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_12">CADZOW FOREST.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">High</span> on the edge of the crumbling cliff here,
like the grey eyrie of some keen-winged
falcon, hangs the ruined keep of Cadzow. Bowered
and all but hidden by the leafy luxuriance of
“the oak and the ash and the bonnie ivy-tree,”
with the Evan roaring down its rocky bed far
below at the foot of the sheer precipice, there is
enough left of this ancestral home of the Hamiltons
to give some idea of its ancient strength. Perched
where it was unassailable on one side save by foes
who had the gift of wings; on the other hand, the
deep moss-grown moat and the massive remains
of thick walls tell how secure a refuge it gave to
its possessors. Secluded, too, in the depths of the
old Caledonian forest, the fastness had endless
facilities for secret communication and for safe
hiding in case of necessity, and the deeds of its
owners need have been subject to the curiosity of
prying eye. Who can tell what captives have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">82</a></span>
languished in the dungeons into which now, at
places through the broken arch, the sunshine
makes its way? Birds have built their nests, and
twitter joyously about their callow young, where
once only the sighs of the prisoner were heard
and the iron clank of his chain. Alas! he had
not the linnet’s wing to fly out and speed away
along these sunny woodland paths.</p>
<p>But not vindictive above their peers were the
chiefs of the ancient race that held these baronies.
Rather has the gleam of romance come here to
lighten the records of their gloomy age. For it
was within these walls, tradition says, that Queen
Mary found an asylum upon the night following
that of her escape from Loch Leven Castle—a
tradition the more likely to be true since the
Hamilton Palace of that day was but a rude
square tower. And it is easy to imagine how
in that sweet May morning, the second of her
new-born liberty and of her fresh-reviving hopes,
the eyes of the fair unfortunate Queen may have
filled with tears of happiness as she gazed from
this casement forth upon the green waving forests
and the silver Evan in its gorge below, and heard
in the courtyard and the woods behind the tramp
of horses and the ring of arms. Alas! whatever<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">83</a></span>
her frailties, she suffered sorely for them. There
are few perhaps whose errors lie so much at the
door of circumstance. From the Rout of Solway,
which heralded her birth, to the last sad scene
at Fotheringay, her life was a walk of tears; and
the student of her reign is tempted to think that
had she been a less lovable woman she might
have been a more successful queen. That was
the last gleam of sunshine in her life, the eleven
days between Loch Leven and Langside. Short
was the respite, but it must have been sweet, and
doubtless these Hamiltons made chivalrous hosts.
They fought for her gallantly at anyrate, if in
vain, for they were the foremost to rush against
her enemies’ spears in the steep narrow lane at
Langside.</p>
<p>And at last she rode away from this place,
surrounded by a brave little troop of nobles, their
armour glancing in the sun as they caracoled off
along these grassy forest glades. Then amid the
restored quiet, only the whisper of the woods
about them and the murmur of the river far
below, the women waited here, listening. Presently,
sudden and ominous, they heard a sound
in the distance—cannonading near Glasgow, ten
miles away. The Queen had been intercepted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">84</a></span>
on her journey to Dunbarton. There was not
much of the sound, and it died feebly.</p>
<p>Hours afterwards, anxious waiting hours, down
these forest avenues, slowly, with drooping crest
and broken spear, came riding the lord of the
castle, haggard, and almost alone. For of the
gallant gentlemen who had followed him to Langside
many had fallen upon the field, and the
rest were scattered and fleeing for their lives.</p>
<p>What sorrowings then for those who would never
return must there have been within these walls—what
aching hearts for those who had escaped!
The smoke of the houses in Clydesdale, fired by
the victorious army of the Regent, could almost
be seen from here; and day after day news came
of friends taken and friends in flight, until it was
whispered that the Queen herself was a prisoner
in the hands of the English Warden. A weary
and anxious time it must have been; but the
danger passed, and the hour of reprisal came.</p>
<p>Through these woods, according to the tradition
preserved by Sir Walter Scott, on a January
afternoon less than two years after the battle of
Langside, a hunting-party was returning to the
castle. Amid the fast-falling shadows of the
winter day they were bringing home their quarry—<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">85</a></span>the
wild bull whose race still roams these glades;
and the guests and huntsmen were making
merry over the success of their sport. There
was the jingle, too, of hawk-bells, and the bark
of hounds in leash. But their lord rode in front,
silent, with clenched hand and clouded brow.
He had not forgotten the misfortune that had
befallen his house, and news of a fresh insult
had but lately quickened his anger over it. The
estate of one of his kinsmen, Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh,
had been confiscated to a favourite of
the Regent, and the new possessor, it was said,
had used his power with such severity, in turning
out Bothwellhaugh’s wife and new-born infant on
a freezing night, that the poor lady had become
furiously mad. Brooding darkly and bitterly on
these evils, the chief was drawing near the castle,
when there was suddenly heard approaching the
heavy gallop of a horse, and in another moment
Bothwellhaugh sprang to the earth before him.
His face was wild and pale, and his steed,
bespattered with foam and blood, drooped its
head in exhaustion. Vengeance swift and dire
had fallen upon the Regent, and, twenty miles
away, in Linlithgow Palace, the birthplace of
the sister he had dethroned, he lay dying. It<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">86</a></span>
is for a higher Judge than man to say whether
his death was that of a martyr or of a miscreant;
but at the time there were not wanting those
who held that Bothwellhaugh satisfied with one
blow his own private feud and the wrath of
heaven over the distresses of the Queen. The
brass matchlock, curiously enough a rude sort
of rifle, with which the deed was done, lies yet
in the palace of the Hamiltons.</p>
<p>Three hundred years ago and more it all
happened, and the moss grows dark and velvety
now on the ruined bridge over which once rang
the hoofs of Queen Mary’s steed; but the grey
and broken walls, silent amid the warm summer
sunshine, recall these memories of the past.
There could be no sweeter spot to linger near.
Foamy branches of hawthorn in spring fill the
air here with their fragrance; and in the woodland
aisles lie fair beds of speedwell, blue as
miniature lakes. Under the dry, crumbling banks,
too, among tufts of delicate fern, are to be seen
the misty, purple-flowering nettle and the soft
green shoots of brier. Overhead, in summer
luxuriance, spread the broad, palm-like fronds of
the chestnut; close by, the soft greenery of the
beech lets the tinted sunshine through; and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">87</a></span>
amid them rises the dark and sombre pine. But,
venerable above all, on these rolling forest lands,
the shattered girth of many an ancient oak still
witnesses to an age that may have seen the rites
of the Druids. Monarchs of the primeval wilds,
these gigantic trees, garlanded now with the
green leaf of another year, need acres each for
the spread of their mighty roots; while as withies
in comparison appear the cedars of a century.</p>
<p>And down these forest avenues, the home of
his sires from immemorial time, where his hoof
sinks deep in the primeval sward, and there is
no rival to answer his hoarse bellow of defiance,
comes the lordly Caledonian bull. Never yet has
the race been tamed, and the cream-white hide
and black muzzle, horn, and hoof bespeak the
strain of its ancient blood. There is a popular
belief, indeed, that when the white cattle become
extinct the house of Hamilton will pass away.
Here, then, in the forgotten solitude, where seldom
along the grassy woodland ways comes the foot
of the human wanderer, the mountain bull keeps
guard with his herd over the scene of that old
and sorrowful story.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">88</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_13">A FISHER TOWN.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Keen</span> and strong, and steady to-night in the
gathering dusk, the wind is coming up the
firth out of the east. Darkling clouds roll low
along the sky, and, before the breeze, the waves
in their unnumbered hosts, like dark hussars
white-crested, ride past to break upon the beach-sands
yonder inland at Fort George. The full,
deep gale brings with it out of the shadowy east
the health of a hundred tumbling seas, and sets
the glad life dancing in lip, and eye, and heart;
while the music of the rushing waves, like the
drums of far-off armies, stirs the soul with the
daring of great purposes. Little need, therefore,
is there to pity the fisher women and children
far out at the ebb-tide edge gathering bait among
the reefs. Clear are their eyes as the sea-pools
over which they bend, and while sun and wind
have made their skins brown as the wet sand
itself, many a drawing-room beauty would give<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">89</a></span>
her diamonds for such a wealth of raven hair.
Even at this distance the happy voices of the
children, a pleasant murmur, speak of free and
simple hearts. Sport on, happy children! Rejoice
in your brown brood, simple mothers! Not yours
are the pale cheek and the wasted form, the lifeless
eye and the languid step. Sometimes, it
may be, when the winds rise and the waves
come thundering upon the beach, there are
anxious hours for you because of husband or
father tossing out there somewhere in the darkness;
sometimes, alas! a sore heart and many
tears when the little knot of sad and silent men
come up from the beach and lay gently upon
its pillow the pale wet face that will speak to
you no more. But yours, at least, are not the
fetid atmosphere of cities and their weary miles
of pavement; for you the smile of Heaven is not
veiled by a sin-black pall of smoke; and when
the dark angel does come to your humble
dwellings, and the last “Good-byes!” have to
be said, it is not amid the heartless roar and
the squalor of city streets, but amid the sweet,
salt smell, and listening to the strange and
solemn “calling” of the sea.</p>
<p>A race by themselves are these fisher-folk,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">90</a></span>
mixing little with the people of the upper town,
and keeping very much by customs of their
own. Danish, very likely, or Norse, in origin,
their blood remains all but as pure yet as it
was when their forefathers landed on these
shores. Seven miles to the eastward along the
coast, where the white sand-line gleams on the
horizon, in places exposed by the shifting dunes,
are still to be found the remains of villages
which belonged to the ancestors of these folk,
and by these remains—bronze pins, fish-hooks,
broken pottery, and shell heaps—it seems clear
that the ancient villagers lived very much the
same life as is lived here to-day. Only, of late
years the steamship and the School Board have
made some invasions upon traditional ideas.</p>
<p>At hand, spread on the bent-grass to dry, and
brown as seaweed itself, lie miles of fishing-nets,
with their rows of worn cork floats; for the
herring fishery of the season is over, the west
coast boats have gone home through the Canal,
and the gear is being laid by for the winter.
In the end of April it will be wanted again
for the Loch Fyne fishing, but it will be the
end of June before the herring nets are used
on the east coast again. The good woman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">91</a></span>
coming up the shore below with her creel and
pail of bait—mussels, sand-worms, and silver-gleaming
needle-fish—is going now to bait for the
later white-fishing the “long lines,” with their
hundreds of hooks, which her husband and his
sons will take out to set before daylight. To-morrow
morning, when the boat comes home,
she will have to fill her creel with the haddocks,
and sell them along the country-side; or perhaps
the fish will be bought at auction by the curers,
to be smoked with the smoke of fragrant fir-cones
into succulent, appetising “speldings.”</p>
<p>The quay-head in the morning, when the fish
auction is going on, makes a characteristic sight,
and displays the only occasion on which anything
like business wakens in the quiet place.</p>
<p>The boats have come in with the running tide,
and lie moored to great iron rings in the landing-place.
Curious names they have, mostly double—the
“Elspat and Ann,” or the “Ann and Margaret”—probably
to represent the wives or sweethearts
of two partners. In the boats themselves lie
together heaps of lines, ropes, and sails, with fish
gleaming here and there among them; while the
quay is littered with oars and spars and cables,
enough to make walking a fine art. The fish<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">92</a></span>
have been lifted out of each boat by its crew,
and when the women have divided them into
glittering heaps—a heap for each man and one
for the boat—the skipper sells the boat’s heap,
and its price settles that of the others. Here
the shrewd bargaining power of the fisher-folk
comes out, trained, as it is, by the narrow path
they tread between means and ends; while here
the women who have no man’s hand to bring
them home the harvest of the deep contrive to
find their bread by buying the fish they will
afterwards retail. The whole transaction is primitive
in the extreme, but one that sufficiently serves
its purpose.</p>
<p>A life of which this is the busiest scene may
appear monotonous to the dweller in cities, but
again and again there come hours of stern
excitement which prove the manhood of the
race. There have been times when every boat
of the fishing fleet as it came rushing ashore
had to be caught, at peril of life and limb,
breast-deep in the furious surf, and landed safely
with its occupants. Yet men are ever most
plentiful when the work is most dangerous, and
never yet has the lifeboat lacked a crew.</p>
<p>Once, indeed, a few years ago it happened that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">93</a></span>
the men, all but one or two, were away at the
fishing, when word was brought that a Norwegian
timber-ship was going to pieces on the treacherous
shifting sands yonder, seven miles away. A
tremendous surf was beating upon the beach,
and the lifeboat coxswain and crew were riding
the storm out, cabled to their herring-nets somewhere
in the North Sea. In the upper town,
however, there was visiting his brother just then
the captain of an East Indiaman, home upon
holiday, and the message was handed to him
as he sat at breakfast. In half an hour, sailor-like,
he had the lifeboat out, manned with a
scratch crew of volunteers, and run down the
beach. Then began the difficulty and peril. By
strong and willing hands the boat was run out
into the surf, but again and again she was caught
by a huge wave and driven back. Three-quarters
of an hour’s hard rowing it took to pull her out
to the fourth sea. A little longer, and she hoisted
her sail, and went plunging off into the howling
wilderness of waters.</p>
<p>Would she accomplish her mission? Would
she and the brave hearts on board her ever
themselves come back? Old men and fishers’
wives watched her from the quay-head till she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">94</a></span>
disappeared among the waves, and then they
waited, anxious and fearful.</p>
<p>The day passed without tidings of her, and at
last night began to fall. The anxiety of the
watchers had become intense, when suddenly some
one caught a glimpse of white bows gleaming far
out over the waves. There she was, clearly now,
coming like a sea-bird through the driving spray.
Who could tell whether she had won or lost
lives? Presently her thwarts were seen black
with men. She had accomplished her mission;
but the question yet remained—how were they
to be landed? Alas! all might yet be lost in
the terrible surf. There was a strong hand at
the helm, however; the full tide had covered
the bar, and, with a single swoop, she shot
into the harbour, every man safe, amid the wild
huzzas of the waiting throng.</p>
<p>One glad heart there was too full for words.
Among the ringing cheers, as the crowd made
way for its hero, she could only in silence take
her husband’s arm. It was the captain’s wife.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">95</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_14">A LOCH-SIDE SUNDAY.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap a"><span class="smcap1">A</span> quarter to twelve. How quiet it is!
Only the mellow note of a mavis sometimes
in the oak woods, and the clear, high treble
of a shilfa, break on the stillness. The tinkle of
the little village smithy, down among the trees,
is silent. It is the Day of Rest. There was a
shower of rain in the early morning; it has laid
the dust, and left the road firm and cool to the
tread. Everything is refreshed: wild rosebuds,
red and white, are everywhere opening after the
shower; the yellow broom-blossom is softer and
brighter; the delicate forget-me-nots have a
lovelier blue; and beyond, in the shady spaces
of the woods, the foxgloves raise their spires of
drooping bells. The rain, too, has brought out
afresh every wayside scent; the new-cut clover
there in the meadow, the flowerless sweetbrier
and clambering yellow honeysuckle here in the
hedge, all fill the air with fragrance. The tide is
out, almost at full ebb, and from the stony beach<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">96</a></span>
below sometimes the gentle swaying of the air
brings up faintly the fresh smell of seaweed. The
sun is very warm, and the last of the clouds,
floating far up in the sky, are melting into the
blue. The air is clear yet, though, and on the
other side of the loch the sheep—small white
dots—can be quite well seen feeding high up on
the green patches of the mountain. A little later
the heather will begin to bloom on these brown
hillsides, and the mighty Bens, seated yonder on
their rugged thrones, will put on their imperial
purple. The loch lying calm below reflects
perfectly every detail of the opposite hills—shrub
and heather and shieling! Even the white gull,
circling slowly a yard above the water, casts its
image on the glassy mirror. Out on the open
firth, too, beyond the low-lying points at the
mouth of the loch, the sea, like cloth-of-silver,
glistens in the sun.</p>
<p>Hark! the bell on the roof of the little kirk
among the trees has begun to ring, and already, in
groups of two and three, the people are coming
along the loch-side and down the road from the
hills. These early arrivals mostly travel a long
way to attend the service. From quiet farmhouses
in lonely straths, and solitary shielings on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">97</a></span>
the upland moors, some of the simple-hearted
folk have wended for hours. Here are heavy-footed
shepherds, shaggy-bearded and keen-eyed,
in rough mountain tweed and flat Balmoral
bonnets, grasping their long hazel staves, and
accompanied, more than one of them, by a faithful
old collie. There are comely lasses, of sun-browned
pleasant features, and soft hill speech,
in sober straw hats, strong boots, and serviceable
dresses of homespun, with, perhaps, a keepsake
kerchief in the bosom for a bit of colour. Over
high stiles, across uneven stepping-stones, and
through rugged glens of birch and rowan, they
have made their way to attend the kirk. Farmers
from ten and twelve miles distance come jogging
in with their wives and daughters in primitive
two-wheeled conveyances, built for strength, and
drawn by shaggy little Highland horses. Here,
too, come the people from the village—bent old
women, their wrinkled faces hidden under snowy
linen mutches, carrying in their hands, with the
long-treasured Bible, a sprig of southernwood
and sweetwilliam to smell at during sermon;
the big-bearded, big-handed blacksmith, looking
wonderfully clean for once; the lithe, sallow-faced
tailor; and the widow who keeps the store. All<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">98</a></span>
linger in the sunny graveyard among the moss-grown
stones, and while the beadle in the porch
keeps ringing the bell, greetings are exchanged
among friends who meet here once a week from
distant ends of the parish. The gamekeeper has
a word to say to the piermaster, the school-mistress
comes up talking with the housekeeper
from the castle, the old men exchange snuff-boxes
with solemn nods, and young M’Kenzie, who is
expecting to be made the Duke’s forester, takes
the opportunity of getting near and whispering
something of interest to the blacksmith’s pretty
daughter.</p>
<p>Presently, however, they all move into the kirk,
dropping their “collection” as they pass, upon
the plate in the porch, where two deacons stand
to watch it. Inside, all is very still, though a
swallow that has flown in and skims about the
roof gives an occasional chirrup, and the regular
rhythm of the bell is faintly heard. The doors
remain open, yet the sunshine, falling in on the
yellow walls, makes the air very warm, and
through the clear lattice windows the cattle in the
glebe close by can be seen whisking the flies from
their sides under the larches. The old precentor
has just come in from the vestry with his list of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">99</a></span>
the psalm-tunes, and in his seat under the pulpit,
is polishing his spectacles by way of preparation.</p>
<p>At last the bell stops: there follows a tramp,
tramp of heavy feet, and the youth of the
parish, who by immemorial custom have been
hanging about outside till the last moment, file
solemnly down the aisles to their seats. The
beadle carries in Bible and psalm-book, and, after
a moment’s pause, the minister, in ample black
gown and white neck-bands, reverently enters and
ascends the pulpit.</p>
<p>All is perfectly still for a minute while he
bows his head; and then in a low tremulous
voice he reads the verses of the rhymed psalm
that is to be sung. The precentor leads off the
singing, for there is no organ, and as he beats
time with his tuning-fork, the praise that ascends,
if not perhaps of perfect harmony, is at least
sincere. More is felt by these simple folk than
is apparent on the surface. Associations of many
sorts influence them in the place. Pulpit and
pew have been occupied and passed from father
to son for generations; memories of the past
and hopes of the future alike gather here, and
the place is sacred to them all. The grey-haired
minister, standing where his father once stood<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">100</a></span>
hears rising about him, with the praise of the
child lips he has baptized, the quavering voices
of those who were young when he was young;
and his thoughts are of years gone by. The
young forester in the raftered “loft” listens to
the singing of a sweet voice in the choir, and his
eyes grow bright with the hope and strength
of days to come. The youthful look forward;
the aged look back; and both feelings are an
inspiration of worship.</p>
<p>When the minister has read and prayed—a
solemn extempore prayer—and they have sung
again, the sermon, the principal part of the
service, begins. The opening of the discourse is
like the peaceful morning hour of summer. It
is the calm, dispassionate statement of truth.
Has this no effect? Their minds must be moved
by fear. Cloud after cloud rolls up into the sky:
the preacher is marshalling the battalions of his
argument. Darker and darker they become. No
ray of hope can pierce that leaden heaven. All
deepens to the gloom of despair. Joy has fled:
the twitter of little birds is still. There comes
a sharp question—a flash of lightning; then, in
a thunder-roll of denunciation, argument after
argument overwhelms the sinner: the clouds are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">101</a></span>
rent, earth trembles, rain falls. Are the hearers
not awed? They must be stirred by gratitude.
The thunders cease, the storm sweeps past, the
clear light of hope shines again upon earth; a
lark flutters up into the sky, and the last clouds
of fear are melted afar into the rugged gold of
sunset. The sermon is ended. Those who were
not moved by reason, awed by terror, or inspired
by hope, have been thrilled by the earnestness of
the preacher. The old have listened with reverent,
downcast looks, shaking their bent heads ever
and again in solemn conviction; while the young
have sat with earnest eyes riveted on the minister.
The discourse has continued without a break for
three-quarters of an hour, and when it is over,
the hushed stillness lasts for more than a minute.
The final prayer is short, condensing and putting
in practical form the aspirations of the sermon,
not neglecting, either, to stir pity “for all we love,
the poor, the sad, the sinful.” A “paraphrase”
is sung with renewed fervour, and a solemn
benediction ends the service.</p>
<p>Slowly the congregation melts out of the kirk.
It has been very close inside, and the faint air
moving out of doors is most refreshing. The
tide is flowing in now with a gentle ripple on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">102</a></span>
the beach, and the little boat at anchor off-shore
has drifted round with the current. The sun is
striking the west side of the mossy tombstones,
the shadows of the trees have shifted on the
grass, and all traces of the morning shower have
disappeared. The people linger yet a little about
the graveyard to talk over points of the sermon.
Presently the minister comes out of the vestry,
and, stopping here and there to say a kindly
word to some of the old folk, who are pleased
by the attention, passes across the glebe to the
pleasant white manse resting, with deep eaves,
among its fuchsias and rose-trees.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">103</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_15">THE GLEN OF GLOOM.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Silence</span> falls upon the gay deck of the
floating palace, as, with quickly pulsing
paddles, she throbs on amid the solitude of
these dark waters under the mountains. Far
away to the south behind, like silver in the
sunshine, lies the open sea chased by the wind;
but above the narrowing channel in front the
rugged Bens, sombre and vast, frown down upon
the invader. Purple-apparelled these Bens are
now, like allied kings asleep after their battles
with the storm-giants of the North. For
the black waves in winter leap here savagely,
and gnash their gleaming teeth against the
mountain-sides; the storm-winds roar in anger
as they buffet the iron breasts of their captors;
and the silent frost strains with his strong
embrace to crack the great ribs of the Titans.
But the everlasting hills live on, and the sunshine
kisses them again and the summer rain
weeps upon their scars, while their children, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">104</a></span>
dwellers about their feet, look up and learn to
love them for their memories with a love strong
as life itself. Many a Highland heart failed
long ago on the march through the Egyptian
desert when the pipes wailed out “Lochaber no
more.” These are the great mountains of Lochaber
rising huge against the sky in front; and
even the gay tourist, here on the sunny deck,
feels a silence gather about his heart as he
is borne on under their shadows. The young
bride by the companion-way nestles closer to her
husband as, with grave blue eyes, she gazes
upon the solemn loneliness of the hills.</p>
<p>But listen! Do you hear? Wild and sweet
in the distance over the water comes the sound.
It is the pipes, and they are playing “Flora
Macdonald’s Lament.” Yonder, down near the
shore—you can make them out through the glass—a
shooting party has picnicked, and they have
brought the piper with them. How the colour
deepens on the cheek of the old Highland
gentleman here at the sound! He is just
returning from many years’ residence abroad,
and for the last hour, leaning over the deck-rail,
he has been feasting his heart upon the
sight of the mountains. “There is no music<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">105</a></span>
like that music,” he exclaims, “over the water
and among the hills.” To a Highlander, indeed,
the sound of the pipes is full of many memories,
like “the sough of the south wind in the trees”
of an autumn night. The folk on deck who
are from the south will know something of it
now perhaps. Yesterday, no doubt, some of
them supposed the ragged vagabond who strutted
and blew on a pier-head as the steamer passed,
a specimen of the pibroch-players. They should
see a chief’s own hereditary piper march on the
castle terrace, cairngorm and silver gleaming about
him, ribbons streaming on the wind, and tartans
afloat!</p>
<p>And the steamer draws in to the little wooden
pier under the mountain, where the horses are
waiting. A quiet and peaceful spot it is, with
the clear green waves washing in among the
shining, clinging mussels, to break upon the dark
blue shingle. Only twice a day is the peaceful
murmur of these waters broken upon by the
coming of the great palace steamers, when there
is a momentary stir and excitement, the gleam
of white dresses as visitors come ashore, and the
getting of the few mail-bags on board. Then
presently with churning paddles the steamer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">106</a></span>
departs up the loch, leaving behind it on the
dark waters a long trail of foam; the visitors
stow themselves like clustering bees upon the
high coaches that are in waiting; and the place
falls a-dreaming again amid the coming and
going of the tides.</p>
<p>The five horses in the foremost coach to-day
are quite fresh, and as the steamer was half an
hour late, they have grown restive under the reins.
The driver now, however, after looking behind to
see that all is secure, makes his whip crack like
a rifle shot, and with prancing leader and gallant
clatter of hoofs the cavalcade moves off. Above,
the mountain-side, tufted with heather and bracken
and dark with trees, overhangs the road, and from
the high box-seat one might drop an acorn into
the waves that wash the foot of the precipice forty
feet below. After the throbbing deck of the great
steamer, and the oily smell of engines and cook’s
galley, it is pleasant to be bowling along a firm
road with the honey-scent of the heather in the
air, and—yes, it is quite certain—the fragrance of
peat smoke. For as the road turns inland the
village opens to view, a double line of dark blue
dwellings along the mountain foot. Cold, perhaps,
these cottages look to a southern eye accustomed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">107</a></span>
to warm red brick; but in winter, when the storms
come roaring down the glens, and the hills are
hidden by falling snow, the hearths within, heaped
with glowing sea-coal and peat, are cosy enough
for all that. Then the brown fishermen, home
from the herring harvest of the North Sea, talk
over the year’s success as they mend their gear
by the fireside, and swarthy fellows shut out by
the snowdrifts from their work in the great slate
quarries on the mountain, gather to hear the
week-old news that has come by the trading
steamer. Just now it is only women and
children who come to the doors to see the
coach go past.</p>
<p>The horses dash on at a gallop through the
village and into the mouth of the great glen
that opens, rugged and wild and dark, in front.
Between the mountain walls of that deep and
lonely pass reigns an awful silence now, broken
only by the far-off cry of the curlew and the
beating of the wild-bird’s wing. Unsought in
the corries, the hazel-nuts are ripening and the
rowan clusters growing red; while along the
misty precipices, the eagles, undisturbed, are
teaching their young to fly. All here to-day is
desolation, for hand of man has not tilled the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">108</a></span>
spot since the terrible night, two hundred years
ago, when the valley was swept with fire and
sword, and a hundred hearths, the dwellings of
its devoted clan, were buried in smoking ruins.
Foul lies that dark deed at its perpetrators’ door,
and its memory remains a blot upon their name.</p>
<p>Gleams of sunshine lie golden on the steep
mountain-sides to-day, and the purple heather
warms them with its bloom; but a storm was
raging through the pass on that awful winter
night, and snow lay thick upon the ground,
when shriek and musket-shot told that the unsuspecting
clansmen were being murdered by their
guests—guests, too, who, though soldiers, were
their own neighbours and relations. Tottering
old men and lisping children were butchered
here then to avenge the baulked ambition of a
cruel statesman; and heart-broken women, clasping
helpless infants to their breasts, fled shrieking
from their blood-stained hearths to perish amid
the storm.</p>
<div id="ip_108" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;"><img src="images/i_131.jpg" width="600" height="358" alt="" /></div>
<p>And the coach with its holiday occupants will
drive at a gallop to the head of the glen, and
some one will make a jest upon the bard’s choice
of an abode when Ossian’s cave is pointed out,
high up in the precipice face. But the heart of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">109</a></span>
the young bride will fill with world-old pity as
she sees, mouldering among the heather in the
valley, the ruins of once happy homes; and when
the coach comes down again there will be tears
perhaps in her eyes as she gazes at the chief’s
house, and is told how the rude soldiers, after
shooting her brave old lord before her eyes, tore
the gold wedding-ring with their teeth from the
finger of MacIan’s wife, and thrust her out,
trembling with age and grief, to die of her
agony in the snow. For on the loch-shore at
the entrance to the glen, the house of the chief
stands yet, silent, haunted by its memories, amid
the <span class="locked">trees—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where Sorrow broods in silence evermore<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Among the shadows of eternal hills,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">While at her feet sobs the unceasing sea.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">110</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_16">ACROSS BUTE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Tea</span> is over—the large eggs, snowy scones,
and home-made cheese that loaded the
table half an hour ago, have been satisfactorily
demolished; the full-bodied brown teapot has
yielded its final drop, and the crofter’s warm-hearted
wife is at last assured that her hospitality
has received ample justice. It is time to go, for
there is a nine miles’ tramp across the island yet
to be done.</p>
<p>Wait a little! The good woman and her
husband will see us to the hill by a short path
through their fields. She will “just put a peat
on the fire first.”</p>
<p>Sweet the air is in the doorway, and peaceful
is the hour! The sun is just setting beyond the
Cantyre hills, and out there, over the water, the
lonely peaks of Arran are purple in the evening
light. Scarcely a cloud lingers in the clear green
sky, and the calm sea stirs but at intervals with
the incoming of the tide. The tan-brown sails of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">111</a></span>
the fishing-boats that came out of Loch Ranza
an hour ago have hardly moved a mile yet up
Kilbrannan Sound. The rooks have gone home
to the Mount Stuart woods; the whirr of the
reaping-machine in the corn-field over there has
ceased; all the air is still. The grey smoke rising
from thatched roofs here and there in the little
strath tells that the evening meal is being prepared.
Presently the darkness will come down,
and the simple crofter hamlet by the shore will
sink to rest. And the weary and the disappointed,
soiled with the dust of the far-off city, striving all
their lives after what they will never win, have
forgotten that sweet bread may be earned on the
cornlands, and fair fish caught in the sea; that
there is music for listening, here by the murmuring
brooks, and rest in the setting of the sun.</p>
<p>Soft shadows are gathering in the hollows of
the hills, and the road rising inland through the
quiet moors shows its white winding line among
the heather. This wandering by-path, too, among
the fields, is pleasant. Fitches are flowering yet,
purple and yellow, in the hedges, as well as the
delicate harebell—bluebell of Scotland—on the
bank below. The wild poppies have mostly
seeded now, but here and there a spot of flame<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">112</a></span>
tells where a late bloom lingers. Among the
feathery grasses in this untouched corner of the
field rich heads of the pink clover are still to be
seen, and creamy tufted clouds of meadowsweet
rise on their dark stems. Above, amid the prickly
sprays of wild brier, the glossy hips are already
a bright yellow, and on the uncut branches of the
thorn clustering bunches of haws are becoming
brown. Along the straight “rigs” of the corn-field
here, where the crofter was shearing to-day,
the dusky stooks of oats stand in long rows.
The good man casts a pleased glance along their
lines, for the straw is long this year, and the
heads are heavy. There is a quiet satisfaction in
the completion of a day’s work among the fields
which never comes to the mere mercantile toiler.
The ploughman strolls forth at night to gaze at
the broad acres he has furrowed, and the eye
of the reaper is rewarded with fair stooks of
winnowing grain.</p>
<p>Healthy as could be the crofter’s children look
as they pick their way with bare feet along the
grassy edge of the stubble-field. No one need
wonder that their cheeks and legs are so chubby
and brown; for they get their school holidays in
harvest-time, and have been helping their father,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">113</a></span>
all day long, to bind his sheaves. Both boy and
girl have caught the clear blue of heaven in their
eyes; and the straying locks of their bonnetless
hair are just the yellow colour of the corn.
Donald, here, will make a sturdy ploughman
some day; and that wild Lizzie will soon be a
strapping lass. Theirs are the free air of the
mountain, the lusty bowl of porridge, and thick
broth of stalwart kale.</p>
<p>The road lies close beyond this plantation.
But, take care! the ground is boggy here, and
one may sink over the boot-head in the soft
peat. Step on the hussocks of grass, though,
and the footing will be firm enough. In the
late light, the higher branches of the pines up
there among their dark green foliage shine as
red as copper: it is the colour of the rich new
bark. Not a blade of grass springs beneath the
firs, and the floor of the wood, with its carpet of
brown fallen needles, is soft and dry under foot.
Only the green feathery fronds of solitary bracken
rise here and there in the spaces.</p>
<p>The wood ends at the road, and our little
friendly escort need come no farther. A hearty
handshake from the crofter, a kindly God-speed
from his wife, a laugh and retreat by Lizzie at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">114</a></span>
suggestion of a kiss, and, as we scale the mossy
dyke, they turn back among the trees. A comfortable,
contented couple these are, rearing children
that will be healthy and strong as themselves.
After all, is not this the existence that best fulfils
life’s real ends? As he cares for the patient
beast, and reaps the autumn corn, a man need
not be told to glorify God; and here, under
sunshine and starshine, where the fruitful earth
smells fresh with the rainfall and the dew, he
cannot help enjoying Him.</p>
<p>The winding lines of telegraph-poles that mark
the road can be seen stretching away for miles
among the hills. The sun has set now, and
night, falling earlier in the late autumn, is coming
down. It is the gloaming hour. Out of the
grass-field here by the roadside the trailing-footed
kine, with patient eyes and deep udders, are turning
down the hill towards their byre. Their
satisfied breathing fills the air as they pass with
the warm sweet scent of clover. The red-cheeked
farm-lass fastens the gate-hurdle to its post when
the last beast has gone, and slowly follows homewards.
A comely lass she is, with eyes like
the sloe, and teeth like milk, and doubtless her
sweetheart knows she has a soft voice and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">115</a></span>
dewy lip. This is the traditional courting-time
in the <span class="locked">country—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">’Tween the gloaming and the mirk,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">When the kye comes hame.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Not another creature is to be seen on the upland
road; only, now and again, the lonely cry of the
curlew can still be heard far off upon the moor.
The last field is passed, and the last shieling lies
behind in the valley. The air up here is full of the
honey-scent of the heather. The last belated bee,
however, hummed homewards half an hour ago.</p>
<p>The summit of the climb at last! Look!
Down there on the left, dark and silent under
the hills, lies Loch Fad, with, on the far edge
of it, a glimmer of silver, the reflection of the
full-orbed moon. Could the birth of Aphrodite
be fairer, as she rose from the soft sea of the
south? Hark! too, there is the sound of lingering
footfalls on the road in front, and the murmur
of a deep voice. The voice suddenly ceases,
and two figures linked together drift past in the
dusk. Just a glimpse of shy, happy eyes can
be seen—a glimpse worth remembering—and the
outline of a modest face. It is the old, old story.
The lovely Pagan goddess of the far Ægæan<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">116</a></span>
has worshippers yet among these simple-hearted
people of the hills. Happy rustic dreamers!—gamekeeper’s
lad and gardener’s lass, maybe.
Sweet is their courting-place and courting-time,
with the deep woods to listen to their whispers,
and the stars to look down in kindly sympathy.
Other lovers there are, alas! whose feet do not
tread among the blue forget-me-nots, and for
whom no blackbird warbles the vesper song.</p>
<p>Civilisation, however, is approaching, and cultivated
fields begin to occupy the strath. A snipe,
beating about in the darkness, has alarmed the
birds here; peeweets are startling the night with
their untimely cries, and their white breasts ever
and anon glance by the roadside. Was that
faint sound the first bell of the steamer? There
is little time to linger. Close below, however,
shine the clustered lights of Rothesay; presently
the bright fire-points of the yachts at anchor in
the bay appear; the old chapel and its graveyard
of stones mouldering within their wall is passed—a
somewhat eerie place under these dark trees
by the roadside;—then, half-way among the
quaint houses of the old town, with their jutting
gables, the ancient castle—grey, silent, moated—where
old King Robert III. died of grief at the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">117</a></span>
news that his son James had been taken by the
English. With threatening clamour the second
bell rings up from the steamer, and, with a wild
rush down through the newer town and across
the fashionable esplanade amid the dazzling lights
and fair promenaders of a seaside resort, there is
only time to reach the pier and get on board
before the last bell rings and the moorings are
thrown off.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118">118</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_17">WITH A CAST OF FLIES.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">“Get</span> up, man; get up! Look at the
morning! What glorious sunshine!
What mists rising on the loch!”</p>
<p>And, indeed, the fresh morning air through
the open window, and the flood of rich sunlight
falling on the opposite wall of the room,
are enough to dispel all lingering drowsiness.
Up, then, for a refreshing plunge in the deepest
pool of the river, breasting the brown depths
with the exulting strength that is born of the
air of the mountain, and casting up, with waves
of the sweet murmuring waters, a high-tide
mark on the white stones that are hot already
with the sunshine! Up, for a stroll before breakfast
along the warm Highland road; to hear the
cuckoo calling across the valley, and, at the door
of the byre, the sighing of the patient kine
and the soft plash-plashing of the milk in the
milking-pails! Cool yet is the air of the corrie
as it comes from the waterfall, and all the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">119</a></span>
mountain-side is musical with the far-off call of
the grouse. Under the rich-leaved plane-trees
there is the hum of bees at the green hanging
blossoms, and from the meadows by the river
drift the bleatings of a thousand lambs. Appetite
comes here keen as a knife if one but stands a
moment on the sunny doorstep, and the morning
meal is enjoyed with a whole-hearted zest that
brooks no scantiness. Indeed, if there be healing
power anywhere on earth for the wasted
body or the sorrowing soul, it is to be found
here among the hills. Who can long be sick
at heart with that glory of valley and sky about
him? and who frail of step with his nostrils
full of the clover-scent and his tread on the
springing heather?</p>
<p>The newspapers have to be got at the morning
train; and it is curious to see how the jaded
folk who have been travelling all night in the
close carriages from the far south open wide
the windows to let in the mountain air, and
begin to revive like flowers that have just been
watered. Enviously they look at the sunburnt
schoolboys, who have come panting along the
line, and whose faces compare all too well with
their own pale features.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">120</a></span>
The letters, too, have to be waited for at the
village post-office. It is universal supply-shop for
the country-side as well, so other business can
be transacted while Her Majesty’s mails, a very
small parcel indeed, are being sorted out. Then—for
there is nothing needing attention in the
correspondence—away for the loch side! It is
too fine a day to waste at the displenishing sale
up country, though gig after gig has passed, carrying
thither farmers on the lookout for bargains.
A fair breeze has sprung up, and a cloud or two
are moving across the blue, so there is the chance
of a fair day’s sport with the fly. Bring, then,
the rods, and put some provender in the basket,
for there will be no coming home for dinner if
the trout be taking.</p>
<div id="ip_120" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;"><img src="images/i_145.jpg" width="600" height="487" alt="" /></div>
<p>The pleasantest road to the loch will be the
path along the mountain-side, and old John
M’Gregor can be requisitioned as boatman, by
the way. Yonder he is, under the flowering
gean-tree, mending his garden wicket. An easy,
comfortable life the old man lives, with his many-wrinkled,
bright-eyed old wife, on their “wee
bit bield and heathery moor.” In that snug,
thatched little cot they have reared a stalwart
brood—sons whose strong hands are tilling their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">121</a></span>
own broad acres in the West, and daughters
in southern lands, about whose knees are springing,
sturdy as seedling oaks, the true materials
for future nations. But old John and his wife
will be beholden to none of them yet, and
when his little croft has been planted for the
summer and his peats cast on the moor, when
the cow has been turned out to the hill in the
morning and the calf tethered in the narrow
paddock, he is always ready to take an oar
on the loch. His broad-eaved Balmoral bonnet
and his rough homespun coat are green with
long years of sun and rain; but the head and
heart below them keep hale as ever. He is
full of anecdotes about the last laird and his
feats with the salmon-rod, and it takes a long
day of wind on the water to tire his arm when
the trout are rising.</p>
<p>Quick, though! There is a cloud just now
before the sun, and a fish or two may be got
while the shadow is on the loch. It was a
mistake to coil up the fly-casts in the tackle-book,
for the gut will take some wetting to
straighten it out again. It is better to keep
the flies round your hat. There, push the boat
off; the water is fairly alive with leaping minnows<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">122</a></span>
in the shallow bays, and if the bigger fish be
only as eager there will be plenty of sport. Try
a cast or two first across the burn mouth; a
good chance of something lies there, for the trout
wait in the running water to seize any food the
stream may bring down. The boat can drift
broadside to the wind, so that it is possible to
fish both from bow and stern. Bring your line
well up behind, and then with a turn of the
wrist use the switch of the rod to send the cast
out, fair and straight and light, before you. Take
care, though; do not begin to work the line
before the last fly has touched the surface. The
day could not be better, with that ripple on the
water, the wind behind, and the sun in front.
Hardly an effort is needed to send the line out,
and it is possible to put the tail-fly on the very
spot where a trout has risen. See! here is a
little fellow. What a splashing he makes as the
line draws him up to the boat! The spring of
the rod itself will lift him over the gunwale.
There! you have another; a char, by his sides of
gleaming silver and copper.</p>
<p>Whirr! Ah! here is a fellow worth catching;
two pounds at least, by the weight on the rod.
How the singing of the reel as he makes off<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">123</a></span>
gladdens the heart! There he leaps, for the
third time; he is off with a rush, firmly hooked,
surely. “Haud up ye’re p’int!” shouts John in
a terrific whisper. “It’s awa’ below the boat!
Ye’ll lose’t; an’ we’re clean a’most—the boat’s
a’ but clean!” It is an exciting moment; but
the hooks have not fouled the boat, and the
fish’s freshness is spent. Slowly he is drawn
in, showing the white of his sides. Now with the
landing-net; There! he is safe on board—“A
gey guid fish,” according to the cautious critic.
Then comes the inevitable story. The old man
“minds ae nicht” here at the burn mouth. There
was a party of three. It was a fine night, but
dark, and they kindled a fire, when, whether
owing to the light or not, they got a great
basket of “as fine trouts as ye’ll see.”</p>
<p>But the sun has come out again, and, as the
ripple is not very strong on the water, there is
no great chance of doing much with the fly for
some time. Something might be done with the
minnow, however; so it can be let out with a
long line and trailed down the loch.</p>
<p>Down the loch! By the little shingly bays
where the swan is preening her plumage on the
margin, while her lord floats near, admiring;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">124</a></span>
where the keen-winged little sand-martins are
skimming bank and water, and the quack of wild
duck is to be heard among the reeds; past the
lonely farm, with its weather-stained roof, at the
foot of its own wild glen—a place for life to
linger and grow sweet and gather memories, a
place for the growth of strong love or deep hate;
and under the black crag that rises a thousand
feet sheer against the sky, making a mile of cool
darkness with its shadow amid the hot sunshine
of the loch:—it is like the fabled Voyage of
Maeldune. Then there will be the return in the
evening, when the sun has set, and the clouds
roof the valley as with rust of gold; up the silent
strath as the mountains grow dark, and, under
the shadow of Ben Shian, the still river, like a
pale-green thread, reflects its own clear space of
tranquil sky; to the quiet village where there will
be supper by lamplight, and the recounting to
interested listeners the day’s exploits.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">125</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_18">FROM A FIELD-GATE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap a"><span class="smcap1">A</span> glorious afternoon it is, the hottest of
midsummer, with not a shadow in the
dazzling blue of the heavens. Who could sit at
a desk, with the white butterflies flickering in
and out at the open window, the sweet breath
of the clove-pinks filling the air, and the faint
gurgle of the river coming up from the glen
below? The gardener has long ago left off
weeding the lawn borders, and betaken himself
to the cool planting-house; Jug the spaniel lies
panting out there, with lolling tongue, in the
shadow under the rhododendrons; and the leaves
of the aspens themselves seem tremulous with
the heat. It will be pleasanter to go up through
the wood to the end of the lane, to sit under
the edge of the trees there on the trunk of
silver birch that serves for a cattle-gate, and
enjoy something of the southern <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">dolce far niente</i>,
with a pocket copy of gentle Allan Ramsay to
finger through.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">126</a></span>
Altogether quiet the spot is, with the wood
behind, and the flowery fields sloping away in
front. Not a murmur comes here from the city,
whose smoke rises, a murky cloud, far off in the
valley below. The streets there will be stifling
to-day amid the hot reekings of asphalt pavements,
the sifting particles of burning dust, and
the incessant roar of traffic. Here, above the
fields, the air is sweet with the scent of clover;
the stillness is only broken by the faint pipe of
a yellowhammer sometimes in the depth of the
wood; and the blue heavens shed their peace
upon the heart. Nothing but the faintest breath
of air is moving, just enough to stir gently the
deep grasses of the hayfield, and to touch cheek
and lip now and again with the soft warm sigh
of the sweetbrier in the hedge. Gleaming flies,
green and yellow, with gauzy wings, float like
jewels in the sunshine; a shadow for a moment
touches the page as a stray rook drifts silently
overhead; and on the edge of the great yellow
daisy that flames over there like a topaz among
the corn, a blue butterfly lazily opens and shuts
its wings.</p>
<p>This is the silent month, they say, because
the birds have nested and foregone the twitterings<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">127</a></span>
of their courting-time; but from the lark
up aloft, a quivering black speck in the sky, there
is falling a perfect rill of melody. What is he
exulting about, the little black speck? Is it for
sheer gladsomeness in the happy sunshine, or is
it because there is a little helpless brood of callow
laverocks in a nest somewhere below among the
clover? Glad little heart! sing thy song out
while the blue sky smiles above thee. Thou
hast forgotten the pinching of the winter cold,
and why should thy rapturous hour be saddened
by taking thought for the dark things of the
morrow. Under the hedge close by, an occasional
rustle of dry leaves and an admonitory cluck
betray a brood of chickens surreptitiously brought
into existence by some lawless and absconding
hen; and on a twig a little way off, a young
sparrow with fluttering wings gapes its yellow
beak for the attentions of a proud and sprightly
parent.</p>
<p>In the distance, from the bottom of the next
meadow, comes the faint whir of a mowing-machine.
It and the reapers are out of sight;
but on the level beyond, the ryegrass lies in
long white lines winnowing in the sun. Well
may that harvest be the first to be gathered,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">128</a></span>
for it is the share that falls to the faithful dumb
friends of man. Meanwhile, the farm horses left
at liberty in the grass-field at hand are evidently,
like many honest souls of another genus who
have worked hard all their lives, quite at a loss
what to do with their late-acquired leisure.</p>
<p>On the dyke-top here, the clover, with great
ball-blooms of rich pink, is growing beside the
purple-toothed vetch and the small yellow stars
of another unknown flower. In the hedge, among
the heavy-scented privet blossoms, are flowers of
pink wild-rose delicate as the bloom of a girl’s
cheek, with full pouting buds red as lips that
would be kissed. White brier-roses there are,
too, as large as crown pieces; and great velvety
humble-bees are busy botanising among their
stamens. The bees prefer the newly opened
ones, however, whose hearts are still a rich
golden yellow. Below, among the woodland
grasses, the white dome-clusters of the dim-leaved
yarrow are flowering amid a miniature
forest of green mare’s-tails and the downy stalks
of hemlock. Gardeners are only now beginning
to see the beauty of the yarrow for deep borders,
as they are beginning to see the beauty of the
foxglove and the glory of the broom. Over<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">129</a></span>
there in the side of the wood-ditch are springing
delicate tufts of spleenwort; and already the
flower-fronds of the hard-fern are rising from
the nest of their dark-spread fellows. The graceful
heart-shaped nettle leaf appears there too, with
its purple stem, beside the tall magenta-coloured
flowers of the bastard-thistle.</p>
<p>A pleasant retreat, indeed, is the spot; and
through the tangled wood-depth, of a moonlight
night, might be expected to come the revel court
of Titania. Is not that one of her furry steeds,
with velvet ears erect and bright wide eyes,
cropping the green blade in the grassy lane
path? Her sleek chorister, too, the blackbird,
has forgotten to be timid as he hops across the
ruts there, waiting doubtless for her coming.
Whirr! What a rush of wings! It is a flight
of starlings disturbed from the grass-field below;
for these birds bring their young out to the
fields this month in flocks of hundreds to feed.
Round and round they wheel in the air, as if
delighting in their power of wing, before finally
settling on the grassy knoll a hundred yards
away.</p>
<p>A sunny knoll that is, where the birds feed
undisturbed to-day—a small point in the landscape;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">130</a></span>
yet it has a page of history to itself. On
its summit once stood a Scottish queen, surrounded
by a little group of nobles, watching, a mile to
the north, the die of her fate being cast, the
arbiter of life or death. Two armies lay before
her. Far off about the little village in the bosom
of yonder hill she saw two dark masses gathered,
with a battery line of guns between them. Those
were her enemies; and one of the horsemen
behind them—it was only a mile away—she
knew was her own half-brother. Nearer, on the
lower rising ground, which the railway cuts
through now, she saw her own troops gathering,
a larger force, but without the advantage of
position. And the queen watched and waited;
it was about nine o’clock of the morning. Presently,
a cloud of smoke sprang out between the
armies, and immediately was heard the roar of
cannon. The duel of the artillery had begun.
During half an hour little could be seen for the
smoke, and there was a constant explosion of
ordnance. It must have been an anxious time.
Suddenly, however, the firing ceased, the smoke
rolled away, and the battlefield could be made
out. The queen’s cavalry had formed into line,
had charged, and were driving the enemy’s horse<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">131</a></span>
before them. Then a tear sprang to the queen’s
eye as she saw her vanguard leave the hill, cross
the open ground among the furze, and, with their
gallant leader at their head, rush to storm the
village. They disappeared in the narrow lane,
where the new church stands now in the hollow
of the hill, and there could only be heard faintly
their shout as they closed with their opponents,
and the shot-reports of the enemy’s hagbutters
firing at them from the hedge-gardens and the
village roofs. How was the day going? See!
the enemy’s wing was wavering, was giving way.
Fight on, brave fellows! brave vanguard! press
them hard. A few moments longer, and the
day is yours.</p>
<p>But look! A horseman gallops to the other
wing of the enemy, where the Regent is riding.
It stirs: it moves down upon the village. Ah,
where now is the queen’s reserve. Why does it
remain inactive and aloof? Are its rival leaders
quarrelling over petty precedence, or is there
treachery in its ranks? The battle closes again
about the narrow lane. The vanguard is attacked
on either flank—it is overborne—it gives way.
See! they are broken; they pour back out of
the lane. Wounded, weaponless, they are fleeing,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132">132</a></span>
and with a yell their foes are upon them, cutting
them down. But the reserve is moving at last;
it may bring help; it may yet retrieve the hour.
Ah, cowards! it breaks and scatters. The day is
lost. Away! then, away, poor hapless queen!
Ply whip and spur for thy life. Neither here nor
anywhere in all thy fathers’ kingdom of Scotland
is there safe tarrying-place for thee now. And
may Heaven help thee in the hour of need, for
thou wilt find small help in man or woman!</p>
<p>The starlings are feeding this afternoon on the
Court Knowe, the hillock there, undisturbed; and
it is three hundred and twenty-eight years since
the stricken queen rode away through the hollow
of the hills where the green corn is growing. The
suburbs of the city are spreading even over the
battlefield itself. But ever and again, upon a
summer day, there comes a pilgrim to stand a
while in pitying silence on the little knoll under
the trees, and to recall something of these “old,
unhappy, far-off things,” as he reads upon the
stone there the royal monogram, and the date,
May 13, 1568.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">133</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_19">SCHOOL-DAYS.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap al"><span class="smcap1">As</span> a means of awakening the genial after-dinner
humour of most men past middle
age, no subject, perhaps, equals the memory
of early school-days. Let the topic but be
started by an anecdote of some long dead
dominie, it is as if the spigot had been drawn
from a butt of old vintage, and the stream of
recollection will flow forth rich and sparkling
with the mellowed light of years. Strange is
the charm of a word! For a lifetime a man has
been painfully toiling up the Alps of circumstance;
it may be he has gained the object of
his desire—the glittering ice-crystal on the peak
which long ago dazzled his upward-looking eyes;
and now, toying with the walnuts and the wine,
someone says “I remember:”—lo! the years are
forgotten; the greybeard is back in the sunny
valley of his boyhood, wandering the field-paths
with chubby companions long since dust, and
filling his heart once more with the sweet scent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">134</a></span>
of hayricks, of the hedges in hawthorn-time. It
is not for nothing that rustic children day after
day, as they start for school, hear the low of the
farmyard kine coming in to the milking, and that
day after day, as they tread the long miles of
moorland path, they see the grouse whirr off to
the mountain, and the trout dart away from the
sunny shallows; and it is not for nothing that
they spend long truant afternoons by ferny lanes
and harebell copses in the seasons of bird-nesting
and bramble-gathering. These make the fragrant
memories of after years! And again and again,
in later life, to the man jaded with anxiety and
care, the old associations come back, laden with
pleasant regrets—a breath from the clover-fields
of youth.</p>
<p>School life in town, notwithstanding its more
sophisticated surroundings, has also its memories;
for in what circumstances will not the boyish
mind create a charmed world of its own! Apart
from the actual events of class-room and play-ground,
the streets and the shop windows, and
the things in them to be desired, all furnish
absorbing interests; and a half-amused envy in
later years attends the memory of the fearful
joy with which, after much contriving of ways<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">135</a></span>
and means, and much final screwing-up of
courage to face the shopman, the long-coveted
percussion pistol, or the wonderful and still more
expensive model locomotive, was acquired and
smuggled home. But school life in the city
has a certain precocity which detracts from the
poetry of its remembrance—an aroma is lacking
which forms the subtlest charm of the associations
of rustic childhood. What has the city-bred
man to compare to the memory of that
hot afternoon in July, when, escaped from the
irksome thrall of desk and rod, in the clear river
pool at the bottom of some deep-secluded dingle,
the urchins of the rural pedagoguy learned to
swim? Such a scene remains in a man’s mind,
a possession and a “joy for ever.” Far off in
some city den, gas-lit and fog-begrimed, his
eyes may grow dim, poring over ledgers that
are not his own, and his heart may grow heavy
and sick with hope deferred; but at a word,
a suggestion, it will all come back; he will be
standing again on that grassy margin, the joyous
voices of his comrades will be ringing in his ears,
while the sunshine once more beats warmly on
his head, and at his feet sparkle over their sandy
bottom the pellucid waters of the woodland pool.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136">136</a></span>
The black art of letters is probably the
least detail of the learning acquired by school-children
in the country, and it must be confessed
that the thirst for book-lore is not exactly their
most conspicuous foible. Happy, nevertheless,
in “schools and schoolmasters” of Nature’s own
appointing, they grow up like the lilies, children
of the earth and sun, and none the less fit for
life, perhaps, that their learning has been got
at first-hand from the facts and realities of
actual existence. Who has not envied the bright-eyed
boys and red-lipped little lasses, healthy
with the breath of the woods and of the fresh-delved
earth, whom one meets, satchel on back,
on sequestered country roads? The dead tongues
may be dead, indeed, to them, and mathematics
an unnamed mystery; but, with eyes and ears
open, they have learned all the lore of the fields
and the hedges—have drunk deep at those nature-fountains
whence all the literatures and poetries
of the world have sprung.</p>
<div id="ip_136" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31.4375em;"><img src="images/i_163.jpg" width="503" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>Many changes have been made in school-teaching
in the country of recent years. The
Government inspector is now abroad, and code
and standard compel all within their iron rule.
The old ruts and byways have been forsaken, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137">137</a></span>
the coach of Learning has been made to roll, if
not yet along the coveted “royal road” of the
old saw, at least along a highway more uniformly
paved than of yore. The difference in outside
appearance between the wayside school-houses
of to-day and of thirty years ago is only an
indication of the changes which have taken
place within. The days are past when any
incompetent would do for a dominie; and in
place of the halt and the palsied, who used to
fill the pedagogic chair, there is now the pretty
school-ma’am from some Normal seminary. A
tyrant of the most petty kind, it is to be feared,
the rural schoolmaster of the old days too
often <span class="locked">was—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The day’s disasters in his morning face;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee<br /></span>
<span class="i0">At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Full well the busy whisper, circling round,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Now all this is altered. No longer would it be
suffered that a sour and crabbed dominie, too
crippled to walk, should, out of sheer caprice and
ill-temper, hurl his tawse at some urchin’s head,
and order him to bring them up and be thrashed;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138">138</a></span>
and it is to be doubted if the modern “Board”
would countenance even such a gallant device as
the vicarious birching of a boy for the delinquencies
of one of the dearer sex. Idiosyncrasies like
these, no doubt, made much of the picturesqueness
of school life in the country a generation ago;
and people whose memories are of the old régime
are apt to look back upon the former state of
things, faulty as it was, with a sigh. Sometimes
a head is shaken regretfully, and it is averred
that with modern innovations are being planed
away all those strong, rich peculiarities of ancient
rural life which made character in the country
interesting. The crabbed rule of the ancient
village pedagogue has a charm for those who
have escaped beyond reach of his tawse, the
thrashings themselves of bygone days have
become mere subject for a smile. Point of
view, however, makes a considerable difference
in the matter, and the unfortunate urchin of
those days, counting the strokes of an ill-tempered
and unreasoning castigation upon his
nether habiliments, probably entertained a somewhat
different sentiment.</p>
<p>Head-shakings and misgivings notwithstanding,
individuality of country life may very well be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139">139</a></span>
left to take care of itself. Children remain true
to their instincts under the new régime as under
the old; and growing like the trees of the
hedgerows, amid the influences of wild and
varied nature, rustic character may still be
trusted to develop a picturesqueness of its own.
The real country school, after all, does not lie
within four walls, nor is it ruled by the rod of
prim school-ma’am or spectacled dominie. Nature
herself, the primeval <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">alma mater</i> of all mankind,
is the educator there. The leaves of her primers
are stored in the woodlands; her history-books
are written and explained by the seasons themselves;
the lark and the rivulet are the perpetual
tutors of her “old notation”; and her terms are
timed by the bloom and flight of the snowdrop
and the swallow.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140">140</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_20">A LOCH-SIDE STRATH.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Hardly</span> more than twenty miles from
the populous heart of Glasgow lies a
parish of which no notice is to be found in the
guide-books. No show-place is supposed to be
there, and no tourist route runs through it, and
so, though almost within hearing of the hum of
a great city, the strip of country between mountain
and loch remains all but as primitive in its
rustic simplicity as it was a hundred years ago.
A century ago, indeed, the district may have
been better known than it is to-day, if notoriety
be regarded as a distinction; for every corrie in
the hillsides and every burnside hollow, where a
little wooding afforded concealment, appears then
to have been the scene of illicit distilling operations;
and the raids of the excise and military in
search of “sma’ stills” were both frequent and
famous. With this exception the parish has
been allowed to slumber on in happy obscurity
since the days of the old clan feuds and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141">141</a></span>
the cattle-liftings of its neighbours, the wild
Macgregors.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, unknown though it may be, and
unfrequented by “the Sassenach” as in the days
of Rob Roy himself, this quiet loch-shore has a
history stirring enough, and memories of its own.
Situated just on the old Highland line, the
district must frequently at all periods have been
the scene of warlike episodes. Regarding the
tastes and pursuits of its ancient inhabitants
there remains small doubt. The memorial of
a peaceful enough enterprise, it is true, seems
crystallised in the name of the parish—the
parish of St Ronan’s Cell, as it reads translated.
Midway, it is said, on his journey from Kilmarnock
in Ayrshire to Kilmaronaig on Loch Etive,
that famous missionary priest of the early Church
thought it worth his while to tarry a space in
the district in order to teach the rude inhabitants
peace. But, to judge by the later events of
history, the task would seem to have had but
doubtful results. The prevailing names, at the
present hour, of the people in the district—Galbraith,
Macfarlane, M’Kean—recall the circumstances
of less orderly times. In the stalwart
farmers’ sons guiding the plough and feeding the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142">142</a></span>
cattle about the steadings there to-day, one sees
the lineal descendants of clansmen who once held
their own on the loch-side by the primitive <em>coir
a glaive</em>—the title of the strong arm. To keep
these turbulent vassals in order, the Earls of
Lennox found it necessary to hold three castles
in the neighbourhood.</p>
<p>Nor has the strath been without a share in the
outstanding events of history. This loch-shore
it was which witnessed the failure of Argyle’s
ill-advised attempt at rebellion in 1685. Here,
barring his progress, beyond the streamlet in
the clachan of the parish, the Protestant Earl,
after his long march among the western lochs,
first came within sight of the Royal troops.
Here, that night, his camp-fires were left burning
to deceive his opponents; and it was on the hills
behind that his little army finally lost its way,
broke up, and dispersed amid the bogs and the
darkness.</p>
<p>A romantic story of that most romantic of
episodes, the Rebellion of 1745, also belongs to
the district. The most powerful family in the
strath at that time, as, indeed, it had been for
generations, was one of the name Buchanan.
This family owned two mansions and estates at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143">143</a></span>
no great distance from each other, and from the
larger of these they took their familiar title,
Buchanans of the Ross. Whether the head of
the house of that date had personally taken part
in the Jacobite rising, or had incurred suspicion
of Jacobite sympathies, need not be inquired into,
but, upon the final overthrow of the Stuart cause
in the spring of 1746, it can be understood that
he, in common with others in his position, was
willing enough to demonstrate his loyalty to
the Government of King George. The opportunity
for doing so which occurred to him,
however, involved a breach of laws which above
all others were held inviolably sacred by the
Highlanders—the laws of hospitality.</p>
<p>The tradition of the district has to be relied
upon for the story. By this tradition it would
appear that among the fugitives upon whose head
a price was set, after Culloden, was the Marquis of
Tullibardine, elder brother of the Duke of Athole.
Being hard pressed by the search-parties which
were everywhere scouring the country, this nobleman,
it is said, betook himself to Buchanan of
the Ross, with whom he had been upon terms of
friendship, and besought temporary asylum. This
favour Buchanan granted readily enough, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144">144</a></span>
apparently in all good faith; but no sooner was the
unfortunate refugee secure under his roof than he
intimated the fact to the nearest military post.
The natural consequence was an immediate visit
of the soldiery and the arrest of the fugitive.</p>
<p>Here the story becomes uncanny. The victim
of misplaced confidence was being dragged across
the threshold, when, it is said, recovering from
surprise at the unheard-of treachery, his Highland
rage and indignation reached the blazing point,
and, turning upon his host, he hurled out the
imprecation, “There’ll be Murrays on the braes
of Athole when there’s ne’er a Buchanan at the
Ross!”</p>
<p>This was the last of the Marquis, so far as
the district was concerned, but it was by no
means, in the eyes of the dwellers there, the
last of his “curse.” Strangely enough, and,
whether in fulfilment of the fierce prophecy or
not, only a few decades had passed when the
race at the Ross, so far as the male line was
concerned, actually died out, and, as if to complete
the result, upon two occasions since then
the estates have passed to other hands through
female heirs.</p>
<div id="ip_144" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 35.25em;"><img src="images/i_173.jpg" width="564" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>In the early decades of the present century the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145">145</a></span>
master of the place was an Edinburgh advocate,
Mr Hector Macdonald, and under his hospitable
roof again and again was entertained no less a
guest than the author of “Waverley.” It is not
difficult to understand, apart from the congenial
society of his host, Scott’s attraction to the house.
The natural beauty of the place, if nothing else,
must have been a continual delight to one so
keenly alive as he was to the interest of woodland
and loch. The district around, the house itself,
and the mountains before him, besides, were
teeming with memories—every glen the home of
a romance. In Ross Priory, at anyrate, he
frequently stayed, and from the local legends
and colour with which his residence supplied
him he selected the materials for some of the
most famous episodes in “Rob Roy” and “The
Lady of the Lake.” The use he made of it,
indeed, has invested the whole district with a
new interest. All the neighbourhood, strath and
glen, glows with the reflected splendour of his
thought, a “light that never was on sea or
land”; and with the clear wind blowing fresh
from mountain and loch, something seems mingled
of the wholesome mental health and vigour of
the “Wizard’s” work.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146">146</a></span>
The place has changed but little since Scott
last visited it, and the wanderer by the loch’s
margin may, with the atmosphere of the past
still about him, indulge in all the pleasures of
reverie and recollection undisturbed. At the
present day hardly a sound is to be heard there
but the lapse of wavelets on the pebbly beach,
and the sighing of the wind through the branches
of the immemorial oaks. Occasionally, on a
summer evening, when the air is still, the far-off
beat of paddles comes faintly across the lake, as
the steamer threads its passage among the islands.
But for the rest of the time the call sometimes
of the peacocks on the lawn before a storm, and,
at night, the harsh cry of wild-fowl making flight
for the marshes at the river’s mouth, form the
only addition to the harmony of the wind and
the waters.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147">147</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_21">A HIGHLAND REEL.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Much</span> study, truly, becomes a weariness of
the flesh. After a long day’s seclusion
over desk and books the cobwebs begin to gather
about one’s brain, and stronger and stronger grows
the longing to look upon the face of one’s fellows.
There are fair faces, too, to look upon, and
bright-lipped laughter to listen to not far away;
and the shriek of a fiddle or the skirl of the
pipes is all that is needed to set light footsteps
tripping on a broad barn floor. Down with
pamphlet and pen, therefore; on with a heavy
coat in case of rain, and out into the roaring
night.</p>
<p>A heavy “carry” is tearing across the sky, but
the air is fresh and clear; and see, away below
through the darkness, by the loch-side, shining
hospitable and bright, are the lights of Gartachraggan.
Away, then, by the steading, where
the patient beasts are stirring in their byres,
and a breath is caught of the rich warm mash<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148">148</a></span>
preparing for their evening meal. Away through
the whin-haughs, where the owls answer each other
with silvery hootings, and again and again overhead
there is heard the creaking wing of belated
snipe beating to and fro. How the wind sighs
in the naked hedges, with a louder whisper where
the thick-leaved holly-trees are set! One is
tempted to linger under the soft shelter of the
wood, where the air is rich with the fragrance of
the undergrowth, and the stillness gives a feeling
of pleasant security by contrast with the roar
and sough of the storm in the tree-tops far above.
The stones of the dry-dyke here are covered close
with the clinging tendrils of a small-leaved ivy,
and wild strawberry and wild geranium in summer
star with white and pink the mossy crannies. A
pleasant spot it is, therefore, at that time of year,
to linger in, to watch the red squirrel frolic on
the road, and the chaffinch build his mossy home
overhead. But to-night one’s thoughts are otherwise.
It is cold, and the south wind is roaring in
the wood, hustling the withered leaves to limbo.
Down the hill, therefore, at a blithesome pace,
jousting and jesting with the storm, till a glimpse
of the realm of Oberon is caught below—the foam-swept
loch with its lonely islets, seen by the fitful<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149">149</a></span>
gleam of stars. Life comes back to the jaded
heart on such a night, as the fresh wind lifts the
hair and clears the brain. There is war in the
heavens overhead, and the scream can be heard
of wild-duck entangled in the driving clouds; but
in the heart there is only laughter, born of the
comradeship of “rude Boreas.” Whew! Draw in
here to the shelter till the rain-blast sweeps over.
It whistles like arrowy sleet through the branches
overhead, and the great limbs roar and struggle
in the contest. The bole of the giant ash itself
heaves and groans with the effort. But the strong
tree has grappled before with the Titan, and the
wrestlings of eighty winters have but given it a
deeper grip of the soil. And so the blast blows
over, the air clears, and close at hand, a ruddy
blaze among the trees, are seen the gleaming
windows of the farm.</p>
<p>What a kindly welcome is this! No ordinary
“How d’ye do?” and touch of listless fingers,
but a heartiness honest as its own broad vowels.
The good folk here live close to the soil, and
continually touch the real facts of life. Ennui
and cynicism, those soul-cankers of the dwellers
in towns, have never found their way to these
homesteads by the loch-side; and sweet and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150">150</a></span>
whole-hearted as the breath of their own hay-ricks
are the greetings of these hospitable folk. For the
frank grasp that will ease world-cares, go to the
kindly sea-captain, or the hand that has held
a plough. Years have gathered on the heads
of the farmer and his wife since first their plough-shares
turned the loch-side soil, but still they are
fresh and hale, and the frost of years that has
silvered their hair has touched them no whit
besides. Meanwhile, there has grown around
them a brave and comely brood—sons stalwart
as the ark-builders of old, and daughters—ah!
Look not too long upon these, good youth, or
thou art undone (though that might not be the
worst thing that could happen thee). For there
is choice and difference among them; the hair of
one dark as the starling’s wing, another’s bright
with russet gold; eyes blue as the summer skies,
eyes dark as the woodland wells; cheeks of fair
soft peach-bloom, and cherry lips ripe and red.
Beware!</p>
<p>Into the parlour? No!—the kitchen is the
place. A carpeted parlour can be seen at any
time, but such a kitchen only in such a spot.
The great fire blazing in the chimney roars
defiance to the storm outside, and flashes its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151">151</a></span>
warm light upon wall and rafter. Lamps shine
bright as silver in their sconces, and plate-racks
and harness steels gleam in the wall’s recesses.
Not a speck stains the purity of the red-stone
floor, and the massy tables and chairs of honest
deal are white as driven snow. Into the kitchen,
then, and ask for the goodman’s health, and
whether the ploughing has gone forward well,
whether the collie that went amissing has turned
up yet, and what was done with the tramp who
threatened the ploughman’s wife.</p>
<p>But, listen! the neighbours are coming already,
and in the lull of the wind surely that was the
sound of the pipes! How the girls’ eyes sparkle
and their colour rises! What tempting access
of witchery!—wait a little, take care, keep hold
of your heart! Perhaps their sweethearts are
coming. The pipes stop at the door, there is
a sound of laughter, a moment’s pause, and then
a new invasion of brave lads and comely lasses,
bringing in with them the earth-smelling wind
of the night. Fresh-voiced as the spring thrushes,
it is an inspiration to look at and listen to these
sons and daughters of the hills.</p>
<p>First of all, for the Highlands are hospitable,
something must be eaten. The table in a trice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152">152</a></span>
is heaped with tempting array—everything the
produce of the farm itself, and not the less
delicious for the fair hands that have placed it
there.</p>
<p>Then, hey, presto! the scene is changed. A
space has been cleared in the barn, and lamps
hung from the rafters and on the walls light it
up in gipsy fashion, casting fantastic shadows
into the far corners behind the great heaps of
warm oat-straw. A skirl of the pipes, and in a
moment partners are chosen. Then more than
one secret slips out to the curious eye; for much
there is to be read in the language of a blush
and a look. The lads stand back to back, two
and two, their partners facing them, and as the
music takes to the air, featly they trip it in
the merry figure-of-eight. Presently, opposite
their neighbours’ partners, comes the chance for
spirit and agility, and many a wild capering step
is done by the lads with arm in air and a whirl
of the tartans, while the lasses, more modest,
with downcast look, hold back their skirts daintily
as they foot it with toe and heel. Faster and
faster the music gathers, faster flies the dance
with its changing step, with the threading of
eights and the Highland fling, while cheeks take<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153">153</a></span>
flame, eyes flash wildly, and the barn floor shakes
in rhythm. More and more breathless grow lasses
and lads, but no one will yield to stop, till at
last, with a wild whoop, they fling themselves
all at once upon the straw, and the music slowly
runs out.</p>
<p>Again and again it will be renewed, with the
wilder “Reel o’ Hulochan” for a change, or some
wonderful old-fashioned country dance; and only
some time in the morning, long after the old folk
have gone to bed, will the merry party break up,
tired but delighted, to go home in twos and threes
along the hills.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154">154</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_22">AN ARRAN RIDE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">“Hamish</span> will just be putting the mare in
the cart to drive over the ladies, so the
need is not so great for hurrying.”</p>
<p>The arrangement of the crofter’s wife is hospitably
meant, if somewhat ominously expressed.
Conveyance of any kind, moreover, will be most
acceptable to the two ladies of our party after
their long ramble on seashore and moorland;
and the more primitive it prove, the more fittingly
will it end the memories of the day.
“Meanwhile ‘the need is not so great for hurrying,’”
repeats one of the two slyly, out of hearing
of her hostess, and, pulling off her gloves, proceeds
to gather pleasure from the blazing chimneyful
of peat. Leaning back in the warm light, she
stirs the white feathery ash with a dainty boot,
and discovers, to the boot’s cost and her own
surprise, that the whiteness of the peat conceals
a glow of burning red. It is a peculiarity of
the Highland character, as of the Highland fuel,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155">155</a></span>
this fire within the grey exterior, needing only
a touch or a breath to show itself.</p>
<p>The light ash of the peat, they say, flies everywhere
about a shieling. But it is a cleanly thing.
It leaves no tarnish, at anyrate, on the snowy
wood dresser or its high rack of shining delf.
The tall old-fashioned mahogany case-clock in
the corner, an heirloom much valued, may have
absorbed more of the powder, perhaps, than
conduces to regular intestinal working; but the
open iron cruizie or cresset lamp hanging quaintly,
though now unused, from the high mantelshelf,
is kept clear enough for lighting yet if need
were; and maybe the hams and “kippered”
fish hanging from hooks in the blackened
rafters are rather improved in flavour by the
condiment.</p>
<p>But look here. With true Highland hospitality,
preparations for tea have been surreptitiously
advanced, and the fresh, wholesome-looking
daughter of the house and her mother lift into
the middle of the earthen floor the table ready
caparisoned with cloth-of-snow, glittering cups
and knives, heaped sugar-bowl, and beaker of
rich yellow cream. A lissome flower of the
moors is this crofter maid. The oatmeal which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156">156</a></span>
she has been baking is not more soft and fair
than the skin of the comely lass, and, as she
smiles reply in lifting the toasted oat-farles from
the flat iron “girdle” swung over the fire, it
needs no poet to notice that her eyes are bits
of summer sea and her mouth a damask bud.
The toasted farles of oat-cake from her hand
send forth an ambrosial smell which, with the
fragrance of the new-made tea, is irresistible to
hungry folk, and no pressing Highland exhortation
is needed to set visitors of both sexes to
the attack of the viands.</p>
<p>Not till every one has again and again
declared sheer inability to pursue the attack
further, does the announcement come that “the
mare is in the cart.” A chair, therefore, is
presently carried out, and the whole party of
four mount into the rough vehicle among the
straw. Hereupon follow a hand-shaking and
repetition of hospitable invitations to return
which begin to become almost embarrassing,
before Hamish starts at his horse’s head upon
the moor track.</p>
<p>A long, memorable day it has been, amid the
warm sunshine and the bright sea-breeze, a day
to do the heart good and to tire the limbs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157">157</a></span>
royally—the morning draught of brave mountain
air and life on the white moorland road before
the inn; the forenoon ramble, rod in hand, on
the warm gorse-path by the river; luncheon in
quaint-flavoured, wit-haunted company by the
blue Kilbrannan Sound, with nothing to interrupt
but the beat of sudden outflying wings sometimes
about the warm cliff crannies overhead,
and, on the beach below, the soft caressing
murmur of the secret-telling sea; the afternoon
drive to the far hill-clachan, where the turf roofs
were tied down with heather ropes, where the
brown women were carrying sea-wrack to manure
their fields, and where, as a back-sound to the
quaint-turned Highland speech, was heard the
thud-thud of the swinging flails; and, last of all,
the return at evening by the high moorland path,
with the amethyst fire dying out on Ben Ghoil
in the east, and, in the west, the sunset heavens
aflame with saffron and rose, and the sea a living
splendour of generous wine.</p>
<p>Now it is night, and the air comes cooler over
the moor. No air is like Arran air at night,
with its vague herb-perfumes adrift, for stirring
old memories and desires in the heart and new
ambitions in the blood. Upon its clear breath<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158">158</a></span>
old designs, old possibilities long forgotten, come
back again to make life and hope. By it the
vapours of worldly wisdom are blown aside, the
cloud-wrack care of intervening years is lifted,
and one walks again clear-hearted for a time in
the April valley of his youth. Night anywhere
has charms for those who think, but night upon
the moors possesses an influence peculiarly its
own. The primeval heath, wild and undesecrated
by the hand of man, lies under “the splendid-mooned
and jewelled night,” shadowy and mystic
with the silence of the ages. Abroad upon the
moor at such an hour seem to brood the imaginings
of an older world, and the grey stone circles
standing gaunt yet upon the Arran wilds are
hardly needed to suggest the memory that along
these wilds, once upon a time, wound processions
of bearded Druids, to practise under the starry
influences rites of a faith now long forgotten.
At intervals upon the moor appear these grey
menhirs and circles. Inscrutable as the Egyptian
sphinx they stand with sealed lips, strange monuments
of a buried past. For tens of centuries
they have seen the dusks gather and the stars
swim overhead, but no rising sun has wakened
them from their silence, and still they keep the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159">159</a></span>
stony secret of their origin, though they could
not keep the ashes of the dead committed to
their charge.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Hamish makes way steadily, though
by tortuous windings. None but a native bred
on the spot could conduct a vehicle safely by
night across these moors. Where unaccustomed
eyes can make out no sign whatever of a track,
and where a single mistake would send one
wheel floundering into a peat-hag and the other
spinning in the air, or capsize the whole equipage
into the miry abysses of a bog, Hamish leads
confidently on, with no worse result than the
jolting of a rugged road. The mare is a sturdy
beast of the small sure-footed Arran breed, now
dying out, and she pulls away gallantly among
rocks and heath-tufts that would bring any other
sort of horse to quick disaster. It takes her
master all his time to keep up with her on the
rough ground, and he has breath left for no
more than an occasional “Ay, ay,” or “’Deed,
yes, sir!” in the true Arran accent. English is
evidently the less familiar language to him; his
remarks to the mare, <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">sotto voce</i>, are in Gaelic.</p>
<p>All last month after nightfall tufts and sheets
of flame were to be seen among the darkness of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160">160</a></span>
the hills; for in March they burn the heather on
the sheep-farms to let the young herbage come
up, and the conflagrations which appear then as
pillars of smoke by day become pillars of fire
by night. But in April the moorland birds have
begun to build their nests, and the hills are left
to them in darkness and in peace. The only
light to be seen from the cart is that in the
window of the croft far behind, which will be
kept aglow by thoughtful hands as a guide till
Hamish’s return after moonset. Over the brow
of the moor, however, the shining lights of the
clachan at the mountain foot before long come
into sight, and away to the right, tremulous with
silver and shadows, the sheen of the moonlight
can be made out on the sea. Rapidly now the
path descends, plunging presently through lanes
of high thorn hedges where the stars are all but
shut out overhead. The rush of a river is heard,
the wheels grate harshly on the gravel, there is
a sudden and vigorous splashing of hoofs, and
the mare has passed the ford. Then a half-mile
of climb uphill on a good road, and Hamish
stands still with his charge at the door of
the inn.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161">161</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_23">BY A WESTERN FIRTH.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">“Good-bye, my</span> dear!”</p>
<p>How beautiful the old lady looks as she
stands in the porch overclustered with its tangle
of budding roses and honeysuckle, a kindly smile
on her lips, and her eyes shining, and her silver
hair, in the last light of afternoon! For the sun
is setting now, across the water, behind the hills
of Bute, and the glory that fills the heavens and
floods the full-ebbed sea casts about her, in its
departing moments, a halo of peace serene as the
hours of her life’s own afternoon. “Good-bye,
my dear!”</p>
<p>Sunshine and silence sleep now on the hillside
strath above, where the woods hang motionless,
and the sward here and there, in the open spaces,
is lit with the golden flame of gorse in blossom;
but across that hillside once long ago raged the
tide of a relentless war. Here, blood-red in the
setting sun, waved the standard of a Scottish
king, and yonder, down to the shore and to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162">162</a></span>
wrecks of his ships, was driven back the shattered
strength of the invading Norseman. The corries
were filled then with the bodies of the dead, and
the brown waters were stained a dreadful purple
in the burn-pools where the trout leap now after
the evening fly. That was the Scottish Salamis.</p>
<p>No one is in sight upon the white road, and
no sound to be heard of distant footstep or
departing wheels. There is only the lingering
lapse of the quiet ripples as the sea sows its
pearl-seed along the shore. A perfect calm rests
upon the waters while the light slowly leaves
them, and the red sun goes down behind the
hills; only, at one place, across the glassy surface,
where the tide is stirring, run, on the tiny wavelets,
a hundred flickering tongues of fire, and, far out,
the reflection of the great yellow cloud aflame in
the west shimmers like frosted gold upon the sea.</p>
<p>Gently the gloaming falls. The last mellow
pipe of the mavis floats from the garden shrubbery
behind, and bats begin to jerk about with their
uncertain flight under the trees, their wings
making a curious eerie creaking in the air. Only
a dim green light falls through the leaves interlaced
overhead as the road leaves the bay and
dips inland through the woods.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163">163</a></span>
The day’s work is over. It is the sacred hour,
and, far from “the stir and tumult of the street,”
in these still aisles, carpeted soft with fallen bud-sheaths
and grass, roofed with the fretted canopy
of branch and leaf, and hung with the fringed
banners of larch and birch, ascends to heaven
with the last notes of the woodland choristers
the sweet incense of a thousand flowers. Mossy
dykes run into the wood-depths here, and among
the tall feathery grasses under the trees there
are places purple with a mist of wild hyacinths.
A crimson shadow, too, lies here and there, where
the wood geranium throws its profusion; and
pink and white sandflowers grow in the dry
ditch-sides. By the clear mossy roadside well,
and among the withered leaves in the glades, rise
the first green spires of the foxgloves; a golden
haze betrays the beds of yellow crowfoot; and in
some sequestered spots pale primroses are still
starring the rivulet banks.</p>
<p>Amid the woods, a secluded nook, nestles a
cottage—the gamekeeper’s lodge, with its low
slate roof, and sweetbrier trained upon the white
walls, yellow pansies asleep beneath its window-sills,
and crimson fuchsia and wild dog-roses
blossoming in the hedge. The little flower-garden<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164">164</a></span>
about it is trimly kept, with its southernwood
and thyme, its clipped box edgings and gravelled
path; and in the grassy hollow under the wood
behind are the rows of boxes for breeding the
young pheasants. A faint luscious smell hangs
in the air of the spot—suggestive of frying trout
freshly caught in the brown burn that gurgles
close by in the darkness. The keeper, too, is
sitting outside the quiet doorway enjoying his
evening pipe; and the fragrance of the southern
weed mingles with the sweet scent of the pink
hawthorn flowering over the wicket. Tread
softly, though, on the grassy edge of the road
for a little way. The kennel is at hand, and
the slightest sound will set every dog baying
his loudest. The rattle of a terrier’s chain is
enough, sometimes, to set the woods echoing
for full ten minutes.</p>
<p>The air grows less heavy as the road again
approaches the shore, and there comes up with
the murmur of the shingle the faint salt smell
of the sea. Away in front the bright blaze
streaming out in the darkness strikes from the
lighthouse tower at the outmost sea-edge, receiving
its signal, like the bale-fires of old, from
the beacon on the opposite coast, and flashing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165">165</a></span>
it on to the next point up channel. Far out,
too, on the firth a red light is moving, and the
faint beat of paddles comes across the water. It
is the last river-steamer making for the watering-place
opposite. Singularly still the air is, to
carry so distinctly the throbbing of that distant
pulse. Not another sound is to be heard, and
nothing astir is to be seen. Only, the moon
has risen, a clear sickle, on the edge of the
dark hill above. On such a night loveliness
and mystery swim together on the air; the
blushing of the rose is the fairer for being but
half seen in the dim light; the woods above
have ceased their amorous whisperings; and
the sea amid the silence is kissing the shore’s
wet lips.</p>
<p>What white shadow comes yonder, though,
moving under the high hedge in the darkness?
It might almost be one of those wraiths of which
the country-folk speak with bated breath—the
awful Something seen moving in the dusk from
the house where a man has died. There is a
sound of hoofs here, however, and the spectre
proves to be but the gaunt Rozinante of some
wandering gipsies—the grey and pitiful counterpart,
doubtless, of a once-gallant steed.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166">166</a></span>
Delicate hands may have patted the neck
worn bare now by the collar, and sweet sugar-bits
may have been offered by dainty fingers
to the lips that tremble now as they crop the
dusty roadside grasses. Does memory ever
come to the brain behind those patient eyes?</p>
<p>See! close by in the little dell among the flowering
broom twinkles the camp-fire of the owners.
Their dark figures lie about it asleep, for the
night is warm, and they are a hardy race; while
at hand stands their quaint house on wheels,
overhung with baskets of all sorts and uses.
A strange, lawless life they live in the midst
of nineteenth-century civilisation, those Bedouins
of the broomfields and commons.</p>
<p>But here is our inn, a long-forgotten hostelrie,
where one can sit at noon in the shade by the
doorway with a book, and watch the ships far
out go by upon the firth, while the cool sea
glistens below, and all day long there is the
drowsy hum of bees about the yellow tassels
of the laburnums at the gable ends. A pleasant
spot it is even now in the darkness. The lilac-trees
in the garden are a-bloom, and the air is
sweet with their scent. A pleasant place, where
the comely hostess will welcome the tired<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167">167</a></span>
pedestrian, where his supper will taste the better
for the fresh night air from the open window,
and where, presently, he will fall asleep between
sheets that smell of the clover-field, to dream of
the firmly-grasped tiller, the snowy cloud of
sails overhead, and the rushing of the water
under the yacht’s counter of the morrow.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168">168</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_24">AN ISLAND PICNIC.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Seven</span> o’clock, and a glorious morning! The
sun is shining brightly on the coral-clustered
rowan-tree outside, and the sky already is dazzling
blue. A gentle air, too, just stirs the muslin
curtain of the window left open overnight. With
it comes in the scent of honey and the hum of
bees at work in the garden below. No morning
is this for laziness and a late breakfast. The
impulse to be abroad is born of the sunshine;
and a few minutes serve, after a hurried toilet, to
snatch a towel, bound down stairs, and go tramping
across the heather to the well-known pool.</p>
<p>A magnificent day indeed it promises to be.
The wreathing night-mists have already risen
from the Bens, and the loch below gleams like
melted sapphire round sylvan island and far-set
promontory. Everywhere the mountains are clad
in purple, and from the moor-bloom spreading
its springy carpet underfoot rises a fragrance
that fills air and heart alike with delight. And<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169">169</a></span>
the river pool—never was found more delightful
bathing-place. Hidden deep between overhanging
banks of heather in flower, with a clean
brown ledge of rock to dive from, the depth of
dark, clear water, like amber wine, sparkles with
foam-bells, and the waterfall tosses from the rock
above great showers of silver spray. No more
invigorating plunge could be had. For a moment,
as he breasts the brown depths, the bather feels
something of the salmon’s exultant pride; and
a dip like that sets one off high-hearted for
the day.</p>
<p>Breakfast is a delight after such an appetiser;
and fresh eggs and thin oatcakes, creamy porridge,
golden marmalade, and all the wealth of Highland
fare, disappear with startling despatch. There is
no time to be wasted either, for Archie was to
have the boat ready at half-past nine, and there
is a Highland half-mile of road between the
house and the loch. Archie would by no means
scruple about expressing his candid, and perhaps
not very complimentary, opinion if the party
chanced to be late; and there is a kind of
unwritten law in the house that the old servant
is to be humoured as much as possible. So
already the ladies are concerning themselves with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170">170</a></span>
the making and packing of sandwiches, the due
stowage of cold provender, jellies, fruit, milk,
<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">et cetera</i>, and the apportioning to each his load.
For the luncheon is to be, <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">bonâ fide</i>, a true
Robinson Crusoe affair, no servants interfering;
and each man must make himself useful.</p>
<p>“’Deed, and ye’re no that late, efter a’!” is
Archie’s magnanimous reply to a deprecating
remark of his mistress on reaching the loch-side.
The sunshine has evidently thawed his usual
crustiness. “Aye, mem,” he replies further, “it’ll
be a fine mornin’, a very fine mornin’; the hills
is quite clear.” After which deliverance he holds
the boat steady alongside the little wooden
landing-place, while provisions, kettles, and rugs
are stowed away in the bow; and his grey eyes
twinkle with pleased humour under their shaggy
brows when the heir of the house whispers some
bit of sly badinage in his ear. “Aye he iss a
fine lad that, a fine lad!” the old fellow will be
saying to himself when the boat has been pushed
off, and he watches from the pier the stalwart
object of his remark bestirring himself to haul
up the sail.</p>
<div id="ip_170" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30.375em;"><img src="images/i_201.jpg" width="486" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>There is just enough breeze to curl the water
gently; and when the snowy sheet is hoisted the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171">171</a></span>
boat bends away gracefully before it, leaving a
swirling track of foam and eddies in her wake.
When the morning is so fine as this there is
little fear of danger; but on these Highland
lochs one never can foretell the moment when
a sudden gust may come down from some
hillside corrie; and cool nerves and a steady
hand are needed to control sheet and tiller.
The man who loses his wits on an emergency,
who cannot slacken out sail or bring the boat’s
head up to wind when a squall strikes her, is
no fit pilot for these waters, and many a fair
freight has gone to the bottom from such an
one holding the helm. A strong and ready
hand is in charge to-day, however, and “black
care” is a thing impossible on board, as the
little craft goes bounding out upon the bosom
of the loch.</p>
<p>And fair as a romance is the scene—the clear
lake winding away among the mountains, its
surface broken only by bosky islets that float
in their own reflections—while the sunny air is
full of the awe and silence of the Bens.</p>
<p>The only spot in all the scene where silence
reigns not is on board the little boat herself;
and a continuous ripple of merry chat and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172">172</a></span>
joyous laughter floats away astern with her
foam. From wild little islets passed by the
way come breaths of pinewood and of heather
in bloom, faint and delicious as the gales which
drifted leeward of old from homeward-bound
spice-argosies of the East. But the bright eyes
on board are an inspiration themselves, independent
of the sunshine and the pure and
scented air; and the gladness of youth has
broken forth—the contagion of happy and hopeful
hearts. A sweet strain of melody floats
once and again from the bow, where the singing
throats are:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing!<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">—the Skye Boat Song, a farewell to Prince
Charlie, that old-time idol of the Highland
hearts. A sad melody it is, amid its sweetness,
as are all the old Jacobite songs, with their
breathing of hopes that were never to be fulfilled;
and somehow, strains like that come to
the ear with more real tenderness when sung
as to-day by clear young voices among their
native mountains.</p>
<p>Too soon, almost, the boat’s keel grates upon
the island beach—the strip of silver shingle under<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173">173</a></span>
the green-fringing trees. One would fain have
prolonged especially the last part of the voyage,
through the straits between the islands—straits
like the miniature narrows of fairy-land, between
whose near and bosky shores the fragile shallop
of Oberon and Titania might almost be expected
to appear, flying a web of the woodland gossamers
for its sail. But other attractions enough lie
within the island greenwood. There are delicate
groups of birches to be sketched by those who
have brought block and colours. In the rivulet
dells some of the young ladies have been promised
the discovery of the much-sought hart’s-tongue
fern. And for those who wish to recall
to fancy the place’s romance of the past, there
are the remains of a ruined monastery to explore.
But the merriest party of all, perhaps, is that
retained for the preparation of luncheon; and it
is wonderful in how short a time those dainty-fingered
damsels have the tasteful display of linen
and crystal and silver spread on a grassy plot,
the clumsy-handed males being retained, after
the fashion of the knights-errant of old, for the
opening of baskets and boxes, and the seeking
of leaves wherewith to decorate fruit-salvers,
napkins, and the tablecloth’s centre.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174">174</a></span>
A merry meal it is, too, which follows, <i xml:lang="es" lang="es">al fresco</i>—“all
in the greenwood free”—with the contortions
of carvers on their knees, the popping of
corks, and continual little explosions of mysterious
laughter from the various groups perched on
cloaks and rugs wherever a seat-hold offers
round the roots of some gnarled oak or ash.
Never more gallant do young men appear than
when attending the wants of their fair comrades
amid such a scene; and thrice happy is he who
has such an opportunity of laying siege to the
heart that he desires.</p>
<p>Then away again over the island they go, in
parties of two and three; and the flutter of a
light dress is to be seen and the joyous ripple
of merry laughter to be heard in many a nook
and dell hitherto invaded only by the antlered
and timid deer. Many a pleasant word is spoken,
and many a heart mayhap lightened of its care
on such an afternoon; for the anxieties of civilised
life come not to a sylvan retreat like this, and
it is impossible to be aught but joyous-spirited
when the surroundings are all of gladness.</p>
<p>But hark! they have caught a piper on the
mainland, and have brought him over, and there
is to be a dance on the grass. Yonder he goes,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175">175</a></span>
under the edge of the trees, pouring forth a
torrent of Highland reels. A brave sound that,
setting the blood on fire and making it impossible
to sit still. And merrily go the twinkling
feet on the greensward—“figures of eight,” and
Reel o’ Tulloch, Highland Schottische and Highland
Fling. Wilder and faster grows the music,
as the piper catches the spirit of the scene, and
faster and faster the dancers foot it, with swirling
tartans and flying skirts, till, at a final blast of
the screaming chanter, the last partners throw
themselves panting on the grass. Then a cup
of tea makes a kindly refreshment and prevents
heated throats from catching cold, and the boat
has to be got ready, and the furniture of the
feast stowed away. Afterwards, as the clear
young moon begins to sparkle in the sky, the
sail is set once more and the prow pointed for
home. And if the wind fails, and some rowing
has to be done, the exercise is good for keeping
off the chill; and with song after song floating
out across the water under the stars, a fitting
end is made of a day without regrets.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176">176</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_25">TENNIS IN THE NORTH.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap a"><span class="smcap1">A</span> pretty sight they are, these two, this
fair summer morning, among the dewy
branches of the rose-garden, all unconscious that
anyone is looking at them, Minna, the daughter
of the house, her white hands wet with flowers,
is cutting fresh blossoms for the breakfast-table,
and that tall fellow, the Professor, who at home
used to get up only when the college bell was
ringing, has actually risen half an hour earlier
than he need have done in order to hold the
basket for her. He is not looking at the costly
little circlet of diamonds sparkling upon her finger,
but at the bright dark eyes swimming under the
edge of that delightful straw hat, where, doubtless,
he is getting some fresh light upon the Greek
particles. For they are engaged, Minna and he,
and he is coming back in the autumn to carry
her off and transplant her, like some bright-petalled
flower, in his dim old college city.</p>
<p>But there is the voice of our host greeting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177">177</a></span>
them from the porch below, and the Professor
comes forward eagerly to shake hands with him.
Young Rossdhu has driven down to say that
some friends arrived at their house last night,
and his mother will be glad if we can go up
to tennis and luncheon there this morning. No
other engagement will be broken by this, and
a day on that velvet lawn among the pine-woods
will be delightful; so the carriage has
been ordered for eleven o’clock. The day
promises to be very warm here by the sea,
but more air will perhaps be moving up among
the hills, and there will always be the shadow
of the old beeches to rest under. When breakfast
is over, then, it will just be time to get
ready, though it is tempting to linger in the
quiet cool little room, at the white-spread table
with its freshness of flowers—the full-blowing
Maréchal Niel and the languorous yellow tea-roses
set there by dainty fingers.</p>
<p>Outside, the sunshine is very hot already,
and the last dewdrop has long ago dried from
the scarlet petals of the geraniums in the urns.
The ponies at the door, too, are impatiently
whisking their tails and twitching their ears to
keep off the flies.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178">178</a></span>
There could be no more enjoyable drive than
that along this road of the far North, running
a mile or two first within sight of the blue
glistening sea, and then turning inland. The
road itself, of that dazzling sandy whiteness
peculiar to the district, is perfectly dry and
smooth; and while from the deep grasses of
the bank on each side, and from the warren
beyond, come the hot passion-breath of the
golden-flowered whin, and the soft amorous sigh
of the milky-clouded thorn, there is ever in sight
the broad country, rich in old forests, showing
here and there the grey tower of some ancient
castle, and stretching away to the mountains
beyond, purple under the speckless sky. Then
it turns off suddenly into the pine-woods of
Rossdhu, and the wheels roll noiseless upon the
soft bed of fir needles.</p>
<p>Forty years ago, when old Rossdhu found
that, owing to the repeal of the Corn Laws, it
would no longer be profitable to grow wheat,
like many another proprietor in the North he
planted his lands with trees. And so, while
the country buys its bread with the riches of
ore and fossil stored up æons ago in Nature’s
grim treasure-caverns underground, the soil, at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179">179</a></span>
rest from plough and harrow, is growing young
again amid the forests, under the brown depth
of mouldering leaf and cone.</p>
<p>Deep quiet reigns among these warm pine-woods,
a sort of enchanted stillness amid the
yellow sunshine. In the bosky hollow where
the brown butterfly is hovering, old Pan might
be asleep among the fern. The feathery grasses
everywhere are in flower, as high as a man’s
shoulder; above them shimmers the great green
dragon-fly, two inches long, with his gossamer
wings; and from among their clouds at places
little ladybird beetles, like pin-heads, spotted
scarlet and black, fall into the carriage in their
flight. The wild strawberry, with its tiny white
blossom, is growing on the sunny banks of the
road, and wild rasps spread their tangle in the
undergrowth beyond.</p>
<p>In the narrow meadow amidst the woods a
lonely mower is at work, and the air is sweet
with the scent of new-mown hay. He lifts his
cap respectfully as the carriage passes, for the
manners of the district have not been corrupted
yet by contact with rude railway navvies, nor
by the shortcomings of Board schools; and the
peasant still exchanges a recognition with his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180">180</a></span>
superior. Much more real kindliness might
exist between the social classes if in our schools
there were a Government grant for manners.
All store nowadays seems to be set upon the
three “Rs”—reading, writing, and arithmetic—as
if the whole sum of human felicity lay
in a knowledge of the “black art” of books.</p>
<p>The mower was singing to himself as we came
up, a soft Gaelic song that kept time to the
sweep of his scythe, and Minna blushes a little
as she promises to translate it in the evening,
for it is a song of confessed love. The man is
happy, surely, singing as he sees the glistening,
swathes fall by his side to ripen in the sun:
and well he may be, for has he not, like the
happy birds, a nest, too, somewhere in these
woods, and a blue-eyed brood that will greet
his home-coming at nightfall.</p>
<div id="ip_180" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24.0625em;"><img src="images/i_213.jpg" width="385" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>But the manor-house stands close by now, and
there, on the smooth green lawn among the trees,
the tennis nets are spread, and the courts marked
with lines on the grass. A beautiful old place it
is, its grey stone walls hot with the sunshine, and,
among the thick-climbing jessamine and fuchsia,
the open windows revealing tempting depths
of shadow within. The sound of the wheels<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181">181</a></span>
on the gravel brings out old Rossdhu himself,
the soul of hospitality, with half a dozen of his
dogs barking a welcome after their fashion, and
wagging their tails. Shaggy-bearded as some of
his own peasants, the old gentleman is the pink
of Highland courtesy, and he assists “Miss
Minna” to alight as if she were a princess.
“Alec,” that is his son, he explains, “is busy
inside,” and the frequent popping of corks heard
there intimates his occupation.</p>
<p>The dark cool drawing-room is bright with
the light dresses of young girls, and musical with
the murmur of happy laughter, while the air that
just stirs the creamy gossamer of the curtains
brings in with it the fragrance of the dark
velvety wallflower still flowering outside in the
sunshine before the window. The lady of the
house is an invalid, and Rossdhu begs that
Minna will give her just one song before everybody
goes out to the game. So Minna draws
off her gloves, and the piano is opened. And
it is very pleasant to sit in the deep shadow
by the open casement, looking out upon the
sunny lawn and woods, and listening to the
melody of that sweet young voice. It is a
Jacobite song she sings, “The Auld House”—<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182">182</a></span>some
other such place as this, with low-roofed
rooms, dark-panelled and oaken-raftered, where
the hopes of gentle hearts blossomed and withered
long ago with the fortunes of their fair, ill-fated
Prince. The plaintive words linger with their
air in the memory, how “the auld <span class="locked">ladye”—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">Here sheltered Scotland’s heir,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And clipped a lock wi’ her ain hand<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Frae his lang yellow hair.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Then, afterwards, when everybody has had enough
of the ices and the claret cup, there is the tennis.
And though it is somewhat warm work for those
actually playing, there are seats under the leafy
beeches and chestnut-trees, where a quiet <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>
can be enjoyed, and a lazy glance cast at the
lithe, light-clad figures of the players out in the
sunshine, and the white balls that fly to and fro
across the nets.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183">183</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_26">THROUGH THE PASS.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Rain</span> is not to be heeded in the Highlands.
It is the picturesque part of the weather
here. The air grows fresher and sweeter in a
shower, a richer fragrance comes out in the woods,
and the true gloom and grandeur of the mountains
can only be seen when the grey rain-veils are
darkening and glittering among their glens. Even
into the house steals the reviving freshness of the
rain. The scent of the wet sweetbrier budding
in the garden hedge enters at the open window;
from the larch-wood near, the grateful thrushes
can be heard sending forth more liquid trillings;
and the daffodils, hung like yellow jewels along
the lawn, appear fairer and brighter amid the
shower. But better than wasting the day indoors
it is to sally forth, strong-booted and roughly
clad, breathe the freshness of the cool, new air,
and start, staff in hand, for the hills themselves.
It is worth while to defy the rain, for the road
lies through woods dewy and dim as Keats<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184">184</a></span>
dreamed for his “Endymion.” In their deep-secluded
ways sometimes may be seen the timid
roedeer, and on the fragrant air be heard the
amorous crooning of wild doves.</p>
<p>In another month the quiet dells among these
woods will be purple with dewy hyacinths, and
many a sequestered nook will be dim with the
blue forget-me-not. Already the open meads
are sprinkled with patins of buttercup-gold, and
a modest spot of cream here and there, under
some mossy bank, betrays a late primrose. As
yet, however, the delicate broidery of summer
has not carpeted the forest floors. Under the
dark, low-hanging branches of the spruce-firs—made
a richer green by the rain—there is only
a russet wealth of withered fern, with a warm
depth of shadow such as Rembrandt loved to
paint. Looking over a mossy old bridge parapet
into the ferny dingle below, one can see the
feathery grey larches powdered with sweet pink
blossom, whose beauty few people know; and
lower down, by the burn, the alders putting forth
silky silver bud-tips—the “mouse’s ear,” which
is the angler’s sign that perch are to be caught.
In open spaces where some forest-clearing has
been done, the few silver-barked birches left<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185">185</a></span>
standing begin to show a smir of green, their
graceful drooping branches looking like trailing
sprays of delicate maidenhair; whilst here and
there a spot is lit up by the golden glory of
the whin.</p>
<p>The woods at this time of the year are full
of life, for the cruel gun is silent, and many a
happy home of bird and beast is hidden in the
tangled undergrowth. In the elm-tops about the
lodge behind by the river the rooks are giving
each other much grandmotherly advice as to the
rearing of broods. The cock pheasant’s crow is
to be heard frequently in the covers, and sometimes,
from his open feeding-ground beside the
path, a splendid bird rises suddenly with whirring
wings, and sails royally away to more secluded
fastnesses. Among the thick-leaved tangle of
wild rhododendron on either hand blackbirds are
fluttering joyously about their nests. Overhead,
occasionally, passes the heavy, rushing flight of
a wild pigeon. And more than once across a
gleam of sunshine on the path runs a red squirrel,
like a bit of living gold.</p>
<p>And while one treads on the brown, fallen
needles of spruce and larch, the subtle forest
scents fill the heart with many pleasant memories.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186">186</a></span>
Never are these forest scents richer than when
brought out by a shower, and it is curious how
vividly some faint perfume drifting on the air will
recall the happy scenes of other days, memories
that are themselves the pensive fragrance of old
age.</p>
<p>Through these ducal woods, and amid such
pleasant sights and sounds, some seventy years
ago wandered the “Wizard of the North,” gathering
material for his work. Fairer scenes a poet
could not have chosen to gather inspiration from.
Everyone may feel the eloquence of those northern
hills in front, as everyone may enjoy the fragrance
of the meadow violets: it needed a poet, however,
to turn into speech the eloquence of the hills, as
it needs a bee to turn into honey the fragrance
of the flowers. Hither, therefore, fitly came Scott
to his work; and over clachan and mountain alike
he has woven the golden net of romance.</p>
<p>One may wander for miles through these woods
and out beyond upon the old Highland road, with
its low, mossy dykes, without meeting a single
wayfarer. Only Nature herself, with gentle and
sweet suggestion, speaks to him of the past or of
the future. For the touch of the fresh cool air
upon the face clears away all cobwebs of sordid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187">187</a></span>
thought, and braces the faculties for new endeavour.
Here, too, may be witnessed many a matchless
transformation scene. For presently the rain
ceases, the grey mist melts into the lucent blue
of the sky, and wet hill and woodland sparkle
and glow in a flood of hot sunshine. Immediately
the shallow trout burn that comes down to the
stepping-stones under the edge of the wood
laughs gaily and dances over its pebbles; the
mountain in front becomes a great sapphire
burning gloriously under the blue; the larks
rise, true sun-worshippers, pouring forth rills of
song, libations to their God, at heaven’s own
gate; and from the twittering coppice flutter the
vain chaffinches, with purple velvet heads, gold
breasts, and silver-barred wings, to show themselves.
Never do the vaunted birds of the tropics
sing so joyously as the sweet hedge-warblers of
Britain; and, ages before the alchemists came,
thrush and robin and yellowhammer had found
out Nature’s own philosopher’s-stone, and sang
the praises of that sunshine which, like love
and like human genius, turns all it touches into
gold.</p>
<p>Steep as a wall in front rises the mountain
barrier of the Highlands, its wooded and inaccessible<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188">188</a></span>
shoulder projecting far into the loch. Only
one passage is to be found through that rocky
wall, and the road to it winds perilously round
a little bay, between darkening precipice and
lapping wave, before ascending the narrow and
unseen defile. Daring would the assailant be
who tried that steep and narrow path with a
Highland foe above him! Scarcely more than
a bridle-path, and steep as a staircase, it winds
upward between rugged mountain walls. A
single clansman, posted with gun and claymore
behind one of its jutting crags, might hold
the road against a regiment. High and dark
overhead against the sky rise sombre pines and
immemorial holly-trees, which from their torn and
shattered girth might <span class="locked">be—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Seedlings of those that heavenward sprung<br /></span>
<span class="i0">While yet the maiden moon was young<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">—ancient enough, at anyrate, to have looked down
on many a Highland foray. No one need marvel
that the Macgregors thought themselves safe when
they had driven their spoil through the Pass of
Balmaha.</p>
<p>And glorious as well as welcome was the sight
that met these clansmen when once actually<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189">189</a></span>
through the defile. For away to the north, Ben
beyond Ben, far as eye could range, rose the
fastnesses of their native mountains—silver waters
flashing below round islands of fern, and the blue
sky laughing above. Every glen had its memory,
and every corrie was their inheritance, and even
the traveller of the present day can know no
more gorgeous spectacle than Ben Lomond after
sunset burning in amethystine fire. For more
reasons than one, therefore, might these rough
old warriors rejoice when they had scaled the
pass and beheld before them this wild but lovely
vista of the country they called their home.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190">190</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_27">A HIGHLAND MORNING.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Breakfast</span> is over—a Highland breakfast.
Full justice has been done to the pleasant
porridge and warm creamy milk, the fresh
herrings that were alive in Loch Fyne a few
hours ago, salmon from the splash-nets at
Eriska, fragrant coffee, excellent home-made
scones, and rich butter, tasting of the clover-field.
The day is superb, and no one will spend more
of it indoors than he can help; besides, the
boat will be almost afloat now, and it will take
a little time to bale her out. Bring the lines,
then, with their gaudy red and yellow flies—it
may be that a mackerel or two are to be caught
in the loch; a novel of William Black’s, “The
Princess of Thule” or “MacLeod of Dare,” and
a pocketful of good cigars. It is hardly nine
o’clock, yet the sun is dazzling and hot in
the doorway. There is just enough air moving
to bring up the fresh smell of the seaweed
stirred by the rising tide. The white sandy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191">191</a></span>
road is almost dry again after the rain which
has fallen in the night, and as the kine, after
their morning milking, are turned into the clover-field
alongside, the foremost will hardly move
from the gate to allow the others to enter, but
bury their muzzles at once in the fresh, wet
grass. The sea lies flashing and sparkling
in the morning sunshine, and, on the dark
Kingairloch mountains opposite, here and there
the silver streak of a torrent still shows the
effects of the morning shower. A sunny quiet
fills the air. The faint screaming and splashing
of gulls and sea-swallows far out over some
shoal of fishes, and the sound of the oars in
the rowlocks of the distant boat, can be distinctly
heard, while the leisurely movements of the
horse and cart going down the road a quarter
of a mile away are quite distinguishable. The
driver is whistling pleasantly; the tune is
“Mo nighean donn bhoidheach.” The last mists
are leaving the mountain sides, and everything
promises a hot day. Even the soft white clouds
far up in the sky are every moment growing
fainter, and already the thin shimmer of heat
is ascending from the dry-stone dyke beside
the road. The brambles on the other side of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192">192</a></span>
the dry, grassy ditch show profuse clusters of
bright red fruit, but there are no ripe berries
to be seen—the children pluck them long before
they are black. The scarlet hips, too, shine
bravely on the sprays of hedgebrier, the tips of
whose leaves are just beginning to turn brown.
A small blue butterfly flickers across the road,
and, rising at the dyke, is lost in a moment
against the blue of the sky; while a silent
humble-bee comes by, alights on the last empty
bell of a seeded foxglove, and immediately
tumbles out again disgusted, to continue his
researches farther on. Over the hedge there,
on the other side of the road, the oats seem
yellow enough to cut, and among them are still
in flower a few yellow Marguerites. The hill
beyond glows purple yet with the heather,
although its full bloom is past. Here and there
plants of it are flowering close to the dyke
by the roadside. It is the small sort, the kind
the bees frequent, for they can get into it—the
bell heather flowers earlier, and is over
now.</p>
<p>But here is our boat. She is already afloat,
the mainsail and jib are soon hoisted, there
is just enough wind to carry her against the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193">193</a></span>
tide, and Appin and Castle Stalker, the ruined
stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin, are slowly
hidden by the point behind. On the right is
the green island of Lismore, low lying and
fertile, with few houses visible upon it; only the
slate roof of Lady Elphinstone’s lodge flashes
in the sunlight like a crystal. And beyond and
above tower the dark mountains of Morven.
To the south, in the offing, lie the islands of
Easdale and Luing, famous for their slates.</p>
<p>Down we drift, past the Black Isle, to the
narrows of Eriska. The tide is still running
in towards Loch Creran, and the passage, which
otherwise would have been difficult among the
eddies and currents, is easily and quickly made.
An immense volume of water must pour to
and fro through that narrow channel to fill the
loch at every tide. At these times the current
rushes like a mill-race. We are inside presently,
and as the air is very warm, and a pleasant
little bay with a sandy beach lies close at hand
on Eriska, there could be no better opportunity
for a bathe.</p>
<p>No sooner said than done. The boat is
anchored a little way from the beach, where
through the clear green water the sandy bottom<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194">194</a></span>
can be seen some few fathoms below, and one
after another enjoys a header from the bow, or
slips gently over the stern. Pleasant as Arcady
and utterly secluded is the spot; not even the
crack of a gamekeeper’s fowling-piece is to be
heard on shore.</p>
<p>But what is this—that jig-jig-jigging of
engines? A small steam yacht is coming into
the loch, and—gracious goodness! there are
ladies on board. To cover, all three, behind
the boat, hang on by the gunwale, and
trust in Providence to keep the yacht at a
respectable distance. One has no ambition at
such moments to court the suffrages even of the
most delectable society. But the danger moves
past, and though the fair ones on deck do
smile at the phenomenal movements of our boat,
and the ominous absence of occupants, who is
a whit the worse? They will laugh with us,
rather than at us, should we meet.</p>
<p>The breeze has freshened a little now, and
will be enough to carry us up the loch amongst
the currents and against the outflowing tide.
Yonder goes the ferry-boat, crossing from Shian.
It has a waggonette and horses on board, and
the sweeps carry it over but slowly. The long<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195">195</a></span>
low island there, with its few stunted bushes,
is seldom visited, and remains a favourite haunt
of the graceful sea-swallows. Two months ago
every grassy ledge upon its sides would have
its couple of sea-swallow’s eggs. See yonder,
just beyond the rocky point, swimming quietly
about, with watchful, intelligent eyes, there is
the black head of a seal.</p>
<p>As the boat gets round the end of Craigailleach,
the ruin of the ancient castle of Barcaldine, on
the low neck of land across which the road
winds from Connal, comes into sight. In the
days of which Sir Walter Scott speaks in his
“Lord of the Isles,” when against the Bruce
in Artornish Castle “Barcaldine’s arm was high
in air,” there was scantier cultivation around
the site of that black stronghold. The shrub
ivy was not waving then from its beacon turret,
and the retainers whose thatched cottages are
still scattered among the fields around were rather
caterans and pirates than peaceful crofters. Now,
however, as Mr William Freeland puts <span class="locked">it—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The freebooters, reiving and killing,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">No longer swoop down from their glens,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">But delve by the bothie and shieling,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Or shepherd their flocks on the bens.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196">196</a></span>
The mountains in front seem to rise higher as
we approach, and to cast a deeper silence on
the narrowing water and motionless woods at
their base. Barcaldine House, as secluded and
delightful a spot as any in the Highlands, with
its old-fashioned gardens and vineries, lies hidden
among these woods.</p>
<p>Far up on the purple hillside at the head
of the loch the eye can make out a lonely
burying-place. A stone dyke guards the little
enclosure of quiet graves. The spot is visible
for many a mile around, and its presence ever
in sight must have a tender and solemn effect
in keeping alive the memory of the dead.
Every day, as the crofter toils in his little field,
or the shepherd takes the hill with his dogs,
his eyes will turn to it, and he will think of
wife or child who lie in that still, peaceful place,
asleep under the calm sunshine and among
the heather. Only sometimes will it be hidden—when
the soft, white, trailing mists come down
and weep their gentle tears upon the spot.</p>
<p>Directly in front, away beyond and above the
other mountains, towers Ben Cruachan, a monarch
among the peers. And below, on the shore of
the loch, appears the long, low-roofed cottage,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197">197</a></span>
half covered a month ago with crimson tropeolum,
and half smothered among its roses, where lives
the author of the humorous and valuable “Notes
from Benderloch.” Here is our destination.
Let down the mainsail, let go the jib, and we
will run ashore. It is not yet noon, and there
are many hours before us to spend in the
beautiful Barcaldine woods.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198">198</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_28">TILL DEATH US PART.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">“Is</span> she better, Doctor?”</p>
<p>“No; worse. Can’t last through the night,
I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>The forester’s wife pauses a moment, looking
after the physician’s carriage as it whirls out
of sight in the gathering darkness along the
road; then, exclaiming sadly, “Poor, dear young
lady!” she closes again the heavy iron gates,
and retires to her own happy hearthside within
the lodge.</p>
<p>Night has all but fallen, and though it is still
only dusk upon the open road outside, within the
avenue the gloaming is already deepening into
mirk, and under the shadows of the limes it will
soon be quite dark. A quiet spring night. When
the wheels of the doctor’s carriage have retreated
in the distance, no sound is to be heard amid
the shadows but the twitter of a blackbird settling
itself again to roost in its perfumed dreaming-place
among the spruce branches, and the silvery<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199">199</a></span>
tinkle of a streamlet making its way at hand
through the ferny under-tangle of the wood. The
air is rich with the fresh sweetness of budding
life—the breath of unseen primroses opening
their creamy petals upon dewy moss-banks in
the darkness. Born amid the stillness, new,
vague hopes stir within the heart; everywhere
seems the delicious promise of the time of blossom
and leaf that is to be; and the motionless night
itself seems conscious of the coming of desire.
It is a night to inspire a poet or a lover; every
faint wood-scent, the cool touch of the night air
itself upon the cheek, bringing with it some
subtle suggestion, the more delightful that it
is undefined, setting the pulse of youth a-beating
with thoughts of a glad to-morrow.</p>
<p>Alas for those to whom no morrow will
come!</p>
<p>At the upper end of the long avenue a faint
light is shining yet in two windows of the many-gabled
mansion-house. One of the windows is
open, and within, at a small table, leaning his
head upon his hand, can be seen the figure of
a man. It is the master of the house. He has
just received the last sentence of the physician,
“I can be of no further service. The end will<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200">200</a></span>
probably come before to-morrow”; and the words
are still in his ears, beating like a leaden pendulum
against his heart. Straight before him into the
dark night he is gazing; but the eyes that look
are tearless; only the drawn line about his mouth
and the pitiful twitching of his lip bespeak the
emotion that is working within. Yet he is not
altogether left to himself. The air from the
open window stirs his hair and fans his pale
cheek—Nature, like a sweet and gentle friend,
would offer him the soothing of her sympathy.
Probably he is unconscious of it—drowning in
the hopeless flood-tide of his grief; but, with the
gentle air stealing in from the darkness outside,
the influence of the great Reconciler, mother-heart
of all mankind, is already touching him.
While his ear takes in the soft movements of
the nurse in the next room, tending all that is
dearest to him on earth, his heart, stirred unconsciously
by the subtle suggestions of the incoming
night-scents, is travelling, torn with regret, through
the tender avenues of the past. And strangely
fresh in every detail reappear those scenes imprinted
upon the pages of memory by the
sunshine of love.</p>
<p>He is in a cottager’s garden, listening, amid the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201">201</a></span>
hum of the hives and the glory of old-fashioned
wallflower borders, to the gossip of the simple
old soul who is showing him her little domain.
There is the quick trotting of a pony. A low
phaeton drives past on the road beneath. And
he has seen and shared the smiling glance of a
gentle, lovely face—a sunny glimpse to be
remembered. Again, he has been picnicking
with friends, a family party, on the shore of a
Highland loch, and has noticed with mingled
admiration and resentment that while all others
have been seeking their own enjoyment, one pair
of frank and willing little hands has wrought
the whole comfort of the group. They are in
the shallops, rowing home, and as, pulling at
his oar, he listens to the innocent freshness of
a shy young voice singing some Highland boat-song,
he becomes conscious for the first time of
a vista before him of wondrous new and fair
possibilities—of a path in life which is not to
be trodden alone. Once more. It is a secluded
spot. He has wandered in happy company,
from his party. Clear as yesterday comes back
the memory of the scene. In front some tented
waggons, rust-brown with wandering years, trail
down the woodland by-road. The gipsy woman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202">202</a></span>
has taken his silver coin, and, with a keen,
shrewd glance, has wished the “lady and gentleman
a happy bridal!” He has seized the
moment, has whispered the secret which was no
secret, and has read in shining eyes the answer
of his hopes.</p>
<p>All that was a year ago, little more—woodland
and lake and garden, with a hundred other
scenes and episodes as tender, which, crowding
back, fill his heart to bursting; and <span class="locked">now——</span></p>
<p>He rises, closing the window, and passes into
the adjoining room.</p>
<p>Treading softly on the thick carpet, a glance
assures him that nothing has altered in the sick-chamber
since he left it with the physician. Only
amid the momentous stillness, in the subdued light
by the fire, the trim, white-aproned nurse is trying
to read. A whisper to her—she will be called if
required; and, closing the door noiselessly behind
her, she leaves him to watch alone.</p>
<p>Alone, for the last time, with all that is dear
to him, the flower that is fading out of his life
so soon! He turns to the bed. There, pale
with preternatural loveliness, her dark hair spread
like a cloud upon the pillow, lies the sunny
sweetheart, the shy bride of a year ago. A<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203">203</a></span>
faint moan, the glistening of a tear between the
closed eyelids, betrays the grief that is haunting
that strange shadowland between this world and
the next—grief for that which was not to be!
He can look no more! Sinking into a chair by
the fire, he buries his face in his hands. It is
the hour of his despair.</p>
<p>Midnight has long passed; the fire is sinking
unheeded in the grate; and he has not moved.</p>
<p>“Arthur!”</p>
<p>In a moment he is by the bed, that thin, hot
hand in his, gazing heartbroken into the face of
his wife. In those grey eyes of hers there is no
second thought. Love, for the time is short, has
dropped his last disguise, and looks forth from
them with unutterable tenderness and regret.
“Arthur!” She lingers fondly upon his name,
and her fingers push the hair tenderly from his
brow—“Arthur!”</p>
<p>But there is a sudden change. A look of terror
springs to her eyes, and she clings wildly to his
arm. Is this the end? She would have fallen
back upon the pillow had not his arm been
round her. With a despairing effort, her eyes
filling with tears, she articulates, “We have—been—very—happy—my
dear!” Their lips meet<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204">204</a></span>
for the last time—a long, long farewell. Then
a second shadow passes over her face. He lays
her gently back upon the pillow. The wistful,
eager look dies away out of her eyes. It is all
over. He is alone, kneeling by the bed, his
face pressed deep into his hands. A gust of
wind, rising outside, shakes the sash of the
window; the crow of chanticleer is heard far
off at the stables: it is three o’clock, the coldest
hour of the night.</p>
<p>And in the lodge at the foot of the avenue,
at that hour, the young forester’s wife, stirring
softly in her sleep, presses the month-old babe
beside her closer to her heart.</p>
<div id="ip_204" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;"><img src="images/i_239.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="" /></div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205">205</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_29">A FOREST WEDDING.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Though</span> it is not yet seven o’clock, the
winter night, in this northern parish, has
quite closed in, and it is already very dark.
When the sun set, far in the south, some hours
ago, its disc gleamed coppery red through brown
mist veils as of rising smoke, and the shepherd’s
wife on the moor, as she brought in her peats
for the night, said she thought there would be
more snow before morning. It has not yet
begun to fall, however, when the minister,
wrapped up to the ears in his heavy coat, and
his feet encased in strong, thick-soled boots,
pulling on a pair of rough worsted gloves, and
calling his spaniel from her place on the study
hearth, sets out from his comfortable manse.</p>
<p>Presently, as he turns from the beaten highway
into the snow-clad woods of the manor,
hearing the bell of the distant town steeple
behind him striking the hour, he gives an
encouraging word to his dog, and quickens his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206">206</a></span>
steps a little. As he passes the humble window
of the gate-lodge, he pauses a moment—there
was a sound; yes, it is audible again—a mother
crooning softly over her child; and his eye
glistens as his ear catches the lullaby, old
bachelor as he is. From the chimney on the
low roof, too, there steals down among the trees
the savoury fragrance of the evening meal. The
father, one of the under-gamekeepers on the
estate, evidently has not come home yet, and
his young wife is waiting for him.</p>
<p>The sky hangs soft and very dark overhead, the
tree-tops are all but lost in it, and one can almost
fancy he hears the drifting of the coming snow.
But all is silent, not a branch in the forest stirs,
and between the black tree-trunks the white sheet
can be seen stretching stainless and undisturbed
on either hand into the mysterious depths of the
woods. The trees themselves, unshaken all these
weeks by wind or squirrel or woodbird, raise into
the night their branches robed to the remotest
twig in the matchless lacework of the frost.</p>
<p>But see! Along the hollow, to the left, can
be caught a glimpse of the manor-house, its
windows, most of them, aglow with light. A
grey, stately old place it is, in the midst of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207">207</a></span>
its woods, eloquent with the memories of long-past
centuries. Royalty has been entertained
there in bygone days, and in the woodland aisles
around has echoed merrily the laughter of many
a gay party from the Court, distant only a
morning’s ride. But storm after storm has swept
the land since then; that gay Court’s palace lies
a ruin now; and while the race of the humble
peasant still thrives in the manor woods, the
race of the manor lord and the race of the
kings themselves of those days have passed
from the earth for ever.</p>
<p>There is no spot in so old a land but has its
memories, sad and gay. Somewhere in these
woods, in days still farther gone, a national hero
was betrayed, and on the moorland ridge, a mile
away, a king’s army suffered defeat. But the
minister passes on. His errand to-night is neither
to palace nor castle, yet it may be that the
simple hearts he is presently to unite will beat as
happily under a lowly roof of thatch as do those
of the gentle owners in their mansion yonder.</p>
<p>By degrees, as he presses on, the path becomes
rougher, the trees deepen the darkness overhead,
and hardly a former footstep has left its trace in
the undrifted snow. The solitude might almost<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208">208</a></span>
be primeval, so absolute is the silence in these
untrodden recesses. The solitary snapping, once,
of a rime-laden branch has only testified amid
the stillness to the intensity of the frost. At
last, however, the path widens somewhat, there
is a little clearing and a forsaken lodge, and
beyond, here and there in the open, gleam the
scattered lights of the village. A sequestered
spot it is, bowered in summer by the whispering
woods, and in winter buried in the forest solitudes
by the swathing snow.</p>
<p>But there is merriment enough to-night in
the little community; and the frequent ring of
laughter from the nearest cottage, as well as
the warm glow of firelight streaming from its
threshold and windows, deep-set under the thatch,
tell where the festivities are going forward. It
is the cottage of the bride’s father: all the
village has assembled here to assist in the
ceremony, and they are waiting now for the
minister. The laughter subsides as he lifts the
latch and enters, stamping in the doorway to
shake the snow from his feet; and all eyes
are turned upon him, as the goodman of the
house, a grizzled forester of sixty winters, hastens
forward with a welcome to help him out of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209">209</a></span>
coat. It is a comfortable scene, the interior
of the low-raftered kitchen, lit up rather by the
warm glow of the open fire than by the candles
set on table and window-shelf. By the hearth
are gathered the older folk—the many-wrinkled
granny, in comely white mutch and kerchief;
the few matrons, with smoothly-braided hair,
and little ornament, except a well-worn ring
or two; and the men in decent homespun;
while farther back are grouped the more youthful
members of the party—broad-shouldered young
fellows and merry-eyed lasses, excited a little
by the somewhat infectious inspiration of the
occasion. Everything in the humble apartment
is as clean as housewifely care can make it;
not a speck is to be seen on the brown stones
of the floor, and above the black shining chimney-piece
the brass candlesticks glitter like gold.
On the snowy dresser, below the well-filled
plate-rack, is piled in profusion the substantial
fare which will do duty later on. Meanwhile,
on the white deal table in the middle of the
room is set only the well-worn family Bible.</p>
<p>The minister, with a kindly word, has shaken
the hand of the somewhat embarrassed bridegroom,
and stands now, inquiring pleasantly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210">210</a></span>
after granny’s eyesight, by the fire. There is
a pause of expectancy, a hurried messenger
or two pass between the rooms, and then the
bride, a handsome young woman of twenty-two
or so, is brought in by her mother from “ben
the hoose,” as the only other apartment is called.
With a look of happy pride at the object of his
affection, the bridegroom takes his place by her
side at the farther end of the table, and the
minister, glancing round to see that all is ready,
opens the Bible.</p>
<p>After a brief but earnest prayer, and the
reading of a short passage of Scripture, the
good old man addresses them in a few solemn
yet kindly words. They are taking the most
serious step in life; let them look to Heaven
for a blessing upon it. The future may bring
them prosperity; let them see that it does not
cool their affection. It may also have trials
in store for them; let these be lightened
by being shared between them. Above all, let
them remember to be open-hearted to one
another. Then he asks if they are willing
to be wedded “for better or for worse,” bids
them join hands, engages in another most
momentous prayer, and finally declaring them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211">211</a></span>
man and wife, with the solemn injunction,
“Whom God has joined together, let no man
put asunder,” ends the short ceremony.</p>
<p>Immediately there is a great stir, shaking of
hands with the bridegroom, and kissing of the
bride; the gallant “best man,” somehow, unwarrantably
extending the salutation to the
blushing bridesmaid. The mother sheds a few
quiet tears, and granny, by the fire, wakens up
to speak of her own wedding day.</p>
<p>But the proper papers have been signed, and
the minister, followed to the door by the overflowing
thanks of the little family, and refusing
all offers of escort, leaves the homely company
to its enjoyment—for the dance will be kept up
till a late hour in the morning. The night air
is bracing, after the warmth inside, and, as the
sky has cleared a little by this time, the pathway
back through the woods will be better seen
by the silvery sparkle of the frosty stars.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212">212</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_30">LOCH LOMOND ICE-BOUND.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">There</span> could hardly be a greater contrast
than that between the fog-laden atmosphere
of Queen Street Station, Glasgow, on a winter
morning, and the frosty, bracing air of the country
outside. Ever since the train emerged from the
murky gloom of the long city tunnel into the
open freedom of the frost-covered fields, the sense
of exhilaration has been increasing. Sounds of
laughter from the compartments before and behind
bespeak the high spirits of the occupants; while
at every roadside station along the Clyde valley
fresh parties of pleasure-seekers, their cheeks red
and eyes bright with the cold, have added to the
freight, and swelled the merriment. The ice on
Loch Lomond is “bearing,” and the clash of
skates is in the air.</p>
<p>Slowly at last the train, crammed by this time
with skaters of both sexes and all ages, pants
into the station at Balloch Pier. Before it has
stopped, the doors of the carriages swing open,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213">213</a></span>
and an eager crowd swarms out upon the platform.
The throng chokes the stairway down the face of
the pier, so many impatiently hasten back to the
shore; there is a scramble over a wire fence, a
stampede across a well-trodden stubble-field to the
loch, and then the stream of enthusiasts disperses
in all directions to don the necessary foot-gear.</p>
<p>Different indeed is the scene now from what it
was in summer! Then the clear water glistened
and twinkled in the sunshine, the white sail of a
boat slowly moved across the dark green of a
distant island, and the mountains beyond rose,
purple and grey, into a fleckless sky; while one
of the little loch steamers at the pier blew clouds
of steam noisily from its funnel, as it took on
board its gay crowd of tourists. Now no lapse
of water is to be heard upon the pebbles, not a
whisper moves among the frosted fretwork of the
trees. The landscape everywhere is draped and
lifeless, the loch itself lies a level sheet of snow,
and far up yonder, above the dark narrows where
the waters are still unfrozen, Ben Lomond raises
his shoulder, ermine-clad, into a darkling heaven.
The twin steamers, too, lie prisoned in the ice,
crusted white, and motionless as Lot’s wife.</p>
<p>If Nature herself, however, is crystallised into<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214">214</a></span>
silence and stillness, there is both movement and
sound of another sort about. Here at a run
over the field to the ice comes a schoolboy, as
eager as if the whole day were not before him, his
wooden skates clashing together as he stumbles
on the molehills. Farther off a young man and
a maiden are transacting in orthodox fashion the
idyll of the ice, she seated on what has ordinarily
been a mooring post, and holding out a dainty
boot, while he, kneeling devotedly in the snow,
buckles on her skate. All along the shore, on
every hillock that affords a seat, are groups of
eager enthusiasts, busy with straps and buckles;
and the shrill whirring sound of the ice tells
that many of the new-comers are already moving
over it.</p>
<p>But the last refractory screw-nut is adjusted—Mercury
has buckled on his wings; and yonder,
two miles away, lies Inch Murren. Each winter,
when the loch is frozen, the first person who
crosses on foot to the island receives a pair of
deer antlers as a trophy; and often, before the
ice is very strong, the efforts of some bold skater
to win the honours are exciting enough. Since
the trophy was won this year,<a id="FNanchor_C" href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">C</a> however, thousands
<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215">215</a></span>of pleasure-seekers have crossed the loch; venders
of hot coffee and biscuits have established themselves
on the shore of the island, under the ruined
keep; and a rink of curlers has taken possession
of the little bay. Where the deer came down to
drink in summer, there mingles now the crackling
roar of heavy stones hurled along the ice, with
shrieks of vulgar laughter as some conspicuous
skater comes to grief. The cries of the curlers
themselves are loud and puzzling enough. At
the near end of the rink the leader, a stout,
grizzled countryman, shouts with many explanatory
gestures to the player at the far end to
“Tak’ a wick aff the fore stane, and lie in front
to gaird.” The person addressed, evidently a
clergyman (for on the ice social distinctions are
forgotten), sends his cheese-shaped block of
granite “birling” towards his instructor, and, as
it comes along, the cries of the players stationed
on either side of the rink with brushes to “soup
her up,” and their vigorous efforts to smooth the
path before it, are exciting as well as amusing,
until the stone comes crashing in at last among
the others round the mark.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a id="Footnote_C" href="#FNanchor_C" class="fnanchor">C</a> 1882, I think.</p></div>
<p>The “roaring game” is perhaps more interesting
to the player than to the onlooker, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216">216</a></span>
the enthusiasm it excites, and the exertion it
requires, are exactly suited to the season, and
prepare its votaries to enjoy most heartily the
traditional “curler’s dinner” of corned beef and
greens.</p>
<p>One soon grows tired of the noise and stir
around this oasis of the ice. Indeed, the laughter
and the movement seem almost sacrilege in a
place where so lately the autumn leaves dropped
silently into the clear brown water below, where
the plash of a trout made stillness felt, and the
solitude was unbroken by the step of man. Away,
then, from the coffee-stands and the curling-rink,
from the shouting of the shinty-players, and the
fragrance of intolerable cigarettes! The loch is
frozen all the way to Luss; last night’s wind
has swept every particle of snow from the surface;
and to the little loch village, out of sight
in the bay ahead, stretch seven miles of ice,
smooth as black glass.</p>
<div id="ip_216" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 37.5em;"><img src="images/i_253.jpg" width="600" height="535" alt="" /></div>
<p>Easily as thought the skates curl over the
keen ice. The air is clear, cold, and bracing,
with just a faint odour of the shore woods
upon it; and curve after curve on the “outside
edge” adds, every moment, to the exhilarating
sense of power and the conscious poetry of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217">217</a></span>
motion. It is a new and strange sensation,
this flight for miles over ice whose surface has
till now known no invasion. One feels as an
astronomer must, when exploring new depths of
<span class="locked">Heaven—</span></p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Or like stout Cortez, when, with eagle eyes,<br /></span>
<span class="i2">He stared at the Pacific—and all his men<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Looked at each other with a wild surmise—<br /></span>
<span class="i2">Silent, upon a peak in Darien.<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">Lonely and far stretches the level realm of ice
away northward to the dark narrows of the loch,
where, under the steep dark sides of the mountains,
the water is too deep to freeze. To terrible
tragedy have the black depths under foot been
witness. Here it was that Sir James Colquhoun,
returning from a hunting party on one of the
islands, in his boat, deep-laden with deer, was
caught by a sudden squall on the loch and
drowned, and it was long before the hidden
depths gave up their prey. For the waters that
lie motionless now in their icy prison are given
to rise and rage at a moment’s warning; and
many are the fair pleasure freights they have
swallowed. Across these waters, too, in the days
when might was right, and the Highlands lived
by helping themselves, have not the boats of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218">218</a></span>
the Red Macgregor swept down by night from
the narrows to pillage and burn? For the Rob
Roy country lies opposite among the mountains.</p>
<p>But away! away! this is the joyous motion
of a bird, and the miles fly under foot without
effort. It is seven miles from Balloch; and the
fatigue of the distance has been trifling. A point
of land, covered with trees, runs out into the
loch, and a mile beyond lies Luss. Another
turn, and a little bay is discovered, most like,
in all the world, a miniature scene from fairy-land.
The glassy ice sleeps on the crusted shore;
birch and beech and hazel hang motionless around,
a delicate tracery of snow; not a squirrel moves;
the silence is perfect. The spot is under the spell
of the Frost King. Not altogether, though, for
a robin flutters down with a twitter from a shaken
spray, and, proud of his scarlet breast, hops bravely
out upon the ice.</p>
<p>At hand, however, appears the chimney of the
inn, and—inspiring sight!—there is smoke rising
from it. The air of the loch is appetising, and,
as it is now almost five o’clock, something more
solid than a sandwich seems desirable. Unbuckle
the skates, therefore, and, following the windings
of that narrow loch-side road among the trees, let<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219">219</a></span>
us awaken the hospitality of mine host. It will
be dark before we start for home; but the sky
is clear, there will be a full moon, and, under
the scintillations of the frosty stars, it will be a
merry party that skims back over the ice by
night to Balloch.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220">220</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_31">HALLOWMAS EVE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">“The</span> good old customs of the country are
passing away.”</p>
<p>No speech, perhaps, is oftener heard than this
when, over the walnuts and the wine, about
Christmas time or Hallowe’en, the talk has
turned upon the subject of old-fashioned festivities.
And the sentiment seldom fails to evoke a sigh
of regret, and to awake recollections of frolic
mirth enjoyed in lighter-hearted days. But while
there is, without doubt, truth in the remark,
happily it is not altogether true. The portly
old gentleman who animadverts upon the subject
is generally too apt to take for granted that,
because for some decades he has ceased to share
in these festal sports, the sports themselves have
ceased to be observed. If, however, the speaker
were to return upon such a night as All Hallow’s
Eve to the village where perchance his youthful
years were passed, he might find that the
quaint and merry customs he laments do not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221">221</a></span>
altogether belong to the golden dust of long-forgotten
days. Though he himself has grown
older and graver, the great heart of the world
has remained ever young; and ever still, as the
traditional occasions come round, there breaks
forth amid its long-accustomed scenes the ancient
madcap carnival of mirth.</p>
<p>Not, indeed, quite as in bygone times is this
festival of Hallowe’en now observed. The witches
no longer, as in days of yore, are believed to
hold their revels then upon the green-sward,
and something of the ancient superstition which
otherwise lent awe to the eve of All Saints’
Day has been dispelled by modern education.
But enough remains of uncanny feeling to lend
interest to the more mysterious proceedings of
the night; and the spirit of simple enjoyment
may be trusted to keep alive for its own sake
most of the mirth-giving functions of the feast.
An institution which took its origin probably
from some strange rite of far-back pagan times,
which has managed to survive countless changes
of thought, and, like a rolling snowball, to
incorporate in itself traces of the Crusades, of
the mediæval church mysteries or miracle plays,
and of later witchcraft and elfin superstitions,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222">222</a></span>
must have a strong hold somewhere upon human
nature, and is not likely to disappear quite at
once even before the blast of the steam-engine
and the roll of the printing-press.</p>
<p>If one wishes to know how lads and lasses
spent their Hallowe’en in Ayrshire a hundred
years ago, he has but to read the famous description
of the occasion written by the glowing
peasant-pen of Burns; and cold indeed must
be his imagination if he does not catch from
that description something of the frolic spirit of
the night. In these lines he may hear the timid
lasses “skirl” as their sweethearts surprise them
pulling the fateful corn-stalks; he may watch
Jamie Fleck secretly sowing his handful of
hemp-seed, and waiting for the image of his
destined true-love to appear behind him in the
act of harrowing it; he may see Meg in the
empty barn, winnowing her “wechts o’ naething,”
and likewise waiting for her true-love’s presentment;
and he may laugh at the mishap befalling
the wanton widow as she dips her left sleeve
in the rivulet at the meeting of three lairds’
lands. But one must not think that these time-honoured
rites are all unpractised now.</p>
<p>Let him step into some great farm-kitchen<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223">223</a></span>
of the Lothians, with its red fire roaring up
the chimney, its plate-racks gleaming on the
walls, and dressers, tables, and chairs clean as
scrubbing can make them, and he will find in
practice bits of traditional folklore and traits of
human nature equally worthy of the poet’s pen.</p>
<p>The place for the moment is empty, the lamps
shining from their bright tin sconces on the
walls upon unoccupied wooden settles and chairs;
for lads and lasses together have betaken themselves
to pull each his particular prophetic stock
in the kailyard at hand. But presently, with
shouts of laughter, they come streaming in from
the darkness; and shrieks of merriment greet
the discovery of the fortune which has befallen
individual members of the company. For,
according as the stock lighted on in the dark
turns out to be straight or crooked, and its
taste sweet or bitter, so the appearance and
disposition of its possessor’s future mate will
be; and according as earth has clung to the
uptorn root or not will the pockets of the future
pair be well filled or the reverse. A merry party
these men and maidens make, bringing in with
them, as they enter, a breeze of the cool night
air, and a breath of the sweet, fresh-smelling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224">224</a></span>
earth. And from the flaming cheeks and
sparkling eyes of at least one of the laughing
girls, it is to be doubted that she has met outside
with somewhat warmer and more certain
assurance of the personality of her future
partner in life than is likely to be afforded by
her stock of curly kail.</p>
<p>Another method of divination, however, presently
engrosses all attention indoors. Three
bowls are set out on the hearth—one full of
clean water, one muddy, and the remaining
vessel empty. One after another each lad and
lass is blindfolded, the position of the bowls is
changed in thimble-rigging fashion, and he or she
is led forward and invited to place a hand in
one. According as the dish chosen proves dirty,
clean, or empty, will the inquirer of the Fates
marry a widow or a maid, or remain a bachelor;
and shrieks of merriment are occasioned by
the appropriate mishaps which befall the most
confident.</p>
<p>Then there is the burning of nuts to be done
in the great kitchen-fire—a method of discovering
whether the future wedded state is to be one of
peace or discord. And it is amusing to see the
quietest of the maids drop two nuts side by side<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225">225</a></span>
into a red corner of the coal, blushing at the
guesses made by her merry companions, but
shyly whispering to herself, “This is Patey and
this is me,” and watching with bashful eagerness
as the two take fire together. Puff! Alas for her
hopes, poor child! “Patey” has shot away from
her side; and the hot tears are woefully near her
eyes as she notices that he has settled down to
burn by the nut of her neighbour. May her
sorrows, sweet lass, never have darker cause than
this imaginary presage of losing a fickle lover!</p>
<p>And now, by way of supper, a mighty platter
of “champed” potatoes is placed upon the table—a
pile mountain high, in which are hidden
somewhere a ring, a sixpence, a thimble, and a
button. The lamps are put out, each person is
armed with a spoon, and in the uncertain light
of the glowing fire the mystic procession moves
round the table in single file. Each one as he
passes the platter takes a spoonful of potatoes,
and he or she who finds the ring is fated to be
first married. The sixpence is an augury of
wealth, and the finding of the thimble or the
button is, according to the sex of the finder, an
indication that he or she will marry a maiden
spouse or will die single.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226">226</a></span>
But, listen! There is a sudden loud knocking
at the door. It heralds the time-honoured visitation
of the Guizards, a ceremony annually renewed
by each succeeding generation of village boys.
In they stalk, got up in grotesque improvisations
of mumming costume, each armed with a
wooden sword, and carrying a ghostly lantern
hollowed out of a giant turnip. “Here comes
in Galoshin,” as that individual himself informs
the company—being doubtless the traditional
representative of some forgotten Templar Knight;
and presently he is engaged in a sanguinary hand-to-hand
encounter with another wooden-sworded
champion upon the floor. Many are the bold
words that are said and the doughty deeds that
are done; and through the whole performance
one may see, as Scott remarked in a note to
“Marmion,” traces of the ancient monkish plays
and the revels of the mediæval Lord of Misrule.
At the end the players are contented with a reward
of apples and nuts, and a share in their elders’
merriment.</p>
<p>Tubs full of water are placed on the floor, and
dozens of red-cheeked apples set swimming in
them; and immediately a wild scene of revel
ensues, as all and sundry, men and maids, on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227">227</a></span>
their knees, seek to snatch the floating apples
with their teeth. Many an unexpected ducking
is got, and shrieks of laughter greet each mishap
and each ineffectual effort to secure a prize.
Then there is a wild game of blind man’s buff,
led off by Galoshin himself, who turns out, now
that his burnt cork and whiskers have been
washed off, to be one of the younger men of
the house, and the soul of all the fun. And
from the sly fashion in which he avoids other
quarry, and keeps hemming one rosy little maid
into corners, compelling her to spring shrieking
over settles and chairs, it may be gathered that
the knowing fellow is no more blinded than he
wishes himself to be.</p>
<p>And so the night goes on, a night of whole-hearted
and innocent mirth—enough to prove
that the spirit of old-fashioned revelry is by no
means dead, and that, for at least one night
in the year, the young blood of Lowland and
Lothian still can make as much and as joyous
merriment as ever did its progenitors a hundred
years ago.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228">228</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2 id="hdr_32">HOGMANAY.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Conspicuous</span> among the folk-customs
which, north of the Tweed, have survived
from the remotest antiquity, remains that of
welcoming with wassail and good wishes the
birth of the New Year. To all appearance a
pagan custom, dating from the pre-Christian
past, it probably owes its permanence to instincts
acquired amid the superstitions of the Dark Ages.
Of late years, it is true, under the influence of
southern fashion, the festival of Christmas has
seemed to be superseding that of New Year’s
Eve. But, as with many other picturesque and
interesting customs of Scotland, the older observance
remains yet deeply rooted in the heart of
the people, and, having already survived so many
changes of habit and creed, may be expected to
outlive even this latest inroad.</p>
<p>There is much to be said, too, for the keeping
of Hogmanay. Christmas, indeed, is the commemoration
of a great religious event, and even<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229">229</a></span>
in the North it appears interesting and appropriate
enough as a Church festival; while to those with
whom its observance has been a national and
family custom it contains, of course, an ample
significance. But to people who have inherited
the instinct with their blood, the end of the year
remains a more fitting time for recalling the
deeds and the days that are past; and the
keeping of Hogmanay awakens, north of the
Border, a subtle train of early feelings and
associations—the pensive charm and sweetness
of “auld lang syne.” Scarcely a dwelling is
there, cottage or hall, in the breadth of all broad
Scotland, which has not, time out of mind, on this
night of the year witnessed some observance of
the ancient and pleasant festival. Alike under
gilded ceilings and roofs of thatch there is to
be heard then the toasting of old memories and
the pledging of health and fortune to the house
and its occupants throughout the dawning year.
About every village cross, too, as the last moments
of the year approach, the young men of the
neighbourhood have ever been wont to gather to
greet the incoming day with shouts of rejoicing
and with the curious traditional custom of “first-footing.”
Even in the cities, where contact with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230">230</a></span>
the world tends greatly to obliterate such folk-customs,
it is curious to see the ancient festival
year after year assert itself, its observance the
better assured, probably, because it brings back
to those who attend it the scenes and memories
of earlier, and, perhaps, happier days.</p>
<p>Ever with the same details the time-honoured
proceeding may be witnessed on the night of
any 31st day of December at the Cross of the
ancient city of St Mungo.</p>
<p>Some time before midnight the roar of the
day’s traffic has died out of the streets. The
great warehouses are closed, and their windows
gaze, like sightless eyes, into the deserted
thoroughfares. To one imbued with the spirit
of the hour, it is as if the city herself were
thinking of the past; and the sudden sweep of
wind that comes and dies away seems a sigh of
regret for her departed glories. Many memories
cluster about this ancient heart of Glasgow; and
at such an hour, and upon such a night, it would
seem little more than natural if the historic figures
of the past should move again abroad. Strangely
enough, too, the creatures of imagination present
a no less tangible presence to the mind’s eye
than the real persons of bygone days. Behind<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231">231</a></span>
the tall, limping figure of Sir Walter Scott, a
curious visitor here, the equally immortal Bailie
picks his steps; and as the bold Rob Roy strides
past into the shadow, there is heard the tramp
of Cromwell’s bodyguard and the clatter of the
Regent Moray’s cavalry. For it was out by
the Gallowgate here, and across the river by the
Briggate, that the troops of the Protestant lords
marched in 1568 to the battle of Langside; and
at the head of Saltmarket the Protector Cromwell
quartered himself in 1650, issued his orders, and
held levees. In the Gallowgate yet, though sore
transformed from its ancient glory, stands that
once-famous inn, the Saracen’s Head, at which
the learned Dr Johnson put up while passing
through Glasgow on his Hebridean tour. Close
by the Cross, where the street lamps shine on
the shuttered windows of a great east-end warehouse,
stood the town-house of the Earls of
Lennox; and past it, up the gentle hill, and
still wearing something of its old-world look,
bends the High Street with its memories. Out of
sight up there the façade of the venerable College,
<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">alma mater</i> of Campbell the poet, Smollett the
novelist, Archbishop Tait, and a host of great
divines, was wont for over four hundred years<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232">232</a></span>
to frown upon the pavement. The Vandal, however,
has at last prevailed against it. A few
paces farther and the gigantic form of Sir William
Wallace still seems to slaughter his enemies at
the Bell o’ the Brae. And beyond all, on the
slope of the hollow where the classic Molendinar
once flowed, surrounded in the darkness by its
city of the dead, stands the grey cathedral of
St Kentigern.</p>
<div id="ip_232" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26.625em;"><img src="images/i_271.jpg" width="426" height="600" alt="" /></div>
<p>The spot itself, however, has indeed changed
with time, and but few links are left it to recall
bygone days. The loud tramp of Dundee’s
dragoons long since died away in Rottenrow.
No longer do the rustling gowns of bishop and
dean sweep through the cathedral choir. Even
the house from which the ill-fated Lord Darnley,
sick to death, was carried to the lonely Kirk o’
Fields three hundred years ago, has disappeared.
Cavalier and Covenanter and Virginia merchant
have given place to the petty trader and the
artizan. The house at the foot of Glassford
Street, where Prince Charlie put up in the ’45,
has been pulled down; and of the walls which
witnessed the rejoicing bonfires of the Whig
burgesses after the news of Culloden, few are
left but those of the dim cathedral. Even the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233">233</a></span>
Saltmarket at hand has been so altered of late
years, that if worthy Bailie Nicol Jarvie were to
step out again on the causeway he would find
no trace at all of the narrow, ill-paved, unlighted
lane of his day, with its high, rickety houses,
and creaking shop-signs.</p>
<p>Rather must the city pride herself now upon
her glories of the present. Far off, upon the
great Clyde artery at Govan, where the nets of
the salmon-fishers once hung in the sun to dry,
the noise of a myriad hammers has just ceased
for the holiday, and the iron skeletons of a
hundred ships stand silent in the darkness—spectres
not of the past but of the future.
Overhead, between the high house-roofs, the
heaven is very dark, and above the lanterns of
the clock the Tron steeple is hidden from sight;
but one side of the neighbouring tower—that of
the ancient Tolbooth in High Street—reflects the
red glare, from a mile away, of the iron furnaces
at Hutchesontown—those undying vestal fires of
the nineteenth century; and the golden vane
upon the spire shines, strangely lit, alone in the
dark heaven. Significant indications, these, of
the strong modern life that throbs in the veins
of the ancient city.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234">234</a></span>
But the great gilt hand of the clock overhead
is approaching midnight, and along the streets,
from the four points of the compass, comes the
sound of innumerable hastening feet. It is the
crowd gathering to observe this immemorial
ceremony of “bringing in the year.”</p>
<p>Few of the revellers, probably, reflect upon
the antiquity of the custom they are observing;
if they did, it might, perhaps, lend the proceeding
a deeper interest in their eyes. To survive so
many vicissitudes of history, the rite must once
have possessed a solemn religious meaning. On
the bank of the river below, the rough Norse
rover has shouted “Wæs hael” to Thor; on
the crest of the hill above, the Roman warrior
has poured libations to Jove. Bishops of a
feudal church within the storied cathedral walls
have said the mass of Christ; and the spires
of many a Presbyterian kirk now rise round
the ancient Cross. But through all changes,
through the ebb and flow of Faith and Fear,
has come down the relic of an older worship,
and in the mistletoe and the New-Year mysteries
the Druid lives among us still. These people
are gathering now, as for ages their race has
gathered, to bid farewell to the old year and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235">235</a></span>
welcome to the new, and to pour their mystic
sacrifice to Time—not, indeed, as of old, upon
the unconscious earth nor within the stone circle
of a rude astronomy, but at least under the
open sky, and with something of the ancient
wish-rites of the runes.</p>
<p>Hundreds in number they come, and over all
the open space—at corners where in the daytime
knots of loafers are for ever to be seen, as
well as on the Trongate pavement, where, all
day long, recruiting sergeants, splendid in red
and gold, pace magnificently to and fro—in
little groups they wait the stroke of twelve.
Each man has brought with him a bottle, and
in each man’s pocket there is hidden a glass,
one that has seen service and lost its stem being
the popular variety.</p>
<p>Quickly enough the final seconds of the year
run out. The hand of the great clock reaches
and touches the hour. At last it strikes, a
single bell—one, two, three—a bold sound in
the silence; and immediately it is answered by
a bewildering clangour from all the city belfries.
Before the last stroke has died away, a wild
cheer bursts from the throat of the waiting
crowd below. There is a great commotion<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236">236</a></span>
among the little groups; and, as cheer after
cheer rings up into the sky, from the belfry
overhead the city chimes ring out upon the
night their welcome to the New Year.</p>
<p>Meanwhile everyone is drinking the health of
everyone else, Celt and Saxon, countryman and
citizen; and as no one can pass an acquaintance
without hospitality offered and taken, and as,
moreover, the dew of Ben Nevis is somewhat
potent, the shaking of hands and wishing of good
luck soon become fairly exuberant. Presently,
however, everyone sets off to first-foot his
friends.</p>
<p>The origin of this ceremony it is difficult to
suggest, unless it be to represent some priestly
visitation, a sacrament assuring to the people
throughout the coming year the blessings of food
and drink. A door-to-door proceeding, at anyrate,
it is—accompanied by much eating of cake
and drinking of whisky, and it will last well into
the morning hours. Lucky, for this performance,
are accounted those dark of skin. If the first-footer
be fair the tradition runs that it bodes
ill-fortune for the year to the house whose
threshold he or she has crossed; and often
enough a door is shut in the face of such a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237">237</a></span>
friend, simply because of his complexion. Moreover,
the visitor must not come empty-handed;
and so the bottle and broken wine-glass which
each carries serve as a double introduction.</p>
<p>And now all who sat up till the city bells
struck twelve, as well in the crowded tenements
here as in the far-off suburbs of the rich, have
wished each other a good New Year, and are
retiring to rest. Among them, doubtless, there
are many thoughts of sadness. Many a widow
was a wife last year; many a ruined home was
prosperous; many a soiled heart still was pure.
But the old year, with its sorrow, has passed
away in the night, and with the New Year’s
dawn a glimmer of hope comes in at the darkest
casement.</p>
<p class="p2 center smaller">
<i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">M’Farlane & Erskine</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i>.
</p>
<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote">
<h2 class="nobreak p1"><a id="Transcribers_Notes"></a>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.</p>
<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.</p>
<p>Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.</p>
<p>Text uses “humble-bees”, not “bumble-bees”.</p>
<p>Page <a href="#Page_170">170</a>: “he iss a fine lad” was printed with two s’s.</p>
</div></div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 54083 ***</div>
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