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diff --git a/76786-0.txt b/76786-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf0e569 --- /dev/null +++ b/76786-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6396 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76786 *** + + + + + + + + A SUMMER IN SKYE + + + BY ALEXANDER SMITH + + AUTHOR OF "A LIFE DRAMA," ETC. + + + VOLUME I. + + + + ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER + 148 STRAND, LONDON + 1865 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + + +EDINBURGH + +STIRLING AND THE NORTH + +OBAN + +SKYE AT LAST + +AT MR M'IAN'S + +A BASKET OF FRAGMENTS + +THE SECOND SIGHT + +IN A SKYE BOTHY + + + + +A SUMMER IN SKYE. + + +_EDINBURGH._ + +Summer has leaped suddenly on Edinburgh like a tiger. The air is +still and hot above the houses; but every now and then a breath of +east wind startles you through the warm sunshine--like a sudden +sarcasm felt through a strain of flattery--and passes on detested of +every organism. But, with this exception, the atmosphere is so +close, so laden with a body of heat, that a thunderstorm would be +almost welcomed as a relief. Edinburgh, on her crags, held high +towards the sun--too distant the sea to send cool breezes to street +and square--is at this moment an uncomfortable dwelling-place. +Beautiful as ever, of course--for nothing can be finer than the of +the Old Town etched on hot summer azure--but close, breathless, +suffocating. Great volumes of white smoke surge out of the railway +station; great choking puffs of dust issue from the houses and shops +that are being gutted in Princes Street. The Castle rock is gray; +the trees are of a dingy olive; languid "swells," arm-in-arm, +promenade uneasily the heated pavement; water-carts everywhere +dispense their treasures; and the only human being really to be +envied in the city is the small boy who, with trousers tucked up, and +unheeding of maternal vengeance, marches coolly in the fringe of the +ambulating shower-bath. Oh for one hour of heavy rain! Thereafter +would the heavens wear a clear and tender, instead of a dim and +sultry hue. Then would the Castle rock brighten in colour, and the +trees and grassy slopes doff their dingy olives for the emeralds of +April. Then would the streets be cooled, and the dust be allayed. +Then would the belts of city verdure, refreshed, pour forth gratitude +in balmy smells; and Fife--low-lying across the Forth--break from its +hot neutral tint into the greens, purples, and yellows that of right +belong to it. But rain won't come; and for weeks, perhaps, there +will be nothing but hot sun above, and hot street beneath; and for +the respiration of poor human lungs an atmosphere of heated dust, +tempered with east wind. + +[Sidenote: Joy of vacation.] + +Moreover, one is tired and jaded. The whole man, body and soul, like +sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh, is fagged with work, +eaten up of impatience, and haunted with visions of vacation. One +"babbles o' green fields," like a very Falstaff; and the poor tired +ears hum with sea-music like a couple of sea-shells. At last it +comes, the 1st of August, and then--like an arrow from a Tartar's +bow, like a bird from its cage, like a lover to his mistress--one is +off; and before the wild scarlets of sunset die on the northern sea, +one is in the silence of the hills, those eternal sun-dials that tell +the hours to the shepherd, and in one's nostrils is the smell of +peat-reek, and in one's throat the flavour of usquebaugh. Then come +long floating summer days, so silent the wilderness, that one can +hear one's heart beat; then come long silent nights, the waves heard +upon the shore, although _that_ is a mile away, in which one snatches +the "fearful joy" of a ghost story, told by shepherd or fisher, who +believes in it as in his own existence. Then one beholds sunset, not +through the smoked glass of towns, but gloriously through the +clearness of enkindled air. Then one makes acquaintance with +sunrise, which to the dweller in a city, who conforms to the usual +proprieties, is about the rarest of this world's sights. + +[Sidenote: Idleness in the North.] + +Mr De Quincey maintains, in one of his essays, that dinner--dinner +about seven in the evening, for which one dresses, which creeps on +with multitudinous courses and _entrées_, which, so far from being a +gross satisfaction of appetite, is a feast noble, graceful, adorned +with the presence and smile of beauty, and which, from the very +stateliness of its progress, gives opportunities for conversation and +the encounter of polished minds--saves over-wrought London from +insanity. This is no mere humorous exaggeration, but a very truth; +and what dinner is to the day the Highlands are to the year. Away in +the north, amid its green or stony silences, jaded hand and brain +find repose--repose, the depth and intensity of which the idler can +never know. In that blessed idleness you become in a strange way +acquainted with yourself; for in the world you are too constantly +occupied to spend much time in your own company. You live abroad all +day, as it were, and only come home to sleep. Away in the north you +have nothing else to do, and cannot quite help yourself; and +conscience, who has kept open a watchful eye, although her lips have +been sealed these many months, gets disagreeably communicative, and +tells her mind pretty freely about certain little shabby +selfishnesses and unmanly violences of temper, which you had quietly +consigned--like a document which you were for ever done with--to the +waste-basket of forgetfulness. And the quiet, the silence, the rest, +is not only good for the soul, it is good for the body too. You +flourish like a flower in the open air; the hurried pulse beats a +wholesome measure; evil dreams roll off your slumbers; indigestion +dies. During your two months' vacation, you amass a fund of +superfluous health, and can draw on it during the ten months that +succeed. And in going to the north, and wandering about the north, +it is best to take everything quietly and in moderation. It is +better to read one good book leisurely, lingering over the finer +passages, returning frequently on an exquisite sentence, closing the +volume, now and then, to run down in your own mind a new thought +started by its perusal, than to rush in a swift perfunctory manner +through half a library. It is better to sit down to dinner in a +moderate frame of mind, to please the palate as well as satisfy the +appetite, to educe the sweet juices of meats by sufficient +mastication, to make your glass of port "a linked sweetness long +drawn out," than to bolt everything like a leathern-faced Yankee for +whom the cars are waiting, and who fears that before he has had his +money's worth, he will be summoned by the railway bell. And shall +one, who wishes to extract from the world as much enjoyment as his +nature will allow him, treat the Highlands less respectfully than he +will his dinner? So at least will not I. My bourne is the island of +which Douglas dreamed on the morning of Otterburn; but even to it I +will not unnecessarily hurry, but will look on many places on my way. +You have to go to London; but unless your business is urgent, you are +a fool to go thither like a parcel in the night train and miss York +and Peterborough. It is very fine to arrive at majority, and the +management of your fortune which has been all the while accumulating +for years; but you do not wish to do so at a sudden leap--to miss the +April eyes and April heart of seventeen! + +[Sidenote: Preparations for Highland travel.] + +The Highlands can be enjoyed in the utmost simplicity; and the best +preparations are--money to a moderate extent in one's pocket, a +knapsack containing a spare shirt and a toothbrush, and a courage +that does not fear to breast the steep of the hill, and to encounter +the pelting of a Highland shower. No man knows a country till he has +walked through it; he then tastes the sweets and the bitters of it. +He beholds its grand and important points, and all the subtler and +concealed beauties that lie out of the beaten track. Then, O reader, +in the most glorious of the months, the very crown and summit of the +fruitful year, hanging in equal poise between summer and autumn, +leave London or Edinburgh, or whatever city your lot may happen to be +cast in, and accompany me on my wanderings. Our course will lead us +by ancient battle-fields, by castles standing in hearing of the +surge; by the bases of mighty mountains, along the wanderings of +hollow glens; and if the weather holds, we may see the keen ridges of +Blaavin and the Cuchullin hills; listen to a legend old as Ossian, +while sitting on the broken stair of the castle of Duntulm, beaten +for centuries by the salt flake and the wind; and in the pauses of +ghostly talk in the long autumn nights, when the rain is on the +hills, we may hear--more wonderful than any legend, carrying you away +to misty regions and half-forgotten times--the music which haunted +the Berserkers of old, the thunder of the northern sea! + + +[Sidenote: Books written about Edinburgh.] + +A perfect library of books has been written about Edinburgh. Defoe, +in his own matter-of-fact, garrulous way, has described the city. +Its towering streets, and the follies of its society, are reflected +in the inimitable pages of "Humphrey Clinker." Certain aspects of +city life, city amusements, city dissipations, are mirrored in the +clear, although somewhat shallow, stream of Fergusson's humour. The +old life of the place, the traffic in the streets, the old-fashioned +shops, the citizens with cocked hats and powdered hair, with +hospitable paunches and double chins, with no end of wrinkles, and +hints of latent humour in their worldly-wise faces, with gold-headed +sticks, and shapely limbs encased in close-fitting small-clothes, are +found in "Kay's Portraits." Passing Scott's other services to the +city--the magnificent description in "Marmion," the "high jinks" in +"Guy Mannering," the broils of the nobles and wild chieftains who +attended the Court of the Jameses in "The Abbot"--he has, in "The +Heart of Mid-Lothian," made immortal many of the city localities; and +the central character of Jeanie Deans is so unassumingly and sweetly +_Scotch_, that she seems as much a portion of the place as Holyrood, +the Castle, or the Crags. In Lockhart's "Peter's Letters to his +Kinsfolk," we have sketches of society nearer our own time, when the +_Edinburgh Review_ flourished, when the city was really the Modern +Athens, and a seat of criticism giving laws to the empire. In these +pages, we are introduced to Jeffrey, to John Wilson, the Ettrick +Shepherd, and Dr Chalmers. Then came _Blackwood's Magazine_, the +"Chaldee Manuscript," the "Noctes," and "Margaret Lindsay." Then the +"Traditions of Edinburgh," by Mr Robert Chambers; thereafter the +well-known _Edinburgh Journal_. Since then we have had Lord +Cockburn's chatty "Memorials of his Time." Almost the other day we +had Dean Ramsay's Lectures, filled with pleasant antiquarianism, and +information relative to the men and women who flourished half a +century ago. And the list may be closed with "Edinburgh Dissected," +written after the fashion of Lockhart's "Letters,"--a book containing +pleasant reading enough, although it wants the brilliancy, the +acuteness, the eloquence, and possesses all the ill-nature, of its +famous prototype. + +[Sidenote: Sir Walter Scott.] + +Scott has done more for Edinburgh than all her great men put +together. Burns has hardly left a trace of himself in the northern +capital. During his residence there his spirit was soured, and he +was taught to drink whisky-punch--obligations which he repaid by +addressing "Edina, Scotia's darling seat," in a copy of his tamest +verses. Scott discovered that the city was beautiful--he sang its +praises over the world--and he has put more coin into the pockets of +its inhabitants than if he had established a branch of manufacture of +which they had the monopoly. Scott's novels were to Edinburgh what +the tobacco trade was to Glasgow about the close of the last century. +Although several labourers were before him in the field of the Border +Ballads, he made fashionable those wonderful stories of humour and +pathos. As soon as "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" appeared, +everybody was raving about Melrose and moonlight. He wrote "The Lady +of the Lake," and next year a thousand tourists descended on the +Trosachs, watched the sun setting on Loch Katrine, and began to take +lessons on the bagpipe. He improved the Highlands as much as General +Wade did when he struck through them his military roads. Where his +muse was one year, a mail-coach and a hotel were the next. His poems +are grated down into guidebooks. Never was an author so popular as +Scott, and never was popularity worn so lightly and gracefully. In +his own heart he did not value it highly; and he cared more for his +plantations at Abbotsford than for his poems and novels. He would +rather have been praised by Tom Purdie than by any critic. He was a +great, simple, sincere, warm-hearted man. He never turned aside from +his fellows in gloomy scorn; his lip never curled with a fine +disdain. He never ground his teeth save when in the agonies of +toothache. He liked society, his friends, his dogs, his domestics, +his trees, his historical nick-nacks. At Abbotsford, he would write +a chapter of a novel before his guests were out of bed, spend the day +with them, and then, at dinner, with his store of shrewd Scottish +anecdote, brighten the table more than did the champagne. When in +Edinburgh, any one might see him in the streets or in the Parliament +House. He was loved by everybody. No one so popular among the +souters of Selkirk as the Shirra. George IV., on his visit to the +northern kingdom, declared that Scott was the man he most wished to +see. He was the deepest, simplest, man of his time. The mass of his +greatness takes away from our sense of its height. He sinks like Ben +Cruachan, shoulder after shoulder, slowly, till its base is twenty +miles in girth. Scotland is Scott-land. He is the light in which it +is seen. He has proclaimed over all the world Scottish story, +Scottish humour, Scottish feeling, Scottish virtue; and he has put +money into the pockets of Scottish hotel-keepers, Scottish tailors, +Scottish boatmen, and the drivers of the Highland mails. + +[Sidenote: Beauty of Edinburgh.] + +Every true Scotsman believes Edinburgh to be the most picturesque +city in the world; and truly, standing on the Calton Hill at early +morning, when the smoke of fires newly-kindled hangs in azure swathes +and veils about the Old Town--which from that point resembles a huge +lizard, the Castle its head, church-spires spikes upon its scaly +back, creeping up from its lair beneath the Crags to look out on the +morning world--one is quite inclined to pardon the enthusiasm of the +North Briton. The finest view from the interior is obtained from the +corner of St Andrew Street, looking west. Straight before you the +Mound crosses the valley, bearing the white Academy buildings; +beyond, the Castle lifts, from grassy slopes and billows of summer +foliage, its weather-stained towers and fortifications, the Half-Moon +battery giving the folds of its standard to the wind. Living in +Edinburgh there abides, above all things, a sense of its beauty. +Hill, crag, castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque ridge +of the Old Town, the squares and terraces of the New--these things +seen once are not to be forgotten. The quick life of to-day sounding +around the relics of antiquity, and overshadowed by the august +traditions of a kingdom, makes residence in Edinburgh more impressive +than residence in any other British city. I have just come +in--surely it never looked so fair before? What a poem is that +Princes Street! The puppets of the busy, many-coloured hour move +about on its pavement, while across the ravine Time has piled up the +Old Town, ridge on ridge, gray as a rocky coast washed and worn by +the foam of centuries; peaked and jagged by gable and roof; windowed +from basement to cope; the whole surmounted by St Giles's airy crown. +The New is there looking at the Old. Two Times are brought face to +face, and are yet separated by a thousand years. [Sidenote: +Edinburgh at night.] Wonderful on winter nights, when the gully is +filled with darkness, and out of it rises, against the sombre blue +and the frosty stars, that mass and bulwark of gloom, pierced and +quivering with innumerable lights. There is nothing in Europe to +match that, I think. Could you but roll a river down the valley it +would be sublime. Finer still, to place one's-self near the Burns +Monument and look toward the Castle. It is more astonishing than an +Eastern dream. A city rises up before you painted by fire on night. +High in air a bridge of lights leaps the chasm; a few emerald lamps, +like glow-worms, are moving silently about in the railway station +below; a solitary crimson one is at rest. That ridged and chimneyed +bulk of blackness, with splendour bursting out at every pore, is the +wonderful Old Town, where Scottish history mainly transacted itself; +while, opposite, the modern Princes Street is blazing throughout its +length. During the day the Castle looks down upon the city as if out +of another world; stern with all its peacefulness, its garniture of +trees, its slopes of grass. The rock is dingy enough in colour, but +after a shower, its lichens laugh out greenly in the returning sun, +while the rainbow is brightening on the lowering sky beyond. How +deep the shadow which the Castle throws at noon over the gardens at +its feet where the children play! How grand when giant bulk and +towery crown blacken against sunset! Fair, too, the New Town sloping +to the sea. From George Street, which crowns the ridge, the eye is +led down sweeping streets of stately architecture to the villas and +woods that fill the lower ground, and fringe the shore; to the bright +azure belt of the Forth with its smoking steamer or its creeping +sail; beyond, to the shores of Fife, soft blue, and flecked with +fleeting shadows in the keen clear light of spring, dark purple in +the summer heat, tarnished gold in the autumn haze; and farther away +still, just distinguishable on the paler sky, the crest of some +distant peak, carrying the imagination into the illimitable world. +Residence in Edinburgh is an education in itself. Its beauty refines +one like being in love. It is perennial, like a play of +Shakespeare's. Nothing can stale its infinite variety. + +[Sidenote: The Canongate.] + +From a historical and picturesque point of view, the Old Town is the +most interesting part of Edinburgh; and the great street running from +Holyrood to the Castle--in various portions of its length called the +Lawnmarket, the High Street, and the Canongate--is the most +interesting part of the Old Town. In that street the houses preserve +their ancient appearance; they climb up heavenward, story upon story, +with outside stairs and wooden panellings, all strangely peaked and +gabled. With the exception of the inhabitants, who exist amidst +squalor, and filth, and evil smells undeniably modern, everything in +this long street breathes of the antique world. If you penetrate the +narrow wynds that run at right angles from it, you see traces of +ancient gardens. Occasionally the original names are retained, and +they touch the visitor pathetically, like the scent of long-withered +flowers. Old armorial bearings may yet be traced above the doorways. +Two centuries ago fair eyes looked down from yonder window, now in +possession of a drunken Irishwoman. If we but knew it, every crazy +tenement has its tragic story; every crumbling wall could its tale +unfold. The Canongate is Scottish history fossilised. What ghosts +of kings and queens walk there! What strifes of steel-clad nobles! +What wretches borne along, in the sight of peopled windows, to the +grim embrace of the "maiden!" What hurrying of burgesses to man the +city walls at the approach of the Southron! What lamentations over +disastrous battle days! James rode up this street on his way to +Flodden. Montrose was dragged up hither on a hurdle, and smote, with +disdainful glance, his foes gathered together on the balcony. Jenny +Geddes flung her stool at the priest in the church yonder. John Knox +came up here to his house after his interview with Mary at +Holyrood--grim and stern, and unmelted by the tears of a queen. In +later days the Pretender rode down the Canongate, his eyes dazzled by +the glitter of his father's crown, while bagpipes skirled around, and +Jacobite ladies, with white knots in their bosoms, looked down from +lofty windows, admiring the beauty of the "Young Ascanius," and his +long yellow hair. Down here of an evening rode Dr Johnson and +Boswell, and turned in to the White Horse. David Hume had his +dwelling in this street, and trod its pavements, much meditating the +wars of the Roses and the Parliament, and the fates of English +sovereigns. One day a burly ploughman from Ayrshire, with swarthy +features and wonderful black eyes, came down here and turned into +yonder churchyard to stand, with cloudy lids and forehead reverently +bared, beside the grave of poor Fergusson. Down the street, too, +often limped a little boy, Walter Scott by name, destined in after +years to write its "Chronicles." The Canongate once seen is never to +be forgotten. The visitor starts a ghost at every step. Nobles, +grave senators, jovial lawyers, had once their abodes here. In the +old, low-roofed rooms, half-way to the stars, philosophers talked, +wits corruscated, and gallant young fellows, sowing wild oats in the +middle of last century, wore rapiers and lace ruffles, and drank +claret jovially out of silver stoups. In every room a minuet has +been walked, while chairmen and linkmen clustered on the pavement +beneath. But the Canongate has fallen from its high estate. Quite +another race of people are its present inhabitants. The vices to be +seen are not genteel. Whisky has supplanted claret. Nobility has +fled, and squalor taken possession. Wild, half-naked children swarm +around every door-step. Ruffians lounge about the mouths of the +wynds. Female faces, worthy of the "Inferno," look down from broken +windows. Riots are frequent; and drunken mothers reel past scolding +white atomies of children that nestle wailing in their bosoms--little +wretches to whom Death were the greatest benefactor. The Canongate +is avoided by respectable people, and yet it has many visitors. The +tourist is anxious to make acquaintance with it. Gentlemen of obtuse +olfactory nerve, and of an antiquarian turn of mind, go down its +closes and climb its spiral stairs. Deep down these wynds the artist +pitches his stool, and spends the day sketching some picturesque +gable or doorway. The fever-van comes frequently here to convey some +poor sufferer to the hospital. Hither comes the detective in plain +clothes on the scent of a burglar. And when evening falls, and the +lamps are lit, there is a sudden hubbub and crowd of people, and +presently from its midst emerge a couple of policemen and a barrow +with a poor, half-clad, tipsy woman from the sister island crouching +upon it, her hair hanging loose about her face, her hands quivering +with impotent rage, and her tongue wild with curses. Attended by +small boys, who bait her with taunts and nicknames, and who +appreciate the comic element which so strangely underlies the +horrible sight, she is conveyed to the police cell, and will be +brought before the magistrate to-morrow--for the twentieth time +perhaps--as a "drunk and disorderly," and dealt with accordingly. +This is the kind of life the Canongate presents to-day--a contrast +with the time when the tall buildings enclosed the high birth and +beauty of a kingdom, and when the street beneath rang to the +horse-hoofs of a king. + +[Sidenote: The Cowgate] + +The New Town is divided from the Old by a gorge or valley, now +occupied by a railway station; and the means of communication are the +Mound, Waverley Bridge, and the North Bridge. With the exception of +the Canongate, the more filthy and tumble-down portions of the city +are well kept out of sight. You stand on the South Bridge, and +looking down, instead of a stream, you see the Cowgate, the dirtiest, +narrowest, most densely peopled of Edinburgh streets. Admired once +by a French ambassador at the court of one of the Jameses, and yet +with certain traces of departed splendour, the Cowgate has fallen +into the sere and yellow leaf of furniture brokers, second-hand +jewellers, and vendors of deleterious alcohol. These second-hand +jewellers' shops, the trinkets seen by bleared gaslight, are the most +melancholy sights I know. Watches hang there that once ticked +comfortably in the fobs of prosperous men, rings that were once +placed by happy bridegrooms on the fingers of happy brides, jewels in +which lives the sacredness of death-beds. What tragedies, what +disruptions of households, what fell pressure of poverty brought them +here! Looking in through the foul windows, the trinkets remind one +of shipwrecked gold embedded in the ooze of ocean--gold that speaks +of unknown, yet certain, storm and disaster, of the yielding of +planks, of the cry of drowning men. Who has the heart to buy them, I +wonder? The Cowgate is the Irish portion of the city. Edinburgh +leaps over it with bridges; its inhabitants are morally and +geographically the lower orders. They keep to their own quarters, +and seldom come up to the light of day. Many an Edinburgh man has +never set his foot in the street; the condition of the inhabitants is +as little known to respectable Edinburgh as are the habits of moles, +earth-worms, and the mining population. The people of the Cowgate +seldom visit the upper streets. You may walk about the New Town for +a twelvemonth before one of these Cowgate pariahs comes between the +wind and your gentility. Should you wish to see that strange people +"at home," you must visit them. The Cowgate will not come to you: +you must go to the Cowgate. The Cowgate holds high drunken carnival +every Saturday night; and to walk along it then, from the West Port, +through the noble open space of the Grassmarket--where the +Covenanters and Captain Porteous suffered--on to Holy rood, is one of +the world's sights, and one that does not particularly raise your +estimate of human nature. For nights after your dreams will pass +from brawl to brawl, shoals of hideous faces will oppress you, sodden +countenances of brutal men, women with loud voices and frantic +gesticulations, children who have never known innocence. It is +amazing of what ugliness the human face is capable. The devil marks +his children as a shepherd marks his sheep--that he may know them and +claim them again. Many a face flits past here bearing the +sign-manual of the fiend. + +[Sidenote: Intellectual greatness of Edinburgh.] + +But Edinburgh keeps all these evil things out of sight, and smiles, +with Castle, tower, church-spire, and pyramid rising into sunlight +out of garden spaces and belts of foliage. The Cowgate has no power +to mar her beauty. There may be a canker at the heart of the +peach--there is neither pit nor stain on its dusty velvet. Throned +on crags, Edinburgh takes every eye; and, not content with supremacy +in beauty, she claims an intellectual supremacy also. She is a +patrician amongst British cities, "A penniless lass wi' a lang +pedigree." She has wit if she lacks wealth: she counts great men +against millionaires. The success of the actor is insecure until +thereunto Edinburgh has set her seal. The poet trembles before the +Edinburgh critics. The singer respects the delicacy of the Edinburgh +ear. Coarse London may roar with applause: fastidious Edinburgh +sniffs disdain, and sneers reputations away. London is the stomach +of the empire--Edinburgh the quick, subtle, far-darting brain. Some +pretension of this kind the visitor hears on all sides of him. It is +quite wonderful how Edinburgh purrs over her own literary +achievements. Swift, in the dark years that preceded his death, +looking one day over some of the productions of his prime, exclaimed, +"Good heaven! what a genius I once was!" Edinburgh, looking some +fifty years back on herself, is perpetually expressing astonishment +and delight. Mouldering Highland families, when they are unable to +retain a sufficient following of servants, fill up the gaps with +ghosts. Edinburgh maintains her dignity after a similar fashion, and +for a similar reason. Lord-Advocate Moncreiff, one of the members +for the city, hardly ever addresses his fellow-citizens without +recalling the names of Jeffrey, Cockburn, Rutherfurd, and the other +stars that of yore made the welkin bright. On every side we hear of +the brilliant society of forty years ago. Edinburgh considers +herself supreme in talent--just as it is taken for granted to-day +that the present English navy is the most powerful in the world, +because Nelson won Trafalgar. The Whigs consider the _Edinburgh +Review_ the most wonderful effort of human genius. The Tories would +agree with them, if they were not bound to consider _Blackwood's +Magazine_ a still greater effort. It may be said that Burns, Scott, +and Carlyle are the only men really great in literature--taking +_great_ in a European sense--who, during the last eighty years, have +been connected with Edinburgh. I do not include Wilson in the list; +for although he was as splendid as any of these for the moment, he +was evanescent as a Northern light. In the whole man there was +something spectacular. A review is superficially very like a battle. +In both there is the rattle of musketry, the boom of great guns, the +deploying of endless brigades, charges of brazen squadrons that shake +the ground--only the battle changes kingdoms, while the review is +gone with its own smoke-wreaths. Scott lived in or near Edinburgh +during the whole course of his life. Burns lived there but a few +months. Carlyle went to London early, where he has written his +important works, and made his reputation. Let the city boast of +Scott--no one will say she does wrong in that--but it is not so easy +to discover the amazing brilliancy of her other literary lights. +Their reputations, after all, are to a great extent local. What +blazes a sun at Edinburgh, would, if transported to London, not +unfrequently become a farthing candle. [Sidenote: Lord Jeffrey.] +Lord Jeffrey--when shall we cease to hear his praises? With perfect +truthfulness one may admit that his lordship was no common man. His +"vision" was sharp and clear enough within its range. He was unable +to relish certain literary forms, as some men are unable to relish +certain dishes--an inaptitude that might arise from fastidiousness of +palate, or from weakness of digestion. His style was perspicuous; he +had an icy sparkle of epigram and antithesis, some wit, and no +enthusiasm. He wrote many clever papers, made many clever speeches, +said many clever things. But the man who could so egregiously +blunder as to "Wilhelm Meister," who hooted Wordsworth through his +entire career, who had the insolence to pen the sentence that opens +the notice of the "Excursion" in the _Edinburgh Review_, and who, +when writing tardily, but really well, on Keats, could pass over the +"Hyperion" with a slighting remark, might be possessed of +distinguished parts, but no claim can be made for him to the +character of a great critic. Hazlitt, wilful, passionate, +splendidly-gifted, in whose very eccentricities and fierce vagaries +there was a generosity which belongs only to fine natures, has sunk +away into an almost unknown London grave, and his works into +unmerited oblivion; while Lord Jeffrey yet makes radiant with his +memory the city of his birth. In point of natural gifts and +endowment--in point, too, of literary issue and result--the +Englishman far surpassed the Scot. Why have their destinies been so +different? One considerable reason is that Hazlitt lived in +London--Jeffrey in Edinburgh. Hazlitt was partially lost in an +impatient crowd and rush of talent. Jeffrey stood, patent to every +eye, in an open space in which there were few competitors. London +does not brag about Hazlitt--Edinburgh brags about Jeffrey. The +Londoner, when he visits Edinburgh, is astonished to find that it +possesses a Valhalla filled with gods--chiefly legal ones--of whose +names and deeds he was previously in ignorance. The ground breaks +into unexpected flowerage beneath his feet. He may conceive to-day +to be a little cloudy--may even suspect east wind to be abroad--but +the discomfort is balanced by the reports he hears on every side of +the beauty, warmth, and splendour of yesterday. He puts out his +hands and warms them, if he can, at that fire of the past. "Ah! that +society of forty years ago! Never on this earth did the like exist. +Those astonishing men, Horner, Jeffrey, Cockburn, Rutherfurd! What +wit was theirs--what eloquence, what genius! What a city this +Edinburgh once was!" + +[Sidenote: A Scottish Weimar.] + +Edinburgh is not only in point of beauty the first of British +cities--but, considering its population, the general tone of its +society is more intellectual than that of any other. In no other +city will you find so general an appreciation of books, art, music, +and objects of antiquarian interest. It is peculiarly free from the +taint of the ledger and the counting-house. It is a Weimar without a +Goethe--Boston without its nasal twang. But it wants variety; it is +mainly a city of the professions. London, for instance, contains +every class of people; it is the seat of legislature as well as of +wealth; it embraces Seven Dials as well as Belgravia. In that vast +community class melts imperceptibly into class, from the Sovereign on +the throne to the wretch in the condemned cell. In that +finely-graduated scale, the professions take their own place. In +Edinburgh matters are quite different. It retains the gauds which +royalty cast off when it went South, and takes a melancholy pleasure +in regarding these--as a lady the love-tokens of a lover who has +deserted her to marry into a family of higher rank. A crown and +sceptre lie up in the Castle, but no brow wears the diadem, no hand +lifts the golden rod. There is a palace at the foot of the +Canongate, but it is a hotel for her Majesty, _en route_ for +Balmoral--a place where the Commissioner to the Church of Scotland +holds his phantom Court. With these exceptions, the old halls echo +only the footfalls of the tourist and sight-seer. When royalty went +to London, nobility followed; and in Edinburgh the field is left now, +and has been so left for a long time back, to Law, Physic, and +Divinity. [Sidenote: The professions in Edinburgh.] The professions +predominate: than these there is nothing higher. At Edinburgh a Lord +of Session is a Prince of the Blood, a Professor a Cabinet Minister, +an Advocate an heir to a peerage. The University and the Courts of +Justice are to Edinburgh what the Court and the Houses of Lords and +Commons are to London. That the Scottish nobility should spend their +seasons in London is not to be regretted for the sake of Edinburgh +shopkeepers only--their absence affects interests infinitely higher. +In the event of a superabundance of princes, and a difficulty as to +what should be done with them, it has been frequently suggested that +one should be stationed in Dublin, another in Edinburgh, to hold +Court in these cities. Gold is everywhere preferred to paper; and in +the Irish capital royalty in the person of Prince Patrick would be +more satisfactory than its shadow in the person of a Lord-Lieutenant. +A Prince of the Blood in Dublin would be gratefully received by the +warm-hearted Irish people. His permanent presence amongst them would +cancel the remembrance of centuries of misgovernment; it would strike +away for ever the badge and collar of conquest. In Edinburgh we have +_had_ princes of late years, and seen the uses of them. A prince at +Holyrood would effect for the country what Scottish Rights' +Associations and University reformers have so long desired. The +nobility would again gather--for a portion of the year at least--to +their ancient capital; and their sons, as of old, would be found in +the University class-rooms. Under the new influence, life would be +gayer, airier, brighter. The social tyranny of the professions would +to some extent be broken up, the atmosphere would become less legal, +and a new standard would be introduced whereby to measure men and +their pretensions. For the Prince himself, good results might be +expected. He would at the least have some specific public duties to +perform; and he would, through intercourse, become attached to the +people, as the people in their turn would become attached to him. +Edinburgh needs some little gaiety and courtly pomp to break the +coldness of gray stony streets; to brighten a somewhat sombre +atmosphere; to mollify the east wind that blows half the year, and +the "professional sectarianism" that blows the whole year round. You +always suspect the east wind, somehow, in the city. You go to +dinner: the east wind is blowing chillily from hostess to host. You +go to church, a bitter east wind is blowing in the sermon. The text +is that divine one, GOD IS LOVE; and the discourse that follows is +full of all uncharitableness. + +[Sidenote: Spiritual atmosphere of the city.] + +Of all British cities, Edinburgh--Weimar-like in its intellectual and +æsthetic leanings, Florence-like in its freedom from the stains of +trade, and more than Florence-like in its beauty--is the one best +suited for the conduct of a lettered life. The city as an entity +does not stimulate like London, the present moment is not nearly so +intense, life does not roar and chafe--it murmurs only; and this +interest of the hour, mingled with something of the quietude of +distance and the past--which is the spiritual atmosphere of the +city--is the most favourable of all conditions for intellectual work +or intellectual enjoyment. You have libraries--you have the society +of cultivated men and women--you have the eye constantly fed by +beauty--the Old Town, jagged, picturesque, piled up; and the airy, +open, coldly-sunny, unhurried, uncrowded streets of the New +Town--and, above all, you can "sport your oak," as they say at +Cambridge, and be quit of the world, the gossip, and the dun. In +Edinburgh, you do not require to create quiet for yourself; you can +have it ready-made. Life is leisurely; but it is not the leisure of +a village, arising from a deficiency of ideas and motives--it is the +leisure of a city reposing grandly on tradition and history, which +has done its work, which does not require to weave its own clothing, +to dig its own coals, to smelt its own iron. And then, in Edinburgh, +above all British cities, you are released from the vulgarising +dominion of the hour. The past confronts you at every street corner. +The Castle looks down out of history on its gayest thoroughfare. The +winds of fable are blowing across Arthur's Seat. Old kings dwelt in +Holyrood. Go out of the city where you will, the past attends you +like a cicerone. Go down to North Berwick, and the red shell of +Tantallon speaks to you of the might of the Douglases. Across the +sea, from the gray-green Bass, through a cloud of gannets, comes the +sigh of prisoners. From the long sea-board of Fife--which you can +see from George Street--starts a remembrance of the Jameses. Queen +Mary is at Craigmillar, Napier at Merchiston, Ben Jonson and Drummond +at Hawthornden, Prince Charles in the little inn at Duddingston; and +if you go out to Linlithgow, there is the smoke of Bothwellhaugh's +fusee, and the Great Regent falling in the crooked street. Thus the +past checkmates the present. [Sidenote: Influence of the past.] To +an imaginative man, life in or near Edinburgh is like residence in an +old castle:--the rooms are furnished in consonance with modern taste +and convenience; the people who move about wear modern costume, and +talk of current events in current colloquial phrases; there is the +last newspaper and book in the library, the air from the last new +opera in the drawing-room; but while the hour flies past, a subtle +influence enters into it--enriching, dignifying--from oak panelling +and carvings on the roof--from the picture of the peaked-bearded +ancestor on the wall--from the picture of the fanned and hooped +lady--from the old suit of armour and the moth-eaten banner. On the +intellectual man, living or working in Edinburgh, the light comes +through the stained window of the past. To-day's event is not raw +and _brusque_; it comes draped in romantic colour, hued with ancient +gules and or. And when he has done his six hours' work, he can take +the noblest and most renovating exercise. He can throw down his pen, +put aside his papers, and walk round the Queen's Drive, where the +wind from the sea is always fresh and keen; and in his hour's walk he +has wonderful variety of scenery--the fat Lothians--the craggy +hillside--the valley, which seems a bit of the Highlands--the wide +sea, with smoky towns on its margin, and islands on its bosom--lakes +with swans and rushes--ruins of castle, palace, and chapel--and, +finally, homeward by the high towering street through which Scottish +history has rushed like a stream. There is no such hour's walk as +this for starting ideas, or, having started, captured, and used them, +for getting quit of them again. + +[Sidenote: Summer in Edinburgh.] + +Edinburgh is at this moment in the full blaze of her beauty. The +public gardens are in blossom. The trees that clothe the base of the +Castle rock are clad in green: the "ridgy back" of the Old Town jags +the clear azure. Princes Street is warm and sunny--'tis a very +flower-bed of parasols, twinkling, rainbow-coloured. Shop windows +are enchantment, the flag streams from the Halfmoon Battery, +church-spires sparkle sun-gilt, gay equipages dash past, the military +band is heard from afar. The tourist is already here in wonderful +Tweed costume. Every week the wanderers increase, and in a short +time the city will be theirs. By August the inhabitants have fled. +The University lets loose, on unoffending humanity, a horde of +juvenile M.D.'s warranted to dispense--with the sixth commandment. +Beauty listens to what the wild waves are saying. Valour cruises in +the Mediterranean; and Law, up to the knees in heather, stalks his +stag on the slopes of Ben-Muich-dhui. Those who, from private and +most urgent reasons, are forced to remain behind, put brown paper in +their front windows; inform the world by placard that letters and +parcels may be left at No. 26 round the corner, and live fashionably +in their back-parlours. At twilight only do they adventure forth; +and if they meet a friend--who ought like the rest of the world to be +miles away--they have only of course come up from the sea-side, or +their relation's shooting-box, for a night, to look after some +imperative business. Tweed-clad tourists are everywhere: they stand +on Arthur's Seat, they speculate on the birthplace of Mons Meg, they +admire Roslin, eat haggis, attempt whisky-punch, and crowd to Dr +Guthrie's church on Sundays. By October the last tourist has +departed, and the first student has arrived. Tailors put forth their +gaudiest fabrics to attract the eye of ingenuous youth. Whole +streets bristle with "lodgings to let." Edinburgh is again filled. +The University class-rooms are crowded; a hundred schools are busy; +and Young Briefless, + + "Who never is, but always to be, fee'd," + +the sun-brown yet on his face, paces the floor of the Parliament +House, four hours a day, in his professional finery of horse-hair and +bombazine. During the winter-time are assemblies and dinner-parties. +There is a fortnight's opera, with the entire fashionable world in +the boxes. The Philosophical Institution is in full session; while a +whole army of eloquent lecturers do battle with ignorance on public +platforms--each effulging like Phœbus, with his waggon-load of +blazing day--at whose coming night perishes, shot through with orient +beams. Neither mind nor body is neglected during the Edinburgh +season. + +[Sidenote: The Scottish Academy.] + +In spring time, when the east winds blow, and grey walls of +_haar_--clammy, stinging, heaven-high, making disastrous twilight of +the brightest noon--come in from the German Ocean, and when coughs +and colds do most abound, the Royal Scottish Academy opens her +many-pictured walls. From February to May this is the most +fashionable lounge in Edinburgh. The rooms are warm, so thickly +carpeted that no footfall is heard, and there are seats in abundance. +It is quite wonderful how many young ladies and gentlemen get +suddenly interested in art. The Exhibition is a charming place for +flirtation; and when Romeo is short in the matter of small talk--as +Romeo sometimes will be--there is always a picture at hand to suggest +a topic. Romeo may say a world of pretty things while he turns up +the number of a picture in Juliet's catalogue--for without a +catalogue Juliet never appears in the rooms. Before the season +closes, she has her catalogue by heart, and could repeat it to you +from beginning to end more glibly than she could her Catechism. +Cupid never dies; and fingers will tingle as sweetly when they touch +over an Exhibition catalogue as over the dangerous pages of "Lancelot +of the Lake." If many marriages are not made here, there are gay +deceivers in the world, and the picture of deserted Ophelia--the +blank smile on her mouth, flowerets stuck in her yellow hair--slowly +sinking in the weedy pool, produces no suitable moral effect. To +other than young ladies and gentlemen the rooms are interesting, for +Scottish art is at this moment more powerful than Scottish +literature. Perhaps some half-dozen pictures in each Academy's +Exhibition are the most notable intellectual products that Scotland +can present for the year. The Scottish brush is stronger than the +Scottish pen. It is in landscape and--at all events up till the +other day, when Sir John Watson Gordon died--in portraiture that the +Scotch school excels. It excels in the one in virtue of the national +scenery, and in the other in virtue of the national insight and +humour. For the making of a good portrait a great deal more is +required than excellent colour and dexterous brush-work--shrewdness, +insight, imagination, common sense, and many another mental quality +besides, are needed. No man can paint a good portrait unless he +knows his sitter thoroughly; and every good portrait is a kind of +biography. It is curious, as indicating that the instinct for +biography and portrait-painting are alike in essence, that in both +walks of art the Scotch have been unusually successful. It would +seem that there is something in the national character predisposing +to excellence in these departments of effort. Strictly to inquire +how far this predisposition arises from the national shrewdness or +the national humour, would be needless; thus much is certain, that +Scotland has at various times produced the best portrait-painters and +the best writers of biography to be found in the compass of the +islands. In the past, she can point to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" +and Raeburn's portraits: she yet can claim Thomas Carlyle; and but +lately she could claim Sir John Watson Gordon. Thomas Carlyle is a +portrait-painter, and Sir John Watson Gordon was a biographer. + +[Sidenote: Scottish portraiture.] + +On the walls of the Exhibition, as I have said, will be found some of +the best products of the Scottish brain. There, year after year, are +to be found the pictures of Mr Noel Paton--some, of the truest +pathos, like the "Home from the Crimea;" or that group of ladies and +children in the cellar at Cawnpore, listening to the footsteps of +deliverers, whom they conceive to be destroyers; or "Luther at +Erfurt," the gray morning light breaking in on him as he is with fear +and trembling working out his own salvation--and the world's. We +have these, but we have at times others quite different from these, +and of a much lower scale of excellence, although hugely admired by +the young people aforesaid--pictures in which attire is painted +instead of passion; where the merit consists in exquisite renderings +of unimportant details--jewels, tassels, and dagger hilts; where a +landscape is sacrificed to a bunch of ferns, a tragic situation to +the pattern on the lady's zone, or the slashed jacket and purple +leggings of the knight. Then there are Mr Drummond's pictures from +Scottish history and ballad poetry--a string of wild moss-troopers +riding over into England to lift cattle; John Knox on his wedding-day +leading his wife home to his quaint dwelling in the Canongate; the +wild lurid Grassmarket, crowded with rioters, crimson with +torchlight, spectators filling every window of the tall houses, while +Porteous is being carried to his death--the Castle standing high +above the tumult against the blue midnight and the stars; or the +death procession of Montrose--the hero seated on hurdle, not on +battle-steed, with beard untrimmed, hair dishevelled, dragged through +the crowded street by the city hangman and his horses, yet proud of +aspect, as if the slogans of Inverlochy were ringing in his ears, and +flashing on his enemies on the balcony above him the fires of his +disdain. Then there are Mr Harvey's solemn twilight moors, and +covenanting scenes of marriage, baptism, and funeral. [Sidenote: Mr +Macculloch's pictures.] And drawing the eye with a stronger +fascination--because they represent the places in which we are about +to wander--the landscapes of Horatio Macculloch--stretches of Border +moorland, with solitary gray peels on which the watery sunbeam +strikes, a thread of smoke rising far off from the gipsy's fire; Loch +Scavaig in its wrath, the thunder gloom blackening on the peaks of +Cuchullin, the fierce rain crashing down on white rock and shingly +shore; sunset on Loch Ard, the mountains hanging inverted in the +golden mirror, a plump of water-fowl starting from the reeds in the +foreground, and shaking the splendour into dripping wrinkles and +widening rings; Ben Cruachan wearing his streak of snow at +mid-summer, and looking down on Kilchurn Castle and the winding Awe. +He is the most national of the northern landscape-painters; and +although he can, on occasion, paint grasses and flowers, and the +shimmer of reed-blades in the wind, he loves vast desolate spaces, +the silence of the Highland wilderness where the wild deer roam, the +shore on which subsides the last curl of the indolent wave. He loves +the tall crag wet and gleaming in the sunlight, the rain-cloud on the +moor, blotting out the distance, the setting sun raying out lances of +flame from behind the stormy clouds--clouds torn, but torn into gold, +and flushed with a brassy radiance. + +[Sidenote: The General Assembly] + +May is an exciting month in Edinburgh, for, towards its close, the +Assemblies of the Established and Free Churches meet. For a +fortnight or so the clerical element predominates in the city. Every +presbytery in Scotland sends up its representative to the metropolis, +and an astonishing number of black coats and white neckcloths flit +about the streets. At high noon the gaiety of Princes Street is +subdued with innumerable suits of sable. Ecclesiastical newspapers +let the world wag as it pleases, so intent are they on the debates. +Rocky-featured elders from the far north come up interested in some +kirk dispute; and junior counsel waste the midnight oil preparing for +appearance at the bar of the House. The opening of the General +Assembly of the Church of Scotland is attended with a pomp and +circumstance which seems a little at variance with Presbyterian +quietude of tone and contempt of sacerdotal vanities. Her Majesty's +Lord High Commissioner resides at Holyrood, and on the morning of the +day on which the Assembly opens he holds his first levee. People +rush to warm themselves in the dim reflection of the royal sunshine, +and return with faces happy and elate. On the morning the Assembly +opens, the military line the streets from Holyrood to the Assembly +Hall. A regimental band and a troop of lancers wait outside the +palace gates while the procession is slowly getting itself into +order. The important moment at length arrives. The Commissioner has +taken his seat in the carriage. Out bursts the brass band, piercing +every ear; the lancers caracole; an orderly rides with eager spur; +the long train of carriages begins to crawl forward in an +intermittent manner, with many a dreary pause. At last the head of +the procession appears along the peopled way. First come, in hired +carriages, the city councillors, clothed in scarlet robes, and with +cocked hats upon their heads. The very mothers that bore them could +not recognise them now. They pass on silent with dignity. Then +comes a troop of halberdiers in mediæval costume, and looking for all +the world as if the Kings, Jacks, and Knaves had walked out of a pack +of cards. Then comes a carriage full of magistrates, wearing their +gold chains of office over their scarlet cloaks, and eyeing sternly +the small boy in the crowd who, from a natural sense of humour, has +given vent to an irreverent observation. Then comes the band; then a +squadron of lancers, whose horses the music seems to affect; then a +carriage occupied with high legal personages, with powder in their +hair, and rapiers by their sides, which they could not draw for their +lives. Then comes the private carriage of his Grace, surrounded by +lancers, whose mercurial steeds plunge and rear, and back and sidle, +and scatter the mob as they come prancing broadside on to the +pavement, smiting sparks of fire from the kerbstones with their iron +hoofs. Thereafter, Tom, Jack, and Harry, for every cab, carriage, +and omnibus of the line of route is now allowed to fall in--and so, +attended by halberdiers, and soldiers, and a brass band, her +Majesty's Commissioner goes to open the General Assembly of the +Church of Scotland. As his Grace has to attend all the sittings of +the reverend court, the Government, it is said, generally selects for +the office a nobleman slightly dull of hearing. The Commissioner has +no power, he has no voice in the deliberations; but he is +indispensable, as a corporation mace is indispensable at a +corporation meeting. While the debate is going on below, and two +reverend fathers are passionately throttling each other, he is not +unfrequently seen, with spectacles on nose, placidly perusing the +_Times_. He is allowed two thousand pounds a year, and his duty is +to spend it. [Sidenote: The Commissioner's levee.] He keeps open +table for the assembled clergymen. He holds a grand evening levee, +to which several hundred people are invited. If you are lucky enough +to receive a card of invitation, you fall into the line of carriages +opposite the Register House about eight o'clock, you are off the High +School at nine, ten peals from the church-spires when you are at the +end of Regent Terrace, and by eleven your name is being shouted by +gorgeous lackeys--whose income is probably as great as your +own--through the corridors of Holyrood as you advance towards the +presence. When you arrive you find that the country parson, with his +wife and daughter, have been before you, and you are a lucky man if, +for refreshment, you can secure a bit of remainder sponge-cake and a +glass of lukewarm sherry. On the last occasion of the Commissioner's +levee the newspapers inform me that seventeen hundred invitations +were issued. Think of it--seventeen hundred persons on that evening +bowed before the Shadow of Majesty, and then backed in their +gracefulest manner. On that evening the Shadow of Majesty performed +seventeen hundred genuflections! I do not grudge the Lord +Commissioner his two thousand pounds. Verily, the labourer is worthy +of his hire. The vale of life is not without its advantages. + + + + +_STIRLING AND THE NORTH._ + +Edinburgh and Stirling are spinster sisters, who were both in their +youth beloved by Scottish kings; but Stirling is the more wrinkled in +feature, the more old-fashioned in attire, and not nearly so well to +do in the world. She smacks more of the antique time, and wears the +ornaments given her by royal lovers--sadly broken and worn now, and +not calculated to yield much if brought to the hammer--more +ostentatiously in the public eye than does Edinburgh. On the whole, +perhaps, her stock of these red sandstone gew-gaws is the more +numerous. In many respects there is a striking likeness between the +two cities. Between them they in a manner monopolise Scottish +history; kings dwelt in both--in and around both may yet be seen +traces of battle. Both have castles towering to heaven from the +crests of up-piled rocks; both towns are hilly, rising terrace above +terrace. The country around Stirling is interesting from its natural +beauty no less than from its historical associations. Many battles +were fought in the seeing of the castle towers. Stirling Bridge, +Carron, Bannockburn, Sauchieburn, Sheriffmuir, Falkirk--these +battle-fields lie in the immediate vicinity. From the field of +Bannockburn you obtain the finest view of Stirling. The Ochills are +around you. Yonder sleeps the Abbey Craig, where, on a summer day, +Wight Wallace sat. You behold the houses climbing up, picturesque, +smoke-feathered; and the wonderful rock, in which the grace of the +lily and the strength of the hills are mingled, and on which the +castle sits as proudly as ever did rose on its stem. Eastward from +the castle ramparts stretches a great plain, bounded on either side +by mountains, and before you the vast fertility dies into distance, +flat as the ocean when winds are asleep. It is through this plain +that the Forth has drawn her glittering coils--a silvery entanglement +of loops and links--a watery labyrinth--which Macneil has sung in no +ignoble numbers, and which every summer the whole world flocks to +see. Turn round, look in the opposite direction, and the aspect of +the country has entirely changed. It undulates like a rolling sea. +Heights swell up into the blackness of pines, and then sink away into +valleys of fertile green. At your feet the Bridge of Allan sleeps in +azure smoke--the most fashionable of all the Scottish _spas_, +wherein, by hundreds of invalids, the last new novel is being +diligently perused. Beyond are the classic woods of Keir; and ten +miles farther, what see you? A multitude of blue mountains climbing +the heavens! The heart leaps up to greet them--the ramparts of a +land of romance, from the mouths of whose glens broke of old the +foray of the freebooter; and with a chief in front, with banner and +pibroch in the wind, the terror of the Highland war. Stirling, like +a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together. + +[Sidenote: View from Stirling.] + +Standing on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, the spectator cannot +help noticing an unsightly excresence of stone and lime rising on the +brow of the Abbey Craig. This is the Wallace Tower. Designed to +commemorate the war for independence, the building is making but slow +progress. It is maintained by charitable contributions, like a +lying-in hospital. It is a big beggar man, like O'Connell. It is +tormented by an eternal lack of pence, like Mr Dick Swiveller. It +sends round the hat as frequently as ever did Mr Leigh Hunt. The +Wallace Monument, like the Scottish Rights' Association, sprang from +the desire--a good deal stronger a few years ago than now--to +preserve in Scotland something of a separate national existence. +Scotland and England were married at the Union; but by many Scotsmen +it is considered more dignified that, while appearing as "one flesh" +on great public occasions, the two countries should live in separate +apartments, see their own circles of friends, and spend their time as +to each other it may seem fit. Whether any good could arise from +such a state of matters it is needless to inquire--such a state of +matters being a plain impossibility. It is apparent that through +intimate connexion, community of interest, the presence of one common +government, and in a thousand other ways, Time is crumbling down +Scotland and England into--Britain. [Sidenote: Narrowness of +Scottish feeling.] We may storm against this from platforms, declaim +passionately against it in "Lays of the Cavaliers," lift up our +voices and weep over it in "Braemar Ballads," but necessity cares +little for these things, and quietly does her work. In Scotland one +is continually coming into contact with an unreasonable prejudice +against English manners, institutions, and forms of thought; and in +her expression of these prejudices Scotland is frequently neither +great nor dignified. There is a narrowness and touchiness about her +which is more frequently found in villages than in great cities. She +continually suspects that the Englishman is about to touch her +thistle rudely, or to take liberties with her unicorn. Some eight +years ago, when lecturing in Edinburgh, Mr Thackeray was hissed for +making an allusion to Queen Mary. The audience knew perfectly well +that the great satirist was correct in what he stated; but being an +Englishman it was impertinent in him to speak the truth about a +Scottish Queen in the presence of Scotsmen. When, on the other hand, +an English orator comes amongst us, whether as Lord Rector at one of +our universities, or the deliverer of an inaugural address at the +Philosophical Institution in Edinburgh, and winds up his harangue +with flowing allusions to Wallace, Bruce, Burns, our blue hills, John +Knox, Caledonia stern and wild, the garb of old Gaul--the closing +sentences are lost to the reporters in the frantic cheers of the +audience. Several years ago the Scottish Rights' Association, headed +by the most chivalric nobleman, and by the best poet in Scotland, +surrounded by a score of merchant princes, assembled in the City Hall +of Glasgow, and for a whole night held high jubilee. The patriotic +fervours, the eloquent speeches, the volleys of cheers, did not so +much as break a single tea-cup or appoint a new policeman. Even the +eloquent gentleman who volunteered to lay down his head at Carlisle +in support of the good cause has never been asked to implement his +promise. The patriot's head is of more use to himself than it can +possibly be to any one else. [Sidenote: University reform] And does +not this same prejudice against England, this indisposition to yield +up ancient importance, this standing upon petty dignity, live in the +cry for Scottish University reform? Is not this the heart of the +matter--because England has universities, rich with gifts of princes +and the bequests of the charitable, should not Scotland have +richly-endowed universities also? In nature the ball fits into the +socket more or less perfectly; and the Scottish universities are what +the wants and requirements of the Scottish people have made them. We +cannot grow in a day an Oxford or a Cambridge on this northern soil; +and could Scotsmen forget that they are Scotsmen they would see that +it is not desirable so to do. Our universities have sent forth for +generations physicians, lawyers, divines, properly enough qualified +to fulfil their respective duties; and if every ten years or so some +half-dozen young men appear with an appetite for a higher education +than Scotland can give, and with means to gratify it, what then? In +England there are universities able and willing to supply their +wants. Their doors stand open to the Scottish youth. Admitting that +we could by governmental interference or otherwise make our Scottish +universities equal to Oxford or Cambridge in wealth and erudition, +would we benefit thereby the half-dozen ambitious Scottish youth? +Not one whit. Far better that they should conclude their education +at an English university--in that wider confluence of the streams of +society--amid those elder traditions of learning and civility. + +And yet this erection of the Wallace Tower on the Abbey Craig has a +deeper significance than its promoters are in the least degree aware +of. There _is_ a certain propriety in the building of a Wallace +Monument. Scotland has been united to England, and is beginning to +lose remembrance of her independence and separate history--just as +the matron in her conjoint duties and interests begins to grow +unfamiliar with the events of her girlhood, and with the sound of her +maiden name. It is only when the memory of a hero ceases to be a +living power in the hearts of men that they think of raising a +monument to him. Monuments are for the dead, not for the living. +When we hear that some venerable sheik has taken to call public +meetings in Mecca, to deliver speeches, and to issue subscription +lists for the purpose of raising a monument to Mohammed, and that +these efforts are successful, we shall be quite right in thinking +that the crescent is in its wane. Although the subscribers think it +something quite other, the building of the Wallace Monument is a +bidding farewell to Scottish nationality. + +[Sidenote: Doune Castle.] + +It is from Stirling that I start on my summer journey, and the +greater portion of it I purpose to perform on foot. There is a +railway now to Callander, whereby time is saved and enjoyment +destroyed--but the railway I shall in nowise patronise, meaning to +abide by the old coach road. In a short time you are beyond the +Bridge of Allan, beyond the woods of Keir, and holding straight on to +Dunblane. Reaching it, you pause for a little on the old bridge to +look at the artificial waterfall, and the ruined cathedral on the +rising ground across the stream, and the walks which Bishop Leighton +paced. There is really not much to detain one in the little gray +city, and pressing on, you reach Doune, basking on the hill-side. +Possibly the reader may never have heard of Doune, yet it has its +lions. What are these? Look at the great bulk of the ruined castle! +These towers, rising from miles of summer foliage into fair sunlight, +a great Duke of Albany beheld for a moment, with a shock of long-past +happiness and home, as he laid down his head on the block at +Stirling. Rage and shame filled the last heave of the heart, the axe +flashed, and----. As you go down the steep town road, there is an +old-fashioned garden, and a well close to the wall. Look into it +steadily--you observe a shadow on the sandy bottom, and the twinkle +of a fin. 'Tis a trout--a blind one, which has dwelt, the people +will tell you, in its watery cage, for ten years back. It is +considered a most respectable inhabitant, and the urchin daring to +angle for it would hardly escape whipping. You may leave Doune now. +A Duke of Albany lost his head in the view of its castle, a blind +trout lives in its well, and visitors feel more interested in the +trout than in the duke. The country in the immediate vicinity of +Doune is somewhat bare and unpromising, but as you advance it +improves, and a few miles on, the road skirts the Teith, the sweetest +voiced of all the Scottish streams. The Roman centurion heard that +pebbly murmur on his march even as you now hear it. The river, like +all beautiful things, is coquettish, and just when you come to love +her music, she sweeps away into the darkness of the woods and leaves +you companionless on the dusty road. Never mind, you will meet her +again at Callander, and there, for a whole summer day, you can lean +on the bridge and listen to her singing. Callander is one of the +prettiest of Highland villages. It was sunset as I approached it +first, years ago. Beautiful the long crooked street of white-washed +houses dressed in rosy colours. Prettily-dressed children were +walking or running about. The empty coach was standing at the door +of the hotel, and the smoking horses were being led up and down. And +right in front stood King Benledi, clothed in imperial purple, the +spokes of splendour from the sinking sun raying far away into heaven +from behind his mighty shoulders. + +[Sidenote: Callander.] + +Callander sits like a watcher at the opening of the glens, and is a +rendezvous of tourists. To the right is the Pass of Leny--well +worthy of a visit. You ascend a steep path, birch-trees on right and +left; the stream comes brawling down, sleeping for a moment in black +pools beloved by anglers, and then hasting on in foam and fury to +meet her sister in the Vale of Menteith below. When you have climbed +the pass, you enter on a green treeless waste, and soon approach Loch +Lubnaig, with the great shadow of a hill blackening across it. The +loch is perhaps cheerful enough when the sun is shining on it, but +the sun in that melancholy region is but seldom seen. Beside the +road is an old churchyard, for which no one seems to care--the +tombstones being submerged in a sea of rank grass. The loch of the +rueful countenance will not be visited on the present occasion. My +course lies round the left flank of Benledi, straight on for the +Trosachs and Loch Katrine. Leaving Callander, you cross the waters +of the Leny--changed now from the fury that, with raised voice and +streaming tresses, leaped from rock to rock in the glen above--and +walk into the country made immortal by the "Lady of the Lake." Every +step you take is in the footsteps of Apollo: speech at once becomes +song. There is Coilantogle Ford; Loch Venachar, yonder, is +glittering away in windy sunshine to the bounding hills. Passing the +lake you come on a spot where the hill-side drops suddenly down on +the road. On this hill-side Vich Alpine's warriors started out of +the ferns at the whistle of their chief; and if you travelled on the +coach, the driver would repeat half the poem with curious variations, +and point out the identical rock against which Fitz-James +leaned--rock on which a dozen eyeglasses are at once levelled in +wonder and admiration. The loveliest sight on the route to the +Trosachs is about to present itself. [Sidenote: Loch Achray--the +Trosachs.] At a turn of the road Loch Achray is before you. Beyond +expression beautiful is that smiling lake, mirroring the hills, +whether bare and green or plumaged with woods from base to crest. +Fair azure gem in a setting of mountains! the traveller--even if a +bagman--cannot but pause to drink in its fairy beauty; cannot but +remember it when far away amid other scenes and associations. At +every step the scenery grows wilder. Loch Achray disappears. High +in upper air tower the summits of Ben-Aan and Ben-Venue. You pass +through the gorge of the Trosachs, whose rocky walls, born in +earthquake and fiery deluge, the fanciful summer has been dressing +these thousand years, clothing their feet with drooping ferns and +rods of foxglove bells, blackening their breasts with pines, +feathering their pinnacles with airy birches, that dance in the +breeze like plumage on a warrior's helm. The wind here becomes a +musician. Echo sits babbling beneath the rock. The gorge, too, is +but the prelude to a finer charm; for before you are aware, doubling +her beauty with surprise, there breaks on the right the silver sheet +of Loch Katrine, with a dozen woody islands, sleeping peacefully on +their shadows. + +[Sidenote: Inversneyd] + +On the loch, the steamer _Rob Roy_ awaits you, and away you pant and +fume towards a wharf, and an inn, with an unpronounceable name, at +the farther end. The lake does not increase in beauty as you +proceed. All its charms are congregated at the mouth of the +Trosachs, and the upper reaches are bare, desolate, and +uninteresting. You soon reach the wharf, and after your natural rage +at a toll of twopence exacted from you on landing has subsided, and +you have had a snack of something at the inn, you start on the wild +mountain road towards Inversneyd. The aspect of the country has now +changed. The hills around are bare and sterile, brown streams gurgle +down their fissures, the long yellow ribbon of road runs away before +you, dipping out of sight sometimes, and reappearing afar. You pass +a turf hut, and your nostrils are invaded by a waft of peat reek +which sets you coughing, and brings the tears into your eyes; and the +juvenile natives eye you askance, and wear the airiest form of the +national attire. In truth, there is not a finer bit of Highland road +to be found anywhere than that which runs between the inn--which, +like the Russian heroes in "Don Juan," might be immortal if the name +of it could be pronounced by human organs--and the hotel at +Inversneyd. When you have travelled some three miles, the scenery +improves, the hills rise into nobler forms with misty wreaths about +them, and as you pursue your journey a torrent becomes your +companion. Presently, a ruin rises on the hill-side, the nettles +growing on its melancholy walls. It is the old fort of Inversneyd, +built in King William's time to awe the turbulent clans. Nothing can +be more desolate than its aspect. Sunshine seems to mock it; it is +native and endued into its element when wrapt in mist, or pelted by +the wintry rain. Passing the old stone-and-lime mendicant on the +hill-side--by the way, Tradition mumbles something about General +Wolfe having been stationed there at the beginning of his military +career--you descend rapidly on Loch Lomond and Inversneyd. The road +by this time has become another Pass of Leny: on either side the +hills approach, the torrent roars down in a chain of cataracts, and, +in a spirit of bravado, takes its proudest leap at the last. Quite +close to the fall is the hotel; and on the frail timber bridge that +overhangs the cataract, you can see groups of picturesque-hunters, +the ladies gracefully timid, the gentlemen gallant and reassuring. +Inversneyd is beautiful, and it possesses an added charm in being the +scene of one of Wordsworth's poems; and he who has stood on the crazy +bridge, and watched the flash and thunder of the stream beneath him, +and gazed on the lake surrounded by mountains, will ever after retain +the picture in remembrance, although to him there should not have +been vouchsafed the vision of the "Highland Girl." A steamer picks +you up at Inversneyd, and slides down Loch Lomond with you to Tarbet, +a village sleeping in very presence of the mighty Ben, whose forehead +is almost always bound with a cloudy handkerchief. Although the loch +is finer higher up, where it narrows toward Glen Falloch--more +magnificent lower down, where it widens, many-isled, toward +Balloch--it is by no means to be despised at Tarbet. Each bay and +promontory wears its peculiar charm; and if the scenery does not +astonish, it satisfies. Tarbet can boast, too, of an excellent inn, +in which, if the traveller be wise, he will, for one night at least, +luxuriously take his ease. + +[Sidenote: The "Cobbler".] + +Up betimes next morning, you are on the beautiful road which runs +between Tarbet and Arrochar, and begin, through broken, white +upstreaming mists, to make acquaintance with the "Cobbler" and some +other peaks of that rolling country to which Celtic facetiousness has +given the name of "The Duke of Argyle's Bowling-green." Escaping +from the birches that line the road, and descending on Arrochar and +Loch Long, you can leisurely inspect the proportions of the mountain +Crispin. He is a gruesome carle, and inhospitable to strangers. He +does not wish to be intruded upon--is a very hermit, in fact; for +when, after wild waste of breath and cuticle, a daring mortal climbs +up to him, anxious to be introduced, behold he has slipped his cable, +and is nowhere to be seen. And it does not improve the temper of the +climber that, when down again, and casting up his eyes, he discovers +the rocky figure sitting in his accustomed place. The Cobbler's Wife +sits a little way off--an ancient dame, to the full as withered in +appearance as her husband, and as difficult of access. They dwell in +tolerable amity the twain, but when they do quarrel it is something +tremendous! The whole county knows when a tiff is in progress. The +sky darkens above them. The Cobbler frowns black as midnight. His +Wife sits sulking in the mist. His Wife's conduct aggravates the +Cobbler--who is naturally of a peppery temper--and he gives vent to a +discontented growl. Nothing loath, and to the full as irascible as +her spouse, his Wife spits back fire upon him. The row begins. They +flash at one another in the savagest manner, scolding all the while +in the grandest Billingsgate. Everything listens to them for twenty +miles round. At last the Wife gives in, and falls to downright +weeping, the crusty old fellow sending a shot into her at intervals. +She cries, and he grumbles, into the night. Peace seems to have been +restored somehow when everybody is asleep; for next morning the +Cobbler has renewed his youth. He shines in the sun like a very +bridegroom, not a frown on the old countenance of him, and his Wife +opposite, the tears hardly dried upon her face yet, smiles upon him +through her prettiest head-dress of mist; and for the next six weeks +they enjoy as bright, unclouded weather as husband and wife can +expect in a world where everything is imperfect. + +[Sidenote: Glencroe.] + +You leave the little village of Arrochar, trudge round the head of +Loch Long, and proceeding downward, along the opposite shore, and +skirting the base of the Cobbler, strike for the opening of Glencroe, +on your road to Inverary. Glencoe is to the other Highland glens +what Tennyson is to contemporary British poets. If Glencoe did not +exist, Glencroe would be famous. It is several miles long, lonely, +sterile, and desolate. A stream rages down the hollow, fed by +tributary burns that dash from the receding mountain-tops. The +hill-sides are rough with boulders, as a sea-rock is rough with +limpets. Showers cross the path a dozen times during the finest day. +As you go along, the glen is dappled with cloud-shadows; you hear the +bleating of unseen sheep, and the chances are, that, in travelling +along its whole extent, opportunity will not be granted you of +bidding "good-morrow" to a single soul. If you are a murderer, you +could shout out your secret here, and no one be a bit the wiser. At +the head of the glen the road becomes exceedingly steep; and as you +pant up the incline, you hail the appearance of a stone seat bearing +the welcome motto, "Rest, and be thankful." You rest, and are +thankful. This seat was erected by General Wade while engaged in his +great work of Highland road-making; and so long as it exists the +General will be remembered--and Earl Russell too. At this point the +rough breast of a hill rises in front, dividing the road; the path to +the left runs away down into the barren and solitary Hell's Glen, in +haste to reach Loch Goil; the other to the right leads through bare +Glen Arkinglass, to St Catherine's, and the shore of Loch Fyne, at +which point you arrive after a lonely walk of two hours. + +[Sidenote: John Campbell.] + +The only thing likely to interest the stranger at the little hostelry +of St Catherine's is John Campbell, the proprietor of the same, and +driver of the coach from the inn to the steamboat wharf at Loch Goil. +John has a presentable person and a sagacious countenance; his gray +eyes are the homes of humour and shrewdness; and when seated on the +box, he flicks his horses and manages the ribbons to admiration. He +is a good story-teller, and he knows it. He has not started on his +journey a hundred yards when, from something or another, he finds you +occasion for a story, which is sure to produce a roar of laughter +from those alongside of, and behind, him. Encouraged by success, +John absolutely coruscates, anecdote follows anecdote as flash of +sheet-lightning succeeds flash of sheet-lightning on a summer night; +and by the time he is half-way, he is implored to desist by some +sufferer whose midriff he has convulsed. John is naturally a +humorist; and as every summer and autumn the Highlands are overrun +with tourists, he, from St Catherine's to Loch Goil, surveys mankind +with extensive view. In his time he has talked with most of our +famous men, and can reproduce their tones to perfection. It is +curious to notice how literary and political greatness picture +themselves in the eyes of a Highland coachman! The lion who +entrances the _soirées_ has his mane clipped. For John Campbell, +cliques and coteries, and the big guns of the reviews, exist not. To +him Fame speaks in Gaelic, and concerns herself mainly with sheep and +black cattle. What is the good of being a distinguished novelist if +you cannot swallow a glass of bitters of a morning? John will +distinguish between Tupper and Tennyson, and instruct you which is +the better man, but he will draw his conclusions from their "tips" +rather than from their poetry. He will agree with you that Lord +Palmerston is a distinguished individual; but while you are thinking +of the Premier's statesmanship, he is thinking of the Premier's +jauntiness on the morning he had the honour of driving him. John's +ideas of public men, although arrived at after a curious fashion, are +pretty generally correct. Every one who tarries at St Catherine's +should get himself driven across to Loch Goil by John Campbell, and +should take pains to procure a seat on the box beside him. When he +returns to the south, he can relate over again the stories he hears, +and make himself the hero of them. The thing has been done before, +and will be again. + +[Sidenote: Inverary.] + +A small wash-tub of a steamer carries you across Loch Fyne to +Inverary in an hour. Arriving, you find the capital of the West +Highlands a rather pretty place, with excellent inns, several +churches, a fine bay, a ducal residence, a striking conical +hill--Duniquoich the barbarous name of it--wooded to the chin, and +with an ancient watch-tower perched on its bald crown. The chief +seat of the Argyles cannot boast of much architectural beauty, being +a square building with pepper-box-looking towers stuck on the +corners. The grounds are charming, containing fine timber, winding +walks, stately avenues, gardens, and through all, spanned by several +bridges, the Airy bubbles sweetly to the sea. Scott is here. If the +"Lady of the Lake" rings in your ears at the Trosachs, the "Legend of +Montrose" haunts you at Inverary. Every footstep of ground is +hallowed by that noble romance. It is the best guide-book to the +place. No tourist should leave Inverary before he ascends +Duniquoich--no very difficult task either, for a path winds round and +round it. When you emerge from the woods beside the watch-tower on +the summit, Inverary, far beneath, has dwindled to a toy town--not a +sound is in the streets; unheard the steamer roaring at the wharf, +and urging dilatory passengers to haste by the clashes of an angry +bell. Along the shore nets stretched from pole to pole wave in the +drying wind. The great boatless blue loch stretches away flat as a +ballroom floor; and the eye wearies in its flight over endless miles +of brown moor and mountain. Turn your back on the town, and gaze +towards the north! It is still "a far cry to Loch Awe," and a +wilderness of mountain peaks tower up between you and that noblest of +Scottish lakes!--of all colours too--green with pasture, brown with +moorland, touched with the coming purple of the heather, black with a +thunder-cloud of pines. What a region to watch the sun go down upon! +But for that you cannot wait; for to-day you lunch at Cladich, dine +at Dalmally, and sleep in the neighbourhood of Kilchurn--in the +immediate presence of Ben Cruachan. + +[Sidenote: Kilchurn Castle.] + +A noble vision of mountains is to be obtained from the road above +Cladich. Dalmally is a very paradise of a Highland inn,--quiet, +sequestered, begirt with the majesty and the silence of mountains,--a +place where a world-weary man may soothe back into healthful motion +jarred pulse and brain; a delicious nest for a happy pair to waste +the honeymoon in. Dalmally stands on the shores of Loch Awe, and in +the immediate vicinity of Kilchurn Castle and Ben Cruachan. The +castle is picturesque enough to please the eye of the +landscape-painter, and large enough to impress the visitor with a +sense of baronial grandeur. And it is ancient enough, and fortunate +enough too--for to that age does not always attain--to have legends +growing upon its walls like the golden lichens or the darksome ivies. +The vast shell of a building looks strangely impressive standing +there, mirrored in summer waters, with the great mountain looking +down on it. It was built, it is said, by a lady in the Crusade +times, when her lord was battling with the infidel. The most prosaic +man gazing on a ruin becomes a poet for the time being. You +incontinently sit down, and think how, in the old pile, life went on +for generations--how children were born and grew up there--how brides +were brought home there, the bridal blushes yet on their cheeks--how +old men died there, and had by filial fingers their eyes closed, as +blinds are drawn down on the windows of an empty house, and the +withered hands crossed decently upon the breasts that will heave no +more with any passion. The yule fires, and the feast fires that +blazed on the old hearths have gone out now. The arrow of the foeman +seeks no longer the window slit. To day and night, to winter and +summer, Kilchurn stands empty as a skull; yet with no harshness about +it; possessed rather of a composed and decent beauty--reminding you +of a good man's grave, with the number of his ripe years, and the +catalogue of his virtues chiselled on the stone above him: telling of +work faithfully done, and of the rest that follows, for which all the +weary pine. + +[Sidenote: Loch Awe.] + +Ben Cruachan, if not the monarch of Scottish mountains, is, at all +events, one of the princes of the blood. He is privileged to wear a +snow-wreath in presence of the sun at his midsummer levee, and like a +prince he wears it on the rough breast of him. Ben Cruachan is seen +from afar: is difficult to climb, and slopes slowly down to the sea +level, his base being twenty miles in girth, it is said. From Ben +Cruachan and Kilchurn, Loch Awe, bedropt with wooded islands, +stretches Obanwards, presenting in its course every variety of +scenery. Now the loch spreads like a sea, now it shrinks to a rapid +river--now the banks are wooded like the Trosachs, now they are bare +as the "Screes" at Wastwater; and consider as you walk along what +freaks light and shade are playing every moment--how shadows, +hundred-armed, creep along the mountain-side--how the wet rock +sparkles like a diamond, and then goes out--how the sunbeam slides +along a belt of pines--and how, a slave to the sun, the lake quivers +in light around her islands when he is unobscured, and wears his +sable colours when a cloud is on his face. On your way to Oban there +are many places worth seeing: Loch Etive, with its immemorial pines, +beloved by Professor Wilson; Bunawe, Taynult, Connel Ferry, with its +sea view and salt-water cataract; and Dunstaffnage Castle, once a +royal residence, and from which the stone was taken which is placed +beneath the coronation chair at Westminster. And so, if the whole +journey from Inverary is performed on foot, Luna will light the +traveller into Oban. + + + + +_OBAN._ + +[Sidenote: Oban.] + +Oban, which, during winter, is a town of deserted hotels, begins to +get busy by the end of June. Yachts skim about in the little bay; +steamers, deep-sea and coasting, are continually arriving and +departing; vehicles rattle about in the one broad, and the many +narrow streets; and in the inns, boots, chamber-maid, and waiter are +distracted with the clangour of innumerable bells. Out of doors, +Oban is not a bad representation of Vanity Fair. Every variety of +pleasure-seeker is to be found there, and every variety of costume. +Reading parties from Oxford lounge about, smoke, stare into the small +shop windows, and consult "Black's Guide." Beauty, in light attire, +perambulates the principal street, and taciturn Valour in mufti +accompanies her. Sportsmen in knickerbockers stand in groups at the +hotel doors; Frenchmen chatter and shrug their shoulders; stolid +Germans smoke curiously-curved meerschaum pipes; and individuals who +have not a drop of Highland blood in their veins flutter about in the +garb of the Gael, "a hundredweight of cairngorms throwing a prismatic +glory around their persons." All kinds of people, and all kinds of +sounds are there. From the next street the tones of the bagpipe come +on the ear; tipsy porters abuse each other in Gaelic. Round the +corner the mail comes rattling from Fort William, the passengers +clustering on its roof; from the pier the bell of the departing +steamer urges passengers to make haste; and passengers who have lost +their luggage rush about, shout, gesticulate, and not unfrequently +come into fierce personal collision with one of the tipsy porters +aforesaid. A more hurried, nervous, frenzied place than Oban, during +the summer and autumn months, it is difficult to conceive. People +seldom stay there above a night. The old familiar faces are the +resident population. The tourist no more thinks of spending a week +in Oban than he thinks of spending a week in a railway station. When +he arrives his first question is after a bedroom; his second, as to +the hour at which the steamer from the south is expected. + +And the steamer, be it said, does not always arrive at a reasonable +hour. She may be detained some time at Greenock; in dirty weather +she may be "on" the Mull of Cantyre all night, buffeted by the big +Atlantic there; so that he must be a bold man, or a man gifted with +the second sight, who ventures anything but a vague guess as to the +hour of her arrival at Oban. And the weather _is_ dirty; the panes +are blurred with raindrops; outside one beholds an uncomfortable +sodden world, a spongy sky above, and midway, a gull sliding sideways +through the murky atmosphere. The streets are as empty now as they +will be some months hence. Beauty is in her own room crying over +"Enoch Arden," and Valour, taciturn as ever, is in the smoking +saloon. The Oxford reading party--which, under the circumstances, +has not the slightest interest in Plato--attempts, with no great +success, to kill the time by playing at pitch-and-toss. The +gentlemen in the Highland dress remain indoors--birds with fine +feathers do not wish to have them draggled--and the philabeg and an +umbrella would be a combination quite too ridiculous. The tipsy +porter is for the time silent; but from the next street the bagpipe +grows in volume and torture. How the sound of it pains the nervous +ear of a man half-maddened by a non-arriving steamer and a rainy day +at Oban! Heavily the hours creep on; and at last the _Clansman_ does +steam in with wet decks--thoroughly washed by Atlantic brine last +night--and her hundred and fifty passengers, two-thirds of whom are +sea-sick. + +I do not, however, proceed with the _Clansman_. I am waited for at +Inverness; and so, when the weather has cleared, on a lovely morning, +I am chasing the flying dazzle of the sun up the lovely Linnhe Loch; +past hills that come out on one and recede; past shores that +continually shift and change; and am at length set down at Fort +William in the shadow of Ben Nevis. + +When a man goes to Caprera, he, as a matter of course, brings a +letter of introduction to Garibaldi--when I went to Fort William, I, +equally as a matter of course, brought a letter of introduction to +Long John. This gentleman, the distiller of the place, was the +tallest man I ever beheld out of an exhibition--whence his familiar +_sobriquet_--and must, in his youth, have been of incomparable +physique. The German nation has not yet decided whether Goethe or +Schiller is the greater poet--the Highlander has not yet decided +whether "Long John" or "Talisker" is the finer spirit. I presented +my letter and was received with the hospitality and courteous grace +so characteristic of the old Gael. He is gone now, the happy-hearted +Hercules--gone like one of his own drams! His son distils in his +stead--but he must feel that he is treading in the footsteps of a +greater man. The machinery is the same, the malt is of quality as +fine, but he will never produce whisky like him who is no more. The +text is the same, but Charles Kean's Hamlet will never be like his +father's. + +I saw Inverlochy Castle, and thought of the craven Argyle, the +gallant Montrose, the slaughtered Campbells. I walked up Glen Nevis; +and then, one summer morning, I drove over to Bannavie, stepped on +board a steamer, and was soon in the middle of the beautiful Loch +Lochy. + +[Sidenote: Culloden.] + +And what a day and what a sail that was! What a cloudless sky above! +What lights and shadows as we went! On Fort Augustus we descended by +a staircase of locks, and while there I spent half an hour in the +museum of Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming. We then entered Loch +Ness--stopped for a space to visit the Fall of Foyers, which, from +scarcity of water, looked "seedy" as a moulting peacock; saw further +on, and on the opposite shore, a promontory run out into the lake +like an arm, and the vast ruin of Castle Urquhart at the end of it +like a clenched fist--menacing all and sundry. Then we went on to +Inverness, where I found my friend Fellowes, who for some time back +had been amusing himself in that pleasant Highland town reading law. +We drove out to Culloden, and stood on the moor at sunset. Here the +butcher Cumberland trod out romance. Here one felt a Jacobite and a +Roman Catholic. The air seemed scented by the fumes of +altar-incense, by the burning of pastiles. The White Rose was torn +and scattered, but its leaves had not yet lost their odours. "I +should rather have died," I said, "like that wild chief who, when his +clan would not follow him, burst into tears at the ingratitude of his +children, and charged alone on the English bayonets, than like any +other man of whom I have read in history." + +"He wore the sole pair of brogues in the possession of his tribe," +said my companion. "I should rather have died like Salkeld at the +blowing in of the Delhi gate." + + + + +_SKYE AT LAST._ + +While tarrying at Inverness, a note which we had been expecting for +some little time reached Fellowes and myself from M'Ian junior, to +the effect that a boat would be at our service at the head of Loch +Eishart on the arrival at Broadford of the Skye mail; and that six +sturdy boatmen would therefrom convey us to our destination. This +information was satisfactory, and we made our arrangements +accordingly. The coach from Inverness to Dingwall--at which place we +were to catch the mail--was advertised to start at four o'clock in +the morning, and to reach its bourne two hours afterwards; so, to +prevent all possibility of missing it, we resolved not to go to bed. +At that preposterous hour we were in the street with our luggage, and +in a short time the coach--which seemed itself not more than half +awake--came lumbering up. For a while there was considerable noise; +bags and parcels of various kinds were tumbled out of the coach +office, mysterious doors were opened in the body of the vehicle into +which these were shot. The coach stowed away its parcels in itself, +just as in itself the crab stows away its food and _impedimenta_. We +clambered up into the front beside the driver, who was enveloped in a +drab great-coat of many capes; the guard was behind. "All right," +and then, with a cheery chirrup, a crack of the whip, a snort and +toss from the gallant roadsters, we were off. There is nothing so +delightful as travelling on a stage coach, when you start in good +condition, and at a reasonable hour. For myself, I never tire of the +varied road flashing past, and could dream through a country in that +way from one week's end to the other. On the other hand, there is +nothing more horrible than starting at four A.M., half-awake, +breakfastless, the chill of the morning playing on your face as the +dewy machine spins along. Your eyes close in spite of every effort, +your blood thick with sleep, your brain stuffed with dreams; you wake +and sleep, and wake again; and the Vale of Tempe itself, with a +Grecian sunrise burning into day ahead, could not rouse you into +interest, or blunt the keen edge of your misery. I recollect nothing +of this portion of our journey save its disagreeableness; and alit at +Dingwall, cold, wretched, and stiff, with a cataract of needles and +pins pouring down my right leg, and making locomotion anything but a +pleasant matter. However, the first stage was over, and on that we +congratulated ourselves. Alas! we did not know the sea of troubles +into which we were about to plunge--the Iliad of misfortune of which +we were about to become the heroes. We entered the inn, performed +our ablutions, and sat down to breakfast with appetite. Towards the +close of the meal my companion suggested that, to prevent accidents, +it might be judicious to secure seats in the mail without delay. +Accordingly I went in quest of the landlord, and after some +difficulty discovered him in a small office littered with bags and +parcels, turning over the pages of a ledger. He did not lift his +eyes when I entered. I intimated my wish to procure two places +toward Broadford. He turned a page, lingered on it with his eye as +if loath to leave it, and then inquired my business. I repeated my +message. He shook his head. "You are too late; you can't get on +to-day." "What! can't two places be had?" "Not for love or money, +sir. Last week Lord Deerstalker engaged the mail for his servants. +Every place is took." "The deuce! do you mean to say that we can't +get on?" The man, whose eyes had returned to the page, which he held +all the while in one hand, nodded assent. "Come, now, this sort of +thing won't do. My friend and I are anxious to reach Broadford +to-night. Do you mean to say that we must either return or wait here +till the next mail comes up, some three days hence?" "You can post, +if you like: I'll provide you with a machine and horses." "You'll +provide us with a machine and horses," said I, while something shot +through my soul like a bolt of ice. + +I returned to Fellowes, who replied to my recital of the interview +with a long whistle. When the mail was gone, we formed ourselves +into a council of war. After considering our situation from every +side, we agreed to post, unless the landlord should prove more than +ordinarily rapacious. I went to the little office and informed him +of our resolution. We chaffered a good deal, but at last a bargain +was struck. I will not mention what current coin of the realm was +disbursed on the occasion; the charge was as moderate as in the +circumstances could have been expected. I need only say that the +journey was long, and to consist of six stages, a fresh horse at +every stage. + +In due time a dog-cart was brought to the door, in which was +harnessed a tall raw-boned white horse, who seemed to be entering in +the sullen depths of his consciousness a protest against our +proceedings. We got in, and the animal was set in motion. There +never was such a slow brute. He evidently disliked his work: perhaps +he snuffed the rainy tempest imminent. Who knows! At all events, +before he was done with us he took ample revenge for every kick and +objurgation which we bestowed on him. Half an hour after starting, a +huge rain-cloud was black above us; suddenly we noticed one portion +crumble into a livid streak which slanted down to earth, and in a +minute or two it burst upon us as if it had a personal injury to +avenge. A scold of the Cowgate, emptying her wrath on the husband of +her bosom, who has reeled home to her tipsy on Saturday night, with +but half his wages in his pocket, gives but a faint image of its +virulence. Umbrellas and oil-skins--if we had had them--would have +been useless. In less than a quarter of an hour we were saturated +like a bale of cotton which has reposed for a quarter of a century at +the bottom of the Atlantic; and all the while, against the fell lines +of rain, heavy as bullets, straight as cavalry lances, jogged the +white horse, heedless of cry and blow, with now and again but a +livelier prick and motion of the ear, as if to him the whole thing +was perfectly delightful. The first stage was a long one; and all +the way from Strathpeffer to Garve, from Garve to Milltown, the rain +rushed down on blackened wood, hissed in marshy tarn, boiled on iron +crag. At last the inn was descried afar; a speck of dirty white in a +world of rainy green. Hope revived within us. Another horse could +be procured there. O Jarvie, cudgel his bones amain, and Fortune may +yet smile! + +On our arrival, however, we were informed that certain travellers +had, two hours before, possessed themselves of the only animal of +which the establishment could boast. At this intelligence hope fell +down stone dead as if shot through the heart. There was nothing for +it but to give our steed a bag of oats, and then to hie on. While +the white was comfortably munching his oats, we noticed from the +inn-door that the wet yellow road made a long circuit, and it +occurred to us that if we struck across country for a mile or so at +once, we could reach the point where the road disappeared in the +distance quite as soon as our raw-boned friend. In any case waiting +was weary work, and we were as wet now as we could possibly be. +Instructing the driver to wait for us should we not be up in time--of +which we averred there was not the slightest possibility--we started. +We had firm enough footing at first; but after a while our journey +was the counterpart of the fiend's passage through chaos, as +described by Milton. Always stick to beaten tracks: short cuts, +whether in the world of matter, or in the world of ethics, are bad +things. In a little time we lost our way, as was to have been +expected. The wind and rain beat right in our faces, we had swollen +streams to cross, we tumbled into morasses, we tripped over knotted +roots of heather. When, after a severe march of a couple of hours, +we gained the crest of a small eminence, and looked out on the wet, +black desolation, Fellowes took out a half-crown from his waistcoat +pocket, and expressed his intention there and then to "go in" for a +Highland property. From the crest of this eminence, too, we beheld +the yellow road beneath, and the dog-cart waiting; and when we got +down to it, found the driver so indignant that we thought it prudent +to propitiate him with our spirit flask. A caulker turneth away +wrath--in the Highlands at least. + +Getting in again the white went at a better pace, the rain slackened +somewhat, and our spirits rose in proportion. Our hilarity, however, +was premature. A hill rose before us, up which the yellow road +twisted and wriggled itself. This hill the white would in nowise +take. The whip was of no avail; he stood stock-still. Fellowes +applied his stick to his ribs--the white put his fore legs steadily +out before him and refused to move. I jumped out, seized the bridle, +and attempted to drag him forward; the white tossed his head high in +air, showing at the same time a set of vicious teeth, and actually +backed. What was to be done? Just at this moment, too, a party of +drovers, mounted on red uncombed ponies, with hair hanging over their +eyes, came up, and had the ill-feeling to _tee-hee_ audibly at our +discomfiture. This was another drop of acid squeezed into the bitter +cup. Suddenly, at a well-directed whack, the white made a desperate +plunge and took the hill. Midway he paused, and attempted his old +game, but down came a hurricane of blows, and he started off-- + + "'Twere long to tell and sad to trace" + +the annoyance that raw-boned quadruped wrought us. But it came to an +end at last. And at parting I waved the animal, sullen and +unbeloved, my last farewell; and wished that no green paddock should +receive him in his old age, but that his ill-natured flesh should be +devoured by the hounds; that leather should be made of his +be-cudgelled hide, and hoped that, considering its toughness, of it +should the boots and shoes of a poor man's children be manufactured. + +Late in the afternoon we reached Jean-Town, on the shores of Loch +Carron. 'Tis a tarry, scaly village, with a most ancient and +fish-like smell. The inhabitants have suffered a sea-change. The +men stride about in leather fishing-boots, the women sit at the open +doors at work with bait-baskets. Two or three boats are moored at +the stone-heaped pier. Brown, idle nets, stretched on high poles +along the beach, flap in the winds. We had tea at the primeval inn, +and on intimating to the landlord that we wished to proceed to +Broadford, he went off to engage a boat and crew. In a short time an +old sea-dog, red with the keen breeze, and redolent of the fishy +brine, entered the apartment with the information that everything was +ready. We embarked at once, a sail was hoisted, and on the +vacillating puff of evening we dropped gently down the loch. There +was something in the dead silence of the scene and the easy motion of +the boat that affected one. Weary with travel, worn out with want of +sleep, yet, at the same time, far from drowsy, with every faculty and +sense rather in a condition of wide and intense wakefulness, +everything around became invested with a singular and frightful +feeling. _Why_, I know not, for I have had no second experience of +the kind; but on this occasion, to my overstrained vision, every +object became instinct with a hideous and multitudinous life. The +clouds congealed into faces and human forms. Figures started out +upon me from the mountain-sides. The rugged surfaces, seamed with +torrent lines, grew into monstrous figures, and arms with clutching +fingers. The sweet and gracious shows of nature became, under the +magic of lassitude, a phantasmagoria hateful and abominable. Fatigue +changed the world for me as the microscope changes a dewdrop--when +the jewel, pure from the womb of the morning, becomes a world +swarming with unutterable life--a battle-field of unknown existences. +As the aspects of things grew indistinct in the fading light, the +possession lost its pain; but the sublimity of one illusion will be +memorable. For a barrier of mountains standing high above the +glimmering lower world, distinct and purple against a "daffodil sky," +seemed the profile of a gigantic man stretched on a bier, and the +features, in their sad imperial beauty, seemed those of the first +Napoleon. Wonderful that mountain-monument, as we floated seaward +into distance--the figure sculptured by earthquake, and fiery deluges +sleeping up there, high above the din and strife of earth, robed in +solemn purple, its background the yellow of the evening sky! + +About ten we passed the rocky portals of the loch on the last sigh of +evening, and stood for the open sea. The wind came only in +intermitting puffs, and the boatmen took to the oars. The +transparent autumn night fell upon us; the mainland was gathering in +gloom behind, and before us rocky islands glimmered on the level +deep. To the chorus of a Gaelic song of remarkable length and +monotony the crew plied their oars, and every plash awoke the +lightning of the main. The sea was filled with elfin fire. I hung +over the stern, and watched our brilliant wake seething up into a +kind of pale emerald, and rushing away into the darkness. The coast +on our left had lost form and outline, withdrawing itself into an +undistinguishable mass of gloom, when suddenly the lights of a +village broke clear upon it like a bank of glow-worms. I inquired +its name, and was answered, "Plockton." In half an hour the +scattered lights became massed into one; soon that died out in the +distance. Eleven o'clock! Like one man the rowers pull. The air is +chill on the ocean's face, and we wrap ourselves more closely in our +cloaks. There is something uncomfortable in the utter silence and +loneliness of the hour--in the phosphorescent sea, with its ghostly +splendours. The boatmen, too, have ceased singing. Would that I +were taking mine ease with M'Ian! Suddenly a strange sighing sound +is heard behind. One of the crew springs up, hauls down the sail, +and the next moment the squall is upon us. The boatmen hang on their +oars, and you hear the rushing rain. Whew! how it hisses down on us, +crushing everything in its passion. The long dim stretch of coast, +the dark islands, are in a moment shut out; the world shrinks into a +circumference of twenty yards; and within that space the sea is +churned into a pale illumination--a light of misty gold. In a moment +we are wet to the skin. The boatmen have shipped their oars, drawn +their jacket-collars over their ears, and there we lie at midnight +shelterless to the thick hiss of the rain. But it has spent itself +at last, and a few stars are again twinkling in the blue. It is +plain our fellows are somewhat tired of the voyage. They cannot +depend upon a wind; it will either be a puff, dying as soon as born, +or a squall roaring down on the sea, through the long funnels of the +glens; and to pull all the way is a dreary affair. The matter is +laid before us--the voices of the crew are loud for our return. They +will put us ashore at Plockton--they will take us across in the +morning. A cloud has again blotted the stars, and we consent. Our +course is altered, the oars are pulled with redoubled vigour; soon +the long dim line of coast rises before us, but the lights have +burned out now, and the Plocktonites are asleep. On we go; the boat +shoots into a "midnight cove," and we leap out upon masses of +slippery sea-weed. The craft is safely moored. Two of the men seize +our luggage, and we go stumbling over rocks, until the road is +reached. A short walk brings us to the inn, or rather public-house, +which is, however, closed for the night. After some knocking we were +admitted, wet as Newfoundlands from the lake. Wearied almost to +death, I reached my bedroom, and was about to divest myself of my +soaking garments, when, after a low tap at the door, the owner of the +boat entered. He stated his readiness to take us across in the +morning; he would knock us up shortly after dawn; but as he and his +companions had no friends in the place, they would, of course, have +to pay for their beds and their breakfasts before they sailed; "an' +she was shure the shentlemens waana expect her to pay the same." +With a heavy heart I satisfied the cormorant. He insisted on being +paid his full hire before he left Jean-Town, too! Before turning in, +I looked what o'clock. One in the morning! In three hours M'Ian +will be waiting in his galley at the head of Eishart's Loch. +Unfortunates that we are! + +At least, thought I when I awoke, there is satisfaction in +accomplishing something quite peculiar. There are many men in the +world who have performed extraordinary actions; but Fellowes and +myself may boast, without fear of contradiction, that we are the only +travellers who ever arrived at Plockton. Looking to the rottenness +of most reputations nowadays, our feat is distinction sufficient for +the ambition of a private man. We ought to be made lions of when we +return to the abodes of civilisation. I have heard certain beasts +roar, seen them wag their tails to the admiration of beholders, and +all on account of a slighter matter than that we wot of. Who, pray, +is the pale gentleman with the dishevelled locks, yonder, in the +flower-bed of ladies, to whom every face turns? What! don't you +know? The last new poet; author of the "Universe." Splendid +performance. Pooh! a reed shaken by the wind. Look at us. We are +the men who arrived at Plockton! But, heavens! the boatmen should +have been here ere this. Alarmed, I sprang out of bed, clothed in +haste, burst into Fellowes' room, turned him out, and then proceeded +down stairs. No information could be procured, nobody had seen our +crew. That morning they had not called at the house. After a while +a fisherman sauntered in, and in consideration of certain stimulants +to be supplied by us, admitted that our fellows were acquaintances of +his own; that they had started at day-break, and would now be far on +their way to Jean-Town. The scoundrels, so overpaid too! Well, +well, there's another world. With some difficulty we gathered from +our friend that a ferry from the mainland to Skye existed at some +inconceivable distance across the hills, and that a boat perhaps +might be had there. But how was the ferry to be reached? No +conveyance could be had at the inn. We instantly despatched scouts +to every point of the compass to hunt for a wheeled vehicle. At +height of noon our messengers returned with the information that +neither gig, cart, nor wheelbarrow could be had on any terms. What +was to be done? I was smitten by a horrible sense of helplessness; +it seemed as if I were doomed to abide for ever in that dreary place, +girdled by these gray rocks scooped and honey-combed by the washing +of the bitter seas--were cut off from friends, profession, and +delights of social intercourse, as if spirited away to fairyland. I +felt myself growing a fisherman, like the men about me; Gaelic seemed +forming on my tongue. Fellowes, meanwhile, with that admirable +practical philosophy of his, had lit a cigar, and was chatting away +with the landlady about the population of the village, the +occupations of the inhabitants, their ecclesiastical history. I +awoke from my gloomy dream as she replied to a question of his--"The +last minister was put awa for drinkin'; but we've got a new ane, a Mr +Cammil, an' verra weel liket he is." The words were a ray of light, +and suggested a possible deliverance. I slapped him on the shoulder, +crying, "I have it! There was a fellow-student of mine in Glasgow, a +Mr Donald Campbell, and it runs in my mind that he was preferred to a +parish in the Highlands somewhere; what if this should prove the +identical man? Let us call upon him." The chances were not very +much in our favour; but our circumstances were desperate, and the +thing was worth trying. The landlady sent her son with us to point +the way. We knocked, were admitted, and shown to the tiny +drawing-room. While waiting, I observed a couple of photograph cases +on the table. These I opened. One contained the portrait of a +gentleman in a white neckcloth, evidently a clergyman; the other that +of a lady, in all likelihood his spouse. Alas! the gentleman bore no +resemblance to my Mr Campbell: the lady I did not know. I laid the +cases down in disappointment, and began to frame an apology for our +singular intrusion, when the door opened--and my old friend entered. +He greeted us cordially, and I wrung his hand with fervour. I told +him our adventure with the Jean-Town boatmen, and our consequent +helplessness; at which he laughed, and offered his cart to convey +ourselves and luggage to Kyleakin ferry, which turned out to be only +six miles off. Genial talk about college scenes and old associates +brought on the hour of luncheon; that concluded, the cart was at the +door. In it our things were placed; farewells were uttered, and we +departed. It was a wild, picturesque road along which we moved; +sometimes comparatively smooth, but more frequently rough and stony, +as the dry torrent's bed. Black dreary wastes spread around. Here +and there we passed a colony of turf-huts, out of which wild ragged +children, tawny as Indians, came trooping, to stare upon us as we +passed. But the journey was attractive enough; for before us rose a +permanent vision of mighty hills, with their burdens of cloudy rack; +and every now and then, from an eminence, we could mark, against the +land, the blue of the sea flowing in, bright with sunlight. We were +once more on our way; the minister's mare went merrily; the breeze +came keen and fresh against us; and in less than a couple of hours we +reached Kyleakin. + +The ferry is a narrow passage between the mainland and Skye; the +current is powerful there, difficult to pull against on gusty days; +and the ferrymen are loath to make the attempt unless well +remunerated. When we arrived, we found four passengers waiting to +cross; and as their appearance gave prospect of an insufficient +supply of coin, they were left sitting on the bleak windy rocks until +some others should come up. It was as easy to pull across for ten +shillings as for two! One was a girl, who had been in service in the +south, had taken ill there, and was on her way home to some wretched +turf-hut on the hill-side, in all likelihood to die; the second a +little cheery Irishwoman, with a basketful of paper ornaments, with +the gaudy colours and ingenious devices of which she hoped to tickle +the æsthetic sensibilities, and open the purses, of the Gael. The +third and fourth were men, apparently laborious ones; but the younger +informed me he was a schoolmaster, and it came out incidentally in +conversation that his schoolhouse was a turf-cabin, his writing-table +a trunk, on which his pupils wrote by turns. Imagination sees his +young kilted friends kneeling on the clay floor, laboriously forming +pot-hooks there, and squinting horribly the while. The ferrymen +began to bestir themselves when we came up; and in a short time the +boat was ready, and the party embarked. The craft was crank, and +leaked abominably, but there was no help; and our bags were deposited +in the bottom. The schoolmaster worked an oar in lieu of payment. +The little Irishwoman, with her precious basket, sat high in the bow, +the labourer and the sick girl behind us at the stern. With a strong +pull of the oars we shot out into the seething water. In a moment +the Irishwoman is brought out in keen relief against a cloud of +spray; but, nothing daunted, she laughs out merrily, and seems to +consider a ducking the funniest thing in the world. In another, I +receive a slap in the face from a gush of blue water, and emerge, +half-blinded, and soaked from top to toe. Ugh, this sea-waltz is +getting far from pleasant. The leak is increasing fast, and our +carpet-bags are well-nigh afloat in the working bilge. We are all +drenched now. The girl is sick, and Fellowes is assisting her from +his brandy-flask. The little Irishwoman, erst so cheery and gay, +with spirits that turned every circumstance into a quip and crank, +has sunk in a heap at the bow; her basket is exposed, and the +ornaments, shaped by patient fingers out of coloured papers, are +shapeless now; the looped rosettes are ruined; her stock-in-trade, +pulp--a misfortune great to her as defeat to an army, or a famine to +a kingdom. But we are more than half-way across, and a little ahead +the water is comparatively smooth. The boatmen pull with greater +ease; the uncomfortable sensation at the pit of the stomach is +redressed; the white lips of the girl begin to redden somewhat; and +the bunch forward stirs itself, and exhibits signs of life. Fellowes +bought up the contents of her basket; and a contribution of +two-and-sixpence from myself made the widow's heart to sing aloud for +joy. On landing, our luggage is conveyed in a cart to the inn, and +waits our arrival there. Meanwhile we warm our chilled limbs with a +caulker of Glenlivet. "Blessings be with it, and eternal praise." +How the fine spirit melts into the wandering blood, like "a purer +light in light!" How the soft benignant fire streams through the +labyrinthine veins, from brain to toe! The sea is checkmated; the +heart beats with a fuller throb; and the impending rheumatism flies +afar. When we reached the inn, we seized our luggage, in the hope of +procuring dry garments. Alas! when I went up-stairs, mine might have +been the carpet-bag of a merman; it was wet to the inmost core. + +Soaked to the skin, it was our interest to proceed without delay. We +waited on the landlord, and desired a conveyance. The landlord +informed us that the only vehicle which he possessed was a phæton, at +present on hire till the evening, and advised us, now that it was +Saturday, to remain in his establishment till Monday, when he could +send us on comfortably. To wait till Monday, however, would never +do. We told the man our story, how for two days we had been the +sport of fortune, tossed hither and thither; but he--feeling he had +us in his power--would render no assistance. We wandered out toward +the rocks to hold a consultation, and had almost resolved to leave +our things where they were, and start on foot, when a son of the +innkeeper's joined us. He--whether cognisant of his parent's +statement, I cannot say--admitted that there were a horse and gig in +the stable; that he knew Mr M'Ian's place, and offered to drive us to +a little fishing village within three miles of it, where our things +could be left, and a cart sent to bring them up in the evening. The +charge was--never mind what!--but we closed with it at once. We +entered the inn while our friend went round to the stable to bring +the machine to the door; met the landlord on the stairs, sent an +indignant broadside into him, which he received with the utmost +coolness. The imperturbable man! he swallowed our shot like a +sandbank, and was nothing the worse. The horse was now at the door, +in a few moments our luggage was stowed away, and we were off. +Through seventeen miles of black moorland we drove almost without +beholding a single dwelling. Sometimes, although rarely, we had a +glimpse of the sea. The chief object that broke the desolation was a +range of clumsy red hills, stretching away like a chain of gigantic +dust-heaps. Their aspect was singularly dreary and depressing. They +were mountain _plebs_. Lava hardens into grim precipice, bristles +into jagged ridge, along which the rack drives, now hiding, now +revealing it; but these had no beauty, no terror, ignoble from the +beginning; dull offspring of primeval mud. About seven P.M. we +reached the village, left our things, still soaked in sea-water, in +one of the huts, till Mr M'Ian could send for them, and struck off on +foot for the three miles which we were told yet remained. By this +time the country had improved in appearance. The hills were swelling +and green; up these the road wound, fringed with ferns, mixed with +the purple bells of the foxglove. A stream, too, evidently escaped +from some higher mountain tarn, came dashing along in a succession of +tiny waterfalls. A quiet pastoral region, but so still, so deserted! +Hardly a house, hardly a human being! After a while we reached the +lake, half covered with water-lilies, and our footsteps startled a +brood of wild-ducks on its breast. How lonely it looked in its dark +hollow there, familiar to the cry of the wild bird, the sultry +summer-cloud, the stars and meteors of the night--strange to human +faces, and the sound of human voices. But what of our three miles? +We have been walking for an hour and a half. Are we astray in the +green wilderness? The idea is far from pleasant. Happily a youthful +native came trotting along, and of him we inquired our way. The boy +looked at us, and shook his head. We repeated the question, still +the same shy puzzled look. A proffer of a shilling, however, +quickened his apprehension, and returning with us a few paces, he +pointed out a hill-road striking up through the moor. On asking the +distance, he seemed put out for a moment, and then muttered, in his +difficult English, "Four mile." Nothing more could be procured in +the way of information; so off went little Bare-legs, richer than +ever he had been in his life, at a long swinging trot, which seemed +his natural pace, and which, I suppose, he could sustain from sunrise +to sunset. To this hill-road we now addressed ourselves. It was +sunset now. Up we went through the purple moor, and in a short time +sighted a crimson tarn, bordered with long black rushes, and as we +approached, a duck burst from its face on "squattering" wings, +shaking the splendour into widening circles. Just then two girls +came on the road with peats in their laps: anxious for information, +we paused--they, shy as heath-hens, darted past, and, when fifty +yards' distant, wheeled suddenly round, and burst into shrieks of +laughter, repeated and re-repeated. In no laughing mood we pursued +our way. The road now began to dip, and we entered a glen +plentifully covered with birchwood, a stream keeping us company from +the tarn above. The sun was now down, and objects at a distance +began to grow uncertain in the evening mist. The horrible idea that +we had lost our way, and were doomed to encamp on the heather, grew +upon us. On! on! We had walked six miles since our encounter with +the false Bare-legs. Suddenly we heard a dog bark; that was a sign +of humanity, and our spirits rose. Then we saw a troop of horses +galloping along the bottom of the glen. Better and better. "'Twas +an honest ghost, Horatio!" All at once we heard the sound of voices, +and Fellowes declared he saw something moving on the road. The next +moment M'Ian and a couple of shepherds started out of the gloom. At +sight of them our hearts burned within us, like a newly-poked fire. +Sincere was the greeting, immense the shaking of hands; and the story +of our adventures kept us merry till we reached the house. + +Of our doughty deeds at supper I will not sing, nor state how the +toddy-jugs were drained. Rather let me tell of those who sat with us +at the board--the elder Mr M'Ian, and Father M'Crimmon, then living +in the house. Mr M'Ian, senior, was a man past eighty, but fresh and +hale for his years. His figure was slight and wiry, his face a fresh +pink, his hair like snow. Age, though it had bowed him somewhat, had +not been able to steal the fire from his eye, nor the vigour from his +limbs. He entered the army at an early age; carried colours in +Ireland before the century came in; was with Moore at Corunna; +followed Wellington through the Peninsular battles; was with the 42d +at Quatre Bras, and hurt there when the brazen cuirassiers came +charging through the tall rye-grass; and, finally, stood at Waterloo +in a square that crumbled before the artillery and cavalry charges of +Napoleon--crumbled, but never flinched! It was strange to think that +the old man across the table breathed the same air with +Marie-Antoinette; saw the black cloud of the French Revolution torn +to pieces with its own lightnings, the eagles of Napoleon flying from +Madrid to Moscow, Wellington's victorious career--all that wondrous +time which our fathers and grandfathers saw, which has become history +now, wearing the air of antiquity almost. We look upon the ground +out yonder from Brussels, that witnessed the struggle; but what the +insensate soil, the woods, the monument, to the living eye in which +was pictured the fierce strife? to the face that was grimed with the +veritable battle-smoke? to the voice that mingled in the last cheer, +when the whole English line moved forward at sunset? M'Ian was an +isle-man of the old school; penetrated through every drop of blood +with pride of birth, and with a sense of honour which was like a +second conscience. He had all the faults incidental to such a +character. He was stubborn as the gnarled trunk of the oak, full of +prejudices which our enlightenment laughs at, but which we need not +despise, for with our knowledge and our science, well will it be for +us if we go to our graves with as stainless a name. He was quick and +hasty of temper, and contradiction brought fire from him like steel +from flint. Short and fierce were his gusts of passion. I have seen +him of an evening, with quivering hands and kindling eye, send a +volley of oaths into a careless servant, and the next moment almost +the reverend white head was bowed on his chair as he knelt at evening +prayer. Of these faults, however, this evening we saw nothing. The +old gentleman was kind and hospitable; full of talk, but his talk +seemed to us of old-world things. On Lords Palmerston and Derby he +was silent; he was eloquent on Mr Pitt and Mr Fox. He talked of the +French Revolution and the actors thereof as contemporaries. Of the +good Queen Victoria (for history is sure to call her that) he said +nothing. His heart was with his memory, in the older days when +George III. was king, and not an old king neither. + +Father M'Crimmon was a tall man, being in height considerably above +six feet. He was thin, like his own island, where the soil is washed +away by the rain, leaving bare the rock. His face was mountainously +bony, with great pits and hollows in it. His eyes were gray, and had +that depth of melancholy in them which is so often observed in men of +his order. In heart he was simple as a child; in discourse slow, +measured, and stately. There was something in his appearance that +suggested the silence and solitude of the wilderness; of hours lonely +to the heart, and bare spaces lonely to the eye. Although of +another, and--as I think, else I should not profess it--a purer +faith, I respected him at first, and loved him almost when I came to +know him. Was it wonderful that his aspect was sorrowful, that it +wore a wistful look, as if he had lost something which could never be +regained, and that for evermore the sunshine was stolen from his +smile? He was by his profession cut off from all the sweet ties of +human nature, from all love of wife or child. His people were widely +scattered: across the black moor, far up the hollow glens, blustering +with winds or dimmed with the rain-cloud. Thither the grim man +followed them, officiating on rare festival occasions of marriage and +christening; his face bright, not like a window ruddy with a fire +within, rather like a wintry pane tinged by the setting sun--a brief +splendour that warms not, and but divides the long cold day that has +already passed from the long cold night to come. More frequently he +was engaged dispensing alms, giving advice in disaster, waiting by +the low pallets of the fever-stricken, listening to the confession of +long-hoarded guilt, comforting the dark spirit as it passed to its +audit. It is not with viands like these you furnish forth life's +banquet; not on materials like these you rear brilliant spirits and +gay manners. He who looks constantly on death and suffering, and the +unspiritual influences of hopeless poverty, becomes infected with +congenial gloom. Yet cold and cheerless as may be his life, he has +his reward; for in his wanderings through the glens there is not an +eye but brightens at his approach, not a mourner but feels he has a +sharer in his sorrow; and when the tall, bony, seldom-smiling man is +borne at last to his grave, round many a fireside will tears fall and +prayers be said for the good priest M'Crimmon. All night sitting +there, we talked of strange + + "Unhappy far-off things, + And battles long ago," + +blood-crusted clan quarrels, bitter wrongs and terrible revenges: of +wraiths and bodings, and pale death-lights burning on the rocks. The +conversation was straightforward and earnest, conducted with perfect +faith in the subject-matter; and I listened, I am not ashamed to +confess, with a curious and not altogether unpleasant thrill of the +blood. For, I suppose, however sceptical as to ghosts the intellect +may be, the blood is ever a believer as it runs chill through the +veins. A new world and order of things seemed to gather round us as +we sat there. One was carried away from all that makes up the +present--the policy of Napoleon III., the death of President Lincoln, +the character of his successor, the universal babblement of scandal +and personal talk--and brought face to face with tradition; with the +ongoings of men who lived in solitary places, whose ears were +constantly filled with the sough of the wind, the clash of the wave +on the rock; whose eyes were open on the flinty cliff, and the +floating forms of mists, and the dead silence of pale sky dipping +down far off on the dead silence of black moor. One was taken at +once from the city streets to the houseless wilderness; from the +smoky sky to the blue desert of air stretching from mountain range to +mountain range, with the poised eagle hanging in the midst, +stationary as a lamp. Perhaps it was the faith of the speakers that +impressed me most. To them the stories were much a matter of course; +the supernatural atmosphere had become so familiar to them that it +had been emptied of all its wonder and the greater part of its +terror. Of this I am quite sure, that a ghost story, told in the pit +of a theatre, or at Vauxhall, or walking through a lighted London +street, is quite a different thing from a ghost story told, as I +heard it, in a lone Highland dwelling, cut off from every habitation +by eight miles of gusty wind, the sea within a hundred feet of the +walls, the tumble of the big wave, and the rattle of the pebbles, as +it washes away back again, distinctly heard where you sit, and the +talkers making the whole matter "stuff o' the conscience." Very +different! You laugh in the theatre, and call the narrator an ass; +in the other case you listen silently, with a scalp creeping as if +there were a separate life in it, and the blood streaming coldly down +the back. + +Young M'Ian awoke me next morning. As I came down stairs he told me, +had it not been Sunday he would have roused me with a performance on +the bagpipes. Heaven forfend! I never felt so sincere a +Sabbatarian. He led me some little distance to a favourable point of +rock, and, lo! across a sea, sleek as satin, rose a range of hills, +clear against the morning, jagged and notched like an old +sword-blade. "Yonder," said he, pointing, "beyond the black mass in +front, just where the shower is falling, lies Lake Coruisk. I'll +take you to see it one of these days." + + + + +_AT MR M'IAN'S._ + +[Sidenote: Mr M'Ian's porch.] + +The farm which Mr M'Ian rented was, in comparison with many others in +the island, of but moderate extent; and yet it skirted the seashore +for a considerable distance, and comprised within itself many a rough +hill, and many a green valley. The house was old-fashioned, was +_harled_ all over with lime, and contained a roomy porch, over which +ivies clustered, a dining-room, a drawing-room, a lot of bedrooms, +and behind, and built out from the house, an immense kitchen, with a +flagged floor and a huge fire-place. A whole colony of turf-huts, +with films of blue smoke issuing from each, were scattered along the +shore, lending a sort of homely beauty to the wild picturesqueness. +Beside the house, with a ruined summer-seat at one end, was a large +carelessly-kept garden, surrounded by a high stone wall. M'Ian kept +the key himself; and on the garden door were nailed ravens, and other +feathered malefactors in different stages of decay. Within a stone's +throw from the porch, were one or two barns, a stable, a wool-house, +and other out-houses, in which several of the servants slept. M'Ian +was careful of social degree, and did not admit every one to his +dining-room. He held his interviews with the common people in the +open air in front of the house. When a drover came for cattle he +dined solitarily in the porch, and the dishes were sent to him from +M'Ian's table. The drover was a servant, consequently he could not +sit at meat with my friend; he was more than a servant for the nonce, +inasmuch as he was his master's representative, and consequently he +could not be sent to the kitchen--the porch was therefore a kind of +convenient middle place; neither too high nor too humble, it was, in +fact, a sort of social purgatory. But Mr M'Ian did not judge a man +by the coat he wore, nor by the amount of money in his purse. When +Mr Macara, therefore, the superannuated schoolmaster, who might have +been a licentiate of the Church thirty years before, had he not +brought his studies in divinity to a close by falling in love, +marrying, and becoming the father of a large family; or when Peter, +the meek-faced violinist, who was of good descent, being the second +cousin of a knight-bachelor on his mother's side, and of an Indian +general on his father's--when these men called at the house, they +dined--with obvious trepidation, and sitting at an inconvenient +distance, so that a morsel was occasionally lost on its passage from +plate to mouth--at M'Ian's own table; and to them the old gentleman, +who would have regarded the trader worth a million as nothing better +than a scullion, talked of the old families and the old times. M'Ian +valued a man for the sake of his grandfather rather than for the sake +of himself. The shepherds, the shepherds' dogs, and the domestic +servants, dined in the large kitchen. The kitchen was the most +picturesque apartment in the house. There was a huge dresser near +the small dusty window; in a dark corner stood a great cupboard in +which crockery was stowed away. [Sidenote: The black kitchen.] The +walls and rafters were black with peat smoke. Dogs were continually +sleeping on the floor with their heads resting on their outstretched +paws; and from a frequent start and whine, you knew that in dream +they were chasing a flock of sheep along the steep hill-side, their +masters shouting out orders to them from the valley beneath. The +fleeces of sheep which had been found dead on the mountain were +nailed on the walls to dry. Braxy hams were suspended from the roof; +strings of fish were hanging above the fire-place. The door was +almost continually open, for by the door light mainly entered. Amid +a savoury steam of broth and potatoes, the shepherds and domestic +servants drew in long backless forms to the table, and dined innocent +of knife and fork, the dogs snapping and snarling among their legs; +and when the meal was over the dogs licked the platters. Macara, who +was something of a poet, would, on his occasional visits, translate +Gaelic poems for me. On one occasion, after one of these +translations had been read, I made the remark that a similar set of +ideas occurred in one of the songs of Burns. His gray eyes +immediately blazed up; he rushed into a Gaelic recitation of +considerable length; and, at its close, snapping defiant fingers in +my face, demanded, "Can you produce anything out of your Shakespeare +or your Burns equal to _that_?" Of course, I could not; and I fear I +aggravated my original offence by suggesting that in all likelihood +my main inability to produce a passage of corresponding excellence +from the southern authors arose from my entire ignorance of the +language of the native bard. When Peter came with his violin the +kitchen was cleared after nightfall; the forms were taken away, +candles stuck into the battered tin sconces, the dogs unceremoniously +kicked out, and a somewhat ample ballroom was the result. Then in +came the girls, with black shoes and white stockings, newly-washed +faces and nicely-smoothed hair; and with them came the shepherds and +men-servants, more carefully attired than usual. [Sidenote: The reel +of hoolichan.] Peter took his seat near the fire; M'Ian gave the +signal by clapping his hands; up went the inspiriting notes of the +fiddle and away went the dancers, man and maid facing each other, the +girl's feet twinkling beneath her petticoat, not like two mice, but +rather like a dozen; her kilted partner pounding the flag-floor +unmercifully; then man and maid changed step, and followed each other +through loops and chains; then they faced each other again, the man +whooping, the girl's hair coming down with her exertions; then +suddenly the fiddle changed time, and with a cry the dancers rushed +at each other, each pair getting linked arm in arm, and away the +whole floor dashed into the whirlwind of the reel of Hoolichan. It +was dancing with a will,--lyrical, impassioned; the strength of a +dozen fiddlers dwelt in Peter's elbow; M'Ian clapped his hands and +shouted, and the stranger was forced to mount the dresser to get out +of the way of whirling kilt and tempestuous petticoat. + +Chief amongst the dancers on these occasions were John Kelly, Lachlan +Roy, and Angus-with-the-dogs. John Kelly was M'Ian's principal +shepherd--a swarthy fellow, of Irish descent, I fancy, and of +infinite wind, endurance, and capacity of drinking whisky. He was a +solitary creature, irascible in the extreme; he crossed and +re-crossed the farm I should think some dozen times every day, and +was never seen at church or market without his dog. With his dog +only was John Kelly intimate, and on perfectly confidential terms. I +often wondered what were his thoughts as he wandered through the +glens at early morning, and saw the fiery mists upstreaming from the +shoulders of Blaavin; or when he sat on a sunny knoll at noon smoking +a black broken pipe, and watching his dog bringing a flock of sheep +down the opposite hill-side. Whatever they were, John kept them +strictly to himself. In the absorption of whisky he was without a +peer in my experience, although I have in my time encountered some +rather distinguished practitioners in that art. If you gave John a +glass of spirits, there was a flash, and it was gone. For a wager I +once beheld him drink a bottle of whisky in ten minutes. He drank it +in cupfuls, saying never a word. When it was finished, he wrapt +himself in his plaid, went out with his dog, and slept all night on +the hillside. I suppose a natural instinct told him that the night +air would decompose the alcohol for him. When he came in next +morning his swarthy face was a shade paler than was its wont; but he +seemed to suffer no uneasiness, and he tackled to his breakfast like +a man. + +[Sidenote: Lachlan Roy.] + +Lachlan Roy was a little cheery, agile, red squirrel of a man, and +like the squirrel, he had a lot of nuts stowed away in a secret hole +against the winter time. A more industrious little creature I have +never met. He lived near the old castle of Dunsciach, where he +rented a couple of crofts or so; there he fed his score or two of +sheep, and his half dozen of black cattle; and from thence he drove +them to Broadford market twice or thrice in the year, where they were +sure to fetch good prices. He knew the points of a sheep or a stirk +as well as any man in the island. He was about forty-five, had had a +wife and children, but they had all died years before; and although a +widower, Lachlan was as jolly, as merry-eyed and merry-hearted as any +young bachelor shepherd in the country. He was a kindly soul too, +full of pity, and was constantly performing charitable offices for +his neighbours in distress. A poor woman in his neighbourhood had +lost her suckling child, and Lachlan came up to M'Ian's house with +tears in his eyes, seeking some simple cordials and a bottle of wine. +"Ay, it's a sad thing, Mr M'Ian," he went on, "when death takes a +child from the breast. A full breast and an empty knee, Mr M'Ian, +makes a desolate house. Poor Mirren has a terrible rush of milk, and +cold is the lip to-day that could relieve her. And she's all alone +too, Mr M'Ian, for her husband is at Stornoway after the herring." +Of course he got the cordials and the wine, and of course, in as +short a space of time as was possible, the poor mother, seated on an +upturned creel, and rocking herself to and fro over her clasped +hands, got them also, with what supplementary aid Lachlan's own +stores could afford. Lachlan was universally respected; and when he +appeared every door opened cheerfully. At all dance gatherings at +M'Ian's he was certain to be present; and old as he was +comparatively, the prettiest girl was glad to have him for a partner. +He had a merry wit, and when he joked, blushes and titterings +overspread in a moment all the young women's faces. On such +occasions I have seen John Kelly sitting in a corner gloomily biting +his nails, jealousy eating his heart. But Lachlan cared nothing for +John's mutinous countenance--he meant no harm, and he feared no man. +Lachlan Roy, being interpreted, means red Lachlan; and this cognomen +not only drew its appropriateness from the colour of his hair and +beard; it had, as I afterwards learned, a yet deeper significance. +Lachlan, if the truth must be told, had nearly as fierce a thirst for +strong waters as John Kelly himself, and that thirst on fair days, +after he had sold his cattle at Broadford, he was wont plentifully to +slake. His face, under the influence of liquor, became red as a +harvest moon; and as of this physiological peculiarity in himself he +had the most perfect knowledge, he was under the impression that if +he drew rein on this side of high alcoholic inflammation of +countenance he was safe, and on the whole rather creditably virtuous +than otherwise. And so, perhaps, he would have been, had he been +able to judge for himself, or had he been placed amongst boon +companions who were ignorant of his weakness, or who did not wish to +deceive him. Somewhat suspicious, when a fresh jorum was placed on +the table, he would call out--"Donald, is my face red yet?" Donald, +who was perfectly aware of the ruddy illumination, would +hypocritically reply, "Hoot, Lachlan dear, what are ye speaking +about? Your face is just its own natural colour. What should it be +red for?" + +"Duncan, you scoundrel," he would cry fiercely at a later period, +bringing his clenched fist down on the table, and making the glasses +dance--"Duncan, you scoundrel, look me in the face!" Thus adjured, +Duncan would turn his uncertain optics on his flaming friend. "Is my +face red yet, Duncan?" Duncan, too far gone for speech, would shake +his head in the gravest manner, plainly implying that the face in +question was not red, and that there was not the least likelihood +that it would ever become red. And so, from trust in the veracity of +his fellows, Lachlan was, at Broadford, brought to bitter grief twice +or thrice in the year. + +[Sidenote: Angus-with-the-dogs.] + +Angus-with-the-dogs was continually passing over the country like the +shadow of a cloud. If he had a home at all, it was situated at +Ardvasar, near Armadale; but there Angus was found but seldom. He +was always wandering about with his gun over his shoulder, his +terriers, Spoineag and Fruich, at his heels, and the kitchen of every +tacksman was open to him. The tacksmen paid Angus so much per annum, +and Angus spent his time in killing their vermin. He was a dead +shot; he knew the hole of the fox, and the cairn in which an otter +would be found. If you wanted a brace of young falcons, Angus would +procure them for you; if ravens were breeding on one of your cliffs, +you had but to wait till the young ones were half-fledged, send for +Angus, and before evening the entire brood, father and mother +included, would be nailed on your barn door. He knew the +seldom-visited loch up amongst the hills which was haunted by the +swan, the cliff of the Cuchullins on which the eagles dwelt, the +place where, by moonlight, you could get a shot at the shy heron. He +knew all the races of dogs. In the warm blind pup he saw, at a +glance, the future terrier or staghound. He could cure the +distemper, could crop ears and dock tails. He could cunningly plait +all kinds of fishing tackle; could carve _quaichs_, and work you +curiously-patterned dagger-hilts out of the black bog-oak. If you +wished a tobacco-pouch made of the skin of an otter or a seal, you +had simply to apply to Angus. From his variety of accomplishment he +was an immense favourite. The old farmers liked him because he was +the sworn foe of pole-cats, foxes, and ravens; the sons of farmers +valued him because he was an authority in rifles and fowling-pieces, +and knew the warm shelving rocks on which bullet-headed seals slept, +and the cairns on the sea-shore in which otters lived; and because if +any special breed of dog was wanted he was sure to meet the demand. +He was a little, thick-set fellow, of great physical strength, and of +the most obliging nature; and he was called Angus-with-the-dogs, +because without Spoineag and Fruich at his heels, he was never seen. +The pipe was always in his mouth,--to him tobacco smoke was as much a +matter of course as peat reek is to a turf-hut. + +[Sidenote: Waiting for Angus.] + +One day, after Fellowes had gone to the Landlord's, where I was to +join him in a week or ten days, young M'Ian and myself waited for +Angus-with-the-dogs on one of the rising grounds at a little distance +from the house. Angus in his peregrinations had marked a cairn in +which he thought an otter would be found, and it was resolved that +this cairn should be visited on a specified day about noon, in the +hope that some little sport might be provided for the Sassenach. +About eleven A.M., therefore, on the specified day we lay on the +heather smoking. It was warm and sunny; M'Ian had thrown beside him +on the heather his gun and shot-belt, and lay back luxuriously on his +fragrant couch, meerschaum in mouth, his Glengary bonnet tilted +forward over his eyes, his left leg stretched out, his right drawn +up, and his brown hands clasped round the knee. Of my own position, +which was comfortable enough, I was not at the moment specially +cognisant; my attention being absorbed by the scenery around, which +was wild and strange. We lay on couches of purple heather, as I have +said; and behind were the sloping birch-woods--birch-woods always +remind one somehow of woods in their teens--which ran up to the bases +of white cliffs traversed only by the shepherd and the shadows of +hawks and clouds. The plateau on which we lay ran toward the sea, +and suddenly broke down to it in little ravines and gorges, +beautifully grassed and mossed, and plumed with bunches of ferns. +Occasionally a rivulet came laughing and dancing down from rocky +shelf to shelf. Of course, from the spot where we lay, this breaking +down of the hill-face was invisible, but it was in my mind's eye all +the same, for I had sailed along the coast and admired it a couple of +days before. Right in front flowed in Loch Eishart, with its islands +and white sea-birds. Down in the right-hand corner, reduced in size +by distance, the house sat on its knoll, like a white shell; and +beside it were barns and outhouses, the smoking turf-huts on the +shore, the clumps of birch-wood, the thread of a road which ran down +toward the stream from the house, crossed it by a bridge a little +beyond the turf-huts and the boat-shed, and then came up towards us +till it was lost in the woods. Right across the Loch were the round +red hills that rise above Broadford; and the entire range of the +Cuchullins--the outline wild, splintered, jagged, as if drawn by a +hand shaken by terror or frenzy. A glittering mesh of sunlight +stretched across the Loch, blinding, palpitating, ever-dying, +ever-renewed. The bee came booming past, the white sea-gull swept +above, silent as a thought or a dream. Gazing out on all this, +somewhat lost in it, I was suddenly startled by a sharp whistle, and +then I noticed that a figure was crossing the bridge below. M'Ian +got up; "That's Angus," he said; "let us go down to meet him;" and +so, after knocking the ashes out of his pipe and filling it anew, +picking up his gun and slinging his shot-belt across his shoulder, he +led the way. + +[Sidenote: Arrival of Angus.] + +At the bridge we found Angus seated, with his gun across his knee, +and Spoineag and Fruich coursing about, and beating the bushes, from +which a rabbit would occasionally bounce and scurry off. Angus +looked more alert and intelligent than I had ever before seen +him--probably because he had business on hand. We started at once +along the shore at the foot of the cliffs above which we had been +lying half an hour before. Our way lay across large boulders which +had rolled down from the heights above, and progression, at least to +one unaccustomed to such rough work, was by no means easy. Angus and +M'Ian stepped on lightly enough, the dogs kept up a continual barking +and yelping, and were continually disappearing in rents and crannies +in the cliffs, and emerging more ardent than ever. At a likely place +Angus would stop for a moment, speak a word or two to the dogs, and +then they rushed barking at every orifice, entered with a struggle, +and ranged through all the passages of the hollow cairn. As yet the +otter had not been found at home. [Sidenote: The otter hunt.] At +last when we came in view of a spur of the higher ground which, +breaking down on the shore, terminated in a sort of pyramid of loose +stones, Angus dashed across the broken boulders at a run, followed by +his dogs. When they got up, Spoineag and Fruich, barking as they had +never barked before, crept in at all kinds of holes and impossible +fissures, and were no sooner out than they were again in. Angus +cheered and encouraged them, and pointed out to M'Ian traces of the +otter's presence. I sat down on a stone and watched the behaviour of +the terriers. If ever there was an insane dog, it was Fruich that +day; she jumped and barked, and got into the cairn by holes through +which no other dog could go, and came out by holes through which no +other dog could come. Spoineag, on the other hand, was comparatively +composed; he would occasionally sit down, and taking a critical view +of the cairn, run barking to a new point, and to that point Fruich +would rush like a fury and disappear. Spoineag was a +commander-in-chief, Fruich was a gallant general of division. +Spoineag was Wellington, Fruich was the fighting Picton. Fruich had +disappeared for a time, and from the muffled barking we concluded she +was working her way to the centre of the citadel, when all at once +Spoineag, as if moved by a sudden inspiration, rushed to the top of +the cairn, and began tearing up the turf with teeth and feet. +Spoineag's eagerness now was as intense as ever Fruich's had been. +Angus, who had implicit faith in Spoineag's genius, climbed up to +assist, and tore away at the turf with his hands. In a minute or so +Spoineag had effected an entrance from the top, and began to work his +way downwards. Angus stood up against the sky with his gun in +readiness. We could hear the dogs barking inside, and evidently +approaching a common centre, when all at once a fell tumult arose. +The otter was reached at last, and was using teeth and claws. Angus +made a signal to M'Ian, who immediately brought his gun to his +shoulder. The combat still raged within, and seemed to be coming +nearer. Once Fruich came out howling with a bleeding foot, but a cry +from Angus on the height sent her in again. All at once the din of +barking ceased, and I saw a black lurching object flit past the +stones towards the sea. Crack went M'Ian's gun from the boulder, +crack went Angus's gun from the height, and the black object turned +half round suddenly and then lay still. It was the otter; and the +next moment Spoineag and Fruich were out upon it, the fire of battle +in their eyes, and their teeth fixed in its bloody throat. They +dragged the carcase backwards and forwards, and seemed unable to sate +their rage upon it. What ancient animosity existed between the +families of otters and terriers? What wrong had been done never to +be redressed? Angus came forward at last, sent Spoineag and Fruich +howling right and left with his foot, seized the otter by the tail, +and then over the rough boulders we began our homeward march. Our +progress past the turf-huts nestling on the shore at the foot of the +cliffs was a triumphal one. Old men, women, and brown half-naked +children came out to gaze upon us. When we got home the otter was +laid on the grass in front of the house, where the elder M'Ian came +out to inspect it, and was polite enough to express his approval, and +to declare that it was not much inferior in bulk and strength to the +otters he had hunted and killed at the close of last century. +[Sidenote: Skinning the otter.] After dinner young M'Ian skinned his +trophy, and nailed and stretched the hide on the garden gate amid the +dilapidated kites and ravens. In the evening, Angus, with his gun +across his shoulder, and Spoineag and Fruich at his heels, started +for that mysterious home of his which was supposed to be at Ardvasar, +somewhere in the neighbourhood of Armadale Castle. + +A visit to Loch Coruisk had for some little time been meditated; and +in the evening of the day on which the otter was slain the boat was +dragged from its shed down towards the sea, launched, and brought +round to the rude pier, where it was moored for the night. We went +to bed early, for we were to rise with the sun. We got up, +breakfasted, and went down to the pier where two or three sturdy +fellows were putting oars and rowlocks to rights, tumbling in huge +stones for ballast, and carefully stowing away a couple of guns and a +basket of provisions. In about an hour we were fairly afloat; the +broad-backed fellows bent to their oars, and soon the house began to +dwindle in the distance, the irregular winding shores to gather into +compact masses, and the white cliffs, which we knew to be a couple of +miles inland, to come strangely forward, and to overhang the house +and the surrounding stripes of pasturage and clumps of birchwood. +[Sidenote: Loch Eishart.] On a fine morning there is not in the whole +world a prettier sheet of water than Loch Eishart. Everything about +it is wild, beautiful, and lonely. You drink a strange and +unfamiliar air. You seem to be sailing out of the nineteenth century +away back into the ninth. You are delighted, and there is no +remembered delight with which you can compare the feeling. Over the +Loch the Cuchullins rise crested with tumult of golden mists; the +shores are green behind; and away out, towards the horizon, the +Island of Rum--ten miles long at the least--shoots up from the flat +sea like a pointed flame. It is a granite mass, you know, firm as +the foundations of the world; but as you gaze the magic of morning +light makes it a glorious apparition--a mere crimson film or shadow, +so intangible in appearance you might almost suppose it to exist on +sufferance, and that a breath could blow it away. Between Rum, +fifteen miles out yonder, and the shores drawing together and +darkening behind, with the white cliffs coming forward to stare after +us, the sea is smooth, and flushed with more varied hues than ever +lived on the changing opal--dim azures, tender pinks, sleek emeralds. +It is one sheet of mother-of-pearl. The hills are silent. The voice +of man has not yet awoke on their heathery slopes. But the sea, +literally clad with birds, is vociferous. They make plenty of noise +at their work, these fellows. Darkly the cormorant shoots across our +track. The air is filled with a confused medley of sweet, +melancholy, and querulous notes. As we proceed, a quick head ducks; +a troop of birds sinks suddenly to reappear far behind, or perhaps +strips off the surface of the water, taking wing with a shrill cry of +complaint. Occasionally, too, a porpoise, or "fish that hugest swims +the ocean stream," heaves itself slowly out of the element, its wet +sides flashing for a moment in the sunlight, and then heeling lazily +over, sinks with never a ripple. As we approached the Strathaird +coast, M'Ian sat high in the bow smoking, and covering with his gun +every now and again some bird which came wheeling near, while the +boatmen joked, and sang snatches of many-chorused songs. As the +coast behind became gradually indistinct, the coast in front grew +bolder and bolder. You let your hand over the side of the boat and +play listlessly with the water. You are lapped in a dream of other +days. Your heart is chanting ancient verses and sagas. The northern +sea wind that filled the sails of the Vikings, and lifted their locks +of tarnished gold, is playing in your hair. And when the keel grates +on the pebbles at Kilmaree you are brought back to your proper +century and self--for by that sign you know that your voyage is over +for the present, and that the way to Coruisk is across the steep hill +in front. + +[Sidenote: Camasunary.] + +The boat was moored to a rude pier of stones, very similar to the one +from which we started a couple of hours before, the guns were taken +out, so was also the basket of provisions, and then the party, in +long-drawn straggling procession, began to ascend the hill. The +ascent is steep and laborious. At times you wade through heather as +high as your knee; at other times you find yourself in a bog, and +must jump perforce from solid turf to turf. Progress is necessarily +slow; and the sun coming out strongly makes the brows ache with +intolerable heat. The hill-top is reached at last, and you behold a +magnificent sight. Beneath, a blue Loch flows in, on the margin of +which stands the solitary farm-house of Camasunary. Out on the +smooth sea sleep the islands of Rum and Canna--Rum towered and +mountainous, Canna flat and fertile. On the opposite side of the +Loch, and beyond the solitary farm-house, a great hill breaks down +into ocean with shelf and precipice. On the right Blaavin towers up +into the mists of the morning, and at his base opens the desolate +Glen Sligachan, to which Glencoe is Arcady. On the left, the eye +travels along the whole south-west side of the island to the Sound of +Sleat, to the hills of Knoydart, to the long point of Ardnamurchan, +dim on the horizon. In the presence of all this we sink down in +heather or on boulder, and wipe our heated foreheads; in the presence +of all this M'Ian hands round the flask, which is received with the +liveliest gratitude. In a quarter of an hour we begin the descent, +and in another quarter of an hour we are in the valley, and +approaching the solitary farm-house. While about three hundred yards +from the door a man issued therefrom and came towards us. It would +have been difficult to divine from dress and appearance what order of +man this was. He was evidently not a farmer, he was as evidently not +a sportsman. His countenance was grave, his eye was bright, but you +could make little out of either; about him there was altogether a +listless and a weary look. He seemed to me to have held too constant +communion with the ridges of Blaavin and the desolations of Glen +Sligachan. He was not a native of these parts, for he spoke with an +English accent. [Sidenote: The tobacco-less man.] He addressed us +frankly, discussed the weather, told us the family was from home, and +would be absent for some weeks yet; that he had seen us coming down +the hill, and that, weary of rocks and sheep and sea-birds, he had +come out to meet us. He then expressed a wish that we would oblige +him with tobacco, that is, if we were in a position to spare any: +stating that tobacco he generally procured from Broadford in rolls of +a pound weight at a time; that he had finished his last roll some ten +days ago, and that till this period, from some unaccountable +accident, the roll, which was more than a week due, had never +arrived. He feared it had got lost on the way--he feared that the +bearer had been tempted to smoke a pipe of it, and had been so +charmed with its exquisite flavour that he had been unable to stir +from the spot until he had smoked the entire roll out. He rather +thought the bearer would be about the end of the roll now, and that, +conscious of his atrocious conduct, he would never appear before him, +but would fly the country--go to America, or the Long Island, or some +other place where he could hold his guilt a secret. He had found the +paper in which the last roll had been wrapt, had smoked _that_, and +by a strong effort of imagination had contrived to extract from it +considerable enjoyment. And so we made a contribution of bird's-eye +to the tobacco-less man, for which he returned us politest thanks, +and then strolled carelessly toward Glen Sligachan--probably to look +out for the messenger who had been so long on the way. + +"Who is our friend?" I asked of my companion. "He seems to talk in a +rambling and fanciful manner." + +"I have never seen him before," said M'Ian; "but I suspect he is one +of those poor fellows who, from extravagance, or devotion to opium or +strong waters, have made a mull of life, and who are sent here to end +it in a quiet way. We have lots of them everywhere." + +"But," said I, "this seems the very worst place you could send such a +man to--it's like sending a man into a wilderness with his remorse. +It is only in the world, amid its noise, its ambitions, its +responsibilities, that men pick themselves up. Sea-birds, and misty +mountains, and rain, and silence are the worst companions for such a +man." + +"But then, you observe, sea-birds, and misty mountains, and rain, and +silence hold their tongues, and take no notice of peccadilloes. +Whatever may be their faults, they are not scandal-mongers. The +doings in Skye do not cause blushes in London. The man dies here as +silently as a crow; it is only a black-bordered letter, addressed in +a strange hand, that tells the news; and the black-bordered epistle +can be thrown into the fire--if the poor mother does not clutch at it +and put it away--and no one be a bit the wiser. It is sometimes to +the advantage of his friends that a man should go into the other +world by the loneliest and most sequestered path." + +So talking, we passed the farm-house, which, with the exception of a +red-headed damsel, who thrust her head out of a barn to stare, seemed +utterly deserted, and bent our steps towards the shore of the Loch. +Rough grass bordered a crescent of yellow sand, and on the rough +grass a boat lay on its side, its pitchy seams blistering in the +early sunshine. Of this boat we immediately took possession, dragged +it down to the sea margin, got in our guns and provisions, tumbled in +stones for ballast, procured oars, and pushed of. We had to round +the great hill which, from the other side of the valley, we had seen +breaking down into the sea; and as we sailed and looked up, sheep +were feeding on the green shelves, and every now and again a white +smoke of sea-birds burst out dangerously from the black precipices. +Slowly rounding the rocky buttress, which on stormy days the Atlantic +fillips with its spray, another headland, darker still and drearier, +drew slowly out to sea, and in a quarter of an hour we had passed +from the main ocean into Loch Scavaig, and every pull of the oars +revealed another ridge of the Cuchullins. Between these mountain +ramparts we sailed, silent as a boatful of souls being conveyed to +some Norse hades. [Sidenote: Lock Coruisk.] The Cuchullins were +entirely visible now; and the sight midway up Loch Scavaig is more +impressive even than when you stand on the ruined shore of Loch +Coruisk itself--for the reason, perhaps, that, sailing midway, the +mountain forms have a startling unexpectedness, while by the time you +have pulled the whole way up, you have had time to master them to +some extent, and familiarity has begun to dull the impression. In +half an hour or so we disembarked on a rude platform of rock, and +stepped out on the very spot on which, according to Sir Walter, the +Bruce landed: + + "Where a wild stream with headlong shock + Comes brawling down a bed of rock + To mingle with the main." + +Picking your steps carefully over huge boulder and slippery stone, +you come upon the most savage scene of desolation in Britain. +Conceive a large lake filled with dark green water, girt with torn +and shattered precipices; the bases of which are strewn with ruin +since an earthquake passed that way, and whose summits jag the sky +with grisly splinter and peak. There is no motion here save the +white vapour steaming from the abyss. The utter silence weighs like +a burden upon you: you feel an intruder in the place. The hills seem +to possess some secret; to brood over some unutterable idea which you +can never know. You cannot feel comfortable at Loch Coruisk, and the +discomfort arises in a great degree from the feeling that you are +outside of everything--that the thunder-splitten peaks have a life +with which you cannot intermeddle. The dumb monsters sadden and +perplex. Standing there, you are impressed with the idea that the +mountains are silent because they are listening so intently. And the +mountains are listening, else why do they echo our voices in such a +wonderful way? Shout here like an Achilles in the trenches. Listen! +The hill opposite takes up your words, and repeats them one after +another, and curiously tries them over with the gravity of a raven. +Immediately after, you hear a multitude of skyey voices. + + "Methinks that there are spirits among the peaks." + +How strangely the clear strong tones are repeated by these granite +precipices! Who could conceive that Horror had so sweet a voice! +Fainter and more musical they grow; fainter, sweeter, and more +remote, until at last they come on your ear as if from the blank of +the sky itself. M'Ian fired his gun, and it reverberated into a +whole battle of Waterloo. We kept the hills busy with shouts and the +firing of guns, and then M'Ian led us to a convenient place for +lunching. As we trudge along something lifts itself off a rock--'tis +an eagle. See how grandly the noble creature soars away. What sweep +of wings! What a lord of the air! And if you cast up your eyes you +will see his brother hanging like a speck beneath the sun. Under +M'Ian's guidance, we reached the lunching-place, unpacked our basket, +devoured our bread and cold mutton, drank our bottled beer, and then +lighted our pipes and smoked--in the strangest presence. Thereafter +we bundled up our things, shouldered our guns, and marched in the +track of ancient Earthquake towards our boat. Embarked once again, +and sailing between the rocky portals of Loch Scavaig, I said, "I +would not spend a day in that solitude for the world. I should go +mad before evening." + +"Nonsense," said M'Ian. "Sportsmen erect tents at Coruisk, and stay +there by the week--capital trout, too, are to be had in the Loch. +The photographer, with his camera and chemicals, is almost always +here, and the hills sit steadily for their portraits. It's as well +you have seen Coruisk before its glory has departed. Your friend, +the Landlord, talks of mooring a floating hotel at the head of Loch +Scavaig full of sleeping apartments, the best of meats and drinks, +and a brass band to perform the newest operatic tunes on the summer +evenings. At the clangour of the brass band the last eagle will take +his flight for Harris." + +"The Tourist comes, and poetry flies before him as the red man flies +before the white. His Tweeds will make the secret top of Sinai +commonplace some day." + +In due time we reached Camasunary, and drew the boat up on the rough +grass beyond the yellow sand. The house looked deserted as we +passed. Our friend of the morning we saw seated on a rock, smoking, +and gazing up Glen Sligachan, still looking out for the appearance of +his messenger from Broadford. At our shout he turned his head and +waved his hand. We then climbed the hill and descended on Kilmaree. +It was evening now, and as we pulled homewards across the rosy frith, +I sat in the bow and watched the monstrous bulk of Blaavin, and the +wild fringe of the Cuchullins bronzed by sunset. M'Ian steered, and +the rowers, as they bent to their work, sang melancholy Gaelic songs. +It was eleven at night by the time we got across, and the hills we +had left were yet cutting, with dull purple, a pale yellow sky; for +in summer in these northern latitudes there is no proper night, only +a mysterious twilight of an hour and a sparkle of short-lived stars. + +[Sidenote: Broadford Fair.] + +Broadford Fair is a great event in the island. The little town lies +on the margin of a curving bay, and under the shadow of a somewhat +celebrated hill. On the crest of the hill is a cairn of stones, the +burying-place of a Scandinavian woman, tradition informs me, whose +wish it was to be laid high up there, that she might sleep right in +the pathway of the Norway wind. In a green glen at its base stands +the house of Corachatachin, breathing reminiscences of Johnson and +Boswell. Broadford is a post town, containing a lime kiln, an inn, +and perhaps three dozen houses in all. It is a place of great +importance. If Portree is the London of Skye, Broadford is its +Manchester. The markets, held four times a year, take place on a +patch of moorland, about a mile from the village. Not only are +cattle sold, and cash exchanged for the same, but there the Skye +farmer meets his relations, from the brother of his blood to his +cousin forty times removed. To these meetings he is drawn, not only +by his love of coin, but by his love of kindred, and--the _Broadford +Mail_ and the _Portree Advertiser_ lying yet in the womb of time--by +his love of gossip also. The market is the Skye-man's exchange, his +family gathering, and his newspaper. From the deep sea of his +solitude he comes up to breathe there, and, refreshed, sinks again. +This fair at Broadford I resolved to see. The day before the market +the younger M'Ian had driven some forty stirks from the hill, and +these, under the charge of John Kelly and his dog, started early in +the afternoon that they might be present at the rendezvous about +eight o'clock on the following morning, at which hour business +generally began. I saw the picturesque troop go +past--wildly-beautiful brutes of all colours,--black, red, +cream-coloured, dun and tan; all of a height, too, and so finely bred +that, but for difference of colour, you could hardly distinguish the +one from the other. What a lowing they made! how they tossed their +slavering muzzles! how the breaths of each individual brute rose in a +separate wreath! how John Kelly shouted and objurgated, and how his +dog scoured about! At last the bellowings of the animals--the horde +chanting after that fashion their obscure "_Lochaber no more_"--grew +fainter and fainter up the glen, and finally on everything the wonted +silence settled down. [Sidenote: On the way to the fair.] Next +morning before sunrise M'Ian and I followed in a dog-cart. We went +along the glen down which Fellowes and I had come; and in the meadows +over which, on that occasion, we observed a troop of horses galloping +through the mist of evening, I noticed, in the beamless light that +preceded sunrise, hay coops by the river side, and an empty cart +standing with its scarlet poles in the air. In a field nearer, a +couple of male blackcocks with a loud _whirr-rr_ were knocking their +pugnacious heads together. Suddenly, above the hill in front the sun +showed his radiant face, the chill atmosphere was pierced and +brightened by his fires, the dewy birch-trees twinkled, and there +were golden flickerings on the pools of the mountain stream along +whose margin our road ascended. We passed the lake near which the +peat-girls had laughed at us; I took note of the very spot on which +we had given Bare-legs a shilling, and related the whole story of our +evening walk to my companion as we tooled along. + +A mile or two after we had passed the little fishing village with +which I had formerly made acquaintance, we entered on a very dismal +district of country. It was precisely to the eye what the croak of +the raven is to the ear. It was an utter desolation in which nature +seemed deteriorated, and at her worst. Winter could not possibly +sadden the region; no spring could quicken it into flowers. The +hills wore but for ornament the white streak of the torrent; the +rocky soil clothed itself in heather to which the purple never came. +Even man, the miracle-worker, who transforms everything he touches, +who has rescued a fertile Holland from the waves, who has reared a +marble Venice out of salt lagoon and marsh, was defeated there. +Labour was resultless--it went no further than itself--it was like a +song without an echo. A turf-hut with smoke issuing from the roof, +and a patch of green round about, which reminded you of the smile of +an ailing child, and which would probably ripen, so far as it was +capable of ripening, by November, was all that man could wrest from +nature. [Sidenote: Broadford Fair.] Gradually, however, as we +proceeded, the aspect of the country changed, it began to exhibit +traces of cultivation; and before long, the red hill with the +Norwegian woman's cairn atop, rose before us, suggesting Broadford, +and the close of the journey. In a little while the road was filled +with cattle, driven forward with oath and shout. Every now and then +a dog-cart came skirring along, and infinite was the confusion, and +dire the clangour of tongues, when it plunged into a herd of sheep or +skittish "three-year-olds." At the entrance to the fair, the horses +were taken out of the vehicles, and left, with a leathern thong +fastened round their fore-legs, to limp about in search of breakfast. +On either side of the road stood hordes of cattle, the +wildest-looking creatures, with fells of hair hanging over their +eyes, and tossing horns of preposterous dimensions. On knolls, a +little apart, women with white caps and wrapped in scarlet tartan +plaids, sat beside a staked cow or pony, or perhaps a dozen sheep, +patiently waiting the advances of customers. Troops of horses +neighed from stakes. Sheep were there, too, in restless throngs and +masses, continually changing their shapes, scattering hither and +thither like quicksilver, insane dogs and men flying along their +edges. What a hubbub of sound! what lowing and neighing! what +bleating and barking! Down in the hollow ground tents had been +knocked up since dawn; there potatoes were being cooked for drovers +who had been travelling all night; there also liquor could be had. +To these places, I observed, contracting parties invariably repaired +to solemnise a bargain. At last we reached the centre of the fair, +and there stood John Kelly and his animals, a number of drovers +moving around them and examining their points. By these men my +friend was immediately surrounded, and much chaffering and +bargain-making ensued; visits to one of the aforesaid tents being +made at intervals. It was a strange sight that rude primeval +traffic. John Kelly kept a sharp eye on his beasts. Lachlan Roy +passed by, and low was his salute, and broad the smile on his +good-natured countenance. I wandered about aimlessly for a time, and +began to weary of the noise and tumult. M'Ian had told me that he +would not be able to return before noonday at earliest, and that all +the while he would be engaged in bargain-making on his own account, +or on the account of others, and that during those hours I must amuse +myself as best I could. As the novelty of the scene wore off, I +began to fear that amusement would not be possible. Suddenly lifting +my eyes out of the noise and confusion, there were the solitary +mountain tops, and the clear mirror of Broadford Bay, the opposite +coast sleeping green in it with all its woods; and lo! the steamer +from the south sliding in with her red funnel, and breaking the +reflection with a track of foam, and disturbing the far-off morning +silence with the thunders of her paddles. That sight solved my +difficulty for me in a moment. I thought of Dr Johnson and Boswell. +"I shall go," I said, "and look at the ruins of the House of +Corachatachin, that lies in the green glen beneath the red hill, on +the top of which the Norse woman is buried;" and so saying I went. + +To me, I confess, of all Hebridean associations, Dr Johnson's visit +is the pleasantest. How the doctor ever got there is a matter for +perpetual wonder. He liked books, good cheer, club-life, the roar of +Fleet Street, good talk, witty companions. One cannot imagine what +attractions the rainy and surge-beaten islands possessed for the +author of the "Vanity of Human Wishes." Wordsworth had not yet made +fashionable a love for mountain and lake, and the shapes of changing +cloud. Scott had not yet thrown the glamour of romance over the +northern land, from the Sark to the Fitful Head. Sidenote: Dr +Johnson in Skye.] For fine scenery Johnson did not care one rush. +When Boswell in the fulness of his delight pointed out "an immense +mountain," the doctor sincerely sneered, "an immense protuberance." +He only cared for mountains in books, and even in books he did not +care for them much. The rain-cloud, which would put Mr Ruskin into +ecstasies, could only suggest to the moralist the urgent necessity of +an umbrella or a coach. Johnson loved his ease; and a visit to the +Western island, was in his day a serious matter--about as serious as +a visit to Kamtschatka would be in ours. In his wanderings he was +exposed to rain and wind, indifferent cookery, tempestuous seas, and +the conversation of persons who were neither witty nor learned--who +were neither polished like Beauclerk, nor amusing like Goldsmith--and +who laughed at epigram as Leviathan laughs at the shaking of the +spear. I protest, when I think of the burly doctor travelling in +these regions, voluntarily resigning for a while all London delights, +I admire him as a very hero. Boswell commemorates certain outbreaks +of petulance and spleen; but, on the whole, the great man seems to +have been pleased with his adventure. Johnson found in his +wanderings beautiful and high-bred women, well-mannered and +cultivated men--and it is more than probable that, if he were +returning to the islands to-day, he would not find those admirable +human qualities in greater abundance. What puzzles me most is the +courage with which the philosopher encountered the sea. I have, in a +considerable steamer more than once, shivered at the heavy surge +breaking on Ardnamurchan; and yet the doctor passed the place in an +open boat on his way to Mull, "lying down below in philosophical +tranquillity, with a greyhound at his back to keep him warm," while +poor Bozzy remained in the rain above, clinging for dear life to a +rope which, a sailor gave him to hold, quieting his insurgent stomach +as best he could with pious considerations, and sadly disturbed when +a bigger wave than usual came shouldering onward, making the boat +reel, with the objections which had been taken to a particular +providence--objections which Dr Hawkesworth had lately revived in his +preface to "Voyages to the South Seas." Boswell's journal of the +tour is delicious reading; full of amusing egotism; unconsciously +comic when he speaks for himself, and at the same time valuable, +memorable, wonderfully vivid and dramatic in presentment when the +"Majestic Teacher of Moral and Religious Wisdom" appears. What a +singular capacity the man had to exhibit his hero as he lived, and at +the same time to write himself complacently down an ass! It needed a +certain versatility to accomplish the feat, one would think. In both +ways the most eminent success attends him. And yet the absurdity of +Boswell has all the effect of the nicest art. Johnson floats, a vast +galleon, in the sea of Boswell's vanity; and in contrast with the +levity of the element in which it lives, its bulk and height appear +all the more impressive. In Skye one is every now and again coming +on the tract of the distinguished travellers. They had been at +Broadford--and that morning I resolved I should go to Broadford also. + +[Sidenote: Corachatachin.] + +Picking my steps carefully through the fair--avoiding a flock of +sheep on the one side, and a column of big-horned black cattle on the +other, with some difficulty getting out of the way of an infuriated +bull that came charging up the road, scattering everything right and +left, a dozen blown drovers panting at its heels--I soon got quit of +the turmoil, and in half an hour passed the lime-kiln, the dozen +houses, the ten shops, the inn, and the church, which constitute +Broadford, and was pacing along the green glen which ran in the +direction of the red hills. At last I came to a confused pile of +stones, near which grew a solitary tree whose back the burden of the +blast had bent, and which, although not a breath of wind was +stirring, could no more regain an upright position than can a +round-shouldered labourer on a holiday. That confused pile of stones +was all that remained of the old house of Corachatachin. I wandered +around it more reverently than if it had been the cairn of a chief. +It is haunted by no ghost. So far as my knowledge extends, no combat +ever took place on the spot. But there Boswell, after Dr Johnson had +retired to rest, in company with some young Highland bloods--ah, me! +their very grandchildren must be dead or gray by this!--brewed and +quaffed five gigantic bowls of punch, with what wild talk we can +fancy; and the friend of the "Majestic Teacher of Moral and Religious +Wisdom" went to bed at five in the morning, and awoke with the +headache of the reprobate. At noon the doctor burst in with the +exclamation, "What, drunk yet?" "His tone of voice was not that of +severe upbraiding," writes the penitent Bozzy, "so I was relieved a +little." Did they fancy, these young men, as they sat that night and +drank, that a hundred years after people would write of their +doings?--that the odour of their punch-bowls would outlive +themselves? No man knows what part of his life will be remembered, +what forgotten. A single tear, hurriedly brushed away mayhap, is the +best thing we know of Xerxes. Picking one's steps around the ruin, +one thought curiously of the flushed faces which death has cooled for +so long. + +[Sidenote: The Fair at Broadford.] + +When I got back to the fair about noon, it was evident that a +considerable stroke of business had been done. Hordes of bellowing +cattle were being driven towards Broadford, and drovers were rushing +about in a wonderful manner, armed with tar-pot and stick, and +smearing their peculiar mark on the shaggy hides of their purchases. +Rough-looking customers enough these fellows, yet they want not +means. Some of them came here this morning with £500 in their +pocket-books, and have spent every paper of it, and this day three +months they will return with as large a sum. As I advanced, the +booths ranged along the side of the road--empty when I passed them +several hours before--were plentifully furnished with confections, +ribbons, and cheap jewellery, and around these fair-headed and +scarlet-plaided girls swarmed thickly as bees round summer flowers. + +The fair was running its full career of bargain-making, and +consequent dram-drinking, rude flirtation, and meeting of friend with +friend; when up the middle of the road, hustling the passengers, +terrifying the cattle, came three misguided young gentlemen--medical +students, I opined, engaged in botanical researches in these regions. +But too plainly they had been dwellers in tents. One of them, gifted +with a comic genius--his companions were desperately solemn--at one +point of the road threw back the collar of his coat, after the +fashion of Sambo when he brings down the applauses of the threepenny +gallery, and executed a shuffle in front of a bewildered cow. +Crummie backed and shied, bent on retreat. He, agile as a cork, +bobbed up and down in her front, turn whither she would, with shouts +and hideous grimaces, his companions standing by the while like mutes +at a funeral. The feat accomplished, the trio staggered on, amid the +scornful laughter and derision of the Gael. In a little while I +encountered M'Ian, who had finished his business and was anxious to +be gone. "We must harness the horse ourselves," he said, "for that +rascal, John Kelly, has gone off somewhere. He has been in and out +of tents ever since the cattle were sold, and I trust he won't come +to grief. He has a standing quarrel with the Kyle men, and may get a +broken head." [Sidenote: Lachlan Roy.] Elbowing our way through the +crowd, we reached the dog-cart, got the horse harnessed, and were +just about to start, when Lachlan Roy, his bonnet off, his +countenance inflamed, came flying up. "Maister Alic, Maister Alic, +is my face red yet?" cried he, as he laid his hand on the vehicle. +"Red enough, Lachlan; you had better come with us, you may lose your +money if you don't." "Aw, Maister Alic dear, don't say my face is +red--it's no red, Maister Alic--it's no vera red," pled the poor +fellow. "Will you come with us, or will you not?" said M'Ian, as he +gathered up the reins in his hand and seized the whip. At this +moment three or four drovers issued from a tent in the neighbourhood, +and Lachlan heard his name shouted. "I maun go back for my bonnet. +It wouldna do to ride with gentlemen without a bonnet;" and he +withdrew his hand. The drovers shouted again, and that second shout +drew Lachlan towards it as the flame draws the moth. "His face will +be red enough before evening," said M'Ian, as we drove away. + +After we had driven about a quarter of an hour, and got entirely free +of the fair, M'Ian, shading his eyes from the sun with a curved palm, +suddenly exclaimed, "There's a red dog sitting by the road-side a +little forward. It looks like John Kelly's." When we got up, the +dog wagged its tail and whined, but retained its recumbent position. +"Come out," said M'Ian. "The dog is acting the part of a sentinel, +and I daresay we shall find its master about." We got out +accordingly, and soon found John stretched on the heather, snoring +stertorously, his neck-tie unloosened, his bonnet gone, the sun +shining full on the rocky countenance of him. " [Sidenote: John +Kelly.] He's as drunk as the Baltic," said M'Ian; "but we must get +him out of this. Get up, John." But John made no response. We +pinched, pulled, and thumped, but John was immovable. I proposed +that some water should be poured on his face, and did procure some +from a wet ditch near, with which his countenance was splashed +copiously--not to its special adornment. The muddy water only +produced a grunt of dissatisfaction. "We must take him on his +fighting side," said M'Ian, and then he knelt down and shouted in +John's ear, "Here's a man from Kyle says he's a better man than you." +John grunted inarticulate defiance. "He says he'll fight you any day +you like." "Tell him to strike me, then," said John, struggling with +his stupor. "He says he'll kick you." Under the insult John visibly +writhed. "Kick him," whispered M'Ian, "as hard as you can. It's our +only chance." I kicked, and John was erect as a dart, striking +blindly out, and when he became aware against whom he was making such +hostile demonstrations his hands dropped, and he stood as if he had +seen a ghost. "Catch him," said M'Ian, "his rage has sobered him, +he'll be drunk next moment; get him into the dog-cart at once." So +the lucid moment was taken advantage of, he was hoisted into the back +seat of the vehicle, his bonnet was procured--he had fallen asleep +upon it--and placed on the wild head of him; we took our places, and +away we started, with the red dog trotting behind. John rolled off +once or twice, but there was no great harm done, and we easily got +him in again. As we drove down the glen toward the house we set him +down, and advised him to dip his wildly-tangled head in the stream +before he went home. + +During the last few weeks I have had opportunity of witnessing +something of life as it passes in the Skye wildernesses, and have +been struck with its self-containedness, not less than with its +remoteness. A Skye family has everything within itself. The bare +mountains yield mutton, which possesses a flavour and delicacy +unknown in the south. The copses swarm with rabbits; and if a net is +set over-night at the Black Island, there is abundance of fish to +breakfast. The farmer grows his own corn, barley, and potatoes, digs +his own peats, makes his own candles; he tans leather, spins cloth +shaggy as a terrier's pile, and a hunchbacked artist in the place +transforms the raw materials into boots or shepherd garments. Twice +every year a huge hamper arrives from Glasgow, stuffed with all the +little luxuries of housekeeping--tea, sugar, coffee, and the like. +At more frequent intervals comes a ten-gallon cask from Greenock, +whose contents can cunningly draw the icy fangs of a north-easter, or +take the chill out of the clammy mists. + + "What want they that a king should have?" + +And once a week the _Inverness Courier_, like a window suddenly +opened on the roaring sea, brings a murmur of the outer world, its +politics, its business, its crimes, its literature, its whole +multitudinous and unsleeping life, making the stillness yet more +still. [Sidenote: The islesman's year.] To the Islesman the dial +face of the year is not artificially divided, as in cities, by +parliamentary session and recess, college terms, vacations short and +long, by the rising and sitting of courts of justice; nor yet, as in +more fortunate soils, by imperceptible gradations of coloured +light--the green flowery year deepening into the sunset of the +October hollyhock; the slow reddening of burdened orchards; the slow +yellowing of wheaten plains. Not by any of these, but by the higher +and more affecting element of animal life, with its passions and +instincts, its gladness and suffering; existence like our own, +although in a lower key, and untouched by solemn issues; the same +music and wail, although struck on rude and uncertain chords. To the +Islesman the year rises into interest when the hills, yet wet with +melted snows, are pathetic with newly-yeaned lambs, and it completes +itself through the successive steps of weaning, fleecing, sorting, +fattening, sale, final departure, and cash in pocket. The shepherd +life is more interesting than the agricultural, inasmuch as it deals +with a higher order of being; for I suppose--apart from +considerations of profit--a couchant ewe, with her young one at her +side, or a ram, "with wreathed horns superb," cropping the herbage, +is a more pleasing object to the æsthetic sense than a field of +mangel-wurzel, flourishing ever so gloriously. The shepherd inhabits +a mountain country, lives more completely in the open air, and is +acquainted with all the phenomena of storm and calm, the +thunder-smoke coiling in the wind, the hawk hanging stationary in the +breathless blue. He knows the faces of the hills, recognises the +voices of the torrents as if they were children of his own, can +unknit their intricate melody as he lies with his dog beside him on +the warm slope at noon, separating tone from tone, and giving this to +rude crag, that to pebbly bottom. From long intercourse, every +member of his flock wears to his eye its special individuality, and +he recognises the countenance of a "wether" as he would the +countenance of a human acquaintance. Sheep-farming is a picturesque +occupation: and I think a multitude of sheep descending a hill-side, +now outspreading in bleating leisure, now huddling together in the +haste of fear--the dogs, urged more by sagacity than by the +shepherd's voice, flying along the edges, turning, guiding, changing +the shape of the mass--one of the prettiest sights in the world. + +[Sidenote: The fold.] + +The milking of the cows is worth going a considerable distance to +see. The cows browse about on the hills all day, and at sunset they +are driven into a sort of green oasis, amid the surrounding +birch-wood. The rampart of rock above is dressed in evening colours, +the grass is golden green; everything--animals, herds, and milkmaids +are throwing long shadows. All about, the cows stand lowing in +picturesque groups. The milkmaid approaches one, caresses it for a +moment, draws in her stool, and in an instant the rich milk is +hissing in the pail. All at once there arises a tremendous noise, +and pushing through the clumps of birch-wood down towards a shallow +rivulet which skirts the oasis, breaks a troop of wild-looking +calves, attended by a troop of wilder-looking urchins armed with +sticks and the branches of trees. The cows low more than ever, and +turn their wistful eyes; the bellowing calves are halted on the +further side of the rivulet, and the urchins stand in the water to +keep them back. An ardent calf, however, breaks through the cordon +of urchins, tumbles one into the streamlet, climbs the bank amid much +Gaelic exclamation, and ambles awkwardly toward his dam. Reaching +her, he makes a wild push at the swollen udder, drinks, his tail +shaking with delight; while she, turning her head round, licks his +shaggy hide with fond maternal tongue. In about five minutes he is +forced to desist, and with a branch-bearing urchin on each side of +him, is marched across the rivulet again. One by one the calves are +allowed to cross, each makes the same wild push at the udder, each +drinks, the tail ecstatically quivering; and on each the dam fixes +her great patient eyes, and turning licks the hide whether it be red, +black, brindled, dun, or cream-coloured. When the calves have been +across the rivulet and back again, and the cows are being driven away +to their accustomed pasturage, a milk-maid approaches with her pail, +and holding it up, gives you to drink, as long ago Rebecca gave to +drink the servant of Abraham. By this time the grass is no longer +golden green; the red light has gone off the rocky ramparts, and the +summer twilight is growing in the hollows, and in amongst the clumps +of birchwood. Afar you hear the noise of retiring calves and +urchins. The milk-maids start off in long procession with their +pails and stools. A rabbit starts out from a bush at your feet, and +scurries away down the dim field. And when, following, you descend +the hill-side toward the bridge you see the solemn purple of the +Cuchullins cutting the yellow pallor of evening sky--perhaps with a +feeling of deeper satisfaction you notice that a light is burning in +the porch of Mr M'Ian's house. [Sidenote: Lamb-weaning.] "The fold," +as the milking of the cows is called, is pretty enough; but the most +affecting incident of shepherd life is the weaning of the +lambs--affecting, because it reveals passions in the fleecy flocks, +the manifestation of which we are accustomed to consider ornamental +in ourselves. From all the hills men and dogs drive the flocks down +into a fold, or _fank_, as it is called here, consisting of several +chambers or compartments. Into these compartments the sheep are +huddled, and then the separation takes place. The ewes are returned +to the mountains, the lambs are driven away to some spot where the +pasture is rich, and where they are watched day and night. Midnight +comes with dews and stars; the lambs are peacefully couched. +Suddenly they are restless, ill at ease, goaded by some sore unknown +want, and seem disposed to scatter wildly in every direction; but the +shepherds are wary, the dogs swift and sure, and after a little while +the perturbation is allayed, and they are quiet again. Walk up now +to the fank. The full moon is riding between the hills, filling the +glens with lustres and floating mysterious glooms. Listen! you hear +it on every side of you, till it dies away in the silence of +distance--the fleecy Rachel weeping for her children! The turf walls +of the fank are in shadow, but something seems to be moving there. +As you approach, it disappears with a quick short bleat, and a hurry +of tiny hooves. Wonderful mystery of instinct! Affection all the +more affecting that it is so wrapt in darkness, hardly knowing its +own meaning. For nights and nights the creatures will be found +haunting; about those turfen walls seeking the young that have been +taken away. + +[Sidenote: Mr M'Ian.] + +But my chief delight here is my friend, Mr M'Ian. I know that I +described him when I first saw him in his own house; but knowing him +better now, as a matter of course I can describe him better. He +would strike one with a sense of strangeness in a city, and among men +of the present generation; but here he creates no surprise--he is a +natural product of the region, like the red heather, or the bed of +the dried torrent. He is master of legendary lore. He knows the +history of every considerable family in the island; he circulates +like sap through every genealogical tree; he is an enthusiast in +Gaelic poetry, and is fond of reciting compositions of native bards, +his eyes lighted up, and his tongue moving glibly over the rugged +clots of consonants. He has a servant cunning upon the pipes; and, +dwelling there this summer, I heard Ronald wandering near the house, +solacing himself with their music: now a plaintive love-song, now a +coronach for chieftain borne to his grave, now a battle march, the +notes of which, melancholy and monotonous at first, would soar into a +higher strain, and then hurry and madden as if beating time to the +footsteps of the charging clan. I am the fool of association; and +the tree under which a king has rested, the stone on which a banner +was planted on the morning of some victorious or disastrous day, the +house in which some great man first saw the light, are to me the +sacredest things. This slight, gray, keen-eyed man--the scabbard +sorely frayed now, the blade sharp and bright as ever--gives me a +thrill like an old coin with its half-obliterated effigy, a Druid +stone on a moor, a stain of blood on the floor of a palace. He +stands before me a living figure, and history groups itself behind by +way of background. He sits at the same board with me, and yet he +lifted Moore at Corunna, and saw the gallant dying eyes flash up with +their last pleasure when the Highlanders charged past. He lay down +to sleep in the light of Wellington's watch-fires in the gorges of +the Pyrenees; around him roared the death-thunders of Waterloo. +There is a certain awfulness about very old men; they are amongst us, +but not of us. They crop out of the living soil and herbage of +to-day, like rocky strata bearing marks of the glacier or the wave. +Their roots strike deeper than ours, and they draw sustenance from an +earlier layer of soil. They are lonely amongst the young; they +cannot form new friendships, and are willing to be gone. They feel +the "sublime attractions of the grave;" for the soil of churchyards +once flashed kind eyes on them, heard with them the chimes at +midnight, sang and clashed the brimming goblet with them; and the +present Tom and Harry are as nothing to the Tom and Harry that +swaggered about and toasted the reigning belles seventy years ago. +We are accustomed to lament the shortness of life; but it is +wonderful how long it is notwithstanding. Often a single life, like +a summer twilight, connects two historic days. Count back four +lives, and King Charles is kneeling on the scaffold at Whitehall. To +hear M'Ian speak, one could not help thinking in this way. In a +short run across the mainland with him this summer, we reached +Culloden Moor. The old gentleman with a mournful air--for he is a +great Jacobite, and wears the Prince's hair in a ring--pointed out +the burial-grounds of the clans. Struck with his manner, I inquired +how he came to know their red resting-places. As if hurt, he drew +himself up, laid his hand on my shoulder, saying, "Those who put them +in told me." Heavens, how a century and odd years collapsed, and the +bloody field--the battle-smoke not yet cleared away, and where +Cumberland's artillery told the clansmen sleeping in thickest +swathes--unrolled itself from the horizon down to my very feet! For +a whole evening he will sit and speak of his London life; and I +cannot help contrasting the young officer, who trod Bond Street with +powder in his hair at the end of last century, with the old man +living in the shadow of Blaavin now. + +[Sidenote: Skye stories.] + +Dwellers in cities have occasionally seen a house that has the +reputation of being haunted, and heard a ghost story told. City +people laugh when these stories are told, even although the blood +should run chill the while. But in Skye one is steeped in a ghostly +atmosphere; men walk about here gifted with the second sight. There +has been something weird and uncanny about the island for some +centuries. Douglas, on the morning of Otterbourne, according to the +ballad, was shaken with superstitious fears:-- + + "But I hae dream'd a dreary dream-- + Beyond the Isle of Skye, + I saw a dead man win a fight, + And I think that man was I." + + +Then the whole country is full of stories of the Norwegian times and +earlier--stories it might be worth Dr Dasent's while to take note of, +should he ever visit the Hebrides. Skye, more particularly, is +haunted of legends. It is as full of noises as Prospero's Island. +One such legend, concerning Ossian and his poems, struck me a good +deal. Near Mr M'Ian's place is a ruined castle, a mere hollow shell +of a building, Dunscaich by name, built in Fingalian days by the +chieftain Cuchullin, and so called by him in honour of his wife. The +ruin stands on a rocky headland bearded by gray-green lichens. It is +quite desolate, and but seldom visited. The only sounds heard there +are the whistle of the salt breeze, the bleat of a strayed sheep, the +cry of wheeling sea-birds. M'Ian and myself sat one summer day on +the ruined stair. Loch Eishart lay calm and bright beneath, the blue +expanse broken only by a creeping sail. Across the Loch rose the +great red hill, in the shadow of which Boswell got drunk, on the top +of which is perched the Scandinavian woman's cairn; and out of the +bare heaven, down on the crests of the Cuchullins, flowed a great +white vapour which gathered in the sunlight in mighty fleece on +fleece. The old gentleman was the narrator, and the legend goes as +follows:--The castle was built by Cuchullin and his Fingalians in a +single night. The chieftain had many retainers, was a great hunter, +and terrible in war. With his own arm he broke battalions; and every +night at feast the minstrel Ossian sang his exploits. Ossian, on one +occasion, wandering among the hills, was attracted by strains of +music which seemed to issue from a round green knoll on which the sun +shone pleasantly. He sat clown to listen, and was lulled asleep by +the melody. He had no sooner fallen asleep than the knoll opened, +and he beheld the under-world of the fairies. That afternoon and +night he spent in revelry, and in the morning he was allowed to +return. Again the music sounded, again the senses of the minstrel +were steeped in forgetfulness; and on the sunny knoll he awoke, a +gray-haired man, for into one short afternoon and evening had been +crowded a hundred of our human years. In his absence the world had +been entirely changed, the Fingalians were extinct, and the dwarfish +race whom we now call men were possessors of the country. Longing +for companionship, and weary of singing his songs to the earless +rocks and sea waves, Ossian married the daughter of a shepherd, and +in process of time a little girl was born to him. Years passed on, +his wife died, and his daughter, woman grown now, married a pious +man--for the people were Christianised by this time--called, from his +love of psalmody, Peter of the Psalms. Ossian, blind with age, and +bearded like the cliff yonder, went to reside with his daughter and +her husband. Peter was engaged all day in hunting, and when he came +home at evening and the lamp was lighted, Ossian, sitting in a warm +corner, was wont to recite the wonderful songs of his youth, and to +celebrate the mighty battles and hunting feats of the big-boned +Fingalians--and in these songs Cuchullin stood with his terrible +spear upraised, and his beautiful wife sat amid her maids plying the +distaff. To these songs Peter of the Psalms gave attentive ear, and, +being something of a penman, carefully inscribed them in a book. One +day Peter had been more than usually successful in the chase, and +brought home on his shoulders the carcass of a huge stag. Of this +stag a leg was dressed for supper, and when it was picked bare, Peter +triumphantly inquired of Ossian, "In the Fingalian days you sing +about, killed you ever a stag so large as this one?" Ossian balanced +the bone in his hand, then sniffing intense disdain, replied, "This +bone, big as you think it, could be dropped into the hollow of a +Fingalian blackbird's leg." Peter of the Psalms, enraged at what he +considered an unconscionable crammer on the part of his +father-in-law, started up, swearing that he would not peril his soul +by preserving any more of his lying songs, and flung the volume in +the fire: but his wife darted forward and snatched it up, +half-charred, from the embers. At this conduct on the part of Peter, +Ossian groaned in spirit and wished to die, that he might be saved +from the envies and stupidities of the little people whose minds were +as stunted as their bodies. When he went to bed he implored his +ancient gods--for he was a sad heathen, and considered psalm-singing +no better than the howling of dogs--to resuscitate, if but for one +hour, the hounds, the stags, and the blackbirds of his youth, that he +might confound and astonish the unbelieving Peter. His prayers done, +he fell on slumber, and just before dawn a weight upon his breast +awoke him. He put forth his hands and stroked a shaggy hide. +Ossian's prayers were answered, for there, upon his breast, in the +dark of the morning, was couched his favourite hound. He spoke to +it, called it by name, and the faithful creature whimpered and licked +his hands and face. Swiftly he got up and called his little +grandson, and they went out with the hound. When they came to the +top of a little eminence, Ossian said to the child, "Put your fingers +in your ears, little one, else I will make you deaf for life." The +boy put his fingers in his ears, and then Ossian whistled so loud +that the whole sky rang as if it had been the roof of a cave. He +then asked the child if he saw anything. "Oh, such large deer!" said +the child. "But a small herd by the trampling of it," said Ossian; +"we will let that herd pass." Presently the child called out, "Oh, +such large deer!" Ossian bent his ear to the ground to catch the +sound of their coming, and then, as if satisfied, he let slip the +hound, who speedily overtook and tore down seven of the fattest. +When the animals were skinned and dressed, Ossian groped his way +toward a large lake, in the centre of which grew a wonderful bunch of +rushes. He waded into the lake, tore up the rushes, and brought to +light the great Fingalian kettle, which had lain there for more than +a century. Returning to his quarry, a fire was kindled, the kettle +containing the seven carcasses was placed thereupon; and soon a most +savoury smell, like a general letter of invitation, flew abroad on +all the winds. When the animals were stewed after the approved +fashion of his ancestors, Ossian sat down to his repast. Now as, +since his sojourn with the fairies, and the extermination of the +Fingalians, he had never enjoyed a sufficient meal, it was his custom +to gather up the superfluous folds of his stomach by wooden splints, +nine in number. As he now fed and expanded, splint after splint was +thrown away, as button after button burst on the jacket of the +feasting boy in the story-book, till at last, when the kettle was +emptied, he lay down on the grass perfectly satisfied, and silent as +the ocean when the tide is full. Recovering himself, he gathered all +the bones together--set fire to them, and the smoke which ascended +made the roof of the firmament as black as the roof of the turf-hut +at home. "Little one," then said Ossian, "go up to the knoll and +tell me if you see anything." "A great bird is flying hither," said +the child; and immediately the great Fingalian blackbird alighted at +the feet of Ossian, who at once caught and throttled it. The fowl +was carried home, and was in the evening dressed for supper. After +it was devoured, Ossian called for the stag's thigh-bone which had +been the original cause of quarrel, and before the face of the +astonished and convicted Peter of the Psalms, dropped it into the +hollow of the blackbird's leg. Ossian died on the night of his +triumph, and the only record of his songs is the volume which Peter +in his rage threw into the fire, and from which, when half-consumed, +it was rescued by his wife. + +"But," said I, when the old gentleman had finished his story, "how +came it that the big-boned Fingalians were extirpated during the +hundred years that Ossian was asleep amongst the fairies?" + +"Well," said the old gentleman, "a woman was the cause of that, just +as a woman is the cause of most of the other misfortunes that happen +in the world. I told you that this castle was built by Cuchullin, +and that he and his wife lived in it. Now tallest, bravest, +strongest, handsomest of all Cuchullin's warriors was Diarmid, and +many a time his sword was red with the blood of the little people who +came flocking over here from Ireland in their wicker and skin-covered +boats. Now, when Diarmid took off his helmet at feast, there was a +fairy mole right in the centre of his forehead, just above the eyes +and between his curling locks; and on this beauty spot no woman could +look without becoming enamoured of him. One night Cuchullin gave a +feast in the castle; the great warrior was invited; and while he sat +at meat with his helmet off, Cuchullin's wife saw the star-like mole +in the centre of his forehead, and incontinently fell in love with +him. Cuchullin discovered his wife's passion, and began secretly to +compass the death of Diarmid. He could not slay him openly for fear +of his tribe; so he consulted an ancient witch who lived over the +hill yonder. Long they consulted, and at last they matured their +plans. Now, the Fingalians had a wonderful boar which browsed in +Gasken--the green glen which you know leading down to my house--and +on the back of this boar there was a poisoned bristle, which, if it +pierced the hand of any man, the man would certainly die. No one +knew the secret of the bristle save the witch, and the witch told it +to Cuchullin. One day, therefore, when the chief and his warriors +were sitting on the rocks here about, the conversation was cunningly +led to the boar. Cuchullin wagered the magic whistle which was slung +around his neck, that the brute was so many handbreadths from the +snout to the tip of the tail. Diarmid wagered the shield that he was +polishing--the shield which was his mirror in peace, by the aid of +which he dressed his curling locks, and with which he was wont to +dazzle the eyes of his enemies on a battle day--that it was so many +handbreadths less. The warriors heard the dispute and were divided +in opinion; some agreeing with Cuchullin, others agreeing with +Diarmid. At last it was arranged that Diarmid should go and measure +the boar; so he and a number of the warriors went. In a short time +they came back laughing and saying that Diarmid had won his wager, +that the length of the boar was so many handbreadths, neither more +nor less. Cuchullin bit his white lips when he saw them coming; and +then he remembered that he had asked them to measure the boar from +the snout to the tail, being the way the pile lay; whereas, in order +to carry out his design, he ought to have asked them to measure the +boar _against_ the pile. When, therefore, he was told that he had +lost his wager, he flew into a great rage, maintained that they were +all conspiring to deceive him, that the handbreadths he had wagered +were the breadths of Diarmid's own hands, and declared that he would +not be satisfied until Diarmid would return and measure the boar from +the tip of tail to the snout. Diarmid and the rest went away; and +when he reached the boar he began measuring it from the tail onward, +his friends standing by to see that he was measuring properly, and +counting every handbreadth. He had measured half way up the spine, +when the poisoned bristle ran into his hand. 'Ah,' he said, and +turned pale as if a spear had been driven into his heart. To support +himself, he caught two of his friends round the neck, and in their +arms he died. Then the weeping warriors raised the beautiful corpse +on their shoulders and carried it to the castle, and laid it down +near the drawbridge. Cuchullin then came out, and when he saw his +best warrior dead he laughed as if a piece of great good fortune had +befallen him, and directed that the corpse should be carried into his +wife's chamber. + +"But Cuchullin had cause to repent soon after. The little +black-haired people came swarming over from Ireland in their boats by +hundreds and thousands, but Diarmid was not there to oppose them with +his spear and shield. Every week a battle was fought, and the little +people began to prevail; and by the time that Ossian made his escape +from the fairies, every Fingalian, with the exception of two, slept +in their big graves--and at times the peat digger comes upon their +mighty bones when he is digging in the morasses." + +"And the two exceptions?" said I. + +"Why, that's another story," said M'Ian, "and I getting tired of +legends.--Well, if you will have it, the two last Fingalians made +their escape from Skye, carrying with them the magic whistle which +Cuchullin wore around his neck, and took up their abode in a cave in +Ross-shire. Hundreds of years after a man went into that cave, and +in the half twilight of the place saw the whistle on the floor, and +lifted it up. He saw it was of the strangest workmanship, and +putting it to his lips he blew it. He had never heard a whistle +sound so loudly and yet so sweetly. He blew it a second time, and +then he heard a voice, 'Well done, little man blow; the whistle a +third time;' and turning to the place from which the sound proceeded, +he saw a great rock like a man leaning on his elbow and looking up at +him. 'Blow it the third time, little man, and relieve us from our +bondage!' What between the voice, and the strange human-looking +rock, the man got so terrified that he dropped the whistle on the +floor of the cave, where it was smashed into a thousand pieces, and +ran out into the daylight. He told his story; and when the cave was +again visited, neither he nor his companions could see any trace of +the broken whistle on the floor, nor could they discover any rock +which resembled a weary man leaning on his elbow and looking up." + + + + +_A BASKET OF FRAGMENTS._ + +The month of August is to the year what Sunday is to the week. +During that month a section of the working world rests. _Bradshaw_ +is consulted, portmanteaus are packed, knapsacks are strapped on, +steamboats and railway carriages are crammed, and from Calais to +Venice the tourist saunters and looks about him. It is absolutely +necessary that the Briton should have, each year, one month's +cessation from accustomed labour. He works hard, puts money in his +purse, and it is his whim, when August comes, by way of recreation, +to stalk deer on Highland corries, to kill salmon in Norwegian +fiords, to stand on the summit of Mont Blanc, and to perambulate the +pavements of Madrid, Naples, and St Petersburg. To rush over the +world during vacation is a thing on which the respectable Briton sets +his heart. To remain at home is to lose caste and self-respect. +People do not care one rush for the Rhine; but that sacred stream +they must behold each year or die. Of all the deities Fashion has +the most zealous votaries. No one can boast a more extensive +martyrology. Her worshippers are terribly sincere, and many a secret +penance do they undergo, and many a flagellation do they inflict upon +themselves in private. + +[Sidenote: Vacation in Skye.] + +Early in the month in which English tourists descend on the Continent +in a shower of gold, it has been my custom, for several years back, +to seek refuge in the Hebrides. I love Loch Snizort better than the +Mediterranean, and consider Duntulme more impressive than the +Drachenfels. I have never seen the Alps, but the Cuchullins content +me. Haco interests me more than Charlemagne. I confess to a strong +affection for those remote regions. Jaded and nervous with eleven +months' labour or disappointment, there will a man find the medicine +of silence and repose. Pleasant, after poring over books, to watch +the cormorant at early morning flying with outstretched neck over the +bright frith; pleasant, lying in some sunny hollow at noon, to hear +the sheep bleating above; pleasant at evening to listen to wild +stories of the isles told by the peat-fire; and pleasantest of all, +lying awake at midnight, to catch, muffled by distance, the thunder +of the northern sea, and to think of all the ears the sound has +filled. In Skye one is free of one's century; the present wheels +away into silence and remoteness; you see the ranges of brown +shields, and hear the shoutings of the Bare Sarks. + +The benefit to be derived from vacation is a mental benefit mainly. +A man does not require change of air so much as change of scene. It +is well that he should for a space breathe another mental +atmosphere--it is better that he should get release from the familiar +cares that, like swallows, build and bring forth under the eaves of +his mind, and which are continually jerking and twittering about +there. New air for the lungs, new objects for the eye, new ideas for +the brain--these a vacation should always bring a man; and these are +to be found in Skye rather than in places more remote. In Skye the +Londoner is visited with a stranger sense of foreignness than in +Holland or in Italy. The island has not yet, to any considerable +extent, been overrun by the tourist. To visit Skye is to make a +progress into "the dark backward and abysm of time." You turn your +back on the present and walk into antiquity. You see everything in +the light of Ossian, as in the light of a mournful sunset. With a +Norse murmur the blue Lochs come running in. The Canongate of +Edinburgh is Scottish history in stone and lime; but in Skye you +stumble on matters older still. Everything about the traveller is +remote and strange. You hear a foreign language; you are surrounded +by Macleods, Macdonalds, and Nicolsons; you come on gray stones +standing upright on the moor--marking the site of a battle, or the +burial-place of a chief. You listen to traditions of ancient +skirmishes; you sit on ruins of ancient date, in which Ossian might +have sung. The Loch yonder was darkened by the banner of King Haco. +Prince Charles wandered over this heath, or slept in that cave. The +country is thinly peopled, and its solitude is felt as a burden. The +precipices of the Storr lower grandly over the sea; the eagle has yet +its eyrie on the ledges of the Cuchullins. The sound of the sea is +continually in your ears; the silent armies of mists and vapours +perpetually deploy; the wind is gusty on the moor; and ever and anon +the jags of the hills are obscured by swirls of fiercely-blown rain. +[Sidenote: Spiritual atmosphere of Skye.] And more than all, the +island is pervaded by a subtle spiritual atmosphere. It is as +strange to the mind as it is to the eye. Old songs and traditions +are the spiritual analogues of old castles and burying-places--and +old songs and traditions you have in abundance. There is a smell of +the sea in the material air; and there is a ghostly something in the +air of the imagination. There are prophesying voices amongst the +hills of an evening. The raven that flits across your path is a +weird thing--mayhap by the spell of some strong enchanter, a human +soul is balefully imprisoned in the hearse-like carcass. You hear +the stream, and the voice of the kelpie in it. You breathe again the +air of old story-books; but they are northern, not eastern ones. To +what better place, then, can the tired man go? There he will find +refreshment and repose. There the wind blows out on him from another +century. The Sahara itself is not a greater contrast from the London +street than is the Skye wilderness. + +The chain of islands on the western coast of Scotland, extending from +Bute in the throat of the Clyde, beloved of invalids, onward to St +Kilda, looking through a cloud of gannets toward the polar night, was +originally an appanage of the crown of Norway. [Sidenote: The Norse +element in Skye.] In the dawn of history there is a noise of Norsemen +around the islands, as there is to-day a noise of sea-birds. There +fought, as old sagas tell, Anund, the stanchest warrior that ever did +battle on wooden leg. _Wood-foot_ he was called by his followers. +When he was fighting his hardest, his men used to shove toward him a +block of wood, and resting his maimed limb on that, he laid about him +right manfully. From the islands also sailed Helgi, half-pagan, +half-Christian. Helgi was much mixed in his faith; he was a good +Christian in time of peace, but the aid of Thor he was always certain +to invoke when he sailed on some dangerous expedition, or when he +entered into battle. Old Norwegian castles, perched on the bold Skye +headlands, yet moulder in hearing of the surge. The sea-rovers come +no longer in their dark galleys, but hill and dale wear ancient names +that sigh to the Norway pine. The inhabitant of Mull or Skye +perusing the "Burnt Njal," is struck most of all by the names of +localities--because they are almost identical with the names of +localities in his own neighbourhood. The Skye headlands of +Trotternish, Greshornish, and Vaternish, look northward to Norway +headlands that wear the same or similar names. Professor Munch, of +Christiania, states that the names of many of the islands, Arran, +Gigha, Mull, Tyree, Skye, Raasay, Lewes, and others, are in their +original form Norwegian and not Gaelic. The Hebrides have received a +Norse baptism. Situated as these islands are between Norway and +Scotland, the Norseman found them convenient stepping-stones, or +resting-places, on his way to the richer southern lands. There he +erected temporary strongholds, and founded settlements. Doubtless, +in course of time, the son of the Norseman looked on the daughter of +the Celt, and saw that she was fair, and a mixed race was the result +of alliances. To this day in the islands the Norse element is +distinctly visible--not only in old castles, the names of places, but +in the faces and entire mental build of the people. Claims of pure +Scandinavian descent are put forward by many of the old families. +Wandering up and down the islands you encounter faces that possess no +Celtic characteristics; which carry the imagination to + + "Noroway ower the faem;" + +people with cool calm blue eyes, and hair yellow as the dawn; who are +resolute and persistent, slow in pulse and speech; and who differ +from the explosive Celtic element surrounding them as the iron +headland differs from the fierce surge that washes it, or a block of +marble from the heated palm pressed against it. The Hebrideans are a +mixed race; in them the Norseman and the Celt are combined, and here +and there is a dash of Spanish blood which makes brown the cheek and +darkens the eye. This southern admixture may have come about through +old trading relations with the Peninsula--perhaps the wrecked Armada +may have had something to do with it. The Highlander of Sir Walter, +like the Red Indian of Cooper, is to a large extent an ideal being. +But as Uncas does really wear war-paint, wield a tomahawk, scalp his +enemies, and, when the time comes, can stoically die, so the +Highlander possesses many of the qualities popularly ascribed to him. +Scott exaggerated only; he did not invent. He looked with a poet's +eye on the district north of the Grampians--a vision keener than any +other for what _is_, but which burdens, and supplements, and +glorifies--which, in point of fact, puts a nimbus around everything. +The Highlander stands alone amongst the British people. For +generations his land was shut against civilisation by mountain and +forest and intricate pass. While the large drama of Scottish history +was being played out in the Lowlands, he was busy in his mists with +narrow clan-fights and revenges. [Sidenote: Highland +characteristics.] While the southern Scot owed allegiance to the +Jameses, he was subject to Lords of the Isles, and to Duncans and +Donalds innumerable; while the one thought of Flodden, the other +remembered the "sair field of the Harlaw." The Highlander was, and +is still so far as circumstances permit, a proud, loving, punctilious +being: full of loyalty, careful of social distinction; with a bared +head for his chief, a jealous eye for his equal, an armed heel for +his inferior. He loved the valley in which he was born, the hills on +the horizon of his childhood; his sense of family relationship was +strong, and around him widening rings of cousinship extended to the +very verge of the clan. The Islesman is a Highlander of the +Highlanders; modern life took longer in reaching him, and his weeping +climate, his misty wreaths and vapours, and the silence of his moory +environments, naturally continued to act upon and to shape his +character. He is song-loving, "of imagination all compact;" and out +of the natural phenomena of his mountain region--his mist and +rain-cloud, wan sea-setting of the moon, stars glancing through rifts +of vapour, blowing wind and broken rainbows--he has drawn his poetry +and his superstition. His mists give him the shroud high on the +living heart, the sea-foam gives him an image of the whiteness of the +breasts of his girls, and the broken rainbow of their blushes. To a +great extent his climate has made him what he is. He is a child of +the mist. His songs are melancholy for the most part; and you may +discover in his music the monotony of the brown moor, the seethe of +the wave on the rock, the sigh of the wind in the long grasses of the +deserted churchyard. The musical instrument in which he chiefly +delights renders most successfully the coronach and the battle-march. +The Highlands are now open to all the influences of civilisation. +The inhabitants wear breeches and speak English even as we. Old +gentlemen peruse their _Times_ with spectacles on nose. Young lads +construe "Cornelius Nepos," even as in other quarters of the British +islands. Young ladies knit, and practise music, and wear crinoline. +But the old descent and breeding are visible through all modern +disguises: and your Highlander at Oxford or Cambridge--discoverable +not only by his rocky countenance, but by some dash of wild blood, or +eccentricity, or enthusiasm, or logical twist and turn of thought--is +as much a child of the mist as his ancestor who, three centuries ago, +was called a "wilde man" or a "red shanks;" who could, if need were, +live on a little oatmeal, sleep in snow, and, with one hand on the +stirrup, keep pace with the swiftest horse, let the rider spur never +so fiercely. It is in the Isles, however, and particularly amongst +the old Islesmen, that the Highland character is, at this day, to be +found in its purity. There, in the dwelling of the proprietor, or +still more in that of the large sheep farmer--who is of as good blood +as the laird himself--you find the hospitality, the prejudice, the +generosity, the pride of birth, the delight in ancient traditions, +which smack of the antique time. Love of wandering, and pride in +military life, have been characteristic of all the old families. The +pen is alien to their fingers, but they have wielded the sword +industriously. They have had representatives in every Peninsular and +Indian battle-field. India has been the chosen field of their +activity. Of the miniatures kept in every family more than one-half +are soldiers, and several have attained to no inconsiderable rank. +The Island of Skye has itself given to the British and Indian armies +at least a dozen generals. And in other services the Islesman has +drawn his sword. Marshal Macdonald had Hebridean blood in his veins; +and my friend Mr M'Ian remembers meeting him at Armadale Castle while +hunting up his relations in the island, and tells me that he looked +like a Jesuit in his long coat. And lads, to whom the profession of +arms has been shut, have gone to plant indigo in Bengal or coffee in +Ceylon, and have returned with gray hairs to the island to spend +their money there, and to make the stony soil a little greener; and +during their thirty years of absence Gaelic did not moulder on their +tongues, nor did their fingers forget their cunning with the pipes. +The palm did not obliterate the memory of the birch; nor the slow +up-swelling of the tepid wave, and its long roar of frothy thunder on +the flat red sands at Madras, the coasts of their childhood and the +smell and smoke of burning kelp. + +[Sidenote: Macdonald and Macleod.] + +The important names in Skye are Macdonald and Macleod. Both are of +great antiquity, and it is as difficult to discover the source of +either in history as it is to discover the source of the Nile in the +deserts of Central Africa. Distance in the one case appals the +geographer, and in the other the antiquary. Macdonald is of pure +Celtic origin, it is understood; Macleod was originally a Norseman. +Macdonald was the Lord of the Isles, and more than once crossed +swords with Scottish kings. Time has stripped him of royalty, and +the present representative of the family is a Baron merely. He sits +in his modern castle of Armadale amid pleasant larch plantations, +with the figure of Somerlid--the half mythical founder of his +race--in the large window of his hall. The two families intermarried +often and quarrelled oftener. They put wedding rings on each other's +fingers and dirks into each other's hearts. Of the two, Macleod had +the darker origin; and around his name there lingers a darker poetry. +Macdonald sits in his new castle in sunny Sleat with a southern +outlook--Macleod retains his old eyrie at Dunvegan, with its +drawbridge and dungeons. At night he can hear the sea beating on the +base of his rock. His "maidens" are wet with the sea foam. His +mountain "tables" are shrouded with the mists of the Atlantic. He +has a fairy flag in his possession. The rocks and mountains around +him wear his name even as of old did his clansmen. "Macleod's +country," the people yet call the northern portion of the island. In +Skye song and tradition Macdonald is like the green strath with +milkmaids milking kine in the fold at sunset, with fishers singing +songs as they mend brown nets on the shore. Macleod, on the other +hand, is of darker and drearier import--like a wild rocky spire of +Ouirang or Storr, dimmed with the flying vapour and familiar with the +voice of the blast and the wing of the raven. "Macleod's country" +looks toward Norway with the pale headlands of Greshornish, +Trotternish, and Durinish. The portion of the island which Macdonald +owns is comparatively soft and green, and lies to the south. + +[Sidenote: King Haco.] + +The Western Islands lie mainly out of the region of Scottish history, +and yet by Scottish history they are curiously touched at intervals, +Skye more particularly so. In 1263 when King Haco set out on his +great expedition against Scotland with one hundred ships and twenty +thousand men--an Armada, the period taken into consideration, quite +as formidable as the more famous and ill-fated Spanish one some +centuries later--the multitude of his sails darkened the Skye lochs. +Snizort speaks of him yet. He passed through the Kyles, breathed for +a little while at Kerrera, and then swept down on the Ayrshire coast, +where King Alexander awaited him, and where the battle of Largs was +fought.[1] After the battle Haco, grievously tormented by tempests, +sailed for Norway, where he died. [Sidenote: Ceding of the Hebrides +to Scotland.] This was the last invasion of the Northmen, and a few +years after the islands were formally ceded to Scotland. Although +ceded, however, they could hardly be said to be ruled by the Scottish +kings. After the termination of the Norway government, the Hebrides +were swayed by the Macdonalds, who called themselves Lords of the +Isles. [Sidenote: The Lords of the Isles.] These chieftains waxed +powerful, and they more than once led the long-haired Islesmen into +Scotland, where they murdered, burned, and ravaged without mercy. In +1411 Donald, one of those island kings, descended on the mainland, +and was sorely defeated by the Earl of Mar at Harlaw, near Aberdeen. +By another potentate of the same stock the counties of Ross and Moray +were ravaged in 1456. In the Western Islands the Macdonalds +exercised authentic sovereignty; they owned allegiance to the +Scottish king when he penetrated into their remote dominions, and +disowned it whenever he turned his back. The Macdonald dynasty, or +quasi dynasty, existed till 1536, when the last Lord of the Isles +died without an heir, and when there was no shoulder on which the +mantle of his authority could fall. + +How the Macdonalds came into their island throne it would be +difficult, by the flickering rushlight of history, to discover. But +wandering up and down the islands, myself and the narrator swathed in +a film of blue peat-smoke, a ray of dusty light streaming in through +the green bull's-eye in the window, I have heard the following +account given:--The branches of the Macdonald family, Macdonald of +Sleat, Clanranald, who wears the white heather in his bonnet, the +analogue of the white rose, and which has been dipped in blood quite +as often, Keppoch, one of whose race fell at Culloden, and the rest, +were descended from a certain Godfrey, King of Argyll. This Godfrey +had four sons, and one of them was named Somerlid, youngest, bravest, +handsomest of all. But unhappily Somerlid was without ambition. +While his brothers were burning and ravaging and slaying, grasping +lands and running away with rich heiresses, after the fashion of +promising young gentlemen of that era, the indolent and handsome +giant employed himself in hunting and fishing. His looking-glass was +the stream; his drinking-cup the heel of his shoe; he would rather +spear a salmon than spear his foe; he burned no churches, the only +throats he cut were the throats of deer; he cared more to caress the +skins of seals and otters than the shining hair of women. Old +Godfrey liked the lad's looks, but had a contempt for his peaceful +ways, and, shaking his head, thought him little better than a +ne'er-do-weel or a silly one. But for all that, there was a deal of +unsuspected matter in Somerlid. At present he was peaceful as a +torch or a beacon--unlit. The hour was coming when he would be +changed; when he would blaze like a brandished torch, or a beacon on +a hill-top against which the wind is blowing. + +[Sidenote: Somerlid.] + +It so happened that the men of the Western Isles had lost their +chief. There was no one to lead them to battle, and it was +absolutely necessary that a leader should be procured. Much +meditating to whom they should offer their homage they bethought +themselves of the young hunter chasing deer on the Argyllshire hills. +A council was held; and it was resolved that a deputation should be +sent to Somerlid to state their case, and to offer that if he should +accept the office of chieftain, he and his children should be their +chieftains for ever. In some half-dozen galleys the deputation set +sail, and finally arrived at the court of old Godfrey. When they +told what they wanted, that potentate sent them to seek Somerlid; and +him they found fishing. Somerlid listened to their words with an +unmoved countenance; and when they were done, he went aside a little +to think over the matter. That done he came forward: "Islesmen," he +said, "there's a newly-run salmon in the black pool yonder. If I +catch him, I shall go with you as your chief; if I catch him not, I +shall remain where I am." To this the men of the Isles were +agreeable, and they sat down on the banks of the river to watch the +result. Somerlid threw his line over the black pool, and in a short +time the silvery mail of the salmon was gleaming on the yellow sands +of the river bank. When they saw this the Islesmen shouted; and so +after bidding farewell to his father, the elect of the thousands +stepped into the largest galley, and with the others in his wake, +sailed toward Skye a chief! + +When was there a warrior like Somerlid? He spoiled and ravaged like +an eagle. He delighted in battle. He rolled his garments in blood. +He conquered island after island; he went out with empty galleys, and +he returned with them filled with prey, his oarsmen singing his +praises. He built up his island throne. He was the first Lord of +the Isles; and from his loins sprung all the Lords of the Isles that +ever were. He was a Macdonald, and from him the Macdonalds of Sleat +are descended. He wore a tartan of his own, which only the Prince of +Wales and the young Lord Macdonald, sitting to-day in Eton school, +are entitled to wear. And if at any time I ventured to impugn the +truth of this legend, I was told that if I went to Armadale Castle I +should see the image of Somerlid in the great window of the hall. +That was surely confirmation of the truth of the story. He must +surely be a sceptical Sassenach who would disbelieve after witnessing +_that_. + +Although the Lords of the Isles exercised virtual sovereignty in the +Hebrides, the Jameses made many attempts to break their power and +bring them into subjection. James I. penetrated into the Highlands, +and assembled a Parliament at Inverness in 1427. He enticed many of +the chiefs to his court, and seized, imprisoned, and executed several +of the more powerful. Those who escaped with their lives were forced +to deliver up hostages. In fact, the Scottish kings looked upon the +Highlanders very much as they looked upon the borderers. In moments +of fitful energy they broke on the Highlands just as they broke upon +Ettrick and Liddesdale, and hanged and executed right and left. One +of the Acts of Parliament of James IV. declared that the Highlands +and Islands had become savage for want of a proper administration of +justice; and James V. made a voyage to the Islands in 1536, when many +of the chiefs were captured and carried away. It was about this time +that the last Lord of the Isles died. The Jameses were now kings of +the Highlands and Islands, but they were only kings in a nominal +sense. Every chief regarded himself as a sort of independent prince. +The Highland chieftains appeared at Holyrood, it is true; but they +drew dirks and shed blood in the presence; they were wanting in +reverence for the sceptre; they brought their own feuds with them to +the Scottish court, and when James VI. attempted to dissolve these +feuds in the wine cup, he met with but indifferent success. So +slight was lawful authority in 1589 that the island of the Lewes was +granted by the crown to a body of Fife gentlemen, if they would but +take and hold possession--just as the lands of the rebellious Maories +might be granted to the colonists at the present day. + +[Sidenote: The Spanish Armada.] + +Many a gallant ship of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the shores +of the Western Islands, on the retreat to Spain; and a gun taken from +one of these, it is said, lies at Dunstaffnage Castle. In the +Islands you yet come across Spanish names, and traces of Spanish +blood; and the war ships of Spain that came to grief on the bleak +headlands of Skye and Lewes, may have something to do with that. +Where the vase is broken there still lingers the scent of the roses. +The connexion between Spain and the Western Islands is little more +than a mere accident of tempest. Then came the death of Elizabeth +and the accession of James to the English throne; and the time was +fast approaching when the Highlander would become a more important +personage than ever; when the claymore would make its mark in British +History. + +At first sight it is a matter of wonder that the clans should ever +have become Jacobite. They were in nowise indebted to the house of +Stuart. With the Scottish kings the Highlands and Islands were +almost continually at war. When a James came amongst the northern +chieftains he carried an ample death-warrant in his face. The +presents he brought were the prison key, the hangman's rope, the axe +of the executioner. When the power departed from the Lords of the +Isles, the clans regarded the king who sat in Holyrood as their +nominal superior; but they were not amenable to any central law; each +had its own chief--was self-contained, self-governed, and busy with +its own private revenges and forays. When the Lowland burgher was +busy with commerce, and the Lowland farmer was busy with his crops, +the clansman walked his misty mountains very much as his fathers did +centuries before; and his hand was as familiar with the hilt of his +broadsword as the hand of the Perth burgher with the ellwand, or that +of the farmer of the Lothians with the plough-shaft. The Lowlander +had become industrious and commercial; the Highlander still loved the +skirmish and the raid. The Lowlands had become rich in towns, in +money, in goods; the Highlands were rich only in swordsmen. +[Sidenote: Montrose.] When Charles's troubles with his Parliament +began, the valour of the Highlands was wasting itself; and Montrose +was the first man who saw how that valour could be utilised. Himself +a feudal chief, and full of feudal feeling, when he raised the banner +of the king he appealed to the ancient animosities of the clans. His +arch-foe was Argyll; he knew that Campbell was a widely-hated name; +and that hate he made his recruiting sergeant. He bribed the chiefs, +but his bribe was revenge. The mountaineers flocked to his standard; +but they came to serve themselves rather than to serve Charles. The +defeat of Argyll might be a good thing for the king; but with that +they had little concern--it was the sweetest of private revenges, and +righted a century of wrongs. The Macdonalds of Sleat fought under +the great Marquis at Inverlochy; but the Skye shepherd considers only +that on that occasion his forefathers had a grand slaying of their +hereditary enemies--he has no idea that the interest of the king was +at all involved in the matter. While the battle was proceeding, +blind Allan sat on the castle walls with a little boy beside him; the +boy related how the battle went, and the bard wove the incidents into +extemporaneous song--full of scorn and taunts when the retreat of +Argyll in his galley is described--full of exultation when the +bonnets of fifteen hundred dead Campbells are seen floating in the +Lochy--and blind Allan's song you can hear repeated in Skye at this +day. When the splendid career of Montrose came to an end at +Philiphaugh, the clansmen who won his battles for him were no more +adherents of the king than they had been centuries before: but then +they had gratified hatred; they had had ample opportunities for +plunder; the chiefs had gained a new importance; they had been +assured of the royal gratitude and remembrance; and if they received +but scant supplies of royal gold, they were promised argosies. By +fighting under Montrose they were in a sense committed to the cause +of the king; and when at a later date Claverhouse again raised the +royal standard, that argument was successfully used. They had +already served the house of Stuart; they had gained victories in its +behalf: the king would not always be in adversity; the time would +come when he would be able to reward his friends; having put their +hands to the plough it would be folly to turn back. And so a second +time the clans rose, and at Killiecrankie an avalanche of kilted men +broke the royal lines, and in a quarter of an hour a disciplined army +was in ruins, and the bed of the raging Garry choked with corpses. +By this time the Stuart cause had gained a footing in the Highlands, +mainly from the fact that the clans had twice fought in its behalf. +Then a dark whisper of the massacre of Glencoe passed through the +glens--and the clansmen believed that the princes _they_ had served +would not have violated every claim of hospitality, and shot them +down so on their own hearthstones. All this confirmed the growing +feeling of attachment to the king across the water. When the Earl of +Mar rose in 1715, Macdonald of Sleat joined him with his men; and +being sent out to drive away a party of the enemy who had appeared on +a neighbouring height, opened the battle of Sheriffmuir. [Sidenote: +"The Forty-five."] In 1745, when Prince Charles landed in Knoydart, +he sent letters to Macdonald and Macleod in Skye soliciting their +aid. Between them they could have brought 2000 claymores into the +field; and had the prince brought a foreign force with them, they +might have complied with his request. As it was, they hesitated, and +finally resolved to range themselves on the side of the Government. +Not a man from Sleat fought under the prince. The other great +branches of the Macdonald family, Clanranald, Keppoch, and Glengarry, +joined him however; and Keppoch at Culloden, when he found that his +men were broken, and would not rally at the call of their chief, +charged the English lines alone, and was brought down by a musket +bullet. + +[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald and Prince Charles.] + +The Skye gentlemen did not rise at the call of the prince, but when +his cause was utterly lost, a Skye lady came to his aid, and rendered +him essential service. Neither at the time, nor afterwards, did +Flora Macdonald consider herself a heroine, (although Grace Darling +herself did not bear a braver heart;) and she is noticeable to this +day in history, walking demurely with the white rose in her bosom. +When the prince met Miss Macdonald in Benbecula, he was in +circumstances sufficiently desperate. The lady had expressed an +anxious desire to see Charles; and at their meeting, which took place +in a hut belonging to her brother, it struck Captain O'Neil, an +officer attached to the prince, and at the moment the sole companion +of his wanderings, that she might carry Charles with her to Skye in +the disguise of her maid-servant. Miss Macdonald consented. She +procured a six-oared boat, and when she and her companions entered +the hovel in which the prince lay, they found him engaged in roasting +for dinner with a wooden spit the heart, liver, and kidneys of a +sheep. They were full of compassion, of course; but the prince, who +possessed the wit as well as the courage of his family, turned his +misfortunes into jests. The party sat down to dinner not uncareless +of state. Flora sat on the right hand, and Lady Clanranald, one of +Flora's companions, on the left hand of the prince. They talked of +St James's as they sat at their rude repast; and stretching out hands +of hope, warmed themselves at the fire of the future. + +After dinner Charles equipped himself in the attire of a +maid-servant. His dress consisted of a flowered linen gown, a +light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron, and a mantle of dun +camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with a hood. They supped on +the sea-shore; and while doing so a messenger arrived with the +intelligence that a body of military was in the neighbourhood in +quest of the fugitive, and on hearing this news Lady Clanranald +immediately went home. They sailed in the evening with a fair wind, +but they had not rowed above a league when a storm arose, and Charles +had to support the spirits of his companions by singing songs and +making merry speeches. They came in sight of the pale Skye headlands +in the morning, and as they coasted along the shore they were fired +on by a party of Macleod militia. While the bullets were falling +around, the prince and Flora lay down in the bottom of the boat. The +militia were probably indifferent marksmen; at all events no one was +hurt. + +After coasting along for a space, they landed at Mugstot, the seat of +Sir Alexander Macdonald. Lady Macdonald was a daughter of the Earl +of Eglinton's, and an avowed Jacobite; and as it was known that Sir +Alexander was at Fort Augustus with the Duke of Cumberland, they had +no scruple in seeking protection. Charles was left in the boat, and +Flora went forward to apprise Lady Macdonald of their arrival. +Unhappily, however, there was a Captain Macleod, an officer of +militia, in the house, and Flora had to parry as best she could his +interrogations concerning Charles, whose head was worth £30,000. +Lady Macdonald was in great alarm lest the presence of the prince +should be discovered. Kingsburgh, Sir Alexander's factor, was on the +spot, and the ladies took him into their confidence. After +consultation, it was agreed that Skye was unsafe, and that Charles +should proceed at once to Raasay, taking up his residence at +Kingsburgh by the way. + +During all this while Charles remained on the shore, feeling probably +very much as a Charles of another century did, when, shrouded up in +oak foliage, he heard the Roundhead riding beneath. Kingsburgh was +anxious to acquaint him with the determination of his friends, but +then there was the pestilent captain on the premises, who might prick +his ear at a whisper; and whose suspicion, if once aroused, might +blaze out into ruinous action. Kingsburgh had concerted his plan, +but in carrying it into execution it behoved him to tread so lightly +that the blind mole should not hear a footfall. He sent a servant +down to the shore to inform the strange maid-servant with the mannish +stride that he meant to visit her, but that in the meantime she +should screen herself from observation behind a neighbouring hill. +Taking with him wine and provisions, Kingsburgh went out in search of +the prince. He searched for a considerable time without finding him, +and was about to return to the house, when at some little distance he +observed a scurry amongst a flock of sheep. Knowing that sheep did +not scurry about after that fashion for their own amusement, he +approached the spot, when all at once the prince started out upon him +like another Meg Merrilees, a large knotted stick in his fist. "I am +Macdonald of Kingsburgh," said the visitor, "come to serve your +highness." "It is well," said Charles, saluting him. Kingsburgh +then opened out his plan, with which the prince expressed himself +satisfied. After Charles had partaken of some refreshment, they both +started towards Kingsburgh House. + +The ladies at Mugstot were all this while in sad perplexity, and to +that perplexity, on account of the presence of the captain of +militia, they could not give utterance. As Kingsburgh had not +returned, they could only hope that he had succeeded in finding the +prince, and in removing him from that dangerous neighbourhood. +Meanwhile dinner was announced, and the captain politely handed in +the ladies. He drank his wine, paid Miss Macdonald his most graceful +compliments, for a captain--if even of militia only--can never, in +justice to his cloth, be indifferent to the fair. It belongs to his +profession to be gallant, as it belongs to the profession of a +clergyman to say grace before meat. We may be sure, however, that +his roses of compliment stung like nettles. He talked of the prince, +as a matter of course--the prince being the main topic of +conversation in the Islands at the period--perhaps expressed a strong +desire to catch him. All this the ladies had to endure, hiding, as +the way of the sex is, fluttering hearts under countenances most +hypocritically composed. After dinner, Flora rose at once, but a +look from Lady Macdonald induced her to remain for yet a little. +Still the gallant captain's talk flowed on, and _he_ must be deceived +at any cost. At last Miss Flora was moved with the most filial +feelings. She was anxious to be with her mother, to stay and comfort +her in these troublous times. She must really be going. Lady +Macdonald pressed her to stay, got the gallant captain to bring his +influence to bear, but with no effect. The wilful young lady would +not listen to entreaty. Her father was absent, and at such a time +the claim of a lone mother on a daughter's attention was paramount. +Her apology was accepted at last, but only on the condition that she +should return soon to Mugstot and make a longer stay. The ladies +embraced each other, and then Miss Macdonald mounted, and attended by +several servants rode after Prince Charles, who was now some distance +on the road to Kingsburgh. Lady Macdonald returned to the captain, +than whom seldom has one--whether of the line or the militia--been +more cleverly hoodwinked. + +Miss Macdonald's party, when she rode after the prince and +Kingsburgh, consisted of Neil M'Eachan, who acted as guide, and Mrs +Macdonald, who was attended by a male and female servant. They +overtook the prince, and Mrs Macdonald, who had never seen him +before, was anxious to obtain a peep of his countenance. This +Charles carefully avoided. Mrs Macdonald's maid, noticing the +uncouth appearance of the tall female figure, whispered to Miss Flora +that she "had never seen such an impudent-looking woman as the one +with whom Kingsburgh was talking," and expressed her belief that the +stranger was either an Irishwoman, or a man in woman's clothes. Miss +Flora whispered in reply, "that she was right in her conjecture--that +the amazon was really an Irishwoman, that she knew her, having seen +her before." The abigail then exclaimed, "Bless me, what long +strides the jade takes, and how awkwardly she manages her clothes!" +Miss Macdonald, wishing to put an end to this conversation, urged the +party to a trot. The pedestrians then struck across the hills, and +reached Kingsburgh House about eleven o'clock,--the equestrians +arriving soon after. + +When they arrived there was some difficulty about supper, Mrs +Macdonald of Kingsburgh having retired to rest. When her husband +told her that the prince was in the house, she got up immediately, +and under her direction the board was spread. The viands were eggs, +butter, and cheese. Charles supped heartily, and after drinking a +few glasses of wine, and smoking a pipe of tobacco, went to bed. +Next morning there was a discussion as to the clothes he should wear; +Kingsburgh, fearing that his disguise should become known, urged +Charles to wear a Highland dress, to which he gladly agreed. But as +there were sharp eyes of servants about, it was arranged that, to +prevent suspicion, he should leave the house in the same clothes in +which he had come, and that he should change his dress on the road. +When he had dressed himself in his feminine garments and come into +the sitting-room, Charles noticed that the ladies were whispering +together eagerly, casting looks on him the while. He desired to know +the subject of conversation, and was informed by Mrs Macdonald that +they wished a lock of his hair. The prince consented at once, and +laying down his head in Miss Flora's lap, a lock of yellow hair was +shorn off--to be treasured as the dearest of family relics, and +guarded as jealously as good fame. Some silken threads of that same +lock of hair I have myself seen. Mr M'Ian has some of it in a ring, +which will probably be buried with him. After the hair was cut off, +Kingsburgh presented the prince with a new pair of shoes, and the old +ones--through which the toes protruded--were put aside, and +considered as only less sacred than the shred of hair. They were +afterwards bought by a Jacobite gentleman for twenty guineas--the +highest recorded price ever paid for that article. + +Kingsburgh, Flora, and the prince then started for Portree, +Kingsburgh carrying the Highland dress under his arm. After walking +a short distance Charles entered a wood and changed his attire. He +now wore a tartan short coat and waistcoat, with philabeg and hose, a +plaid, and a wig and bonnet. Here Kingsburgh parted from the prince, +and returned home. Conducted by a guide, Charles then started across +the hills, while Miss Macdonald galloped along the common road to +Portree to see how the land lay, and to become acquainted with the +rumours stirring in the country. + +There was considerable difficulty in getting the prince out of Skye; +a Portree crew could not be trusted, as on their return they might +blab the whereabouts of the fugitive. In this dilemma a friend of +the prince's bethought himself that there was a small boat on one of +the neighbouring Lochs, and the boat was dragged by two brothers, +aided by some women, across a mile of boggy ground to the sea-shore. +It was utterly unseaworthy--leaky as the old brogues which Kingsburgh +valued so much--but the two brothers nothing fearing got it launched, +and rowed across to Raasay. + +When the news came that the prince was at hand, Young Raasay, who had +not been out in the rebellion, and his cousin, Malcolm Macleod, who +had been, procured a strong boat, and with two oarsmen, whom they had +sworn to secrecy, pulled across to Skye. They landed about half a +mile from Portree, and Malcolm Macleod, accompanied by one of the +men, went towards the inn, where he found the prince and Miss +Macdonald. It had been raining heavily, and before he arrived, +Charles was soaked to the skin. The first thing the prince called +for was a dram; he then put on a dry shirt, and after that he made a +hearty meal on roasted fish, bread, cheese, and butter. The people +in the inn had no suspicion of his rank, and with them he talked and +joked. Malcolm Macleod had by this time gone back to the boat, where +he waited the prince's coming. The guide implored Charles to go off +at once, pointed out that the inn was a gathering place for all sorts +of people, and that some one might penetrate his disguise--to all +this the prince gave ready assent; but it rained still, and he spoke +of risking everything and waiting where he was all night. The guide +became yet more urgent, and the prince at last expressed his +readiness to leave, only before going he wished to smoke a pipe of +tobacco. He smoked his pipe, bade farewell to Miss Macdonald, repaid +her a small sum which he had borrowed, gave her his miniature, and +expressed the hope that he should yet welcome her at St James's. +Early in the dawn of the July morning, with four shirts, a bottle of +brandy tied to one side of his belt, a bottle of whisky tied to the +other, and a cold fowl done up in a pocket-handkerchief, he, under +the direction of a guide, went down to the rocky shore, where the +boat had so long been waiting. In a few hours they reached Raasay. + +In Raasay the prince did not remain long. He returned to Skye, abode +for a space in Strath, dwelling in strange places, and wearing many +disguises--finally, through the aid of the chief of the Mackinnons, +he reached the mainland. By this time it had become known to the +Government that the prince had been wandering about the island, and +Malcolm Macleod, Kingsburgh, and Miss Macdonald were apprehended. +Miss Macdonald was at first confined in Dunstaffnage Castle, and was +afterwards conveyed to London. Her imprisonment does not seem to +have been severe, and she was liberated, it is said, at the special +request of Frederick Prince of Wales. She and Malcolm Macleod +returned to Scotland together. In 1750 Flora married Allan +Macdonald, young Kingsburgh, and on the death of his father in 1772 +the young people went to live on the farm. Here they received Dr +Johnson and Boswell. Shortly after, the family went to America, and +in 1775 Kingsburgh joined the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment. He +afterwards served in Canada, and finally returned to Skye on +half-pay. Flora had seven children, five sons and two daughters, the +sons after the old Skye fashion becoming soldiers, and the daughters +the wives of soldiers. She died in 1790, and was buried in the +churchyard of Kilmuir. To the discredit of the Skye gentlemen--in +many of whom her blood flows--the grave is in a state of utter +disrepair. When I saw it two or three months ago it was covered with +a rank growth of nettles. These are untouched. The tourist will +deface tombstones, and carry away chips from a broken bust, but a +nettle the boldest or the most enthusiastic will hardly pluck and +convey from even the most celebrated grave. A line must be drawn +somewhere, and Vandalism draws the line at nettles--it will not sting +its own fingers for the world. + +[Sidenote: The old House of Kingsburgh.] + +O Death! O Time! O men and women of whom we have read, what eager +but unavailing hands we stretch towards you! How we would hear your +voices, see your faces, but note the wafture of your garments! With +a strange feeling one paces round the ruins of the House of +Corrichatachin, thinking of the debauch held therein a hundred years +ago by a dead Boswell and young Highland bloods, dead too. But the +ruin of the old house of Kingsburgh moves one more than the ruin of +the old house of Corrichatachin. On the shore of Loch +Snizort--waters shadowed once by the sails of Haco's galleys--we +stumble on the latter ancient site. The outline of the walls is +distinguished by a mere protuberance on the grassy turf; and in the +space where fires burned, and little feet pattered, and men and women +ate and drank, and the hospitable board smoked, great trees are +growing. To this place did Flora Macdonald come and the prince--his +head worth thirty thousand pounds--dressed in woman's clothes; there +they rested for the night, and departed next morning. And the sheets +in which the wanderer slept were carefully put aside, and years after +they became the shroud for the lady of the house. And the old shoes +the prince wore were kept by Kingsburgh till his dying day, and after +that a "zealous Jacobite gentleman" paid twenty guineas for the +treasure. That love for the young Ascanius!--the carnage of +Culloden, and noble blood reddening many scaffolds, could not wash it +out. Fancy his meditations on all that devotion when an old besotted +man in Rome--the glitter of the crown of his ancestors faded utterly +away out of his bleared and tipsy eyes! And when Flora was mistress +of it, to the same place came Boswell, and Johnson with a cold in his +head. There the doctor saluted Flora, and snivelled his compliments, +and slept in the bed the prince occupied. There Boswell was in a +cordial humour, and, as his fashion was, "promoted a cheerful glass." +And all these people are ghosts and less. And, as I write, the wind +is rising on Loch Snizort, and through the autumn rain the yellow +leaves are falling on the places where the prince and the doctor and +the toady sat. + +[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald and Dr Johnson.] + +One likes to know that Pope saw Dryden sitting in the easy-chair near +the fire at Will's Coffee-house, and that Scott met Burns at Adam +Ferguson's. It is pleasant also to know that Doctor Johnson and +Flora Macdonald met. It was like the meeting of two widely-separated +eras and orders of things. Fleet Street, and the Cuchullins with +Ossianic mists on their crests, came face to face. It is pleasant +also to know that the sage liked the lady, and the lady liked the +sage. After the departure of the prince the arrival of Dr Johnson +was the next great event in Hebridean history. The doctor came, and +looked about him, and went back to London and wrote his book. +Thereafter there was plenty of war; and the Islesmen became soldiers, +fighting in India, America, and the Peninsula. The tartans waved +through the smoke of every British battle, and there were no such +desperate bayonet charges as those which rushed to the yell of the +bagpipe. At the close of the last and the beginning of the present +century, half the farms in Skye were rented by half-pay officers. +The Army List was to the island what the Post-office Directory is to +London. Then Scott came into the Highlands with the whole world of +tourists at his back. Then up through Skye came Dr John +M'Culloch--caustic, censorious, epigrammatic--and dire was the rage +occasioned by the publication of his letters--the rage of men +especially who had shown him hospitality and rendered him services, +and who got their style of talk mimicked, and their household +procedures laughed at for their pains. Then came evictions, +emigrations, and the potato failure. Everything is getting prosaic +as we approach the present time. Then my friend Mr Hutcheson +established his magnificent fleet of Highland steamers. While I +write the iron horse is at Dingwall, and he will soon be at +Kyleakin--through which strait King Haco sailed seven centuries ago. +In a couple of years or thereby Portree will be distant twenty-four +hours from London--that time the tourist will take in coming, that +time black-faced mutton will take in going. + +[Sidenote: Macpherson's "Ossian".] + +Wandering up and down the Western Islands, one is brought into +contact with Ossian, and is launched into a sea of perplexities as to +the genuineness of Macpherson's translation. That fine poems should +have been composed in the Highlands so many centuries ago, and that +these should have existed through that immense period of time in the +memories and on the tongues of the common people, is sufficiently +startling. The Border Ballads are children in their bloom compared +with the hoary Ossianic legends and songs. On the other hand, the +theory that Macpherson, whose literary efforts when he did not +pretend to translate are extremely poor and meagre, should have, by +sheer force of imagination, created poems confessedly full of fine +things, with strong local colouring, not without a weird sense of +remoteness, with heroes shadowy as if seen through Celtic mists: +poems, too, which have been received by his countrymen as genuine, +which Dr Johnson scornfully abused, and which Dr Blair +enthusiastically praised; which have been translated into every +language in Europe; which Goethe and Napoleon admired; from which +Carlyle has drawn his "red son of the furnace," and many a memorable +sentence besides; and over which, for more than a hundred years now, +there has raged a critical and philological battle, with victory +inclining to neither side--that the poor Macpherson should have +created these poems is, if possible, more startling than their claim +of antiquity. If Macpherson created Ossian, he was an athlete who +made one surprising leap and was palsied ever afterwards; a marksman +who made a centre at his first shot, and who never afterwards could +hit the target. It is well enough known that the Highlanders, like +all half-civilised nations, had their legends and their minstrelsy; +that they were fond of reciting poems and runes; and that the person +who retained on his memory the greatest number of tales and songs +brightened the gatherings round the ancient peat-fires as your Sydney +Smith brightens the modern dinner. And it is astonishing how much +legendary material a single memory may retain. In illustration, Dr +Brown, in his "History of the Highlands," informs us that "the late +Captain John Macdonald of Breakish, a native of the Island of Skye, +declared upon oath, at the age of seventy-eight, that he could +repeat, when a boy between twelve and fifteen years of age, (about +the year 1740,) from one to two hundred Gaelic poems, differing in +length and in number of verses; and that he learned them from an old +man about eighty years of age, who sang them for years to his father +when he went to bed at night, and in the spring and winter before he +rose in the morning." The late Dr Stuart, minister of Luss, knew "an +old Highlander in the Isle of Skye, who repeated to him for three +successive days, and during several hours each day, without +hesitation, and with the utmost rapidity, many thousand lines of +ancient poetry, and would have continued his repetitions much longer +if the doctor had required him to do so." From such a raging torrent +of song the doctor doubtless fled for his life. Without a doubt +there was a vast quantity of poetic material existing in the islands. +But more than this, when Macpherson, at the request of Home, Blair, +and others, went to the Highlands to collect materials, he +undoubtedly received Gaelic MSS. Mr Farquharson, (Dr Brown tells +us,) Prefect of Studies at Douay College in France, was the possessor +of Gaelic MSS., and in 1766 he received a copy of Macpherson's +"Ossian," and Mr M'Gillivray, a student there at the time, saw them +(Macpherson's "Ossian" and Mr Farquharson's MSS.) frequently +collated, and heard the complaint that the translations fell very far +short of the energy and beauty of the originals; and the said Mr +M'Gillivray was convinced that the MSS. contained all the poems +translated by Macpherson, because he recollected very distinctly +having heard Mr Farquharson say, after having read the translations, +"that he had all these poems in his collection." Dr Johnson could +never talk of the matter calmly. "Show me the original manuscripts," +he would roar. "Let Mr Macpherson deposit the manuscript in one of +the colleges at Aberdeen where there are people who can judge; and if +the professors certify the authenticity, then there will be an end of +the controversy." Macpherson, when his truthfulness was rudely +called in question, wrapped himself up in proud silence, and +disdained reply. At last, however, he submitted to the test which Dr +Johnson proposed. At a bookseller's shop he left for some months the +originals of his translations, intimating by public advertisement +that he had done so, and stating that all persons interested in the +matter might call and examine them. No one, however, called; +Macpherson's pride was hurt, and he became thereafter more +obstinately silent and uncommunicative than ever. There needed no +such mighty pother about the production of manuscripts. It might +have been seen at a glance that the Ossianic poems were not +forgeries--at all events that Macpherson did not forge them. Even in +the English translation, to a great extent, the sentiments, the +habits, the modes of thought described are entirely primeval; in +reading it, we seem to breathe the morning air of the world. The +personal existence of Ossian is, I suppose, as doubtful as the +personal existence of Homer; and if he ever lived, he is great, like +Homer, through his tributaries. Ossian drew into himself every +lyrical runnel, he augmented himself in every way, he drained +centuries of their songs; and living an oral and gipsy life, handed +down from generation to generation, without being committed to +writing and having their outlines determinately fixed, the authorship +of these songs becomes vested in a multitude, every reciter having +more or less to do with it. For centuries the floating legendary +material was reshaped, added to, and altered by the changing spirit +and emotion of the Celt. Reading the Ossianic fragments is like +visiting the skeleton of one of the South American cities; like +walking through the streets of disinterred Pompeii or Herculaneum. +These poems, if rude and formless, are touching and venerable as some +ruin on the waste, the names of whose builders are unknown: whose +towers and walls, although not erected in accordance with the lights +of modern architecture, affect the spirit and fire the imagination +far more than nobler and more recent piles; its chambers, now +roofless to the day, were ages ago tenanted by life and death, joy +and sorrow; its walls have been worn and rounded by time, its stones +channelled and fretted by the fierce tears of winter rains; on broken +arch and battlement every April for centuries has kindled a light of +desert flowers; and it stands muffled with ivies, bearded with +mosses, and stained with lichens by the suns of forgotten summers. +So these songs are in the original--strong, simple, picturesque in +decay; in Mr Macpherson's English they are hybrids and mongrels. +They resemble the Castle of Dunvegan, an amorphous mass of masonry of +every conceivable style of architecture, in which the ninth century +jostles the nineteenth. + +In these poems not only do character and habit smack of the primeval +time, but there is extraordinary truth of local colouring. The Iliad +is roofed by the liquid softness of an Ionian sky. In the verse of +Chaucer there is eternal May and the smell of newly-blossomed English +hawthorn hedges. In Ossian, in like manner, the skies are cloudy, +there is a tumult of waves on the shore, the wind sings in the pine. +This truth of local colouring is a strong argument in proof of +authenticity. I for one will never believe that Macpherson was more +than a somewhat free translator. Despite Gibbon's sneer, I do +"indulge the supposition that Ossian lived and Fingal sung;" and, +more than this, it is my belief that these misty phantasmal Ossianic +fragments, with their car-borne heroes that come and go like clouds +on the wind, their frequent apparitions, the "stars dim-twinkling +through their forms," their maidens fair and pale as lunar rainbows, +are, in their own literary place, worthy of every recognition. If +you think these poems exaggerated, go out at Sligachan and see what +wild work the pencil of moonlight makes on a mass of shifting vapour. +Does _that_ seem nature or a madman's dream? Look at the billowy +clouds rolling off the brow of Blaavin, all golden and on fire with +the rising sun! Wordsworth's verse does not more completely mirror +the Lake Country than do the poems of Ossian the terrible scenery of +the Isles. Grim, and fierce, and dreary as the night-wind is the +strain, for not with rose and nightingale had the old bard to do; but +with the thistle waving on the ruin, the upright stones that mark the +burying-places of heroes, weeping female faces white as sea-foam in +the moon, the breeze mourning alone in the desert, the battles and +friendships of his far-off youth, and the flight of the "dark-brown +years." These poems are wonderful transcripts of Hebridean scenery. +They are as full of mists as the Hebridean glens themselves. Ossian +seeks his images in the vapoury wraiths. Take the following of two +chiefs parted by their king:--"They sink from their king on either +side, like two columns of morning mist when the sun rises between +them on his glittering rocks. Dark is their rolling on either side, +each towards its reedy pool." You cannot help admiring the image; +and I saw the misty circumstance this very morning when the kingly +sun struck the earth with his golden spear, and the cloven mists +rolled backwards to their pools like guilty things. + +That a large body of poetical MSS. existed in the Highlands we know; +we know also that, when challenged to do so, Macpherson produced his +originals; and the question arises, Was Macpherson a competent and +faithful translator of these MSS.? Did he reproduce the original in +all its strength and sharpness? On the whole, perhaps Macpherson +translated the ancient Highland poems as faithfully as Pope +translated Homer, but his version is in many respects defective and +untrue. The English Ossian is Macpherson's, just as the most popular +English Iliad is Pope's. Macpherson was not a thoroughly-equipped +Gaelic scholar; his version is full of blunders and misapprehensions +of meaning, and he expressed himself in the fashionable poetic +verbiage of his day. You find echoes of Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, +and Dryden, and these echoes give his whole performance a hybrid +aspect. It has a particoloured look; is a thing of odds and ends, of +shreds and patches; in it antiquity and his own day are incongruously +mixed--like Macbeth in a periwig, or a ruin decked out with new and +garish banners. Here is Macpherson's version of a portion of the +third book of Fingal:-- + +"Fingal beheld the son of Starno: he remembered Agandecca. For +Swaran with the tears of youth had mourned his white-bosomed sister. +He sent Ullin of Songs to bid him to the feast of shells. For +pleasant on Fingal's soul returned the memory of the first of his +loves! + +"Ullin came with aged steps, and spoke to Starno's son. 'O thou that +dwellest afar, surrounded like a rock with thy waves! Come to the +feast of the king, and pass the day in rest. To-morrow let us fight, +O Swaran, and break the echoing shields.' 'To-day,' said Starno's +wrathful son, 'we break the echoing shields: to-morrow my feast shall +be spread; but Fingal shall lie on earth.' 'To-morrow let the feast +be spread,' said Fingal, with a smile. 'To-day, O my sons, we shall +break the echoing shields. Ossian, stand thou near my arm. Gaul, +lift thy terrible sword. Fergus, bend thy crooked yew. Throw, +Fillan, thy lance through heaven. Lift your shields like the +darkened moon. Be your spears the meteors of death. Follow me in +the path of my fame. Equal my deeds in battle.' + +"As a hundred winds on Morven; as the streams of a hundred hills; as +clouds fly successive over heaven; as the dark ocean assails the +shore of the desert; so roaring, so vast, so terrible the armies +mixed on Lena's echoing heath. The groan of the people spread over +the hills; it was like the thunder of night when the clouds burst on +Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind. +Fingal rushed on in his strength, terrible as the spirit of Trenmore, +when in a whirlwind he comes to Morven to see the children of his +pride. The oaks resound on their mountains, and the rocks fall down +before him. Dimly seen as lightens the night, he strides largely +from hill to hill. Bloody was the hand of my father when he whirled +the gleam of his sword. He remembered the battles of his youth. The +field is wasted in the course. + +"Ryno went on like a pillar of fire. Dark is the brow of Gaul. +Fergus rushed forward with feet of wind. Fillan, like the mist of +the hill. Ossian, like a rock, came down. I exulted in the strength +of the king. Many were the deaths of my arm! dismal the gleam of my +sword! My locks were not then so gray; nor trembled my hands with +age. My eyes were not closed in darkness; my feet failed not in the +race. + +"Who can relate the deaths of the people, who the deeds of mighty +heroes, when Fingal, burning in his wrath, consumed the sons of +Lochlin? Groans swelled on groans from hill to hill, till night had +covered all. Pale, staring like a herd of deer, the sons of Lochlin +convene on Lena." + +So writes Macpherson. I subjoin a more literal and faithful +rendering of the passage, in which, to some extent, may be tasted the +wild-honey flavour of the original:-- + + "Fingal descried the illustrious son of Starn, + And he remember'd the maiden of the snow: + When she fell, Swaran wept + For the young maid of brightest cheek. + + "Ullin of songs (the bard) approach'd + To bid him to the feast upon the shore. + Sweet to the king of the great mountains + Was the remembrance of his first-loved maid. + + "Ullin of the most aged step (the step of feeblest age) came nigh, + And thus address'd the son of Starn: + 'Thou from the land afar, thou brave, + Like, in thy mail and thy arms, + To a rock in the midst of the billows, + Come to the banquet of the chiefs; + Pass the day of calm in feasting; + To-morrow ye shall break the shields + In the strife where play the spears.' + + "'This very day,' said the son of Starn, 'this very day + I shall break in the hill the spear; + To-morrow thy king shall be low in the dust, + And Swaran and his braves shall banquet.' + + "'To-morrow let the hero feast,' + Smiling said the king of Morven; + 'To-day let us fight the battle in the hill, + And break the mighty shield. + Ossian, stand thou by my side; + Gall, thou great one, lift thy hand; + Fillan, throw thy matchless lance; + Lift your shields aloft + As the moon in shadow in the sky; + Be your spears as the herald of death. + Follow, follow me in my renown; + Be as hosts (as hundreds) in the conflict.' + + "As a hundred winds in the oak of Morven; + As a hundred streams from the steep-sided mountain; + As clouds gathering thick and black; + As the great ocean pouring on the shore, + So broad, roaring, dark and fierce, + Met the braves, a-fire, on Lena. + The shout of the hosts on the shoulders (bones) of the mountains + + Was as a torrent in a night of storm + When bursts the cloud on glenny Cona, + And a thousand ghosts are shrieking loud + On the viewless crooked wind of the cairns. + + "Swiftly the king advanced in his might, + As the spirit of Trenmore, pitiless spectre, + When he comes in the whirl-blast of the billows + To Morven, the land of his loved sires. + The oak resounds on the mountain, + Before him falls the rock of the hills; + Through the lightning-flash the spirit is seen-- + His great steps are from cairn to cairn. + + "Bloody, I ween, was my sire in the field, + When he drew with might his sword; + The king remember'd his youth, + When he fought the combat of the glens. + + "Ryno sped as the fire of the sky, + Gloomy and black was Gall, (wholly black;) + Fergus rush'd as the wind on the mountain; + Fillan advanced as the mist on the woods; + Ossian was as a pillar of rock in the combat. + My soul exulted in the king, + Many were the deaths and dismal + 'Neath the lightning of my great sword in the strife. + + "My locks were not then so gray, + Nor shook my hand with age. + The light of my eye was unquench'd, + And aye unwearied in travel was my foot. + + "Who will tell of the deaths of the people? + Who the deeds of the mighty chiefs? + When kindled to wrath was the king; + Lochlin was consumed on the side of the mountain. + Sound on sound rose from the hosts, + Till fell on the waves the night. + Feeble, trembling, and pale as (hunted) deer, + Lochlin gather'd on heath-clad Lena."[2] + + +To English readers the sun of Ossian shines dimly through a mist of +verbiage. It is to be hoped that the mist will one day be +removed--it is the bounden duty of one of Ossian's learned countrymen +to remove it. + +It is not to be supposed that the Ossianic legends are repeated often +now around the island peat-fires; but many are told resembling in +essentials those which Dr Dasent has translated to us from the Norse. +As the northern nations have a common flora, so they have a common +legendary literature. Supernaturalism belongs to their tales as the +aurora borealis belongs to their skies. [Sidenote: Skye legends.] +Those stories I have heard in Skye, and many others, springing from +the same roots, I have had related to me in the Lowlands and in +Ireland. They are full of witches and wizards; of great wild giants +crying out, "Hiv! Haw Hoagraich! It is a drink of thy blood that +quenches my thirst this night;" of wonderful castles with turrets and +banqueting halls; of magic spells, and the souls of men and women +dolefully imprisoned in shapes of beast and bird. As tales few of +them can be considered perfect; the supernatural element is strong in +many, but frequently it breaks down under some prosaic or ludicrous +circumstance: the spell exhales somehow, and you care not to read +further. Now and then a spiritual and ghastly imagination passes +into a revolting familiarity and destroys itself. In these stories +all times and conditions of life are curiously mixed, and this +mixture shows the passage of the story from tongue to tongue through +generations. If you discover on the bleak Skye shore a log of wood +with Indian carvings peeping through a crust of native barnacles, it +needs no prophet to see that it has crossed the Atlantic. Confining +your attention merely to Skye--to the place in which the log is +found--the Indian carvings are an anachronism; but there is no +anachronism when you arrive at the idea that the log belongs to +another continent, and that it has reached its final resting-place +through blowing winds and tossing waves. These old Highland stories, +beginning in antiquity, and quaintly ending with a touch of the +present, are lessons in the science of criticism. In a ballad the +presence of an anachronism, the cropping out of a comparatively +modern touch of manners or detail of dress, does not in the least +invalidate the claim of the ballad to antiquity--provided it can be +proved that before being committed to writing it had led an oral +existence. Every ballad existing in the popular memory takes the +colour of the periods through which it has lived, just as a stream +takes the colour of the different soils through which it flows. The +other year Mr Robert Chambers attempted to throw discredit on the +alleged antiquity of Sir Patrick Spens from the following verse:-- + + "Oh, laith, laith were our guid Scots lords + To weet their cork-heel'd shoon; + But lang ere a' the play was o'er, + They wat their heads abune,"-- + +cork-heeled shoes having been worn neither by the Scots lords, nor by +the lords of any other nation, so early as the reign of Alexander +III., at which period Sir Patrick Spens sailed on his disastrous +voyage. But the appearance of such a comparatively modern detail of +personal attire throws no discredit on the antiquity of the ballad, +because in its oral transmission each singer or reciter would +naturally equip the Scots lords in the particular kind of shoes which +the Scots lords wore in his own day. Anachronism of this kind proves +nothing, because such anachronism is involved in the very nature of +the case, and must occur in every old composition which is frequently +recited, and the terms of which have not been definitely fixed by +writing. In the old Highland stories to which I allude, the wildest +anachronisms are of the most frequent occurrence; with the most utter +scorn of historical accuracy all the periods are jumbled together; +they resemble the dance on the outside stage of a booth at a country +fair before the performances begin, in which the mailed crusader, +King Richard III., a barmaid, and a modern "swell" meet, and mingle, +and cross hands with the most perfect familiarity and absence from +surprise. And some of those violations of historical accuracy are +instructive enough, and throw some light on the cork-heeled shoes of +the Scots lords in the ballad. In one story a mermaiden and a +General in the British army are represented as in love with each +other and holding clandestine meetings. Here is an anachronism with +a vengeance, enough to make Mr Robert Chambers stare and gasp. How +would he compute the age of that story? Would he make it as old as +the mermaiden or as modern as the British General? Personally, I +have not the slightest doubt that the story is old, and that in its +original form it concerned itself with certain love passages between +a mermaiden and a great warrior. But the story lived for generations +as tradition, was told around the Skye peat-fires, and each relater +gave it something of his own, some touch drawn from contemporary +life. The mermaiden remains of course, for she is _sui generis_; +search nature and for her you can find no equivalent--you can't +translate her into anything else. With the warrior it is entirely +different; he loses spear and shield, and grows naturally into the +modern General with gilded spur, scarlet coat, and cocked hat with +plumes. The same sort of change, arising from the substitution of +modern for ancient details, of modern equivalents for ancient facts, +must go on in every song or narrative which is orally transmitted +from generation to generation. + +Many of these stories, even when they are imperfect in themselves, or +resemble those told elsewhere, are curiously coloured by Celtic +scenery and pervaded by Celtic imagination. In listening to them, +one is specially impressed by a bare, desolate, woodless country; and +this impression is not produced by any formal statement of fact; it +arises partly from the paucity of actors in the stories, and partly +from the desert spaces over which the actors travel, and partly from +the number of carrion crows, and ravens, and malign hill-foxes which +they encounter in their journeyings. The "hoody," as the crow is +called, hops and flits and croaks through all the stories. His black +wing is seen everywhere. And it is the frequent appearance of these +beasts and birds, never familiar, never domesticated, always outside +the dwelling, and of evil omen when they fly or steal across the +path, which gives to the stories much of their weird and direful +character. The Celt has not yet subdued nature. He trembles before +the unknown powers. He cannot be sportive for the fear that is in +his heart. In his legends there is no merry Puck, no Ariel, no Robin +Goodfellow, no half-benevolent, half-malignant Brownie even. These +creatures live in imaginations more emancipated from fear. The mists +blind the Celt on his perilous mountain-side, the sea is smitten +white on his rocks, the wind bends and dwarfs his pine wood; and as +Nature is cruel to him, and as his light and heat are gathered from +the moor, and his most plenteous food from the whirlpool and the +foam, we need not be surprised that few are the gracious shapes that +haunt his fancy. + + +[1] This battle occupies the same place in early Scottish annals that +Trafalgar or Waterloo occupies in later British ones. It stands in +the dawn of Scottish history--resonant, melodious. Unhappily, +however, the truth must be told--the battle was a drawn one, neither +side being able to claim the victory. Professor Munch, in his notes +to "The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys," gives the following +account of the combat, and of the negotiations that preceded it:-- + +"When King Hacon appeared off Ayr, and anchored at Arran, King +Alexander, who appears to have been present himself at Ayr, or in the +neighbourhood of the town, with the greater part of his forces, now +opened negotiations, sending several messages by Franciscan or +Dominican Friars for the purpose of treating for peace. Nor did King +Hacon show himself unwilling to negotiate, and proved this +sufficiently by permitting Eogan of Argyll to depart in peace, +loading him, moreover, with presents, on the condition that he should +do his best to bring about a reconciliation,--Eogan pledging himself, +if he did not succeed, to return to King Hacon. Perhaps it was due +to the exertions of Eogan, that a truce was concluded, in order to +commence negotiations in a more formal manner. King Hacon now +despatched an embassy, consisting of two bishops, Gilbert of Hamar, +and Henry of Orkney, with three barons, to Alexander, whom they found +at Ayr. They were well received, but could not get any definite +answer,--Alexander alleging that, before proposing the conditions, he +must consult with his councillors; this done, he should not fail to +let King Hacon know the result. The Norwegian messengers, therefore, +returned to their king, who meanwhile had removed to Bute. The next +day, however, messengers arrived from King Alexander, bringing a list +of those isles which he would not resign,--viz., Arran, Bute, and the +Cumreys, (that is, generally speaking, the isles inside Kentire,) +which implies that he now offered to renounce his claim to all the +others. It is certainly not to be wondered at that he did not like +to see those isles, which commanded the entrance to the Clyde, in the +hands of another power. King Hacon, however, had prepared another +list, which contained the names of all those isles which he claimed +for the crown of Norway; and although the exact contents are not +known, there can be no doubt that at least Arran and Bute were among +the number. The Saga says that, on the whole, there was, after all, +no great difference, but that, nevertheless, no final reconciliation +could be obtained,--the Scotchmen trying only to protract the +negotiations because the summer was past, and the bad weather was +begun. The Scotch messengers at last returned, and King Hacon +removed with the fleet to the Cumreys, near Largs, in the direction +of Cuningham, no doubt with a view of being either nearer at hand if +the negotiations failed, and a landing was to be effected, or only of +intimidating his opponents and hastening the conclusion of the peace, +as the roadstead in itself seems to have been far less safe than that +of Lamlash or Bute. King Alexander sent, indeed, several messages, +and it was agreed to hold a new congress a little farther up in the +country, which shows that King Alexander now had removed from Ayr to +a spot nearer Largs, perhaps to Camphill, (on the road from Largs to +Kilbirnie,) where a local tradition states the king encamped. The +Norwegian messengers were, as before, some bishops and barons; the +Scotch commissaries were some knights and monks. The deliberations +were long, but still without any result. At last, when the day was +declining, a crowd of Scotchmen began to gather, and, as it continued +to increase, the Norwegians, not thinking themselves safe, returned +without having obtained anything. The Norwegian warriors now +demanded earnestly that the truce should be renounced, because their +provisions had begun to be scarce, and they wanted to plunder. King +Hacon accordingly sent one of his esquires, named Kolbein, to King +Alexander with the letter issued by this monarch, ordering him to +claim back that given by himself, and thus declare the truce to be +ended, previously, however, proposing that both kings should meet at +the head of their respective armies, and try a personal conference +before coming to extremities; only, if that failed, they might go to +battle as the last expedient. King Alexander, however, did not +declare his intention plainly, and Kolbein, tired of waiting, +delivered up the letter, got that of King Hacon back, and thus +rescinded the truce. He was escorted to the ships by two monks. +Kolbein, when reporting to King Hacon his proceedings, told him that +Eogan of Argyll had earnestly tried to persuade King Alexander from +fighting with the Norwegians. It does not seem, however, that Eogan +went back to King Hacon according to his promise. This monarch now +was greatly exasperated, and desired the Scottish monks, when +returning, to tell their king that he would very soon recommence the +hostilities, and try the issue of a battle. + +"Accordingly, King Hacon detached King Dugald, Alan M'Rory his +brother, Angus of Isla, Murchard of Kentire, and two Norwegian +commanders, with sixty ships, to sail into Loch Long, and ravage the +circumjacent ports, while he prepared to land himself with the main +force at Largs, and fight the Scottish army. The detachment does not +appear to have met with any serious resistance, all the Scotch forces +being probably collected near Largs. The banks of Loch Lomond and +the whole of Lennox were ravaged. Angus even ventured across the +country to the other side, probably near Stirling, killing men and +taking a great number of cattle. This done, the troops who had been +on shore returned to the ships. Here, however, a terrible storm, +which blew for two days, (Oct. 1 and 2,) wrecked ten vessels; and one +of the Norwegian captains was taken sick, and died suddenly. + +"Also the main fleet, off Largs, suffered greatly by the same +tempest. It began in the night between Sunday (Sept. 30) and Monday +(Oct. 1,) accompanied by violent showers. A large transport vessel +drifted down on the bow of the royal ship, swept off the gallion, and +got foul of the cable; it was at last cast loose and drifted toward +the island; but on the royal ship it had been necessary to remove the +usual awnings and covers, and in the morning (Oct. 1) when the flood +commenced, the wind likewise turned, and the vessel, along with +another vessel of transport and a ship of war, was driven on the main +beach, where it stuck fast, the royal ship drifting down while with +five anchors, and only stopped when the eighth had been let go. The +king had found it safest to land in a boat on the Cumrey, with the +clergy, who celebrated mass, the greater part believing that the +tempest had been raised by witchcraft. Soon the other ships began to +drift; several had to cut away the masts; five drifted towards the +shore, and three went aground. The men on board these ships were now +dangerously situated, because the Scotch, who from their elevated +position could see very well what passed in the fleet, sent down +detachments against them, while the storm prevented their comrades in +the fleet from coming to their aid. They manned, however, the large +vessel which had first drifted on shore, and defended themselves as +well as they could against the superior force of the enemy, who began +shooting at them. Happily the storm abated a little, and the king +was not only able to return on board his ships, but even sent them +some aid in boats; the Scotch were put to flight, and the Norwegians +were able to pass the night on shore. Yet, in the dark, some Scots +found their way to the vessel and took what they could. In the +morning (Tuesday, Oct. 2,) the king himself, with some barons and +some troops, went to shore in boats to secure the valuable cargo of +the transport, or what was left of it, in which they succeeded. Now, +however, the main army of the Scots was seen approaching, and the +king, who at first meant to remain on shore and head his troops +himself, was prevailed upon by his men, who feared lest he should +expose himself too much, to return on board his ship. The number of +the Norwegians left on shore did not exceed 1000 men, 240 of whom, +commanded by the Baron Agmund Krokidans, occupied a hillock, the rest +were stationed on the beach. The Scotch, it is related in the Saga, +had about 600 horsemen in armour, several of whom had Spanish steeds, +all covered with mail; they had a great deal of infantry, well armed, +especially with bows and Lochaber axes. The Norwegians believed that +King Alexander himself was in the army: perhaps this is true. We +learn, however, from Fordun that the real commander was Alexander of +Dundonald, the Stewart of Scotland. The Scotch first attacked the +knoll with the 240 men, who retired slowly, always facing the enemy +and fighting; but in retracing their steps down hill, as they could +not avoid accelerating their movement as the impulse increased, those +on the beach believed that they were routed, and a sudden panic +betook them for a moment, which cost many lives; as the boats were +too much crowded they sank with their load; others, who did not reach +the boats, fled in a southerly direction, and were pursued by the +Scotch, who killed many of them; others sought refuge in the +aforesaid stranded vessel: at last they rallied behind one of the +stranded ships of war, and an obstinate battle began; the Norwegians, +now that the panic was over, fighting desperately. Then it was that +the young and valiant Piers of Curry, of whom even Fordun and Wyntown +speak, was killed by the Norwegian baron Andrew Nicholasson, after +having twice ridden through the Norwegian ranks. The storm for a +while prevented King Hacon from aiding his men, and the Scotch being +tenfold stronger, began to get the upper hand; but at last two barons +succeeded in landing with fresh troops, when the Scotch were +gradually driven back upon the knoll, and then put to flight towards +the hills. This done, the Norwegians returned on board the ships; on +the following morning (Oct. 3) they returned on shore to carry away +the bodies of the slain, which, it appears, they effected quite +unmolested by the enemy; all the bodies were carried to a church, no +doubt in Bute, and there buried. The next day, (Thursday, Oct. 4,) +the king removed his ship farther out under the island, and the same +day the detachment arrived which had been sent to Loch Long. The +following day, (Friday, Oct. 5,) the weather being fair, the king +sent men on shore to burn the stranded ships, which likewise appears +to have been effected without any hindrance from the enemy. On the +same day he removed with the whole fleet to Lamlash harbour." + +With what a curious particularity the Saga relates the events of this +smokeless ancient combat--so different from modern ones, where "the +ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound"--and +how Piers of Curry, "who had ridden twice through the Norwegian +ranks," towers amongst the combatants! As the describer of battles, +since the invention of gunpowder, Homer would be no better than Sir +Archibald Alison. We have more explicit information as to this +skirmish on the Ayrshire coast in the thirteenth century than we have +concerning the battle of Solferino; and yet King Hacon has been in +his grave these five centuries, and Napoleon III. and Kaiser Joseph +yet live. And "Our Own Correspondent" had not come into the world at +that date either. + +[2] For this translation I am indebted to my learned and accomplished +friend the Rev. Mr Macpherson of Inverary. + + + + +_THE SECOND SIGHT._ + +[Sidenote: Quirang.] + +The Quirang is one of the wonderful sights of Skye, and if you once +visit it you will believe ever afterwards the misty and spectral +Ossian to be authentic. The Quirang is a nightmare of nature; it +resembles one of Nat Lee's mad tragedies; it might be the scene of a +Walpurgis night; on it might be held a Norway witch's Sabbath. +Architecture is frozen music, it is said; the Quirang is frozen +terror and superstition. 'Tis a huge spire or cathedral of rock some +thousand feet in height, with rocky spires or needles sticking out of +it. Macbeth's weird sisters stand on the blasted heath, and Quirang +stands in a region as wild as itself. The country around is strange +and abnormal, rising into rocky ridges here, like the spine of some +huge animal, sinking into hollows there, with pools in the +hollows--glimmering almost always through drifts of misty rain. On a +clear day, with a bright sun above, the ascent of Quirang may be +pleasant enough; but a clear day you seldom find, for on spectral +precipices and sharp-pointed rocky needles, the weeping clouds of the +Atlantic have made their chosen home. When you ascend, with every +ledge and block slippery, every runnel a torrent, the wind taking +liberties with your cap and making your plaid stream like a meteor to +the troubled air, white tormented mists boiling up from black chasms +and caldrons, rain making disastrous twilight of noon-day,--horror +shoots through your pulses, your brain swims on the giddy pathway, +and the thought of your room in the vapoury under world rushes across +the soul like the fallen Adam's remembrance of his paradise. Then +you learn, if you never learned before, that nature is not always +gracious; that not always does she out-stretch herself in low-lying +bounteous lands, over which sober sunsets redden and heavy-uddered +cattle low; but that she has fierce hysterical moods in which she +congeals into granite precipice and peak, and draws around herself +and her companions the winds that moan and bluster, veils of livid +rains. If you are an Englishman you will habitually know her in her +gracious, if a Skye man in her fiercer, moods. + +[Sidenote: The Saxon and the Celt.] + +No one is independent of scenery and climate. Men are racy of the +soil in which they grow, even as grapes are. A Saxon nurtured in fat +Kent or Sussex, amid flats of heavy wheat and acorn-dropping oaks, +must of necessity be a different creature from the Celt who gathers +his sustenance from the bleak sea-board, and who is daily drenched by +the rain-cloud from Cuchullin. The one, at his best, becomes a +broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, ruddy-faced man, slightly obese, who +meets danger gleefully, because he has had little experience of it, +and because his conditions being hitherto easy, he naturally assumes +that everything will go well with him;--at worst, a porker contented +with his mast. The other, take him at his best, of sharper spirit, +because it has been more keenly whetted on difficulty; if not more +intrepid, at least more consciously so; of sadder mood habitually, +but _when_ happy, happier, as the gloomier the cloud the more +dazzling the rainbow;--at his worst, either beaten down, subdued, and +nerveless, or gaunt, suspicious, and crafty, like the belly-pinched +wolf. On the whole, the Saxon is likely to be the more sensual; the +Celt the more superstitious: the Saxon will probably be prosaic, +dwelling in the circle of the seen and the tangible; the Celt a poet: +while the anger of the Saxon is slow and abiding, like the burning of +coal; the anger of the Celt is swift and transient, like the flame +that consumes the dried heather: both are superior to death when +occasion comes--the Saxon from a grand obtuseness which ignores the +fact; the Celt, because he has been in constant communion with it, +and because he has seen, measured, and overcome it. The Celt is the +most melancholy of men; he has turned everything to superstitious +uses, and every object of nature, even the unreasoning dreams of +sleep, are mirrors which flash back death upon him. He, the least of +all men, requires to be reminded that he is mortal. The howling of +his dog will do him that service. + +[Sidenote: Superstitious feelings.] + +In the stories which are told round the island peat-fires it is +abundantly apparent that the Celt has not yet subdued nature. In +these stories you can detect a curious subtle hostility between man +and his environments; a fear of them, a want of absolute trust in +them. In these stories and songs man is not at home in the world. +Nature is too strong for him; she rebukes and crushes him. The +Elements, however calm and beautiful they may appear for the moment, +are malign and deceitful at heart, and merely bide their time. They +are like the paw of the cat--soft and velvety, but with concealed +talons that scratch when least expected. And this curious relation +between man and nature grows out of the climatic conditions and the +forms of Hebridean life. In his usual avocations the Islesman rubs +clothes with death as he would with an acquaintance. Gathering wild +fowl, he hangs, like a spider on its thread, over a precipice on +which the sea is beating a hundred feet beneath. In his crazy boat +he adventures into whirlpool and foam. He is among the hills when +the snow comes down making everything unfamiliar, and stifling the +strayed wanderer. Thus death is ever near him, and that +consciousness turns everything to omen. The mist creeping along the +hill-side by moonlight is an apparition. In the roar of the +waterfall, or the murmur of the swollen ford, he hears the water +spirit calling out for the man for whom it has waited so long. He +sees death-candles burning on the sea, marking the place at which a +boat will be upset by some sudden squall. He hears spectral hammers +clinking in an outhouse, and he knows that ghostly artificers are +preparing a coffin there. Ghostly fingers tap at his window, ghostly +feet are about his door; at midnight his furniture cries out as if it +had seen a sight and could not restrain itself. Even his dreams are +prophetic, and point ghastly issues for himself or for others. And +just as there are poets who are more open to beauty than other men, +and whose duty and delight it is to set forth that beauty anew; so in +the Hebrides there are seers who bear the same relation to the other +world that the poet bears to beauty, who are cognisant of its +secrets, and who make those secrets known. The seer does not inherit +his power. It comes upon him at haphazard, as genius or as personal +beauty might come. He is a lonely man amongst his fellows; +apparitions cross his path at noon-day; he never knows into what a +ghastly something the commonest object may transform itself--the +table he sits at may suddenly become the resting-place of a coffin; +and the man who laughs in his cups with him may, in the twinkling of +an eye, wear a death-shroud up to his throat. He hears river voices +prophesying death, and shadowy and silent funeral processions are +continually defiling before him. When the seer beholds a vision his +companions know it; for "the inner part of his eyelids turn so far +upwards that, after the object disappears, he must draw them down +with his fingers, and sometimes employs others to draw them down, +which he finds to be much the easier way." From long experience of +these visions, and by noticing how closely or tardily fulfilment has +trodden upon their heels, the seer can extract the meaning of the +apparition that flashes upon him, and predict the period of its +accomplishment. Other people can make nothing of them, but _he_ +reads them, as the sailor in possession of the signal-book reads the +signal flying at the peak of the High Admiral. These visions, it +would appear, conform to rules, like everything else. If a vision be +seen early in a morning, it will be accomplished in a few hours,--if +at noon, it will usually be accomplished that day,--if in the +evening, that night,--if after candles are lighted, certainly that +night. When a shroud is seen about a person it is a sure +prognostication of death. And the period of death is estimated by +the height of the shroud about the body. If it lies about the legs, +death is not to be expected before the expiry of a year, and perhaps +it may be deferred a few months longer. If it is seen near the head, +death will occur in a few days, perhaps in a few hours. To see +houses and trees in a desert place is a sign that buildings will be +erected there anon. To see a spark of fire falling on the arms or +breast of a person is the sign that a dead child will shortly be in +the arms of those persons. To see a seat empty at the time of +sitting in it is a sign of that person's death being at hand. The +seers are said to be extremely temperate in habit; they are neither +drunkards nor gluttons; they are not subject to convulsions nor +hysterical fits; there are no madmen amongst them; nor has a seer +ever been known to commit suicide. + +[Sidenote: The second sight.] + +The literature of the second sight is extremely curious. The writers +have perfect faith in the examples they adduce; but their examples +are far from satisfactory. They are seldom obtained at first hand, +they almost always live on hearsay; and even if everything be true, +the professed fulfilment seems nothing other than a rather singular +coincidence. Still these stories are devoutly believed in Skye, and +it is almost as perilous to doubt the existence of a Skyeman's ghost +as to doubt the existence of a Skyeman's ancestor. In "Treatises on +the Second Sight," very curious tracts, compiled by Theophilus +Insulanus, Rev. Mr Frazer, Mr Martin, and John Aubrey, Esq., F.R.S., +and which hint that a disbelief in apparitions is tantamount to +disbelief in the immortality of the soul, the following stories are +related:-- + +"John Campbell, younger of Ardsliguish, in Ardnamorchuann, in the +year 1729, returning home with Duncan Campbell, his brother, since +deceased, as they drew near the house, in a plain surrounded with +bushes of wood, where they intended to discharge their fusees at a +mark, observed a young girl, whom they knew to be one of their +domestics, crossing the plain, and having called her by name, she did +not answer, but ran into the thicket. As the two brothers had been +some days from home, and willing to know what happened in their +absence, the youngest, John, pursued after, but could not find her. +Immediately, as they arrived at home, having acquainted their mother +they saw the said girl, and called after her, but she avoided their +search, and would not speak to them; upon which they were told she +departed this life that same day. I had this relation from James +Campbell in Girgudale, a young man of known modesty and candour, who +had the story at several times from the said John Campbell." + +"Mr Anderson assured me, that upon the 16th of April 1746, (being the +day on which his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland obtained a +glorious victory over the rebels at Culloden,) as he lay in bed with +his spouse towards the dawning of the day, he heard very audibly a +voice at his bed-head inquiring if he was awake; who answered he was, +but then took no further notice of it. A little time thereafter, the +voice repeated, with greater vehemence, if he was awake. And he +answering, as formerly, he was, there was some stop, when the voice +repeated louder, asking the same question, and he making the same +answer, but asking what the voice had to say; upon which it replied, +The prince is defeated, defeated, defeated! And in less than +forty-eight hours thereafter an express carried the welcome tidings +of the fact into the country." + +"Captain Macdonald of Castletown (allowed by all his acquaintances to +be a person of consummate integrity) informed me that a Knoydart man +(being on board of a vessel at anchor in the sound of the Island +Oransay) went under night out of the cabin to the deck, and being +missed by his company, some of them went to call him down; but not +finding him, concluded that he had dropt from the ship's side. When +day came on, they got a long line furnished with hooks, (from a +tenant's house close by the shore,) which having cast from the ship's +side, some of the hooks got hold of his clothes, so that they got the +corpse taken up. The owner of the long line told Captain Macdonald +that for a quarter of a year before that accident happened, he +himself and his domestics, on every calm night, would hear lamentable +cries at the shore where the corpse was landed; and not only so, but +the long lines that took up the corpse being hung on a pin in his +house, all of them would hear an odd jingling of the hooks before and +after going to bed, and that without any person, dog, or cat touching +them; and at other times, with fire light, see the long lines covered +over with lucid globules, such as are seen drop from oars rowing +under night." + +The foregoing are examples of the general superstitions that prevail +in the islands; those that follow relate to the second sight. + +"The Lady Coll informed me that one M'Lean of Knock, an elderly +reputable gentleman, living on their estate, as he walked in the +fields before sunset, he saw a neighbouring person, who had been sick +for a long time, coming that way, accompanied by another man; and, as +they drew nearer, he asked them some questions, and how far they +intended to go. The first answered they were to travel forward to a +village he named, and then pursued his journey with a more than +ordinary pace. Next day, early in the morning, he was invited to his +neighbour's interment, which surprised him much, as he had seen and +spoke with him the evening before; but was told by the messenger that +came for him, the deceased person had been confined to his bed for +seven weeks, and that he departed this life a little before sunset, +much about the time he saw him in a vision the preceding day." + +"Margaret Macleod, an honest woman advanced in years, informed me +that when she was a young woman in the family of Grishornish, a +dairy-maid, who daily used to herd the calves in a park close to the +house, observed, at different times, a woman resembling herself in +shape and attire, walking solitarily at no great distance from her; +and being surprised at the apparition, to make further trial, she put +the back part of her garment foremost, and anon the phantom was +dressed in the same manner, which made her uneasy, believing it +portended some fatal consequence to herself. In a short time +thereafter she was seized with a fever, which brought her to her end; +but before her sickness, and on her deathbed, declared this second +sight to several." + +"Neil Betton, a sober, judicious person, and elder in the session of +Diurinish, informed me, as he had it from the deceased Mr Kenneth +Betton, late minister in Trotternish, that a farmer in the village of +Airaidh, on the west side of the country, being towards evening to +quit his work, he observed a traveller coming towards him as he stood +close to the highway; and, as he knew the man, waited his coming up; +but when he began to speak with him, the traveller broke off the road +abruptly to the shore that was hard by; which, how soon he entered, +he gave a loud cry; and, having proceeded on the shore, gave a loud +cry at the middle of it, and so went on until he came to a river +running through the middle of it, which he no sooner entered than he +gave a third cry, and then saw him no more. On the farmer's coming +home he told all that he had heard and seen to those of his +household: so the story spread, until from hand to hand it came to +the person's own knowledge, who, having seen the farmer afterwards, +inquired of him narrowly about it, who owned and told the same as +above. In less than a year thereafter, the same man, going with two +more to cut wattling for creels, in Coille-na-Skiddil, he and they +were drowned in the river where he heard him give the last cry." + +"Some of the inhabitants of Harris sailing round the Isle of Skye, +with a design to go to the opposite mainland, were strangely +surprised with an apparition of two men hanging down by the ropes +that secured the mast, but could not conjecture what it meant. They +pursued the voyage; but the wind turned contrary, and so forced them +into Broadford, in the Isle of Skye, where they found Sir Donald +Macdonald keeping a sheriff's court, and two criminals receiving +sentence of death there. The ropes and masts of that very boat were +made use of to hang those criminals." + +[Sidenote: Death sights and omens.] + +Such are some of the stories laboriously gathered together and set +down in perfect good faith by Theophilus Insulanus. It will be seen +that they are loosely reported, are always at second or third hand, +and that, if the original teller of the stories could be placed in +the witness-box, a strict cross-examination would make sad havoc with +him and them. But although sufficiently ridiculous and foolish in +themselves, they exemplify the strange ghostly atmosphere which +pervades the western islands. Every one of the people amongst whom I +now live believes in apparitions and the second sight. Mr M'Ian has +seen a ghost himself, but he will not willingly speak about it. A +woman gifted with the second sight dwells in one of the smoking turf +huts on the shore. At night, round a precipitous rock that overhangs +the sea, about a hundred yards from the house, a light was often seen +to glide, and evil was apprehended. For years the patient light +abode there. At last a boy, the son of one of the cotters, climbing +about the rock, missed his footing, fell into the sea and was +drowned, and from that hour the light was never more visible. At a +ford up amongst the hills, the people tell me doleful cries have been +heard at intervals for years. The stream has waited long for its +victim, but I am assured that it will get it at last. That a man +will yet be drowned there is an article of faith amongst the cotters. +But who? I suspect _I_ am regarded as the likely person. Perhaps +the withered crone down in the turf hut yonder knows the features of +the doomed man. This prevailing superstitious feeling takes curious +possession of one somehow. You cannot live in a ghostly atmosphere +without being more or less affected by it. Lying a-bed you don't +like to hear the furniture of your bedroom creak. At sunset you are +suspicious of the prodigious shadow that stalks alongside of you +across the gold-green fields. You become more than usually impressed +by the multitudinous and unknown voices of the night. Gradually you +get the idea that you and nature are alien; and it is in that feeling +of alienation that superstition lives. + +[Sidenote: Father M'Crimmon's story.] + +Father M'Crimmon and I had been out rabbit-shooting, and, tired of +the sport, we sat down to rest on a grassy knoll. The ghostly island +stories had taken possession of my mind, and as we sat and smoked I +inquired if the priest was a believer in ghosts generally and in the +second sight in particular. The gaunt, solemn-voiced, +melancholy-eyed man replied that he believed in the existence of +ghosts just as he believed in the existence of America--he had never +seen America, he had never seen a ghost, but the existence of both he +considered was amply borne out by testimony. "I know there is such a +thing as the second sight," he went on, "because I have had +cognisance of it myself. Six or seven years ago I was staying with +my friend Mr M'Ian, as I am staying now, and just as we were sipping +a tumbler of punch after dinner we heard a great uproar outside. We +went out and found all the farm-servants standing on the grass and +gazing seawards. On inquiry, we learned that two brothers, M'Millan +by name, who lived down at Stonefield, beyond the point yonder, +fishermen by trade, and well versed in the management of a boat, had +come up to the islands here to gather razor-fish for bait. When they +had secured plenty of bait, they steered for home, although a stiff +breeze was blowing. They kept a full sail on, and went straight on +the wind. A small boy, Hector, who was employed in herding cows, was +watching the boat trying to double the point. All at once he came +running into the kitchen where the farm-servants were at dinner. +'Men, men,' he cried, 'come out fast; M'Millan's boat is sinking--I +saw her heel over.' Of course the hinds came rushing out bareheaded, +and it was the noise they made that disturbed my friend and myself at +our punch. All this we gathered in less time than I have taken to +tell you. We looked narrowly seaward, but no boat was to be seen. +Mr M'Ian brought out his telescope, and still the sea remained +perfectly blue and bare. Neither M'Ian nor his servants could be +brought to believe Hector's story--they thought it extremely unlikely +that on a comparatively calm day any harm could befall such +experienced sailors. It was universally agreed that the boat _had_ +rounded the point, and Mr M'Ian rated the herd-boy for raising a +false alarm. Hector still persisting that he had seen the boat +capsize and go down, got his cars soundly boxed for his obstinacy, +and was sent whimpering away to his cows, and enjoined in future to +mind his own business. Then the servants returned to their dinner in +the kitchen, and, going back with me to our punch, which had become +somewhat cold, Mr M'Ian resumed his story of the eagle that used to +come down the glen in the early mornings and carry away his poultry, +and told how he shot it at last and found that it measured six feet +from wing-tip to wing-tip. + +"But although Hector got his ears boxed it turned out that he had in +all probability spoken the truth. Towards the evening of next day +the M'Millan sisters came up to the house to inquire after the boat, +which had never reached home. The poor girls were in a dreadful +state when they were told that their brothers' boat had left the +islands the previous afternoon, and what Hector the cow-herd averred +he had seen. Still there was room for hope; it was possible that +Hector was mistaken, it was possible that the M'Millans might have +gone somewhere, or been forced to take shelter somewhere--and so the +two sisters, mustering up the best heart they could, went across the +hill to Stonefield when the sun was setting, and the sea a sheet of +gold leaf, and looking as it could never be angry or have the heart +to drown anything. + +"Days passed, and the boat never came home, nor did the brothers. It +was on Friday that the M'Millans sailed away on the fresh breeze, and +on the Wednesday following the bay down there was a sorry sight. The +missing sailors were brave, good-looking, merry-hearted, and were +liked along the whole coast; and on the Wednesday I speak of no fewer +than two hundred and fifty boats were sailing slowly up and down, +crossing and re-crossing, trawling for the bodies. I remember the +day perfectly. It was dull and sultry, with but little sunshine; the +hills over there (Blaavin and the others) were standing dimly in a +smoke of heat; and on the smooth pallid sea the mournful multitude of +black boats were moving slowly up and down, across and back again. +In each boat two men pulled, and the third sat in the stern with the +trawling-irons. The day was perfectly still, and I could hear +through the heated air the solemn pulses of the oars. The bay was +black with the slowly-crawling boats. A sorry sight," said the good +priest, filling his second pipe from a tobacco-pouch made of otter's +skin. + +"I don't know how it was," went on the Father, holding his +newly-filled pipe between his forefinger and thumb; "but looking on +the black dots of boats, and hearing the sound of their oars, I +remembered that old Mirren, who lived in one of the turf huts yonder, +had the second sight; and so I thought I would go down and see her. +When I got to the hut, I met Mirren coming up from the shore with a +basket full of whelks, which she had been gathering for dinner. I +went into the hut along with her, and sat down. 'There's a sad +business in the bay to-day,' said I. 'A sad business,' said Mirren, +as she laid down her basket. 'Will they get the bodies?' Mirren +shook her head. 'The bodies are not there to get; they have floated +out past Rum to the main ocean.' 'How do you know?' 'Going out to +the shore about a month ago I heard a scream, and, looking up, saw a +boat off the point, with two men in it, caught in a squall, and going +down. When the boat sank the men still remained in it--the one +entangled in the fishing-net, the other in the ropes of the sails. I +saw them float out to the main sea between the two wines,'--that's a +literal translation," said the Father, parenthetically. "You have +seen two liquors in a glass--the one floating on the top of the +other? Very well; there are two currents in the sea, and when my +people wish to describe anything sinking down and floating between +these two currents, they use the image of two liquors in a +wine-glass. Oh, it's a fine language the Gaelic, and admirably +adapted for poetical purposes,--but to return. Mirren told me that +she saw the bodies float out to sea between the two wines, and that +the trawling boats might trawl for ever in the bay before they would +get what they wanted. When evening came, the boats returned home +without having found the bodies of the drowned M'Millans. Well," and +here the Father lighted his pipe, "six weeks after, a capsized boat +was thrown on the shore in Uist, with two corpses inside,--one +entangled in the fishing-net, the other in the ropes of the sails. +It was the M'Millans' boat, and it was the two brothers who were +inside. Their faces were all eaten away by the dog-fishes; but the +people who had done business with them in Uist identified them by +their clothes. This I know to be true," said the Father +emphatically, and shutting the door on all argument or hint of +scepticism. "And now, if you are not too tired, suppose we try our +luck in the copses down there? 'Twas a famous place for rabbits when +I was here last year." + + + + +_IN A SKYE BOTHY._ + +I am quite alone here. England may have been invaded and London +sacked, for aught I know. Several weeks since a newspaper, +accidentally blown to my solitude, informed me that the _Great +Eastern_, with the second American telegraphic cable on board, had +got under way, and was about to proceed to sea. There is great joy, +I perceive. Human nature stands astonished at itself--felicitates +itself on its remarkable talent, and will for months to come +complacently purr over its achievement in magazines and reviews. A +fine world, messieurs, that will attain to heaven--if in the power of +steam. A very fine world; yet for all that, I have withdrawn from it +for a time, and would rather not hear of its remarkable exploits. In +my present mood, I do not value them the coil of vapour on the brow +of Blaavin, which, as I gaze, smoulders into nothing in the fire of +sunrise. + +Goethe informs us that in his youth he loved to shelter himself in +the Scripture narratives from the marching and counter-marching of +armies, the cannonading, fighting, and retreating, that went on +everywhere around him. He shut his eyes, as it were, and a whole +war-convulsed Europe wheeled away into silence and distance; and in +its place, lo! the patriarchs, with their tawny tents, their +man-servants and maid-servants, and countless flocks in perceptible +procession whitening the Syrian plains. In this, my green solitude, +I appreciate the full sweetness of the passage. Everything here is +silent as the Bible plains themselves. I am cut off from former +scenes and associates as by the sullen Styx and the grim ferrying of +Charon's boat. The noise of the world does not touch me. I live too +far inland to hear the thunder of the reef. To this place no postman +comes; no tax-gatherer. This region never heard the sound of the +church-going bell. The land is Pagan as when the yellow-haired +Norseman landed a thousand years ago. I almost feel a Pagan myself. +Not using a notched stick, I have lost all count of time, and don't +know Saturday from Sunday. Civilisation is like a soldier's stock, +it makes you carry your head a good deal higher, makes the angels +weep a little more at your fantastic tricks, and half suffocates you +the while. I have thrown it away, and breathe freely. My bed is the +heather, my mirror the stream from the hills, my comb and brush the +sea breeze, my watch the sun, my theatre the sunset, and my evening +service--not without a rude natural religion in it--watching the +pinnacles of the hills of Cuchullin sharpening in intense purple +against the pallid orange of the sky, or listening to the melancholy +voices of the sea-birds and the tide; that over, I am asleep, till +touched by the earliest splendour of the dawn. I am, not without +reason, hugely enamoured of my vagabond existence. + +[Sidenote: In a Skye bothy.] + +My bothy is situated on the shores of one of the Lochs that intersect +Skye. The coast is bare and rocky, hollowed into fantastic chambers; +and when the tide is making, every cavern murmurs like a sea-shell. +The land, from frequent rain, green as emerald, rises into soft +pastoral heights, and about a mile inland soars suddenly up into +peaks of bastard marble, white as the cloud under which the lark +sings at noon, and bathed in rosy light at sunset. [Sidenote: The +Cuchullins.] In front are the Cuchullin hills and the monstrous peak +of Blaavin; then the green strath runs narrowing out to sea, and the +Island of Rum, with a white cloud upon it, stretches like a gigantic +shadow across the entrance of the loch, and completes the scene. +Twice every twenty-four hours the Atlantic tide sets in upon the +hollowed shores; twice is the sea withdrawn, leaving spaces of smooth +sand on which mermaids, with golden combs, might sleek alluring +tresses; and black rocks, heaped with brown dulse and tangle, and +lovely ocean blooms of purple and orange; and bare islets--marked at +full of tide by a glimmer of pale green amid the universal +sparkle--where most the sea-fowl love to congregate. To these +islets, on favourable evenings, come the crows, and sit in sable +parliament; business despatched, they start into air as at a gun, and +stream away through the sunset to their roosting-place in the +Armadale woods. The shore supplies for me the place of books and +companions. Of course Blaavin and the Cuchullin hills are the chief +attractions, and I never weary watching them. In the morning they +wear a great white caftan of mist; but that lifts away before noon, +and they stand with all their scars and passionate torrent-lines bare +to the blue heavens, with perhaps a solitary shoulder for a moment +gleaming wet to the sunlight. After a while a vapour begins to steam +up from their abysses, gathering itself into strange shapes, knotting +and twisting itself like smoke; while above, the terrible crests are +now lost, now revealed, in a stream of flying rack. In an hour a +wall of rain, gray as granite, opaque as iron to the eye, stands up +from sea to heaven. The loch is roughening before the wind, and the +islets, black dots a second ago, are patches of roaring foam. You +hear fierce sound of its coming. Anon, the lashing tempest sweeps +over you, and looking behind, up the long inland glen, you can see +the birch-woods and over the sides of the hills, driven on the wind, +the white smoke of the rain. Though fierce as a charge of Highland +bayonets these squalls are seldom of long duration, and you bless +them when you creep from your shelter, for out comes the sun, and the +birch-woods are twinkling, and more intensely flash the levels of the +sea, and at a stroke the clouds are scattered from the wet brow of +Blaavin, and to the whole a new element has been added; the voice of +the swollen stream as it rushes red over a hundred tiny cataracts, +and roars river-broad into the sea, making turbid the azure. Then I +have my amusements in this solitary place. The mountains are of +course open, and this morning, at dawn, a roe swept past me like the +wind, with its nose to the dewy ground--"tracking," they call it +here. Above all, I can wander on the ebbed beach. Hogg speaks of +that + + "Undefined and mingled hum, + Voice of the desert, never dumb." + +But far more than the murmuring and insecty air of the moorland does +the wet _chirk-chirking_ of the living shore give one the idea of +crowded and multitudinous life. [Sidenote: Hunting razor-fish.] Did +the reader ever hunt razor-fish?--not sport like tiger-hunting, I +admit; yet it has its pleasures and excitements, and can kill a +forenoon for an idle man agreeably. On the wet sands yonder the +razor-fish are spouting like the fountains at Versailles on _fête_ +day. The shy fellow sinks on discharging his watery _feu de joie_. +If you are quickly after him through the sand, you catch him, and +then comes the tug of war. Address and dexterity are required. If +you pull vigorously, he slips out of his sheath a "mother-naked" +mollusc, and escapes. If you do your spiriting gently, you drag him +up to light, a long thin case, with a white fishy bulb protruding at +one end like a root. Rinse him in sea water, toss him into your +basket, and plunge after another watery flash. These razor-fish are +excellent eating, the people say, and when used as bait no fish that +swims the ocean stream--cod, whiting, haddock, flat skate, +broad-shouldered crimson bream--no, not the detested dog-fish +himself, this summer swarming in every Loch and becursed by every +fisherman--can keep himself off the hook, and in an hour your boat is +laden with glittering spoil. Then, if you take your gun to the low +islands--and you can go dry-shod at ebb of tide--you have your chance +of sea-fowl. Gulls of all kinds are there, dookers and divers of +every description, flocks of shy curlews, and specimens of a hundred +tribes to which my limited ornithological knowledge cannot furnish a +name. The solan goose yonder falls from heaven into the water like a +meteor-stone. See the solitary scart, with long narrow wing and +outstretched neck, shooting towards some distant promontory. Anon, +high above head, come wheeling a covey of lovely sea-swallows. You +fire, one flutters down, never more to skim the horizon or to dip in +the sea-sparkle. Lift it up; is it not beautiful? The wild, keen +eye is closed, but you see the delicate slate-colour of the wings, +and the long tail-feathers white as the creaming foam. There is a +stain of blood on the breast, hardly brighter than the scarlet of its +beak and feet. Lay it down, for its companions are dashing round and +round, uttering harsh cries of rage and sorrow; and had you the +heart, you could shoot them one by one. At ebb of tide wild-looking +children, from turf cabins on the hill-side, come down to hunt +shell-fish. Even now a troop is busy; how their shrill voices go the +while! [Sidenote: Old Effie.] Old Effie I see is out to-day, quite a +picturesque object, with her white cap and red shawl. With a tin can +in one hand, an old reaping-hook in the other, she goes poking among +the tangle. Let us see what sport she has had. She turns round at +our salutation--very old, old almost as the worn rocks around. She +might have been the wife of Wordsworth's "Leech-gatherer." Her can +is sprawling with brown crabs; and, opening her apron, she exhibits a +large black and blue lobster--a fellow such as she alone can capture. +A queer woman is Effie, and an awesome. She is familiar with ghosts +and apparitions. She can relate legends that have power over the +superstitious blood, and with little coaxing will sing those wild +Gaelic songs of hers--of dead lights on the sea, of fishing-boats +going down in squalls, of unburied bodies tossing day and night upon +the gray peaks of the waves, and of girls that pray God to lay them +by the sides of their drowned lovers, although for them should never +rise mass nor chant, and although their flesh should be torn asunder +by the wild fishes of the sea. + +Rain is my enemy here; and at this writing I am suffering siege. For +three days this rickety dwelling has stood assault of wind and rain. +Yesterday a blast breached the door, and the tenement fluttered for a +moment like an umbrella caught in a gust. All seemed lost; but the +door was got closed again, heavily barred across, and the enemy +foiled. An entrance, however, had been effected, and that portion of +the attacking column which I had imprisoned by my dexterous +manœuvre, maddened itself into whirlwind, rushed up the chimney, +scattering my turf-fire as it went, and so escaped. Since that time +the windy columns have retired to the gorges of the hills, where I +can hear them howl at intervals; and the only thing I am exposed to +is the musketry of the rain. How viciously the small shot peppers +the walls! Here must I wait till the cloudy armament breaks up. +One's own mind is a dull companion in such circumstances. A Sheridan +himself--wont with his wit to brighten the feast, whose mind is a +phosphorescent sea, dark in its rest, but when touched giving out a +flash of splendour for response--if cooped up here would be dull as a +Lincolnshire fen at midnight, unenlivened by a single +Jack-o'-Lantern. Books are the only refuge on a rainy day; but in +Skye bothies books are rare. [Sidenote: The "Monthly Review."] To +me, however, the gods have proved kind--for in my sore need I found +on a shelf here two volumes of the old _Monthly Review_, and I have +sauntered through those dingy literary catacombs with considerable +satisfaction. What a strange set of old fogies the writers are! To +read them is like conversing with the antediluvians. Their opinions +have fallen into disuse long ago, and resemble to-day the rusty +armour and gimcracks of an old curiosity shop. Mr Henry Rogers has +written a fine essay on the "_Glory and Vanity of Literature_"--in my +own thoughts, out of this dingy material before me I can frame a +finer. These essays and criticisms were thought brilliant, I +suppose, when they appeared last century; and authors praised therein +doubtless considered themselves rather handsome flies preserved in +pure critical amber for the inspection and admiration of posterity. +The volumes were published, I notice, from 1790 to 1792, and exhibit +a period of wonderful literary activity. Not to speak of novels, +histories, travels, farces, tragedies, upwards of two hundred poems, +short and long, are brought to judgment; and several of these--with +their names and the names of their authors I have, during the last +two days, made acquaintance for the first time--are assured of +immortality. Perhaps they deserved it; but they have gone down like +the steamship _President_ and left no trace. On the whole, these +Monthly Reviewers worked hard, and with proper spirit and deftness. +They had a proud sense of the importance of their craft, they laid +down the law with great gravity, and from critical benches shook +their awful wigs on offenders. How it all looks _now_! "Let us +indulge ourselves with another extract," quoth one, "and contemplate +once more the tear of grief before we are called upon to witness the +tear of rapture." _Both_ tears dried up long ago--like those that +may have sparkled on a Pharaoh's cheek. Hear this other, stern as +Rhadamanthus. Behold Duty steeling itself against human weakness! +"It grieves us to wound a young man's feelings: but our judgment must +not be biased by any plea whatsoever. Why will men apply for our +opinion when they know that we cannot be silent, and that we will not +lie?" Listen to this prophet in Israel, one who has not bent the +knee to Baal, and say if there be not a plaintive touch of pathos in +him:--"Fine words do not make fine poems. Scarcely a month passes in +which we are not obliged to issue this decree. But in these days of +universal heresy our decrees are no more respected than the bulls of +the Bishop of Rome." Oh that men would hear, that they would incline +their hearts to wisdom! One peculiarity I have noticed--the +advertisement sheets which accompanied the numbers are bound up with +them, and form an integral portion of the volumes. And just as the +tobacco-less man whom we met at the entrance to Glen Sligachan smoked +the paper in which his roll of pigtail had been wrapped, so when I +had finished the criticisms I attacked the advertisements, and found +them much the more amusing reading. Might not the magazine-buyer of +to-day follow the example of the unknown Islesman? Depend upon it, +to the reader of the next century the advertising sheets will be more +interesting than the poetry, or the essays, or the stories. The two +volumes were a godsend; but at last I began to weary of the old +literary churchyard in which the poet and his critic sleep in the +same oblivion. When I closed the books, and placed them on their +shelves, the rain peppered the walls as pertinaciously as when I took +them down. + +Next day it rained still. It was impossible to go out; the volumes +of the _Monthly Review_ were sucked oranges, and could yield no +further amusement or interest. What was to be done? I took refuge +with the Muse. Certain notions had got into my brain,--certain +stories had taken possession of my memory,--and these I resolved to +versify and finally to dispose of. Here are "Poems Written in a Skye +Bothy." The competent critic will see at a glance that they are the +vilest plagiarisms,--that as throughout I have called the sky "blue" +and the grass "green," I have stolen from every English poet from +Chaucer downwards; he will observe also, from occasional uses of +"all" and "and," that they are the merest Tennysonian echoes. But +they served their purpose,--they killed for me the languor of the +rainy days, which is more than they are likely to do for the critic. +Here they are:-- + +[Sidenote: The Well.] + + THE WELL. + + The well gleams by a mountain road + Where travellers never come and go + From city proud, or poor abode + That frets the dusky plain below. + All silent as the mouldering lute + That in a ruin long hath lain; + All empty as a dead man's brain-- + The path untrod by human foot, + That, thread-like, far away doth run + To savage peaks, whose central spire + Bids farewell to the setting sun, + Good-morrow to the morning's fire. + + The country stretches out beneath + In gloom of wood and gray of heath; + The carriers' carts with mighty loads + Black dot the long white country roads; + The stationary stain of smoke + Is crown'd by spire and castle rock; + A silent line of vapoury white, + The train creeps on from shade to light; + The river journeys to the main + Throughout a vast and endless plain, + Far-shadow'd by the labouring breast + Of thunder leaning o'er the west. + + A rough uneven waste of gray, + The landscape stretches day by day; + But strange the sight when evening sails + Athwart the mountains and the vales; + Furnace and forge, by daylight tame, + Uplift their restless towers of flame, + And cast a broad and angry glow + Upon the rain-cloud hanging low; + As dark and darker grows the hour, + More wild their colour, vast their power, + Till by the glare in shepherd's shed, + The mother sings her babe a-bed: + From town to town the pedlar wades + Through far-flung crimson lights and shades. + + As softly fall the autumn nights + The city blossoms into lights; + Now here, now there, a sudden spark + Sputters the twilight's light-in-dark; + Afar a glimmering crescent shakes; + The gloom across the valley breaks + In glow-worms; swiftly, strangely fair, + A bridge of lamps leaps through the air, + And hangs in night; and sudden shines + The long street's splendour-fretted lines. + Intense and bright that fiery bloom + Upon the bosom of the gloom; + At length the starry clusters fail, + Afar the lustrous crescents pale, + Till all the wondrous pageant dies + In gray light of damp-dawning skies. + + High stands that lonely mountain ground + Above each babbling human sound; + Yet from its place afar it sees + Night scared by angry furnaces; + The lighting up of city proud, + The brightness o'er it in the cloud. + The foolish people never seek + Wise counsel from that silent peak, + Though from its height it looks abroad + All-seeing as the eye of God, + Haunting the peasant on the down, + The workman in the busy town; + Though from the closely-curtain'd dawn + The day is by the mountain drawn-- + Whether the slant lines of the rain + Fill high the brook and shake the pane; + Or noonday reapers, wearied, halt + On sheaves beneath a blinding vault, + Unshaded by a vapour's fold-- + Though from that mountain summit old + The cloudy thunder breaks and rolls, + Through deep reverberating souls; + Though from it comes the angry light, + Whose forky shiver scars the sight, + And rends the shrine from floor to dome, + And leaves the gods without a home. + + And ever in that under-world, + Round which the weary clouds are furl'd, + The cry of one that buys and sells, + The laughter of the bridal bells + Clear-breaking from cathedral towers; + The pedlar whistling o'er the moors; + The sun-burnt reapers, merry corps, + With stocks behind and grain before; + The huntsman cheering on his hounds, + Build up one sound of many sounds. + As instruments of diverse tone, + The organ's temple-shaking groan, + Proud trumpet, cymbal's piercing cry, + Build one consummate harmony: + As smoke that drowns the city's spires, + Is fed by twice a million fires; + As midnight draws her complex grief + From sob and wail of bough and leaf: + And on those favourable days + When earth is free from mist and haze, + And heaven is silent as an ear + Down-leaning, loving words to hear, + Stray echoes of the world are blown + Around those pinnacles of stone-- + The saddest sound beneath the sun, + Earth's thousand voices blent in one. + + And purely gleams the crystal well + Amid the silence terrible; + On heaven its eye is ever wide, + At morning and at eventide; + And as a lover in the sight + And favour of his maiden bright, + Bends till his face he proudly spies + In the clear depths of upturn'd eyes-- + The mighty heaven above it bow'd, + Looks down and sees its crumbling cloud; + Its round of summer blue immense, + Drawn in a yard's circumference, + And lingers o'er the image there, + Than its once self more purely fair. + + Whence come the waters, garner'd up + So purely in that rocky cup? + They come from regions high and far, + Where blows the wind, and shines the star. + The silent dews that Heaven distils + At midnight on the lonely hills; + The shower that plain and mountain dims, + On which the dazzling rainbow swims: + The torrents from the thunder gloom, + Let loose as by the crack of doom, + The whirling waterspout that cracks + Into a scourge of cataracts, + Are swallow'd by the thirsty ground, + And day and night without a sound, + Through banks of marl, and belts of ores, + They filter through a million pores, + Losing each foul and turbid stain: + So fed by many a trickling vein, + The well, through silent days and years, + Fills softly, like an eye with tears. + + + + AUTUMN. + + Happy tourist, freed from London, + The planets' murmur in the _Times_! + Seated here with task work undone, + I must list the city chimes + A fortnight longer. As I gaze + On Pentland's back, where noon-day piles his + Mists and vapours: old St Giles's + Coronet in sultry haze: + A hoary ridge of ancient town + Smoke-wreathed, picturesque, and still; + Cirque of crag and templed hill, + And Arthur's lion couching down + In watch, as if the news of Flodden + Stirr'd him yet--my fancy flies + To level wastes and moors untrodden + Purpling 'neath the low-hung skies. + I see the burden'd orchards, mute and mellow: + I see the sheaves; while, girt by reaper trains, + And blurr'd by breaths of horses, through a yellow + September moonlight, roll the swaggering wanes. + + While in this delicious weather + The apple ripens row on row, + I see the footsteps of the heather + Purpling ledges: to and fro + In the wind the restless swallows + Turn and twitter; on the crag + The ash, with all her scarlet berries, + Dances o'er a burn that hurries + Foamily from jag to jag: + Now it babbles over shallows + Where great scales of sunlight flicker; + Narrow'd 'gainst the bank it quicker + Runs in many a rippled ridge; + Anon in purple pools and hollows + It slumbers: and beyond the bridge, + On which a troop of savage children clamber, + A sudden ray comes out + And scuds a startled trout + O'er golden stones, through chasms brilliant amber. + To-day one half remembers + With a sigh, + In the yellow-moon'd Septembers + Long gone by, + Many a solitary stroll + With an ever-flowing soul + When the moonbeam, falling white + On the wheat fields, was delight; + When the whisper of the river + Was a thing to list for ever; + When the call of lonely bird + Deeper than all music stirr'd; + When the restless spirit shook + O'er some prophesying book, + In whose pages dwelt the hum + Of a life that was to come; + When I, in a young man's fashion, + Long'd for some excess of passion-- + Melancholy, glory, pleasure, + Heap'd up to a lover's measure; + For some unknown experience + To unlock this mortal fence, + And let the coop'd-up spirit range + A world of wonder, sweet and strange: + And thought, O joy all joys above! + Experience would be faced like Love. + When I dream'd that youth would be + Blossom'd like an apple-tree, + The fancy in extremest age + Would dwell within the spirit sage. + Like the wall-flower on the ruin, + With its smile at Time's undoing, + Like the wall-flower on the ruin, + The brighter from the wreck it grew in. + Ah, how dearly one remembers + Memory-embalm'd Septembers! + But I start, as well I may, + I have wasted half a day. + The west is red above the sun, + And my task work unbegun. + + Nature will not hold a truce + With a beauty without use: + Spring, though blithe and ebonair, + Ripens plum and ripens pear. + + O mellow, mellow orchard bough! + O yellow, yellow wheaten plain! + Soon will reaper wipe his brow, + Gleaner glean her latest grain, + October, like a gipsy bold, + Pick the berries in the lane, + And November, woodman old, + With fagots gather'd 'gainst the cold, + Trudge through wind and rain. + + + + WARDIE--SPRING-TIME. + + In the exuberance of hope and life, + When one is play'd on like an instrument + By passion, and plain faces are divine; + When one holds tenure in the evening star, + We love the pensiveness of autumn air, + The songless fields, brown stubbles, hectic woods: + For as a prince may in his splendour sigh, + Because the splendours are his common wear, + Youth pines within the sameness of delight: + And the all-trying spirit, uncontent + With aught that can be fully known, beguiles + Itself with melancholy images, + Sits down at gloomy banquets, broods o'er graves, + Tries unknown sorrow's edge as curiously + (And not without a strange prophetic thrill) + As one might try a sword's, and makes itself + The Epicurus of fantastic griefs. + + But when the blood chills and the years go by, + As we resemble autumn more, the more + We love the resurrection time of spring. + And spring is now around me. Snowdrops came; + Crocuses gleam'd along the garden walk + Like footlights on the stage. But these are gone. + And now before my door the poplar burns, + A torch enkindled at an emerald fire. + The flowering currant is a rosy cloud; + One daffodil is hooded, one full blown: + The sunny mavis from the tree top sings; + Within the flying sunlights twinkling troops + Of chaffinches jerk here and there; beneath + The shrubbery the blackbird runs, then flits, + With chattering cry: demure at ploughman's heel, + Within the red-drawn furrow, stalks the rook, + A pale metallic glister on his back; + And, like a singing arrow upwards shot + Far out of sight, the lark is in the blue. + + This morning, when the stormy front of March, + Is mask'd with June, and has as sweet a breath, + And sparrows fly with straws, and in the elms + Rooks flap and caw, then stream off to the fields, + And thence returning, flap and caw again, + I gaze in idle pleasantness of mood, + Far down upon the harbour and the sea-- + The smoking steamer half-way 'cross the Firth + Shrank to a beetle's size, the dark-brown sails + Of scatter'd fishing-boats, and still beyond, + Seen dimly through a veil of tender haze, + The coast of Fife endorsed with ancient towns,-- + As quaint and strange to-day as when the queen, + In whose smile lay the headsman's glittering axe, + Beheld them from her tower of Holyrood, + And sigh'd for fruitful France, and turning, cower'd + From the lank shadow, Darnley, at her side. + + Behind, the wondrous city stretches dim + With castle, spire, and column, from the line + Of wavy Pentland, to the pillar'd range + That keeps in memory the men who fell + In the great war that closed at Waterloo. + Whitely the pillars gleam against the hill, + While the light flashes by. The wondrous town, + That keeps not summer, when the summer comes, + Without her gates, but takes it to her heart! + The mighty shadow of the castle falls! + At noon athwart deep gardens, roses blow + And fade in hearing of the chariot-wheel. + High-lifted capital that look'st abroad, + With the great lion couchant at thy side, + O'er fertile plains emboss'd with woods and towns; + O'er silent Leith's smoke-huddled spires and masts; + O'er unlink'd Forth, slow wandering with her isles + To ocean's azure, spreading faint and wide, + O'er which the morning comes--if but thy spires + Were dipp'd in deeper sunshine, tenderer shade, + Through bluer heavens rolled a brighter sun, + The traveller would call thee peer of Rome, + Or Florence, white-tower'd, on the mountain side. + + Burns trod thy pavements with his ploughman's stoop + And genius-flaming eyes. Scott dwelt in thee, + The homeliest-featured of the demigods; + Apollo, with a deep Northumbrian burr, + And Jeffrey with his sharp-cut critic face, + And Lockhart with his antique Roman taste, + And Wilson, reckless of his splendid gifts, + As hill-side of its streams in thunder rain; + And Chalmers, with those heavy slumberous lids, + Veiling a prophet's eyes; and Miller, too, + Primeval granite amongst smooth-rubb'd men; + Of all the noble race but one remains, + Aytoun--with silver bugle at his side, + That echo'd through the gorges of romance-- + Pity that 'tis so seldom at his lip! + + This place is fair; but when the year hath grown + From snow-drops to the dusk auricula, + And spaces throng'd to-day with naked boughs, + Are banks of murmuring foliage, chestnut-flower'd, + Far fairer. Then, as in the summer past, + From the red village underneath the hill, + When the long daylight closes, in the hush + Comes the pathetic mirth of children's games: + Or clear sweet trebles, as two lines of girls + Advance and then retire, singing the while + Snatches of some old ballad sore decay'd, + And crumbling to no-meaning through sheer age-- + A childish drama watch'd by labouring men, + In shirt-sleeves, smoking at the open doors, + With a strange sweetness stirring at their hearts. + Then when the darkness comes and voices cease, + The long-ranged brick-kilns glow, the far-stretch'd pier + Breaks out, like Aaron's rod, in buds of fire; + And with a startling suddenness the light, + That like a glow-worm slumbers on Inchkeith, + Broadens, then to a glow-worm shrinks again. + The sea is dark, but on the darker coast + Beyond, the ancient towns Queen Mary knew + Glitter, like swarms of fire-flies, here and there. + Come, Summer, from the south, and grow apace + From flower to flower, until thy prime is reach'd, + Then linger, linger, linger o'er the rose! + + + + DANSCIACH. + + Upon a ruin by the desert shore, + I sat one autumn day of utter peace, + Watching a lustrous stream of vapour pour + O'er Blaavin, fleece on fleece. + + The blue frith stretch'd in front without a sail, + Huge boulders on the shore lay wreck'd and strown; + Behind arose, storm-bleach'd and lichen-pale, + Buttress and wall of stone. + + And sitting on the Norseman's ruin'd stair, + While through the shining vapours downward roll'd, + A ledge of Blaavin gleam'd out, wet and bare, + I heard this story told:-- + + "All night the witch sang, and the castle grew + Up from the rock, with tower and turret crown'd: + All night she sang--when fell the morning dew + 'Twas finish'd round and round. + + "From out the morning ambers opening wide, + A galley, many-oar'd and dragon-beak'd, + Came, bearing bridegroom Sigurd, happy-eyed, + Bride Hilda, brilliant-cheek'd. + + "And in the witch's castle, magic-built, + They dwelt in bridal sweetness many a year, + Till tumult rose in Norway, blood was spilt,-- + Then Sigurd grasp'd his spear. + + "The Islesmen murmur'd 'gainst the Norseman's tax; + Jarl Sigurd led them--many a skull he cleft, + Ere, 'neath his fallen standard, battle-axe + Blood-painted to the heft, + + "He lay at sunset propp'd up by his slain, + (Leader and kerne that he had smitten down,) + Stark, rigid; in his haut face scorn and pain, + Fix'd in eternal frown. + + "When they brought home the bloody man, the sight + Blanch'd Hilda to her hair of bounteous gold; + That day she was a happy bride, that night + A woman gray and old. + + "The dead man left his eyes beneath the brows + Of Hilda, in a child whose speech + Prattled of sword, spear, buckler, idle rows + Of galleys on the beach. + + "And Hilda sang him songs of northern lands, + Weird songs of foamy wraith and roaming sail, + Songs of gaunt wolves, clear icebergs, magic brands, + Enchanted shirts of mail. + + "The years built up a giant broad and grave, + With florid locks, and eyes that look'd men through; + A passion for the long lift of the wave + From roaming sires he drew. + + "Amongst the craggy islands did he rove, + And, like an eagle, took and rent his prey; + Oft, deep with battle-spoil, his galleys clove + Homeward their joyous way. + + "He towering, full-arm'd, in the van, with spear + Outstretch'd, and hair blown backward like a flame: + While to the setting sun his oarsmen rear + The glory of his name. + + "Once, when the sea his battle galleys cross'd, + His mother, sickening, turn'd from summer light, + And faced death as the Norse land, clench'd with frost, + Faces the polar night. + + "At length his masts came raking through the mist: + He pour'd upon the beach his wild-eyed bands: + The fierce, fond, dying woman turn'd and kiss'd + His orphan-making hands, + + "And lean'd her head against his mighty breast + In pure content, well knowing so to live + One single hour was all that death could wrest + Away, or life could give; + + "And murmur'd as her dying fingers took + Farewell of cheek and brow, then fondly drown'd + Themselves in tawny hair--'I cannot brook + To sleep here under ground. + + "My women through my chambers weep and wail: + I would not waste one tear-drop though I could: + When they brought home that lordly length of mail + With bold blood stain'd and glued, + + "I wept out all my tears. Amongst my kind + I cannot sleep; so upon Marsco's head, + Right in the pathway of the Norway wind, + See thou and make my bed! + + "The north wind blowing on that lonely place + Will comfort me. Kiss me, my Torquil! I + Feel the big hot tears plashing on my face. + How easy 'tis to die!' + + "The farewell-taking arms around him set + Clung closer; and a feeble mouth was raised, + Seeking for his in darkness--ere they met + The eyeballs fix'd and glazed. + + "Dearer that kiss, by pain and death forestall'd, + Than ever yet touch'd lip! Beside the bed + The Norseman knelt till sunset, then he call'd + The dressers of the dead, + + "Who, looking on her face, were daunted more + Than when she, living, flash'd indignant fires; + For in the gathering gloom the features wore + A look that was her sire's. + + "And upward to a sea-o'erstaring peak + With lamentation was the Princess borne, + And, looking northward, left with evening meek, + And fiery-shooting morn." + + In this wise ran the story full of breaks: + And brooding o'er that subtle sense of death + That sighs through all our happy days, that shakes + All raptures of our breath, + + Methought I saw the ancient woman bow'd + By sorrow in her witch-built home--and still + The radiant billows of autumnal cloud + Flow'd on the monstrous hill. + + + + EDENBAIN. + + Young Edenbain canter'd + Across to Kilmuir, + The road was rough, + But his horse was sure. + The mighty sun taking + His splendid sea-bath, + Made golden the greenness + Of valley and strath. + + He cared not for sunset, + For gold rock nor isle: + O'er his dark face their flitted + A secretive smile. + His cousin, the great + London merchant was dead, + Edenbain was his heir-- + "I'll buy lands," he said. + + "Men fear death. How should I! + We live and we learn-- + I' faith, death has done me + The handsomest turn. + Young, good-looking, thirty-- + (Hie on, Roger, hie!) + I'll taste every pleasure + That money can buy. + + "Duntulm and Dunsciach + May laugh at my birth. + Let them laugh! Father Adam + Was made out of earth. + What are worm-eaten castles + And ancestry old, + 'Gainst a modern purse stuff'd + With omnipotent gold?" + + He saw himself riding + To kirk and to fair, + Hats lifting, arms nudging, + "That's Edenbain there!" + He thought of each girl + He had known in his life, + Nor could fix on which sweetness + To pluck for a wife. + + Home Edenbain canter'd, + With pride in his heart, + When sudden he pull'd up + His horse with a start. + The road, which was bare + As the desert before, + Was cover'd with people + A hundred and more. + + 'Twas a black creeping funeral; + And Edenbain drew + His horse to the side of + The roadway. He knew + In the cart rolling past + That a coffin was laid--- + But whose? the harsh outline + Was hid by a plaid. + + The cart pass'd. The mourners + Came marching behind: + In front his own father, + Greyheaded, stone-blind; + And far-removed cousins, + His own stock and race, + Came after in silence, + A cloud on each face. + + Together walk'd Mugstot + And fiery-soul'd Ord, + Whom six days before + He had left at his board. + Behind came the red-bearded + Sons of Tormore + With whom he was drunk + Scarce a fortnight before. + + "Who is dead? Don't they know me?" + Thought young Edenbain, + With a weird terror gathering + In heart and in brain. + In a moment the black + Crawling funeral was gone, + And he sat on his horse + On the roadway alone. + + "'Tis the second sight," cried he; + "'Tis strange that I miss + Myself 'mong the mourners! + Whose burial is this? + "My God! 'tis my own!" + And the blood left his heart, + As he thought of the dead man + That lay in the cart. + + The sun, ere he sank in + His splendid sea-bath, + Saw Edenbain spur through + The golden-green strath. + Past a twilighted shepherd + At watch rush'd a horse, + With Edenbain dragged + At the stirrup a corse. + + + + PEEBLES. + + I lay in my bedroom at Peebles + With my window curtains drawn, + While there stole over hill of pasture and pine + The unresplendent dawn. + + And through the deep silence I listen'd, + With a pleased, half-waking heed, + To the sound which ran through the ancient town-- + The shallow-brawling Tweed. + + For to me 'twas a realisation + Of dream; and I felt like one + Who first sees the Alps, or the Pyramids, + World-old, in the setting sun; + + First, crossing the purple Campagna, + Beholds the wonderful dome + Which a thought of Michael Angelo hung + In the golden air of Rome. + + And all through the summer morning + I felt it a joy indeed + To whisper again and again to myself, + This is the voice of the Tweed. + + Of Dryburgh, Melrose, and Neidpath, + Norham Castle brown and bare, + The merry sun shining on merry Carlisle, + And the Bush aboon Traquair, + + I had dream'd: but most of the river, + That, glittering mile on mile, + Flow'd through my imagination, + As through Egypt flows the Nile. + + Was it absolute truth, or a dreaming + That the wakeful day disowns, + That I heard something more in the stream, as it ran, + Than water breaking on stones? + + Now the hoofs of a flying mosstrooper, + Now a bloodhound's bay, half caught, + The sudden blast of a hunting horn, + The burr of Walter Scott? + + Who knows? But of this I am certain, + That but for the ballads and wails + That make passionate dead things, stocks and stones, + Make piteous woods and dales, + + The Tweed were as poor as the Amazon, + That, for all the years it has roll'd, + Can tell but how fair was the morning red, + How sweet the evening gold. + + + + JUBILATION OF SERGEANT M'TURK ON WITNESSING + THE HIGHLAND GAMES. + + INVERNESS, 1864. + + Hurrah for the Highland glory! + Hurrah for the Highland fame! + For the battles of the great Montrose, + And the pass of the gallant Graeme! + Hurrah for the knights and nobles + That rose up in their place, + And perill'd fame and fortune + For Charlie's bonny face! + + Awa frae green Lochaber + He led his slender clans: + The rising skirl o' our bagpipes fley'd + Sir John at Prestonpans. + Ance mair we gather'd glory + In Falkirk's battle stoure, + Ere the tartans lay red-soak'd in bluid + On black Drumossie Moor. + + An' when the weary time was owre, + When the head fell frae the neck, + Wolfe heard the cry, "They run, they run!" + On the heights aboon Quebec. + At Ticonderoga's fortress + We fell on sword and targe: + Hurt Moore was lifted up to see + "His Forty-second" charge. + + An' aye the pipe was loudest, + An' aye the tartans flew, + The first frae bluidy Maida + To bluidier Waterloo. + We have sail'd owre many a sea, my lads, + We have fought 'neath many a sky, + And it's where the fight has hottest raged + That the tartans thickest lie. + + We landed, lads, in India, + When in our bosom's core + One bitter memory burn'd like hell-- + The shambles at Cawnpore. + Weel ye mind our march through the furnace-heats, + Weel ye mind the heaps of slain, + As we follow'd through his score of fights + Brave "Havelock the Dane." + + Hurrah for the Highland glory! + Hurrah for the Highland names! + God bless you, noble gentlemen! + God love you, bonny dames! + And sneer not at the brawny limbs, + And the strength of our Highland men-- + When the bayonets next are levell'd, + They may all be needed then. + + +These verses I had no sooner copied out in my best hand than, looking +up, I found that the rain had ceased from sheer fatigue, and that +great white vapours were rising up from the damp valleys. Here was +release at last--the beleaguering army had raised the siege; and, +better than all, pleasant as the sound of Blucher's cannon on the +evening of Waterloo, I heard the sound of wheels on the boggy ground: +and just when the stanched rain-clouds were burning into a sullen red +at sunset, I had the Brians, father and son, in my bothy, and +pleasant human intercourse. They came to carry me off with them. + +[Sidenote: Blaavin.] + +I am to stay with Mr M'Ian to-night. A wedding has taken place up +among the hills, and the whole party have been asked to make a night +of it. The mighty kitchen has been cleared for the occasion; torches +are stuck up, ready to be lighted; and I already hear the first +mutterings of the bagpipes' storm of sound. The old gentleman wears +a look of brightness and hilarity, and vows that he will lead off the +first reel with the bride. Everything is prepared; and even now the +bridal party are coming down the steep hill-road. I must go out to +meet them. To-morrow I return to my bothy to watch; for the weather +has become fine now, the sunny mists congregating on the crests of +Blaavin--Blaavin on which the level heaven seems to lean. + + + +END OF VOLUME I. + + + + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76786 *** |